More 'eezy'? Pleezy

In the last 24 hours, a kind of cultural tipping point has been reached in hip-hop: Nicknames rhyming with “eezy” have jumped the shark.

Tuesday night, during a broadcast of the star-studded Fashion Rocks charity fundraising concert, as multiplatinum-selling R&B phenom Chris Brown performed onstage wearing a pair of high-waisted chinos and neckkerchief, the word “BREEZY” was projected above him in an ornate font. It was an assertive corruption of his last name, a kind of street cred signifier for those versed in the argot of ghetto fabulism.

Then, this morning, the braggadocious Southern trap-rapper Young Jeezy captured the No. 1 spot on the national albums chart, moving more than 260,000 copies of his new CD, “The Recession,” during its first week of sales.

Both events arrive as the latest indications that nicknames rhyming with “eezy” have usurped the prefixes “Young” and “Lil” as hip-hop’s identifier of choice. (With all necessary condolences due to Lil Jon, Lil Kim, Lil Scrappy, Lil Cease and Lil Mama, as well as Young Buck, Yung Joc, Young Dolla and Yung Berg.) But by making its come-up, “eezy” has also moved that much closer to its inevitable obsolescence.

The trend finds its genesis in 2005, when Young Jeezy burst on to the scene with his debut album, “Thug Motivation 101: Let’s Get It.” The following year, Lil’ Wayne began referring to himself as “Weezy” in songs. Neither was apparently aware that such self-infantilization would be largely put out to pasture before the end of the decade. Jumping on the “eezy” bandwagon earlier this year, Kanye West anointed himself with the nickname “Yeezy” in the song “The Glory” with this rhyming couplet:

It’s easy
The 'hood love to listen to Jeezy and Weezy
And, oh yeah! Yeezy!
I did it for the glory

According to urbandictionary.com, Brown embraced Breezy as his sobriquet at some point in 2007. But the name remained confined to bulletin board chatter and Chris Brown fan sites until Fashion Rocks gave Breezy its widest public exposure.

In an unmistakable sign that the “eezy” era is reaching its saturation point, on West’s Facebook page under the topic heading, “WHO SHOULD KANYE HOOK UP WITH FOR A HOT SONG,??” [sic], one responder recently posted this helpful suggestion:

“he should make a song with Chris Brown, Young Jeezy and Lil Wayne. And the song should be called ‘Breezy, Yeezy, Jeezy and Weezy.’ ”

-- Chris Lee (Yung Leezy)

Friday's "Column One" (on the front page of the Los Angeles Times) has a nice feature by Paris correspondent Geraldine Baum on Tecktonik (a.k.a. Tektonik), the style of dancing seen all over the Internet (even on Second Life) and popularized by Parisian clubbers and French electro acts such as Yelle, whose video for "A Cause des Garçons" features a bit of Tektonik-style dancing. Check the YouTube video above to see some equally nice moves.

Even though the trend is far from new, it's certainly new to most Americans, who, as a general rule, don't nessesarily excel at dancing to techno (guilty as charged).

-- Charlie Amter

You can tell a lot about a person from their heroes. There are those who cite great statesmen or politicians; others look up to athletes, scientists, philosophers or artists.

For British musician and humorist Neil Innes, it’s Brian Dunkleman, who quit his job co-hosting “American Idol” with Ryan Seacrest because he didn’t like the way contestants were being treated.

Miami is in mourning this week. After record-breaking crowds (buoyed no doubt by the anemic dollar and increasingly strong euro) swarmed South Beach last week for the annual dance music confab known as the Winter Music Conference, Collins Avenue hotels are now back to hosting New Jersey college students flossin on their spring break -- or worse, elderly Canadian couples seeking respite from a still bitter winter.

This past weekend, however, the festival was in full swing, with momentum that hasn't been witnessed at WMC since the late '90s. London dance label owners mixed it up with DJs from Berlin and employees of burgeoning Internet upstarts such as MP3 giant Beatport at swank hotels, i.e., the National and the still-under-construction Gansevoort Miami. In fact, the Gansevoort claimed one of the hottest nights of the fest with an exclusive Paul Oakenfold set. Believe it or not, brazen groups of men actually bum-rushed the velvet rope to get into the new hotel, much to the surprise of the overwhelmed staff.

But for many, the highlight of the week of DJ-centric festivities was surely the massive Ultra Music Festival. Taking place far from South Beach over two days at downtown Miami’s Bicentennial Park, Ultra did not disappoint. Sets from Sweden’s Eric Prydz, France’s David Guetta and Underworld defined the Coachella-like gathering (think multiple sweltering tents and scores of seemingly Ecstasy-addled kids bouncing between them to catch their favorite acts), with Underworld getting the biggest response from the 20,000 + strong crowd (per day), despite early technical problems that plagued the English duo responsible for one of the biggest (and unlikeliest) dance hits of the 1990s, “Born Slippy.”

Berlin-based DJ/producer Alex Ridha, better known as Boys Noize, isn't exactly a fan of Miami. Or a fan of cameras, for that matter.

"It's a weird place, honestly," he said backstage before a Scion-sponsored gig Thursday afternoon for WMC. "There are some horrible people going around here."

Regardless, the crowd, most of whom are dance-music industry insiders from New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago, ate up his set yesterday, which was heavy on material from his lauded 2007 release Oi Oi Oi.

"In Germany the minimal scene is so dominant," he says of his overseas success, which now looks set to cross the Atlantic with shows booked at Coachella and several UK festivals later this spring and summer.

"When I started my [Boysnoize] label three years ago, none of this music was popular," he says. Now that kindred acts such as Justice have broken in the U.S., Boys Noize's hard, dissonant sound is resonating with dance music and indie rock fans.

"I'm more into techno than indie dance stuff," he says. "But I'm happy American fans are discovering me."

After Boys Noize's two-hour set (where he played everything from an updated electro version of Laurie Anderson's "Superman" to Justice), another buzzing German act, Digitalism, took the stage behind the Raleigh Hotel's pool.

The Hamburg duo have already made sizable inroads in the U.S., thanks to their brand of dance music that verges on indie rock. Some have dubbed them the German Daft Punk.

Ridha actually went to college with one of the members of Digitalism in Hamburg, but he considers his Noize different from Digitalism's brand of dance music.

"I would never play Digitalism in my set," he says. "What I do is straight for the clubs ... but I like them."

Spoken like a true Teutonic gentleman.

--post and photograph by Charlie Amter

German artists Boys Noize and Digitalism play the Ultra Music Festival at Winter Music Conference today.

Miami's annual dance music sleaze-a-thon, the Winter Music Conference, is nearly in full swing today, with most attendees wandering Collins Avenue looking for the best DJ events/hotel parties by 2 p.m. No one gets up before noon.

Some of today's best events are at the Raleigh, where New York's Lady GaGa is making her WMC debut at an Armani Exchange-sponsored rooftop terrace soiree.

Interscope has high hopes for the newly signed dance diva, who has already written songs for several artists (including Pussycat Dolls) and is on the verge of signing a publishing contract to augment her label deal.

"Jimmy [Iovine] and I get along great," she says of the Interscope honcho from the rooftop of the Raleigh. "I'm the kind of Italian Brookyln girl he would have liked to take to the prom," she laughs. "He loved me."

The Lady, who's fond of performing in naughty underwear ensembles, chains and stripper heels, got her start playing Brooklyn parties and clubs in Manhattan in 2005 with her equally brazen backup dancers. "I put together a show in New York where we spun beats on vinyl and I played keyboards over the records," she says. "We wore matching bikinis," the Lady giggles, adding that the show was "yummy."

It remains to be seen whether of not the rest of America will find Lady GaGa's musical offerings as delicious as New York does. Her music sounds not unlike a drunken Madonna, Peaches and Kylie Minogue recording session with lots of sticky Champagne spilled on the demos. Lady GaGa's debut disc, made for the "rock and rollers who wanted to listen to pop records," drops this summer. The big Madonna fan's single, "Just Dance," hits next week.

Oh, and Interscope recently moved her into a Hollywood-adjacent apartment, so look out, Angelenos.

--  Post and photo by Charlie Amter

It's been quite a month for daredevil wacko and part time rapper Steve-O.

Arrested on March 3 and booked for vandalizing his own apartment and possession of a controlled substance (cocaine apparently), the "Jackass" star found himself facing eviction when he returned home. That's when, according to his own MySpace blog, things began to spiral out of control. Or at least, more out of control than usual.

The cyberspace saga commences harmlessly enough with a posting on March 8, in which the 33-year-old announces that he'd been evicted and requests that his "Jackass" costars and friends help him move out the following morning. But the video clips in the following post from March 9 couldn't be more terrifying. The second, "Eviction Party Begins," shows Steve-O hosting a kind of bizzaro MTV Cribs: Half-naked and visibly intoxicated, he wanders around his trashed apartment carrying a hefty revolver, which at one point he uses to play Russian Roulette.

In the following entry, posted March 13, Steve-O announces that he's in "the looney bin" because, the morning after his "Eviction Party Begins" was shot, his "Jackass" costars forced him into a hospital on a "5150," a three-day psychiatric hold, later extended to a "5250," 14-day hold.

That's where things get really interesting.

The entries continue, posted by his assistant Jen Moore, but written by Steve-O from inside the undisclosed treatment center, where he may well have been completely sober for the first time in years. In their own way, these entries are as shocking as the infamous stunt in which Steve-O stapled his scrotum to his leg, because they reveal an intelligent, articulate, well-read and deeply philosophical individual coming to terms with a lifetime of substance abuse and related bipolar issues.

Spiked with moments of epiphany and apology, Steve-O's confessional journey from drug-induced rock-bottom to something approaching health may be a cliche--of course, it's one of the oldest in the Hollywood playbook--but it's still remarkable.

Lots of questions remain: Will Steve-O stay sober or will he fall back into his bad habits? Will he be able to continue his inane stunt career after acknowledging that "the nature of my work almost embraced my addictions," or will he retire? And what exactly are the ramifications of the dawning of the Age of Aquarius he discusses in his March 21 entry?

Time will tell.

--Liam Gowing

A few weeks ago, I interviewed Bad Religion founder Greg Graffin about his band's recent string of L.A.-area dates. Bad Religion's been through several commercial revivals, as wiseacre punks, as an unlikely radio act in the mid-'90s ("You and meee ... have a diseeease ..." ) and most recently as something approximating a hugely successful local band. They play large theaters and festivals and sell decently around the world, but to someone whose experience with rock radio is limited to KROQ, they must seem as big as Linkin Park. I always chalked it up as a Southern California thing, that the '90s varietal of double-time skate punk that came to be called the "Epitaph Sound" put its claws in deep after the Offspring and never let up. All that grindable pavement, the year-long sunshine and the intraversible open space of L.A.'s mutant version of urbanity certainly helped.

When the video for Lil' Wayne's new, so-inane-it-might-be-genius single "Lollipop" began making the rounds, it seemed oddly ... familiar. Not just because its narrative arc of Wayne looking stoked about his money and club-girl harem is well-traversed hip-hop video territory, though. Something in the particular visual kinesis of him driving around Vegas playing guitar out of the sunroof of his stretch Hummer or whatever. Then it hit us --  Silversun Pickups (and director Joaquin Phoenix) made the exact same video for their single "Little Lover's So Polite." Just replace the Pickups' preteen Aryan couple and downtown L.A. with Wayne's video vixens and the Vegas strip. Note the 1:53 mark in "Lollipop" and the 3:06 point in "Little Lover's" where each artist plays their respective butt rock guitar solo. Wayne's guitar face is much more convincing, we think.

-- August Brown

Illustration by August Brown; Lil' Wayne photo by Jonathan Mannion; Silversun Pickups photo by Gail Salmo

Lil' Wayne: "Lollipop"

Silversun Pickups: "Little Lover's So Polite"

Your daily six-degrees-of-Rilo Kiley round-up: Women's Wear Daily is reporting that guitarist Blake Sennett has finally passed the penultimate indie-dude coming-of-age ritual and is getting hitched to Winona Ryder. Us Weekly is denying the claim. The two are definitely starring in an upcoming film called "Water Pill." Jenny Lewis is making an album with Elvis Costello and Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes, whom you heard from last week. We just want some CornNuts. BQ.

-- August Brown

Photo by New World Pictures

We’re not sure exactly why the Foo Fighters are considered rock royalty now (“The Pretender” as a best-record nominee at the Grammys? Well, at least it lives up to its title ...), but Dave Grohl does have an admirable sense of humor. Exhibit A: His deadpan performance of “Leather and Lace” with the always loopy Will Ferrell at a recent L.A. fundraiser:

-- Geoff Boucher

Now that Super Tuesday has proven inconclusive on all fronts, let’s engage in some unfounded speculation: Might any of the presidential candidates show up at Sunday’s Grammy Awards?

The Repubs will likely stay home -– despite Mike Huckabee’s electric bass skills and Burt Bacharach’s reported fondness for John McCain, their support among pop stars is generally thin. Ron Paul can claim only Arlo Guthrie. (You can check out who’s supporting whom here.)

Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, however, are still vying for the pop star vote as well as the popular one. A quick and dirty survey of Grammy nominees reveals Clinton with six nominated stumpers -- Madonna, Tony Bennett, Jon Bon Jovi, 50 Cent, Timbaland and Barbra Streisand -– and Obama with five -- Ne-Yo, Usher, Harry Connick Jr., Win Butler of Arcade Fire and Jeff Tweedy of Wilco.

Will.i.am, Obama’s most active pop pal of late, didn’t earn any noms for his commercial flop of a solo album, but he’ll likely be on hand to pop the cork with Fergie if she takes a statue home. We could definitely see the irrepressible Black Eyed Pea pulling Barry onstage for a chorus of Fergie’s “Glamorous.”

And Hillary should really dump that Celine campaign song for an all-American medley of her pal Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” and “(You Want to) Make a Memory.” Although seeing her do the freak with Justin during 50’s “Ayo Technology”…. OK, that seems unlikely. But hey, there’s always Timbaland. He did wonders for Nelly Furtado. He could get the uber baby-boomer candidate out of her cultural rut!

In the meantime, check out Oh! Industry’s excellent roundtable of dedications to favorite candidates.

-- Ann Powers

I think I found the cure for the common TV. Of course, it's right here on your very

own Internet.

It's My Damn

Channel, a portal that is home to offerings from musician extraordinaire Don Was, along with the likes of Harry

Shearer, David Wain and others.


Was, a bassist, music supervisor, documentary director, Grammy-winning producer and a

driving force behind the cutting-edge funk outfit Was

(Not Was), has seldom been more sublimely
entertaining than as the cool-cat host of the "Wasmopolitan Dance
Party" -- a webisode filmed in the showroom of the Furniture Outlet, a
budget joint in North Hollywood. [Pardon the ads, but the installment above is well

worth their intrusion.]

There is singer-songwriter Jill Sobule, gamely playing her beautiful songs

from behind a dining-room set as shoppers mill about looking a recliners.

"I can't compete with the set-up on Letterman" Was says with a laugh.

"But doing something like this, we asked, 'What could we offer that's different?'

The answer is, the stripped-down and personal stuff."

In the ranks of overwrought music writing that have appeared in the Village Voice, Garrett Kamps is a god among fanboys. His recent review of Cat Power's flawed but arresting "Jukebox" covers record is especially troubling. It's not so much the rank misogyny or his John Yoo-level torturing of the em dash that really derails this review, but the fact that he doesn't seem to know what, exactly, a "cougar" is. Given our close approximation to Orange County, we know all too well. Cougars are sexually aggressive women on the far side of 40 peddling consequence-free hookups to inexperienced young men who will relay the tales in hushed, reverent tones over Halo 3 tournaments with their friends. Does that sound like an apt description of Cat Power (a.k.a. Chan Marshall), who once wrote a song about Patti Smith's children and her own abortion? Or the one who wrote one of 2006's most generous, uplifting Southern soul albums, "The Greatest?"

If Kamps is truly hunting for cougars, we can suggest a few better places for him to start trolling.

-- August Brown

[Cougar photo by Christine Cotter / Los Angeles Times. Chan Marshall photo by Stefano Giovannini / Beggars Group LTD via Bloomberg News]

An earlier version of this blog incorrectly referred to John Yoo as John Wu. And that was all Margaret's fault and not August's, so she will be buying him a latte something-or-another later today. Maybe.

It was an interesting week in musical contrasts.

On the invitation of Fuel TV's Daryl Berg, I stopped by Swing House in Hollywood on Monday to see the Bravery. The New York five-piece was at the recording studio-cum-rehearsal space to shoot a live segment for Fuel TV's "Check 1, 2." (If you're wondering what the connection is between the band and the action sports network, apparently two of the dudes like to surf.)

While I was there, the quintet ran through three of their songs three times each for Swing House's microphones and Fuel TV's cameras, and I would be lying if I didn't report that the performances were faultless--just like the recordings complete with spot-on vocals. Listening to the songs ("An Honest Mistake," "Believe" and "Time Won't Let Me Go"), I couldn't help but remark to Berg how incredulous I was that these guys aren't already superstars.

Seriously, the Bravery has a winning formula. It's not theirs, of course, it's Duran Duran's: five really good-looking guys with flawless haircuts and sharp outfits to match, playing insanely catchy New Wave-y tunes--hi-hat-heavy drums, octave-friendly bass, breathy keyboards, distorted rhythm guitars and crystalline leads, plus sour-sweet, whiny vocals--that sound both supremely commercial yet genuinely edgy.

The band's only modest success so far might have something to do with the fact that none of the band members--with the possible exception of the overly excited drummer--exhibited the slightest trace of personality at the shoot. I mean, it was dead silent between takes: No evidence of any camaraderie between the members; no jokes or horseplay; no comments, positive or negative, on the performances; no interaction with the crew, record company people or gawkers--just silence. They might have been wax works, but for the movement.

From the Bravery--an up-and-coming band with great chops (but no discernible personality) making a musical appearance--I go to Peter Tork, a rock 'n' roll dinosaur with questionable vocal tendencies (but tons of charisma) making a non-musical appearance.

The former Monkee was hosting a special edition of the Beauty Bar's "oldies 'n' goodies" Wednesday night event, Goodie Tu Shoes. By hosting, I mean he was autographing copies of "Cambria Hotel," a new offering from his rootsy, bluesy new rock 'n' roll band, Shoe Suede Blues.

Tork acted just the way any fan of the Monkees' ridiculous TV show (or thoroughly excellent film, "Head") would have expected: He was friendly, animated and totally goofy. I can't vouch for Shoe Suede Blues being anything more than a respectable honky tonk-style bar band, but after being an extraordinarily well-known (if not necessarily respected) superstar, he deserves a lot of credit for starting over with a new band and doing the little extracurriculars newcomers must to get the word out.

I guess the answer to the question Tork posed here is "yes." -Liam Gowing

[Photo 1: The Bravery at Swing House. Credit: Patrick Weir and Fuel TV. Photo 2: Peter Tork, right, and pal at Beauty Bar-L.A. Credit: Mary Jo Head.]

The Bird and the Bee will be

flying into the desert. Nice.

And one of those assembly-line electro acts that has me convinced technology has made

it far too easy to put out an album, the U.K.'s Does It Offend You Yeah?, will be

playing too.

Yeah, it does.

First, there was "Lip Gloss," Lil Mama's earth-crushing and drums-only ode to windburn protection that sounded more menacing and ruthless than anything on "Curtis." Now, M.I.A.-protege Rye Rye has a smoking, minimalist Baltimore club tune in "Shake It to the Ground" on Diplo's Mad Decent label. Aside from an occasional farted-out bass, the production work from DJ Blaqstarr is again strictly minimalist percussion and gum-smacking chants until practically the end of the song. Have the kids decided they don't need even a perfunctory Korg Triton stab to make a floor-filler? Either way, we dig the Misfits poster in Rye Rye's bedroom in this made-for-pennies video and like to imagine that Glenn Danzig might return the favor someday with a guest verse.

--August Brown

Happy New Year.

And good riddance, 2007.

The year brought an avalanche of music, and the recent holiday week of rumination and

CD-sorting etched in my mind the idea that a whole lot of it was ... well ... pretty

good. Yeah, pretty good, uttered with my head slightly tilted, as if I never

thought once of saying "great" or "really good." If I ever had the

radical notion to rate albums on a 10 scale,

I would swear that half the records I received this year logged somewhere between 6.5

and 6.7 -- a percentage that's skewed because all six copies of the Magic Numbers album that somehow found

their way to my desk would get a 6.2.

Maybe this was the year that trying to

keep up with new music, nationally and locally, finally overwhelmed me, what with every

baby band in the universe engaging in viral marketing, hiring publicists, working with

managers, leaving me polite entreaties on MySpace and generally undermining any belief

that a band can merely grow organically. I attended about 185 shows in 2007 too, many to

follow up on those advertising blitzes.

But after compiling my humble lists

below, I fast-forwarded to December 2009, when all good geeks will be sweating over

their seemingly inevitable Best-of-the-Aughts list. And guess what? Not a single album

from 2007 has a chance of making mine. All of the bands I consider indie icons -- and

I'm sure you can spank me for leaving out people you think are iconic -- released other

albums this decade that are superior to their 2007 releases. For the record, that

pantheon houses the National, Spoon, Modest Mouse, Arcade Fire, Bright Eyes and

Interpol, with other personal faves such as the Shins and Stars living in the backhouse.

Those heavyweights each added to their estimable catalogs, yes; it's just that I'm not

going to pull "We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank" off the shelf first

when I want to hear some Modest Mouse a few years from now.

At least, I don't

think.

The lists follow. Thanks to everybody who sends me music -- really --

and a special shout-out to the bands on the L.A. scene who've made my life so much

richer over the past 5-plus years.

My Favorite 10 Albums of 2007

1. Blonde

Redhead, "23"

2. The National, "Boxer"

3. LCD

Soundsystem, "Sound of Silver"

4. Against Me!, "New

Wave"

5. Spoon, "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga"

6. The Cribs,

"Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever"

7. Arcade Fire, "Neon

Bible"

8. Lupe Fiasco, "Cool"

9. The Shins,

"Wincing the Night Away"

10. Softlightes, "Say No to Being

Cool -- Say Yes to Being Happy" *

Comments: It's scares me how much

this list largely parallels other blogs/music mags. Yes, Fiasco's album just came out,

but on first, second and third blush it's a long-range keeper. And that's right, no

Radiohead. So sue me. 6.8.

* See final list

Buzz Bands' Top 10 L.A. Albums of 2007

1. Foreign Born, "On the Wing Now"

2. John Doe, "A Year in

the Wilderness"

3. Sea Wolf, "Leaves in the River"

4. CoCo B's, "CoCo B's"

5. Eleni Mandell, "Miracle of

Five"

6. Earlimart, "Mentor Tormentor"

7. Culver

City Dub Collective, "Dos"

8. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club,

"Baby 81"

9. Rilo Kiley, "Under the Blacklight"

10. Great Northern, "Trading Twilight for Daylight"

Comments:

Foreign Born is just plain good. CoCo B's self-released disc is a great surprise. Culver

City Dub Collective's genre-mashing is sublime. Eleni Mandell -- who needs Feist? And

Rilo Kiley's album just kept growing on me.

Ten L.A. Bands Whose Debuts Made Me Anxious for the

Sophomore Album

1. The Deadly Syndrome, "The

Ortolan"

2. The Broken West, "I Can't Go On, I'll Go On"

3. Robert Francis, "One by One"

4. The Parson Red Heads,

"King Giraffe"

5. Delta Spirit, "Delta Spirit"

6. Frankel, "Lullaby for the Passersby"

7. Year Long Disaster,

"Year Long Disaster"

8. Sara Bareilles, "Little Voice"

9. The Minor Canon, "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished"

10. No

Age, "Weirdo Rippers"

Ten L.A. Bands Whose 2007 EPs Made

Me Want More

Castledoor, the Airborne Toxic Event, the Weather

Underground, the Black Kites, Voxhaul Broadcast, Sam Sparro, Manic, Radars to the Sky,

Sara Lov, Aushua.

Three Albums From Bands Whom I Loved in the '90s and Still

Do

1. Buffalo Tom, "Three Easy Pieces"

2.

Dinosaur Jr., "Beyond"

3. Smashing Pumpkins,

"Zeitgeist"

Five Hip-Hop Albums I Would Recommend If

Anybody Believed I Recommended Hip-Hop Albums

1. Lupe Fiasco,

"Cool"

2. Kanye West, "Graduation"

3. Brother

Ali, "Undisputed Truth"

4. El-P, "I'll Sleep When You're

Dead"

5. Aesop Rock, "None Shall Pass"

Under the Radar: Six Overlooked Albums

1.

Softlightes, "Say No to Being Cool -- Say Yes to Being Happy": Cinematic

electro-pop that recalls Grandaddy at its finest.

2. The High Strung,

"Get the Guests": Catchy and clever, hold the irony, with peripatetic melody

lines that do not quit.

3. Minipop, "A New Hope": Gorgeous and

beautifully layered shoegaze-pop with rhythms that will drive you right into a dreamlike

state.

4. The Blakes, "The Blakes": Soulful garage rock that's good

for your summer sweat.

5. The Comas, "Spells": Distortion-heavy

power pop arrives in bursts, may leave marks.

6. Young Galaxy, "Young

Galaxy": Other Canadian exports (Kevin Drew, Sunset Rubdown, Feist, et. al.) earned

more buzz, but this album feel like a warm waking dream.

Comments:

Somehow I saw Softlightes play live 10 times in 2007. I left each show in a better mood

than when I arrived.

 

The next time someone tells you that booze doesn't make the world a better place, you just tell them to go listen to Corrine Bailey Rae and her remix of "Like A Star" at the wonderfully titled website www.generouspour.com. The seasonal website for Clos du Bois Wines has lovely traditonal holiday recipes for things like, um, "stoned crab cobbler with coconut" (what, are we pre-gaming for New Year's at Jimmy Buffett's beach hut?) and "Hot Italian Sausage Stuffing" (I'm pretty sure that's the gay porn version of "Roman Holiday"). Anyway, the website, which will be up through today, has a free download of "Like A Star" by Grammy nominee Rae and every time someone downloads it, Clos du Bois will donate $1 to Share Our Strength, a non-profit working against hunger and poverty in the U.S. It sounds like booze-company guilt to us, and wouldn't Amy Winehouse have been a better choice here for so many reasons? As for the music: The song is pretty much played out and the remix here is a fairly glossy affair but it is also free and unobjectionable as a dinner-party fare. So pass the potatoes...

--Geoff Boucher

The Beatle who earned his famous nickname by covering his fingers with rings is now making news with a bracelet. “Liverpool 8,” the new Capitol/EMI album from 67-year-old Ringo Starr, is being released Jan. 15 as a CD, a digital download and also as a “pre-loaded USB wristband” that includes all 12 tracks and a slew of extras, including “a personal video message, interview and track commentary from Ringo Starr, behind-the-scenes making-of footage from the recording sessions, ringtones, photos and more.” (Shouldn't those be "Ringo-tones"?) There’s more details at www.ringostarr.com but this already opens a whole new world of albums-as-accessories. How soon can we buy “Blackout” by Britney Spears in the ankle-monitor format? And how great would be to work toward the weekend by wearing Loverboy’s greatest hits in your headband?

--Geoff Boucher

Just in time to service your holiday malaise, two of my favorite DJ collectives are

conspiring to set sadness to music tonight at the downtown bar La Cita.

Give Up -- the seasonal club night initiated by the DJ collective Dublab and manned the past several years by Mark

"Frosty" McNeill and Jimmy Tamborello -- gets back into its wintry spirit as

DJs spin depressing songs on the bar's back patio. It's described as "a deeply

depressing disc sob session." Inside the bar, Part Time Punks' Michael Stock and others will

be hosting "A Sad, Slow Dance Party," promising "all slow dancing, all

night long."

There's no cover. Tears start to flow at 9 p.m.

Photo of DJ Frosty (from 2005) by Kevin Bronson/LAT

Happier choices for Tuesday, Dec. 18

Pop sextet Castledoor brings its

sublime tunes to Boardner's in the final monthly show of the year presented by Radio Free Silver Lake. The Flying Tourbillon Orchestra

and Frankel are also playing the

18-and-older show, which is free. ... Mighty Six Ninety and Io Echo rock the Troubadour. ... Oliver Future continues its Tuesday

residency at the Viper Room. ... The

Monolators head a good local bill at the Scene. ... And John Gold performs at Bordello.

The obituary this morning says Dan Fogelberg helped "define soft rock," but

that sounds kind of flaccid compared to what the singer-songwriter, who died Sunday at

age 56, meant to a bunch of kids in the working-class neighborhoods of Peoria, Ill., in

the early 1970s.

Fogelberg graduated from Woodruff High School the year before I got there, leaving

behind some stories of a rock band called the Coachmen (I actually owned the 45 at one

point -- oh, where did it go?) and the occasional rumor he'd gone off to California, a

place that seemed so distant from our Midwestern factory town as to be a mirage. Not

many of us had California dreams then; we'd do well to graduate high school and get on

at Caterpillar Tractor Co. (which accounted for something like 1 in 5 paychecks in our

city in those days). If we were really lucky, we'd go to college.

In the fall of my junior year, "Home Free" arrived, and we were mesmerized.

Fogelberg's debut album -- a beautifully orchestrated bouquet of ballads that veered

toward what we now would call alt-country -- took his alma mater by storm. It christened

the tape player in my first car; it was played endlessly at basement parties from Grand

View Drive to the lower East Bluff. I'm pretty sure there isn't a song in my collection

I've played over the years more than that second track, "Stars."

Fogelberg was our Jackson Browne, a romantic who shared our roots and who had the

courage to strike out in service of his poetry. As I trudged through the snow delivering

my Peoria Journal Stars every morning, that was a pretty important symbol.

I always blanched at, but ultimately forgave, the arch sentimentality that seemingly

oppressive production brought to Fogelberg's later albums. He had earned the right to

pursue whatever vision struck him. When my brother and I took in a Fogelberg show a few

years ago in Anaheim, it wasn't so much for musical nostalgia as it was a thank-you.

In one subtle but important way, Dan Fogelberg was the leader of our band.

Curiosity piqued by the announcement of the Gibson "Robot" Guitar, I headed down to my favorite guitar shop in L.A. on Saturday to check it out myself. I was a little disappointed, frankly.

With a name like "the Robot," I was expecting this six-stringer to jump out of the case unprovoked and run around the room, shouting, "Danger Will Robinson!" or "For those about to rock we salute you!" or "Sarah Connor?" or something. Instead, the Robot just lay in his case, looking like a standard (or, for those of you in the know, a "studio") Les Paul. The only obvious differences were larger tuning pegs and a funky-looking control where one of the standard four volume/tone knobs is usually located. This, I was told, was the "MCK" or "Master Control Knob."

"Now there's the kind of Orwellian 'oh no, the machines have achieved artificial intelligence and have enslaved all carbon-based lifeforms on the planet'-kind of language I was hoping for," I thought.

But alas, the master control knob just controls the Robot's auto-tuning mechanism. It's pretty neat, I'll admit. You pull out the knob, spin the top dial to one of several tuning-configuration presets (standard, "drop d," open-tuning, etc.), tap the top, strum the strings, wait for the tuning pegs to auto-jiggy into position, and voila--push the knob back in and your Les Paul has an alternate tuning.

For the overwhelming majority of guitar players who play in standard tuning, what are the advantages? Well, for about $1000 more than what you'd spend on a regular Les Paul, you can keep your axe in really, really, really good tune.

So who is the real market for Gibson's Robot Guitar? Wealthy guitar players who need to constantly and radically alter their tuning. If that's not you, buy a chromatic tuner and save the Robot Guitar for Joni Mitchell.

--Liam Gowing

Welcome to Soundboard, the new music blog from the L.A. Times written by a band of opinionated, sometimes cranky, sometimes ecstatic music lovers. Soundboard will blog breaking news, concert previews, album and single reviews, and lots of random observations about this vast, exciting, wacko place known as the music world. By the way, we're nomads, committed to no single genre, era or chart, so expect Soundboard to be all over the place, like a Sonic Youth song covered by Beyonce playing at a Mexican restaurant in Torrance. That song doesn't exist (yet) but you get the point.

I don't know why, but I'm thinking about record clubs. I remember a time when my older brother belonged to one and he'd show me his cool new tapes. (Yeah, tapes. Don't laugh.) "I got this for a penny!" he's say, shaking Duran Duran's "Rio" in my face. I was amazed. A penny? How can they do that??

So I started searching around to see if any are left.

Turns out that BMG Columbia House still has one but from their home page, you can tell they're making their money from DVDs. "Music Service" is off to the side. When you click on it, it takes you to one of the saddest little web pages in the world, seemingly designed by Your Local Mall's Party Store circa 1988.

I'm going to find out a little more about this whole thing, but in the meantime, does anyone still belong to a record club out there?

[Crickets.]

--Margaret Wappler

I'm not part of the pack salivating over "Raising Sand," the new Alison Krauss/Robert Plant collab -- its backwoods flavor is slightly overcooked, in my book -- but I love the CD's cover art. The frontispiece shows the two stars relaxing in some desert setting, smiling off into the distance, perhaps at T-Bone Burnett bringing them another sheaf of folk-pop obscurities to peruse.

The back's the clincher, though. Plant's back is turned, and Krauss, leaning toward him, throws a grin over her shoulder as they walk away. She looks like a contented cat making off with her canary. The Lion King may be nearly sixty and more interested in crooning than howling out all of his love, but Krauss certainly knows that by clutching that arm, she's fulfilling a fantasy that sustained generations of teen-age girls, dreaming in their bedrooms to Led Zeppelin's massive kathunking mojo blues. Though I'm sure their collaboration was strictly artistic, here's to her for having fun with her chance to quietly fly her metal horns and say, "Ladies, eat your hearts out!"

--Ann Powers

I am not necessarily a fan of the

Mormons, but as a baseball guy I just about did a spit take when I saw the

tongue-in-cheek poster for the Los Angeles band's current stand at Mr. T's Bowl. [Sorry

for the sloppy clean-up job; it's a family blog, you know.]

[Our local music spotlight, for the moment, remains pointed at power pop, because

it just seems to go so well with summertime:]


Ari Shine landed with a crunch -- and

that's the crunch of a big power chord -- when he released his debut EP

"Age/Occupation" in 2006. Quickly he became a songwriter-to-watch in the L.A.

power-pop underground, if not somebody who carries enough melodies to wriggle a bunch of

his songs onto TV shows, and his energetic stage show hinted that he might become an

artist who could transcend the frequently fey trappings of the form.

His

full-length debut, "A Force of One" (released in July on Bongo Beat), suggests

that Shine is not content to merely ride the coattails  of his forebears. There's

some boy-meets/loses-girl material here, much of it cleverly couched ("Flirtation

Device"), but he sinks his hooks into broader storytelling too (see the song

below). The album was produced by former Sparks guitarist Earle Mankey, who has worked with

L.A. notables such as Concrete Blonde and the Three O'Clock. The result is a collection

that's a little bit Elvis Costello, a little bit Matthew Sweet and maybe a bit Brendan

Benson.

||| Shine performs tonight at the Knitting Factory as part of International Pop Overthrow. He also

is playing a couple West Cost dates supporting Peter

Case prior to a Sept. 18 date at Safari Sam's as a supporting act for Miles Hunt of the Wonder Stuff.

||| Download: "Beirut 1978."

Photo by Sam Peacock

"Korn's new album doesn't have a title."

"So how do you order it?"

"You don't. It's Korn."

I missed it and, from reports, am regretting it. Bat for Lashes, the nom de tune of

Brighton, England's Natasha Khan, wowed the room last night at Spaceland. The common

sentiment I heard from a couple people: No wonder she is nominated for the Mercury

Music Prize.

You'll be hearing more about her.

For now, here is the enchanting video for "What's a Girl to Do."

Touts for Wednesday, Aug. 1

The Format starts a two-show stand (the

Avalon tonight, House of Blues tomorrow); the band for two weeks offered its latest

album, "Dog Problems," as a free download from its website and reported that

45,000 copies of the (very

good) album were ripped. ... Great

Glass Elevator (whose inventiveness kind of reminds me of the Format in a way) play

Club NME at Spaceland tonight. ... The Automatic Music

Explosion plays the Scene in Glendale. ... And the Stevenson Ranch Davidians

start a run of Wednesday shows at the Echo.

Consider this a warm-up for "The Simpsons

Movie" (opening in two weeks).

The musician's name is Zack Kim, a 24-year-old

university student who was born in Seoul, South Korea, reared in Malaysia and is now

studying in Australia. There are more examples of his technique on his website, and the

young man has his own Wikipedia

page.

He tells me via e-mail that he after he completes his studies in two years he hopes

to devote all his energies to music, and eventually he "would really love to

perform in the States, as it would be a dream come true for me."

Have to

think he'd be quite a hit at the premiere party.

Summer is here, in case you were too busy on MySpace to get the memo. The concert

calendar always seems to remind me before the real calendar, what with the Hollywood

Bowl kicking into gear and the onslaught of distinguished veteran rock bands starting to

make the stadium rounds.

(Email from a friend who went to Dodger Stadium this weekend: "They were pretty

awesome for a Police cover band.")

The smaller events have their cachet too -- the Sunday afternoon Do-Over at Crane's, the Little Radio Summer Camp. And then there was last

Thursday's Late Night at LACMA, the annual summer

solstice soiree, which attracted 7,853 museum visitors and probably disappointed

hundreds of others who waited for hours in long lines only to give up. (To be fair, what

part of "early arrival recommended" did you not understand?)

Late Night was a melange of music, hipster ephemera (T-shirt screen printing by Hit +

Run now seems mandatory if you are throwing any kind of cross-cultural event) and art.

Suffice to say there were plenty of photo ops in the Dan Flavin retrospective, a refuge

for attendees who could only handle small doses of offerings from DJs Steve Aoki,

Internationalist and handful of others. I missed the set by the always-solid Rebirth but caught one of L.A.'s favorite party

bands, Ima Robot, who got folks dancing despite

the band's relative lack of amplification.

◊ ◊ ◊

Where did June go?

The Monday night residencies end tonight at Spaceland, the Echo and Silverlake

Lounge. The L.A. quartet the Deadly

Syndrome (Spaceland) seems to have grown into polished band overnight (and wait till

you hear the album), and Thailand

(Silverlake Lounge), despite playing as a three-piece with electronic rhythms, serve up

a compelling new-wave/post-punk cocktail. And I have not made it to the Echo to see

Philadelphia ex-pats Burning Brides

(maybe tonight?), but people I trust give me good reports.

◊ ◊ ◊

At Safari Sam's on Friday night, the Silver Lake/Echo Park masses gathered to bid

farewell to Sea Level Records and its

proprietor, Todd Clifford. The independent outlet has been a locus of the Eastside music

scene for more than 5 years, and Clifford is closing more for I-need-a-life-change

reasons than business.

Today is the last day Sea Level is scheduled to be open.

Photos: LACMA attendees get up close with Dan Flavin's work; Ima Robot rocks in the

courtyard. By Kevin Bronson / LAT.

The Little Ones are still one

of this city's strongest musical happy pills, but, as a set Friday night showed, it's

hard to maintain that peak level of exuberance when you're doing it night after night,

tour after tour.

The L.A.

quintet -- "Rhymin' Simon on steroids" is how I described them last year, and

it still applies -- played an ASCAP- and Filter-sponsored music night on Friday tied to

the Silverlake Film Festival. The stuff from their "Sing Song" EP still

sounded crisp, and their new songs were upbeat and catchy too. But after having spent

the early part of this year doing some rigorous touring, the Little Ones weren't quite

as unhinged as they were when their EP was first released and Astralwerks (in the U.S.)

and Heavenly (in the U.K.) swooped in to sign the band.

Are the Little Ones still as happy as their music? "That's a good

question," frontman Edward Reyes says. "We're excited. ... Remember, we just

looked at that EP as our calling card -- we just wanted to get some shows with

it."

Their as-yet-untitled debut album is recorded and due in January, Reyes says.

"It's turning out great," he adds. "Right now we have a whole track

devoted to laughing."

||| Download Little Ones' songs from their Daytrotter session here.

◊ ◊ ◊

Passion of the Weiss has a

play-by-play of Britney Spears' Houses of Blues appearance (I will not call it a

performance). He even has some empathy.

◊ ◊ ◊

Ran into an employee of a recently merged record company who was enthused about

having adopted a puppy. Cute thing ... so what did you name him? "Andy

Slater."

◊ ◊ ◊

"So how

was Coachella?" That was the most-asked

question last week. I told inquiring minds that it was a three-day weekend of

once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and even as they were unfolding I knew I was missing

others. Wish the festival could have just hesitated a few times each day and let me

catch up.

The inconsiderate hipsters at Anthem, who throw their Coachella party during the day

while the music is going on, tell me I missed something else too -- a mask-less Thomas

Bangalter from Daft Punk [face obscured] spinning the LCD Soundsystem track "Daft

Punk Is Playing at My House." Not that anybody recognized him. But a cool party

nonetheless.

Daft Punk turned up on the turntables a couple nights later at the Echo too. Not that

anybody recognized them.

Touts for tonight

Gliss (Spaceland), the High Society (Silverlake Lounge), Bodies of Water (Echo) and Richard Bivens & Foreign Press

(Detroit Bar) start their Monday night residencies. ... Midnight Movies plays an in-store at

Amoeba. ... And London's Apartment joins

locals the Grand Marquee and others

at Indie 103.1's Viper Room show.

The music is pretty hard on the ears, kind of a flailing

attempt at dance-party relevance. But the album cover (that's the original at right) is

even harder on the eyes -- so Perry Farrell's Satellite Party revised it. Stereogum has a

compare-and-contrast. I'm not sure, but this would not have passed muster in the

Photoshop classes I slogged through years ago. This does, however, guarantee that the

album will chart. Here.

[Guest blogger August Brown is hot both because he is fly, and because he should

have worn more sunscreen.]

If Coachella success was measured in words per minute, Busdriver would have been the day's

undisputed champ. But fortunately for the old-guard L.A.-based MC, he dropped jaws and

machine-gun metaphors alike during his astonishingly dextrous set.

Busdriver was equally compelling needling the crowd with accusations of yuppiedom as

he did slaying them with fiery indignance at the ways the music industry exploits

rappers. Over a loose-limbed flurry of house and jungle-inspired beats, he extolled

cheeba and wryly freestyled that "in the Gobi tent is how an O.G. represents."

Original gangstas are few and far between at Coachella, but unless Ghostface pulls off

a miracle tomorrow, Busdriver may hit the 10 freeway home as the weekend's reigning

rhyme-slinger.

This was featured in our Downloads column last weekend (a good reason to drop

some coin on the Saturday print edition or check the pop music page on your local

newspaper's website). I've been a sucker for Travis' brand of Britpop since the first Clinton

Administration. Here's the video for "Closer," and, yeah, Ben Stiller makes a

good grocer.

Ozomatli looked to the visual for inspiration

when writing its new album, “Don’t Mess With the Dragon” (due April 3 on Concord

Records) — much of the initial songwriting came out of jam sessions at the Tropico de

Nopal art gallery. Now the veteran L.A. nine-piece might have found a vision to suit its

sound.

The new video for the single “Can’t Stop” is a dizzying collage of

stop-animation and storytelling that seems equal to Ozomatli’s mashing of Latin flavors,

rock, hip-hop and funk — a hybrid many have said is distinctly Los Angeles.

“We haven’t had a lot of luck with videos in the past,” acknowledges Ulises Bella, who

plays saxophone and clarinet for the band.

Ozomatli turned to New York-based

artist-illustrator Richard Borge for “Can’t Stop,” even though the 41-year-old, who had

done album art for bands such as Meat Beat Manifesto, had never done a music video.

Danse électrique: Tecktonik takes over Paris

Friday's "Column One" (on the front page of the Los Angeles Times) has a nice feature by Paris correspondent Geraldine Baum on Tecktonik (a.k.a. Tektonik), the style of dancing seen all over the Internet (even on Second Life) and popularized by Parisian clubbers and French electro acts such as Yelle, whose video for "A Cause des Garçons" features a bit of Tektonik-style dancing. Check the YouTube video above to see some equally nice moves.

Even though the trend is far from new, it's certainly new to most Americans, who, as a general rule, don't nessesarily excel at dancing to techno (guilty as charged).

-- Charlie Amter

You can tell a lot about a person from their heroes. There are those who cite great statesmen or politicians; others look up to athletes, scientists, philosophers or artists.

For British musician and humorist Neil Innes, it’s Brian Dunkleman, who quit his job co-hosting “American Idol” with Ryan Seacrest because he didn’t like the way contestants were being treated.

Miami is in mourning this week. After record-breaking crowds (buoyed no doubt by the anemic dollar and increasingly strong euro) swarmed South Beach last week for the annual dance music confab known as the Winter Music Conference, Collins Avenue hotels are now back to hosting New Jersey college students flossin on their spring break -- or worse, elderly Canadian couples seeking respite from a still bitter winter.

This past weekend, however, the festival was in full swing, with momentum that hasn't been witnessed at WMC since the late '90s. London dance label owners mixed it up with DJs from Berlin and employees of burgeoning Internet upstarts such as MP3 giant Beatport at swank hotels, i.e., the National and the still-under-construction Gansevoort Miami. In fact, the Gansevoort claimed one of the hottest nights of the fest with an exclusive Paul Oakenfold set. Believe it or not, brazen groups of men actually bum-rushed the velvet rope to get into the new hotel, much to the surprise of the overwhelmed staff.

But for many, the highlight of the week of DJ-centric festivities was surely the massive Ultra Music Festival. Taking place far from South Beach over two days at downtown Miami’s Bicentennial Park, Ultra did not disappoint. Sets from Sweden’s Eric Prydz, France’s David Guetta and Underworld defined the Coachella-like gathering (think multiple sweltering tents and scores of seemingly Ecstasy-addled kids bouncing between them to catch their favorite acts), with Underworld getting the biggest response from the 20,000 + strong crowd (per day), despite early technical problems that plagued the English duo responsible for one of the biggest (and unlikeliest) dance hits of the 1990s, “Born Slippy.”

Berlin-based DJ/producer Alex Ridha, better known as Boys Noize, isn't exactly a fan of Miami. Or a fan of cameras, for that matter.

"It's a weird place, honestly," he said backstage before a Scion-sponsored gig Thursday afternoon for WMC. "There are some horrible people going around here."

Regardless, the crowd, most of whom are dance-music industry insiders from New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago, ate up his set yesterday, which was heavy on material from his lauded 2007 release Oi Oi Oi.

"In Germany the minimal scene is so dominant," he says of his overseas success, which now looks set to cross the Atlantic with shows booked at Coachella and several UK festivals later this spring and summer.

"When I started my [Boysnoize] label three years ago, none of this music was popular," he says. Now that kindred acts such as Justice have broken in the U.S., Boys Noize's hard, dissonant sound is resonating with dance music and indie rock fans.

