Kidrockers L.A.: The Deadly Syndrome and Afternoons play for tykes at the Echoplex

Kids' music -- what is it? For better or worse (and I often can't decide), this generation of parents is redefining the term. No longer is it enough to sit in a circle with your babe on your lap and clap along as a bandana-wearing folkie sings "Little Boxes" -- and sometimes I think that's a shame. There's a lot to be said for going at the speed of children, not to mention sharing songs that comprise a children's music tradition going back a century or so.

But today's hipster parents like to rock. Kids like to rock, too, as long as the mix is not too loud, and the songs have choruses that hook their little ears, and the artists onstage engage with them. The best of the new bunch of kids' musicians -- like Farmer Jason, the Sippy Cups and that great old new folkie Dan Zanes -- play music that's complex enough for adults to enjoy, while still inviting to developing minds. (Writing about animals and holidays helps a lot -- the Sippy Cups, for example, have a song on their new EP called "The Day After Halloween.")

It's hard to strike this balance between sophistication and warmth; that's why so much neo-kids' music ends up working better for the parents than the tots. But Kidrockers, an interesting series born in New York and now coming to Echo Park, seems partly designed to give bands instruction on how to play to the junior seats.

Hey, kids! This weekend offers not just one but two chances for you to ponder the hideous financial situation you are inheriting and will no doubt be fixing 50 years down the road. Oh noes! But the good news is that both events, designed to encourage the already impressive political energy of Gen Y, Z, 2.0 or whatever they're calling themselves, should be genuinely cool.

The first is the well-known, well-publicized We the People festival in downtown L.A. The lineup is nothing to scoff at: Les Claypool, RZA, Shavo Odidjian, Tom Morello, futuristic R&B cutie Janelle Monae, Murs and lots more, but what's really stoking our '90s-loving hearts is LA Teens' Rock the Vote, a five-hour, nonpartisan extravaganza at Safari Sam's for teens only. You totally can't come in, Dad!

Well, huh! Suddenly, the Eagle Rock Music Festival, one of the latest entries into the busy late-summer/early-fall street fair scene in L.A., seems to have found a niche this year: move the Smell scene north and east, and let the venerable beardy guys who run the Ship studio curate a stage. The neighborhood is already ground zero for older rocker types who need cheap space but don't want to compete with 21-year-old CalArts grads vomiting on their Echo Park doorsteps. This year's ERMF (a fun acronym to say aloud if there ever was one) seems to further cement that trend -- Abe Vigoda, Mika Miko and Crystal Antlers headline along with jangly expat Silver Lakers Earlimart and Radar Bros.

The Viva Yiddish! Project is a look backward and forward into L.A.'s polyglot musical heritage. In decades past, neighborhoods such as Boyle Heights had significant populations of Yiddish speakers whose uptempo klezmer tunes made unlikely but easy bedfellows with the pachuco and mambo of their Latino neighbors. Though L.A.'s neighborhoods are more broken up today, this dozens-strong ensemble -- founded by Frank London of the Klezmatics, Yiddish music scholar Michael Alpert and USC professor and music writer Josh Kun -- is a fond remembrance of the era, a thoroughly contemporary example of the possibilities of localized world music, and most important, a giant, giddy dance party. They play at 8 p.m. on Saturday at California Plaza.

-August Brown

Photo: Courtesy of Yiddishkayt Los Angeles

Contrary to stereotype, Guns N' Roses guitar hero Slash doesn’t exactly hang out at Guitar Center. Yet tonight, the iconic Angeleno will be at the Northridge music store (we hear Duff McKagan will also show) as a favor to his longtime friend Marc Canter, who recently released a book focusing on Guns N' Roses’ first 50 shows in Los Angeles, long before they became household names the world over. 

"Reckless Road" is an unrivaled chronicle of the band's earliest incarnation, including photographs, oral histories from the people who knew the band best early on (including a few strippers), photographs from early gigs at venues such as the Troubadour and Madame Wong’s, ticket stubs from those gigs and even transcriptions of between-song banter from Axl Rose. 

"Reckless Road" sizzles with the same energy and scrappy spirit that helped Guns N' Roses land a deal with Geffen Records, and the rest, as they say, is history.  After the jump, we talk with Slash about his longtime friend's new book, his thoughts on his own 2007 book, a little localized Guns nostalgia and his thoughts on the blogger who was recently arrested after posting unreleased tracks from "Chinese Democracy" online earlier this year.

For those of you not still hung over from Sunset Junction or awaiting the latest twist in Spencer and Heidi's living arrangements on "The Hills," the voice behind one of my favorite singles of the year is playing two shows in L.A. tonight. Lykke Li, a pixieish twentysomething Swede making the rounds for her debut album, "Youth Novels," is a perfect approximation of everything I'm listening to now: dusty '60s girl-group pop, cut-and-paste electronica and outsider minimal R&B.  It's perfectly realized on her single "Little Bit," where jittery steel drum samples and a tinny acoustic guitar prick away at her endearingly dejected falsetto. The song's aggressively soft-lit video is turning into something of a YouTube smash, and if you can't catch her crazy-sold-out show at Hotel Cafe tonight, she's playing for free down the block at Amoeba Records at 6:30 p.m. I'd say it's a safe Monday night respite from Audrina Partridge and Lo Bosworth's death stares, but who really knows these days.