"I'm more into techno than indie dance stuff," he says. "But I'm happy American fans are discovering me."

After Boys Noize's two-hour set (where he played everything from an updated electro version of Laurie Anderson's "Superman" to Justice), another buzzing German act, Digitalism, took the stage behind the Raleigh Hotel's pool.

The Hamburg duo have already made sizable inroads in the U.S., thanks to their brand of dance music that verges on indie rock. Some have dubbed them the German Daft Punk.

Ridha actually went to college with one of the members of Digitalism in Hamburg, but he considers his Noize different from Digitalism's brand of dance music.

"I would never play Digitalism in my set," he says. "What I do is straight for the clubs ... but I like them."

Spoken like a true Teutonic gentleman.

--post and photograph by Charlie Amter

German artists Boys Noize and Digitalism play the Ultra Music Festival at Winter Music Conference today.

Miami's annual dance music sleaze-a-thon, the Winter Music Conference, is nearly in full swing today, with most attendees wandering Collins Avenue looking for the best DJ events/hotel parties by 2 p.m. No one gets up before noon.

Some of today's best events are at the Raleigh, where New York's Lady GaGa is making her WMC debut at an Armani Exchange-sponsored rooftop terrace soiree.

Interscope has high hopes for the newly signed dance diva, who has already written songs for several artists (including Pussycat Dolls) and is on the verge of signing a publishing contract to augment her label deal.

"Jimmy [Iovine] and I get along great," she says of the Interscope honcho from the rooftop of the Raleigh. "I'm the kind of Italian Brookyln girl he would have liked to take to the prom," she laughs. "He loved me."

The Lady, who's fond of performing in naughty underwear ensembles, chains and stripper heels, got her start playing Brooklyn parties and clubs in Manhattan in 2005 with her equally brazen backup dancers. "I put together a show in New York where we spun beats on vinyl and I played keyboards over the records," she says. "We wore matching bikinis," the Lady giggles, adding that the show was "yummy."

It remains to be seen whether of not the rest of America will find Lady GaGa's musical offerings as delicious as New York does. Her music sounds not unlike a drunken Madonna, Peaches and Kylie Minogue recording session with lots of sticky Champagne spilled on the demos. Lady GaGa's debut disc, made for the "rock and rollers who wanted to listen to pop records," drops this summer. The big Madonna fan's single, "Just Dance," hits next week.

Oh, and Interscope recently moved her into a Hollywood-adjacent apartment, so look out, Angelenos.

--  Post and photo by Charlie Amter

It's been quite a month for daredevil wacko and part time rapper Steve-O.

Arrested on March 3 and booked for vandalizing his own apartment and possession of a controlled substance (cocaine apparently), the "Jackass" star found himself facing eviction when he returned home. That's when, according to his own MySpace blog, things began to spiral out of control. Or at least, more out of control than usual.

The cyberspace saga commences harmlessly enough with a posting on March 8, in which the 33-year-old announces that he'd been evicted and requests that his "Jackass" costars and friends help him move out the following morning. But the video clips in the following post from March 9 couldn't be more terrifying. The second, "Eviction Party Begins," shows Steve-O hosting a kind of bizzaro MTV Cribs: Half-naked and visibly intoxicated, he wanders around his trashed apartment carrying a hefty revolver, which at one point he uses to play Russian Roulette.

In the following entry, posted March 13, Steve-O announces that he's in "the looney bin" because, the morning after his "Eviction Party Begins" was shot, his "Jackass" costars forced him into a hospital on a "5150," a three-day psychiatric hold, later extended to a "5250," 14-day hold.

That's where things get really interesting.

The entries continue, posted by his assistant Jen Moore, but written by Steve-O from inside the undisclosed treatment center, where he may well have been completely sober for the first time in years. In their own way, these entries are as shocking as the infamous stunt in which Steve-O stapled his scrotum to his leg, because they reveal an intelligent, articulate, well-read and deeply philosophical individual coming to terms with a lifetime of substance abuse and related bipolar issues.

Spiked with moments of epiphany and apology, Steve-O's confessional journey from drug-induced rock-bottom to something approaching health may be a cliche--of course, it's one of the oldest in the Hollywood playbook--but it's still remarkable.

Lots of questions remain: Will Steve-O stay sober or will he fall back into his bad habits? Will he be able to continue his inane stunt career after acknowledging that "the nature of my work almost embraced my addictions," or will he retire? And what exactly are the ramifications of the dawning of the Age of Aquarius he discusses in his March 21 entry?

Time will tell.

--Liam Gowing

A few weeks ago, I interviewed Bad Religion founder Greg Graffin about his band's recent string of L.A.-area dates. Bad Religion's been through several commercial revivals, as wiseacre punks, as an unlikely radio act in the mid-'90s ("You and meee ... have a diseeease ..." ) and most recently as something approximating a hugely successful local band. They play large theaters and festivals and sell decently around the world, but to someone whose experience with rock radio is limited to KROQ, they must seem as big as Linkin Park. I always chalked it up as a Southern California thing, that the '90s varietal of double-time skate punk that came to be called the "Epitaph Sound" put its claws in deep after the Offspring and never let up. All that grindable pavement, the year-long sunshine and the intraversible open space of L.A.'s mutant version of urbanity certainly helped.

When the video for Lil' Wayne's new, so-inane-it-might-be-genius single "Lollipop" began making the rounds, it seemed oddly ... familiar. Not just because its narrative arc of Wayne looking stoked about his money and club-girl harem is well-traversed hip-hop video territory, though. Something in the particular visual kinesis of him driving around Vegas playing guitar out of the sunroof of his stretch Hummer or whatever. Then it hit us --  Silversun Pickups (and director Joaquin Phoenix) made the exact same video for their single "Little Lover's So Polite." Just replace the Pickups' preteen Aryan couple and downtown L.A. with Wayne's video vixens and the Vegas strip. Note the 1:53 mark in "Lollipop" and the 3:06 point in "Little Lover's" where each artist plays their respective butt rock guitar solo. Wayne's guitar face is much more convincing, we think.

-- August Brown

Illustration by August Brown; Lil' Wayne photo by Jonathan Mannion; Silversun Pickups photo by Gail Salmo

Lil' Wayne: "Lollipop"

Silversun Pickups: "Little Lover's So Polite"

Your daily six-degrees-of-Rilo Kiley round-up: Women's Wear Daily is reporting that guitarist Blake Sennett has finally passed the penultimate indie-dude coming-of-age ritual and is getting hitched to Winona Ryder. Us Weekly is denying the claim. The two are definitely starring in an upcoming film called "Water Pill." Jenny Lewis is making an album with Elvis Costello and Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes, whom you heard from last week. We just want some CornNuts. BQ.

-- August Brown

Photo by New World Pictures

We’re not sure exactly why the Foo Fighters are considered rock royalty now (“The Pretender” as a best-record nominee at the Grammys? Well, at least it lives up to its title ...), but Dave Grohl does have an admirable sense of humor. Exhibit A: His deadpan performance of “Leather and Lace” with the always loopy Will Ferrell at a recent L.A. fundraiser:

-- Geoff Boucher

Now that Super Tuesday has proven inconclusive on all fronts, let’s engage in some unfounded speculation: Might any of the presidential candidates show up at Sunday’s Grammy Awards?

The Repubs will likely stay home -– despite Mike Huckabee’s electric bass skills and Burt Bacharach’s reported fondness for John McCain, their support among pop stars is generally thin. Ron Paul can claim only Arlo Guthrie. (You can check out who’s supporting whom here.)

Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, however, are still vying for the pop star vote as well as the popular one. A quick and dirty survey of Grammy nominees reveals Clinton with six nominated stumpers -- Madonna, Tony Bennett, Jon Bon Jovi, 50 Cent, Timbaland and Barbra Streisand -– and Obama with five -- Ne-Yo, Usher, Harry Connick Jr., Win Butler of Arcade Fire and Jeff Tweedy of Wilco.

Will.i.am, Obama’s most active pop pal of late, didn’t earn any noms for his commercial flop of a solo album, but he’ll likely be on hand to pop the cork with Fergie if she takes a statue home. We could definitely see the irrepressible Black Eyed Pea pulling Barry onstage for a chorus of Fergie’s “Glamorous.”

And Hillary should really dump that Celine campaign song for an all-American medley of her pal Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” and “(You Want to) Make a Memory.” Although seeing her do the freak with Justin during 50’s “Ayo Technology”…. OK, that seems unlikely. But hey, there’s always Timbaland. He did wonders for Nelly Furtado. He could get the uber baby-boomer candidate out of her cultural rut!

In the meantime, check out Oh! Industry’s excellent roundtable of dedications to favorite candidates.

-- Ann Powers

I think I found the cure for the common TV. Of course, it's right here on your very

own Internet.

It's My Damn

Channel, a portal that is home to offerings from musician extraordinaire Don Was, along with the likes of Harry

Shearer, David Wain and others.


Was, a bassist, music supervisor, documentary director, Grammy-winning producer and a

driving force behind the cutting-edge funk outfit Was

(Not Was), has seldom been more sublimely
entertaining than as the cool-cat host of the "Wasmopolitan Dance
Party" -- a webisode filmed in the showroom of the Furniture Outlet, a
budget joint in North Hollywood. [Pardon the ads, but the installment above is well

worth their intrusion.]

There is singer-songwriter Jill Sobule, gamely playing her beautiful songs

from behind a dining-room set as shoppers mill about looking a recliners.

"I can't compete with the set-up on Letterman" Was says with a laugh.

"But doing something like this, we asked, 'What could we offer that's different?'

The answer is, the stripped-down and personal stuff."

In the ranks of overwrought music writing that have appeared in the Village Voice, Garrett Kamps is a god among fanboys. His recent review of Cat Power's flawed but arresting "Jukebox" covers record is especially troubling. It's not so much the rank misogyny or his John Yoo-level torturing of the em dash that really derails this review, but the fact that he doesn't seem to know what, exactly, a "cougar" is. Given our close approximation to Orange County, we know all too well. Cougars are sexually aggressive women on the far side of 40 peddling consequence-free hookups to inexperienced young men who will relay the tales in hushed, reverent tones over Halo 3 tournaments with their friends. Does that sound like an apt description of Cat Power (a.k.a. Chan Marshall), who once wrote a song about Patti Smith's children and her own abortion? Or the one who wrote one of 2006's most generous, uplifting Southern soul albums, "The Greatest?"

If Kamps is truly hunting for cougars, we can suggest a few better places for him to start trolling.

-- August Brown

[Cougar photo by Christine Cotter / Los Angeles Times. Chan Marshall photo by Stefano Giovannini / Beggars Group LTD via Bloomberg News]

An earlier version of this blog incorrectly referred to John Yoo as John Wu. And that was all Margaret's fault and not August's, so she will be buying him a latte something-or-another later today. Maybe.

It was an interesting week in musical contrasts.

On the invitation of Fuel TV's Daryl Berg, I stopped by Swing House in Hollywood on Monday to see the Bravery. The New York five-piece was at the recording studio-cum-rehearsal space to shoot a live segment for Fuel TV's "Check 1, 2." (If you're wondering what the connection is between the band and the action sports network, apparently two of the dudes like to surf.)

While I was there, the quintet ran through three of their songs three times each for Swing House's microphones and Fuel TV's cameras, and I would be lying if I didn't report that the performances were faultless--just like the recordings complete with spot-on vocals. Listening to the songs ("An Honest Mistake," "Believe" and "Time Won't Let Me Go"), I couldn't help but remark to Berg how incredulous I was that these guys aren't already superstars.

Seriously, the Bravery has a winning formula. It's not theirs, of course, it's Duran Duran's: five really good-looking guys with flawless haircuts and sharp outfits to match, playing insanely catchy New Wave-y tunes--hi-hat-heavy drums, octave-friendly bass, breathy keyboards, distorted rhythm guitars and crystalline leads, plus sour-sweet, whiny vocals--that sound both supremely commercial yet genuinely edgy.

The band's only modest success so far might have something to do with the fact that none of the band members--with the possible exception of the overly excited drummer--exhibited the slightest trace of personality at the shoot. I mean, it was dead silent between takes: No evidence of any camaraderie between the members; no jokes or horseplay; no comments, positive or negative, on the performances; no interaction with the crew, record company people or gawkers--just silence. They might have been wax works, but for the movement.

From the Bravery--an up-and-coming band with great chops (but no discernible personality) making a musical appearance--I go to Peter Tork, a rock 'n' roll dinosaur with questionable vocal tendencies (but tons of charisma) making a non-musical appearance.

The former Monkee was hosting a special edition of the Beauty Bar's "oldies 'n' goodies" Wednesday night event, Goodie Tu Shoes. By hosting, I mean he was autographing copies of "Cambria Hotel," a new offering from his rootsy, bluesy new rock 'n' roll band, Shoe Suede Blues.

Tork acted just the way any fan of the Monkees' ridiculous TV show (or thoroughly excellent film, "Head") would have expected: He was friendly, animated and totally goofy. I can't vouch for Shoe Suede Blues being anything more than a respectable honky tonk-style bar band, but after being an extraordinarily well-known (if not necessarily respected) superstar, he deserves a lot of credit for starting over with a new band and doing the little extracurriculars newcomers must to get the word out.

I guess the answer to the question Tork posed here is "yes." -Liam Gowing

[Photo 1: The Bravery at Swing House. Credit: Patrick Weir and Fuel TV. Photo 2: Peter Tork, right, and pal at Beauty Bar-L.A. Credit: Mary Jo Head.]

The Bird and the Bee will be

flying into the desert. Nice.

And one of those assembly-line electro acts that has me convinced technology has made

it far too easy to put out an album, the U.K.'s Does It Offend You Yeah?, will be

playing too.

Yeah, it does.

First, there was "Lip Gloss," Lil Mama's earth-crushing and drums-only ode to windburn protection that sounded more menacing and ruthless than anything on "Curtis." Now, M.I.A.-protege Rye Rye has a smoking, minimalist Baltimore club tune in "Shake It to the Ground" on Diplo's Mad Decent label. Aside from an occasional farted-out bass, the production work from DJ Blaqstarr is again strictly minimalist percussion and gum-smacking chants until practically the end of the song. Have the kids decided they don't need even a perfunctory Korg Triton stab to make a floor-filler? Either way, we dig the Misfits poster in Rye Rye's bedroom in this made-for-pennies video and like to imagine that Glenn Danzig might return the favor someday with a guest verse.

--August Brown

Happy New Year.

And good riddance, 2007.

The year brought an avalanche of music, and the recent holiday week of rumination and

CD-sorting etched in my mind the idea that a whole lot of it was ... well ... pretty

good. Yeah, pretty good, uttered with my head slightly tilted, as if I never

thought once of saying "great" or "really good." If I ever had the

radical notion to rate albums on a 10 scale,

I would swear that half the records I received this year logged somewhere between 6.5

and 6.7 -- a percentage that's skewed because all six copies of the Magic Numbers album that somehow found

their way to my desk would get a 6.2.

Maybe this was the year that trying to

keep up with new music, nationally and locally, finally overwhelmed me, what with every

baby band in the universe engaging in viral marketing, hiring publicists, working with

managers, leaving me polite entreaties on MySpace and generally undermining any belief

that a band can merely grow organically. I attended about 185 shows in 2007 too, many to

follow up on those advertising blitzes.

But after compiling my humble lists

below, I fast-forwarded to December 2009, when all good geeks will be sweating over

their seemingly inevitable Best-of-the-Aughts list. And guess what? Not a single album

from 2007 has a chance of making mine. All of the bands I consider indie icons -- and

I'm sure you can spank me for leaving out people you think are iconic -- released other

albums this decade that are superior to their 2007 releases. For the record, that

pantheon houses the National, Spoon, Modest Mouse, Arcade Fire, Bright Eyes and

Interpol, with other personal faves such as the Shins and Stars living in the backhouse.

Those heavyweights each added to their estimable catalogs, yes; it's just that I'm not

going to pull "We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank" off the shelf first

when I want to hear some Modest Mouse a few years from now.

At least, I don't

think.

The lists follow. Thanks to everybody who sends me music -- really --

and a special shout-out to the bands on the L.A. scene who've made my life so much

richer over the past 5-plus years.

My Favorite 10 Albums of 2007

1. Blonde

Redhead, "23"

2. The National, "Boxer"

3. LCD

Soundsystem, "Sound of Silver"

4. Against Me!, "New

Wave"

5. Spoon, "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga"

6. The Cribs,

"Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever"

7. Arcade Fire, "Neon

Bible"

8. Lupe Fiasco, "Cool"

9. The Shins,

"Wincing the Night Away"

10. Softlightes, "Say No to Being

Cool -- Say Yes to Being Happy" *

Comments: It's scares me how much

this list largely parallels other blogs/music mags. Yes, Fiasco's album just came out,

but on first, second and third blush it's a long-range keeper. And that's right, no

Radiohead. So sue me. 6.8.

* See final list

Buzz Bands' Top 10 L.A. Albums of 2007

1. Foreign Born, "On the Wing Now"

2. John Doe, "A Year in

the Wilderness"

3. Sea Wolf, "Leaves in the River"

4. CoCo B's, "CoCo B's"

5. Eleni Mandell, "Miracle of

Five"

6. Earlimart, "Mentor Tormentor"

7. Culver

City Dub Collective, "Dos"

8. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club,

"Baby 81"

9. Rilo Kiley, "Under the Blacklight"

10. Great Northern, "Trading Twilight for Daylight"

Comments:

Foreign Born is just plain good. CoCo B's self-released disc is a great surprise. Culver

City Dub Collective's genre-mashing is sublime. Eleni Mandell -- who needs Feist? And

Rilo Kiley's album just kept growing on me.

Ten L.A. Bands Whose Debuts Made Me Anxious for the

Sophomore Album

1. The Deadly Syndrome, "The

Ortolan"

2. The Broken West, "I Can't Go On, I'll Go On"

3. Robert Francis, "One by One"

4. The Parson Red Heads,

"King Giraffe"

5. Delta Spirit, "Delta Spirit"

6. Frankel, "Lullaby for the Passersby"

7. Year Long Disaster,

"Year Long Disaster"

8. Sara Bareilles, "Little Voice"

9. The Minor Canon, "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished"

10. No

Age, "Weirdo Rippers"

Ten L.A. Bands Whose 2007 EPs Made

Me Want More

Castledoor, the Airborne Toxic Event, the Weather

Underground, the Black Kites, Voxhaul Broadcast, Sam Sparro, Manic, Radars to the Sky,

Sara Lov, Aushua.

Three Albums From Bands Whom I Loved in the '90s and Still

Do

1. Buffalo Tom, "Three Easy Pieces"

2.

Dinosaur Jr., "Beyond"

3. Smashing Pumpkins,

"Zeitgeist"

Five Hip-Hop Albums I Would Recommend If

Anybody Believed I Recommended Hip-Hop Albums

1. Lupe Fiasco,

"Cool"

2. Kanye West, "Graduation"

3. Brother

Ali, "Undisputed Truth"

4. El-P, "I'll Sleep When You're

Dead"

5. Aesop Rock, "None Shall Pass"

Under the Radar: Six Overlooked Albums

1.

Softlightes, "Say No to Being Cool -- Say Yes to Being Happy": Cinematic

electro-pop that recalls Grandaddy at its finest.

2. The High Strung,

"Get the Guests": Catchy and clever, hold the irony, with peripatetic melody

lines that do not quit.

3. Minipop, "A New Hope": Gorgeous and

beautifully layered shoegaze-pop with rhythms that will drive you right into a dreamlike

state.

4. The Blakes, "The Blakes": Soulful garage rock that's good

for your summer sweat.

5. The Comas, "Spells": Distortion-heavy

power pop arrives in bursts, may leave marks.

6. Young Galaxy, "Young

Galaxy": Other Canadian exports (Kevin Drew, Sunset Rubdown, Feist, et. al.) earned

more buzz, but this album feel like a warm waking dream.

Comments:

Somehow I saw Softlightes play live 10 times in 2007. I left each show in a better mood

than when I arrived.

 

The next time someone tells you that booze doesn't make the world a better place, you just tell them to go listen to Corrine Bailey Rae and her remix of "Like A Star" at the wonderfully titled website www.generouspour.com. The seasonal website for Clos du Bois Wines has lovely traditonal holiday recipes for things like, um, "stoned crab cobbler with coconut" (what, are we pre-gaming for New Year's at Jimmy Buffett's beach hut?) and "Hot Italian Sausage Stuffing" (I'm pretty sure that's the gay porn version of "Roman Holiday"). Anyway, the website, which will be up through today, has a free download of "Like A Star" by Grammy nominee Rae and every time someone downloads it, Clos du Bois will donate $1 to Share Our Strength, a non-profit working against hunger and poverty in the U.S. It sounds like booze-company guilt to us, and wouldn't Amy Winehouse have been a better choice here for so many reasons? As for the music: The song is pretty much played out and the remix here is a fairly glossy affair but it is also free and unobjectionable as a dinner-party fare. So pass the potatoes...

--Geoff Boucher

The Beatle who earned his famous nickname by covering his fingers with rings is now making news with a bracelet. “Liverpool 8,” the new Capitol/EMI album from 67-year-old Ringo Starr, is being released Jan. 15 as a CD, a digital download and also as a “pre-loaded USB wristband” that includes all 12 tracks and a slew of extras, including “a personal video message, interview and track commentary from Ringo Starr, behind-the-scenes making-of footage from the recording sessions, ringtones, photos and more.” (Shouldn't those be "Ringo-tones"?) There’s more details at www.ringostarr.com but this already opens a whole new world of albums-as-accessories. How soon can we buy “Blackout” by Britney Spears in the ankle-monitor format? And how great would be to work toward the weekend by wearing Loverboy’s greatest hits in your headband?

--Geoff Boucher

Just in time to service your holiday malaise, two of my favorite DJ collectives are

conspiring to set sadness to music tonight at the downtown bar La Cita.

Give Up -- the seasonal club night initiated by the DJ collective Dublab and manned the past several years by Mark

"Frosty" McNeill and Jimmy Tamborello -- gets back into its wintry spirit as

DJs spin depressing songs on the bar's back patio. It's described as "a deeply

depressing disc sob session." Inside the bar, Part Time Punks' Michael Stock and others will

be hosting "A Sad, Slow Dance Party," promising "all slow dancing, all

night long."

There's no cover. Tears start to flow at 9 p.m.

Photo of DJ Frosty (from 2005) by Kevin Bronson/LAT

Happier choices for Tuesday, Dec. 18

Pop sextet Castledoor brings its

sublime tunes to Boardner's in the final monthly show of the year presented by Radio Free Silver Lake. The Flying Tourbillon Orchestra

and Frankel are also playing the

18-and-older show, which is free. ... Mighty Six Ninety and Io Echo rock the Troubadour. ... Oliver Future continues its Tuesday

residency at the Viper Room. ... The

Monolators head a good local bill at the Scene. ... And John Gold performs at Bordello.

The obituary this morning says Dan Fogelberg helped "define soft rock," but

that sounds kind of flaccid compared to what the singer-songwriter, who died Sunday at

age 56, meant to a bunch of kids in the working-class neighborhoods of Peoria, Ill., in

the early 1970s.

Fogelberg graduated from Woodruff High School the year before I got there, leaving

behind some stories of a rock band called the Coachmen (I actually owned the 45 at one

point -- oh, where did it go?) and the occasional rumor he'd gone off to California, a

place that seemed so distant from our Midwestern factory town as to be a mirage. Not

many of us had California dreams then; we'd do well to graduate high school and get on

at Caterpillar Tractor Co. (which accounted for something like 1 in 5 paychecks in our

city in those days). If we were really lucky, we'd go to college.

In the fall of my junior year, "Home Free" arrived, and we were mesmerized.

Fogelberg's debut album -- a beautifully orchestrated bouquet of ballads that veered

toward what we now would call alt-country -- took his alma mater by storm. It christened

the tape player in my first car; it was played endlessly at basement parties from Grand

View Drive to the lower East Bluff. I'm pretty sure there isn't a song in my collection

I've played over the years more than that second track, "Stars."

Fogelberg was our Jackson Browne, a romantic who shared our roots and who had the

courage to strike out in service of his poetry. As I trudged through the snow delivering

my Peoria Journal Stars every morning, that was a pretty important symbol.

I always blanched at, but ultimately forgave, the arch sentimentality that seemingly

oppressive production brought to Fogelberg's later albums. He had earned the right to

pursue whatever vision struck him. When my brother and I took in a Fogelberg show a few

years ago in Anaheim, it wasn't so much for musical nostalgia as it was a thank-you.

In one subtle but important way, Dan Fogelberg was the leader of our band.

Curiosity piqued by the announcement of the Gibson "Robot" Guitar, I headed down to my favorite guitar shop in L.A. on Saturday to check it out myself. I was a little disappointed, frankly.

With a name like "the Robot," I was expecting this six-stringer to jump out of the case unprovoked and run around the room, shouting, "Danger Will Robinson!" or "For those about to rock we salute you!" or "Sarah Connor?" or something. Instead, the Robot just lay in his case, looking like a standard (or, for those of you in the know, a "studio") Les Paul. The only obvious differences were larger tuning pegs and a funky-looking control where one of the standard four volume/tone knobs is usually located. This, I was told, was the "MCK" or "Master Control Knob."

"Now there's the kind of Orwellian 'oh no, the machines have achieved artificial intelligence and have enslaved all carbon-based lifeforms on the planet'-kind of language I was hoping for," I thought.

But alas, the master control knob just controls the Robot's auto-tuning mechanism. It's pretty neat, I'll admit. You pull out the knob, spin the top dial to one of several tuning-configuration presets (standard, "drop d," open-tuning, etc.), tap the top, strum the strings, wait for the tuning pegs to auto-jiggy into position, and voila--push the knob back in and your Les Paul has an alternate tuning.

For the overwhelming majority of guitar players who play in standard tuning, what are the advantages? Well, for about $1000 more than what you'd spend on a regular Les Paul, you can keep your axe in really, really, really good tune.

So who is the real market for Gibson's Robot Guitar? Wealthy guitar players who need to constantly and radically alter their tuning. If that's not you, buy a chromatic tuner and save the Robot Guitar for Joni Mitchell.

--Liam Gowing

Welcome to Soundboard, the new music blog from the L.A. Times written by a band of opinionated, sometimes cranky, sometimes ecstatic music lovers. Soundboard will blog breaking news, concert previews, album and single reviews, and lots of random observations about this vast, exciting, wacko place known as the music world. By the way, we're nomads, committed to no single genre, era or chart, so expect Soundboard to be all over the place, like a Sonic Youth song covered by Beyonce playing at a Mexican restaurant in Torrance. That song doesn't exist (yet) but you get the point.

I don't know why, but I'm thinking about record clubs. I remember a time when my older brother belonged to one and he'd show me his cool new tapes. (Yeah, tapes. Don't laugh.) "I got this for a penny!" he's say, shaking Duran Duran's "Rio" in my face. I was amazed. A penny? How can they do that??

So I started searching around to see if any are left.

Turns out that BMG Columbia House still has one but from their home page, you can tell they're making their money from DVDs. "Music Service" is off to the side. When you click on it, it takes you to one of the saddest little web pages in the world, seemingly designed by Your Local Mall's Party Store circa 1988.

I'm going to find out a little more about this whole thing, but in the meantime, does anyone still belong to a record club out there?

[Crickets.]

--Margaret Wappler

I'm not part of the pack salivating over "Raising Sand," the new Alison Krauss/Robert Plant collab -- its backwoods flavor is slightly overcooked, in my book -- but I love the CD's cover art. The frontispiece shows the two stars relaxing in some desert setting, smiling off into the distance, perhaps at T-Bone Burnett bringing them another sheaf of folk-pop obscurities to peruse.

The back's the clincher, though. Plant's back is turned, and Krauss, leaning toward him, throws a grin over her shoulder as they walk away. She looks like a contented cat making off with her canary. The Lion King may be nearly sixty and more interested in crooning than howling out all of his love, but Krauss certainly knows that by clutching that arm, she's fulfilling a fantasy that sustained generations of teen-age girls, dreaming in their bedrooms to Led Zeppelin's massive kathunking mojo blues. Though I'm sure their collaboration was strictly artistic, here's to her for having fun with her chance to quietly fly her metal horns and say, "Ladies, eat your hearts out!"

--Ann Powers

I am not necessarily a fan of the

Mormons, but as a baseball guy I just about did a spit take when I saw the

tongue-in-cheek poster for the Los Angeles band's current stand at Mr. T's Bowl. [Sorry

for the sloppy clean-up job; it's a family blog, you know.]

[Our local music spotlight, for the moment, remains pointed at power pop, because

it just seems to go so well with summertime:]


Ari Shine landed with a crunch -- and

that's the crunch of a big power chord -- when he released his debut EP

"Age/Occupation" in 2006. Quickly he became a songwriter-to-watch in the L.A.

power-pop underground, if not somebody who carries enough melodies to wriggle a bunch of

his songs onto TV shows, and his energetic stage show hinted that he might become an

artist who could transcend the frequently fey trappings of the form.

His

full-length debut, "A Force of One" (released in July on Bongo Beat), suggests

that Shine is not content to merely ride the coattails  of his forebears. There's

some boy-meets/loses-girl material here, much of it cleverly couched ("Flirtation

Device"), but he sinks his hooks into broader storytelling too (see the song

below). The album was produced by former Sparks guitarist Earle Mankey, who has worked with

L.A. notables such as Concrete Blonde and the Three O'Clock. The result is a collection

that's a little bit Elvis Costello, a little bit Matthew Sweet and maybe a bit Brendan

Benson.

||| Shine performs tonight at the Knitting Factory as part of International Pop Overthrow. He also

is playing a couple West Cost dates supporting Peter

Case prior to a Sept. 18 date at Safari Sam's as a supporting act for Miles Hunt of the Wonder Stuff.

||| Download: "Beirut 1978."

Photo by Sam Peacock

"Korn's new album doesn't have a title."

"So how do you order it?"

"You don't. It's Korn."

I missed it and, from reports, am regretting it. Bat for Lashes, the nom de tune of

Brighton, England's Natasha Khan, wowed the room last night at Spaceland. The common

sentiment I heard from a couple people: No wonder she is nominated for the Mercury

Music Prize.

You'll be hearing more about her.

For now, here is the enchanting video for "What's a Girl to Do."

Touts for Wednesday, Aug. 1

The Format starts a two-show stand (the

Avalon tonight, House of Blues tomorrow); the band for two weeks offered its latest

album, "Dog Problems," as a free download from its website and reported that

45,000 copies of the (very

good) album were ripped. ... Great

Glass Elevator (whose inventiveness kind of reminds me of the Format in a way) play

Club NME at Spaceland tonight. ... The Automatic Music

Explosion plays the Scene in Glendale. ... And the Stevenson Ranch Davidians

start a run of Wednesday shows at the Echo.

Consider this a warm-up for "The Simpsons

Movie" (opening in two weeks).

The musician's name is Zack Kim, a 24-year-old

university student who was born in Seoul, South Korea, reared in Malaysia and is now

studying in Australia. There are more examples of his technique on his website, and the

young man has his own Wikipedia

page.

He tells me via e-mail that he after he completes his studies in two years he hopes

to devote all his energies to music, and eventually he "would really love to

perform in the States, as it would be a dream come true for me."

Have to

think he'd be quite a hit at the premiere party.

Summer is here, in case you were too busy on MySpace to get the memo. The concert

calendar always seems to remind me before the real calendar, what with the Hollywood

Bowl kicking into gear and the onslaught of distinguished veteran rock bands starting to

make the stadium rounds.

(Email from a friend who went to Dodger Stadium this weekend: "They were pretty

awesome for a Police cover band.")

The smaller events have their cachet too -- the Sunday afternoon Do-Over at Crane's, the Little Radio Summer Camp. And then there was last

Thursday's Late Night at LACMA, the annual summer

solstice soiree, which attracted 7,853 museum visitors and probably disappointed

hundreds of others who waited for hours in long lines only to give up. (To be fair, what

part of "early arrival recommended" did you not understand?)

Late Night was a melange of music, hipster ephemera (T-shirt screen printing by Hit +

Run now seems mandatory if you are throwing any kind of cross-cultural event) and art.

Suffice to say there were plenty of photo ops in the Dan Flavin retrospective, a refuge

for attendees who could only handle small doses of offerings from DJs Steve Aoki,

Internationalist and handful of others. I missed the set by the always-solid Rebirth but caught one of L.A.'s favorite party

bands, Ima Robot, who got folks dancing despite

the band's relative lack of amplification.

◊ ◊ ◊

Where did June go?

The Monday night residencies end tonight at Spaceland, the Echo and Silverlake

Lounge. The L.A. quartet the Deadly

Syndrome (Spaceland) seems to have grown into polished band overnight (and wait till

you hear the album), and Thailand

(Silverlake Lounge), despite playing as a three-piece with electronic rhythms, serve up

a compelling new-wave/post-punk cocktail. And I have not made it to the Echo to see

Philadelphia ex-pats Burning Brides

(maybe tonight?), but people I trust give me good reports.

◊ ◊ ◊

At Safari Sam's on Friday night, the Silver Lake/Echo Park masses gathered to bid

farewell to Sea Level Records and its

proprietor, Todd Clifford. The independent outlet has been a locus of the Eastside music

scene for more than 5 years, and Clifford is closing more for I-need-a-life-change

reasons than business.

Today is the last day Sea Level is scheduled to be open.

Photos: LACMA attendees get up close with Dan Flavin's work; Ima Robot rocks in the

courtyard. By Kevin Bronson / LAT.

The Little Ones are still one

of this city's strongest musical happy pills, but, as a set Friday night showed, it's

hard to maintain that peak level of exuberance when you're doing it night after night,

tour after tour.

The L.A.

quintet -- "Rhymin' Simon on steroids" is how I described them last year, and

it still applies -- played an ASCAP- and Filter-sponsored music night on Friday tied to

the Silverlake Film Festival. The stuff from their "Sing Song" EP still

sounded crisp, and their new songs were upbeat and catchy too. But after having spent

the early part of this year doing some rigorous touring, the Little Ones weren't quite

as unhinged as they were when their EP was first released and Astralwerks (in the U.S.)

and Heavenly (in the U.K.) swooped in to sign the band.

Are the Little Ones still as happy as their music? "That's a good

question," frontman Edward Reyes says. "We're excited. ... Remember, we just

looked at that EP as our calling card -- we just wanted to get some shows with

it."

Their as-yet-untitled debut album is recorded and due in January, Reyes says.

"It's turning out great," he adds. "Right now we have a whole track

devoted to laughing."

||| Download Little Ones' songs from their Daytrotter session here.

◊ ◊ ◊

Passion of the Weiss has a

play-by-play of Britney Spears' Houses of Blues appearance (I will not call it a

performance). He even has some empathy.

◊ ◊ ◊

Ran into an employee of a recently merged record company who was enthused about

having adopted a puppy. Cute thing ... so what did you name him? "Andy

Slater."

◊ ◊ ◊

"So how

was Coachella?" That was the most-asked

question last week. I told inquiring minds that it was a three-day weekend of

once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and even as they were unfolding I knew I was missing

others. Wish the festival could have just hesitated a few times each day and let me

catch up.

The inconsiderate hipsters at Anthem, who throw their Coachella party during the day

while the music is going on, tell me I missed something else too -- a mask-less Thomas

Bangalter from Daft Punk [face obscured] spinning the LCD Soundsystem track "Daft

Punk Is Playing at My House." Not that anybody recognized him. But a cool party

nonetheless.

Daft Punk turned up on the turntables a couple nights later at the Echo too. Not that

anybody recognized them.

Touts for tonight

Gliss (Spaceland), the High Society (Silverlake Lounge), Bodies of Water (Echo) and Richard Bivens & Foreign Press

(Detroit Bar) start their Monday night residencies. ... Midnight Movies plays an in-store at

Amoeba. ... And London's Apartment joins

locals the Grand Marquee and others

at Indie 103.1's Viper Room show.

The music is pretty hard on the ears, kind of a flailing

attempt at dance-party relevance. But the album cover (that's the original at right) is

even harder on the eyes -- so Perry Farrell's Satellite Party revised it. Stereogum has a

compare-and-contrast. I'm not sure, but this would not have passed muster in the

Photoshop classes I slogged through years ago. This does, however, guarantee that the

album will chart. Here.

[Guest blogger August Brown is hot both because he is fly, and because he should

have worn more sunscreen.]

If Coachella success was measured in words per minute, Busdriver would have been the day's

undisputed champ. But fortunately for the old-guard L.A.-based MC, he dropped jaws and

machine-gun metaphors alike during his astonishingly dextrous set.

Busdriver was equally compelling needling the crowd with accusations of yuppiedom as

he did slaying them with fiery indignance at the ways the music industry exploits

rappers. Over a loose-limbed flurry of house and jungle-inspired beats, he extolled

cheeba and wryly freestyled that "in the Gobi tent is how an O.G. represents."

Original gangstas are few and far between at Coachella, but unless Ghostface pulls off

a miracle tomorrow, Busdriver may hit the 10 freeway home as the weekend's reigning

rhyme-slinger.

This was featured in our Downloads column last weekend (a good reason to drop

some coin on the Saturday print edition or check the pop music page on your local

newspaper's website). I've been a sucker for Travis' brand of Britpop since the first Clinton

Administration. Here's the video for "Closer," and, yeah, Ben Stiller makes a

good grocer.

Ozomatli looked to the visual for inspiration

when writing its new album, “Don’t Mess With the Dragon” (due April 3 on Concord

Records) — much of the initial songwriting came out of jam sessions at the Tropico de

Nopal art gallery. Now the veteran L.A. nine-piece might have found a vision to suit its

sound.

The new video for the single “Can’t Stop” is a dizzying collage of

stop-animation and storytelling that seems equal to Ozomatli’s mashing of Latin flavors,

rock, hip-hop and funk — a hybrid many have said is distinctly Los Angeles.

“We haven’t had a lot of luck with videos in the past,” acknowledges Ulises Bella, who

plays saxophone and clarinet for the band.

Ozomatli turned to New York-based

artist-illustrator Richard Borge for “Can’t Stop,” even though the 41-year-old, who had

done album art for bands such as Meat Beat Manifesto, had never done a music video.

Neil Innes salute at Mods & Rockers fest

You can tell a lot about a person from their heroes. There are those who cite great statesmen or politicians; others look up to athletes, scientists, philosophers or artists.

For British musician and humorist Neil Innes, it’s Brian Dunkleman, who quit his job co-hosting “American Idol” with Ryan Seacrest because he didn’t like the way contestants were being treated.

Miami is in mourning this week. After record-breaking crowds (buoyed no doubt by the anemic dollar and increasingly strong euro) swarmed South Beach last week for the annual dance music confab known as the Winter Music Conference, Collins Avenue hotels are now back to hosting New Jersey college students flossin on their spring break -- or worse, elderly Canadian couples seeking respite from a still bitter winter.

This past weekend, however, the festival was in full swing, with momentum that hasn't been witnessed at WMC since the late '90s. London dance label owners mixed it up with DJs from Berlin and employees of burgeoning Internet upstarts such as MP3 giant Beatport at swank hotels, i.e., the National and the still-under-construction Gansevoort Miami. In fact, the Gansevoort claimed one of the hottest nights of the fest with an exclusive Paul Oakenfold set. Believe it or not, brazen groups of men actually bum-rushed the velvet rope to get into the new hotel, much to the surprise of the overwhelmed staff.

But for many, the highlight of the week of DJ-centric festivities was surely the massive Ultra Music Festival. Taking place far from South Beach over two days at downtown Miami’s Bicentennial Park, Ultra did not disappoint. Sets from Sweden’s Eric Prydz, France’s David Guetta and Underworld defined the Coachella-like gathering (think multiple sweltering tents and scores of seemingly Ecstasy-addled kids bouncing between them to catch their favorite acts), with Underworld getting the biggest response from the 20,000 + strong crowd (per day), despite early technical problems that plagued the English duo responsible for one of the biggest (and unlikeliest) dance hits of the 1990s, “Born Slippy.”

Berlin-based DJ/producer Alex Ridha, better known as Boys Noize, isn't exactly a fan of Miami. Or a fan of cameras, for that matter.

"It's a weird place, honestly," he said backstage before a Scion-sponsored gig Thursday afternoon for WMC. "There are some horrible people going around here."

Regardless, the crowd, most of whom are dance-music industry insiders from New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago, ate up his set yesterday, which was heavy on material from his lauded 2007 release Oi Oi Oi.

"In Germany the minimal scene is so dominant," he says of his overseas success, which now looks set to cross the Atlantic with shows booked at Coachella and several UK festivals later this spring and summer.

"When I started my [Boysnoize] label three years ago, none of this music was popular," he says. Now that kindred acts such as Justice have broken in the U.S., Boys Noize's hard, dissonant sound is resonating with dance music and indie rock fans.

"I'm more into techno than indie dance stuff," he says. "But I'm happy American fans are discovering me."

After Boys Noize's two-hour set (where he played everything from an updated electro version of Laurie Anderson's "Superman" to Justice), another buzzing German act, Digitalism, took the stage behind the Raleigh Hotel's pool.

The Hamburg duo have already made sizable inroads in the U.S., thanks to their brand of dance music that verges on indie rock. Some have dubbed them the German Daft Punk.

Ridha actually went to college with one of the members of Digitalism in Hamburg, but he considers his Noize different from Digitalism's brand of dance music.

"I would never play Digitalism in my set," he says. "What I do is straight for the clubs ... but I like them."

Spoken like a true Teutonic gentleman.

--post and photograph by Charlie Amter

German artists Boys Noize and Digitalism play the Ultra Music Festival at Winter Music Conference today.

Miami's annual dance music sleaze-a-thon, the Winter Music Conference, is nearly in full swing today, with most attendees wandering Collins Avenue looking for the best DJ events/hotel parties by 2 p.m. No one gets up before noon.

Some of today's best events are at the Raleigh, where New York's Lady GaGa is making her WMC debut at an Armani Exchange-sponsored rooftop terrace soiree.

Interscope has high hopes for the newly signed dance diva, who has already written songs for several artists (including Pussycat Dolls) and is on the verge of signing a publishing contract to augment her label deal.

"Jimmy [Iovine] and I get along great," she says of the Interscope honcho from the rooftop of the Raleigh. "I'm the kind of Italian Brookyln girl he would have liked to take to the prom," she laughs. "He loved me."

The Lady, who's fond of performing in naughty underwear ensembles, chains and stripper heels, got her start playing Brooklyn parties and clubs in Manhattan in 2005 with her equally brazen backup dancers. "I put together a show in New York where we spun beats on vinyl and I played keyboards over the records," she says. "We wore matching bikinis," the Lady giggles, adding that the show was "yummy."

It remains to be seen whether of not the rest of America will find Lady GaGa's musical offerings as delicious as New York does. Her music sounds not unlike a drunken Madonna, Peaches and Kylie Minogue recording session with lots of sticky Champagne spilled on the demos. Lady GaGa's debut disc, made for the "rock and rollers who wanted to listen to pop records," drops this summer. The big Madonna fan's single, "Just Dance," hits next week.

Oh, and Interscope recently moved her into a Hollywood-adjacent apartment, so look out, Angelenos.

--  Post and photo by Charlie Amter

It's been quite a month for daredevil wacko and part time rapper Steve-O.

Arrested on March 3 and booked for vandalizing his own apartment and possession of a controlled substance (cocaine apparently), the "Jackass" star found himself facing eviction when he returned home. That's when, according to his own MySpace blog, things began to spiral out of control. Or at least, more out of control than usual.

The cyberspace saga commences harmlessly enough with a posting on March 8, in which the 33-year-old announces that he'd been evicted and requests that his "Jackass" costars and friends help him move out the following morning. But the video clips in the following post from March 9 couldn't be more terrifying. The second, "Eviction Party Begins," shows Steve-O hosting a kind of bizzaro MTV Cribs: Half-naked and visibly intoxicated, he wanders around his trashed apartment carrying a hefty revolver, which at one point he uses to play Russian Roulette.

In the following entry, posted March 13, Steve-O announces that he's in "the looney bin" because, the morning after his "Eviction Party Begins" was shot, his "Jackass" costars forced him into a hospital on a "5150," a three-day psychiatric hold, later extended to a "5250," 14-day hold.

That's where things get really interesting.

The entries continue, posted by his assistant Jen Moore, but written by Steve-O from inside the undisclosed treatment center, where he may well have been completely sober for the first time in years. In their own way, these entries are as shocking as the infamous stunt in which Steve-O stapled his scrotum to his leg, because they reveal an intelligent, articulate, well-read and deeply philosophical individual coming to terms with a lifetime of substance abuse and related bipolar issues.

Spiked with moments of epiphany and apology, Steve-O's confessional journey from drug-induced rock-bottom to something approaching health may be a cliche--of course, it's one of the oldest in the Hollywood playbook--but it's still remarkable.

Lots of questions remain: Will Steve-O stay sober or will he fall back into his bad habits? Will he be able to continue his inane stunt career after acknowledging that "the nature of my work almost embraced my addictions," or will he retire? And what exactly are the ramifications of the dawning of the Age of Aquarius he discusses in his March 21 entry?

Time will tell.

--Liam Gowing

A few weeks ago, I interviewed Bad Religion founder Greg Graffin about his band's recent string of L.A.-area dates. Bad Religion's been through several commercial revivals, as wiseacre punks, as an unlikely radio act in the mid-'90s ("You and meee ... have a diseeease ..." ) and most recently as something approximating a hugely successful local band. They play large theaters and festivals and sell decently around the world, but to someone whose experience with rock radio is limited to KROQ, they must seem as big as Linkin Park. I always chalked it up as a Southern California thing, that the '90s varietal of double-time skate punk that came to be called the "Epitaph Sound" put its claws in deep after the Offspring and never let up. All that grindable pavement, the year-long sunshine and the intraversible open space of L.A.'s mutant version of urbanity certainly helped.

When the video for Lil' Wayne's new, so-inane-it-might-be-genius single "Lollipop" began making the rounds, it seemed oddly ... familiar. Not just because its narrative arc of Wayne looking stoked about his money and club-girl harem is well-traversed hip-hop video territory, though. Something in the particular visual kinesis of him driving around Vegas playing guitar out of the sunroof of his stretch Hummer or whatever. Then it hit us --  Silversun Pickups (and director Joaquin Phoenix) made the exact same video for their single "Little Lover's So Polite." Just replace the Pickups' preteen Aryan couple and downtown L.A. with Wayne's video vixens and the Vegas strip. Note the 1:53 mark in "Lollipop" and the 3:06 point in "Little Lover's" where each artist plays their respective butt rock guitar solo. Wayne's guitar face is much more convincing, we think.

-- August Brown

Illustration by August Brown; Lil' Wayne photo by Jonathan Mannion; Silversun Pickups photo by Gail Salmo

Lil' Wayne: "Lollipop"

Silversun Pickups: "Little Lover's So Polite"

Your daily six-degrees-of-Rilo Kiley round-up: Women's Wear Daily is reporting that guitarist Blake Sennett has finally passed the penultimate indie-dude coming-of-age ritual and is getting hitched to Winona Ryder. Us Weekly is denying the claim. The two are definitely starring in an upcoming film called "Water Pill." Jenny Lewis is making an album with Elvis Costello and Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes, whom you heard from last week. We just want some CornNuts. BQ.

-- August Brown

Photo by New World Pictures

We’re not sure exactly why the Foo Fighters are considered rock royalty now (“The Pretender” as a best-record nominee at the Grammys? Well, at least it lives up to its title ...), but Dave Grohl does have an admirable sense of humor. Exhibit A: His deadpan performance of “Leather and Lace” with the always loopy Will Ferrell at a recent L.A. fundraiser:

-- Geoff Boucher

Now that Super Tuesday has proven inconclusive on all fronts, let’s engage in some unfounded speculation: Might any of the presidential candidates show up at Sunday’s Grammy Awards?

The Repubs will likely stay home -– despite Mike Huckabee’s electric bass skills and Burt Bacharach’s reported fondness for John McCain, their support among pop stars is generally thin. Ron Paul can claim only Arlo Guthrie. (You can check out who’s supporting whom here.)

Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, however, are still vying for the pop star vote as well as the popular one. A quick and dirty survey of Grammy nominees reveals Clinton with six nominated stumpers -- Madonna, Tony Bennett, Jon Bon Jovi, 50 Cent, Timbaland and Barbra Streisand -– and Obama with five -- Ne-Yo, Usher, Harry Connick Jr., Win Butler of Arcade Fire and Jeff Tweedy of Wilco.

Will.i.am, Obama’s most active pop pal of late, didn’t earn any noms for his commercial flop of a solo album, but he’ll likely be on hand to pop the cork with Fergie if she takes a statue home. We could definitely see the irrepressible Black Eyed Pea pulling Barry onstage for a chorus of Fergie’s “Glamorous.”

And Hillary should really dump that Celine campaign song for an all-American medley of her pal Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” and “(You Want to) Make a Memory.” Although seeing her do the freak with Justin during 50’s “Ayo Technology”…. OK, that seems unlikely. But hey, there’s always Timbaland. He did wonders for Nelly Furtado. He could get the uber baby-boomer candidate out of her cultural rut!

In the meantime, check out Oh! Industry’s excellent roundtable of dedications to favorite candidates.

-- Ann Powers

I think I found the cure for the common TV. Of course, it's right here on your very

own Internet.

It's My Damn

Channel, a portal that is home to offerings from musician extraordinaire Don Was, along with the likes of Harry

Shearer, David Wain and others.


Was, a bassist, music supervisor, documentary director, Grammy-winning producer and a

driving force behind the cutting-edge funk outfit Was

(Not Was), has seldom been more sublimely
entertaining than as the cool-cat host of the "Wasmopolitan Dance
Party" -- a webisode filmed in the showroom of the Furniture Outlet, a
budget joint in North Hollywood. [Pardon the ads, but the installment above is well

worth their intrusion.]

There is singer-songwriter Jill Sobule, gamely playing her beautiful songs

from behind a dining-room set as shoppers mill about looking a recliners.

"I can't compete with the set-up on Letterman" Was says with a laugh.

"But doing something like this, we asked, 'What could we offer that's different?'

The answer is, the stripped-down and personal stuff."

In the ranks of overwrought music writing that have appeared in the Village Voice, Garrett Kamps is a god among fanboys. His recent review of Cat Power's flawed but arresting "Jukebox" covers record is especially troubling. It's not so much the rank misogyny or his John Yoo-level torturing of the em dash that really derails this review, but the fact that he doesn't seem to know what, exactly, a "cougar" is. Given our close approximation to Orange County, we know all too well. Cougars are sexually aggressive women on the far side of 40 peddling consequence-free hookups to inexperienced young men who will relay the tales in hushed, reverent tones over Halo 3 tournaments with their friends. Does that sound like an apt description of Cat Power (a.k.a. Chan Marshall), who once wrote a song about Patti Smith's children and her own abortion? Or the one who wrote one of 2006's most generous, uplifting Southern soul albums, "The Greatest?"

If Kamps is truly hunting for cougars, we can suggest a few better places for him to start trolling.

-- August Brown

[Cougar photo by Christine Cotter / Los Angeles Times. Chan Marshall photo by Stefano Giovannini / Beggars Group LTD via Bloomberg News]

An earlier version of this blog incorrectly referred to John Yoo as John Wu. And that was all Margaret's fault and not August's, so she will be buying him a latte something-or-another later today. Maybe.

It was an interesting week in musical contrasts.

On the invitation of Fuel TV's Daryl Berg, I stopped by Swing House in Hollywood on Monday to see the Bravery. The New York five-piece was at the recording studio-cum-rehearsal space to shoot a live segment for Fuel TV's "Check 1, 2." (If you're wondering what the connection is between the band and the action sports network, apparently two of the dudes like to surf.)

While I was there, the quintet ran through three of their songs three times each for Swing House's microphones and Fuel TV's cameras, and I would be lying if I didn't report that the performances were faultless--just like the recordings complete with spot-on vocals. Listening to the songs ("An Honest Mistake," "Believe" and "Time Won't Let Me Go"), I couldn't help but remark to Berg how incredulous I was that these guys aren't already superstars.

Seriously, the Bravery has a winning formula. It's not theirs, of course, it's Duran Duran's: five really good-looking guys with flawless haircuts and sharp outfits to match, playing insanely catchy New Wave-y tunes--hi-hat-heavy drums, octave-friendly bass, breathy keyboards, distorted rhythm guitars and crystalline leads, plus sour-sweet, whiny vocals--that sound both supremely commercial yet genuinely edgy.

The band's only modest success so far might have something to do with the fact that none of the band members--with the possible exception of the overly excited drummer--exhibited the slightest trace of personality at the shoot. I mean, it was dead silent between takes: No evidence of any camaraderie between the members; no jokes or horseplay; no comments, positive or negative, on the performances; no interaction with the crew, record company people or gawkers--just silence. They might have been wax works, but for the movement.

From the Bravery--an up-and-coming band with great chops (but no discernible personality) making a musical appearance--I go to Peter Tork, a rock 'n' roll dinosaur with questionable vocal tendencies (but tons of charisma) making a non-musical appearance.

The former Monkee was hosting a special edition of the Beauty Bar's "oldies 'n' goodies" Wednesday night event, Goodie Tu Shoes. By hosting, I mean he was autographing copies of "Cambria Hotel," a new offering from his rootsy, bluesy new rock 'n' roll band, Shoe Suede Blues.

Tork acted just the way any fan of the Monkees' ridiculous TV show (or thoroughly excellent film, "Head") would have expected: He was friendly, animated and totally goofy. I can't vouch for Shoe Suede Blues being anything more than a respectable honky tonk-style bar band, but after being an extraordinarily well-known (if not necessarily respected) superstar, he deserves a lot of credit for starting over with a new band and doing the little extracurriculars newcomers must to get the word out.

I guess the answer to the question Tork posed here is "yes." -Liam Gowing

[Photo 1: The Bravery at Swing House. Credit: Patrick Weir and Fuel TV. Photo 2: Peter Tork, right, and pal at Beauty Bar-L.A. Credit: Mary Jo Head.]

The Bird and the Bee will be

flying into the desert. Nice.

And one of those assembly-line electro acts that has me convinced technology has made

it far too easy to put out an album, the U.K.'s Does It Offend You Yeah?, will be

playing too.

Yeah, it does.

First, there was "Lip Gloss," Lil Mama's earth-crushing and drums-only ode to windburn protection that sounded more menacing and ruthless than anything on "Curtis." Now, M.I.A.-protege Rye Rye has a smoking, minimalist Baltimore club tune in "Shake It to the Ground" on Diplo's Mad Decent label. Aside from an occasional farted-out bass, the production work from DJ Blaqstarr is again strictly minimalist percussion and gum-smacking chants until practically the end of the song. Have the kids decided they don't need even a perfunctory Korg Triton stab to make a floor-filler? Either way, we dig the Misfits poster in Rye Rye's bedroom in this made-for-pennies video and like to imagine that Glenn Danzig might return the favor someday with a guest verse.

--August Brown

Happy New Year.

And good riddance, 2007.

The year brought an avalanche of music, and the recent holiday week of rumination and

CD-sorting etched in my mind the idea that a whole lot of it was ... well ... pretty

good. Yeah, pretty good, uttered with my head slightly tilted, as if I never

thought once of saying "great" or "really good." If I ever had the

radical notion to rate albums on a 10 scale,

I would swear that half the records I received this year logged somewhere between 6.5

and 6.7 -- a percentage that's skewed because all six copies of the Magic Numbers album that somehow found

their way to my desk would get a 6.2.

Maybe this was the year that trying to

keep up with new music, nationally and locally, finally overwhelmed me, what with every

baby band in the universe engaging in viral marketing, hiring publicists, working with

managers, leaving me polite entreaties on MySpace and generally undermining any belief

that a band can merely grow organically. I attended about 185 shows in 2007 too, many to

follow up on those advertising blitzes.

But after compiling my humble lists

below, I fast-forwarded to December 2009, when all good geeks will be sweating over

their seemingly inevitable Best-of-the-Aughts list. And guess what? Not a single album

from 2007 has a chance of making mine. All of the bands I consider indie icons -- and

I'm sure you can spank me for leaving out people you think are iconic -- released other

albums this decade that are superior to their 2007 releases. For the record, that

pantheon houses the National, Spoon, Modest Mouse, Arcade Fire, Bright Eyes and

Interpol, with other personal faves such as the Shins and Stars living in the backhouse.

Those heavyweights each added to their estimable catalogs, yes; it's just that I'm not

going to pull "We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank" off the shelf first

when I want to hear some Modest Mouse a few years from now.

At least, I don't

think.

The lists follow. Thanks to everybody who sends me music -- really --

and a special shout-out to the bands on the L.A. scene who've made my life so much

richer over the past 5-plus years.

My Favorite 10 Albums of 2007

1. Blonde

Redhead, "23"

2. The National, "Boxer"

3. LCD

Soundsystem, "Sound of Silver"

4. Against Me!, "New

Wave"

5. Spoon, "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga"

6. The Cribs,

"Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever"

7. Arcade Fire, "Neon

Bible"

8. Lupe Fiasco, "Cool"

9. The Shins,

"Wincing the Night Away"

10. Softlightes, "Say No to Being

Cool -- Say Yes to Being Happy" *

Comments: It's scares me how much

this list largely parallels other blogs/music mags. Yes, Fiasco's album just came out,

but on first, second and third blush it's a long-range keeper. And that's right, no

Radiohead. So sue me. 6.8.

* See final list

Buzz Bands' Top 10 L.A. Albums of 2007

1. Foreign Born, "On the Wing Now"

2. John Doe, "A Year in

the Wilderness"

3. Sea Wolf, "Leaves in the River"

4. CoCo B's, "CoCo B's"

5. Eleni Mandell, "Miracle of

Five"

6. Earlimart, "Mentor Tormentor"

7. Culver

City Dub Collective, "Dos"

8. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club,

"Baby 81"

9. Rilo Kiley, "Under the Blacklight"

10. Great Northern, "Trading Twilight for Daylight"

Comments:

Foreign Born is just plain good. CoCo B's self-released disc is a great surprise. Culver

City Dub Collective's genre-mashing is sublime. Eleni Mandell -- who needs Feist? And

Rilo Kiley's album just kept growing on me.

Ten L.A. Bands Whose Debuts Made Me Anxious for the

Sophomore Album

1. The Deadly Syndrome, "The

Ortolan"

2. The Broken West, "I Can't Go On, I'll Go On"

3. Robert Francis, "One by One"

4. The Parson Red Heads,

"King Giraffe"

5. Delta Spirit, "Delta Spirit"

6. Frankel, "Lullaby for the Passersby"

7. Year Long Disaster,

"Year Long Disaster"

8. Sara Bareilles, "Little Voice"

9. The Minor Canon, "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished"

10. No

Age, "Weirdo Rippers"

Ten L.A. Bands Whose 2007 EPs Made

Me Want More

Castledoor, the Airborne Toxic Event, the Weather

Underground, the Black Kites, Voxhaul Broadcast, Sam Sparro, Manic, Radars to the Sky,

Sara Lov, Aushua.

Three Albums From Bands Whom I Loved in the '90s and Still

Do

1. Buffalo Tom, "Three Easy Pieces"

2.

Dinosaur Jr., "Beyond"

3. Smashing Pumpkins,

"Zeitgeist"

Five Hip-Hop Albums I Would Recommend If

Anybody Believed I Recommended Hip-Hop Albums

1. Lupe Fiasco,

"Cool"

2. Kanye West, "Graduation"

3. Brother

Ali, "Undisputed Truth"

4. El-P, "I'll Sleep When You're

Dead"

5. Aesop Rock, "None Shall Pass"

Under the Radar: Six Overlooked Albums

1.

Softlightes, "Say No to Being Cool -- Say Yes to Being Happy": Cinematic

electro-pop that recalls Grandaddy at its finest.

2. The High Strung,

"Get the Guests": Catchy and clever, hold the irony, with peripatetic melody

lines that do not quit.

3. Minipop, "A New Hope": Gorgeous and

beautifully layered shoegaze-pop with rhythms that will drive you right into a dreamlike

state.

4. The Blakes, "The Blakes": Soulful garage rock that's good

for your summer sweat.

5. The Comas, "Spells": Distortion-heavy

power pop arrives in bursts, may leave marks.

6. Young Galaxy, "Young

Galaxy": Other Canadian exports (Kevin Drew, Sunset Rubdown, Feist, et. al.) earned

more buzz, but this album feel like a warm waking dream.

Comments:

Somehow I saw Softlightes play live 10 times in 2007. I left each show in a better mood

than when I arrived.

 

The next time someone tells you that booze doesn't make the world a better place, you just tell them to go listen to Corrine Bailey Rae and her remix of "Like A Star" at the wonderfully titled website www.generouspour.com. The seasonal website for Clos du Bois Wines has lovely traditonal holiday recipes for things like, um, "stoned crab cobbler with coconut" (what, are we pre-gaming for New Year's at Jimmy Buffett's beach hut?) and "Hot Italian Sausage Stuffing" (I'm pretty sure that's the gay porn version of "Roman Holiday"). Anyway, the website, which will be up through today, has a free download of "Like A Star" by Grammy nominee Rae and every time someone downloads it, Clos du Bois will donate $1 to Share Our Strength, a non-profit working against hunger and poverty in the U.S. It sounds like booze-company guilt to us, and wouldn't Amy Winehouse have been a better choice here for so many reasons? As for the music: The song is pretty much played out and the remix here is a fairly glossy affair but it is also free and unobjectionable as a dinner-party fare. So pass the potatoes...

--Geoff Boucher

The Beatle who earned his famous nickname by covering his fingers with rings is now making news with a bracelet. “Liverpool 8,” the new Capitol/EMI album from 67-year-old Ringo Starr, is being released Jan. 15 as a CD, a digital download and also as a “pre-loaded USB wristband” that includes all 12 tracks and a slew of extras, including “a personal video message, interview and track commentary from Ringo Starr, behind-the-scenes making-of footage from the recording sessions, ringtones, photos and more.” (Shouldn't those be "Ringo-tones"?) There’s more details at www.ringostarr.com but this already opens a whole new world of albums-as-accessories. How soon can we buy “Blackout” by Britney Spears in the ankle-monitor format? And how great would be to work toward the weekend by wearing Loverboy’s greatest hits in your headband?

--Geoff Boucher

Just in time to service your holiday malaise, two of my favorite DJ collectives are

conspiring to set sadness to music tonight at the downtown bar La Cita.

Give Up -- the seasonal club night initiated by the DJ collective Dublab and manned the past several years by Mark

"Frosty" McNeill and Jimmy Tamborello -- gets back into its wintry spirit as

DJs spin depressing songs on the bar's back patio. It's described as "a deeply

depressing disc sob session." Inside the bar, Part Time Punks' Michael Stock and others will

be hosting "A Sad, Slow Dance Party," promising "all slow dancing, all

night long."

There's no cover. Tears start to flow at 9 p.m.

Photo of DJ Frosty (from 2005) by Kevin Bronson/LAT

Happier choices for Tuesday, Dec. 18

Pop sextet Castledoor brings its

sublime tunes to Boardner's in the final monthly show of the year presented by Radio Free Silver Lake. The Flying Tourbillon Orchestra

and Frankel are also playing the

18-and-older show, which is free. ... Mighty Six Ninety and Io Echo rock the Troubadour. ... Oliver Future continues its Tuesday

residency at the Viper Room. ... The

Monolators head a good local bill at the Scene. ... And John Gold performs at Bordello.

The obituary this morning says Dan Fogelberg helped "define soft rock," but

that sounds kind of flaccid compared to what the singer-songwriter, who died Sunday at

age 56, meant to a bunch of kids in the working-class neighborhoods of Peoria, Ill., in

the early 1970s.

Fogelberg graduated from Woodruff High School the year before I got there, leaving

behind some stories of a rock band called the Coachmen (I actually owned the 45 at one

point -- oh, where did it go?) and the occasional rumor he'd gone off to California, a

place that seemed so distant from our Midwestern factory town as to be a mirage. Not

many of us had California dreams then; we'd do well to graduate high school and get on

at Caterpillar Tractor Co. (which accounted for something like 1 in 5 paychecks in our

city in those days). If we were really lucky, we'd go to college.

In the fall of my junior year, "Home Free" arrived, and we were mesmerized.

Fogelberg's debut album -- a beautifully orchestrated bouquet of ballads that veered

toward what we now would call alt-country -- took his alma mater by storm. It christened

the tape player in my first car; it was played endlessly at basement parties from Grand

View Drive to the lower East Bluff. I'm pretty sure there isn't a song in my collection

I've played over the years more than that second track, "Stars."

Fogelberg was our Jackson Browne, a romantic who shared our roots and who had the

courage to strike out in service of his poetry. As I trudged through the snow delivering

my Peoria Journal Stars every morning, that was a pretty important symbol.

I always blanched at, but ultimately forgave, the arch sentimentality that seemingly

oppressive production brought to Fogelberg's later albums. He had earned the right to

pursue whatever vision struck him. When my brother and I took in a Fogelberg show a few

years ago in Anaheim, it wasn't so much for musical nostalgia as it was a thank-you.

In one subtle but important way, Dan Fogelberg was the leader of our band.

Curiosity piqued by the announcement of the Gibson "Robot" Guitar, I headed down to my favorite guitar shop in L.A. on Saturday to check it out myself. I was a little disappointed, frankly.

With a name like "the Robot," I was expecting this six-stringer to jump out of the case unprovoked and run around the room, shouting, "Danger Will Robinson!" or "For those about to rock we salute you!" or "Sarah Connor?" or something. Instead, the Robot just lay in his case, looking like a standard (or, for those of you in the know, a "studio") Les Paul. The only obvious differences were larger tuning pegs and a funky-looking control where one of the standard four volume/tone knobs is usually located. This, I was told, was the "MCK" or "Master Control Knob."

"Now there's the kind of Orwellian 'oh no, the machines have achieved artificial intelligence and have enslaved all carbon-based lifeforms on the planet'-kind of language I was hoping for," I thought.

But alas, the master control knob just controls the Robot's auto-tuning mechanism. It's pretty neat, I'll admit. You pull out the knob, spin the top dial to one of several tuning-configuration presets (standard, "drop d," open-tuning, etc.), tap the top, strum the strings, wait for the tuning pegs to auto-jiggy into position, and voila--push the knob back in and your Les Paul has an alternate tuning.

For the overwhelming majority of guitar players who play in standard tuning, what are the advantages? Well, for about $1000 more than what you'd spend on a regular Les Paul, you can keep your axe in really, really, really good tune.

So who is the real market for Gibson's Robot Guitar? Wealthy guitar players who need to constantly and radically alter their tuning. If that's not you, buy a chromatic tuner and save the Robot Guitar for Joni Mitchell.

--Liam Gowing

Welcome to Soundboard, the new music blog from the L.A. Times written by a band of opinionated, sometimes cranky, sometimes ecstatic music lovers. Soundboard will blog breaking news, concert previews, album and single reviews, and lots of random observations about this vast, exciting, wacko place known as the music world. By the way, we're nomads, committed to no single genre, era or chart, so expect Soundboard to be all over the place, like a Sonic Youth song covered by Beyonce playing at a Mexican restaurant in Torrance. That song doesn't exist (yet) but you get the point.

I don't know why, but I'm thinking about record clubs. I remember a time when my older brother belonged to one and he'd show me his cool new tapes. (Yeah, tapes. Don't laugh.) "I got this for a penny!" he's say, shaking Duran Duran's "Rio" in my face. I was amazed. A penny? How can they do that??

So I started searching around to see if any are left.

Turns out that BMG Columbia House still has one but from their home page, you can tell they're making their money from DVDs. "Music Service" is off to the side. When you click on it, it takes you to one of the saddest little web pages in the world, seemingly designed by Your Local Mall's Party Store circa 1988.

I'm going to find out a little more about this whole thing, but in the meantime, does anyone still belong to a record club out there?

[Crickets.]

--Margaret Wappler

I'm not part of the pack salivating over "Raising Sand," the new Alison Krauss/Robert Plant collab -- its backwoods flavor is slightly overcooked, in my book -- but I love the CD's cover art. The frontispiece shows the two stars relaxing in some desert setting, smiling off into the distance, perhaps at T-Bone Burnett bringing them another sheaf of folk-pop obscurities to peruse.

The back's the clincher, though. Plant's back is turned, and Krauss, leaning toward him, throws a grin over her shoulder as they walk away. She looks like a contented cat making off with her canary. The Lion King may be nearly sixty and more interested in crooning than howling out all of his love, but Krauss certainly knows that by clutching that arm, she's fulfilling a fantasy that sustained generations of teen-age girls, dreaming in their bedrooms to Led Zeppelin's massive kathunking mojo blues. Though I'm sure their collaboration was strictly artistic, here's to her for having fun with her chance to quietly fly her metal horns and say, "Ladies, eat your hearts out!"

--Ann Powers

I am not necessarily a fan of the

Mormons, but as a baseball guy I just about did a spit take when I saw the

tongue-in-cheek poster for the Los Angeles band's current stand at Mr. T's Bowl. [Sorry

for the sloppy clean-up job; it's a family blog, you know.]

[Our local music spotlight, for the moment, remains pointed at power pop, because

it just seems to go so well with summertime:]


Ari Shine landed with a crunch -- and

that's the crunch of a big power chord -- when he released his debut EP

"Age/Occupation" in 2006. Quickly he became a songwriter-to-watch in the L.A.

power-pop underground, if not somebody who carries enough melodies to wriggle a bunch of

his songs onto TV shows, and his energetic stage show hinted that he might become an

artist who could transcend the frequently fey trappings of the form.

His

full-length debut, "A Force of One" (released in July on Bongo Beat), suggests

that Shine is not content to merely ride the coattails  of his forebears. There's

some boy-meets/loses-girl material here, much of it cleverly couched ("Flirtation

Device"), but he sinks his hooks into broader storytelling too (see the song

below). The album was produced by former Sparks guitarist Earle Mankey, who has worked with

L.A. notables such as Concrete Blonde and the Three O'Clock. The result is a collection

that's a little bit Elvis Costello, a little bit Matthew Sweet and maybe a bit Brendan

Benson.

||| Shine performs tonight at the Knitting Factory as part of International Pop Overthrow. He also

is playing a couple West Cost dates supporting Peter

Case prior to a Sept. 18 date at Safari Sam's as a supporting act for Miles Hunt of the Wonder Stuff.

||| Download: "Beirut 1978."

Photo by Sam Peacock

"Korn's new album doesn't have a title."

"So how do you order it?"

"You don't. It's Korn."

I missed it and, from reports, am regretting it. Bat for Lashes, the nom de tune of

Brighton, England's Natasha Khan, wowed the room last night at Spaceland. The common

sentiment I heard from a couple people: No wonder she is nominated for the Mercury

Music Prize.

You'll be hearing more about her.

For now, here is the enchanting video for "What's a Girl to Do."

Touts for Wednesday, Aug. 1

The Format starts a two-show stand (the

Avalon tonight, House of Blues tomorrow); the band for two weeks offered its latest

album, "Dog Problems," as a free download from its website and reported that

45,000 copies of the (very

good) album were ripped. ... Great

Glass Elevator (whose inventiveness kind of reminds me of the Format in a way) play

Club NME at Spaceland tonight. ... The Automatic Music

Explosion plays the Scene in Glendale. ... And the Stevenson Ranch Davidians

start a run of Wednesday shows at the Echo.

Consider this a warm-up for "The Simpsons

Movie" (opening in two weeks).

The musician's name is Zack Kim, a 24-year-old

university student who was born in Seoul, South Korea, reared in Malaysia and is now

studying in Australia. There are more examples of his technique on his website, and the

young man has his own Wikipedia

page.

He tells me via e-mail that he after he completes his studies in two years he hopes

to devote all his energies to music, and eventually he "would really love to

perform in the States, as it would be a dream come true for me."

Have to

think he'd be quite a hit at the premiere party.

Summer is here, in case you were too busy on MySpace to get the memo. The concert

calendar always seems to remind me before the real calendar, what with the Hollywood

Bowl kicking into gear and the onslaught of distinguished veteran rock bands starting to

make the stadium rounds.

(Email from a friend who went to Dodger Stadium this weekend: "They were pretty

awesome for a Police cover band.")

The smaller events have their cachet too -- the Sunday afternoon Do-Over at Crane's, the Little Radio Summer Camp. And then there was last

Thursday's Late Night at LACMA, the annual summer

solstice soiree, which attracted 7,853 museum visitors and probably disappointed

hundreds of others who waited for hours in long lines only to give up. (To be fair, what

part of "early arrival recommended" did you not understand?)

Late Night was a melange of music, hipster ephemera (T-shirt screen printing by Hit +

Run now seems mandatory if you are throwing any kind of cross-cultural event) and art.

Suffice to say there were plenty of photo ops in the Dan Flavin retrospective, a refuge

for attendees who could only handle small doses of offerings from DJs Steve Aoki,

Internationalist and handful of others. I missed the set by the always-solid Rebirth but caught one of L.A.'s favorite party

bands, Ima Robot, who got folks dancing despite

the band's relative lack of amplification.

◊ ◊ ◊

Where did June go?

The Monday night residencies end tonight at Spaceland, the Echo and Silverlake

Lounge. The L.A. quartet the Deadly

Syndrome (Spaceland) seems to have grown into polished band overnight (and wait till

you hear the album), and Thailand

(Silverlake Lounge), despite playing as a three-piece with electronic rhythms, serve up

a compelling new-wave/post-punk cocktail. And I have not made it to the Echo to see

Philadelphia ex-pats Burning Brides

(maybe tonight?), but people I trust give me good reports.

◊ ◊ ◊

At Safari Sam's on Friday night, the Silver Lake/Echo Park masses gathered to bid

farewell to Sea Level Records and its

proprietor, Todd Clifford. The independent outlet has been a locus of the Eastside music

scene for more than 5 years, and Clifford is closing more for I-need-a-life-change

reasons than business.

Today is the last day Sea Level is scheduled to be open.

Photos: LACMA attendees get up close with Dan Flavin's work; Ima Robot rocks in the

courtyard. By Kevin Bronson / LAT.

The Little Ones are still one

of this city's strongest musical happy pills, but, as a set Friday night showed, it's

hard to maintain that peak level of exuberance when you're doing it night after night,

tour after tour.

The L.A.

quintet -- "Rhymin' Simon on steroids" is how I described them last year, and

it still applies -- played an ASCAP- and Filter-sponsored music night on Friday tied to

the Silverlake Film Festival. The stuff from their "Sing Song" EP still

sounded crisp, and their new songs were upbeat and catchy too. But after having spent

the early part of this year doing some rigorous touring, the Little Ones weren't quite

as unhinged as they were when their EP was first released and Astralwerks (in the U.S.)

and Heavenly (in the U.K.) swooped in to sign the band.

Are the Little Ones still as happy as their music? "That's a good

question," frontman Edward Reyes says. "We're excited. ... Remember, we just

looked at that EP as our calling card -- we just wanted to get some shows with

it."

Their as-yet-untitled debut album is recorded and due in January, Reyes says.

"It's turning out great," he adds. "Right now we have a whole track

devoted to laughing."

||| Download Little Ones' songs from their Daytrotter session here.

◊ ◊ ◊

Passion of the Weiss has a

play-by-play of Britney Spears' Houses of Blues appearance (I will not call it a

performance). He even has some empathy.

◊ ◊ ◊

Ran into an employee of a recently merged record company who was enthused about

having adopted a puppy. Cute thing ... so what did you name him? "Andy

Slater."

◊ ◊ ◊

"So how

was Coachella?" That was the most-asked

question last week. I told inquiring minds that it was a three-day weekend of

once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and even as they were unfolding I knew I was missing

others. Wish the festival could have just hesitated a few times each day and let me

catch up.

The inconsiderate hipsters at Anthem, who throw their Coachella party during the day

while the music is going on, tell me I missed something else too -- a mask-less Thomas

Bangalter from Daft Punk [face obscured] spinning the LCD Soundsystem track "Daft

Punk Is Playing at My House." Not that anybody recognized him. But a cool party

nonetheless.

Daft Punk turned up on the turntables a couple nights later at the Echo too. Not that

anybody recognized them.

Touts for tonight

Gliss (Spaceland), the High Society (Silverlake Lounge), Bodies of Water (Echo) and Richard Bivens & Foreign Press

(Detroit Bar) start their Monday night residencies. ... Midnight Movies plays an in-store at

Amoeba. ... And London's Apartment joins

locals the Grand Marquee and others

at Indie 103.1's Viper Room show.

The music is pretty hard on the ears, kind of a flailing

attempt at dance-party relevance. But the album cover (that's the original at right) is

even harder on the eyes -- so Perry Farrell's Satellite Party revised it. Stereogum has a

compare-and-contrast. I'm not sure, but this would not have passed muster in the

Photoshop classes I slogged through years ago. This does, however, guarantee that the

album will chart. Here.

[Guest blogger August Brown is hot both because he is fly, and because he should

have worn more sunscreen.]

If Coachella success was measured in words per minute, Busdriver would have been the day's

undisputed champ. But fortunately for the old-guard L.A.-based MC, he dropped jaws and

machine-gun metaphors alike during his astonishingly dextrous set.

Busdriver was equally compelling needling the crowd with accusations of yuppiedom as

he did slaying them with fiery indignance at the ways the music industry exploits

rappers. Over a loose-limbed flurry of house and jungle-inspired beats, he extolled

cheeba and wryly freestyled that "in the Gobi tent is how an O.G. represents."

Original gangstas are few and far between at Coachella, but unless Ghostface pulls off

a miracle tomorrow, Busdriver may hit the 10 freeway home as the weekend's reigning

rhyme-slinger.

This was featured in our Downloads column last weekend (a good reason to drop

some coin on the Saturday print edition or check the pop music page on your local

newspaper's website). I've been a sucker for Travis' brand of Britpop since the first Clinton

Administration. Here's the video for "Closer," and, yeah, Ben Stiller makes a

good grocer.

Ozomatli looked to the visual for inspiration

when writing its new album, “Don’t Mess With the Dragon” (due April 3 on Concord

Records) — much of the initial songwriting came out of jam sessions at the Tropico de

Nopal art gallery. Now the veteran L.A. nine-piece might have found a vision to suit its

sound.

The new video for the single “Can’t Stop” is a dizzying collage of

stop-animation and storytelling that seems equal to Ozomatli’s mashing of Latin flavors,

rock, hip-hop and funk — a hybrid many have said is distinctly Los Angeles.

“We haven’t had a lot of luck with videos in the past,” acknowledges Ulises Bella, who

plays saxophone and clarinet for the band.

Ozomatli turned to New York-based

artist-illustrator Richard Borge for “Can’t Stop,” even though the 41-year-old, who had

done album art for bands such as Meat Beat Manifesto, had never done a music video.

WMC: The Hangover Edition. Satisfied?

Miami is in mourning this week. After record-breaking crowds (buoyed no doubt by the anemic dollar and increasingly strong euro) swarmed South Beach last week for the annual dance music confab known as the Winter Music Conference, Collins Avenue hotels are now back to hosting New Jersey college students flossin on their spring break -- or worse, elderly Canadian couples seeking respite from a still bitter winter.

This past weekend, however, the festival was in full swing, with momentum that hasn't been witnessed at WMC since the late '90s. London dance label owners mixed it up with DJs from Berlin and employees of burgeoning Internet upstarts such as MP3 giant Beatport at swank hotels, i.e., the National and the still-under-construction Gansevoort Miami. In fact, the Gansevoort claimed one of the hottest nights of the fest with an exclusive Paul Oakenfold set. Believe it or not, brazen groups of men actually bum-rushed the velvet rope to get into the new hotel, much to the surprise of the overwhelmed staff.

But for many, the highlight of the week of DJ-centric festivities was surely the massive Ultra Music Festival. Taking place far from South Beach over two days at downtown Miami’s Bicentennial Park, Ultra did not disappoint. Sets from Sweden’s Eric Prydz, France’s David Guetta and Underworld defined the Coachella-like gathering (think multiple sweltering tents and scores of seemingly Ecstasy-addled kids bouncing between them to catch their favorite acts), with Underworld getting the biggest response from the 20,000 + strong crowd (per day), despite early technical problems that plagued the English duo responsible for one of the biggest (and unlikeliest) dance hits of the 1990s, “Born Slippy.”

Berlin-based DJ/producer Alex Ridha, better known as Boys Noize, isn't exactly a fan of Miami. Or a fan of cameras, for that matter.

"It's a weird place, honestly," he said backstage before a Scion-sponsored gig Thursday afternoon for WMC. "There are some horrible people going around here."

Regardless, the crowd, most of whom are dance-music industry insiders from New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago, ate up his set yesterday, which was heavy on material from his lauded 2007 release Oi Oi Oi.

"In Germany the minimal scene is so dominant," he says of his overseas success, which now looks set to cross the Atlantic with shows booked at Coachella and several UK festivals later this spring and summer.

"When I started my [Boysnoize] label three years ago, none of this music was popular," he says. Now that kindred acts such as Justice have broken in the U.S., Boys Noize's hard, dissonant sound is resonating with dance music and indie rock fans.

"I'm more into techno than indie dance stuff," he says. "But I'm happy American fans are discovering me."

After Boys Noize's two-hour set (where he played everything from an updated electro version of Laurie Anderson's "Superman" to Justice), another buzzing German act, Digitalism, took the stage behind the Raleigh Hotel's pool.

The Hamburg duo have already made sizable inroads in the U.S., thanks to their brand of dance music that verges on indie rock. Some have dubbed them the German Daft Punk.

Ridha actually went to college with one of the members of Digitalism in Hamburg, but he considers his Noize different from Digitalism's brand of dance music.

"I would never play Digitalism in my set," he says. "What I do is straight for the clubs ... but I like them."

Spoken like a true Teutonic gentleman.

--post and photograph by Charlie Amter

German artists Boys Noize and Digitalism play the Ultra Music Festival at Winter Music Conference today.

Miami's annual dance music sleaze-a-thon, the Winter Music Conference, is nearly in full swing today, with most attendees wandering Collins Avenue looking for the best DJ events/hotel parties by 2 p.m. No one gets up before noon.

Some of today's best events are at the Raleigh, where New York's Lady GaGa is making her WMC debut at an Armani Exchange-sponsored rooftop terrace soiree.

Interscope has high hopes for the newly signed dance diva, who has already written songs for several artists (including Pussycat Dolls) and is on the verge of signing a publishing contract to augment her label deal.

"Jimmy [Iovine] and I get along great," she says of the Interscope honcho from the rooftop of the Raleigh. "I'm the kind of Italian Brookyln girl he would have liked to take to the prom," she laughs. "He loved me."

The Lady, who's fond of performing in naughty underwear ensembles, chains and stripper heels, got her start playing Brooklyn parties and clubs in Manhattan in 2005 with her equally brazen backup dancers. "I put together a show in New York where we spun beats on vinyl and I played keyboards over the records," she says. "We wore matching bikinis," the Lady giggles, adding that the show was "yummy."

It remains to be seen whether of not the rest of America will find Lady GaGa's musical offerings as delicious as New York does. Her music sounds not unlike a drunken Madonna, Peaches and Kylie Minogue recording session with lots of sticky Champagne spilled on the demos. Lady GaGa's debut disc, made for the "rock and rollers who wanted to listen to pop records," drops this summer. The big Madonna fan's single, "Just Dance," hits next week.

Oh, and Interscope recently moved her into a Hollywood-adjacent apartment, so look out, Angelenos.

--  Post and photo by Charlie Amter

It's been quite a month for daredevil wacko and part time rapper Steve-O.

Arrested on March 3 and booked for vandalizing his own apartment and possession of a controlled substance (cocaine apparently), the "Jackass" star found himself facing eviction when he returned home. That's when, according to his own MySpace blog, things began to spiral out of control. Or at least, more out of control than usual.

The cyberspace saga commences harmlessly enough with a posting on March 8, in which the 33-year-old announces that he'd been evicted and requests that his "Jackass" costars and friends help him move out the following morning. But the video clips in the following post from March 9 couldn't be more terrifying. The second, "Eviction Party Begins," shows Steve-O hosting a kind of bizzaro MTV Cribs: Half-naked and visibly intoxicated, he wanders around his trashed apartment carrying a hefty revolver, which at one point he uses to play Russian Roulette.

In the following entry, posted March 13, Steve-O announces that he's in "the looney bin" because, the morning after his "Eviction Party Begins" was shot, his "Jackass" costars forced him into a hospital on a "5150," a three-day psychiatric hold, later extended to a "5250," 14-day hold.

That's where things get really interesting.

The entries continue, posted by his assistant Jen Moore, but written by Steve-O from inside the undisclosed treatment center, where he may well have been completely sober for the first time in years. In their own way, these entries are as shocking as the infamous stunt in which Steve-O stapled his scrotum to his leg, because they reveal an intelligent, articulate, well-read and deeply philosophical individual coming to terms with a lifetime of substance abuse and related bipolar issues.

Spiked with moments of epiphany and apology, Steve-O's confessional journey from drug-induced rock-bottom to something approaching health may be a cliche--of course, it's one of the oldest in the Hollywood playbook--but it's still remarkable.

Lots of questions remain: Will Steve-O stay sober or will he fall back into his bad habits? Will he be able to continue his inane stunt career after acknowledging that "the nature of my work almost embraced my addictions," or will he retire? And what exactly are the ramifications of the dawning of the Age of Aquarius he discusses in his March 21 entry?

Time will tell.

--Liam Gowing

A few weeks ago, I interviewed Bad Religion founder Greg Graffin about his band's recent string of L.A.-area dates. Bad Religion's been through several commercial revivals, as wiseacre punks, as an unlikely radio act in the mid-'90s ("You and meee ... have a diseeease ..." ) and most recently as something approximating a hugely successful local band. They play large theaters and festivals and sell decently around the world, but to someone whose experience with rock radio is limited to KROQ, they must seem as big as Linkin Park. I always chalked it up as a Southern California thing, that the '90s varietal of double-time skate punk that came to be called the "Epitaph Sound" put its claws in deep after the Offspring and never let up. All that grindable pavement, the year-long sunshine and the intraversible open space of L.A.'s mutant version of urbanity certainly helped.

When the video for Lil' Wayne's new, so-inane-it-might-be-genius single "Lollipop" began making the rounds, it seemed oddly ... familiar. Not just because its narrative arc of Wayne looking stoked about his money and club-girl harem is well-traversed hip-hop video territory, though. Something in the particular visual kinesis of him driving around Vegas playing guitar out of the sunroof of his stretch Hummer or whatever. Then it hit us --  Silversun Pickups (and director Joaquin Phoenix) made the exact same video for their single "Little Lover's So Polite." Just replace the Pickups' preteen Aryan couple and downtown L.A. with Wayne's video vixens and the Vegas strip. Note the 1:53 mark in "Lollipop" and the 3:06 point in "Little Lover's" where each artist plays their respective butt rock guitar solo. Wayne's guitar face is much more convincing, we think.

-- August Brown

Illustration by August Brown; Lil' Wayne photo by Jonathan Mannion; Silversun Pickups photo by Gail Salmo

Lil' Wayne: "Lollipop"

Silversun Pickups: "Little Lover's So Polite"

Your daily six-degrees-of-Rilo Kiley round-up: Women's Wear Daily is reporting that guitarist Blake Sennett has finally passed the penultimate indie-dude coming-of-age ritual and is getting hitched to Winona Ryder. Us Weekly is denying the claim. The two are definitely starring in an upcoming film called "Water Pill." Jenny Lewis is making an album with Elvis Costello and Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes, whom you heard from last week. We just want some CornNuts. BQ.

-- August Brown

Photo by New World Pictures

We’re not sure exactly why the Foo Fighters are considered rock royalty now (“The Pretender” as a best-record nominee at the Grammys? Well, at least it lives up to its title ...), but Dave Grohl does have an admirable sense of humor. Exhibit A: His deadpan performance of “Leather and Lace” with the always loopy Will Ferrell at a recent L.A. fundraiser:

-- Geoff Boucher

Now that Super Tuesday has proven inconclusive on all fronts, let’s engage in some unfounded speculation: Might any of the presidential candidates show up at Sunday’s Grammy Awards?

The Repubs will likely stay home -– despite Mike Huckabee’s electric bass skills and Burt Bacharach’s reported fondness for John McCain, their support among pop stars is generally thin. Ron Paul can claim only Arlo Guthrie. (You can check out who’s supporting whom here.)

Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, however, are still vying for the pop star vote as well as the popular one. A quick and dirty survey of Grammy nominees reveals Clinton with six nominated stumpers -- Madonna, Tony Bennett, Jon Bon Jovi, 50 Cent, Timbaland and Barbra Streisand -– and Obama with five -- Ne-Yo, Usher, Harry Connick Jr., Win Butler of Arcade Fire and Jeff Tweedy of Wilco.

Will.i.am, Obama’s most active pop pal of late, didn’t earn any noms for his commercial flop of a solo album, but he’ll likely be on hand to pop the cork with Fergie if she takes a statue home. We could definitely see the irrepressible Black Eyed Pea pulling Barry onstage for a chorus of Fergie’s “Glamorous.”

And Hillary should really dump that Celine campaign song for an all-American medley of her pal Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” and “(You Want to) Make a Memory.” Although seeing her do the freak with Justin during 50’s “Ayo Technology”…. OK, that seems unlikely. But hey, there’s always Timbaland. He did wonders for Nelly Furtado. He could get the uber baby-boomer candidate out of her cultural rut!

In the meantime, check out Oh! Industry’s excellent roundtable of dedications to favorite candidates.

-- Ann Powers

I think I found the cure for the common TV. Of course, it's right here on your very

own Internet.

It's My Damn

Channel, a portal that is home to offerings from musician extraordinaire Don Was, along with the likes of Harry

Shearer, David Wain and others.


Was, a bassist, music supervisor, documentary director, Grammy-winning producer and a

driving force behind the cutting-edge funk outfit Was

(Not Was), has seldom been more sublimely
entertaining than as the cool-cat host of the "Wasmopolitan Dance
Party" -- a webisode filmed in the showroom of the Furniture Outlet, a
budget joint in North Hollywood. [Pardon the ads, but the installment above is well

worth their intrusion.]

There is singer-songwriter Jill Sobule, gamely playing her beautiful songs

from behind a dining-room set as shoppers mill about looking a recliners.

"I can't compete with the set-up on Letterman" Was says with a laugh.

"But doing something like this, we asked, 'What could we offer that's different?'

The answer is, the stripped-down and personal stuff."

In the ranks of overwrought music writing that have appeared in the Village Voice, Garrett Kamps is a god among fanboys. His recent review of Cat Power's flawed but arresting "Jukebox" covers record is especially troubling. It's not so much the rank misogyny or his John Yoo-level torturing of the em dash that really derails this review, but the fact that he doesn't seem to know what, exactly, a "cougar" is. Given our close approximation to Orange County, we know all too well. Cougars are sexually aggressive women on the far side of 40 peddling consequence-free hookups to inexperienced young men who will relay the tales in hushed, reverent tones over Halo 3 tournaments with their friends. Does that sound like an apt description of Cat Power (a.k.a. Chan Marshall), who once wrote a song about Patti Smith's children and her own abortion? Or the one who wrote one of 2006's most generous, uplifting Southern soul albums, "The Greatest?"

If Kamps is truly hunting for cougars, we can suggest a few better places for him to start trolling.

-- August Brown

[Cougar photo by Christine Cotter / Los Angeles Times. Chan Marshall photo by Stefano Giovannini / Beggars Group LTD via Bloomberg News]

An earlier version of this blog incorrectly referred to John Yoo as John Wu. And that was all Margaret's fault and not August's, so she will be buying him a latte something-or-another later today. Maybe.

It was an interesting week in musical contrasts.

On the invitation of Fuel TV's Daryl Berg, I stopped by Swing House in Hollywood on Monday to see the Bravery. The New York five-piece was at the recording studio-cum-rehearsal space to shoot a live segment for Fuel TV's "Check 1, 2." (If you're wondering what the connection is between the band and the action sports network, apparently two of the dudes like to surf.)

While I was there, the quintet ran through three of their songs three times each for Swing House's microphones and Fuel TV's cameras, and I would be lying if I didn't report that the performances were faultless--just like the recordings complete with spot-on vocals. Listening to the songs ("An Honest Mistake," "Believe" and "Time Won't Let Me Go"), I couldn't help but remark to Berg how incredulous I was that these guys aren't already superstars.

Seriously, the Bravery has a winning formula. It's not theirs, of course, it's Duran Duran's: five really good-looking guys with flawless haircuts and sharp outfits to match, playing insanely catchy New Wave-y tunes--hi-hat-heavy drums, octave-friendly bass, breathy keyboards, distorted rhythm guitars and crystalline leads, plus sour-sweet, whiny vocals--that sound both supremely commercial yet genuinely edgy.

The band's only modest success so far might have something to do with the fact that none of the band members--with the possible exception of the overly excited drummer--exhibited the slightest trace of personality at the shoot. I mean, it was dead silent between takes: No evidence of any camaraderie between the members; no jokes or horseplay; no comments, positive or negative, on the performances; no interaction with the crew, record company people or gawkers--just silence. They might have been wax works, but for the movement.

From the Bravery--an up-and-coming band with great chops (but no discernible personality) making a musical appearance--I go to Peter Tork, a rock 'n' roll dinosaur with questionable vocal tendencies (but tons of charisma) making a non-musical appearance.

The former Monkee was hosting a special edition of the Beauty Bar's "oldies 'n' goodies" Wednesday night event, Goodie Tu Shoes. By hosting, I mean he was autographing copies of "Cambria Hotel," a new offering from his rootsy, bluesy new rock 'n' roll band, Shoe Suede Blues.