-- August Brown

For those of you who are hoping to avoid the crowds (or the $20 cover) on Sunset Boulevard this weekend, there are several other interesting live music options around town.

Weezer guitarist Brian Bell debuts his new side band, The Relationship, at Molly Malone's on Fairfax Avenue on Saturday night for a measly $7.

Ima Robot (pictured, above) is at the Greek tonight with Cafe Tacuba.

Saturday night, Snoop Dogg proteges Western Union are performing at Mood in Hollywood.  Promoters hint that Snoop himself may "likely jump on and perform with them."  More info on this gig after the jump....

Royal/T, the new Culver City cafe-gallery-performance space, is having an opening party tonight for "All of this is melting away," a show from the collection of Susan Hancock that's chock-full of artists such as Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, Hans-Peter Feldmann and Wynne Greenwood. But the best part, at least for the more musically inclined viewers, might be the after-party performance at the Echo with Masaya Nakahara (who is deejaying the opening party) and artists Mike Kelley and Paul McCarthy.

Attention Santa Monica-based music supervisors and employees of MTV who still listen to music: Scottish singer Paolo Nutini is playing a free show during your lunch break tomorrow -- you might want to go check him out. 

Oh yes, it's also open to the public with no RSVP necessary. The "New Shoes" singer, who plays the Hollywood Bowl tonight with Etta James and Solomon Burke, begins a special set inside Puma's concept store (it was all but inevitable the singer was going to sell out to some footwear company, I suppose) on the Third Street Promenade (at 1350 3rd St.) at 12:30 p.m. Thursday. 

-- Charlie Amter

Photo by Colin Lane courtesy of Atlantic Records

The first vocal lines of the young composer Nico Muhly’s new album, “Mothertongue,” are seemingly arbitrary lists of numbers and addresses. Sung by ethereal mezzo-soprano Abigail Fischer over aching strings and a distorted sub-bass synthesizer, the arrangement feels like a Stockhausen gag; a misdirection that subverts your expectations about how the work might move you. For Muhly, however, there’s poetry in all that data.

“If you ask someone to name all the phone numbers you can off the top of your head, it’s going to be pretty interesting,” Muhly said. “When I asked the singer to name all of the phone numbers she knew, it was fascinating. It was her dad’s office from 20 years ago, or a friend’s number in Florence. You can tease narrative out of anything. You know how on Wikipedia there are these lists of things like ‘List of Horrible Ethnic Slurs’ or ‘List of Famous Canadian Homosexuals’? That’s such a poignant way to organize the world.”

LA Teens' Rock the Vote this weekend at Safari Sam's

Hey, kids! This weekend offers not just one but two chances for you to ponder the hideous financial situation you are inheriting and will no doubt be fixing 50 years down the road. Oh noes! But the good news is that both events, designed to encourage the already impressive political energy of Gen Y, Z, 2.0 or whatever they're calling themselves, should be genuinely cool.

The first is the well-known, well-publicized We the People festival in downtown L.A. The lineup is nothing to scoff at: Les Claypool, RZA, Shavo Odidjian, Tom Morello, futuristic R&B cutie Janelle Monae, Murs and lots more, but what's really stoking our '90s-loving hearts is LA Teens' Rock the Vote, a five-hour, nonpartisan extravaganza at Safari Sam's for teens only. You totally can't come in, Dad!

Well, huh! Suddenly, the Eagle Rock Music Festival, one of the latest entries into the busy late-summer/early-fall street fair scene in L.A., seems to have found a niche this year: move the Smell scene north and east, and let the venerable beardy guys who run the Ship studio curate a stage. The neighborhood is already ground zero for older rocker types who need cheap space but don't want to compete with 21-year-old CalArts grads vomiting on their Echo Park doorsteps. This year's ERMF (a fun acronym to say aloud if there ever was one) seems to further cement that trend -- Abe Vigoda, Mika Miko and Crystal Antlers headline along with jangly expat Silver Lakers Earlimart and Radar Bros.

The Viva Yiddish! Project is a look backward and forward into L.A.'s polyglot musical heritage. In decades past, neighborhoods such as Boyle Heights had significant populations of Yiddish speakers whose uptempo klezmer tunes made unlikely but easy bedfellows with the pachuco and mambo of their Latino neighbors. Though L.A.'s neighborhoods are more broken up today, this dozens-strong ensemble -- founded by Frank London of the Klezmatics, Yiddish music scholar Michael Alpert and USC professor and music writer Josh Kun -- is a fond remembrance of the era, a thoroughly contemporary example of the possibilities of localized world music, and most important, a giant, giddy dance party. They play at 8 p.m. on Saturday at California Plaza.

-August Brown

Photo: Courtesy of Yiddishkayt Los Angeles

Contrary to stereotype, Guns N' Roses guitar hero Slash doesn’t exactly hang out at Guitar Center. Yet tonight, the iconic Angeleno will be at the Northridge music store (we hear Duff McKagan will also show) as a favor to his longtime friend Marc Canter, who recently released a book focusing on Guns N' Roses’ first 50 shows in Los Angeles, long before they became household names the world over. 