Tork acted just the way any fan of the Monkees' ridiculous TV show (or thoroughly excellent film, "Head") would have expected: He was friendly, animated and totally goofy. I can't vouch for Shoe Suede Blues being anything more than a respectable honky tonk-style bar band, but after being an extraordinarily well-known (if not necessarily respected) superstar, he deserves a lot of credit for starting over with a new band and doing the little extracurriculars newcomers must to get the word out.

I guess the answer to the question Tork posed here is "yes." -Liam Gowing

[Photo 1: The Bravery at Swing House. Credit: Patrick Weir and Fuel TV. Photo 2: Peter Tork, right, and pal at Beauty Bar-L.A. Credit: Mary Jo Head.]

The Bird and the Bee will be

flying into the desert. Nice.

And one of those assembly-line electro acts that has me convinced technology has made

it far too easy to put out an album, the U.K.'s Does It Offend You Yeah?, will be

playing too.

Yeah, it does.

First, there was "Lip Gloss," Lil Mama's earth-crushing and drums-only ode to windburn protection that sounded more menacing and ruthless than anything on "Curtis." Now, M.I.A.-protege Rye Rye has a smoking, minimalist Baltimore club tune in "Shake It to the Ground" on Diplo's Mad Decent label. Aside from an occasional farted-out bass, the production work from DJ Blaqstarr is again strictly minimalist percussion and gum-smacking chants until practically the end of the song. Have the kids decided they don't need even a perfunctory Korg Triton stab to make a floor-filler? Either way, we dig the Misfits poster in Rye Rye's bedroom in this made-for-pennies video and like to imagine that Glenn Danzig might return the favor someday with a guest verse.

--August Brown

Happy New Year.

And good riddance, 2007.

The year brought an avalanche of music, and the recent holiday week of rumination and

CD-sorting etched in my mind the idea that a whole lot of it was ... well ... pretty

good. Yeah, pretty good, uttered with my head slightly tilted, as if I never

thought once of saying "great" or "really good." If I ever had the

radical notion to rate albums on a 10 scale,

I would swear that half the records I received this year logged somewhere between 6.5

and 6.7 -- a percentage that's skewed because all six copies of the Magic Numbers album that somehow found

their way to my desk would get a 6.2.

Maybe this was the year that trying to

keep up with new music, nationally and locally, finally overwhelmed me, what with every

baby band in the universe engaging in viral marketing, hiring publicists, working with

managers, leaving me polite entreaties on MySpace and generally undermining any belief

that a band can merely grow organically. I attended about 185 shows in 2007 too, many to

follow up on those advertising blitzes.

But after compiling my humble lists

below, I fast-forwarded to December 2009, when all good geeks will be sweating over

their seemingly inevitable Best-of-the-Aughts list. And guess what? Not a single album

from 2007 has a chance of making mine. All of the bands I consider indie icons -- and

I'm sure you can spank me for leaving out people you think are iconic -- released other

albums this decade that are superior to their 2007 releases. For the record, that

pantheon houses the National, Spoon, Modest Mouse, Arcade Fire, Bright Eyes and

Interpol, with other personal faves such as the Shins and Stars living in the backhouse.

Those heavyweights each added to their estimable catalogs, yes; it's just that I'm not

going to pull "We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank" off the shelf first

when I want to hear some Modest Mouse a few years from now.

At least, I don't

think.

The lists follow. Thanks to everybody who sends me music -- really --

and a special shout-out to the bands on the L.A. scene who've made my life so much

richer over the past 5-plus years.

My Favorite 10 Albums of 2007

1. Blonde

Redhead, "23"

2. The National, "Boxer"

3. LCD

Soundsystem, "Sound of Silver"

4. Against Me!, "New

Wave"

5. Spoon, "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga"

6. The Cribs,

"Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever"

7. Arcade Fire, "Neon

Bible"

8. Lupe Fiasco, "Cool"

9. The Shins,

"Wincing the Night Away"

10. Softlightes, "Say No to Being

Cool -- Say Yes to Being Happy" *

Comments: It's scares me how much

this list largely parallels other blogs/music mags. Yes, Fiasco's album just came out,

but on first, second and third blush it's a long-range keeper. And that's right, no

Radiohead. So sue me. 6.8.

* See final list

Buzz Bands' Top 10 L.A. Albums of 2007

1. Foreign Born, "On the Wing Now"

2. John Doe, "A Year in

the Wilderness"

3. Sea Wolf, "Leaves in the River"

4. CoCo B's, "CoCo B's"

5. Eleni Mandell, "Miracle of

Five"

6. Earlimart, "Mentor Tormentor"

7. Culver

City Dub Collective, "Dos"

8. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club,

"Baby 81"

9. Rilo Kiley, "Under the Blacklight"

10. Great Northern, "Trading Twilight for Daylight"

Comments:

Foreign Born is just plain good. CoCo B's self-released disc is a great surprise. Culver

City Dub Collective's genre-mashing is sublime. Eleni Mandell -- who needs Feist? And

Rilo Kiley's album just kept growing on me.

Ten L.A. Bands Whose Debuts Made Me Anxious for the

Sophomore Album

1. The Deadly Syndrome, "The

Ortolan"

2. The Broken West, "I Can't Go On, I'll Go On"

3. Robert Francis, "One by One"

4. The Parson Red Heads,

"King Giraffe"

5. Delta Spirit, "Delta Spirit"

6. Frankel, "Lullaby for the Passersby"

7. Year Long Disaster,

"Year Long Disaster"

8. Sara Bareilles, "Little Voice"

9. The Minor Canon, "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished"

10. No

Age, "Weirdo Rippers"

Ten L.A. Bands Whose 2007 EPs Made

Me Want More

Castledoor, the Airborne Toxic Event, the Weather

Underground, the Black Kites, Voxhaul Broadcast, Sam Sparro, Manic, Radars to the Sky,

Sara Lov, Aushua.

Three Albums From Bands Whom I Loved in the '90s and Still

Do

1. Buffalo Tom, "Three Easy Pieces"

2.

Dinosaur Jr., "Beyond"

3. Smashing Pumpkins,

"Zeitgeist"

Five Hip-Hop Albums I Would Recommend If

Anybody Believed I Recommended Hip-Hop Albums

1. Lupe Fiasco,

"Cool"

2. Kanye West, "Graduation"

3. Brother

Ali, "Undisputed Truth"

4. El-P, "I'll Sleep When You're

Dead"

5. Aesop Rock, "None Shall Pass"

Under the Radar: Six Overlooked Albums

1.

Softlightes, "Say No to Being Cool -- Say Yes to Being Happy": Cinematic

electro-pop that recalls Grandaddy at its finest.

2. The High Strung,

"Get the Guests": Catchy and clever, hold the irony, with peripatetic melody

lines that do not quit.

3. Minipop, "A New Hope": Gorgeous and

beautifully layered shoegaze-pop with rhythms that will drive you right into a dreamlike

state.

4. The Blakes, "The Blakes": Soulful garage rock that's good

for your summer sweat.

5. The Comas, "Spells": Distortion-heavy

power pop arrives in bursts, may leave marks.

6. Young Galaxy, "Young

Galaxy": Other Canadian exports (Kevin Drew, Sunset Rubdown, Feist, et. al.) earned

more buzz, but this album feel like a warm waking dream.

Comments:

Somehow I saw Softlightes play live 10 times in 2007. I left each show in a better mood

than when I arrived.

 

The next time someone tells you that booze doesn't make the world a better place, you just tell them to go listen to Corrine Bailey Rae and her remix of "Like A Star" at the wonderfully titled website www.generouspour.com. The seasonal website for Clos du Bois Wines has lovely traditonal holiday recipes for things like, um, "stoned crab cobbler with coconut" (what, are we pre-gaming for New Year's at Jimmy Buffett's beach hut?) and "Hot Italian Sausage Stuffing" (I'm pretty sure that's the gay porn version of "Roman Holiday"). Anyway, the website, which will be up through today, has a free download of "Like A Star" by Grammy nominee Rae and every time someone downloads it, Clos du Bois will donate $1 to Share Our Strength, a non-profit working against hunger and poverty in the U.S. It sounds like booze-company guilt to us, and wouldn't Amy Winehouse have been a better choice here for so many reasons? As for the music: The song is pretty much played out and the remix here is a fairly glossy affair but it is also free and unobjectionable as a dinner-party fare. So pass the potatoes...

--Geoff Boucher

The Beatle who earned his famous nickname by covering his fingers with rings is now making news with a bracelet. “Liverpool 8,” the new Capitol/EMI album from 67-year-old Ringo Starr, is being released Jan. 15 as a CD, a digital download and also as a “pre-loaded USB wristband” that includes all 12 tracks and a slew of extras, including “a personal video message, interview and track commentary from Ringo Starr, behind-the-scenes making-of footage from the recording sessions, ringtones, photos and more.” (Shouldn't those be "Ringo-tones"?) There’s more details at www.ringostarr.com but this already opens a whole new world of albums-as-accessories. How soon can we buy “Blackout” by Britney Spears in the ankle-monitor format? And how great would be to work toward the weekend by wearing Loverboy’s greatest hits in your headband?

--Geoff Boucher

Just in time to service your holiday malaise, two of my favorite DJ collectives are

conspiring to set sadness to music tonight at the downtown bar La Cita.

Give Up -- the seasonal club night initiated by the DJ collective Dublab and manned the past several years by Mark

"Frosty" McNeill and Jimmy Tamborello -- gets back into its wintry spirit as

DJs spin depressing songs on the bar's back patio. It's described as "a deeply

depressing disc sob session." Inside the bar, Part Time Punks' Michael Stock and others will

be hosting "A Sad, Slow Dance Party," promising "all slow dancing, all

night long."

There's no cover. Tears start to flow at 9 p.m.

Photo of DJ Frosty (from 2005) by Kevin Bronson/LAT

Happier choices for Tuesday, Dec. 18

Pop sextet Castledoor brings its

sublime tunes to Boardner's in the final monthly show of the year presented by Radio Free Silver Lake. The Flying Tourbillon Orchestra

and Frankel are also playing the

18-and-older show, which is free. ... Mighty Six Ninety and Io Echo rock the Troubadour. ... Oliver Future continues its Tuesday

residency at the Viper Room. ... The

Monolators head a good local bill at the Scene. ... And John Gold performs at Bordello.

The obituary this morning says Dan Fogelberg helped "define soft rock," but

that sounds kind of flaccid compared to what the singer-songwriter, who died Sunday at

age 56, meant to a bunch of kids in the working-class neighborhoods of Peoria, Ill., in

the early 1970s.

Fogelberg graduated from Woodruff High School the year before I got there, leaving

behind some stories of a rock band called the Coachmen (I actually owned the 45 at one

point -- oh, where did it go?) and the occasional rumor he'd gone off to California, a

place that seemed so distant from our Midwestern factory town as to be a mirage. Not

many of us had California dreams then; we'd do well to graduate high school and get on

at Caterpillar Tractor Co. (which accounted for something like 1 in 5 paychecks in our

city in those days). If we were really lucky, we'd go to college.

In the fall of my junior year, "Home Free" arrived, and we were mesmerized.

Fogelberg's debut album -- a beautifully orchestrated bouquet of ballads that veered

toward what we now would call alt-country -- took his alma mater by storm. It christened

the tape player in my first car; it was played endlessly at basement parties from Grand

View Drive to the lower East Bluff. I'm pretty sure there isn't a song in my collection

I've played over the years more than that second track, "Stars."

Fogelberg was our Jackson Browne, a romantic who shared our roots and who had the

courage to strike out in service of his poetry. As I trudged through the snow delivering

my Peoria Journal Stars every morning, that was a pretty important symbol.

I always blanched at, but ultimately forgave, the arch sentimentality that seemingly

oppressive production brought to Fogelberg's later albums. He had earned the right to

pursue whatever vision struck him. When my brother and I took in a Fogelberg show a few

years ago in Anaheim, it wasn't so much for musical nostalgia as it was a thank-you.

In one subtle but important way, Dan Fogelberg was the leader of our band.

Curiosity piqued by the announcement of the Gibson "Robot" Guitar, I headed down to my favorite guitar shop in L.A. on Saturday to check it out myself. I was a little disappointed, frankly.

With a name like "the Robot," I was expecting this six-stringer to jump out of the case unprovoked and run around the room, shouting, "Danger Will Robinson!" or "For those about to rock we salute you!" or "Sarah Connor?" or something. Instead, the Robot just lay in his case, looking like a standard (or, for those of you in the know, a "studio") Les Paul. The only obvious differences were larger tuning pegs and a funky-looking control where one of the standard four volume/tone knobs is usually located. This, I was told, was the "MCK" or "Master Control Knob."

"Now there's the kind of Orwellian 'oh no, the machines have achieved artificial intelligence and have enslaved all carbon-based lifeforms on the planet'-kind of language I was hoping for," I thought.

But alas, the master control knob just controls the Robot's auto-tuning mechanism. It's pretty neat, I'll admit. You pull out the knob, spin the top dial to one of several tuning-configuration presets (standard, "drop d," open-tuning, etc.), tap the top, strum the strings, wait for the tuning pegs to auto-jiggy into position, and voila--push the knob back in and your Les Paul has an alternate tuning.

For the overwhelming majority of guitar players who play in standard tuning, what are the advantages? Well, for about $1000 more than what you'd spend on a regular Les Paul, you can keep your axe in really, really, really good tune.

So who is the real market for Gibson's Robot Guitar? Wealthy guitar players who need to constantly and radically alter their tuning. If that's not you, buy a chromatic tuner and save the Robot Guitar for Joni Mitchell.

--Liam Gowing

Welcome to Soundboard, the new music blog from the L.A. Times written by a band of opinionated, sometimes cranky, sometimes ecstatic music lovers. Soundboard will blog breaking news, concert previews, album and single reviews, and lots of random observations about this vast, exciting, wacko place known as the music world. By the way, we're nomads, committed to no single genre, era or chart, so expect Soundboard to be all over the place, like a Sonic Youth song covered by Beyonce playing at a Mexican restaurant in Torrance. That song doesn't exist (yet) but you get the point.

I don't know why, but I'm thinking about record clubs. I remember a time when my older brother belonged to one and he'd show me his cool new tapes. (Yeah, tapes. Don't laugh.) "I got this for a penny!" he's say, shaking Duran Duran's "Rio" in my face. I was amazed. A penny? How can they do that??

So I started searching around to see if any are left.

Turns out that BMG Columbia House still has one but from their home page, you can tell they're making their money from DVDs. "Music Service" is off to the side. When you click on it, it takes you to one of the saddest little web pages in the world, seemingly designed by Your Local Mall's Party Store circa 1988.

I'm going to find out a little more about this whole thing, but in the meantime, does anyone still belong to a record club out there?

[Crickets.]

--Margaret Wappler

I'm not part of the pack salivating over "Raising Sand," the new Alison Krauss/Robert Plant collab -- its backwoods flavor is slightly overcooked, in my book -- but I love the CD's cover art. The frontispiece shows the two stars relaxing in some desert setting, smiling off into the distance, perhaps at T-Bone Burnett bringing them another sheaf of folk-pop obscurities to peruse.

The back's the clincher, though. Plant's back is turned, and Krauss, leaning toward him, throws a grin over her shoulder as they walk away. She looks like a contented cat making off with her canary. The Lion King may be nearly sixty and more interested in crooning than howling out all of his love, but Krauss certainly knows that by clutching that arm, she's fulfilling a fantasy that sustained generations of teen-age girls, dreaming in their bedrooms to Led Zeppelin's massive kathunking mojo blues. Though I'm sure their collaboration was strictly artistic, here's to her for having fun with her chance to quietly fly her metal horns and say, "Ladies, eat your hearts out!"

--Ann Powers

I am not necessarily a fan of the

Mormons, but as a baseball guy I just about did a spit take when I saw the

tongue-in-cheek poster for the Los Angeles band's current stand at Mr. T's Bowl. [Sorry

for the sloppy clean-up job; it's a family blog, you know.]

[Our local music spotlight, for the moment, remains pointed at power pop, because

it just seems to go so well with summertime:]


Ari Shine landed with a crunch -- and

that's the crunch of a big power chord -- when he released his debut EP

"Age/Occupation" in 2006. Quickly he became a songwriter-to-watch in the L.A.

power-pop underground, if not somebody who carries enough melodies to wriggle a bunch of

his songs onto TV shows, and his energetic stage show hinted that he might become an

artist who could transcend the frequently fey trappings of the form.

His

full-length debut, "A Force of One" (released in July on Bongo Beat), suggests

that Shine is not content to merely ride the coattails  of his forebears. There's

some boy-meets/loses-girl material here, much of it cleverly couched ("Flirtation

Device"), but he sinks his hooks into broader storytelling too (see the song

below). The album was produced by former Sparks guitarist Earle Mankey, who has worked with

L.A. notables such as Concrete Blonde and the Three O'Clock. The result is a collection

that's a little bit Elvis Costello, a little bit Matthew Sweet and maybe a bit Brendan

Benson.

||| Shine performs tonight at the Knitting Factory as part of International Pop Overthrow. He also

is playing a couple West Cost dates supporting Peter

Case prior to a Sept. 18 date at Safari Sam's as a supporting act for Miles Hunt of the Wonder Stuff.

||| Download: "Beirut 1978."

Photo by Sam Peacock

"Korn's new album doesn't have a title."

"So how do you order it?"

"You don't. It's Korn."

I missed it and, from reports, am regretting it. Bat for Lashes, the nom de tune of

Brighton, England's Natasha Khan, wowed the room last night at Spaceland. The common

sentiment I heard from a couple people: No wonder she is nominated for the Mercury

Music Prize.

You'll be hearing more about her.

For now, here is the enchanting video for "What's a Girl to Do."

Touts for Wednesday, Aug. 1

The Format starts a two-show stand (the

Avalon tonight, House of Blues tomorrow); the band for two weeks offered its latest

album, "Dog Problems," as a free download from its website and reported that

45,000 copies of the (very

good) album were ripped. ... Great

Glass Elevator (whose inventiveness kind of reminds me of the Format in a way) play

Club NME at Spaceland tonight. ... The Automatic Music

Explosion plays the Scene in Glendale. ... And the Stevenson Ranch Davidians

start a run of Wednesday shows at the Echo.

Consider this a warm-up for "The Simpsons

Movie" (opening in two weeks).

The musician's name is Zack Kim, a 24-year-old

university student who was born in Seoul, South Korea, reared in Malaysia and is now

studying in Australia. There are more examples of his technique on his website, and the

young man has his own Wikipedia

page.

He tells me via e-mail that he after he completes his studies in two years he hopes

to devote all his energies to music, and eventually he "would really love to

perform in the States, as it would be a dream come true for me."

Have to

think he'd be quite a hit at the premiere party.

Summer is here, in case you were too busy on MySpace to get the memo. The concert

calendar always seems to remind me before the real calendar, what with the Hollywood

Bowl kicking into gear and the onslaught of distinguished veteran rock bands starting to

make the stadium rounds.

(Email from a friend who went to Dodger Stadium this weekend: "They were pretty

awesome for a Police cover band.")

The smaller events have their cachet too -- the Sunday afternoon Do-Over at Crane's, the Little Radio Summer Camp. And then there was last

Thursday's Late Night at LACMA, the annual summer

solstice soiree, which attracted 7,853 museum visitors and probably disappointed

hundreds of others who waited for hours in long lines only to give up. (To be fair, what

part of "early arrival recommended" did you not understand?)

Late Night was a melange of music, hipster ephemera (T-shirt screen printing by Hit +

Run now seems mandatory if you are throwing any kind of cross-cultural event) and art.

Suffice to say there were plenty of photo ops in the Dan Flavin retrospective, a refuge

for attendees who could only handle small doses of offerings from DJs Steve Aoki,

Internationalist and handful of others. I missed the set by the always-solid Rebirth but caught one of L.A.'s favorite party

bands, Ima Robot, who got folks dancing despite

the band's relative lack of amplification.

◊ ◊ ◊

Where did June go?

The Monday night residencies end tonight at Spaceland, the Echo and Silverlake

Lounge. The L.A. quartet the Deadly

Syndrome (Spaceland) seems to have grown into polished band overnight (and wait till

you hear the album), and Thailand

(Silverlake Lounge), despite playing as a three-piece with electronic rhythms, serve up

a compelling new-wave/post-punk cocktail. And I have not made it to the Echo to see

Philadelphia ex-pats Burning Brides

(maybe tonight?), but people I trust give me good reports.

◊ ◊ ◊

At Safari Sam's on Friday night, the Silver Lake/Echo Park masses gathered to bid

farewell to Sea Level Records and its

proprietor, Todd Clifford. The independent outlet has been a locus of the Eastside music

scene for more than 5 years, and Clifford is closing more for I-need-a-life-change

reasons than business.

Today is the last day Sea Level is scheduled to be open.

Photos: LACMA attendees get up close with Dan Flavin's work; Ima Robot rocks in the

courtyard. By Kevin Bronson / LAT.

The Little Ones are still one

of this city's strongest musical happy pills, but, as a set Friday night showed, it's

hard to maintain that peak level of exuberance when you're doing it night after night,

tour after tour.

The L.A.

quintet -- "Rhymin' Simon on steroids" is how I described them last year, and

it still applies -- played an ASCAP- and Filter-sponsored music night on Friday tied to

the Silverlake Film Festival. The stuff from their "Sing Song" EP still

sounded crisp, and their new songs were upbeat and catchy too. But after having spent

the early part of this year doing some rigorous touring, the Little Ones weren't quite

as unhinged as they were when their EP was first released and Astralwerks (in the U.S.)

and Heavenly (in the U.K.) swooped in to sign the band.

Are the Little Ones still as happy as their music? "That's a good

question," frontman Edward Reyes says. "We're excited. ... Remember, we just

looked at that EP as our calling card -- we just wanted to get some shows with

it."

Their as-yet-untitled debut album is recorded and due in January, Reyes says.

"It's turning out great," he adds. "Right now we have a whole track

devoted to laughing."

||| Download Little Ones' songs from their Daytrotter session here.

◊ ◊ ◊

Passion of the Weiss has a

play-by-play of Britney Spears' Houses of Blues appearance (I will not call it a

performance). He even has some empathy.

◊ ◊ ◊

Ran into an employee of a recently merged record company who was enthused about

having adopted a puppy. Cute thing ... so what did you name him? "Andy

Slater."

◊ ◊ ◊

"So how

was Coachella?" That was the most-asked

question last week. I told inquiring minds that it was a three-day weekend of

once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and even as they were unfolding I knew I was missing

others. Wish the festival could have just hesitated a few times each day and let me

catch up.

The inconsiderate hipsters at Anthem, who throw their Coachella party during the day

while the music is going on, tell me I missed something else too -- a mask-less Thomas

Bangalter from Daft Punk [face obscured] spinning the LCD Soundsystem track "Daft

Punk Is Playing at My House." Not that anybody recognized him. But a cool party

nonetheless.

Daft Punk turned up on the turntables a couple nights later at the Echo too. Not that

anybody recognized them.

Touts for tonight

Gliss (Spaceland), the High Society (Silverlake Lounge), Bodies of Water (Echo) and Richard Bivens & Foreign Press

(Detroit Bar) start their Monday night residencies. ... Midnight Movies plays an in-store at

Amoeba. ... And London's Apartment joins

locals the Grand Marquee and others

at Indie 103.1's Viper Room show.

The music is pretty hard on the ears, kind of a flailing

attempt at dance-party relevance. But the album cover (that's the original at right) is

even harder on the eyes -- so Perry Farrell's Satellite Party revised it. Stereogum has a

compare-and-contrast. I'm not sure, but this would not have passed muster in the

Photoshop classes I slogged through years ago. This does, however, guarantee that the

album will chart. Here.

[Guest blogger August Brown is hot both because he is fly, and because he should

have worn more sunscreen.]

If Coachella success was measured in words per minute, Busdriver would have been the day's

undisputed champ. But fortunately for the old-guard L.A.-based MC, he dropped jaws and

machine-gun metaphors alike during his astonishingly dextrous set.

Busdriver was equally compelling needling the crowd with accusations of yuppiedom as

he did slaying them with fiery indignance at the ways the music industry exploits

rappers. Over a loose-limbed flurry of house and jungle-inspired beats, he extolled

cheeba and wryly freestyled that "in the Gobi tent is how an O.G. represents."

Original gangstas are few and far between at Coachella, but unless Ghostface pulls off

a miracle tomorrow, Busdriver may hit the 10 freeway home as the weekend's reigning

rhyme-slinger.

This was featured in our Downloads column last weekend (a good reason to drop

some coin on the Saturday print edition or check the pop music page on your local

newspaper's website). I've been a sucker for Travis' brand of Britpop since the first Clinton

Administration. Here's the video for "Closer," and, yeah, Ben Stiller makes a

good grocer.

Ozomatli looked to the visual for inspiration

when writing its new album, “Don’t Mess With the Dragon” (due April 3 on Concord

Records) — much of the initial songwriting came out of jam sessions at the Tropico de

Nopal art gallery. Now the veteran L.A. nine-piece might have found a vision to suit its

sound.

The new video for the single “Can’t Stop” is a dizzying collage of

stop-animation and storytelling that seems equal to Ozomatli’s mashing of Latin flavors,

rock, hip-hop and funk — a hybrid many have said is distinctly Los Angeles.

“We haven’t had a lot of luck with videos in the past,” acknowledges Ulises Bella, who

plays saxophone and clarinet for the band.

Ozomatli turned to New York-based

artist-illustrator Richard Borge for “Can’t Stop,” even though the 41-year-old, who had

done album art for bands such as Meat Beat Manifesto, had never done a music video.

Winter Music Conference: Sets with Boys Noize and Digitalism

Berlin-based DJ/producer Alex Ridha, better known as Boys Noize, isn't exactly a fan of Miami. Or a fan of cameras, for that matter.

"It's a weird place, honestly," he said backstage before a Scion-sponsored gig Thursday afternoon for WMC. "There are some horrible people going around here."

Regardless, the crowd, most of whom are dance-music industry insiders from New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago, ate up his set yesterday, which was heavy on material from his lauded 2007 release Oi Oi Oi.

"In Germany the minimal scene is so dominant," he says of his overseas success, which now looks set to cross the Atlantic with shows booked at Coachella and several UK festivals later this spring and summer.

"When I started my [Boysnoize] label three years ago, none of this music was popular," he says. Now that kindred acts such as Justice have broken in the U.S., Boys Noize's hard, dissonant sound is resonating with dance music and indie rock fans.

"I'm more into techno than indie dance stuff," he says. "But I'm happy American fans are discovering me."

After Boys Noize's two-hour set (where he played everything from an updated electro version of Laurie Anderson's "Superman" to Justice), another buzzing German act, Digitalism, took the stage behind the Raleigh Hotel's pool.

The Hamburg duo have already made sizable inroads in the U.S., thanks to their brand of dance music that verges on indie rock. Some have dubbed them the German Daft Punk.

Ridha actually went to college with one of the members of Digitalism in Hamburg, but he considers his Noize different from Digitalism's brand of dance music.

"I would never play Digitalism in my set," he says. "What I do is straight for the clubs ... but I like them."

Spoken like a true Teutonic gentleman.

--post and photograph by Charlie Amter

German artists Boys Noize and Digitalism play the Ultra Music Festival at Winter Music Conference today.

Miami's annual dance music sleaze-a-thon, the Winter Music Conference, is nearly in full swing today, with most attendees wandering Collins Avenue looking for the best DJ events/hotel parties by 2 p.m. No one gets up before noon.

Some of today's best events are at the Raleigh, where New York's Lady GaGa is making her WMC debut at an Armani Exchange-sponsored rooftop terrace soiree.

Interscope has high hopes for the newly signed dance diva, who has already written songs for several artists (including Pussycat Dolls) and is on the verge of signing a publishing contract to augment her label deal.

"Jimmy [Iovine] and I get along great," she says of the Interscope honcho from the rooftop of the Raleigh. "I'm the kind of Italian Brookyln girl he would have liked to take to the prom," she laughs. "He loved me."

The Lady, who's fond of performing in naughty underwear ensembles, chains and stripper heels, got her start playing Brooklyn parties and clubs in Manhattan in 2005 with her equally brazen backup dancers. "I put together a show in New York where we spun beats on vinyl and I played keyboards over the records," she says. "We wore matching bikinis," the Lady giggles, adding that the show was "yummy."

It remains to be seen whether of not the rest of America will find Lady GaGa's musical offerings as delicious as New York does. Her music sounds not unlike a drunken Madonna, Peaches and Kylie Minogue recording session with lots of sticky Champagne spilled on the demos. Lady GaGa's debut disc, made for the "rock and rollers who wanted to listen to pop records," drops this summer. The big Madonna fan's single, "Just Dance," hits next week.

Oh, and Interscope recently moved her into a Hollywood-adjacent apartment, so look out, Angelenos.

--  Post and photo by Charlie Amter

It's been quite a month for daredevil wacko and part time rapper Steve-O.

Arrested on March 3 and booked for vandalizing his own apartment and possession of a controlled substance (cocaine apparently), the "Jackass" star found himself facing eviction when he returned home. That's when, according to his own MySpace blog, things began to spiral out of control. Or at least, more out of control than usual.

The cyberspace saga commences harmlessly enough with a posting on March 8, in which the 33-year-old announces that he'd been evicted and requests that his "Jackass" costars and friends help him move out the following morning. But the video clips in the following post from March 9 couldn't be more terrifying. The second, "Eviction Party Begins," shows Steve-O hosting a kind of bizzaro MTV Cribs: Half-naked and visibly intoxicated, he wanders around his trashed apartment carrying a hefty revolver, which at one point he uses to play Russian Roulette.

In the following entry, posted March 13, Steve-O announces that he's in "the looney bin" because, the morning after his "Eviction Party Begins" was shot, his "Jackass" costars forced him into a hospital on a "5150," a three-day psychiatric hold, later extended to a "5250," 14-day hold.

That's where things get really interesting.

The entries continue, posted by his assistant Jen Moore, but written by Steve-O from inside the undisclosed treatment center, where he may well have been completely sober for the first time in years. In their own way, these entries are as shocking as the infamous stunt in which Steve-O stapled his scrotum to his leg, because they reveal an intelligent, articulate, well-read and deeply philosophical individual coming to terms with a lifetime of substance abuse and related bipolar issues.

Spiked with moments of epiphany and apology, Steve-O's confessional journey from drug-induced rock-bottom to something approaching health may be a cliche--of course, it's one of the oldest in the Hollywood playbook--but it's still remarkable.

Lots of questions remain: Will Steve-O stay sober or will he fall back into his bad habits? Will he be able to continue his inane stunt career after acknowledging that "the nature of my work almost embraced my addictions," or will he retire? And what exactly are the ramifications of the dawning of the Age of Aquarius he discusses in his March 21 entry?

Time will tell.

--Liam Gowing

A few weeks ago, I interviewed Bad Religion founder Greg Graffin about his band's recent string of L.A.-area dates. Bad Religion's been through several commercial revivals, as wiseacre punks, as an unlikely radio act in the mid-'90s ("You and meee ... have a diseeease ..." ) and most recently as something approximating a hugely successful local band. They play large theaters and festivals and sell decently around the world, but to someone whose experience with rock radio is limited to KROQ, they must seem as big as Linkin Park. I always chalked it up as a Southern California thing, that the '90s varietal of double-time skate punk that came to be called the "Epitaph Sound" put its claws in deep after the Offspring and never let up. All that grindable pavement, the year-long sunshine and the intraversible open space of L.A.'s mutant version of urbanity certainly helped.

When the video for Lil' Wayne's new, so-inane-it-might-be-genius single "Lollipop" began making the rounds, it seemed oddly ... familiar. Not just because its narrative arc of Wayne looking stoked about his money and club-girl harem is well-traversed hip-hop video territory, though. Something in the particular visual kinesis of him driving around Vegas playing guitar out of the sunroof of his stretch Hummer or whatever. Then it hit us --  Silversun Pickups (and director Joaquin Phoenix) made the exact same video for their single "Little Lover's So Polite." Just replace the Pickups' preteen Aryan couple and downtown L.A. with Wayne's video vixens and the Vegas strip. Note the 1:53 mark in "Lollipop" and the 3:06 point in "Little Lover's" where each artist plays their respective butt rock guitar solo. Wayne's guitar face is much more convincing, we think.

-- August Brown

Illustration by August Brown; Lil' Wayne photo by Jonathan Mannion; Silversun Pickups photo by Gail Salmo

Lil' Wayne: "Lollipop"

Silversun Pickups: "Little Lover's So Polite"

Your daily six-degrees-of-Rilo Kiley round-up: Women's Wear Daily is reporting that guitarist Blake Sennett has finally passed the penultimate indie-dude coming-of-age ritual and is getting hitched to Winona Ryder. Us Weekly is denying the claim. The two are definitely starring in an upcoming film called "Water Pill." Jenny Lewis is making an album with Elvis Costello and Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes, whom you heard from last week. We just want some CornNuts. BQ.

-- August Brown

Photo by New World Pictures

We’re not sure exactly why the Foo Fighters are considered rock royalty now (“The Pretender” as a best-record nominee at the Grammys? Well, at least it lives up to its title ...), but Dave Grohl does have an admirable sense of humor. Exhibit A: His deadpan performance of “Leather and Lace” with the always loopy Will Ferrell at a recent L.A. fundraiser:

-- Geoff Boucher

Now that Super Tuesday has proven inconclusive on all fronts, let’s engage in some unfounded speculation: Might any of the presidential candidates show up at Sunday’s Grammy Awards?

The Repubs will likely stay home -– despite Mike Huckabee’s electric bass skills and Burt Bacharach’s reported fondness for John McCain, their support among pop stars is generally thin. Ron Paul can claim only Arlo Guthrie. (You can check out who’s supporting whom here.)

Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, however, are still vying for the pop star vote as well as the popular one. A quick and dirty survey of Grammy nominees reveals Clinton with six nominated stumpers -- Madonna, Tony Bennett, Jon Bon Jovi, 50 Cent, Timbaland and Barbra Streisand -– and Obama with five -- Ne-Yo, Usher, Harry Connick Jr., Win Butler of Arcade Fire and Jeff Tweedy of Wilco.

Will.i.am, Obama’s most active pop pal of late, didn’t earn any noms for his commercial flop of a solo album, but he’ll likely be on hand to pop the cork with Fergie if she takes a statue home. We could definitely see the irrepressible Black Eyed Pea pulling Barry onstage for a chorus of Fergie’s “Glamorous.”

And Hillary should really dump that Celine campaign song for an all-American medley of her pal Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” and “(You Want to) Make a Memory.” Although seeing her do the freak with Justin during 50’s “Ayo Technology”…. OK, that seems unlikely. But hey, there’s always Timbaland. He did wonders for Nelly Furtado. He could get the uber baby-boomer candidate out of her cultural rut!

In the meantime, check out Oh! Industry’s excellent roundtable of dedications to favorite candidates.

-- Ann Powers

I think I found the cure for the common TV. Of course, it's right here on your very

own Internet.

It's My Damn

Channel, a portal that is home to offerings from musician extraordinaire Don Was, along with the likes of Harry

Shearer, David Wain and others.


Was, a bassist, music supervisor, documentary director, Grammy-winning producer and a

driving force behind the cutting-edge funk outfit Was

(Not Was), has seldom been more sublimely
entertaining than as the cool-cat host of the "Wasmopolitan Dance
Party" -- a webisode filmed in the showroom of the Furniture Outlet, a
budget joint in North Hollywood. [Pardon the ads, but the installment above is well

worth their intrusion.]

There is singer-songwriter Jill Sobule, gamely playing her beautiful songs

from behind a dining-room set as shoppers mill about looking a recliners.

"I can't compete with the set-up on Letterman" Was says with a laugh.

"But doing something like this, we asked, 'What could we offer that's different?'

The answer is, the stripped-down and personal stuff."

In the ranks of overwrought music writing that have appeared in the Village Voice, Garrett Kamps is a god among fanboys. His recent review of Cat Power's flawed but arresting "Jukebox" covers record is especially troubling. It's not so much the rank misogyny or his John Yoo-level torturing of the em dash that really derails this review, but the fact that he doesn't seem to know what, exactly, a "cougar" is. Given our close approximation to Orange County, we know all too well. Cougars are sexually aggressive women on the far side of 40 peddling consequence-free hookups to inexperienced young men who will relay the tales in hushed, reverent tones over Halo 3 tournaments with their friends. Does that sound like an apt description of Cat Power (a.k.a. Chan Marshall), who once wrote a song about Patti Smith's children and her own abortion? Or the one who wrote one of 2006's most generous, uplifting Southern soul albums, "The Greatest?"

If Kamps is truly hunting for cougars, we can suggest a few better places for him to start trolling.

-- August Brown

[Cougar photo by Christine Cotter / Los Angeles Times. Chan Marshall photo by Stefano Giovannini / Beggars Group LTD via Bloomberg News]

An earlier version of this blog incorrectly referred to John Yoo as John Wu. And that was all Margaret's fault and not August's, so she will be buying him a latte something-or-another later today. Maybe.

It was an interesting week in musical contrasts.

On the invitation of Fuel TV's Daryl Berg, I stopped by Swing House in Hollywood on Monday to see the Bravery. The New York five-piece was at the recording studio-cum-rehearsal space to shoot a live segment for Fuel TV's "Check 1, 2." (If you're wondering what the connection is between the band and the action sports network, apparently two of the dudes like to surf.)

While I was there, the quintet ran through three of their songs three times each for Swing House's microphones and Fuel TV's cameras, and I would be lying if I didn't report that the performances were faultless--just like the recordings complete with spot-on vocals. Listening to the songs ("An Honest Mistake," "Believe" and "Time Won't Let Me Go"), I couldn't help but remark to Berg how incredulous I was that these guys aren't already superstars.

Seriously, the Bravery has a winning formula. It's not theirs, of course, it's Duran Duran's: five really good-looking guys with flawless haircuts and sharp outfits to match, playing insanely catchy New Wave-y tunes--hi-hat-heavy drums, octave-friendly bass, breathy keyboards, distorted rhythm guitars and crystalline leads, plus sour-sweet, whiny vocals--that sound both supremely commercial yet genuinely edgy.

The band's only modest success so far might have something to do with the fact that none of the band members--with the possible exception of the overly excited drummer--exhibited the slightest trace of personality at the shoot. I mean, it was dead silent between takes: No evidence of any camaraderie between the members; no jokes or horseplay; no comments, positive or negative, on the performances; no interaction with the crew, record company people or gawkers--just silence. They might have been wax works, but for the movement.

From the Bravery--an up-and-coming band with great chops (but no discernible personality) making a musical appearance--I go to Peter Tork, a rock 'n' roll dinosaur with questionable vocal tendencies (but tons of charisma) making a non-musical appearance.

The former Monkee was hosting a special edition of the Beauty Bar's "oldies 'n' goodies" Wednesday night event, Goodie Tu Shoes. By hosting, I mean he was autographing copies of "Cambria Hotel," a new offering from his rootsy, bluesy new rock 'n' roll band, Shoe Suede Blues.

Tork acted just the way any fan of the Monkees' ridiculous TV show (or thoroughly excellent film, "Head") would have expected: He was friendly, animated and totally goofy. I can't vouch for Shoe Suede Blues being anything more than a respectable honky tonk-style bar band, but after being an extraordinarily well-known (if not necessarily respected) superstar, he deserves a lot of credit for starting over with a new band and doing the little extracurriculars newcomers must to get the word out.

I guess the answer to the question Tork posed here is "yes." -Liam Gowing

[Photo 1: The Bravery at Swing House. Credit: Patrick Weir and Fuel TV. Photo 2: Peter Tork, right, and pal at Beauty Bar-L.A. Credit: Mary Jo Head.]

The Bird and the Bee will be

flying into the desert. Nice.

And one of those assembly-line electro acts that has me convinced technology has made

it far too easy to put out an album, the U.K.'s Does It Offend You Yeah?, will be

playing too.

Yeah, it does.

First, there was "Lip Gloss," Lil Mama's earth-crushing and drums-only ode to windburn protection that sounded more menacing and ruthless than anything on "Curtis." Now, M.I.A.-protege Rye Rye has a smoking, minimalist Baltimore club tune in "Shake It to the Ground" on Diplo's Mad Decent label. Aside from an occasional farted-out bass, the production work from DJ Blaqstarr is again strictly minimalist percussion and gum-smacking chants until practically the end of the song. Have the kids decided they don't need even a perfunctory Korg Triton stab to make a floor-filler? Either way, we dig the Misfits poster in Rye Rye's bedroom in this made-for-pennies video and like to imagine that Glenn Danzig might return the favor someday with a guest verse.

--August Brown

Happy New Year.

And good riddance, 2007.

The year brought an avalanche of music, and the recent holiday week of rumination and

CD-sorting etched in my mind the idea that a whole lot of it was ... well ... pretty

good. Yeah, pretty good, uttered with my head slightly tilted, as if I never

thought once of saying "great" or "really good." If I ever had the

radical notion to rate albums on a 10 scale,

I would swear that half the records I received this year logged somewhere between 6.5

and 6.7 -- a percentage that's skewed because all six copies of the Magic Numbers album that somehow found

their way to my desk would get a 6.2.

Maybe this was the year that trying to

keep up with new music, nationally and locally, finally overwhelmed me, what with every

baby band in the universe engaging in viral marketing, hiring publicists, working with

managers, leaving me polite entreaties on MySpace and generally undermining any belief

that a band can merely grow organically. I attended about 185 shows in 2007 too, many to

follow up on those advertising blitzes.

But after compiling my humble lists

below, I fast-forwarded to December 2009, when all good geeks will be sweating over

their seemingly inevitable Best-of-the-Aughts list. And guess what? Not a single album

from 2007 has a chance of making mine. All of the bands I consider indie icons -- and

I'm sure you can spank me for leaving out people you think are iconic -- released other

albums this decade that are superior to their 2007 releases. For the record, that

pantheon houses the National, Spoon, Modest Mouse, Arcade Fire, Bright Eyes and

Interpol, with other personal faves such as the Shins and Stars living in the backhouse.

Those heavyweights each added to their estimable catalogs, yes; it's just that I'm not

going to pull "We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank" off the shelf first

when I want to hear some Modest Mouse a few years from now.

At least, I don't

think.

The lists follow. Thanks to everybody who sends me music -- really --

and a special shout-out to the bands on the L.A. scene who've made my life so much

richer over the past 5-plus years.

My Favorite 10 Albums of 2007

1. Blonde

Redhead, "23"

2. The National, "Boxer"

3. LCD

Soundsystem, "Sound of Silver"

4. Against Me!, "New

Wave"

5. Spoon, "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga"

6. The Cribs,

"Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever"

7. Arcade Fire, "Neon

Bible"

8. Lupe Fiasco, "Cool"

9. The Shins,

"Wincing the Night Away"

10. Softlightes, "Say No to Being

Cool -- Say Yes to Being Happy" *

Comments: It's scares me how much

this list largely parallels other blogs/music mags. Yes, Fiasco's album just came out,

but on first, second and third blush it's a long-range keeper. And that's right, no

Radiohead. So sue me. 6.8.

* See final list

Buzz Bands' Top 10 L.A. Albums of 2007

1. Foreign Born, "On the Wing Now"

2. John Doe, "A Year in

the Wilderness"

3. Sea Wolf, "Leaves in the River"

4. CoCo B's, "CoCo B's"

5. Eleni Mandell, "Miracle of

Five"

6. Earlimart, "Mentor Tormentor"

7. Culver

City Dub Collective, "Dos"

8. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club,

"Baby 81"

9. Rilo Kiley, "Under the Blacklight"

10. Great Northern, "Trading Twilight for Daylight"

Comments:

Foreign Born is just plain good. CoCo B's self-released disc is a great surprise. Culver

City Dub Collective's genre-mashing is sublime. Eleni Mandell -- who needs Feist? And

Rilo Kiley's album just kept growing on me.

Ten L.A. Bands Whose Debuts Made Me Anxious for the

Sophomore Album

1. The Deadly Syndrome, "The

Ortolan"

2. The Broken West, "I Can't Go On, I'll Go On"

3. Robert Francis, "One by One"

4. The Parson Red Heads,

"King Giraffe"

5. Delta Spirit, "Delta Spirit"

6. Frankel, "Lullaby for the Passersby"

7. Year Long Disaster,

"Year Long Disaster"

8. Sara Bareilles, "Little Voice"

9. The Minor Canon, "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished"

10. No

Age, "Weirdo Rippers"

Ten L.A. Bands Whose 2007 EPs Made

Me Want More

Castledoor, the Airborne Toxic Event, the Weather

Underground, the Black Kites, Voxhaul Broadcast, Sam Sparro, Manic, Radars to the Sky,

Sara Lov, Aushua.

Three Albums From Bands Whom I Loved in the '90s and Still

Do

1. Buffalo Tom, "Three Easy Pieces"

2.

Dinosaur Jr., "Beyond"

3. Smashing Pumpkins,

"Zeitgeist"

Five Hip-Hop Albums I Would Recommend If

Anybody Believed I Recommended Hip-Hop Albums

1. Lupe Fiasco,

"Cool"

2. Kanye West, "Graduation"

3. Brother

Ali, "Undisputed Truth"

4. El-P, "I'll Sleep When You're

Dead"

5. Aesop Rock, "None Shall Pass"

Under the Radar: Six Overlooked Albums

1.

Softlightes, "Say No to Being Cool -- Say Yes to Being Happy": Cinematic

electro-pop that recalls Grandaddy at its finest.

2. The High Strung,

"Get the Guests": Catchy and clever, hold the irony, with peripatetic melody

lines that do not quit.

3. Minipop, "A New Hope": Gorgeous and

beautifully layered shoegaze-pop with rhythms that will drive you right into a dreamlike

state.

4. The Blakes, "The Blakes": Soulful garage rock that's good

for your summer sweat.

5. The Comas, "Spells": Distortion-heavy

power pop arrives in bursts, may leave marks.

6. Young Galaxy, "Young

Galaxy": Other Canadian exports (Kevin Drew, Sunset Rubdown, Feist, et. al.) earned

more buzz, but this album feel like a warm waking dream.

Comments:

Somehow I saw Softlightes play live 10 times in 2007. I left each show in a better mood

than when I arrived.

 

The next time someone tells you that booze doesn't make the world a better place, you just tell them to go listen to Corrine Bailey Rae and her remix of "Like A Star" at the wonderfully titled website www.generouspour.com. The seasonal website for Clos du Bois Wines has lovely traditonal holiday recipes for things like, um, "stoned crab cobbler with coconut" (what, are we pre-gaming for New Year's at Jimmy Buffett's beach hut?) and "Hot Italian Sausage Stuffing" (I'm pretty sure that's the gay porn version of "Roman Holiday"). Anyway, the website, which will be up through today, has a free download of "Like A Star" by Grammy nominee Rae and every time someone downloads it, Clos du Bois will donate $1 to Share Our Strength, a non-profit working against hunger and poverty in the U.S. It sounds like booze-company guilt to us, and wouldn't Amy Winehouse have been a better choice here for so many reasons? As for the music: The song is pretty much played out and the remix here is a fairly glossy affair but it is also free and unobjectionable as a dinner-party fare. So pass the potatoes...

--Geoff Boucher

The Beatle who earned his famous nickname by covering his fingers with rings is now making news with a bracelet. “Liverpool 8,” the new Capitol/EMI album from 67-year-old Ringo Starr, is being released Jan. 15 as a CD, a digital download and also as a “pre-loaded USB wristband” that includes all 12 tracks and a slew of extras, including “a personal video message, interview and track commentary from Ringo Starr, behind-the-scenes making-of footage from the recording sessions, ringtones, photos and more.” (Shouldn't those be "Ringo-tones"?) There’s more details at www.ringostarr.com but this already opens a whole new world of albums-as-accessories. How soon can we buy “Blackout” by Britney Spears in the ankle-monitor format? And how great would be to work toward the weekend by wearing Loverboy’s greatest hits in your headband?

--Geoff Boucher

Just in time to service your holiday malaise, two of my favorite DJ collectives are

conspiring to set sadness to music tonight at the downtown bar La Cita.

Give Up -- the seasonal club night initiated by the DJ collective Dublab and manned the past several years by Mark

"Frosty" McNeill and Jimmy Tamborello -- gets back into its wintry spirit as

DJs spin depressing songs on the bar's back patio. It's described as "a deeply

depressing disc sob session." Inside the bar, Part Time Punks' Michael Stock and others will

be hosting "A Sad, Slow Dance Party," promising "all slow dancing, all

night long."

There's no cover. Tears start to flow at 9 p.m.

Photo of DJ Frosty (from 2005) by Kevin Bronson/LAT

Happier choices for Tuesday, Dec. 18

Pop sextet Castledoor brings its

sublime tunes to Boardner's in the final monthly show of the year presented by Radio Free Silver Lake. The Flying Tourbillon Orchestra

and Frankel are also playing the

18-and-older show, which is free. ... Mighty Six Ninety and Io Echo rock the Troubadour. ... Oliver Future continues its Tuesday

residency at the Viper Room. ... The

Monolators head a good local bill at the Scene. ... And John Gold performs at Bordello.

The obituary this morning says Dan Fogelberg helped "define soft rock," but

that sounds kind of flaccid compared to what the singer-songwriter, who died Sunday at

age 56, meant to a bunch of kids in the working-class neighborhoods of Peoria, Ill., in

the early 1970s.

Fogelberg graduated from Woodruff High School the year before I got there, leaving

behind some stories of a rock band called the Coachmen (I actually owned the 45 at one

point -- oh, where did it go?) and the occasional rumor he'd gone off to California, a

place that seemed so distant from our Midwestern factory town as to be a mirage. Not

many of us had California dreams then; we'd do well to graduate high school and get on

at Caterpillar Tractor Co. (which accounted for something like 1 in 5 paychecks in our

city in those days). If we were really lucky, we'd go to college.

In the fall of my junior year, "Home Free" arrived, and we were mesmerized.

Fogelberg's debut album -- a beautifully orchestrated bouquet of ballads that veered

toward what we now would call alt-country -- took his alma mater by storm. It christened

the tape player in my first car; it was played endlessly at basement parties from Grand

View Drive to the lower East Bluff. I'm pretty sure there isn't a song in my collection

I've played over the years more than that second track, "Stars."

Fogelberg was our Jackson Browne, a romantic who shared our roots and who had the

courage to strike out in service of his poetry. As I trudged through the snow delivering

my Peoria Journal Stars every morning, that was a pretty important symbol.

I always blanched at, but ultimately forgave, the arch sentimentality that seemingly

oppressive production brought to Fogelberg's later albums. He had earned the right to

pursue whatever vision struck him. When my brother and I took in a Fogelberg show a few

years ago in Anaheim, it wasn't so much for musical nostalgia as it was a thank-you.

In one subtle but important way, Dan Fogelberg was the leader of our band.

Curiosity piqued by the announcement of the Gibson "Robot" Guitar, I headed down to my favorite guitar shop in L.A. on Saturday to check it out myself. I was a little disappointed, frankly.

With a name like "the Robot," I was expecting this six-stringer to jump out of the case unprovoked and run around the room, shouting, "Danger Will Robinson!" or "For those about to rock we salute you!" or "Sarah Connor?" or something. Instead, the Robot just lay in his case, looking like a standard (or, for those of you in the know, a "studio") Les Paul. The only obvious differences were larger tuning pegs and a funky-looking control where one of the standard four volume/tone knobs is usually located. This, I was told, was the "MCK" or "Master Control Knob."

"Now there's the kind of Orwellian 'oh no, the machines have achieved artificial intelligence and have enslaved all carbon-based lifeforms on the planet'-kind of language I was hoping for," I thought.

But alas, the master control knob just controls the Robot's auto-tuning mechanism. It's pretty neat, I'll admit. You pull out the knob, spin the top dial to one of several tuning-configuration presets (standard, "drop d," open-tuning, etc.), tap the top, strum the strings, wait for the tuning pegs to auto-jiggy into position, and voila--push the knob back in and your Les Paul has an alternate tuning.

For the overwhelming majority of guitar players who play in standard tuning, what are the advantages? Well, for about $1000 more than what you'd spend on a regular Les Paul, you can keep your axe in really, really, really good tune.

So who is the real market for Gibson's Robot Guitar? Wealthy guitar players who need to constantly and radically alter their tuning. If that's not you, buy a chromatic tuner and save the Robot Guitar for Joni Mitchell.

--Liam Gowing

Welcome to Soundboard, the new music blog from the L.A. Times written by a band of opinionated, sometimes cranky, sometimes ecstatic music lovers. Soundboard will blog breaking news, concert previews, album and single reviews, and lots of random observations about this vast, exciting, wacko place known as the music world. By the way, we're nomads, committed to no single genre, era or chart, so expect Soundboard to be all over the place, like a Sonic Youth song covered by Beyonce playing at a Mexican restaurant in Torrance. That song doesn't exist (yet) but you get the point.

I don't know why, but I'm thinking about record clubs. I remember a time when my older brother belonged to one and he'd show me his cool new tapes. (Yeah, tapes. Don't laugh.) "I got this for a penny!" he's say, shaking Duran Duran's "Rio" in my face. I was amazed. A penny? How can they do that??

So I started searching around to see if any are left.

Turns out that BMG Columbia House still has one but from their home page, you can tell they're making their money from DVDs. "Music Service" is off to the side. When you click on it, it takes you to one of the saddest little web pages in the world, seemingly designed by Your Local Mall's Party Store circa 1988.

I'm going to find out a little more about this whole thing, but in the meantime, does anyone still belong to a record club out there?

[Crickets.]

--Margaret Wappler

I'm not part of the pack salivating over "Raising Sand," the new Alison Krauss/Robert Plant collab -- its backwoods flavor is slightly overcooked, in my book -- but I love the CD's cover art. The frontispiece shows the two stars relaxing in some desert setting, smiling off into the distance, perhaps at T-Bone Burnett bringing them another sheaf of folk-pop obscurities to peruse.

The back's the clincher, though. Plant's back is turned, and Krauss, leaning toward him, throws a grin over her shoulder as they walk away. She looks like a contented cat making off with her canary. The Lion King may be nearly sixty and more interested in crooning than howling out all of his love, but Krauss certainly knows that by clutching that arm, she's fulfilling a fantasy that sustained generations of teen-age girls, dreaming in their bedrooms to Led Zeppelin's massive kathunking mojo blues. Though I'm sure their collaboration was strictly artistic, here's to her for having fun with her chance to quietly fly her metal horns and say, "Ladies, eat your hearts out!"

--Ann Powers

I am not necessarily a fan of the

Mormons, but as a baseball guy I just about did a spit take when I saw the

tongue-in-cheek poster for the Los Angeles band's current stand at Mr. T's Bowl. [Sorry

for the sloppy clean-up job; it's a family blog, you know.]

[Our local music spotlight, for the moment, remains pointed at power pop, because

it just seems to go so well with summertime:]


Ari Shine landed with a crunch -- and

that's the crunch of a big power chord -- when he released his debut EP

"Age/Occupation" in 2006. Quickly he became a songwriter-to-watch in the L.A.

power-pop underground, if not somebody who carries enough melodies to wriggle a bunch of

his songs onto TV shows, and his energetic stage show hinted that he might become an

artist who could transcend the frequently fey trappings of the form.

His

full-length debut, "A Force of One" (released in July on Bongo Beat), suggests

that Shine is not content to merely ride the coattails  of his forebears. There's

some boy-meets/loses-girl material here, much of it cleverly couched ("Flirtation

Device"), but he sinks his hooks into broader storytelling too (see the song

below). The album was produced by former Sparks guitarist Earle Mankey, who has worked with

L.A. notables such as Concrete Blonde and the Three O'Clock. The result is a collection

that's a little bit Elvis Costello, a little bit Matthew Sweet and maybe a bit Brendan

Benson.

||| Shine performs tonight at the Knitting Factory as part of International Pop Overthrow. He also

is playing a couple West Cost dates supporting Peter

Case prior to a Sept. 18 date at Safari Sam's as a supporting act for Miles Hunt of the Wonder Stuff.

||| Download: "Beirut 1978."

Photo by Sam Peacock

"Korn's new album doesn't have a title."

"So how do you order it?"

"You don't. It's Korn."

I missed it and, from reports, am regretting it. Bat for Lashes, the nom de tune of

Brighton, England's Natasha Khan, wowed the room last night at Spaceland. The common

sentiment I heard from a couple people: No wonder she is nominated for the Mercury

Music Prize.

You'll be hearing more about her.

For now, here is the enchanting video for "What's a Girl to Do."

Touts for Wednesday, Aug. 1

The Format starts a two-show stand (the

Avalon tonight, House of Blues tomorrow); the band for two weeks offered its latest

album, "Dog Problems," as a free download from its website and reported that

45,000 copies of the (very

good) album were ripped. ... Great

Glass Elevator (whose inventiveness kind of reminds me of the Format in a way) play

Club NME at Spaceland tonight. ... The Automatic Music

Explosion plays the Scene in Glendale. ... And the Stevenson Ranch Davidians

start a run of Wednesday shows at the Echo.

Consider this a warm-up for "The Simpsons

Movie" (opening in two weeks).

The musician's name is Zack Kim, a 24-year-old

university student who was born in Seoul, South Korea, reared in Malaysia and is now

studying in Australia. There are more examples of his technique on his website, and the

young man has his own Wikipedia

page.

He tells me via e-mail that he after he completes his studies in two years he hopes

to devote all his energies to music, and eventually he "would really love to

perform in the States, as it would be a dream come true for me."

Have to

think he'd be quite a hit at the premiere party.

Summer is here, in case you were too busy on MySpace to get the memo. The concert

calendar always seems to remind me before the real calendar, what with the Hollywood

Bowl kicking into gear and the onslaught of distinguished veteran rock bands starting to

make the stadium rounds.

(Email from a friend who went to Dodger Stadium this weekend: "They were pretty

awesome for a Police cover band.")

The smaller events have their cachet too -- the Sunday afternoon Do-Over at Crane's, the Little Radio Summer Camp. And then there was last

Thursday's Late Night at LACMA, the annual summer

solstice soiree, which attracted 7,853 museum visitors and probably disappointed

hundreds of others who waited for hours in long lines only to give up. (To be fair, what

part of "early arrival recommended" did you not understand?)

Late Night was a melange of music, hipster ephemera (T-shirt screen printing by Hit +

Run now seems mandatory if you are throwing any kind of cross-cultural event) and art.

Suffice to say there were plenty of photo ops in the Dan Flavin retrospective, a refuge

for attendees who could only handle small doses of offerings from DJs Steve Aoki,

Internationalist and handful of others. I missed the set by the always-solid Rebirth but caught one of L.A.'s favorite party

bands, Ima Robot, who got folks dancing despite

the band's relative lack of amplification.

◊ ◊ ◊

Where did June go?

The Monday night residencies end tonight at Spaceland, the Echo and Silverlake

Lounge. The L.A. quartet the Deadly

Syndrome (Spaceland) seems to have grown into polished band overnight (and wait till

you hear the album), and Thailand

(Silverlake Lounge), despite playing as a three-piece with electronic rhythms, serve up

a compelling new-wave/post-punk cocktail. And I have not made it to the Echo to see

Philadelphia ex-pats Burning Brides

(maybe tonight?), but people I trust give me good reports.

◊ ◊ ◊

At Safari Sam's on Friday night, the Silver Lake/Echo Park masses gathered to bid

farewell to Sea Level Records and its

proprietor, Todd Clifford. The independent outlet has been a locus of the Eastside music

scene for more than 5 years, and Clifford is closing more for I-need-a-life-change

reasons than business.

Today is the last day Sea Level is scheduled to be open.

Photos: LACMA attendees get up close with Dan Flavin's work; Ima Robot rocks in the

courtyard. By Kevin Bronson / LAT.

The Little Ones are still one

of this city's strongest musical happy pills, but, as a set Friday night showed, it's

hard to maintain that peak level of exuberance when you're doing it night after night,

tour after tour.

The L.A.

quintet -- "Rhymin' Simon on steroids" is how I described them last year, and

it still applies -- played an ASCAP- and Filter-sponsored music night on Friday tied to

the Silverlake Film Festival. The stuff from their "Sing Song" EP still

sounded crisp, and their new songs were upbeat and catchy too. But after having spent

the early part of this year doing some rigorous touring, the Little Ones weren't quite

as unhinged as they were when their EP was first released and Astralwerks (in the U.S.)

and Heavenly (in the U.K.) swooped in to sign the band.

Are the Little Ones still as happy as their music? "That's a good

question," frontman Edward Reyes says. "We're excited. ... Remember, we just

looked at that EP as our calling card -- we just wanted to get some shows with

it."

Their as-yet-untitled debut album is recorded and due in January, Reyes says.

"It's turning out great," he adds. "Right now we have a whole track

devoted to laughing."

||| Download Little Ones' songs from their Daytrotter session here.

◊ ◊ ◊

Passion of the Weiss has a

play-by-play of Britney Spears' Houses of Blues appearance (I will not call it a

performance). He even has some empathy.

◊ ◊ ◊

Ran into an employee of a recently merged record company who was enthused about

having adopted a puppy. Cute thing ... so what did you name him? "Andy

Slater."

◊ ◊ ◊

"So how

was Coachella?" That was the most-asked

question last week. I told inquiring minds that it was a three-day weekend of

once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and even as they were unfolding I knew I was missing

others. Wish the festival could have just hesitated a few times each day and let me

catch up.

The inconsiderate hipsters at Anthem, who throw their Coachella party during the day

while the music is going on, tell me I missed something else too -- a mask-less Thomas

Bangalter from Daft Punk [face obscured] spinning the LCD Soundsystem track "Daft

Punk Is Playing at My House." Not that anybody recognized him. But a cool party

nonetheless.

Daft Punk turned up on the turntables a couple nights later at the Echo too. Not that

anybody recognized them.

Touts for tonight

Gliss (Spaceland), the High Society (Silverlake Lounge), Bodies of Water (Echo) and Richard Bivens & Foreign Press

(Detroit Bar) start their Monday night residencies. ... Midnight Movies plays an in-store at

Amoeba. ... And London's Apartment joins

locals the Grand Marquee and others

at Indie 103.1's Viper Room show.

The music is pretty hard on the ears, kind of a flailing

attempt at dance-party relevance. But the album cover (that's the original at right) is

even harder on the eyes -- so Perry Farrell's Satellite Party revised it. Stereogum has a

compare-and-contrast. I'm not sure, but this would not have passed muster in the

Photoshop classes I slogged through years ago. This does, however, guarantee that the

album will chart. Here.

[Guest blogger August Brown is hot both because he is fly, and because he should

have worn more sunscreen.]

If Coachella success was measured in words per minute, Busdriver would have been the day's

undisputed champ. But fortunately for the old-guard L.A.-based MC, he dropped jaws and

machine-gun metaphors alike during his astonishingly dextrous set.

Busdriver was equally compelling needling the crowd with accusations of yuppiedom as

he did slaying them with fiery indignance at the ways the music industry exploits

rappers. Over a loose-limbed flurry of house and jungle-inspired beats, he extolled

cheeba and wryly freestyled that "in the Gobi tent is how an O.G. represents."

Original gangstas are few and far between at Coachella, but unless Ghostface pulls off

a miracle tomorrow, Busdriver may hit the 10 freeway home as the weekend's reigning

rhyme-slinger.

This was featured in our Downloads column last weekend (a good reason to drop

some coin on the Saturday print edition or check the pop music page on your local

newspaper's website). I've been a sucker for Travis' brand of Britpop since the first Clinton

Administration. Here's the video for "Closer," and, yeah, Ben Stiller makes a

good grocer.

Ozomatli looked to the visual for inspiration

when writing its new album, “Don’t Mess With the Dragon” (due April 3 on Concord

Records) — much of the initial songwriting came out of jam sessions at the Tropico de

Nopal art gallery. Now the veteran L.A. nine-piece might have found a vision to suit its

sound.

The new video for the single “Can’t Stop” is a dizzying collage of

stop-animation and storytelling that seems equal to Ozomatli’s mashing of Latin flavors,

rock, hip-hop and funk — a hybrid many have said is distinctly Los Angeles.

“We haven’t had a lot of luck with videos in the past,” acknowledges Ulises Bella, who

plays saxophone and clarinet for the band.

Ozomatli turned to New York-based

artist-illustrator Richard Borge for “Can’t Stop,” even though the 41-year-old, who had

done album art for bands such as Meat Beat Manifesto, had never done a music video.

Winter Music Conference: Lady GaGa gears up, strips down

Miami's annual dance music sleaze-a-thon, the Winter Music Conference, is nearly in full swing today, with most attendees wandering Collins Avenue looking for the best DJ events/hotel parties by 2 p.m. No one gets up before noon.

Some of today's best events are at the Raleigh, where New York's Lady GaGa is making her WMC debut at an Armani Exchange-sponsored rooftop terrace soiree.

Interscope has high hopes for the newly signed dance diva, who has already written songs for several artists (including Pussycat Dolls) and is on the verge of signing a publishing contract to augment her label deal.

"Jimmy [Iovine] and I get along great," she says of the Interscope honcho from the rooftop of the Raleigh. "I'm the kind of Italian Brookyln girl he would have liked to take to the prom," she laughs. "He loved me."

The Lady, who's fond of performing in naughty underwear ensembles, chains and stripper heels, got her start playing Brooklyn parties and clubs in Manhattan in 2005 with her equally brazen backup dancers. "I put together a show in New York where we spun beats on vinyl and I played keyboards over the records," she says. "We wore matching bikinis," the Lady giggles, adding that the show was "yummy."

It remains to be seen whether of not the rest of America will find Lady GaGa's musical offerings as delicious as New York does. Her music sounds not unlike a drunken Madonna, Peaches and Kylie Minogue recording session with lots of sticky Champagne spilled on the demos. Lady GaGa's debut disc, made for the "rock and rollers who wanted to listen to pop records," drops this summer. The big Madonna fan's single, "Just Dance," hits next week.

Oh, and Interscope recently moved her into a Hollywood-adjacent apartment, so look out, Angelenos.

--  Post and photo by Charlie Amter

It's been quite a month for daredevil wacko and part time rapper Steve-O.

Arrested on March 3 and booked for vandalizing his own apartment and possession of a controlled substance (cocaine apparently), the "Jackass" star found himself facing eviction when he returned home. That's when, according to his own MySpace blog, things began to spiral out of control. Or at least, more out of control than usual.

The cyberspace saga commences harmlessly enough with a posting on March 8, in which the 33-year-old announces that he'd been evicted and requests that his "Jackass" costars and friends help him move out the following morning. But the video clips in the following post from March 9 couldn't be more terrifying. The second, "Eviction Party Begins," shows Steve-O hosting a kind of bizzaro MTV Cribs: Half-naked and visibly intoxicated, he wanders around his trashed apartment carrying a hefty revolver, which at one point he uses to play Russian Roulette.

In the following entry, posted March 13, Steve-O announces that he's in "the looney bin" because, the morning after his "Eviction Party Begins" was shot, his "Jackass" costars forced him into a hospital on a "5150," a three-day psychiatric hold, later extended to a "5250," 14-day hold.

That's where things get really interesting.

The entries continue, posted by his assistant Jen Moore, but written by Steve-O from inside the undisclosed treatment center, where he may well have been completely sober for the first time in years. In their own way, these entries are as shocking as the infamous stunt in which Steve-O stapled his scrotum to his leg, because they reveal an intelligent, articulate, well-read and deeply philosophical individual coming to terms with a lifetime of substance abuse and related bipolar issues.

Spiked with moments of epiphany and apology, Steve-O's confessional journey from drug-induced rock-bottom to something approaching health may be a cliche--of course, it's one of the oldest in the Hollywood playbook--but it's still remarkable.

Lots of questions remain: Will Steve-O stay sober or will he fall back into his bad habits? Will he be able to continue his inane stunt career after acknowledging that "the nature of my work almost embraced my addictions," or will he retire? And what exactly are the ramifications of the dawning of the Age of Aquarius he discusses in his March 21 entry?

Time will tell.

--Liam Gowing

A few weeks ago, I interviewed Bad Religion founder Greg Graffin about his band's recent string of L.A.-area dates. Bad Religion's been through several commercial revivals, as wiseacre punks, as an unlikely radio act in the mid-'90s ("You and meee ... have a diseeease ..." ) and most recently as something approximating a hugely successful local band. They play large theaters and festivals and sell decently around the world, but to someone whose experience with rock radio is limited to KROQ, they must seem as big as Linkin Park. I always chalked it up as a Southern California thing, that the '90s varietal of double-time skate punk that came to be called the "Epitaph Sound" put its claws in deep after the Offspring and never let up. All that grindable pavement, the year-long sunshine and the intraversible open space of L.A.'s mutant version of urbanity certainly helped.

When the video for Lil' Wayne's new, so-inane-it-might-be-genius single "Lollipop" began making the rounds, it seemed oddly ... familiar. Not just because its narrative arc of Wayne looking stoked about his money and club-girl harem is well-traversed hip-hop video territory, though. Something in the particular visual kinesis of him driving around Vegas playing guitar out of the sunroof of his stretch Hummer or whatever. Then it hit us --  Silversun Pickups (and director Joaquin Phoenix) made the exact same video for their single "Little Lover's So Polite." Just replace the Pickups' preteen Aryan couple and downtown L.A. with Wayne's video vixens and the Vegas strip. Note the 1:53 mark in "Lollipop" and the 3:06 point in "Little Lover's" where each artist plays their respective butt rock guitar solo. Wayne's guitar face is much more convincing, we think.

-- August Brown

Illustration by August Brown; Lil' Wayne photo by Jonathan Mannion; Silversun Pickups photo by Gail Salmo

Lil' Wayne: "Lollipop"

Silversun Pickups: "Little Lover's So Polite"

Your daily six-degrees-of-Rilo Kiley round-up: Women's Wear Daily is reporting that guitarist Blake Sennett has finally passed the penultimate indie-dude coming-of-age ritual and is getting hitched to Winona Ryder. Us Weekly is denying the claim. The two are definitely starring in an upcoming film called "Water Pill." Jenny Lewis is making an album with Elvis Costello and Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes, whom you heard from last week. We just want some CornNuts. BQ.

-- August Brown

Photo by New World Pictures

We’re not sure exactly why the Foo Fighters are considered rock royalty now (“The Pretender” as a best-record nominee at the Grammys? Well, at least it lives up to its title ...), but Dave Grohl does have an admirable sense of humor. Exhibit A: His deadpan performance of “Leather and Lace” with the always loopy Will Ferrell at a recent L.A. fundraiser:

-- Geoff Boucher

Now that Super Tuesday has proven inconclusive on all fronts, let’s engage in some unfounded speculation: Might any of the presidential candidates show up at Sunday’s Grammy Awards?

The Repubs will likely stay home -– despite Mike Huckabee’s electric bass skills and Burt Bacharach’s reported fondness for John McCain, their support among pop stars is generally thin. Ron Paul can claim only Arlo Guthrie. (You can check out who’s supporting whom here.)

Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, however, are still vying for the pop star vote as well as the popular one. A quick and dirty survey of Grammy nominees reveals Clinton with six nominated stumpers -- Madonna, Tony Bennett, Jon Bon Jovi, 50 Cent, Timbaland and Barbra Streisand -– and Obama with five -- Ne-Yo, Usher, Harry Connick Jr., Win Butler of Arcade Fire and Jeff Tweedy of Wilco.

Will.i.am, Obama’s most active pop pal of late, didn’t earn any noms for his commercial flop of a solo album, but he’ll likely be on hand to pop the cork with Fergie if she takes a statue home. We could definitely see the irrepressible Black Eyed Pea pulling Barry onstage for a chorus of Fergie’s “Glamorous.”

And Hillary should really dump that Celine campaign song for an all-American medley of her pal Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” and “(You Want to) Make a Memory.” Although seeing her do the freak with Justin during 50’s “Ayo Technology”…. OK, that seems unlikely. But hey, there’s always Timbaland. He did wonders for Nelly Furtado. He could get the uber baby-boomer candidate out of her cultural rut!

In the meantime, check out Oh! Industry’s excellent roundtable of dedications to favorite candidates.

-- Ann Powers

I think I found the cure for the common TV. Of course, it's right here on your very

own Internet.

It's My Damn

Channel, a portal that is home to offerings from musician extraordinaire Don Was, along with the likes of Harry

Shearer, David Wain and others.


Was, a bassist, music supervisor, documentary director, Grammy-winning producer and a

driving force behind the cutting-edge funk outfit Was

(Not Was), has seldom been more sublimely
entertaining than as the cool-cat host of the "Wasmopolitan Dance
Party" -- a webisode filmed in the showroom of the Furniture Outlet, a
budget joint in North Hollywood. [Pardon the ads, but the installment above is well

worth their intrusion.]

There is singer-songwriter Jill Sobule, gamely playing her beautiful songs

from behind a dining-room set as shoppers mill about looking a recliners.

"I can't compete with the set-up on Letterman" Was says with a laugh.

"But doing something like this, we asked, 'What could we offer that's different?'

The answer is, the stripped-down and personal stuff."

In the ranks of overwrought music writing that have appeared in the Village Voice, Garrett Kamps is a god among fanboys. His recent review of Cat Power's flawed but arresting "Jukebox" covers record is especially troubling. It's not so much the rank misogyny or his John Yoo-level torturing of the em dash that really derails this review, but the fact that he doesn't seem to know what, exactly, a "cougar" is. Given our close approximation to Orange County, we know all too well. Cougars are sexually aggressive women on the far side of 40 peddling consequence-free hookups to inexperienced young men who will relay the tales in hushed, reverent tones over Halo 3 tournaments with their friends. Does that sound like an apt description of Cat Power (a.k.a. Chan Marshall), who once wrote a song about Patti Smith's children and her own abortion? Or the one who wrote one of 2006's most generous, uplifting Southern soul albums, "The Greatest?"

If Kamps is truly hunting for cougars, we can suggest a few better places for him to start trolling.

-- August Brown

[Cougar photo by Christine Cotter / Los Angeles Times. Chan Marshall photo by Stefano Giovannini / Beggars Group LTD via Bloomberg News]

An earlier version of this blog incorrectly referred to John Yoo as John Wu. And that was all Margaret's fault and not August's, so she will be buying him a latte something-or-another later today. Maybe.

It was an interesting week in musical contrasts.

On the invitation of Fuel TV's Daryl Berg, I stopped by Swing House in Hollywood on Monday to see the Bravery. The New York five-piece was at the recording studio-cum-rehearsal space to shoot a live segment for Fuel TV's "Check 1, 2." (If you're wondering what the connection is between the band and the action sports network, apparently two of the dudes like to surf.)

While I was there, the quintet ran through three of their songs three times each for Swing House's microphones and Fuel TV's cameras, and I would be lying if I didn't report that the performances were faultless--just like the recordings complete with spot-on vocals. Listening to the songs ("An Honest Mistake," "Believe" and "Time Won't Let Me Go"), I couldn't help but remark to Berg how incredulous I was that these guys aren't already superstars.

Seriously, the Bravery has a winning formula. It's not theirs, of course, it's Duran Duran's: five really good-looking guys with flawless haircuts and sharp outfits to match, playing insanely catchy New Wave-y tunes--hi-hat-heavy drums, octave-friendly bass, breathy keyboards, distorted rhythm guitars and crystalline leads, plus sour-sweet, whiny vocals--that sound both supremely commercial yet genuinely edgy.

The band's only modest success so far might have something to do with the fact that none of the band members--with the possible exception of the overly excited drummer--exhibited the slightest trace of personality at the shoot. I mean, it was dead silent between takes: No evidence of any camaraderie between the members; no jokes or horseplay; no comments, positive or negative, on the performances; no interaction with the crew, record company people or gawkers--just silence. They might have been wax works, but for the movement.

From the Bravery--an up-and-coming band with great chops (but no discernible personality) making a musical appearance--I go to Peter Tork, a rock 'n' roll dinosaur with questionable vocal tendencies (but tons of charisma) making a non-musical appearance.

The former Monkee was hosting a special edition of the Beauty Bar's "oldies 'n' goodies" Wednesday night event, Goodie Tu Shoes. By hosting, I mean he was autographing copies of "Cambria Hotel," a new offering from his rootsy, bluesy new rock 'n' roll band, Shoe Suede Blues.

Tork acted just the way any fan of the Monkees' ridiculous TV show (or thoroughly excellent film, "Head") would have expected: He was friendly, animated and totally goofy. I can't vouch for Shoe Suede Blues being anything more than a respectable honky tonk-style bar band, but after being an extraordinarily well-known (if not necessarily respected) superstar, he deserves a lot of credit for starting over with a new band and doing the little extracurriculars newcomers must to get the word out.

I guess the answer to the question Tork posed here is "yes." -Liam Gowing

[Photo 1: The Bravery at Swing House. Credit: Patrick Weir and Fuel TV. Photo 2: Peter Tork, right, and pal at Beauty Bar-L.A. Credit: Mary Jo Head.]

The Bird and the Bee will be

flying into the desert. Nice.

And one of those assembly-line electro acts that has me convinced technology has made

it far too easy to put out an album, the U.K.'s Does It Offend You Yeah?, will be

playing too.

Yeah, it does.

First, there was "Lip Gloss," Lil Mama's earth-crushing and drums-only ode to windburn protection that sounded more menacing and ruthless than anything on "Curtis." Now, M.I.A.-protege Rye Rye has a smoking, minimalist Baltimore club tune in "Shake It to the Ground" on Diplo's Mad Decent label. Aside from an occasional farted-out bass, the production work from DJ Blaqstarr is again strictly minimalist percussion and gum-smacking chants until practically the end of the song. Have the kids decided they don't need even a perfunctory Korg Triton stab to make a floor-filler? Either way, we dig the Misfits poster in Rye Rye's bedroom in this made-for-pennies video and like to imagine that Glenn Danzig might return the favor someday with a guest verse.

--August Brown

Happy New Year.

And good riddance, 2007.

The year brought an avalanche of music, and the recent holiday week of rumination and

CD-sorting etched in my mind the idea that a whole lot of it was ... well ... pretty

good. Yeah, pretty good, uttered with my head slightly tilted, as if I never

thought once of saying "great" or "really good." If I ever had the

radical notion to rate albums on a 10 scale,

I would swear that half the records I received this year logged somewhere between 6.5

and 6.7 -- a percentage that's skewed because all six copies of the Magic Numbers album that somehow found

their way to my desk would get a 6.2.

Maybe this was the year that trying to

keep up with new music, nationally and locally, finally overwhelmed me, what with every

baby band in the universe engaging in viral marketing, hiring publicists, working with

managers, leaving me polite entreaties on MySpace and generally undermining any belief

that a band can merely grow organically. I attended about 185 shows in 2007 too, many to

follow up on those advertising blitzes.

But after compiling my humble lists

below, I fast-forwarded to December 2009, when all good geeks will be sweating over

their seemingly inevitable Best-of-the-Aughts list. And guess what? Not a single album

from 2007 has a chance of making mine. All of the bands I consider indie icons -- and

I'm sure you can spank me for leaving out people you think are iconic -- released other

albums this decade that are superior to their 2007 releases. For the record, that

pantheon houses the National, Spoon, Modest Mouse, Arcade Fire, Bright Eyes and

Interpol, with other personal faves such as the Shins and Stars living in the backhouse.

Those heavyweights each added to their estimable catalogs, yes; it's just that I'm not

going to pull "We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank" off the shelf first

when I want to hear some Modest Mouse a few years from now.

At least, I don't

think.

The lists follow. Thanks to everybody who sends me music -- really --

and a special shout-out to the bands on the L.A. scene who've made my life so much

richer over the past 5-plus years.

My Favorite 10 Albums of 2007

1. Blonde

Redhead, "23"

2. The National, "Boxer"

3. LCD

Soundsystem, "Sound of Silver"

4. Against Me!, "New

Wave"

5. Spoon, "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga"

6. The Cribs,

"Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever"

7. Arcade Fire, "Neon

Bible"

8. Lupe Fiasco, "Cool"

9. The Shins,

"Wincing the Night Away"

10. Softlightes, "Say No to Being

Cool -- Say Yes to Being Happy" *

Comments: It's scares me how much

this list largely parallels other blogs/music mags. Yes, Fiasco's album just came out,

but on first, second and third blush it's a long-range keeper. And that's right, no

Radiohead. So sue me. 6.8.

* See final list

Buzz Bands' Top 10 L.A. Albums of 2007

1. Foreign Born, "On the Wing Now"

2. John Doe, "A Year in

the Wilderness"

3. Sea Wolf, "Leaves in the River"

4. CoCo B's, "CoCo B's"

5. Eleni Mandell, "Miracle of

Five"

6. Earlimart, "Mentor Tormentor"

7. Culver

City Dub Collective, "Dos"

8. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club,

"Baby 81"

9. Rilo Kiley, "Under the Blacklight"

10. Great Northern, "Trading Twilight for Daylight"

Comments:

Foreign Born is just plain good. CoCo B's self-released disc is a great surprise. Culver

City Dub Collective's genre-mashing is sublime. Eleni Mandell -- who needs Feist? And

Rilo Kiley's album just kept growing on me.

Ten L.A. Bands Whose Debuts Made Me Anxious for the

Sophomore Album

1. The Deadly Syndrome, "The

Ortolan"

2. The Broken West, "I Can't Go On, I'll Go On"

3. Robert Francis, "One by One"

4. The Parson Red Heads,

"King Giraffe"

5. Delta Spirit, "Delta Spirit"

6. Frankel, "Lullaby for the Passersby"

7. Year Long Disaster,

"Year Long Disaster"

8. Sara Bareilles, "Little Voice"

9. The Minor Canon, "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished"

10. No

Age, "Weirdo Rippers"

Ten L.A. Bands Whose 2007 EPs Made

Me Want More

Castledoor, the Airborne Toxic Event, the Weather

Underground, the Black Kites, Voxhaul Broadcast, Sam Sparro, Manic, Radars to the Sky,

Sara Lov, Aushua.

Three Albums From Bands Whom I Loved in the '90s and Still

Do

1. Buffalo Tom, "Three Easy Pieces"

2.

Dinosaur Jr., "Beyond"

3. Smashing Pumpkins,

"Zeitgeist"

Five Hip-Hop Albums I Would Recommend If

Anybody Believed I Recommended Hip-Hop Albums

1. Lupe Fiasco,

"Cool"

2. Kanye West, "Graduation"

3. Brother

Ali, "Undisputed Truth"

4. El-P, "I'll Sleep When You're

Dead"

5. Aesop Rock, "None Shall Pass"

Under the Radar: Six Overlooked Albums

1.

Softlightes, "Say No to Being Cool -- Say Yes to Being Happy": Cinematic

electro-pop that recalls Grandaddy at its finest.

2. The High Strung,

"Get the Guests": Catchy and clever, hold the irony, with peripatetic melody

lines that do not quit.

3. Minipop, "A New Hope": Gorgeous and

beautifully layered shoegaze-pop with rhythms that will drive you right into a dreamlike

state.

4. The Blakes, "The Blakes": Soulful garage rock that's good

for your summer sweat.

5. The Comas, "Spells": Distortion-heavy

power pop arrives in bursts, may leave marks.

6. Young Galaxy, "Young

Galaxy": Other Canadian exports (Kevin Drew, Sunset Rubdown, Feist, et. al.) earned

more buzz, but this album feel like a warm waking dream.

Comments:

Somehow I saw Softlightes play live 10 times in 2007. I left each show in a better mood

than when I arrived.

 

The next time someone tells you that booze doesn't make the world a better place, you just tell them to go listen to Corrine Bailey Rae and her remix of "Like A Star" at the wonderfully titled website www.generouspour.com. The seasonal website for Clos du Bois Wines has lovely traditonal holiday recipes for things like, um, "stoned crab cobbler with coconut" (what, are we pre-gaming for New Year's at Jimmy Buffett's beach hut?) and "Hot Italian Sausage Stuffing" (I'm pretty sure that's the gay porn version of "Roman Holiday"). Anyway, the website, which will be up through today, has a free download of "Like A Star" by Grammy nominee Rae and every time someone downloads it, Clos du Bois will donate $1 to Share Our Strength, a non-profit working against hunger and poverty in the U.S. It sounds like booze-company guilt to us, and wouldn't Amy Winehouse have been a better choice here for so many reasons? As for the music: The song is pretty much played out and the remix here is a fairly glossy affair but it is also free and unobjectionable as a dinner-party fare. So pass the potatoes...

--Geoff Boucher

The Beatle who earned his famous nickname by covering his fingers with rings is now making news with a bracelet. “Liverpool 8,” the new Capitol/EMI album from 67-year-old Ringo Starr, is being released Jan. 15 as a CD, a digital download and also as a “pre-loaded USB wristband” that includes all 12 tracks and a slew of extras, including “a personal video message, interview and track commentary from Ringo Starr, behind-the-scenes making-of footage from the recording sessions, ringtones, photos and more.” (Shouldn't those be "Ringo-tones"?) There’s more details at www.ringostarr.com but this already opens a whole new world of albums-as-accessories. How soon can we buy “Blackout” by Britney Spears in the ankle-monitor format? And how great would be to work toward the weekend by wearing Loverboy’s greatest hits in your headband?

--Geoff Boucher

Just in time to service your holiday malaise, two of my favorite DJ collectives are

conspiring to set sadness to music tonight at the downtown bar La Cita.

Give Up -- the seasonal club night initiated by the DJ collective Dublab and manned the past several years by Mark

"Frosty" McNeill and Jimmy Tamborello -- gets back into its wintry spirit as

DJs spin depressing songs on the bar's back patio. It's described as "a deeply

depressing disc sob session." Inside the bar, Part Time Punks' Michael Stock and others will

be hosting "A Sad, Slow Dance Party," promising "all slow dancing, all

night long."

There's no cover. Tears start to flow at 9 p.m.

Photo of DJ Frosty (from 2005) by Kevin Bronson/LAT

Happier choices for Tuesday, Dec. 18

Pop sextet Castledoor brings its

sublime tunes to Boardner's in the final monthly show of the year presented by Radio Free Silver Lake. The Flying Tourbillon Orchestra

and Frankel are also playing the

18-and-older show, which is free. ... Mighty Six Ninety and Io Echo rock the Troubadour. ... Oliver Future continues its Tuesday

residency at the Viper Room. ... The

Monolators head a good local bill at the Scene. ... And John Gold performs at Bordello.

The obituary this morning says Dan Fogelberg helped "define soft rock," but

that sounds kind of flaccid compared to what the singer-songwriter, who died Sunday at

age 56, meant to a bunch of kids in the working-class neighborhoods of Peoria, Ill., in

the early 1970s.

Fogelberg graduated from Woodruff High School the year before I got there, leaving

behind some stories of a rock band called the Coachmen (I actually owned the 45 at one

point -- oh, where did it go?) and the occasional rumor he'd gone off to California, a

place that seemed so distant from our Midwestern factory town as to be a mirage. Not

many of us had California dreams then; we'd do well to graduate high school and get on

at Caterpillar Tractor Co. (which accounted for something like 1 in 5 paychecks in our

city in those days). If we were really lucky, we'd go to college.

In the fall of my junior year, "Home Free" arrived, and we were mesmerized.

Fogelberg's debut album -- a beautifully orchestrated bouquet of ballads that veered

toward what we now would call alt-country -- took his alma mater by storm. It christened

the tape player in my first car; it was played endlessly at basement parties from Grand

View Drive to the lower East Bluff. I'm pretty sure there isn't a song in my collection

I've played over the years more than that second track, "Stars."

Fogelberg was our Jackson Browne, a romantic who shared our roots and who had the

courage to strike out in service of his poetry. As I trudged through the snow delivering

my Peoria Journal Stars every morning, that was a pretty important symbol.

I always blanched at, but ultimately forgave, the arch sentimentality that seemingly

oppressive production brought to Fogelberg's later albums. He had earned the right to

pursue whatever vision struck him. When my brother and I took in a Fogelberg show a few

years ago in Anaheim, it wasn't so much for musical nostalgia as it was a thank-you.

In one subtle but important way, Dan Fogelberg was the leader of our band.

Curiosity piqued by the announcement of the Gibson "Robot" Guitar, I headed down to my favorite guitar shop in L.A. on Saturday to check it out myself. I was a little disappointed, frankly.

With a name like "the Robot," I was expecting this six-stringer to jump out of the case unprovoked and run around the room, shouting, "Danger Will Robinson!" or "For those about to rock we salute you!" or "Sarah Connor?" or something. Instead, the Robot just lay in his case, looking like a standard (or, for those of you in the know, a "studio") Les Paul. The only obvious differences were larger tuning pegs and a funky-looking control where one of the standard four volume/tone knobs is usually located. This, I was told, was the "MCK" or "Master Control Knob."

"Now there's the kind of Orwellian 'oh no, the machines have achieved artificial intelligence and have enslaved all carbon-based lifeforms on the planet'-kind of language I was hoping for," I thought.

But alas, the master control knob just controls the Robot's auto-tuning mechanism. It's pretty neat, I'll admit. You pull out the knob, spin the top dial to one of several tuning-configuration presets (standard, "drop d," open-tuning, etc.), tap the top, strum the strings, wait for the tuning pegs to auto-jiggy into position, and voila--push the knob back in and your Les Paul has an alternate tuning.

For the overwhelming majority of guitar players who play in standard tuning, what are the advantages? Well, for about $1000 more than what you'd spend on a regular Les Paul, you can keep your axe in really, really, really good tune.

So who is the real market for Gibson's Robot Guitar? Wealthy guitar players who need to constantly and radically alter their tuning. If that's not you, buy a chromatic tuner and save the Robot Guitar for Joni Mitchell.

--Liam Gowing

Welcome to Soundboard, the new music blog from the L.A. Times written by a band of opinionated, sometimes cranky, sometimes ecstatic music lovers. Soundboard will blog breaking news, concert previews, album and single reviews, and lots of random observations about this vast, exciting, wacko place known as the music world. By the way, we're nomads, committed to no single genre, era or chart, so expect Soundboard to be all over the place, like a Sonic Youth song covered by Beyonce playing at a Mexican restaurant in Torrance. That song doesn't exist (yet) but you get the point.

I don't know why, but I'm thinking about record clubs. I remember a time when my older brother belonged to one and he'd show me his cool new tapes. (Yeah, tapes. Don't laugh.) "I got this for a penny!" he's say, shaking Duran Duran's "Rio" in my face. I was amazed. A penny? How can they do that??

So I started searching around to see if any are left.

Turns out that BMG Columbia House still has one but from their home page, you can tell they're making their money from DVDs. "Music Service" is off to the side. When you click on it, it takes you to one of the saddest little web pages in the world, seemingly designed by Your Local Mall's Party Store circa 1988.

I'm going to find out a little more about this whole thing, but in the meantime, does anyone still belong to a record club out there?

[Crickets.]

--Margaret Wappler

I'm not part of the pack salivating over "Raising Sand," the new Alison Krauss/Robert Plant collab -- its backwoods flavor is slightly overcooked, in my book -- but I love the CD's cover art. The frontispiece shows the two stars relaxing in some desert setting, smiling off into the distance, perhaps at T-Bone Burnett bringing them another sheaf of folk-pop obscurities to peruse.

The back's the clincher, though. Plant's back is turned, and Krauss, leaning toward him, throws a grin over her shoulder as they walk away. She looks like a contented cat making off with her canary. The Lion King may be nearly sixty and more interested in crooning than howling out all of his love, but Krauss certainly knows that by clutching that arm, she's fulfilling a fantasy that sustained generations of teen-age girls, dreaming in their bedrooms to Led Zeppelin's massive kathunking mojo blues. Though I'm sure their collaboration was strictly artistic, here's to her for having fun with her chance to quietly fly her metal horns and say, "Ladies, eat your hearts out!"

--Ann Powers

I am not necessarily a fan of the

Mormons, but as a baseball guy I just about did a spit take when I saw the

tongue-in-cheek poster for the Los Angeles band's current stand at Mr. T's Bowl. [Sorry

for the sloppy clean-up job; it's a family blog, you know.]

[Our local music spotlight, for the moment, remains pointed at power pop, because

it just seems to go so well with summertime:]


Ari Shine landed with a crunch -- and

that's the crunch of a big power chord -- when he released his debut EP

"Age/Occupation" in 2006. Quickly he became a songwriter-to-watch in the L.A.

power-pop underground, if not somebody who carries enough melodies to wriggle a bunch of

his songs onto TV shows, and his energetic stage show hinted that he might become an

artist who could transcend the frequently fey trappings of the form.

His

full-length debut, "A Force of One" (released in July on Bongo Beat), suggests

that Shine is not content to merely ride the coattails  of his forebears. There's

some boy-meets/loses-girl material here, much of it cleverly couched ("Flirtation

Device"), but he sinks his hooks into broader storytelling too (see the song

below). The album was produced by former Sparks guitarist Earle Mankey, who has worked with

L.A. notables such as Concrete Blonde and the Three O'Clock. The result is a collection

that's a little bit Elvis Costello, a little bit Matthew Sweet and maybe a bit Brendan

Benson.

||| Shine performs tonight at the Knitting Factory as part of International Pop Overthrow. He also

is playing a couple West Cost dates supporting Peter

Case prior to a Sept. 18 date at Safari Sam's as a supporting act for Miles Hunt of the Wonder Stuff.

||| Download: "Beirut 1978."

Photo by Sam Peacock

"Korn's new album doesn't have a title."

"So how do you order it?"

"You don't. It's Korn."