"Reckless Road" is an unrivaled chronicle of the band's earliest incarnation, including photographs, oral histories from the people who knew the band best early on (including a few strippers), photographs from early gigs at venues such as the Troubadour and Madame Wong’s, ticket stubs from those gigs and even transcriptions of between-song banter from Axl Rose. 

"Reckless Road" sizzles with the same energy and scrappy spirit that helped Guns N' Roses land a deal with Geffen Records, and the rest, as they say, is history.  After the jump, we talk with Slash about his longtime friend's new book, his thoughts on his own 2007 book, a little localized Guns nostalgia and his thoughts on the blogger who was recently arrested after posting unreleased tracks from "Chinese Democracy" online earlier this year.

For those of you not still hung over from Sunset Junction or awaiting the latest twist in Spencer and Heidi's living arrangements on "The Hills," the voice behind one of my favorite singles of the year is playing two shows in L.A. tonight. Lykke Li, a pixieish twentysomething Swede making the rounds for her debut album, "Youth Novels," is a perfect approximation of everything I'm listening to now: dusty '60s girl-group pop, cut-and-paste electronica and outsider minimal R&B.  It's perfectly realized on her single "Little Bit," where jittery steel drum samples and a tinny acoustic guitar prick away at her endearingly dejected falsetto. The song's aggressively soft-lit video is turning into something of a YouTube smash, and if you can't catch her crazy-sold-out show at Hotel Cafe tonight, she's playing for free down the block at Amoeba Records at 6:30 p.m. I'd say it's a safe Monday night respite from Audrina Partridge and Lo Bosworth's death stares, but who really knows these days.

-- August Brown

For those of you who are hoping to avoid the crowds (or the $20 cover) on Sunset Boulevard this weekend, there are several other interesting live music options around town.

Weezer guitarist Brian Bell debuts his new side band, The Relationship, at Molly Malone's on Fairfax Avenue on Saturday night for a measly $7.

Ima Robot (pictured, above) is at the Greek tonight with Cafe Tacuba.

Saturday night, Snoop Dogg proteges Western Union are performing at Mood in Hollywood.  Promoters hint that Snoop himself may "likely jump on and perform with them."  More info on this gig after the jump....

Royal/T, the new Culver City cafe-gallery-performance space, is having an opening party tonight for "All of this is melting away," a show from the collection of Susan Hancock that's chock-full of artists such as Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, Hans-Peter Feldmann and Wynne Greenwood. But the best part, at least for the more musically inclined viewers, might be the after-party performance at the Echo with Masaya Nakahara (who is deejaying the opening party) and artists Mike Kelley and Paul McCarthy.

Attention Santa Monica-based music supervisors and employees of MTV who still listen to music: Scottish singer Paolo Nutini is playing a free show during your lunch break tomorrow -- you might want to go check him out. 

Oh yes, it's also open to the public with no RSVP necessary. The "New Shoes" singer, who plays the Hollywood Bowl tonight with Etta James and Solomon Burke, begins a special set inside Puma's concept store (it was all but inevitable the singer was going to sell out to some footwear company, I suppose) on the Third Street Promenade (at 1350 3rd St.) at 12:30 p.m. Thursday. 

-- Charlie Amter

Photo by Colin Lane courtesy of Atlantic Records

The first vocal lines of the young composer Nico Muhly’s new album, “Mothertongue,” are seemingly arbitrary lists of numbers and addresses. Sung by ethereal mezzo-soprano Abigail Fischer over aching strings and a distorted sub-bass synthesizer, the arrangement feels like a Stockhausen gag; a misdirection that subverts your expectations about how the work might move you. For Muhly, however, there’s poetry in all that data.

“If you ask someone to name all the phone numbers you can off the top of your head, it’s going to be pretty interesting,” Muhly said. “When I asked the singer to name all of the phone numbers she knew, it was fascinating. It was her dad’s office from 20 years ago, or a friend’s number in Florence. You can tease narrative out of anything. You know how on Wikipedia there are these lists of things like ‘List of Horrible Ethnic Slurs’ or ‘List of Famous Canadian Homosexuals’? That’s such a poignant way to organize the world.”

This year's Eagle Rock Music Festival will incur much less wrath than Sunset Junction

Well, huh! Suddenly, the Eagle Rock Music Festival, one of the latest entries into the busy late-summer/early-fall street fair scene in L.A., seems to have found a niche this year: move the Smell scene north and east, and let the venerable beardy guys who run the Ship studio curate a stage. The neighborhood is already ground zero for older rocker types who need cheap space but don't want to compete with 21-year-old CalArts grads vomiting on their Echo Park doorsteps. This year's ERMF (a fun acronym to say aloud if there ever was one) seems to further cement that trend -- Abe Vigoda, Mika Miko and Crystal Antlers headline along with jangly expat Silver Lakers Earlimart and Radar Bros.