I missed it and, from reports, am regretting it. Bat for Lashes, the nom de tune of

Brighton, England's Natasha Khan, wowed the room last night at Spaceland. The common

sentiment I heard from a couple people: No wonder she is nominated for the Mercury

Music Prize.

You'll be hearing more about her.

For now, here is the enchanting video for "What's a Girl to Do."

Touts for Wednesday, Aug. 1

The Format starts a two-show stand (the

Avalon tonight, House of Blues tomorrow); the band for two weeks offered its latest

album, "Dog Problems," as a free download from its website and reported that

45,000 copies of the (very

good) album were ripped. ... Great

Glass Elevator (whose inventiveness kind of reminds me of the Format in a way) play

Club NME at Spaceland tonight. ... The Automatic Music

Explosion plays the Scene in Glendale. ... And the Stevenson Ranch Davidians

start a run of Wednesday shows at the Echo.

Consider this a warm-up for "The Simpsons

Movie" (opening in two weeks).

The musician's name is Zack Kim, a 24-year-old

university student who was born in Seoul, South Korea, reared in Malaysia and is now

studying in Australia. There are more examples of his technique on his website, and the

young man has his own Wikipedia

page.

He tells me via e-mail that he after he completes his studies in two years he hopes

to devote all his energies to music, and eventually he "would really love to

perform in the States, as it would be a dream come true for me."

Have to

think he'd be quite a hit at the premiere party.

Summer is here, in case you were too busy on MySpace to get the memo. The concert

calendar always seems to remind me before the real calendar, what with the Hollywood

Bowl kicking into gear and the onslaught of distinguished veteran rock bands starting to

make the stadium rounds.

(Email from a friend who went to Dodger Stadium this weekend: "They were pretty

awesome for a Police cover band.")

The smaller events have their cachet too -- the Sunday afternoon Do-Over at Crane's, the Little Radio Summer Camp. And then there was last

Thursday's Late Night at LACMA, the annual summer

solstice soiree, which attracted 7,853 museum visitors and probably disappointed

hundreds of others who waited for hours in long lines only to give up. (To be fair, what

part of "early arrival recommended" did you not understand?)

Late Night was a melange of music, hipster ephemera (T-shirt screen printing by Hit +

Run now seems mandatory if you are throwing any kind of cross-cultural event) and art.

Suffice to say there were plenty of photo ops in the Dan Flavin retrospective, a refuge

for attendees who could only handle small doses of offerings from DJs Steve Aoki,

Internationalist and handful of others. I missed the set by the always-solid Rebirth but caught one of L.A.'s favorite party

bands, Ima Robot, who got folks dancing despite

the band's relative lack of amplification.

◊ ◊ ◊

Where did June go?

The Monday night residencies end tonight at Spaceland, the Echo and Silverlake

Lounge. The L.A. quartet the Deadly

Syndrome (Spaceland) seems to have grown into polished band overnight (and wait till

you hear the album), and Thailand

(Silverlake Lounge), despite playing as a three-piece with electronic rhythms, serve up

a compelling new-wave/post-punk cocktail. And I have not made it to the Echo to see

Philadelphia ex-pats Burning Brides

(maybe tonight?), but people I trust give me good reports.

◊ ◊ ◊

At Safari Sam's on Friday night, the Silver Lake/Echo Park masses gathered to bid

farewell to Sea Level Records and its

proprietor, Todd Clifford. The independent outlet has been a locus of the Eastside music

scene for more than 5 years, and Clifford is closing more for I-need-a-life-change

reasons than business.

Today is the last day Sea Level is scheduled to be open.

Photos: LACMA attendees get up close with Dan Flavin's work; Ima Robot rocks in the

courtyard. By Kevin Bronson / LAT.

The Little Ones are still one

of this city's strongest musical happy pills, but, as a set Friday night showed, it's

hard to maintain that peak level of exuberance when you're doing it night after night,

tour after tour.

The L.A.

quintet -- "Rhymin' Simon on steroids" is how I described them last year, and

it still applies -- played an ASCAP- and Filter-sponsored music night on Friday tied to

the Silverlake Film Festival. The stuff from their "Sing Song" EP still

sounded crisp, and their new songs were upbeat and catchy too. But after having spent

the early part of this year doing some rigorous touring, the Little Ones weren't quite

as unhinged as they were when their EP was first released and Astralwerks (in the U.S.)

and Heavenly (in the U.K.) swooped in to sign the band.

Are the Little Ones still as happy as their music? "That's a good

question," frontman Edward Reyes says. "We're excited. ... Remember, we just

looked at that EP as our calling card -- we just wanted to get some shows with

it."

Their as-yet-untitled debut album is recorded and due in January, Reyes says.

"It's turning out great," he adds. "Right now we have a whole track

devoted to laughing."

||| Download Little Ones' songs from their Daytrotter session here.

◊ ◊ ◊

Passion of the Weiss has a

play-by-play of Britney Spears' Houses of Blues appearance (I will not call it a

performance). He even has some empathy.

◊ ◊ ◊

Ran into an employee of a recently merged record company who was enthused about

having adopted a puppy. Cute thing ... so what did you name him? "Andy

Slater."

◊ ◊ ◊

"So how

was Coachella?" That was the most-asked

question last week. I told inquiring minds that it was a three-day weekend of

once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and even as they were unfolding I knew I was missing

others. Wish the festival could have just hesitated a few times each day and let me

catch up.

The inconsiderate hipsters at Anthem, who throw their Coachella party during the day

while the music is going on, tell me I missed something else too -- a mask-less Thomas

Bangalter from Daft Punk [face obscured] spinning the LCD Soundsystem track "Daft

Punk Is Playing at My House." Not that anybody recognized him. But a cool party

nonetheless.

Daft Punk turned up on the turntables a couple nights later at the Echo too. Not that

anybody recognized them.

Touts for tonight

Gliss (Spaceland), the High Society (Silverlake Lounge), Bodies of Water (Echo) and Richard Bivens & Foreign Press

(Detroit Bar) start their Monday night residencies. ... Midnight Movies plays an in-store at

Amoeba. ... And London's Apartment joins

locals the Grand Marquee and others

at Indie 103.1's Viper Room show.

The music is pretty hard on the ears, kind of a flailing

attempt at dance-party relevance. But the album cover (that's the original at right) is

even harder on the eyes -- so Perry Farrell's Satellite Party revised it. Stereogum has a

compare-and-contrast. I'm not sure, but this would not have passed muster in the

Photoshop classes I slogged through years ago. This does, however, guarantee that the

album will chart. Here.

[Guest blogger August Brown is hot both because he is fly, and because he should

have worn more sunscreen.]

If Coachella success was measured in words per minute, Busdriver would have been the day's

undisputed champ. But fortunately for the old-guard L.A.-based MC, he dropped jaws and

machine-gun metaphors alike during his astonishingly dextrous set.

Busdriver was equally compelling needling the crowd with accusations of yuppiedom as

he did slaying them with fiery indignance at the ways the music industry exploits

rappers. Over a loose-limbed flurry of house and jungle-inspired beats, he extolled

cheeba and wryly freestyled that "in the Gobi tent is how an O.G. represents."

Original gangstas are few and far between at Coachella, but unless Ghostface pulls off

a miracle tomorrow, Busdriver may hit the 10 freeway home as the weekend's reigning

rhyme-slinger.

This was featured in our Downloads column last weekend (a good reason to drop

some coin on the Saturday print edition or check the pop music page on your local

newspaper's website). I've been a sucker for Travis' brand of Britpop since the first Clinton

Administration. Here's the video for "Closer," and, yeah, Ben Stiller makes a

good grocer.

Ozomatli looked to the visual for inspiration

when writing its new album, “Don’t Mess With the Dragon” (due April 3 on Concord

Records) — much of the initial songwriting came out of jam sessions at the Tropico de

Nopal art gallery. Now the veteran L.A. nine-piece might have found a vision to suit its

sound.

The new video for the single “Can’t Stop” is a dizzying collage of

stop-animation and storytelling that seems equal to Ozomatli’s mashing of Latin flavors,

rock, hip-hop and funk — a hybrid many have said is distinctly Los Angeles.

“We haven’t had a lot of luck with videos in the past,” acknowledges Ulises Bella, who

plays saxophone and clarinet for the band.

Ozomatli turned to New York-based

artist-illustrator Richard Borge for “Can’t Stop,” even though the 41-year-old, who had

done album art for bands such as Meat Beat Manifesto, had never done a music video.

Steve-O’s journey to sobriety and sanity

It's been quite a month for daredevil wacko and part time rapper Steve-O.

Arrested on March 3 and booked for vandalizing his own apartment and possession of a controlled substance (cocaine apparently), the "Jackass" star found himself facing eviction when he returned home. That's when, according to his own MySpace blog, things began to spiral out of control. Or at least, more out of control than usual.

The cyberspace saga commences harmlessly enough with a posting on March 8, in which the 33-year-old announces that he'd been evicted and requests that his "Jackass" costars and friends help him move out the following morning. But the video clips in the following post from March 9 couldn't be more terrifying. The second, "Eviction Party Begins," shows Steve-O hosting a kind of bizzaro MTV Cribs: Half-naked and visibly intoxicated, he wanders around his trashed apartment carrying a hefty revolver, which at one point he uses to play Russian Roulette.

In the following entry, posted March 13, Steve-O announces that he's in "the looney bin" because, the morning after his "Eviction Party Begins" was shot, his "Jackass" costars forced him into a hospital on a "5150," a three-day psychiatric hold, later extended to a "5250," 14-day hold.

That's where things get really interesting.

The entries continue, posted by his assistant Jen Moore, but written by Steve-O from inside the undisclosed treatment center, where he may well have been completely sober for the first time in years. In their own way, these entries are as shocking as the infamous stunt in which Steve-O stapled his scrotum to his leg, because they reveal an intelligent, articulate, well-read and deeply philosophical individual coming to terms with a lifetime of substance abuse and related bipolar issues.

Spiked with moments of epiphany and apology, Steve-O's confessional journey from drug-induced rock-bottom to something approaching health may be a cliche--of course, it's one of the oldest in the Hollywood playbook--but it's still remarkable.

Lots of questions remain: Will Steve-O stay sober or will he fall back into his bad habits? Will he be able to continue his inane stunt career after acknowledging that "the nature of my work almost embraced my addictions," or will he retire? And what exactly are the ramifications of the dawning of the Age of Aquarius he discusses in his March 21 entry?

Time will tell.

--Liam Gowing

A few weeks ago, I interviewed Bad Religion founder Greg Graffin about his band's recent string of L.A.-area dates. Bad Religion's been through several commercial revivals, as wiseacre punks, as an unlikely radio act in the mid-'90s ("You and meee ... have a diseeease ..." ) and most recently as something approximating a hugely successful local band. They play large theaters and festivals and sell decently around the world, but to someone whose experience with rock radio is limited to KROQ, they must seem as big as Linkin Park. I always chalked it up as a Southern California thing, that the '90s varietal of double-time skate punk that came to be called the "Epitaph Sound" put its claws in deep after the Offspring and never let up. All that grindable pavement, the year-long sunshine and the intraversible open space of L.A.'s mutant version of urbanity certainly helped.

When the video for Lil' Wayne's new, so-inane-it-might-be-genius single "Lollipop" began making the rounds, it seemed oddly ... familiar. Not just because its narrative arc of Wayne looking stoked about his money and club-girl harem is well-traversed hip-hop video territory, though. Something in the particular visual kinesis of him driving around Vegas playing guitar out of the sunroof of his stretch Hummer or whatever. Then it hit us --  Silversun Pickups (and director Joaquin Phoenix) made the exact same video for their single "Little Lover's So Polite." Just replace the Pickups' preteen Aryan couple and downtown L.A. with Wayne's video vixens and the Vegas strip. Note the 1:53 mark in "Lollipop" and the 3:06 point in "Little Lover's" where each artist plays their respective butt rock guitar solo. Wayne's guitar face is much more convincing, we think.

-- August Brown

Illustration by August Brown; Lil' Wayne photo by Jonathan Mannion; Silversun Pickups photo by Gail Salmo

Lil' Wayne: "Lollipop"

Silversun Pickups: "Little Lover's So Polite"

Your daily six-degrees-of-Rilo Kiley round-up: Women's Wear Daily is reporting that guitarist Blake Sennett has finally passed the penultimate indie-dude coming-of-age ritual and is getting hitched to Winona Ryder. Us Weekly is denying the claim. The two are definitely starring in an upcoming film called "Water Pill." Jenny Lewis is making an album with Elvis Costello and Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes, whom you heard from last week. We just want some CornNuts. BQ.

-- August Brown

Photo by New World Pictures

We’re not sure exactly why the Foo Fighters are considered rock royalty now (“The Pretender” as a best-record nominee at the Grammys? Well, at least it lives up to its title ...), but Dave Grohl does have an admirable sense of humor. Exhibit A: His deadpan performance of “Leather and Lace” with the always loopy Will Ferrell at a recent L.A. fundraiser:

-- Geoff Boucher

Now that Super Tuesday has proven inconclusive on all fronts, let’s engage in some unfounded speculation: Might any of the presidential candidates show up at Sunday’s Grammy Awards?

The Repubs will likely stay home -– despite Mike Huckabee’s electric bass skills and Burt Bacharach’s reported fondness for John McCain, their support among pop stars is generally thin. Ron Paul can claim only Arlo Guthrie. (You can check out who’s supporting whom here.)

Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, however, are still vying for the pop star vote as well as the popular one. A quick and dirty survey of Grammy nominees reveals Clinton with six nominated stumpers -- Madonna, Tony Bennett, Jon Bon Jovi, 50 Cent, Timbaland and Barbra Streisand -– and Obama with five -- Ne-Yo, Usher, Harry Connick Jr., Win Butler of Arcade Fire and Jeff Tweedy of Wilco.

Will.i.am, Obama’s most active pop pal of late, didn’t earn any noms for his commercial flop of a solo album, but he’ll likely be on hand to pop the cork with Fergie if she takes a statue home. We could definitely see the irrepressible Black Eyed Pea pulling Barry onstage for a chorus of Fergie’s “Glamorous.”

And Hillary should really dump that Celine campaign song for an all-American medley of her pal Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” and “(You Want to) Make a Memory.” Although seeing her do the freak with Justin during 50’s “Ayo Technology”…. OK, that seems unlikely. But hey, there’s always Timbaland. He did wonders for Nelly Furtado. He could get the uber baby-boomer candidate out of her cultural rut!

In the meantime, check out Oh! Industry’s excellent roundtable of dedications to favorite candidates.

-- Ann Powers

I think I found the cure for the common TV. Of course, it's right here on your very

own Internet.

It's My Damn

Channel, a portal that is home to offerings from musician extraordinaire Don Was, along with the likes of Harry

Shearer, David Wain and others.


Was, a bassist, music supervisor, documentary director, Grammy-winning producer and a

driving force behind the cutting-edge funk outfit Was

(Not Was), has seldom been more sublimely
entertaining than as the cool-cat host of the "Wasmopolitan Dance
Party" -- a webisode filmed in the showroom of the Furniture Outlet, a
budget joint in North Hollywood. [Pardon the ads, but the installment above is well

worth their intrusion.]

There is singer-songwriter Jill Sobule, gamely playing her beautiful songs

from behind a dining-room set as shoppers mill about looking a recliners.

"I can't compete with the set-up on Letterman" Was says with a laugh.

"But doing something like this, we asked, 'What could we offer that's different?'

The answer is, the stripped-down and personal stuff."

In the ranks of overwrought music writing that have appeared in the Village Voice, Garrett Kamps is a god among fanboys. His recent review of Cat Power's flawed but arresting "Jukebox" covers record is especially troubling. It's not so much the rank misogyny or his John Yoo-level torturing of the em dash that really derails this review, but the fact that he doesn't seem to know what, exactly, a "cougar" is. Given our close approximation to Orange County, we know all too well. Cougars are sexually aggressive women on the far side of 40 peddling consequence-free hookups to inexperienced young men who will relay the tales in hushed, reverent tones over Halo 3 tournaments with their friends. Does that sound like an apt description of Cat Power (a.k.a. Chan Marshall), who once wrote a song about Patti Smith's children and her own abortion? Or the one who wrote one of 2006's most generous, uplifting Southern soul albums, "The Greatest?"

If Kamps is truly hunting for cougars, we can suggest a few better places for him to start trolling.

-- August Brown

[Cougar photo by Christine Cotter / Los Angeles Times. Chan Marshall photo by Stefano Giovannini / Beggars Group LTD via Bloomberg News]

An earlier version of this blog incorrectly referred to John Yoo as John Wu. And that was all Margaret's fault and not August's, so she will be buying him a latte something-or-another later today. Maybe.

It was an interesting week in musical contrasts.

On the invitation of Fuel TV's Daryl Berg, I stopped by Swing House in Hollywood on Monday to see the Bravery. The New York five-piece was at the recording studio-cum-rehearsal space to shoot a live segment for Fuel TV's "Check 1, 2." (If you're wondering what the connection is between the band and the action sports network, apparently two of the dudes like to surf.)

While I was there, the quintet ran through three of their songs three times each for Swing House's microphones and Fuel TV's cameras, and I would be lying if I didn't report that the performances were faultless--just like the recordings complete with spot-on vocals. Listening to the songs ("An Honest Mistake," "Believe" and "Time Won't Let Me Go"), I couldn't help but remark to Berg how incredulous I was that these guys aren't already superstars.

Seriously, the Bravery has a winning formula. It's not theirs, of course, it's Duran Duran's: five really good-looking guys with flawless haircuts and sharp outfits to match, playing insanely catchy New Wave-y tunes--hi-hat-heavy drums, octave-friendly bass, breathy keyboards, distorted rhythm guitars and crystalline leads, plus sour-sweet, whiny vocals--that sound both supremely commercial yet genuinely edgy.

The band's only modest success so far might have something to do with the fact that none of the band members--with the possible exception of the overly excited drummer--exhibited the slightest trace of personality at the shoot. I mean, it was dead silent between takes: No evidence of any camaraderie between the members; no jokes or horseplay; no comments, positive or negative, on the performances; no interaction with the crew, record company people or gawkers--just silence. They might have been wax works, but for the movement.

From the Bravery--an up-and-coming band with great chops (but no discernible personality) making a musical appearance--I go to Peter Tork, a rock 'n' roll dinosaur with questionable vocal tendencies (but tons of charisma) making a non-musical appearance.

The former Monkee was hosting a special edition of the Beauty Bar's "oldies 'n' goodies" Wednesday night event, Goodie Tu Shoes. By hosting, I mean he was autographing copies of "Cambria Hotel," a new offering from his rootsy, bluesy new rock 'n' roll band, Shoe Suede Blues.

Tork acted just the way any fan of the Monkees' ridiculous TV show (or thoroughly excellent film, "Head") would have expected: He was friendly, animated and totally goofy. I can't vouch for Shoe Suede Blues being anything more than a respectable honky tonk-style bar band, but after being an extraordinarily well-known (if not necessarily respected) superstar, he deserves a lot of credit for starting over with a new band and doing the little extracurriculars newcomers must to get the word out.

I guess the answer to the question Tork posed here is "yes." -Liam Gowing

[Photo 1: The Bravery at Swing House. Credit: Patrick Weir and Fuel TV. Photo 2: Peter Tork, right, and pal at Beauty Bar-L.A. Credit: Mary Jo Head.]

The Bird and the Bee will be

flying into the desert. Nice.

And one of those assembly-line electro acts that has me convinced technology has made

it far too easy to put out an album, the U.K.'s Does It Offend You Yeah?, will be

playing too.

Yeah, it does.

First, there was "Lip Gloss," Lil Mama's earth-crushing and drums-only ode to windburn protection that sounded more menacing and ruthless than anything on "Curtis." Now, M.I.A.-protege Rye Rye has a smoking, minimalist Baltimore club tune in "Shake It to the Ground" on Diplo's Mad Decent label. Aside from an occasional farted-out bass, the production work from DJ Blaqstarr is again strictly minimalist percussion and gum-smacking chants until practically the end of the song. Have the kids decided they don't need even a perfunctory Korg Triton stab to make a floor-filler? Either way, we dig the Misfits poster in Rye Rye's bedroom in this made-for-pennies video and like to imagine that Glenn Danzig might return the favor someday with a guest verse.

--August Brown

Happy New Year.

And good riddance, 2007.

The year brought an avalanche of music, and the recent holiday week of rumination and

CD-sorting etched in my mind the idea that a whole lot of it was ... well ... pretty

good. Yeah, pretty good, uttered with my head slightly tilted, as if I never

thought once of saying "great" or "really good." If I ever had the

radical notion to rate albums on a 10 scale,

I would swear that half the records I received this year logged somewhere between 6.5

and 6.7 -- a percentage that's skewed because all six copies of the Magic Numbers album that somehow found

their way to my desk would get a 6.2.

Maybe this was the year that trying to

keep up with new music, nationally and locally, finally overwhelmed me, what with every

baby band in the universe engaging in viral marketing, hiring publicists, working with

managers, leaving me polite entreaties on MySpace and generally undermining any belief

that a band can merely grow organically. I attended about 185 shows in 2007 too, many to

follow up on those advertising blitzes.

But after compiling my humble lists

below, I fast-forwarded to December 2009, when all good geeks will be sweating over

their seemingly inevitable Best-of-the-Aughts list. And guess what? Not a single album

from 2007 has a chance of making mine. All of the bands I consider indie icons -- and

I'm sure you can spank me for leaving out people you think are iconic -- released other

albums this decade that are superior to their 2007 releases. For the record, that

pantheon houses the National, Spoon, Modest Mouse, Arcade Fire, Bright Eyes and

Interpol, with other personal faves such as the Shins and Stars living in the backhouse.

Those heavyweights each added to their estimable catalogs, yes; it's just that I'm not

going to pull "We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank" off the shelf first

when I want to hear some Modest Mouse a few years from now.

At least, I don't

think.

The lists follow. Thanks to everybody who sends me music -- really --

and a special shout-out to the bands on the L.A. scene who've made my life so much

richer over the past 5-plus years.

My Favorite 10 Albums of 2007

1. Blonde

Redhead, "23"

2. The National, "Boxer"

3. LCD

Soundsystem, "Sound of Silver"

4. Against Me!, "New

Wave"

5. Spoon, "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga"

6. The Cribs,

"Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever"

7. Arcade Fire, "Neon

Bible"

8. Lupe Fiasco, "Cool"

9. The Shins,

"Wincing the Night Away"

10. Softlightes, "Say No to Being

Cool -- Say Yes to Being Happy" *

Comments: It's scares me how much

this list largely parallels other blogs/music mags. Yes, Fiasco's album just came out,

but on first, second and third blush it's a long-range keeper. And that's right, no

Radiohead. So sue me. 6.8.

* See final list

Buzz Bands' Top 10 L.A. Albums of 2007

1. Foreign Born, "On the Wing Now"

2. John Doe, "A Year in

the Wilderness"

3. Sea Wolf, "Leaves in the River"

4. CoCo B's, "CoCo B's"

5. Eleni Mandell, "Miracle of

Five"

6. Earlimart, "Mentor Tormentor"

7. Culver

City Dub Collective, "Dos"

8. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club,

"Baby 81"

9. Rilo Kiley, "Under the Blacklight"

10. Great Northern, "Trading Twilight for Daylight"

Comments:

Foreign Born is just plain good. CoCo B's self-released disc is a great surprise. Culver

City Dub Collective's genre-mashing is sublime. Eleni Mandell -- who needs Feist? And

Rilo Kiley's album just kept growing on me.

Ten L.A. Bands Whose Debuts Made Me Anxious for the

Sophomore Album

1. The Deadly Syndrome, "The

Ortolan"

2. The Broken West, "I Can't Go On, I'll Go On"

3. Robert Francis, "One by One"

4. The Parson Red Heads,

"King Giraffe"

5. Delta Spirit, "Delta Spirit"

6. Frankel, "Lullaby for the Passersby"

7. Year Long Disaster,

"Year Long Disaster"

8. Sara Bareilles, "Little Voice"

9. The Minor Canon, "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished"

10. No

Age, "Weirdo Rippers"

Ten L.A. Bands Whose 2007 EPs Made

Me Want More

Castledoor, the Airborne Toxic Event, the Weather

Underground, the Black Kites, Voxhaul Broadcast, Sam Sparro, Manic, Radars to the Sky,

Sara Lov, Aushua.

Three Albums From Bands Whom I Loved in the '90s and Still

Do

1. Buffalo Tom, "Three Easy Pieces"

2.

Dinosaur Jr., "Beyond"

3. Smashing Pumpkins,

"Zeitgeist"

Five Hip-Hop Albums I Would Recommend If

Anybody Believed I Recommended Hip-Hop Albums

1. Lupe Fiasco,

"Cool"

2. Kanye West, "Graduation"

3. Brother

Ali, "Undisputed Truth"

4. El-P, "I'll Sleep When You're

Dead"

5. Aesop Rock, "None Shall Pass"

Under the Radar: Six Overlooked Albums

1.

Softlightes, "Say No to Being Cool -- Say Yes to Being Happy": Cinematic

electro-pop that recalls Grandaddy at its finest.

2. The High Strung,

"Get the Guests": Catchy and clever, hold the irony, with peripatetic melody

lines that do not quit.

3. Minipop, "A New Hope": Gorgeous and

beautifully layered shoegaze-pop with rhythms that will drive you right into a dreamlike

state.

4. The Blakes, "The Blakes": Soulful garage rock that's good

for your summer sweat.

5. The Comas, "Spells": Distortion-heavy

power pop arrives in bursts, may leave marks.

6. Young Galaxy, "Young

Galaxy": Other Canadian exports (Kevin Drew, Sunset Rubdown, Feist, et. al.) earned

more buzz, but this album feel like a warm waking dream.

Comments:

Somehow I saw Softlightes play live 10 times in 2007. I left each show in a better mood

than when I arrived.

 

The next time someone tells you that booze doesn't make the world a better place, you just tell them to go listen to Corrine Bailey Rae and her remix of "Like A Star" at the wonderfully titled website www.generouspour.com. The seasonal website for Clos du Bois Wines has lovely traditonal holiday recipes for things like, um, "stoned crab cobbler with coconut" (what, are we pre-gaming for New Year's at Jimmy Buffett's beach hut?) and "Hot Italian Sausage Stuffing" (I'm pretty sure that's the gay porn version of "Roman Holiday"). Anyway, the website, which will be up through today, has a free download of "Like A Star" by Grammy nominee Rae and every time someone downloads it, Clos du Bois will donate $1 to Share Our Strength, a non-profit working against hunger and poverty in the U.S. It sounds like booze-company guilt to us, and wouldn't Amy Winehouse have been a better choice here for so many reasons? As for the music: The song is pretty much played out and the remix here is a fairly glossy affair but it is also free and unobjectionable as a dinner-party fare. So pass the potatoes...

--Geoff Boucher

The Beatle who earned his famous nickname by covering his fingers with rings is now making news with a bracelet. “Liverpool 8,” the new Capitol/EMI album from 67-year-old Ringo Starr, is being released Jan. 15 as a CD, a digital download and also as a “pre-loaded USB wristband” that includes all 12 tracks and a slew of extras, including “a personal video message, interview and track commentary from Ringo Starr, behind-the-scenes making-of footage from the recording sessions, ringtones, photos and more.” (Shouldn't those be "Ringo-tones"?) There’s more details at www.ringostarr.com but this already opens a whole new world of albums-as-accessories. How soon can we buy “Blackout” by Britney Spears in the ankle-monitor format? And how great would be to work toward the weekend by wearing Loverboy’s greatest hits in your headband?

--Geoff Boucher

Just in time to service your holiday malaise, two of my favorite DJ collectives are

conspiring to set sadness to music tonight at the downtown bar La Cita.

Give Up -- the seasonal club night initiated by the DJ collective Dublab and manned the past several years by Mark

"Frosty" McNeill and Jimmy Tamborello -- gets back into its wintry spirit as

DJs spin depressing songs on the bar's back patio. It's described as "a deeply

depressing disc sob session." Inside the bar, Part Time Punks' Michael Stock and others will

be hosting "A Sad, Slow Dance Party," promising "all slow dancing, all

night long."

There's no cover. Tears start to flow at 9 p.m.

Photo of DJ Frosty (from 2005) by Kevin Bronson/LAT

Happier choices for Tuesday, Dec. 18

Pop sextet Castledoor brings its

sublime tunes to Boardner's in the final monthly show of the year presented by Radio Free Silver Lake. The Flying Tourbillon Orchestra

and Frankel are also playing the

18-and-older show, which is free. ... Mighty Six Ninety and Io Echo rock the Troubadour. ... Oliver Future continues its Tuesday

residency at the Viper Room. ... The

Monolators head a good local bill at the Scene. ... And John Gold performs at Bordello.

The obituary this morning says Dan Fogelberg helped "define soft rock," but

that sounds kind of flaccid compared to what the singer-songwriter, who died Sunday at

age 56, meant to a bunch of kids in the working-class neighborhoods of Peoria, Ill., in

the early 1970s.

Fogelberg graduated from Woodruff High School the year before I got there, leaving

behind some stories of a rock band called the Coachmen (I actually owned the 45 at one

point -- oh, where did it go?) and the occasional rumor he'd gone off to California, a

place that seemed so distant from our Midwestern factory town as to be a mirage. Not

many of us had California dreams then; we'd do well to graduate high school and get on

at Caterpillar Tractor Co. (which accounted for something like 1 in 5 paychecks in our

city in those days). If we were really lucky, we'd go to college.

In the fall of my junior year, "Home Free" arrived, and we were mesmerized.

Fogelberg's debut album -- a beautifully orchestrated bouquet of ballads that veered

toward what we now would call alt-country -- took his alma mater by storm. It christened

the tape player in my first car; it was played endlessly at basement parties from Grand

View Drive to the lower East Bluff. I'm pretty sure there isn't a song in my collection

I've played over the years more than that second track, "Stars."

Fogelberg was our Jackson Browne, a romantic who shared our roots and who had the

courage to strike out in service of his poetry. As I trudged through the snow delivering

my Peoria Journal Stars every morning, that was a pretty important symbol.

I always blanched at, but ultimately forgave, the arch sentimentality that seemingly

oppressive production brought to Fogelberg's later albums. He had earned the right to

pursue whatever vision struck him. When my brother and I took in a Fogelberg show a few

years ago in Anaheim, it wasn't so much for musical nostalgia as it was a thank-you.

In one subtle but important way, Dan Fogelberg was the leader of our band.

Curiosity piqued by the announcement of the Gibson "Robot" Guitar, I headed down to my favorite guitar shop in L.A. on Saturday to check it out myself. I was a little disappointed, frankly.

With a name like "the Robot," I was expecting this six-stringer to jump out of the case unprovoked and run around the room, shouting, "Danger Will Robinson!" or "For those about to rock we salute you!" or "Sarah Connor?" or something. Instead, the Robot just lay in his case, looking like a standard (or, for those of you in the know, a "studio") Les Paul. The only obvious differences were larger tuning pegs and a funky-looking control where one of the standard four volume/tone knobs is usually located. This, I was told, was the "MCK" or "Master Control Knob."

"Now there's the kind of Orwellian 'oh no, the machines have achieved artificial intelligence and have enslaved all carbon-based lifeforms on the planet'-kind of language I was hoping for," I thought.

But alas, the master control knob just controls the Robot's auto-tuning mechanism. It's pretty neat, I'll admit. You pull out the knob, spin the top dial to one of several tuning-configuration presets (standard, "drop d," open-tuning, etc.), tap the top, strum the strings, wait for the tuning pegs to auto-jiggy into position, and voila--push the knob back in and your Les Paul has an alternate tuning.

For the overwhelming majority of guitar players who play in standard tuning, what are the advantages? Well, for about $1000 more than what you'd spend on a regular Les Paul, you can keep your axe in really, really, really good tune.

So who is the real market for Gibson's Robot Guitar? Wealthy guitar players who need to constantly and radically alter their tuning. If that's not you, buy a chromatic tuner and save the Robot Guitar for Joni Mitchell.

--Liam Gowing

Welcome to Soundboard, the new music blog from the L.A. Times written by a band of opinionated, sometimes cranky, sometimes ecstatic music lovers. Soundboard will blog breaking news, concert previews, album and single reviews, and lots of random observations about this vast, exciting, wacko place known as the music world. By the way, we're nomads, committed to no single genre, era or chart, so expect Soundboard to be all over the place, like a Sonic Youth song covered by Beyonce playing at a Mexican restaurant in Torrance. That song doesn't exist (yet) but you get the point.

I don't know why, but I'm thinking about record clubs. I remember a time when my older brother belonged to one and he'd show me his cool new tapes. (Yeah, tapes. Don't laugh.) "I got this for a penny!" he's say, shaking Duran Duran's "Rio" in my face. I was amazed. A penny? How can they do that??

So I started searching around to see if any are left.

Turns out that BMG Columbia House still has one but from their home page, you can tell they're making their money from DVDs. "Music Service" is off to the side. When you click on it, it takes you to one of the saddest little web pages in the world, seemingly designed by Your Local Mall's Party Store circa 1988.

I'm going to find out a little more about this whole thing, but in the meantime, does anyone still belong to a record club out there?

[Crickets.]

--Margaret Wappler

I'm not part of the pack salivating over "Raising Sand," the new Alison Krauss/Robert Plant collab -- its backwoods flavor is slightly overcooked, in my book -- but I love the CD's cover art. The frontispiece shows the two stars relaxing in some desert setting, smiling off into the distance, perhaps at T-Bone Burnett bringing them another sheaf of folk-pop obscurities to peruse.

The back's the clincher, though. Plant's back is turned, and Krauss, leaning toward him, throws a grin over her shoulder as they walk away. She looks like a contented cat making off with her canary. The Lion King may be nearly sixty and more interested in crooning than howling out all of his love, but Krauss certainly knows that by clutching that arm, she's fulfilling a fantasy that sustained generations of teen-age girls, dreaming in their bedrooms to Led Zeppelin's massive kathunking mojo blues. Though I'm sure their collaboration was strictly artistic, here's to her for having fun with her chance to quietly fly her metal horns and say, "Ladies, eat your hearts out!"

--Ann Powers

I am not necessarily a fan of the

Mormons, but as a baseball guy I just about did a spit take when I saw the

tongue-in-cheek poster for the Los Angeles band's current stand at Mr. T's Bowl. [Sorry

for the sloppy clean-up job; it's a family blog, you know.]

[Our local music spotlight, for the moment, remains pointed at power pop, because

it just seems to go so well with summertime:]


Ari Shine landed with a crunch -- and

that's the crunch of a big power chord -- when he released his debut EP

"Age/Occupation" in 2006. Quickly he became a songwriter-to-watch in the L.A.

power-pop underground, if not somebody who carries enough melodies to wriggle a bunch of

his songs onto TV shows, and his energetic stage show hinted that he might become an

artist who could transcend the frequently fey trappings of the form.

His

full-length debut, "A Force of One" (released in July on Bongo Beat), suggests

that Shine is not content to merely ride the coattails  of his forebears. There's

some boy-meets/loses-girl material here, much of it cleverly couched ("Flirtation

Device"), but he sinks his hooks into broader storytelling too (see the song

below). The album was produced by former Sparks guitarist Earle Mankey, who has worked with

L.A. notables such as Concrete Blonde and the Three O'Clock. The result is a collection

that's a little bit Elvis Costello, a little bit Matthew Sweet and maybe a bit Brendan

Benson.

||| Shine performs tonight at the Knitting Factory as part of International Pop Overthrow. He also

is playing a couple West Cost dates supporting Peter

Case prior to a Sept. 18 date at Safari Sam's as a supporting act for Miles Hunt of the Wonder Stuff.

||| Download: "Beirut 1978."

Photo by Sam Peacock

"Korn's new album doesn't have a title."

"So how do you order it?"

"You don't. It's Korn."

I missed it and, from reports, am regretting it. Bat for Lashes, the nom de tune of

Brighton, England's Natasha Khan, wowed the room last night at Spaceland. The common

sentiment I heard from a couple people: No wonder she is nominated for the Mercury

Music Prize.

You'll be hearing more about her.

For now, here is the enchanting video for "What's a Girl to Do."

Touts for Wednesday, Aug. 1

The Format starts a two-show stand (the

Avalon tonight, House of Blues tomorrow); the band for two weeks offered its latest

album, "Dog Problems," as a free download from its website and reported that

45,000 copies of the (very

good) album were ripped. ... Great

Glass Elevator (whose inventiveness kind of reminds me of the Format in a way) play

Club NME at Spaceland tonight. ... The Automatic Music

Explosion plays the Scene in Glendale. ... And the Stevenson Ranch Davidians

start a run of Wednesday shows at the Echo.

Consider this a warm-up for "The Simpsons

Movie" (opening in two weeks).

The musician's name is Zack Kim, a 24-year-old

university student who was born in Seoul, South Korea, reared in Malaysia and is now

studying in Australia. There are more examples of his technique on his website, and the

young man has his own Wikipedia

page.

He tells me via e-mail that he after he completes his studies in two years he hopes

to devote all his energies to music, and eventually he "would really love to

perform in the States, as it would be a dream come true for me."

Have to

think he'd be quite a hit at the premiere party.

Summer is here, in case you were too busy on MySpace to get the memo. The concert

calendar always seems to remind me before the real calendar, what with the Hollywood

Bowl kicking into gear and the onslaught of distinguished veteran rock bands starting to

make the stadium rounds.

(Email from a friend who went to Dodger Stadium this weekend: "They were pretty

awesome for a Police cover band.")

The smaller events have their cachet too -- the Sunday afternoon Do-Over at Crane's, the Little Radio Summer Camp. And then there was last

Thursday's Late Night at LACMA, the annual summer

solstice soiree, which attracted 7,853 museum visitors and probably disappointed

hundreds of others who waited for hours in long lines only to give up. (To be fair, what

part of "early arrival recommended" did you not understand?)

Late Night was a melange of music, hipster ephemera (T-shirt screen printing by Hit +

Run now seems mandatory if you are throwing any kind of cross-cultural event) and art.

Suffice to say there were plenty of photo ops in the Dan Flavin retrospective, a refuge

for attendees who could only handle small doses of offerings from DJs Steve Aoki,

Internationalist and handful of others. I missed the set by the always-solid Rebirth but caught one of L.A.'s favorite party

bands, Ima Robot, who got folks dancing despite

the band's relative lack of amplification.

◊ ◊ ◊

Where did June go?

The Monday night residencies end tonight at Spaceland, the Echo and Silverlake

Lounge. The L.A. quartet the Deadly

Syndrome (Spaceland) seems to have grown into polished band overnight (and wait till

you hear the album), and Thailand

(Silverlake Lounge), despite playing as a three-piece with electronic rhythms, serve up

a compelling new-wave/post-punk cocktail. And I have not made it to the Echo to see

Philadelphia ex-pats Burning Brides

(maybe tonight?), but people I trust give me good reports.

◊ ◊ ◊

At Safari Sam's on Friday night, the Silver Lake/Echo Park masses gathered to bid

farewell to Sea Level Records and its

proprietor, Todd Clifford. The independent outlet has been a locus of the Eastside music

scene for more than 5 years, and Clifford is closing more for I-need-a-life-change

reasons than business.

Today is the last day Sea Level is scheduled to be open.

Photos: LACMA attendees get up close with Dan Flavin's work; Ima Robot rocks in the

courtyard. By Kevin Bronson / LAT.

The Little Ones are still one

of this city's strongest musical happy pills, but, as a set Friday night showed, it's

hard to maintain that peak level of exuberance when you're doing it night after night,

tour after tour.

The L.A.

quintet -- "Rhymin' Simon on steroids" is how I described them last year, and

it still applies -- played an ASCAP- and Filter-sponsored music night on Friday tied to

the Silverlake Film Festival. The stuff from their "Sing Song" EP still

sounded crisp, and their new songs were upbeat and catchy too. But after having spent

the early part of this year doing some rigorous touring, the Little Ones weren't quite

as unhinged as they were when their EP was first released and Astralwerks (in the U.S.)

and Heavenly (in the U.K.) swooped in to sign the band.

Are the Little Ones still as happy as their music? "That's a good

question," frontman Edward Reyes says. "We're excited. ... Remember, we just

looked at that EP as our calling card -- we just wanted to get some shows with

it."

Their as-yet-untitled debut album is recorded and due in January, Reyes says.

"It's turning out great," he adds. "Right now we have a whole track

devoted to laughing."

||| Download Little Ones' songs from their Daytrotter session here.

◊ ◊ ◊

Passion of the Weiss has a

play-by-play of Britney Spears' Houses of Blues appearance (I will not call it a

performance). He even has some empathy.

◊ ◊ ◊

Ran into an employee of a recently merged record company who was enthused about

having adopted a puppy. Cute thing ... so what did you name him? "Andy

Slater."

◊ ◊ ◊

"So how

was Coachella?" That was the most-asked

question last week. I told inquiring minds that it was a three-day weekend of

once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and even as they were unfolding I knew I was missing

others. Wish the festival could have just hesitated a few times each day and let me

catch up.

The inconsiderate hipsters at Anthem, who throw their Coachella party during the day

while the music is going on, tell me I missed something else too -- a mask-less Thomas

Bangalter from Daft Punk [face obscured] spinning the LCD Soundsystem track "Daft

Punk Is Playing at My House." Not that anybody recognized him. But a cool party

nonetheless.

Daft Punk turned up on the turntables a couple nights later at the Echo too. Not that

anybody recognized them.

Touts for tonight

Gliss (Spaceland), the High Society (Silverlake Lounge), Bodies of Water (Echo) and Richard Bivens & Foreign Press

(Detroit Bar) start their Monday night residencies. ... Midnight Movies plays an in-store at

Amoeba. ... And London's Apartment joins

locals the Grand Marquee and others

at Indie 103.1's Viper Room show.

The music is pretty hard on the ears, kind of a flailing

attempt at dance-party relevance. But the album cover (that's the original at right) is

even harder on the eyes -- so Perry Farrell's Satellite Party revised it. Stereogum has a

compare-and-contrast. I'm not sure, but this would not have passed muster in the

Photoshop classes I slogged through years ago. This does, however, guarantee that the

album will chart. Here.

[Guest blogger August Brown is hot both because he is fly, and because he should

have worn more sunscreen.]

If Coachella success was measured in words per minute, Busdriver would have been the day's

undisputed champ. But fortunately for the old-guard L.A.-based MC, he dropped jaws and

machine-gun metaphors alike during his astonishingly dextrous set.

Busdriver was equally compelling needling the crowd with accusations of yuppiedom as

he did slaying them with fiery indignance at the ways the music industry exploits

rappers. Over a loose-limbed flurry of house and jungle-inspired beats, he extolled

cheeba and wryly freestyled that "in the Gobi tent is how an O.G. represents."

Original gangstas are few and far between at Coachella, but unless Ghostface pulls off

a miracle tomorrow, Busdriver may hit the 10 freeway home as the weekend's reigning

rhyme-slinger.

This was featured in our Downloads column last weekend (a good reason to drop

some coin on the Saturday print edition or check the pop music page on your local

newspaper's website). I've been a sucker for Travis' brand of Britpop since the first Clinton

Administration. Here's the video for "Closer," and, yeah, Ben Stiller makes a

good grocer.

Ozomatli looked to the visual for inspiration

when writing its new album, “Don’t Mess With the Dragon” (due April 3 on Concord

Records) — much of the initial songwriting came out of jam sessions at the Tropico de

Nopal art gallery. Now the veteran L.A. nine-piece might have found a vision to suit its

sound.

The new video for the single “Can’t Stop” is a dizzying collage of

stop-animation and storytelling that seems equal to Ozomatli’s mashing of Latin flavors,

rock, hip-hop and funk — a hybrid many have said is distinctly Los Angeles.

“We haven’t had a lot of luck with videos in the past,” acknowledges Ulises Bella, who

plays saxophone and clarinet for the band.

Ozomatli turned to New York-based

artist-illustrator Richard Borge for “Can’t Stop,” even though the 41-year-old, who had

done album art for bands such as Meat Beat Manifesto, had never done a music video.

The re-ascent of bro core

A few weeks ago, I interviewed Bad Religion founder Greg Graffin about his band's recent string of L.A.-area dates. Bad Religion's been through several commercial revivals, as wiseacre punks, as an unlikely radio act in the mid-'90s ("You and meee ... have a diseeease ..." ) and most recently as something approximating a hugely successful local band. They play large theaters and festivals and sell decently around the world, but to someone whose experience with rock radio is limited to KROQ, they must seem as big as Linkin Park. I always chalked it up as a Southern California thing, that the '90s varietal of double-time skate punk that came to be called the "Epitaph Sound" put its claws in deep after the Offspring and never let up. All that grindable pavement, the year-long sunshine and the intraversible open space of L.A.'s mutant version of urbanity certainly helped.

When the video for Lil' Wayne's new, so-inane-it-might-be-genius single "Lollipop" began making the rounds, it seemed oddly ... familiar. Not just because its narrative arc of Wayne looking stoked about his money and club-girl harem is well-traversed hip-hop video territory, though. Something in the particular visual kinesis of him driving around Vegas playing guitar out of the sunroof of his stretch Hummer or whatever. Then it hit us --  Silversun Pickups (and director Joaquin Phoenix) made the exact same video for their single "Little Lover's So Polite." Just replace the Pickups' preteen Aryan couple and downtown L.A. with Wayne's video vixens and the Vegas strip. Note the 1:53 mark in "Lollipop" and the 3:06 point in "Little Lover's" where each artist plays their respective butt rock guitar solo. Wayne's guitar face is much more convincing, we think.

-- August Brown

Illustration by August Brown; Lil' Wayne photo by Jonathan Mannion; Silversun Pickups photo by Gail Salmo

Lil' Wayne: "Lollipop"

Silversun Pickups: "Little Lover's So Polite"

Your daily six-degrees-of-Rilo Kiley round-up: Women's Wear Daily is reporting that guitarist Blake Sennett has finally passed the penultimate indie-dude coming-of-age ritual and is getting hitched to Winona Ryder. Us Weekly is denying the claim. The two are definitely starring in an upcoming film called "Water Pill." Jenny Lewis is making an album with Elvis Costello and Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes, whom you heard from last week. We just want some CornNuts. BQ.

-- August Brown

Photo by New World Pictures

We’re not sure exactly why the Foo Fighters are considered rock royalty now (“The Pretender” as a best-record nominee at the Grammys? Well, at least it lives up to its title ...), but Dave Grohl does have an admirable sense of humor. Exhibit A: His deadpan performance of “Leather and Lace” with the always loopy Will Ferrell at a recent L.A. fundraiser:

-- Geoff Boucher

Now that Super Tuesday has proven inconclusive on all fronts, let’s engage in some unfounded speculation: Might any of the presidential candidates show up at Sunday’s Grammy Awards?

The Repubs will likely stay home -– despite Mike Huckabee’s electric bass skills and Burt Bacharach’s reported fondness for John McCain, their support among pop stars is generally thin. Ron Paul can claim only Arlo Guthrie. (You can check out who’s supporting whom here.)

Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, however, are still vying for the pop star vote as well as the popular one. A quick and dirty survey of Grammy nominees reveals Clinton with six nominated stumpers -- Madonna, Tony Bennett, Jon Bon Jovi, 50 Cent, Timbaland and Barbra Streisand -– and Obama with five -- Ne-Yo, Usher, Harry Connick Jr., Win Butler of Arcade Fire and Jeff Tweedy of Wilco.

Will.i.am, Obama’s most active pop pal of late, didn’t earn any noms for his commercial flop of a solo album, but he’ll likely be on hand to pop the cork with Fergie if she takes a statue home. We could definitely see the irrepressible Black Eyed Pea pulling Barry onstage for a chorus of Fergie’s “Glamorous.”

And Hillary should really dump that Celine campaign song for an all-American medley of her pal Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” and “(You Want to) Make a Memory.” Although seeing her do the freak with Justin during 50’s “Ayo Technology”…. OK, that seems unlikely. But hey, there’s always Timbaland. He did wonders for Nelly Furtado. He could get the uber baby-boomer candidate out of her cultural rut!

In the meantime, check out Oh! Industry’s excellent roundtable of dedications to favorite candidates.

-- Ann Powers

I think I found the cure for the common TV. Of course, it's right here on your very

own Internet.

It's My Damn

Channel, a portal that is home to offerings from musician extraordinaire Don Was, along with the likes of Harry

Shearer, David Wain and others.


Was, a bassist, music supervisor, documentary director, Grammy-winning producer and a

driving force behind the cutting-edge funk outfit Was

(Not Was), has seldom been more sublimely
entertaining than as the cool-cat host of the "Wasmopolitan Dance
Party" -- a webisode filmed in the showroom of the Furniture Outlet, a
budget joint in North Hollywood. [Pardon the ads, but the installment above is well

worth their intrusion.]

There is singer-songwriter Jill Sobule, gamely playing her beautiful songs

from behind a dining-room set as shoppers mill about looking a recliners.

"I can't compete with the set-up on Letterman" Was says with a laugh.

"But doing something like this, we asked, 'What could we offer that's different?'

The answer is, the stripped-down and personal stuff."

In the ranks of overwrought music writing that have appeared in the Village Voice, Garrett Kamps is a god among fanboys. His recent review of Cat Power's flawed but arresting "Jukebox" covers record is especially troubling. It's not so much the rank misogyny or his John Yoo-level torturing of the em dash that really derails this review, but the fact that he doesn't seem to know what, exactly, a "cougar" is. Given our close approximation to Orange County, we know all too well. Cougars are sexually aggressive women on the far side of 40 peddling consequence-free hookups to inexperienced young men who will relay the tales in hushed, reverent tones over Halo 3 tournaments with their friends. Does that sound like an apt description of Cat Power (a.k.a. Chan Marshall), who once wrote a song about Patti Smith's children and her own abortion? Or the one who wrote one of 2006's most generous, uplifting Southern soul albums, "The Greatest?"

If Kamps is truly hunting for cougars, we can suggest a few better places for him to start trolling.

-- August Brown

[Cougar photo by Christine Cotter / Los Angeles Times. Chan Marshall photo by Stefano Giovannini / Beggars Group LTD via Bloomberg News]

An earlier version of this blog incorrectly referred to John Yoo as John Wu. And that was all Margaret's fault and not August's, so she will be buying him a latte something-or-another later today. Maybe.

It was an interesting week in musical contrasts.

On the invitation of Fuel TV's Daryl Berg, I stopped by Swing House in Hollywood on Monday to see the Bravery. The New York five-piece was at the recording studio-cum-rehearsal space to shoot a live segment for Fuel TV's "Check 1, 2." (If you're wondering what the connection is between the band and the action sports network, apparently two of the dudes like to surf.)

While I was there, the quintet ran through three of their songs three times each for Swing House's microphones and Fuel TV's cameras, and I would be lying if I didn't report that the performances were faultless--just like the recordings complete with spot-on vocals. Listening to the songs ("An Honest Mistake," "Believe" and "Time Won't Let Me Go"), I couldn't help but remark to Berg how incredulous I was that these guys aren't already superstars.

Seriously, the Bravery has a winning formula. It's not theirs, of course, it's Duran Duran's: five really good-looking guys with flawless haircuts and sharp outfits to match, playing insanely catchy New Wave-y tunes--hi-hat-heavy drums, octave-friendly bass, breathy keyboards, distorted rhythm guitars and crystalline leads, plus sour-sweet, whiny vocals--that sound both supremely commercial yet genuinely edgy.

The band's only modest success so far might have something to do with the fact that none of the band members--with the possible exception of the overly excited drummer--exhibited the slightest trace of personality at the shoot. I mean, it was dead silent between takes: No evidence of any camaraderie between the members; no jokes or horseplay; no comments, positive or negative, on the performances; no interaction with the crew, record company people or gawkers--just silence. They might have been wax works, but for the movement.

From the Bravery--an up-and-coming band with great chops (but no discernible personality) making a musical appearance--I go to Peter Tork, a rock 'n' roll dinosaur with questionable vocal tendencies (but tons of charisma) making a non-musical appearance.

The former Monkee was hosting a special edition of the Beauty Bar's "oldies 'n' goodies" Wednesday night event, Goodie Tu Shoes. By hosting, I mean he was autographing copies of "Cambria Hotel," a new offering from his rootsy, bluesy new rock 'n' roll band, Shoe Suede Blues.

Tork acted just the way any fan of the Monkees' ridiculous TV show (or thoroughly excellent film, "Head") would have expected: He was friendly, animated and totally goofy. I can't vouch for Shoe Suede Blues being anything more than a respectable honky tonk-style bar band, but after being an extraordinarily well-known (if not necessarily respected) superstar, he deserves a lot of credit for starting over with a new band and doing the little extracurriculars newcomers must to get the word out.

I guess the answer to the question Tork posed here is "yes." -Liam Gowing

[Photo 1: The Bravery at Swing House. Credit: Patrick Weir and Fuel TV. Photo 2: Peter Tork, right, and pal at Beauty Bar-L.A. Credit: Mary Jo Head.]

The Bird and the Bee will be

flying into the desert. Nice.

And one of those assembly-line electro acts that has me convinced technology has made

it far too easy to put out an album, the U.K.'s Does It Offend You Yeah?, will be

playing too.

Yeah, it does.

First, there was "Lip Gloss," Lil Mama's earth-crushing and drums-only ode to windburn protection that sounded more menacing and ruthless than anything on "Curtis." Now, M.I.A.-protege Rye Rye has a smoking, minimalist Baltimore club tune in "Shake It to the Ground" on Diplo's Mad Decent label. Aside from an occasional farted-out bass, the production work from DJ Blaqstarr is again strictly minimalist percussion and gum-smacking chants until practically the end of the song. Have the kids decided they don't need even a perfunctory Korg Triton stab to make a floor-filler? Either way, we dig the Misfits poster in Rye Rye's bedroom in this made-for-pennies video and like to imagine that Glenn Danzig might return the favor someday with a guest verse.

--August Brown

Happy New Year.

And good riddance, 2007.

The year brought an avalanche of music, and the recent holiday week of rumination and

CD-sorting etched in my mind the idea that a whole lot of it was ... well ... pretty

good. Yeah, pretty good, uttered with my head slightly tilted, as if I never

thought once of saying "great" or "really good." If I ever had the

radical notion to rate albums on a 10 scale,

I would swear that half the records I received this year logged somewhere between 6.5

and 6.7 -- a percentage that's skewed because all six copies of the Magic Numbers album that somehow found

their way to my desk would get a 6.2.

Maybe this was the year that trying to

keep up with new music, nationally and locally, finally overwhelmed me, what with every

baby band in the universe engaging in viral marketing, hiring publicists, working with

managers, leaving me polite entreaties on MySpace and generally undermining any belief

that a band can merely grow organically. I attended about 185 shows in 2007 too, many to

follow up on those advertising blitzes.

But after compiling my humble lists

below, I fast-forwarded to December 2009, when all good geeks will be sweating over

their seemingly inevitable Best-of-the-Aughts list. And guess what? Not a single album

from 2007 has a chance of making mine. All of the bands I consider indie icons -- and

I'm sure you can spank me for leaving out people you think are iconic -- released other

albums this decade that are superior to their 2007 releases. For the record, that

pantheon houses the National, Spoon, Modest Mouse, Arcade Fire, Bright Eyes and

Interpol, with other personal faves such as the Shins and Stars living in the backhouse.

Those heavyweights each added to their estimable catalogs, yes; it's just that I'm not

going to pull "We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank" off the shelf first

when I want to hear some Modest Mouse a few years from now.

At least, I don't

think.

The lists follow. Thanks to everybody who sends me music -- really --

and a special shout-out to the bands on the L.A. scene who've made my life so much

richer over the past 5-plus years.

My Favorite 10 Albums of 2007

1. Blonde

Redhead, "23"

2. The National, "Boxer"

3. LCD

Soundsystem, "Sound of Silver"

4. Against Me!, "New

Wave"

5. Spoon, "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga"

6. The Cribs,

"Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever"

7. Arcade Fire, "Neon

Bible"

8. Lupe Fiasco, "Cool"

9. The Shins,

"Wincing the Night Away"

10. Softlightes, "Say No to Being

Cool -- Say Yes to Being Happy" *

Comments: It's scares me how much

this list largely parallels other blogs/music mags. Yes, Fiasco's album just came out,

but on first, second and third blush it's a long-range keeper. And that's right, no

Radiohead. So sue me. 6.8.

* See final list

Buzz Bands' Top 10 L.A. Albums of 2007

1. Foreign Born, "On the Wing Now"

2. John Doe, "A Year in

the Wilderness"

3. Sea Wolf, "Leaves in the River"

4. CoCo B's, "CoCo B's"

5. Eleni Mandell, "Miracle of

Five"

6. Earlimart, "Mentor Tormentor"

7. Culver

City Dub Collective, "Dos"

8. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club,

"Baby 81"

9. Rilo Kiley, "Under the Blacklight"

10. Great Northern, "Trading Twilight for Daylight"

Comments:

Foreign Born is just plain good. CoCo B's self-released disc is a great surprise. Culver

City Dub Collective's genre-mashing is sublime. Eleni Mandell -- who needs Feist? And

Rilo Kiley's album just kept growing on me.

Ten L.A. Bands Whose Debuts Made Me Anxious for the

Sophomore Album

1. The Deadly Syndrome, "The

Ortolan"

2. The Broken West, "I Can't Go On, I'll Go On"

3. Robert Francis, "One by One"

4. The Parson Red Heads,

"King Giraffe"

5. Delta Spirit, "Delta Spirit"

6. Frankel, "Lullaby for the Passersby"

7. Year Long Disaster,

"Year Long Disaster"

8. Sara Bareilles, "Little Voice"

9. The Minor Canon, "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished"

10. No

Age, "Weirdo Rippers"

Ten L.A. Bands Whose 2007 EPs Made

Me Want More

Castledoor, the Airborne Toxic Event, the Weather

Underground, the Black Kites, Voxhaul Broadcast, Sam Sparro, Manic, Radars to the Sky,

Sara Lov, Aushua.

Three Albums From Bands Whom I Loved in the '90s and Still

Do

1. Buffalo Tom, "Three Easy Pieces"

2.

Dinosaur Jr., "Beyond"

3. Smashing Pumpkins,

"Zeitgeist"

Five Hip-Hop Albums I Would Recommend If

Anybody Believed I Recommended Hip-Hop Albums

1. Lupe Fiasco,

"Cool"

2. Kanye West, "Graduation"

3. Brother

Ali, "Undisputed Truth"

4. El-P, "I'll Sleep When You're

Dead"

5. Aesop Rock, "None Shall Pass"

Under the Radar: Six Overlooked Albums

1.

Softlightes, "Say No to Being Cool -- Say Yes to Being Happy": Cinematic

electro-pop that recalls Grandaddy at its finest.

2. The High Strung,

"Get the Guests": Catchy and clever, hold the irony, with peripatetic melody

lines that do not quit.

3. Minipop, "A New Hope": Gorgeous and

beautifully layered shoegaze-pop with rhythms that will drive you right into a dreamlike

state.

4. The Blakes, "The Blakes": Soulful garage rock that's good

for your summer sweat.

5. The Comas, "Spells": Distortion-heavy

power pop arrives in bursts, may leave marks.

6. Young Galaxy, "Young

Galaxy": Other Canadian exports (Kevin Drew, Sunset Rubdown, Feist, et. al.) earned

more buzz, but this album feel like a warm waking dream.

Comments:

Somehow I saw Softlightes play live 10 times in 2007. I left each show in a better mood

than when I arrived.

 

The next time someone tells you that booze doesn't make the world a better place, you just tell them to go listen to Corrine Bailey Rae and her remix of "Like A Star" at the wonderfully titled website www.generouspour.com. The seasonal website for Clos du Bois Wines has lovely traditonal holiday recipes for things like, um, "stoned crab cobbler with coconut" (what, are we pre-gaming for New Year's at Jimmy Buffett's beach hut?) and "Hot Italian Sausage Stuffing" (I'm pretty sure that's the gay porn version of "Roman Holiday"). Anyway, the website, which will be up through today, has a free download of "Like A Star" by Grammy nominee Rae and every time someone downloads it, Clos du Bois will donate $1 to Share Our Strength, a non-profit working against hunger and poverty in the U.S. It sounds like booze-company guilt to us, and wouldn't Amy Winehouse have been a better choice here for so many reasons? As for the music: The song is pretty much played out and the remix here is a fairly glossy affair but it is also free and unobjectionable as a dinner-party fare. So pass the potatoes...

--Geoff Boucher

The Beatle who earned his famous nickname by covering his fingers with rings is now making news with a bracelet. “Liverpool 8,” the new Capitol/EMI album from 67-year-old Ringo Starr, is being released Jan. 15 as a CD, a digital download and also as a “pre-loaded USB wristband” that includes all 12 tracks and a slew of extras, including “a personal video message, interview and track commentary from Ringo Starr, behind-the-scenes making-of footage from the recording sessions, ringtones, photos and more.” (Shouldn't those be "Ringo-tones"?) There’s more details at www.ringostarr.com but this already opens a whole new world of albums-as-accessories. How soon can we buy “Blackout” by Britney Spears in the ankle-monitor format? And how great would be to work toward the weekend by wearing Loverboy’s greatest hits in your headband?

--Geoff Boucher

Just in time to service your holiday malaise, two of my favorite DJ collectives are

conspiring to set sadness to music tonight at the downtown bar La Cita.

Give Up -- the seasonal club night initiated by the DJ collective Dublab and manned the past several years by Mark

"Frosty" McNeill and Jimmy Tamborello -- gets back into its wintry spirit as

DJs spin depressing songs on the bar's back patio. It's described as "a deeply

depressing disc sob session." Inside the bar, Part Time Punks' Michael Stock and others will

be hosting "A Sad, Slow Dance Party," promising "all slow dancing, all

night long."

There's no cover. Tears start to flow at 9 p.m.

Photo of DJ Frosty (from 2005) by Kevin Bronson/LAT

Happier choices for Tuesday, Dec. 18

Pop sextet Castledoor brings its

sublime tunes to Boardner's in the final monthly show of the year presented by Radio Free Silver Lake. The Flying Tourbillon Orchestra

and Frankel are also playing the

18-and-older show, which is free. ... Mighty Six Ninety and Io Echo rock the Troubadour. ... Oliver Future continues its Tuesday

residency at the Viper Room. ... The

Monolators head a good local bill at the Scene. ... And John Gold performs at Bordello.

The obituary this morning says Dan Fogelberg helped "define soft rock," but

that sounds kind of flaccid compared to what the singer-songwriter, who died Sunday at

age 56, meant to a bunch of kids in the working-class neighborhoods of Peoria, Ill., in

the early 1970s.

Fogelberg graduated from Woodruff High School the year before I got there, leaving

behind some stories of a rock band called the Coachmen (I actually owned the 45 at one

point -- oh, where did it go?) and the occasional rumor he'd gone off to California, a

place that seemed so distant from our Midwestern factory town as to be a mirage. Not

many of us had California dreams then; we'd do well to graduate high school and get on

at Caterpillar Tractor Co. (which accounted for something like 1 in 5 paychecks in our

city in those days). If we were really lucky, we'd go to college.

In the fall of my junior year, "Home Free" arrived, and we were mesmerized.

Fogelberg's debut album -- a beautifully orchestrated bouquet of ballads that veered

toward what we now would call alt-country -- took his alma mater by storm. It christened

the tape player in my first car; it was played endlessly at basement parties from Grand

View Drive to the lower East Bluff. I'm pretty sure there isn't a song in my collection

I've played over the years more than that second track, "Stars."

Fogelberg was our Jackson Browne, a romantic who shared our roots and who had the

courage to strike out in service of his poetry. As I trudged through the snow delivering

my Peoria Journal Stars every morning, that was a pretty important symbol.

I always blanched at, but ultimately forgave, the arch sentimentality that seemingly

oppressive production brought to Fogelberg's later albums. He had earned the right to

pursue whatever vision struck him. When my brother and I took in a Fogelberg show a few

years ago in Anaheim, it wasn't so much for musical nostalgia as it was a thank-you.

In one subtle but important way, Dan Fogelberg was the leader of our band.

Curiosity piqued by the announcement of the Gibson "Robot" Guitar, I headed down to my favorite guitar shop in L.A. on Saturday to check it out myself. I was a little disappointed, frankly.

With a name like "the Robot," I was expecting this six-stringer to jump out of the case unprovoked and run around the room, shouting, "Danger Will Robinson!" or "For those about to rock we salute you!" or "Sarah Connor?" or something. Instead, the Robot just lay in his case, looking like a standard (or, for those of you in the know, a "studio") Les Paul. The only obvious differences were larger tuning pegs and a funky-looking control where one of the standard four volume/tone knobs is usually located. This, I was told, was the "MCK" or "Master Control Knob."

"Now there's the kind of Orwellian 'oh no, the machines have achieved artificial intelligence and have enslaved all carbon-based lifeforms on the planet'-kind of language I was hoping for," I thought.

But alas, the master control knob just controls the Robot's auto-tuning mechanism. It's pretty neat, I'll admit. You pull out the knob, spin the top dial to one of several tuning-configuration presets (standard, "drop d," open-tuning, etc.), tap the top, strum the strings, wait for the tuning pegs to auto-jiggy into position, and voila--push the knob back in and your Les Paul has an alternate tuning.

For the overwhelming majority of guitar players who play in standard tuning, what are the advantages? Well, for about $1000 more than what you'd spend on a regular Les Paul, you can keep your axe in really, really, really good tune.

So who is the real market for Gibson's Robot Guitar? Wealthy guitar players who need to constantly and radically alter their tuning. If that's not you, buy a chromatic tuner and save the Robot Guitar for Joni Mitchell.

--Liam Gowing

Welcome to Soundboard, the new music blog from the L.A. Times written by a band of opinionated, sometimes cranky, sometimes ecstatic music lovers. Soundboard will blog breaking news, concert previews, album and single reviews, and lots of random observations about this vast, exciting, wacko place known as the music world. By the way, we're nomads, committed to no single genre, era or chart, so expect Soundboard to be all over the place, like a Sonic Youth song covered by Beyonce playing at a Mexican restaurant in Torrance. That song doesn't exist (yet) but you get the point.

I don't know why, but I'm thinking about record clubs. I remember a time when my older brother belonged to one and he'd show me his cool new tapes. (Yeah, tapes. Don't laugh.) "I got this for a penny!" he's say, shaking Duran Duran's "Rio" in my face. I was amazed. A penny? How can they do that??

So I started searching around to see if any are left.

Turns out that BMG Columbia House still has one but from their home page, you can tell they're making their money from DVDs. "Music Service" is off to the side. When you click on it, it takes you to one of the saddest little web pages in the world, seemingly designed by Your Local Mall's Party Store circa 1988.

I'm going to find out a little more about this whole thing, but in the meantime, does anyone still belong to a record club out there?

[Crickets.]

--Margaret Wappler

I'm not part of the pack salivating over "Raising Sand," the new Alison Krauss/Robert Plant collab -- its backwoods flavor is slightly overcooked, in my book -- but I love the CD's cover art. The frontispiece shows the two stars relaxing in some desert setting, smiling off into the distance, perhaps at T-Bone Burnett bringing them another sheaf of folk-pop obscurities to peruse.

The back's the clincher, though. Plant's back is turned, and Krauss, leaning toward him, throws a grin over her shoulder as they walk away. She looks like a contented cat making off with her canary. The Lion King may be nearly sixty and more interested in crooning than howling out all of his love, but Krauss certainly knows that by clutching that arm, she's fulfilling a fantasy that sustained generations of teen-age girls, dreaming in their bedrooms to Led Zeppelin's massive kathunking mojo blues. Though I'm sure their collaboration was strictly artistic, here's to her for having fun with her chance to quietly fly her metal horns and say, "Ladies, eat your hearts out!"

--Ann Powers

I am not necessarily a fan of the

Mormons, but as a baseball guy I just about did a spit take when I saw the

tongue-in-cheek poster for the Los Angeles band's current stand at Mr. T's Bowl. [Sorry

for the sloppy clean-up job; it's a family blog, you know.]

[Our local music spotlight, for the moment, remains pointed at power pop, because

it just seems to go so well with summertime:]


Ari Shine landed with a crunch -- and

that's the crunch of a big power chord -- when he released his debut EP

"Age/Occupation" in 2006. Quickly he became a songwriter-to-watch in the L.A.

power-pop underground, if not somebody who carries enough melodies to wriggle a bunch of

his songs onto TV shows, and his energetic stage show hinted that he might become an

artist who could transcend the frequently fey trappings of the form.

His

full-length debut, "A Force of One" (released in July on Bongo Beat), suggests

that Shine is not content to merely ride the coattails  of his forebears. There's

some boy-meets/loses-girl material here, much of it cleverly couched ("Flirtation

Device"), but he sinks his hooks into broader storytelling too (see the song

below). The album was produced by former Sparks guitarist Earle Mankey, who has worked with

L.A. notables such as Concrete Blonde and the Three O'Clock. The result is a collection

that's a little bit Elvis Costello, a little bit Matthew Sweet and maybe a bit Brendan

Benson.

||| Shine performs tonight at the Knitting Factory as part of International Pop Overthrow. He also

is playing a couple West Cost dates supporting Peter

Case prior to a Sept. 18 date at Safari Sam's as a supporting act for Miles Hunt of the Wonder Stuff.

||| Download: "Beirut 1978."

Photo by Sam Peacock

"Korn's new album doesn't have a title."

"So how do you order it?"

"You don't. It's Korn."

I missed it and, from reports, am regretting it. Bat for Lashes, the nom de tune of

Brighton, England's Natasha Khan, wowed the room last night at Spaceland. The common

sentiment I heard from a couple people: No wonder she is nominated for the Mercury

Music Prize.

You'll be hearing more about her.

For now, here is the enchanting video for "What's a Girl to Do."

Touts for Wednesday, Aug. 1

The Format starts a two-show stand (the

Avalon tonight, House of Blues tomorrow); the band for two weeks offered its latest

album, "Dog Problems," as a free download from its website and reported that

45,000 copies of the (very

good) album were ripped. ... Great

Glass Elevator (whose inventiveness kind of reminds me of the Format in a way) play

Club NME at Spaceland tonight. ... The Automatic Music

Explosion plays the Scene in Glendale. ... And the Stevenson Ranch Davidians

start a run of Wednesday shows at the Echo.

Consider this a warm-up for "The Simpsons

Movie" (opening in two weeks).

The musician's name is Zack Kim, a 24-year-old

university student who was born in Seoul, South Korea, reared in Malaysia and is now

studying in Australia. There are more examples of his technique on his website, and the

young man has his own Wikipedia

page.

He tells me via e-mail that he after he completes his studies in two years he hopes

to devote all his energies to music, and eventually he "would really love to

perform in the States, as it would be a dream come true for me."

Have to

think he'd be quite a hit at the premiere party.

Summer is here, in case you were too busy on MySpace to get the memo. The concert

calendar always seems to remind me before the real calendar, what with the Hollywood

Bowl kicking into gear and the onslaught of distinguished veteran rock bands starting to

make the stadium rounds.

(Email from a friend who went to Dodger Stadium this weekend: "They were pretty

awesome for a Police cover band.")

The smaller events have their cachet too -- the Sunday afternoon Do-Over at Crane's, the Little Radio Summer Camp. And then there was last

Thursday's Late Night at LACMA, the annual summer

solstice soiree, which attracted 7,853 museum visitors and probably disappointed

hundreds of others who waited for hours in long lines only to give up. (To be fair, what

part of "early arrival recommended" did you not understand?)

Late Night was a melange of music, hipster ephemera (T-shirt screen printing by Hit +

Run now seems mandatory if you are throwing any kind of cross-cultural event) and art.

Suffice to say there were plenty of photo ops in the Dan Flavin retrospective, a refuge

for attendees who could only handle small doses of offerings from DJs Steve Aoki,

Internationalist and handful of others. I missed the set by the always-solid Rebirth but caught one of L.A.'s favorite party

bands, Ima Robot, who got folks dancing despite

the band's relative lack of amplification.

◊ ◊ ◊

Where did June go?

The Monday night residencies end tonight at Spaceland, the Echo and Silverlake

Lounge. The L.A. quartet the Deadly

Syndrome (Spaceland) seems to have grown into polished band overnight (and wait till

you hear the album), and Thailand

(Silverlake Lounge), despite playing as a three-piece with electronic rhythms, serve up

a compelling new-wave/post-punk cocktail. And I have not made it to the Echo to see

Philadelphia ex-pats Burning Brides

(maybe tonight?), but people I trust give me good reports.

◊ ◊ ◊

At Safari Sam's on Friday night, the Silver Lake/Echo Park masses gathered to bid

farewell to Sea Level Records and its

proprietor, Todd Clifford. The independent outlet has been a locus of the Eastside music

scene for more than 5 years, and Clifford is closing more for I-need-a-life-change

reasons than business.

Today is the last day Sea Level is scheduled to be open.

Photos: LACMA attendees get up close with Dan Flavin's work; Ima Robot rocks in the

courtyard. By Kevin Bronson / LAT.

The Little Ones are still one

of this city's strongest musical happy pills, but, as a set Friday night showed, it's

hard to maintain that peak level of exuberance when you're doing it night after night,

tour after tour.

The L.A.

quintet -- "Rhymin' Simon on steroids" is how I described them last year, and

it still applies -- played an ASCAP- and Filter-sponsored music night on Friday tied to

the Silverlake Film Festival. The stuff from their "Sing Song" EP still

sounded crisp, and their new songs were upbeat and catchy too. But after having spent

the early part of this year doing some rigorous touring, the Little Ones weren't quite

as unhinged as they were when their EP was first released and Astralwerks (in the U.S.)

and Heavenly (in the U.K.) swooped in to sign the band.

Are the Little Ones still as happy as their music? "That's a good

question," frontman Edward Reyes says. "We're excited. ... Remember, we just

looked at that EP as our calling card -- we just wanted to get some shows with

it."

Their as-yet-untitled debut album is recorded and due in January, Reyes says.

"It's turning out great," he adds. "Right now we have a whole track

devoted to laughing."

||| Download Little Ones' songs from their Daytrotter session here.

◊ ◊ ◊

Passion of the Weiss has a

play-by-play of Britney Spears' Houses of Blues appearance (I will not call it a

performance). He even has some empathy.

◊ ◊ ◊

Ran into an employee of a recently merged record company who was enthused about

having adopted a puppy. Cute thing ... so what did you name him? "Andy

Slater."

◊ ◊ ◊

"So how

was Coachella?" That was the most-asked

question last week. I told inquiring minds that it was a three-day weekend of

once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and even as they were unfolding I knew I was missing

others. Wish the festival could have just hesitated a few times each day and let me

catch up.

The inconsiderate hipsters at Anthem, who throw their Coachella party during the day

while the music is going on, tell me I missed something else too -- a mask-less Thomas

Bangalter from Daft Punk [face obscured] spinning the LCD Soundsystem track "Daft

Punk Is Playing at My House." Not that anybody recognized him. But a cool party

nonetheless.

Daft Punk turned up on the turntables a couple nights later at the Echo too. Not that

anybody recognized them.

Touts for tonight

Gliss (Spaceland), the High Society (Silverlake Lounge), Bodies of Water (Echo) and Richard Bivens & Foreign Press

(Detroit Bar) start their Monday night residencies. ... Midnight Movies plays an in-store at

Amoeba. ... And London's Apartment joins

locals the Grand Marquee and others

at Indie 103.1's Viper Room show.

The music is pretty hard on the ears, kind of a flailing

attempt at dance-party relevance. But the album cover (that's the original at right) is

even harder on the eyes -- so Perry Farrell's Satellite Party revised it. Stereogum has a

compare-and-contrast. I'm not sure, but this would not have passed muster in the

Photoshop classes I slogged through years ago. This does, however, guarantee that the

album will chart. Here.

[Guest blogger August Brown is hot both because he is fly, and because he should

have worn more sunscreen.]

If Coachella success was measured in words per minute, Busdriver would have been the day's

undisputed champ. But fortunately for the old-guard L.A.-based MC, he dropped jaws and

machine-gun metaphors alike during his astonishingly dextrous set.

Busdriver was equally compelling needling the crowd with accusations of yuppiedom as

he did slaying them with fiery indignance at the ways the music industry exploits

rappers. Over a loose-limbed flurry of house and jungle-inspired beats, he extolled

cheeba and wryly freestyled that "in the Gobi tent is how an O.G. represents."

Original gangstas are few and far between at Coachella, but unless Ghostface pulls off

a miracle tomorrow, Busdriver may hit the 10 freeway home as the weekend's reigning

rhyme-slinger.

This was featured in our Downloads column last weekend (a good reason to drop

some coin on the Saturday print edition or check the pop music page on your local

newspaper's website). I've been a sucker for Travis' brand of Britpop since the first Clinton

Administration. Here's the video for "Closer," and, yeah, Ben Stiller makes a

good grocer.

Ozomatli looked to the visual for inspiration

when writing its new album, “Don’t Mess With the Dragon” (due April 3 on Concord

Records) — much of the initial songwriting came out of jam sessions at the Tropico de

Nopal art gallery. Now the veteran L.A. nine-piece might have found a vision to suit its

sound.

The new video for the single “Can’t Stop” is a dizzying collage of

stop-animation and storytelling that seems equal to Ozomatli’s mashing of Latin flavors,

rock, hip-hop and funk — a hybrid many have said is distinctly Los Angeles.

“We haven’t had a lot of luck with videos in the past,” acknowledges Ulises Bella, who

plays saxophone and clarinet for the band.

Ozomatli turned to New York-based

artist-illustrator Richard Borge for “Can’t Stop,” even though the 41-year-old, who had

done album art for bands such as Meat Beat Manifesto, had never done a music video.

Kindred video spirits: Lil’ Wayne and Silversun Pickups?

When the video for Lil' Wayne's new, so-inane-it-might-be-genius single "Lollipop" began making the rounds, it seemed oddly ... familiar. Not just because its narrative arc of Wayne looking stoked about his money and club-girl harem is well-traversed hip-hop video territory, though. Something in the particular visual kinesis of him driving around Vegas playing guitar out of the sunroof of his stretch Hummer or whatever. Then it hit us --  Silversun Pickups (and director Joaquin Phoenix) made the exact same video for their single "Little Lover's So Polite." Just replace the Pickups' preteen Aryan couple and downtown L.A. with Wayne's video vixens and the Vegas strip. Note the 1:53 mark in "Lollipop" and the 3:06 point in "Little Lover's" where each artist plays their respective butt rock guitar solo. Wayne's guitar face is much more convincing, we think.

-- August Brown

Illustration by August Brown; Lil' Wayne photo by Jonathan Mannion; Silversun Pickups photo by Gail Salmo

Lil' Wayne: "Lollipop"

Silversun Pickups: "Little Lover's So Polite"

Your daily six-degrees-of-Rilo Kiley round-up: Women's Wear Daily is reporting that guitarist Blake Sennett has finally passed the penultimate indie-dude coming-of-age ritual and is getting hitched to Winona Ryder. Us Weekly is denying the claim. The two are definitely starring in an upcoming film called "Water Pill." Jenny Lewis is making an album with Elvis Costello and Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes, whom you heard from last week. We just want some CornNuts. BQ.

-- August Brown

Photo by New World Pictures

We’re not sure exactly why the Foo Fighters are considered rock royalty now (“The Pretender” as a best-record nominee at the Grammys? Well, at least it lives up to its title ...), but Dave Grohl does have an admirable sense of humor. Exhibit A: His deadpan performance of “Leather and Lace” with the always loopy Will Ferrell at a recent L.A. fundraiser:

-- Geoff Boucher

Now that Super Tuesday has proven inconclusive on all fronts, let’s engage in some unfounded speculation: Might any of the presidential candidates show up at Sunday’s Grammy Awards?

The Repubs will likely stay home -– despite Mike Huckabee’s electric bass skills and Burt Bacharach’s reported fondness for John McCain, their support among pop stars is generally thin. Ron Paul can claim only Arlo Guthrie. (You can check out who’s supporting whom here.)

Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, however, are still vying for the pop star vote as well as the popular one. A quick and dirty survey of Grammy nominees reveals Clinton with six nominated stumpers -- Madonna, Tony Bennett, Jon Bon Jovi, 50 Cent, Timbaland and Barbra Streisand -– and Obama with five -- Ne-Yo, Usher, Harry Connick Jr., Win Butler of Arcade Fire and Jeff Tweedy of Wilco.

Will.i.am, Obama’s most active pop pal of late, didn’t earn any noms for his commercial flop of a solo album, but he’ll likely be on hand to pop the cork with Fergie if she takes a statue home. We could definitely see the irrepressible Black Eyed Pea pulling Barry onstage for a chorus of Fergie’s “Glamorous.”

And Hillary should really dump that Celine campaign song for an all-American medley of her pal Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” and “(You Want to) Make a Memory.” Although seeing her do the freak with Justin during 50’s “Ayo Technology”…. OK, that seems unlikely. But hey, there’s always Timbaland. He did wonders for Nelly Furtado. He could get the uber baby-boomer candidate out of her cultural rut!

In the meantime, check out Oh! Industry’s excellent roundtable of dedications to favorite candidates.

-- Ann Powers

I think I found the cure for the common TV. Of course, it's right here on your very

own Internet.

It's My Damn

Channel, a portal that is home to offerings from musician extraordinaire Don Was, along with the likes of Harry

Shearer, David Wain and others.


Was, a bassist, music supervisor, documentary director, Grammy-winning producer and a

driving force behind the cutting-edge funk outfit Was

(Not Was), has seldom been more sublimely
entertaining than as the cool-cat host of the "Wasmopolitan Dance
Party" -- a webisode filmed in the showroom of the Furniture Outlet, a
budget joint in North Hollywood. [Pardon the ads, but the installment above is well

worth their intrusion.]

There is singer-songwriter Jill Sobule, gamely playing her beautiful songs

from behind a dining-room set as shoppers mill about looking a recliners.

"I can't compete with the set-up on Letterman" Was says with a laugh.

"But doing something like this, we asked, 'What could we offer that's different?'

The answer is, the stripped-down and personal stuff."

In the ranks of overwrought music writing that have appeared in the Village Voice, Garrett Kamps is a god among fanboys. His recent review of Cat Power's flawed but arresting "Jukebox" covers record is especially troubling. It's not so much the rank misogyny or his John Yoo-level torturing of the em dash that really derails this review, but the fact that he doesn't seem to know what, exactly, a "cougar" is. Given our close approximation to Orange County, we know all too well. Cougars are sexually aggressive women on the far side of 40 peddling consequence-free hookups to inexperienced young men who will relay the tales in hushed, reverent tones over Halo 3 tournaments with their friends. Does that sound like an apt description of Cat Power (a.k.a. Chan Marshall), who once wrote a song about Patti Smith's children and her own abortion? Or the one who wrote one of 2006's most generous, uplifting Southern soul albums, "The Greatest?"

If Kamps is truly hunting for cougars, we can suggest a few better places for him to start trolling.

-- August Brown

[Cougar photo by Christine Cotter / Los Angeles Times. Chan Marshall photo by Stefano Giovannini / Beggars Group LTD via Bloomberg News]

An earlier version of this blog incorrectly referred to John Yoo as John Wu. And that was all Margaret's fault and not August's, so she will be buying him a latte something-or-another later today. Maybe.

It was an interesting week in musical contrasts.

On the invitation of Fuel TV's Daryl Berg, I stopped by Swing House in Hollywood on Monday to see the Bravery. The New York five-piece was at the recording studio-cum-rehearsal space to shoot a live segment for Fuel TV's "Check 1, 2." (If you're wondering what the connection is between the band and the action sports network, apparently two of the dudes like to surf.)

While I was there, the quintet ran through three of their songs three times each for Swing House's microphones and Fuel TV's cameras, and I would be lying if I didn't report that the performances were faultless--just like the recordings complete with spot-on vocals. Listening to the songs ("An Honest Mistake," "Believe" and "Time Won't Let Me Go"), I couldn't help but remark to Berg how incredulous I was that these guys aren't already superstars.

Seriously, the Bravery has a winning formula. It's not theirs, of course, it's Duran Duran's: five really good-looking guys with flawless haircuts and sharp outfits to match, playing insanely catchy New Wave-y tunes--hi-hat-heavy drums, octave-friendly bass, breathy keyboards, distorted rhythm guitars and crystalline leads, plus sour-sweet, whiny vocals--that sound both supremely commercial yet genuinely edgy.

The band's only modest success so far might have something to do with the fact that none of the band members--with the possible exception of the overly excited drummer--exhibited the slightest trace of personality at the shoot. I mean, it was dead silent between takes: No evidence of any camaraderie between the members; no jokes or horseplay; no comments, positive or negative, on the performances; no interaction with the crew, record company people or gawkers--just silence. They might have been wax works, but for the movement.

From the Bravery--an up-and-coming band with great chops (but no discernible personality) making a musical appearance--I go to Peter Tork, a rock 'n' roll dinosaur with questionable vocal tendencies (but tons of charisma) making a non-musical appearance.

The former Monkee was hosting a special edition of the Beauty Bar's "oldies 'n' goodies" Wednesday night event, Goodie Tu Shoes. By hosting, I mean he was autographing copies of "Cambria Hotel," a new offering from his rootsy, bluesy new rock 'n' roll band, Shoe Suede Blues.

Tork acted just the way any fan of the Monkees' ridiculous TV show (or thoroughly excellent film, "Head") would have expected: He was friendly, animated and totally goofy. I can't vouch for Shoe Suede Blues being anything more than a respectable honky tonk-style bar band, but after being an extraordinarily well-known (if not necessarily respected) superstar, he deserves a lot of credit for starting over with a new band and doing the little extracurriculars newcomers must to get the word out.

I guess the answer to the question Tork posed here is "yes." -Liam Gowing

[Photo 1: The Bravery at Swing House. Credit: Patrick Weir and Fuel TV. Photo 2: Peter Tork, right, and pal at Beauty Bar-L.A. Credit: Mary Jo Head.]

The Bird and the Bee will be

flying into the desert. Nice.

And one of those assembly-line electro acts that has me convinced technology has made

it far too easy to put out an album, the U.K.'s Does It Offend You Yeah?, will be

playing too.

Yeah, it does.

First, there was "Lip Gloss," Lil Mama's earth-crushing and drums-only ode to windburn protection that sounded more menacing and ruthless than anything on "Curtis." Now, M.I.A.-protege Rye Rye has a smoking, minimalist Baltimore club tune in "Shake It to the Ground" on Diplo's Mad Decent label. Aside from an occasional farted-out bass, the production work from DJ Blaqstarr is again strictly minimalist percussion and gum-smacking chants until practically the end of the song. Have the kids decided they don't need even a perfunctory Korg Triton stab to make a floor-filler? Either way, we dig the Misfits poster in Rye Rye's bedroom in this made-for-pennies video and like to imagine that Glenn Danzig might return the favor someday with a guest verse.

--August Brown

Happy New Year.

And good riddance, 2007.

The year brought an avalanche of music, and the recent holiday week of rumination and

CD-sorting etched in my mind the idea that a whole lot of it was ... well ... pretty

good. Yeah, pretty good, uttered with my head slightly tilted, as if I never

thought once of saying "great" or "really good." If I ever had the

radical notion to rate albums on a 10 scale,

I would swear that half the records I received this year logged somewhere between 6.5

and 6.7 -- a percentage that's skewed because all six copies of the Magic Numbers album that somehow found

their way to my desk would get a 6.2.

Maybe this was the year that trying to

keep up with new music, nationally and locally, finally overwhelmed me, what with every

baby band in the universe engaging in viral marketing, hiring publicists, working with

managers, leaving me polite entreaties on MySpace and generally undermining any belief

that a band can merely grow organically. I attended about 185 shows in 2007 too, many to

follow up on those advertising blitzes.

But after compiling my humble lists

below, I fast-forwarded to December 2009, when all good geeks will be sweating over

their seemingly inevitable Best-of-the-Aughts list. And guess what? Not a single album

from 2007 has a chance of making mine. All of the bands I consider indie icons -- and

I'm sure you can spank me for leaving out people you think are iconic -- released other

albums this decade that are superior to their 2007 releases. For the record, that

pantheon houses the National, Spoon, Modest Mouse, Arcade Fire, Bright Eyes and

Interpol, with other personal faves such as the Shins and Stars living in the backhouse.

Those heavyweights each added to their estimable catalogs, yes; it's just that I'm not

going to pull "We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank" off the shelf first

when I want to hear some Modest Mouse a few years from now.

At least, I don't

think.

The lists follow. Thanks to everybody who sends me music -- really --

and a special shout-out to the bands on the L.A. scene who've made my life so much

richer over the past 5-plus years.

My Favorite 10 Albums of 2007

1. Blonde

Redhead, "23"

2. The National, "Boxer"

3. LCD

Soundsystem, "Sound of Silver"

4. Against Me!, "New

Wave"

5. Spoon, "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga"

6. The Cribs,

"Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever"

7. Arcade Fire, "Neon

Bible"

8. Lupe Fiasco, "Cool"

9. The Shins,

"Wincing the Night Away"

10. Softlightes, "Say No to Being

Cool -- Say Yes to Being Happy" *

Comments: It's scares me how much

this list largely parallels other blogs/music mags. Yes, Fiasco's album just came out,

but on first, second and third blush it's a long-range keeper. And that's right, no

Radiohead. So sue me. 6.8.

* See final list

Buzz Bands' Top 10 L.A. Albums of 2007

1. Foreign Born, "On the Wing Now"

2. John Doe, "A Year in

the Wilderness"

3. Sea Wolf, "Leaves in the River"

4. CoCo B's, "CoCo B's"

5. Eleni Mandell, "Miracle of

Five"

6. Earlimart, "Mentor Tormentor"

7. Culver

City Dub Collective, "Dos"

8. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club,

"Baby 81"

9. Rilo Kiley, "Under the Blacklight"

10. Great Northern, "Trading Twilight for Daylight"

Comments:

Foreign Born is just plain good. CoCo B's self-released disc is a great surprise. Culver

City Dub Collective's genre-mashing is sublime. Eleni Mandell -- who needs Feist? And

Rilo Kiley's album just kept growing on me.

Ten L.A. Bands Whose Debuts Made Me Anxious for the

Sophomore Album

1. The Deadly Syndrome, "The

Ortolan"

2. The Broken West, "I Can't Go On, I'll Go On"

3. Robert Francis, "One by One"

4. The Parson Red Heads,

"King Giraffe"

5. Delta Spirit, "Delta Spirit"

6. Frankel, "Lullaby for the Passersby"

7. Year Long Disaster,

"Year Long Disaster"

8. Sara Bareilles, "Little Voice"

9. The Minor Canon, "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished"

10. No

Age, "Weirdo Rippers"

Ten L.A. Bands Whose 2007 EPs Made

Me Want More

Castledoor, the Airborne Toxic Event, the Weather

Underground, the Black Kites, Voxhaul Broadcast, Sam Sparro, Manic, Radars to the Sky,

Sara Lov, Aushua.

Three Albums From Bands Whom I Loved in the '90s and Still

Do

1. Buffalo Tom, "Three Easy Pieces"

2.

Dinosaur Jr., "Beyond"

3. Smashing Pumpkins,

"Zeitgeist"

Five Hip-Hop Albums I Would Recommend If

Anybody Believed I Recommended Hip-Hop Albums

1. Lupe Fiasco,

"Cool"

2. Kanye West, "Graduation"

3. Brother

Ali, "Undisputed Truth"

4. El-P, "I'll Sleep When You're

Dead"

5. Aesop Rock, "None Shall Pass"

Under the Radar: Six Overlooked Albums

1.

Softlightes, "Say No to Being Cool -- Say Yes to Being Happy": Cinematic

electro-pop that recalls Grandaddy at its finest.

2. The High Strung,

"Get the Guests": Catchy and clever, hold the irony, with peripatetic melody

lines that do not quit.

3. Minipop, "A New Hope": Gorgeous and

beautifully layered shoegaze-pop with rhythms that will drive you right into a dreamlike

state.

4. The Blakes, "The Blakes": Soulful garage rock that's good

for your summer sweat.

5. The Comas, "Spells": Distortion-heavy

power pop arrives in bursts, may leave marks.

6. Young Galaxy, "Young

Galaxy": Other Canadian exports (Kevin Drew, Sunset Rubdown, Feist, et. al.) earned

more buzz, but this album feel like a warm waking dream.

Comments:

Somehow I saw Softlightes play live 10 times in 2007. I left each show in a better mood

than when I arrived.

 

The next time someone tells you that booze doesn't make the world a better place, you just tell them to go listen to Corrine Bailey Rae and her remix of "Like A Star" at the wonderfully titled website www.generouspour.com. The seasonal website for Clos du Bois Wines has lovely traditonal holiday recipes for things like, um, "stoned crab cobbler with coconut" (what, are we pre-gaming for New Year's at Jimmy Buffett's beach hut?) and "Hot Italian Sausage Stuffing" (I'm pretty sure that's the gay porn version of "Roman Holiday"). Anyway, the website, which will be up through today, has a free download of "Like A Star" by Grammy nominee Rae and every time someone downloads it, Clos du Bois will donate $1 to Share Our Strength, a non-profit working against hunger and poverty in the U.S. It sounds like booze-company guilt to us, and wouldn't Amy Winehouse have been a better choice here for so many reasons? As for the music: The song is pretty much played out and the remix here is a fairly glossy affair but it is also free and unobjectionable as a dinner-party fare. So pass the potatoes...