The Viva Yiddish! Project is a look backward and forward into L.A.'s polyglot musical heritage. In decades past, neighborhoods such as Boyle Heights had significant populations of Yiddish speakers whose uptempo klezmer tunes made unlikely but easy bedfellows with the pachuco and mambo of their Latino neighbors. Though L.A.'s neighborhoods are more broken up today, this dozens-strong ensemble -- founded by Frank London of the Klezmatics, Yiddish music scholar Michael Alpert and USC professor and music writer Josh Kun -- is a fond remembrance of the era, a thoroughly contemporary example of the possibilities of localized world music, and most important, a giant, giddy dance party. They play at 8 p.m. on Saturday at California Plaza.

-August Brown

Photo: Courtesy of Yiddishkayt Los Angeles

Contrary to stereotype, Guns N' Roses guitar hero Slash doesn’t exactly hang out at Guitar Center. Yet tonight, the iconic Angeleno will be at the Northridge music store (we hear Duff McKagan will also show) as a favor to his longtime friend Marc Canter, who recently released a book focusing on Guns N' Roses’ first 50 shows in Los Angeles, long before they became household names the world over. 

"Reckless Road" is an unrivaled chronicle of the band's earliest incarnation, including photographs, oral histories from the people who knew the band best early on (including a few strippers), photographs from early gigs at venues such as the Troubadour and Madame Wong’s, ticket stubs from those gigs and even transcriptions of between-song banter from Axl Rose. 

"Reckless Road" sizzles with the same energy and scrappy spirit that helped Guns N' Roses land a deal with Geffen Records, and the rest, as they say, is history.  After the jump, we talk with Slash about his longtime friend's new book, his thoughts on his own 2007 book, a little localized Guns nostalgia and his thoughts on the blogger who was recently arrested after posting unreleased tracks from "Chinese Democracy" online earlier this year.

For those of you not still hung over from Sunset Junction or awaiting the latest twist in Spencer and Heidi's living arrangements on "The Hills," the voice behind one of my favorite singles of the year is playing two shows in L.A. tonight. Lykke Li, a pixieish twentysomething Swede making the rounds for her debut album, "Youth Novels," is a perfect approximation of everything I'm listening to now: dusty '60s girl-group pop, cut-and-paste electronica and outsider minimal R&B.  It's perfectly realized on her single "Little Bit," where jittery steel drum samples and a tinny acoustic guitar prick away at her endearingly dejected falsetto. The song's aggressively soft-lit video is turning into something of a YouTube smash, and if you can't catch her crazy-sold-out show at Hotel Cafe tonight, she's playing for free down the block at Amoeba Records at 6:30 p.m. I'd say it's a safe Monday night respite from Audrina Partridge and Lo Bosworth's death stares, but who really knows these days.

-- August Brown

For those of you who are hoping to avoid the crowds (or the $20 cover) on Sunset Boulevard this weekend, there are several other interesting live music options around town.

Weezer guitarist Brian Bell debuts his new side band, The Relationship, at Molly Malone's on Fairfax Avenue on Saturday night for a measly $7.

Ima Robot (pictured, above) is at the Greek tonight with Cafe Tacuba.

Saturday night, Snoop Dogg proteges Western Union are performing at Mood in Hollywood.  Promoters hint that Snoop himself may "likely jump on and perform with them."  More info on this gig after the jump....

Royal/T, the new Culver City cafe-gallery-performance space, is having an opening party tonight for "All of this is melting away," a show from the collection of Susan Hancock that's chock-full of artists such as Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, Hans-Peter Feldmann and Wynne Greenwood. But the best part, at least for the more musically inclined viewers, might be the after-party performance at the Echo with Masaya Nakahara (who is deejaying the opening party) and artists Mike Kelley and Paul McCarthy.

Attention Santa Monica-based music supervisors and employees of MTV who still listen to music: Scottish singer Paolo Nutini is playing a free show during your lunch break tomorrow -- you might want to go check him out. 

Oh yes, it's also open to the public with no RSVP necessary. The "New Shoes" singer, who plays the Hollywood Bowl tonight with Etta James and Solomon Burke, begins a special set inside Puma's concept store (it was all but inevitable the singer was going to sell out to some footwear company, I suppose) on the Third Street Promenade (at 1350 3rd St.) at 12:30 p.m. Thursday. 

-- Charlie Amter

Photo by Colin Lane courtesy of Atlantic Records

The first vocal lines of the young composer Nico Muhly’s new album, “Mothertongue,” are seemingly arbitrary lists of numbers and addresses. Sung by ethereal mezzo-soprano Abigail Fischer over aching strings and a distorted sub-bass synthesizer, the arrangement feels like a Stockhausen gag; a misdirection that subverts your expectations about how the work might move you. For Muhly, however, there’s poetry in all that data.

“If you ask someone to name all the phone numbers you can off the top of your head, it’s going to be pretty interesting,” Muhly said. “When I asked the singer to name all of the phone numbers she knew, it was fascinating. It was her dad’s office from 20 years ago, or a friend’s number in Florence. You can tease narrative out of anything. You know how on Wikipedia there are these lists of things like ‘List of Horrible Ethnic Slurs’ or ‘List of Famous Canadian Homosexuals’? That’s such a poignant way to organize the world.”

Viva Yiddish! Project is a glimpse at vintage L.A. music

The Viva Yiddish! Project is a look backward and forward into L.A.'s polyglot musical heritage. In decades past, neighborhoods such as Boyle Heights had significant populations of Yiddish speakers whose uptempo klezmer tunes made unlikely but easy bedfellows with the pachuco and mambo of their Latino neighbors. Though L.A.'s neighborhoods are more broken up today, this dozens-strong ensemble -- founded by Frank London of the Klezmatics, Yiddish music scholar Michael Alpert and USC professor and music writer Josh Kun -- is a fond remembrance of the era, a thoroughly contemporary example of the possibilities of localized world music, and most important, a giant, giddy dance party. They play at 8 p.m. on Saturday at California Plaza.

-August Brown

Photo: Courtesy of Yiddishkayt Los Angeles

Contrary to stereotype, Guns N' Roses guitar hero Slash doesn’t exactly hang out at Guitar Center. Yet tonight, the iconic Angeleno will be at the Northridge music store (we hear Duff McKagan will also show) as a favor to his longtime friend Marc Canter, who recently released a book focusing on Guns N' Roses’ first 50 shows in Los Angeles, long before they became household names the world over. 

"Reckless Road" is an unrivaled chronicle of the band's earliest incarnation, including photographs, oral histories from the people who knew the band best early on (including a few strippers), photographs from early gigs at venues such as the Troubadour and Madame Wong’s, ticket stubs from those gigs and even transcriptions of between-song banter from Axl Rose. 

"Reckless Road" sizzles with the same energy and scrappy spirit that helped Guns N' Roses land a deal with Geffen Records, and the rest, as they say, is history.  After the jump, we talk with Slash about his longtime friend's new book, his thoughts on his own 2007 book, a little localized Guns nostalgia and his thoughts on the blogger who was recently arrested after posting unreleased tracks from "Chinese Democracy" online earlier this year.

For those of you not still hung over from Sunset Junction or awaiting the latest twist in Spencer and Heidi's living arrangements on "The Hills," the voice behind one of my favorite singles of the year is playing two shows in L.A. tonight. Lykke Li, a pixieish twentysomething Swede making the rounds for her debut album, "Youth Novels," is a perfect approximation of everything I'm listening to now: dusty '60s girl-group pop, cut-and-paste electronica and outsider minimal R&B.  It's perfectly realized on her single "Little Bit," where jittery steel drum samples and a tinny acoustic guitar prick away at her endearingly dejected falsetto. The song's aggressively soft-lit video is turning into something of a YouTube smash, and if you can't catch her crazy-sold-out show at Hotel Cafe tonight, she's playing for free down the block at Amoeba Records at 6:30 p.m. I'd say it's a safe Monday night respite from Audrina Partridge and Lo Bosworth's death stares, but who really knows these days.

-- August Brown

For those of you who are hoping to avoid the crowds (or the $20 cover) on Sunset Boulevard this weekend, there are several other interesting live music options around town.

Weezer guitarist Brian Bell debuts his new side band, The Relationship, at Molly Malone's on Fairfax Avenue on Saturday night for a measly $7.

Ima Robot (pictured, above) is at the Greek tonight with Cafe Tacuba.

Saturday night, Snoop Dogg proteges Western Union are performing at Mood in Hollywood.  Promoters hint that Snoop himself may "likely jump on and perform with them."  More info on this gig after the jump....

Royal/T, the new Culver City cafe-gallery-performance space, is having an opening party tonight for "All of this is melting away," a show from the collection of Susan Hancock that's chock-full of artists such as Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, Hans-Peter Feldmann and Wynne Greenwood. But the best part, at least for the more musically inclined viewers, might be the after-party performance at the Echo with Masaya Nakahara (who is deejaying the opening party) and artists Mike Kelley and Paul McCarthy.

Attention Santa Monica-based music supervisors and employees of MTV who still listen to music: Scottish singer Paolo Nutini is playing a free show during your lunch break tomorrow -- you might want to go check him out. 

Oh yes, it's also open to the public with no RSVP necessary. The "New Shoes" singer, who plays the Hollywood Bowl tonight with Etta James and Solomon Burke, begins a special set inside Puma's concept store (it was all but inevitable the singer was going to sell out to some footwear company, I suppose) on the Third Street Promenade (at 1350 3rd St.) at 12:30 p.m. Thursday. 

-- Charlie Amter

Photo by Colin Lane courtesy of Atlantic Records

The first vocal lines of the young composer Nico Muhly’s new album, “Mothertongue,” are seemingly arbitrary lists of numbers and addresses. Sung by ethereal mezzo-soprano Abigail Fischer over aching strings and a distorted sub-bass synthesizer, the arrangement feels like a Stockhausen gag; a misdirection that subverts your expectations about how the work might move you. For Muhly, however, there’s poetry in all that data.

“If you ask someone to name all the phone numbers you can off the top of your head, it’s going to be pretty interesting,” Muhly said. “When I asked the singer to name all of the phone numbers she knew, it was fascinating. It was her dad’s office from 20 years ago, or a friend’s number in Florence. You can tease narrative out of anything. You know how on Wikipedia there are these lists of things like ‘List of Horrible Ethnic Slurs’ or ‘List of Famous Canadian Homosexuals’? That’s such a poignant way to organize the world.”

Slash gets literary, hits Guitar Center tonight

Contrary to stereotype, Guns N' Roses guitar hero Slash doesn’t exactly hang out at Guitar Center. Yet tonight, the iconic Angeleno will be at the Northridge music store (we hear Duff McKagan will also show) as a favor to his longtime friend Marc Canter, who recently released a book focusing on Guns N' Roses’ first 50 shows in Los Angeles, long before they became household names the world over. 

"Reckless Road" is an unrivaled chronicle of the band's earliest incarnation, including photographs, oral histories from the people who knew the band best early on (including a few strippers), photographs from early gigs at venues such as the Troubadour and Madame Wong’s, ticket stubs from those gigs and even transcriptions of between-song banter from Axl Rose. 

"Reckless Road" sizzles with the same energy and scrappy spirit that helped Guns N' Roses land a deal with Geffen Records, and the rest, as they say, is history.  After the jump, we talk with Slash about his longtime friend's new book, his thoughts on his own 2007 book, a little localized Guns nostalgia and his thoughts on the blogger who was recently arrested after posting unreleased tracks from "Chinese Democracy" online earlier this year.

For those of you not still hung over from Sunset Junction or awaiting the latest twist in Spencer and Heidi's living arrangements on "The Hills," the voice behind one of my favorite singles of the year is playing two shows in L.A. tonight. Lykke Li, a pixieish twentysomething Swede making the rounds for her debut album, "Youth Novels," is a perfect approximation of everything I'm listening to now: dusty '60s girl-group pop, cut-and-paste electronica and outsider minimal R&B.  It's perfectly realized on her single "Little Bit," where jittery steel drum samples and a tinny acoustic guitar prick away at her endearingly dejected falsetto. The song's aggressively soft-lit video is turning into something of a YouTube smash, and if you can't catch her crazy-sold-out show at Hotel Cafe tonight, she's playing for free down the block at Amoeba Records at 6:30 p.m. I'd say it's a safe Monday night respite from Audrina Partridge and Lo Bosworth's death stares, but who really knows these days.

-- August Brown

For those of you who are hoping to avoid the crowds (or the $20 cover) on Sunset Boulevard this weekend, there are several other interesting live music options around town.

Weezer guitarist Brian Bell debuts his new side band, The Relationship, at Molly Malone's on Fairfax Avenue on Saturday night for a measly $7.

Ima Robot (pictured, above) is at the Greek tonight with Cafe Tacuba.

Saturday night, Snoop Dogg proteges Western Union are performing at Mood in Hollywood.  Promoters hint that Snoop himself may "likely jump on and perform with them."  More info on this gig after the jump....

Royal/T, the new Culver City cafe-gallery-performance space, is having an opening party tonight for "All of this is melting away," a show from the collection of Susan Hancock that's chock-full of artists such as Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, Hans-Peter Feldmann and Wynne Greenwood. But the best part, at least for the more musically inclined viewers, might be the after-party performance at the Echo with Masaya Nakahara (who is deejaying the opening party) and artists Mike Kelley and Paul McCarthy.

Attention Santa Monica-based music supervisors and employees of MTV who still listen to music: Scottish singer Paolo Nutini is playing a free show during your lunch break tomorrow -- you might want to go check him out. 

Oh yes, it's also open to the public with no RSVP necessary. The "New Shoes" singer, who plays the Hollywood Bowl tonight with Etta James and Solomon Burke, begins a special set inside Puma's concept store (it was all but inevitable the singer was going to sell out to some footwear company, I suppose) on the Third Street Promenade (at 1350 3rd St.) at 12:30 p.m. Thursday. 

-- Charlie Amter

Photo by Colin Lane courtesy of Atlantic Records

The first vocal lines of the young composer Nico Muhly’s new album, “Mothertongue,” are seemingly arbitrary lists of numbers and addresses. Sung by ethereal mezzo-soprano Abigail Fischer over aching strings and a distorted sub-bass synthesizer, the arrangement feels like a Stockhausen gag; a misdirection that subverts your expectations about how the work might move you. For Muhly, however, there’s poetry in all that data.

“If you ask someone to name all the phone numbers you can off the top of your head, it’s going to be pretty interesting,” Muhly said. “When I asked the singer to name all of the phone numbers she knew, it was fascinating. It was her dad’s office from 20 years ago, or a friend’s number in Florence. You can tease narrative out of anything. You know how on Wikipedia there are these lists of things like ‘List of Horrible Ethnic Slurs’ or ‘List of Famous Canadian Homosexuals’? That’s such a poignant way to organize the world.”

Go see Lykke Li at some point in L.A. tonight

For those of you not still hung over from Sunset Junction or awaiting the latest twist in Spencer and Heidi's living arrangements on "The Hills," the voice behind one of my favorite singles of the year is playing two shows in L.A. tonight. Lykke Li, a pixieish twentysomething Swede making the rounds for her debut album, "Youth Novels," is a perfect approximation of everything I'm listening to now: dusty '60s girl-group pop, cut-and-paste electronica and outsider minimal R&B.  It's perfectly realized on her single "Little Bit," where jittery steel drum samples and a tinny acoustic guitar prick away at her endearingly dejected falsetto. The song's aggressively soft-lit video is turning into something of a YouTube smash, and if you can't catch her crazy-sold-out show at Hotel Cafe tonight, she's playing for free down the block at Amoeba Records at 6:30 p.m. I'd say it's a safe Monday night respite from Audrina Partridge and Lo Bosworth's death stares, but who really knows these days.

-- August Brown

For those of you who are hoping to avoid the crowds (or the $20 cover) on Sunset Boulevard this weekend, there are several other interesting live music options around town.

Weezer guitarist Brian Bell debuts his new side band, The Relationship, at Molly Malone's on Fairfax Avenue on Saturday night for a measly $7.

Ima Robot (pictured, above) is at the Greek tonight with Cafe Tacuba.

Saturday night, Snoop Dogg proteges Western Union are performing at Mood in Hollywood.  Promoters hint that Snoop himself may "likely jump on and perform with them."  More info on this gig after the jump....

Royal/T, the new Culver City cafe-gallery-performance space, is having an opening party tonight for "All of this is melting away," a show from the collection of Susan Hancock that's chock-full of artists such as Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, Hans-Peter Feldmann and Wynne Greenwood. But the best part, at least for the more musically inclined viewers, might be the after-party performance at the Echo with Masaya Nakahara (who is deejaying the opening party) and artists Mike Kelley and Paul McCarthy.

Attention Santa Monica-based music supervisors and employees of MTV who still listen to music: Scottish singer Paolo Nutini is playing a free show during your lunch break tomorrow -- you might want to go check him out. 

Oh yes, it's also open to the public with no RSVP necessary. The "New Shoes" singer, who plays the Hollywood Bowl tonight with Etta James and Solomon Burke, begins a special set inside Puma's concept store (it was all but inevitable the singer was going to sell out to some footwear company, I suppose) on the Third Street Promenade (at 1350 3rd St.) at 12:30 p.m. Thursday. 

-- Charlie Amter

Photo by Colin Lane courtesy of Atlantic Records

The first vocal lines of the young composer Nico Muhly’s new album, “Mothertongue,” are seemingly arbitrary lists of numbers and addresses. Sung by ethereal mezzo-soprano Abigail Fischer over aching strings and a distorted sub-bass synthesizer, the arrangement feels like a Stockhausen gag; a misdirection that subverts your expectations about how the work might move you. For Muhly, however, there’s poetry in all that data.

“If you ask someone to name all the phone numbers you can off the top of your head, it’s going to be pretty interesting,” Muhly said. “When I asked the singer to name all of the phone numbers she knew, it was fascinating. It was her dad’s office from 20 years ago, or a friend’s number in Florence. You can tease narrative out of anything. You know how on Wikipedia there are these lists of things like ‘List of Horrible Ethnic Slurs’ or ‘List of Famous Canadian Homosexuals’? That’s such a poignant way to organize the world.”

Skipping Sunset Junction? Other weekend options abound...

For those of you who are hoping to avoid the crowds (or the $20 cover) on Sunset Boulevard this weekend, there are several other interesting live music options around town.

Weezer guitarist Brian Bell debuts his new side band, The Relationship, at Molly Malone's on Fairfax Avenue on Saturday night for a measly $7.

Ima Robot (pictured, above) is at the Greek tonight with Cafe Tacuba.

Saturday night, Snoop Dogg proteges Western Union are performing at Mood in Hollywood.  Promoters hint that Snoop himself may "likely jump on and perform with them."  More info on this gig after the jump....

Royal/T, the new Culver City cafe-gallery-performance space, is having an opening party tonight for "All of this is melting away," a show from the collection of Susan Hancock that's chock-full of artists such as Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, Hans-Peter Feldmann and Wynne Greenwood. But the best part, at least for the more musically inclined viewers, might be the after-party performance at the Echo with Masaya Nakahara (who is deejaying the opening party) and artists Mike Kelley and Paul McCarthy.

Attention Santa Monica-based music supervisors and employees of MTV who still listen to music: Scottish singer Paolo Nutini is playing a free show during your lunch break tomorrow -- you might want to go check him out. 

Oh yes, it's also open to the public with no RSVP necessary. The "New Shoes" singer, who plays the Hollywood Bowl tonight with Etta James and Solomon Burke, begins a special set inside Puma's concept store (it was all but inevitable the singer was going to sell out to some footwear company, I suppose) on the Third Street Promenade (at 1350 3rd St.) at 12:30 p.m. Thursday. 

-- Charlie Amter

Photo by Colin Lane courtesy of Atlantic Records

The first vocal lines of the young composer Nico Muhly’s new album, “Mothertongue,” are seemingly arbitrary lists of numbers and addresses. Sung by ethereal mezzo-soprano Abigail Fischer over aching strings and a distorted sub-bass synthesizer, the arrangement feels like a Stockhausen gag; a misdirection that subverts your expectations about how the work might move you. For Muhly, however, there’s poetry in all that data.

“If you ask someone to name all the phone numbers you can off the top of your head, it’s going to be pretty interesting,” Muhly said. “When I asked the singer to name all of the phone numbers she knew, it was fascinating. It was her dad’s office from 20 years ago, or a friend’s number in Florence. You can tease narrative out of anything. You know how on Wikipedia there are these lists of things like ‘List of Horrible Ethnic Slurs’ or ‘List of Famous Canadian Homosexuals’? That’s such a poignant way to organize the world.”

Masaya Nakahara, Mike Kelley and Paul McCarthy at Echo tonight

Royal/T, the new Culver City cafe-gallery-performance space, is having an opening party tonight for "All of this is melting away," a show from the collection of Susan Hancock that's chock-full of artists such as Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, Hans-Peter Feldmann and Wynne Greenwood. But the best part, at least for the more musically inclined viewers, might be the after-party performance at the Echo with Masaya Nakahara (who is deejaying the opening party) and artists Mike Kelley and Paul McCarthy.

Attention Santa Monica-based music supervisors and employees of MTV who still listen to music: Scottish singer Paolo Nutini is playing a free show during your lunch break tomorrow -- you might want to go check him out. 

Oh yes, it's also open to the public with no RSVP necessary. The "New Shoes" singer, who plays the Hollywood Bowl tonight with Etta James and Solomon Burke, begins a special set inside Puma's concept store (it was all but inevitable the singer was going to sell out to some footwear company, I suppose) on the Third Street Promenade (at 1350 3rd St.) at 12:30 p.m. Thursday. 

-- Charlie Amter

Photo by Colin Lane courtesy of Atlantic Records

The first vocal lines of the young composer Nico Muhly’s new album, “Mothertongue,” are seemingly arbitrary lists of numbers and addresses. Sung by ethereal mezzo-soprano Abigail Fischer over aching strings and a distorted sub-bass synthesizer, the arrangement feels like a Stockhausen gag; a misdirection that subverts your expectations about how the work might move you. For Muhly, however, there’s poetry in all that data.

“If you ask someone to name all the phone numbers you can off the top of your head, it’s going to be pretty interesting,” Muhly said. “When I asked the singer to name all of the phone numbers she knew, it was fascinating. It was her dad’s office from 20 years ago, or a friend’s number in Florence. You can tease narrative out of anything. You know how on Wikipedia there are these lists of things like ‘List of Horrible Ethnic Slurs’ or ‘List of Famous Canadian Homosexuals’? That’s such a poignant way to organize the world.”

Paolo Nutini tries on 'new shoes' in Santa Monica

Attention Santa Monica-based music supervisors and employees of MTV who still listen to music: Scottish singer Paolo Nutini is playing a free show during your lunch break tomorrow -- you might want to go check him out. 

Oh yes, it's also open to the public with no RSVP necessary. The "New Shoes" singer, who plays the Hollywood Bowl tonight with Etta James and Solomon Burke, begins a special set inside Puma's concept store (it was all but inevitable the singer was going to sell out to some footwear company, I suppose) on the Third Street Promenade (at 1350 3rd St.) at 12:30 p.m. Thursday. 

-- Charlie Amter

Photo by Colin Lane courtesy of Atlantic Records

The first vocal lines of the young composer Nico Muhly’s new album, “Mothertongue,” are seemingly arbitrary lists of numbers and addresses. Sung by ethereal mezzo-soprano Abigail Fischer over aching strings and a distorted sub-bass synthesizer, the arrangement feels like a Stockhausen gag; a misdirection that subverts your expectations about how the work might move you. For Muhly, however, there’s poetry in all that data.

“If you ask someone to name all the phone numbers you can off the top of your head, it’s going to be pretty interesting,” Muhly said. “When I asked the singer to name all of the phone numbers she knew, it was fascinating. It was her dad’s office from 20 years ago, or a friend’s number in Florence. You can tease narrative out of anything. You know how on Wikipedia there are these lists of things like ‘List of Horrible Ethnic Slurs’ or ‘List of Famous Canadian Homosexuals’? That’s such a poignant way to organize the world.”

Nico Muhly's many 'Tongues'

The first vocal lines of the young composer Nico Muhly’s new album, “Mothertongue,” are seemingly arbitrary lists of numbers and addresses. Sung by ethereal mezzo-soprano Abigail Fischer over aching strings and a distorted sub-bass synthesizer, the arrangement feels like a Stockhausen gag; a misdirection that subverts your expectations about how the work might move you. For Muhly, however, there’s poetry in all that data.

“If you ask someone to name all the phone numbers you can off the top of your head, it’s going to be pretty interesting,” Muhly said. “When I asked the singer to name all of the phone numbers she knew, it was fascinating. It was her dad’s office from 20 years ago, or a friend’s number in Florence. You can tease narrative out of anything. You know how on Wikipedia there are these lists of things like ‘List of Horrible Ethnic Slurs’ or ‘List of Famous Canadian Homosexuals’? That’s such a poignant way to organize the world.”