--Geoff Boucher

The Beatle who earned his famous nickname by covering his fingers with rings is now making news with a bracelet. “Liverpool 8,” the new Capitol/EMI album from 67-year-old Ringo Starr, is being released Jan. 15 as a CD, a digital download and also as a “pre-loaded USB wristband” that includes all 12 tracks and a slew of extras, including “a personal video message, interview and track commentary from Ringo Starr, behind-the-scenes making-of footage from the recording sessions, ringtones, photos and more.” (Shouldn't those be "Ringo-tones"?) There’s more details at www.ringostarr.com but this already opens a whole new world of albums-as-accessories. How soon can we buy “Blackout” by Britney Spears in the ankle-monitor format? And how great would be to work toward the weekend by wearing Loverboy’s greatest hits in your headband?

--Geoff Boucher

Just in time to service your holiday malaise, two of my favorite DJ collectives are

conspiring to set sadness to music tonight at the downtown bar La Cita.

Give Up -- the seasonal club night initiated by the DJ collective Dublab and manned the past several years by Mark

"Frosty" McNeill and Jimmy Tamborello -- gets back into its wintry spirit as

DJs spin depressing songs on the bar's back patio. It's described as "a deeply

depressing disc sob session." Inside the bar, Part Time Punks' Michael Stock and others will

be hosting "A Sad, Slow Dance Party," promising "all slow dancing, all

night long."

There's no cover. Tears start to flow at 9 p.m.

Photo of DJ Frosty (from 2005) by Kevin Bronson/LAT

Happier choices for Tuesday, Dec. 18

Pop sextet Castledoor brings its

sublime tunes to Boardner's in the final monthly show of the year presented by Radio Free Silver Lake. The Flying Tourbillon Orchestra

and Frankel are also playing the

18-and-older show, which is free. ... Mighty Six Ninety and Io Echo rock the Troubadour. ... Oliver Future continues its Tuesday

residency at the Viper Room. ... The

Monolators head a good local bill at the Scene. ... And John Gold performs at Bordello.

The obituary this morning says Dan Fogelberg helped "define soft rock," but

that sounds kind of flaccid compared to what the singer-songwriter, who died Sunday at

age 56, meant to a bunch of kids in the working-class neighborhoods of Peoria, Ill., in

the early 1970s.

Fogelberg graduated from Woodruff High School the year before I got there, leaving

behind some stories of a rock band called the Coachmen (I actually owned the 45 at one

point -- oh, where did it go?) and the occasional rumor he'd gone off to California, a

place that seemed so distant from our Midwestern factory town as to be a mirage. Not

many of us had California dreams then; we'd do well to graduate high school and get on

at Caterpillar Tractor Co. (which accounted for something like 1 in 5 paychecks in our

city in those days). If we were really lucky, we'd go to college.

In the fall of my junior year, "Home Free" arrived, and we were mesmerized.

Fogelberg's debut album -- a beautifully orchestrated bouquet of ballads that veered

toward what we now would call alt-country -- took his alma mater by storm. It christened

the tape player in my first car; it was played endlessly at basement parties from Grand

View Drive to the lower East Bluff. I'm pretty sure there isn't a song in my collection

I've played over the years more than that second track, "Stars."

Fogelberg was our Jackson Browne, a romantic who shared our roots and who had the

courage to strike out in service of his poetry. As I trudged through the snow delivering

my Peoria Journal Stars every morning, that was a pretty important symbol.

I always blanched at, but ultimately forgave, the arch sentimentality that seemingly

oppressive production brought to Fogelberg's later albums. He had earned the right to

pursue whatever vision struck him. When my brother and I took in a Fogelberg show a few

years ago in Anaheim, it wasn't so much for musical nostalgia as it was a thank-you.

In one subtle but important way, Dan Fogelberg was the leader of our band.

Curiosity piqued by the announcement of the Gibson "Robot" Guitar, I headed down to my favorite guitar shop in L.A. on Saturday to check it out myself. I was a little disappointed, frankly.

With a name like "the Robot," I was expecting this six-stringer to jump out of the case unprovoked and run around the room, shouting, "Danger Will Robinson!" or "For those about to rock we salute you!" or "Sarah Connor?" or something. Instead, the Robot just lay in his case, looking like a standard (or, for those of you in the know, a "studio") Les Paul. The only obvious differences were larger tuning pegs and a funky-looking control where one of the standard four volume/tone knobs is usually located. This, I was told, was the "MCK" or "Master Control Knob."

"Now there's the kind of Orwellian 'oh no, the machines have achieved artificial intelligence and have enslaved all carbon-based lifeforms on the planet'-kind of language I was hoping for," I thought.

But alas, the master control knob just controls the Robot's auto-tuning mechanism. It's pretty neat, I'll admit. You pull out the knob, spin the top dial to one of several tuning-configuration presets (standard, "drop d," open-tuning, etc.), tap the top, strum the strings, wait for the tuning pegs to auto-jiggy into position, and voila--push the knob back in and your Les Paul has an alternate tuning.

For the overwhelming majority of guitar players who play in standard tuning, what are the advantages? Well, for about $1000 more than what you'd spend on a regular Les Paul, you can keep your axe in really, really, really good tune.

So who is the real market for Gibson's Robot Guitar? Wealthy guitar players who need to constantly and radically alter their tuning. If that's not you, buy a chromatic tuner and save the Robot Guitar for Joni Mitchell.

--Liam Gowing

Welcome to Soundboard, the new music blog from the L.A. Times written by a band of opinionated, sometimes cranky, sometimes ecstatic music lovers. Soundboard will blog breaking news, concert previews, album and single reviews, and lots of random observations about this vast, exciting, wacko place known as the music world. By the way, we're nomads, committed to no single genre, era or chart, so expect Soundboard to be all over the place, like a Sonic Youth song covered by Beyonce playing at a Mexican restaurant in Torrance. That song doesn't exist (yet) but you get the point.

I don't know why, but I'm thinking about record clubs. I remember a time when my older brother belonged to one and he'd show me his cool new tapes. (Yeah, tapes. Don't laugh.) "I got this for a penny!" he's say, shaking Duran Duran's "Rio" in my face. I was amazed. A penny? How can they do that??

So I started searching around to see if any are left.

Turns out that BMG Columbia House still has one but from their home page, you can tell they're making their money from DVDs. "Music Service" is off to the side. When you click on it, it takes you to one of the saddest little web pages in the world, seemingly designed by Your Local Mall's Party Store circa 1988.

I'm going to find out a little more about this whole thing, but in the meantime, does anyone still belong to a record club out there?

[Crickets.]

--Margaret Wappler

I'm not part of the pack salivating over "Raising Sand," the new Alison Krauss/Robert Plant collab -- its backwoods flavor is slightly overcooked, in my book -- but I love the CD's cover art. The frontispiece shows the two stars relaxing in some desert setting, smiling off into the distance, perhaps at T-Bone Burnett bringing them another sheaf of folk-pop obscurities to peruse.

The back's the clincher, though. Plant's back is turned, and Krauss, leaning toward him, throws a grin over her shoulder as they walk away. She looks like a contented cat making off with her canary. The Lion King may be nearly sixty and more interested in crooning than howling out all of his love, but Krauss certainly knows that by clutching that arm, she's fulfilling a fantasy that sustained generations of teen-age girls, dreaming in their bedrooms to Led Zeppelin's massive kathunking mojo blues. Though I'm sure their collaboration was strictly artistic, here's to her for having fun with her chance to quietly fly her metal horns and say, "Ladies, eat your hearts out!"

--Ann Powers

I am not necessarily a fan of the

Mormons, but as a baseball guy I just about did a spit take when I saw the

tongue-in-cheek poster for the Los Angeles band's current stand at Mr. T's Bowl. [Sorry

for the sloppy clean-up job; it's a family blog, you know.]

[Our local music spotlight, for the moment, remains pointed at power pop, because

it just seems to go so well with summertime:]


Ari Shine landed with a crunch -- and

that's the crunch of a big power chord -- when he released his debut EP

"Age/Occupation" in 2006. Quickly he became a songwriter-to-watch in the L.A.

power-pop underground, if not somebody who carries enough melodies to wriggle a bunch of

his songs onto TV shows, and his energetic stage show hinted that he might become an

artist who could transcend the frequently fey trappings of the form.

His

full-length debut, "A Force of One" (released in July on Bongo Beat), suggests

that Shine is not content to merely ride the coattails  of his forebears. There's

some boy-meets/loses-girl material here, much of it cleverly couched ("Flirtation

Device"), but he sinks his hooks into broader storytelling too (see the song

below). The album was produced by former Sparks guitarist Earle Mankey, who has worked with

L.A. notables such as Concrete Blonde and the Three O'Clock. The result is a collection

that's a little bit Elvis Costello, a little bit Matthew Sweet and maybe a bit Brendan

Benson.

||| Shine performs tonight at the Knitting Factory as part of International Pop Overthrow. He also

is playing a couple West Cost dates supporting Peter

Case prior to a Sept. 18 date at Safari Sam's as a supporting act for Miles Hunt of the Wonder Stuff.

||| Download: "Beirut 1978."

Photo by Sam Peacock

"Korn's new album doesn't have a title."

"So how do you order it?"

"You don't. It's Korn."

I missed it and, from reports, am regretting it. Bat for Lashes, the nom de tune of

Brighton, England's Natasha Khan, wowed the room last night at Spaceland. The common

sentiment I heard from a couple people: No wonder she is nominated for the Mercury

Music Prize.

You'll be hearing more about her.

For now, here is the enchanting video for "What's a Girl to Do."

Touts for Wednesday, Aug. 1

The Format starts a two-show stand (the

Avalon tonight, House of Blues tomorrow); the band for two weeks offered its latest

album, "Dog Problems," as a free download from its website and reported that

45,000 copies of the (very

good) album were ripped. ... Great

Glass Elevator (whose inventiveness kind of reminds me of the Format in a way) play

Club NME at Spaceland tonight. ... The Automatic Music

Explosion plays the Scene in Glendale. ... And the Stevenson Ranch Davidians

start a run of Wednesday shows at the Echo.

Consider this a warm-up for "The Simpsons

Movie" (opening in two weeks).

The musician's name is Zack Kim, a 24-year-old

university student who was born in Seoul, South Korea, reared in Malaysia and is now

studying in Australia. There are more examples of his technique on his website, and the

young man has his own Wikipedia

page.

He tells me via e-mail that he after he completes his studies in two years he hopes

to devote all his energies to music, and eventually he "would really love to

perform in the States, as it would be a dream come true for me."

Have to

think he'd be quite a hit at the premiere party.

Summer is here, in case you were too busy on MySpace to get the memo. The concert

calendar always seems to remind me before the real calendar, what with the Hollywood

Bowl kicking into gear and the onslaught of distinguished veteran rock bands starting to

make the stadium rounds.

(Email from a friend who went to Dodger Stadium this weekend: "They were pretty

awesome for a Police cover band.")

The smaller events have their cachet too -- the Sunday afternoon Do-Over at Crane's, the Little Radio Summer Camp. And then there was last

Thursday's Late Night at LACMA, the annual summer

solstice soiree, which attracted 7,853 museum visitors and probably disappointed

hundreds of others who waited for hours in long lines only to give up. (To be fair, what

part of "early arrival recommended" did you not understand?)

Late Night was a melange of music, hipster ephemera (T-shirt screen printing by Hit +

Run now seems mandatory if you are throwing any kind of cross-cultural event) and art.

Suffice to say there were plenty of photo ops in the Dan Flavin retrospective, a refuge

for attendees who could only handle small doses of offerings from DJs Steve Aoki,

Internationalist and handful of others. I missed the set by the always-solid Rebirth but caught one of L.A.'s favorite party

bands, Ima Robot, who got folks dancing despite

the band's relative lack of amplification.

◊ ◊ ◊

Where did June go?

The Monday night residencies end tonight at Spaceland, the Echo and Silverlake

Lounge. The L.A. quartet the Deadly

Syndrome (Spaceland) seems to have grown into polished band overnight (and wait till

you hear the album), and Thailand

(Silverlake Lounge), despite playing as a three-piece with electronic rhythms, serve up

a compelling new-wave/post-punk cocktail. And I have not made it to the Echo to see

Philadelphia ex-pats Burning Brides

(maybe tonight?), but people I trust give me good reports.

◊ ◊ ◊

At Safari Sam's on Friday night, the Silver Lake/Echo Park masses gathered to bid

farewell to Sea Level Records and its

proprietor, Todd Clifford. The independent outlet has been a locus of the Eastside music

scene for more than 5 years, and Clifford is closing more for I-need-a-life-change

reasons than business.

Today is the last day Sea Level is scheduled to be open.

Photos: LACMA attendees get up close with Dan Flavin's work; Ima Robot rocks in the

courtyard. By Kevin Bronson / LAT.

The Little Ones are still one

of this city's strongest musical happy pills, but, as a set Friday night showed, it's

hard to maintain that peak level of exuberance when you're doing it night after night,

tour after tour.

The L.A.

quintet -- "Rhymin' Simon on steroids" is how I described them last year, and

it still applies -- played an ASCAP- and Filter-sponsored music night on Friday tied to

the Silverlake Film Festival. The stuff from their "Sing Song" EP still

sounded crisp, and their new songs were upbeat and catchy too. But after having spent

the early part of this year doing some rigorous touring, the Little Ones weren't quite

as unhinged as they were when their EP was first released and Astralwerks (in the U.S.)

and Heavenly (in the U.K.) swooped in to sign the band.

Are the Little Ones still as happy as their music? "That's a good

question," frontman Edward Reyes says. "We're excited. ... Remember, we just

looked at that EP as our calling card -- we just wanted to get some shows with

it."

Their as-yet-untitled debut album is recorded and due in January, Reyes says.

"It's turning out great," he adds. "Right now we have a whole track

devoted to laughing."

||| Download Little Ones' songs from their Daytrotter session here.

◊ ◊ ◊

Passion of the Weiss has a

play-by-play of Britney Spears' Houses of Blues appearance (I will not call it a

performance). He even has some empathy.

◊ ◊ ◊

Ran into an employee of a recently merged record company who was enthused about

having adopted a puppy. Cute thing ... so what did you name him? "Andy

Slater."

◊ ◊ ◊

"So how

was Coachella?" That was the most-asked

question last week. I told inquiring minds that it was a three-day weekend of

once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and even as they were unfolding I knew I was missing

others. Wish the festival could have just hesitated a few times each day and let me

catch up.

The inconsiderate hipsters at Anthem, who throw their Coachella party during the day

while the music is going on, tell me I missed something else too -- a mask-less Thomas

Bangalter from Daft Punk [face obscured] spinning the LCD Soundsystem track "Daft

Punk Is Playing at My House." Not that anybody recognized him. But a cool party

nonetheless.

Daft Punk turned up on the turntables a couple nights later at the Echo too. Not that

anybody recognized them.

Touts for tonight

Gliss (Spaceland), the High Society (Silverlake Lounge), Bodies of Water (Echo) and Richard Bivens & Foreign Press

(Detroit Bar) start their Monday night residencies. ... Midnight Movies plays an in-store at

Amoeba. ... And London's Apartment joins

locals the Grand Marquee and others

at Indie 103.1's Viper Room show.

The music is pretty hard on the ears, kind of a flailing

attempt at dance-party relevance. But the album cover (that's the original at right) is

even harder on the eyes -- so Perry Farrell's Satellite Party revised it. Stereogum has a

compare-and-contrast. I'm not sure, but this would not have passed muster in the

Photoshop classes I slogged through years ago. This does, however, guarantee that the

album will chart. Here.

[Guest blogger August Brown is hot both because he is fly, and because he should

have worn more sunscreen.]

If Coachella success was measured in words per minute, Busdriver would have been the day's

undisputed champ. But fortunately for the old-guard L.A.-based MC, he dropped jaws and

machine-gun metaphors alike during his astonishingly dextrous set.

Busdriver was equally compelling needling the crowd with accusations of yuppiedom as

he did slaying them with fiery indignance at the ways the music industry exploits

rappers. Over a loose-limbed flurry of house and jungle-inspired beats, he extolled

cheeba and wryly freestyled that "in the Gobi tent is how an O.G. represents."

Original gangstas are few and far between at Coachella, but unless Ghostface pulls off

a miracle tomorrow, Busdriver may hit the 10 freeway home as the weekend's reigning

rhyme-slinger.

This was featured in our Downloads column last weekend (a good reason to drop

some coin on the Saturday print edition or check the pop music page on your local

newspaper's website). I've been a sucker for Travis' brand of Britpop since the first Clinton

Administration. Here's the video for "Closer," and, yeah, Ben Stiller makes a

good grocer.

Ozomatli looked to the visual for inspiration

when writing its new album, “Don’t Mess With the Dragon” (due April 3 on Concord

Records) — much of the initial songwriting came out of jam sessions at the Tropico de

Nopal art gallery. Now the veteran L.A. nine-piece might have found a vision to suit its

sound.

The new video for the single “Can’t Stop” is a dizzying collage of

stop-animation and storytelling that seems equal to Ozomatli’s mashing of Latin flavors,

rock, hip-hop and funk — a hybrid many have said is distinctly Los Angeles.

“We haven’t had a lot of luck with videos in the past,” acknowledges Ulises Bella, who

plays saxophone and clarinet for the band.

Ozomatli turned to New York-based

artist-illustrator Richard Borge for “Can’t Stop,” even though the 41-year-old, who had

done album art for bands such as Meat Beat Manifesto, had never done a music video.

Winona Ryder engaged to Blake Sennett? Expect six new Ryan Adams albums this week

Your daily six-degrees-of-Rilo Kiley round-up: Women's Wear Daily is reporting that guitarist Blake Sennett has finally passed the penultimate indie-dude coming-of-age ritual and is getting hitched to Winona Ryder. Us Weekly is denying the claim. The two are definitely starring in an upcoming film called "Water Pill." Jenny Lewis is making an album with Elvis Costello and Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes, whom you heard from last week. We just want some CornNuts. BQ.

-- August Brown

Photo by New World Pictures

We’re not sure exactly why the Foo Fighters are considered rock royalty now (“The Pretender” as a best-record nominee at the Grammys? Well, at least it lives up to its title ...), but Dave Grohl does have an admirable sense of humor. Exhibit A: His deadpan performance of “Leather and Lace” with the always loopy Will Ferrell at a recent L.A. fundraiser:

-- Geoff Boucher

Now that Super Tuesday has proven inconclusive on all fronts, let’s engage in some unfounded speculation: Might any of the presidential candidates show up at Sunday’s Grammy Awards?

The Repubs will likely stay home -– despite Mike Huckabee’s electric bass skills and Burt Bacharach’s reported fondness for John McCain, their support among pop stars is generally thin. Ron Paul can claim only Arlo Guthrie. (You can check out who’s supporting whom here.)

Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, however, are still vying for the pop star vote as well as the popular one. A quick and dirty survey of Grammy nominees reveals Clinton with six nominated stumpers -- Madonna, Tony Bennett, Jon Bon Jovi, 50 Cent, Timbaland and Barbra Streisand -– and Obama with five -- Ne-Yo, Usher, Harry Connick Jr., Win Butler of Arcade Fire and Jeff Tweedy of Wilco.

Will.i.am, Obama’s most active pop pal of late, didn’t earn any noms for his commercial flop of a solo album, but he’ll likely be on hand to pop the cork with Fergie if she takes a statue home. We could definitely see the irrepressible Black Eyed Pea pulling Barry onstage for a chorus of Fergie’s “Glamorous.”

And Hillary should really dump that Celine campaign song for an all-American medley of her pal Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” and “(You Want to) Make a Memory.” Although seeing her do the freak with Justin during 50’s “Ayo Technology”…. OK, that seems unlikely. But hey, there’s always Timbaland. He did wonders for Nelly Furtado. He could get the uber baby-boomer candidate out of her cultural rut!

In the meantime, check out Oh! Industry’s excellent roundtable of dedications to favorite candidates.

-- Ann Powers

I think I found the cure for the common TV. Of course, it's right here on your very

own Internet.

It's My Damn

Channel, a portal that is home to offerings from musician extraordinaire Don Was, along with the likes of Harry

Shearer, David Wain and others.


Was, a bassist, music supervisor, documentary director, Grammy-winning producer and a

driving force behind the cutting-edge funk outfit Was

(Not Was), has seldom been more sublimely
entertaining than as the cool-cat host of the "Wasmopolitan Dance
Party" -- a webisode filmed in the showroom of the Furniture Outlet, a
budget joint in North Hollywood. [Pardon the ads, but the installment above is well

worth their intrusion.]

There is singer-songwriter Jill Sobule, gamely playing her beautiful songs

from behind a dining-room set as shoppers mill about looking a recliners.

"I can't compete with the set-up on Letterman" Was says with a laugh.

"But doing something like this, we asked, 'What could we offer that's different?'

The answer is, the stripped-down and personal stuff."

In the ranks of overwrought music writing that have appeared in the Village Voice, Garrett Kamps is a god among fanboys. His recent review of Cat Power's flawed but arresting "Jukebox" covers record is especially troubling. It's not so much the rank misogyny or his John Yoo-level torturing of the em dash that really derails this review, but the fact that he doesn't seem to know what, exactly, a "cougar" is. Given our close approximation to Orange County, we know all too well. Cougars are sexually aggressive women on the far side of 40 peddling consequence-free hookups to inexperienced young men who will relay the tales in hushed, reverent tones over Halo 3 tournaments with their friends. Does that sound like an apt description of Cat Power (a.k.a. Chan Marshall), who once wrote a song about Patti Smith's children and her own abortion? Or the one who wrote one of 2006's most generous, uplifting Southern soul albums, "The Greatest?"

If Kamps is truly hunting for cougars, we can suggest a few better places for him to start trolling.

-- August Brown

[Cougar photo by Christine Cotter / Los Angeles Times. Chan Marshall photo by Stefano Giovannini / Beggars Group LTD via Bloomberg News]

An earlier version of this blog incorrectly referred to John Yoo as John Wu. And that was all Margaret's fault and not August's, so she will be buying him a latte something-or-another later today. Maybe.

It was an interesting week in musical contrasts.

On the invitation of Fuel TV's Daryl Berg, I stopped by Swing House in Hollywood on Monday to see the Bravery. The New York five-piece was at the recording studio-cum-rehearsal space to shoot a live segment for Fuel TV's "Check 1, 2." (If you're wondering what the connection is between the band and the action sports network, apparently two of the dudes like to surf.)

While I was there, the quintet ran through three of their songs three times each for Swing House's microphones and Fuel TV's cameras, and I would be lying if I didn't report that the performances were faultless--just like the recordings complete with spot-on vocals. Listening to the songs ("An Honest Mistake," "Believe" and "Time Won't Let Me Go"), I couldn't help but remark to Berg how incredulous I was that these guys aren't already superstars.

Seriously, the Bravery has a winning formula. It's not theirs, of course, it's Duran Duran's: five really good-looking guys with flawless haircuts and sharp outfits to match, playing insanely catchy New Wave-y tunes--hi-hat-heavy drums, octave-friendly bass, breathy keyboards, distorted rhythm guitars and crystalline leads, plus sour-sweet, whiny vocals--that sound both supremely commercial yet genuinely edgy.

The band's only modest success so far might have something to do with the fact that none of the band members--with the possible exception of the overly excited drummer--exhibited the slightest trace of personality at the shoot. I mean, it was dead silent between takes: No evidence of any camaraderie between the members; no jokes or horseplay; no comments, positive or negative, on the performances; no interaction with the crew, record company people or gawkers--just silence. They might have been wax works, but for the movement.

From the Bravery--an up-and-coming band with great chops (but no discernible personality) making a musical appearance--I go to Peter Tork, a rock 'n' roll dinosaur with questionable vocal tendencies (but tons of charisma) making a non-musical appearance.

The former Monkee was hosting a special edition of the Beauty Bar's "oldies 'n' goodies" Wednesday night event, Goodie Tu Shoes. By hosting, I mean he was autographing copies of "Cambria Hotel," a new offering from his rootsy, bluesy new rock 'n' roll band, Shoe Suede Blues.

Tork acted just the way any fan of the Monkees' ridiculous TV show (or thoroughly excellent film, "Head") would have expected: He was friendly, animated and totally goofy. I can't vouch for Shoe Suede Blues being anything more than a respectable honky tonk-style bar band, but after being an extraordinarily well-known (if not necessarily respected) superstar, he deserves a lot of credit for starting over with a new band and doing the little extracurriculars newcomers must to get the word out.

I guess the answer to the question Tork posed here is "yes." -Liam Gowing

[Photo 1: The Bravery at Swing House. Credit: Patrick Weir and Fuel TV. Photo 2: Peter Tork, right, and pal at Beauty Bar-L.A. Credit: Mary Jo Head.]

The Bird and the Bee will be

flying into the desert. Nice.

And one of those assembly-line electro acts that has me convinced technology has made

it far too easy to put out an album, the U.K.'s Does It Offend You Yeah?, will be

playing too.

Yeah, it does.

First, there was "Lip Gloss," Lil Mama's earth-crushing and drums-only ode to windburn protection that sounded more menacing and ruthless than anything on "Curtis." Now, M.I.A.-protege Rye Rye has a smoking, minimalist Baltimore club tune in "Shake It to the Ground" on Diplo's Mad Decent label. Aside from an occasional farted-out bass, the production work from DJ Blaqstarr is again strictly minimalist percussion and gum-smacking chants until practically the end of the song. Have the kids decided they don't need even a perfunctory Korg Triton stab to make a floor-filler? Either way, we dig the Misfits poster in Rye Rye's bedroom in this made-for-pennies video and like to imagine that Glenn Danzig might return the favor someday with a guest verse.

--August Brown

Happy New Year.

And good riddance, 2007.

The year brought an avalanche of music, and the recent holiday week of rumination and

CD-sorting etched in my mind the idea that a whole lot of it was ... well ... pretty

good. Yeah, pretty good, uttered with my head slightly tilted, as if I never

thought once of saying "great" or "really good." If I ever had the

radical notion to rate albums on a 10 scale,

I would swear that half the records I received this year logged somewhere between 6.5

and 6.7 -- a percentage that's skewed because all six copies of the Magic Numbers album that somehow found

their way to my desk would get a 6.2.

Maybe this was the year that trying to

keep up with new music, nationally and locally, finally overwhelmed me, what with every

baby band in the universe engaging in viral marketing, hiring publicists, working with

managers, leaving me polite entreaties on MySpace and generally undermining any belief

that a band can merely grow organically. I attended about 185 shows in 2007 too, many to

follow up on those advertising blitzes.

But after compiling my humble lists

below, I fast-forwarded to December 2009, when all good geeks will be sweating over

their seemingly inevitable Best-of-the-Aughts list. And guess what? Not a single album

from 2007 has a chance of making mine. All of the bands I consider indie icons -- and

I'm sure you can spank me for leaving out people you think are iconic -- released other

albums this decade that are superior to their 2007 releases. For the record, that

pantheon houses the National, Spoon, Modest Mouse, Arcade Fire, Bright Eyes and

Interpol, with other personal faves such as the Shins and Stars living in the backhouse.

Those heavyweights each added to their estimable catalogs, yes; it's just that I'm not

going to pull "We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank" off the shelf first

when I want to hear some Modest Mouse a few years from now.

At least, I don't

think.

The lists follow. Thanks to everybody who sends me music -- really --

and a special shout-out to the bands on the L.A. scene who've made my life so much

richer over the past 5-plus years.

My Favorite 10 Albums of 2007

1. Blonde

Redhead, "23"

2. The National, "Boxer"

3. LCD

Soundsystem, "Sound of Silver"

4. Against Me!, "New

Wave"

5. Spoon, "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga"

6. The Cribs,

"Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever"

7. Arcade Fire, "Neon

Bible"

8. Lupe Fiasco, "Cool"

9. The Shins,

"Wincing the Night Away"

10. Softlightes, "Say No to Being

Cool -- Say Yes to Being Happy" *

Comments: It's scares me how much

this list largely parallels other blogs/music mags. Yes, Fiasco's album just came out,

but on first, second and third blush it's a long-range keeper. And that's right, no

Radiohead. So sue me. 6.8.

* See final list

Buzz Bands' Top 10 L.A. Albums of 2007

1. Foreign Born, "On the Wing Now"

2. John Doe, "A Year in

the Wilderness"

3. Sea Wolf, "Leaves in the River"

4. CoCo B's, "CoCo B's"

5. Eleni Mandell, "Miracle of

Five"

6. Earlimart, "Mentor Tormentor"

7. Culver

City Dub Collective, "Dos"

8. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club,

"Baby 81"

9. Rilo Kiley, "Under the Blacklight"

10. Great Northern, "Trading Twilight for Daylight"

Comments:

Foreign Born is just plain good. CoCo B's self-released disc is a great surprise. Culver

City Dub Collective's genre-mashing is sublime. Eleni Mandell -- who needs Feist? And

Rilo Kiley's album just kept growing on me.

Ten L.A. Bands Whose Debuts Made Me Anxious for the

Sophomore Album

1. The Deadly Syndrome, "The

Ortolan"

2. The Broken West, "I Can't Go On, I'll Go On"

3. Robert Francis, "One by One"

4. The Parson Red Heads,

"King Giraffe"

5. Delta Spirit, "Delta Spirit"

6. Frankel, "Lullaby for the Passersby"

7. Year Long Disaster,

"Year Long Disaster"

8. Sara Bareilles, "Little Voice"

9. The Minor Canon, "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished"

10. No

Age, "Weirdo Rippers"

Ten L.A. Bands Whose 2007 EPs Made

Me Want More

Castledoor, the Airborne Toxic Event, the Weather

Underground, the Black Kites, Voxhaul Broadcast, Sam Sparro, Manic, Radars to the Sky,

Sara Lov, Aushua.

Three Albums From Bands Whom I Loved in the '90s and Still

Do

1. Buffalo Tom, "Three Easy Pieces"

2.

Dinosaur Jr., "Beyond"

3. Smashing Pumpkins,

"Zeitgeist"

Five Hip-Hop Albums I Would Recommend If

Anybody Believed I Recommended Hip-Hop Albums

1. Lupe Fiasco,

"Cool"

2. Kanye West, "Graduation"

3. Brother

Ali, "Undisputed Truth"

4. El-P, "I'll Sleep When You're

Dead"

5. Aesop Rock, "None Shall Pass"

Under the Radar: Six Overlooked Albums

1.

Softlightes, "Say No to Being Cool -- Say Yes to Being Happy": Cinematic

electro-pop that recalls Grandaddy at its finest.

2. The High Strung,

"Get the Guests": Catchy and clever, hold the irony, with peripatetic melody

lines that do not quit.

3. Minipop, "A New Hope": Gorgeous and

beautifully layered shoegaze-pop with rhythms that will drive you right into a dreamlike

state.

4. The Blakes, "The Blakes": Soulful garage rock that's good

for your summer sweat.

5. The Comas, "Spells": Distortion-heavy

power pop arrives in bursts, may leave marks.

6. Young Galaxy, "Young

Galaxy": Other Canadian exports (Kevin Drew, Sunset Rubdown, Feist, et. al.) earned

more buzz, but this album feel like a warm waking dream.

Comments:

Somehow I saw Softlightes play live 10 times in 2007. I left each show in a better mood

than when I arrived.

 

The next time someone tells you that booze doesn't make the world a better place, you just tell them to go listen to Corrine Bailey Rae and her remix of "Like A Star" at the wonderfully titled website www.generouspour.com. The seasonal website for Clos du Bois Wines has lovely traditonal holiday recipes for things like, um, "stoned crab cobbler with coconut" (what, are we pre-gaming for New Year's at Jimmy Buffett's beach hut?) and "Hot Italian Sausage Stuffing" (I'm pretty sure that's the gay porn version of "Roman Holiday"). Anyway, the website, which will be up through today, has a free download of "Like A Star" by Grammy nominee Rae and every time someone downloads it, Clos du Bois will donate $1 to Share Our Strength, a non-profit working against hunger and poverty in the U.S. It sounds like booze-company guilt to us, and wouldn't Amy Winehouse have been a better choice here for so many reasons? As for the music: The song is pretty much played out and the remix here is a fairly glossy affair but it is also free and unobjectionable as a dinner-party fare. So pass the potatoes...

--Geoff Boucher

The Beatle who earned his famous nickname by covering his fingers with rings is now making news with a bracelet. “Liverpool 8,” the new Capitol/EMI album from 67-year-old Ringo Starr, is being released Jan. 15 as a CD, a digital download and also as a “pre-loaded USB wristband” that includes all 12 tracks and a slew of extras, including “a personal video message, interview and track commentary from Ringo Starr, behind-the-scenes making-of footage from the recording sessions, ringtones, photos and more.” (Shouldn't those be "Ringo-tones"?) There’s more details at www.ringostarr.com but this already opens a whole new world of albums-as-accessories. How soon can we buy “Blackout” by Britney Spears in the ankle-monitor format? And how great would be to work toward the weekend by wearing Loverboy’s greatest hits in your headband?

--Geoff Boucher

Just in time to service your holiday malaise, two of my favorite DJ collectives are

conspiring to set sadness to music tonight at the downtown bar La Cita.

Give Up -- the seasonal club night initiated by the DJ collective Dublab and manned the past several years by Mark

"Frosty" McNeill and Jimmy Tamborello -- gets back into its wintry spirit as

DJs spin depressing songs on the bar's back patio. It's described as "a deeply

depressing disc sob session." Inside the bar, Part Time Punks' Michael Stock and others will

be hosting "A Sad, Slow Dance Party," promising "all slow dancing, all

night long."

There's no cover. Tears start to flow at 9 p.m.

Photo of DJ Frosty (from 2005) by Kevin Bronson/LAT

Happier choices for Tuesday, Dec. 18

Pop sextet Castledoor brings its

sublime tunes to Boardner's in the final monthly show of the year presented by Radio Free Silver Lake. The Flying Tourbillon Orchestra

and Frankel are also playing the

18-and-older show, which is free. ... Mighty Six Ninety and Io Echo rock the Troubadour. ... Oliver Future continues its Tuesday

residency at the Viper Room. ... The

Monolators head a good local bill at the Scene. ... And John Gold performs at Bordello.

The obituary this morning says Dan Fogelberg helped "define soft rock," but

that sounds kind of flaccid compared to what the singer-songwriter, who died Sunday at

age 56, meant to a bunch of kids in the working-class neighborhoods of Peoria, Ill., in

the early 1970s.

Fogelberg graduated from Woodruff High School the year before I got there, leaving

behind some stories of a rock band called the Coachmen (I actually owned the 45 at one

point -- oh, where did it go?) and the occasional rumor he'd gone off to California, a

place that seemed so distant from our Midwestern factory town as to be a mirage. Not

many of us had California dreams then; we'd do well to graduate high school and get on

at Caterpillar Tractor Co. (which accounted for something like 1 in 5 paychecks in our

city in those days). If we were really lucky, we'd go to college.

In the fall of my junior year, "Home Free" arrived, and we were mesmerized.

Fogelberg's debut album -- a beautifully orchestrated bouquet of ballads that veered

toward what we now would call alt-country -- took his alma mater by storm. It christened

the tape player in my first car; it was played endlessly at basement parties from Grand

View Drive to the lower East Bluff. I'm pretty sure there isn't a song in my collection

I've played over the years more than that second track, "Stars."

Fogelberg was our Jackson Browne, a romantic who shared our roots and who had the

courage to strike out in service of his poetry. As I trudged through the snow delivering

my Peoria Journal Stars every morning, that was a pretty important symbol.

I always blanched at, but ultimately forgave, the arch sentimentality that seemingly

oppressive production brought to Fogelberg's later albums. He had earned the right to

pursue whatever vision struck him. When my brother and I took in a Fogelberg show a few

years ago in Anaheim, it wasn't so much for musical nostalgia as it was a thank-you.

In one subtle but important way, Dan Fogelberg was the leader of our band.

Curiosity piqued by the announcement of the Gibson "Robot" Guitar, I headed down to my favorite guitar shop in L.A. on Saturday to check it out myself. I was a little disappointed, frankly.

With a name like "the Robot," I was expecting this six-stringer to jump out of the case unprovoked and run around the room, shouting, "Danger Will Robinson!" or "For those about to rock we salute you!" or "Sarah Connor?" or something. Instead, the Robot just lay in his case, looking like a standard (or, for those of you in the know, a "studio") Les Paul. The only obvious differences were larger tuning pegs and a funky-looking control where one of the standard four volume/tone knobs is usually located. This, I was told, was the "MCK" or "Master Control Knob."

"Now there's the kind of Orwellian 'oh no, the machines have achieved artificial intelligence and have enslaved all carbon-based lifeforms on the planet'-kind of language I was hoping for," I thought.

But alas, the master control knob just controls the Robot's auto-tuning mechanism. It's pretty neat, I'll admit. You pull out the knob, spin the top dial to one of several tuning-configuration presets (standard, "drop d," open-tuning, etc.), tap the top, strum the strings, wait for the tuning pegs to auto-jiggy into position, and voila--push the knob back in and your Les Paul has an alternate tuning.

For the overwhelming majority of guitar players who play in standard tuning, what are the advantages? Well, for about $1000 more than what you'd spend on a regular Les Paul, you can keep your axe in really, really, really good tune.

So who is the real market for Gibson's Robot Guitar? Wealthy guitar players who need to constantly and radically alter their tuning. If that's not you, buy a chromatic tuner and save the Robot Guitar for Joni Mitchell.

--Liam Gowing

Welcome to Soundboard, the new music blog from the L.A. Times written by a band of opinionated, sometimes cranky, sometimes ecstatic music lovers. Soundboard will blog breaking news, concert previews, album and single reviews, and lots of random observations about this vast, exciting, wacko place known as the music world. By the way, we're nomads, committed to no single genre, era or chart, so expect Soundboard to be all over the place, like a Sonic Youth song covered by Beyonce playing at a Mexican restaurant in Torrance. That song doesn't exist (yet) but you get the point.

I don't know why, but I'm thinking about record clubs. I remember a time when my older brother belonged to one and he'd show me his cool new tapes. (Yeah, tapes. Don't laugh.) "I got this for a penny!" he's say, shaking Duran Duran's "Rio" in my face. I was amazed. A penny? How can they do that??

So I started searching around to see if any are left.

Turns out that BMG Columbia House still has one but from their home page, you can tell they're making their money from DVDs. "Music Service" is off to the side. When you click on it, it takes you to one of the saddest little web pages in the world, seemingly designed by Your Local Mall's Party Store circa 1988.

I'm going to find out a little more about this whole thing, but in the meantime, does anyone still belong to a record club out there?

[Crickets.]

--Margaret Wappler

I'm not part of the pack salivating over "Raising Sand," the new Alison Krauss/Robert Plant collab -- its backwoods flavor is slightly overcooked, in my book -- but I love the CD's cover art. The frontispiece shows the two stars relaxing in some desert setting, smiling off into the distance, perhaps at T-Bone Burnett bringing them another sheaf of folk-pop obscurities to peruse.

The back's the clincher, though. Plant's back is turned, and Krauss, leaning toward him, throws a grin over her shoulder as they walk away. She looks like a contented cat making off with her canary. The Lion King may be nearly sixty and more interested in crooning than howling out all of his love, but Krauss certainly knows that by clutching that arm, she's fulfilling a fantasy that sustained generations of teen-age girls, dreaming in their bedrooms to Led Zeppelin's massive kathunking mojo blues. Though I'm sure their collaboration was strictly artistic, here's to her for having fun with her chance to quietly fly her metal horns and say, "Ladies, eat your hearts out!"

--Ann Powers

I am not necessarily a fan of the

Mormons, but as a baseball guy I just about did a spit take when I saw the

tongue-in-cheek poster for the Los Angeles band's current stand at Mr. T's Bowl. [Sorry

for the sloppy clean-up job; it's a family blog, you know.]

[Our local music spotlight, for the moment, remains pointed at power pop, because

it just seems to go so well with summertime:]


Ari Shine landed with a crunch -- and

that's the crunch of a big power chord -- when he released his debut EP

"Age/Occupation" in 2006. Quickly he became a songwriter-to-watch in the L.A.

power-pop underground, if not somebody who carries enough melodies to wriggle a bunch of

his songs onto TV shows, and his energetic stage show hinted that he might become an

artist who could transcend the frequently fey trappings of the form.

His

full-length debut, "A Force of One" (released in July on Bongo Beat), suggests

that Shine is not content to merely ride the coattails  of his forebears. There's

some boy-meets/loses-girl material here, much of it cleverly couched ("Flirtation

Device"), but he sinks his hooks into broader storytelling too (see the song

below). The album was produced by former Sparks guitarist Earle Mankey, who has worked with

L.A. notables such as Concrete Blonde and the Three O'Clock. The result is a collection

that's a little bit Elvis Costello, a little bit Matthew Sweet and maybe a bit Brendan

Benson.

||| Shine performs tonight at the Knitting Factory as part of International Pop Overthrow. He also

is playing a couple West Cost dates supporting Peter

Case prior to a Sept. 18 date at Safari Sam's as a supporting act for Miles Hunt of the Wonder Stuff.

||| Download: "Beirut 1978."

Photo by Sam Peacock

"Korn's new album doesn't have a title."

"So how do you order it?"

"You don't. It's Korn."

I missed it and, from reports, am regretting it. Bat for Lashes, the nom de tune of

Brighton, England's Natasha Khan, wowed the room last night at Spaceland. The common

sentiment I heard from a couple people: No wonder she is nominated for the Mercury

Music Prize.

You'll be hearing more about her.

For now, here is the enchanting video for "What's a Girl to Do."

Touts for Wednesday, Aug. 1

The Format starts a two-show stand (the

Avalon tonight, House of Blues tomorrow); the band for two weeks offered its latest

album, "Dog Problems," as a free download from its website and reported that

45,000 copies of the (very

good) album were ripped. ... Great

Glass Elevator (whose inventiveness kind of reminds me of the Format in a way) play

Club NME at Spaceland tonight. ... The Automatic Music

Explosion plays the Scene in Glendale. ... And the Stevenson Ranch Davidians

start a run of Wednesday shows at the Echo.

Consider this a warm-up for "The Simpsons

Movie" (opening in two weeks).

The musician's name is Zack Kim, a 24-year-old

university student who was born in Seoul, South Korea, reared in Malaysia and is now

studying in Australia. There are more examples of his technique on his website, and the

young man has his own Wikipedia

page.

He tells me via e-mail that he after he completes his studies in two years he hopes

to devote all his energies to music, and eventually he "would really love to

perform in the States, as it would be a dream come true for me."

Have to

think he'd be quite a hit at the premiere party.

Summer is here, in case you were too busy on MySpace to get the memo. The concert

calendar always seems to remind me before the real calendar, what with the Hollywood

Bowl kicking into gear and the onslaught of distinguished veteran rock bands starting to

make the stadium rounds.

(Email from a friend who went to Dodger Stadium this weekend: "They were pretty

awesome for a Police cover band.")

The smaller events have their cachet too -- the Sunday afternoon Do-Over at Crane's, the Little Radio Summer Camp. And then there was last

Thursday's Late Night at LACMA, the annual summer

solstice soiree, which attracted 7,853 museum visitors and probably disappointed

hundreds of others who waited for hours in long lines only to give up. (To be fair, what

part of "early arrival recommended" did you not understand?)

Late Night was a melange of music, hipster ephemera (T-shirt screen printing by Hit +

Run now seems mandatory if you are throwing any kind of cross-cultural event) and art.

Suffice to say there were plenty of photo ops in the Dan Flavin retrospective, a refuge

for attendees who could only handle small doses of offerings from DJs Steve Aoki,

Internationalist and handful of others. I missed the set by the always-solid Rebirth but caught one of L.A.'s favorite party

bands, Ima Robot, who got folks dancing despite

the band's relative lack of amplification.

◊ ◊ ◊

Where did June go?

The Monday night residencies end tonight at Spaceland, the Echo and Silverlake

Lounge. The L.A. quartet the Deadly

Syndrome (Spaceland) seems to have grown into polished band overnight (and wait till

you hear the album), and Thailand

(Silverlake Lounge), despite playing as a three-piece with electronic rhythms, serve up

a compelling new-wave/post-punk cocktail. And I have not made it to the Echo to see

Philadelphia ex-pats Burning Brides

(maybe tonight?), but people I trust give me good reports.

◊ ◊ ◊

At Safari Sam's on Friday night, the Silver Lake/Echo Park masses gathered to bid

farewell to Sea Level Records and its

proprietor, Todd Clifford. The independent outlet has been a locus of the Eastside music

scene for more than 5 years, and Clifford is closing more for I-need-a-life-change

reasons than business.

Today is the last day Sea Level is scheduled to be open.

Photos: LACMA attendees get up close with Dan Flavin's work; Ima Robot rocks in the

courtyard. By Kevin Bronson / LAT.

The Little Ones are still one

of this city's strongest musical happy pills, but, as a set Friday night showed, it's

hard to maintain that peak level of exuberance when you're doing it night after night,

tour after tour.

The L.A.

quintet -- "Rhymin' Simon on steroids" is how I described them last year, and

it still applies -- played an ASCAP- and Filter-sponsored music night on Friday tied to

the Silverlake Film Festival. The stuff from their "Sing Song" EP still

sounded crisp, and their new songs were upbeat and catchy too. But after having spent

the early part of this year doing some rigorous touring, the Little Ones weren't quite

as unhinged as they were when their EP was first released and Astralwerks (in the U.S.)

and Heavenly (in the U.K.) swooped in to sign the band.

Are the Little Ones still as happy as their music? "That's a good

question," frontman Edward Reyes says. "We're excited. ... Remember, we just

looked at that EP as our calling card -- we just wanted to get some shows with

it."

Their as-yet-untitled debut album is recorded and due in January, Reyes says.

"It's turning out great," he adds. "Right now we have a whole track

devoted to laughing."

||| Download Little Ones' songs from their Daytrotter session here.

◊ ◊ ◊

Passion of the Weiss has a

play-by-play of Britney Spears' Houses of Blues appearance (I will not call it a

performance). He even has some empathy.

◊ ◊ ◊

Ran into an employee of a recently merged record company who was enthused about

having adopted a puppy. Cute thing ... so what did you name him? "Andy

Slater."

◊ ◊ ◊

"So how

was Coachella?" That was the most-asked

question last week. I told inquiring minds that it was a three-day weekend of

once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and even as they were unfolding I knew I was missing

others. Wish the festival could have just hesitated a few times each day and let me

catch up.

The inconsiderate hipsters at Anthem, who throw their Coachella party during the day

while the music is going on, tell me I missed something else too -- a mask-less Thomas

Bangalter from Daft Punk [face obscured] spinning the LCD Soundsystem track "Daft

Punk Is Playing at My House." Not that anybody recognized him. But a cool party

nonetheless.

Daft Punk turned up on the turntables a couple nights later at the Echo too. Not that

anybody recognized them.

Touts for tonight

Gliss (Spaceland), the High Society (Silverlake Lounge), Bodies of Water (Echo) and Richard Bivens & Foreign Press

(Detroit Bar) start their Monday night residencies. ... Midnight Movies plays an in-store at

Amoeba. ... And London's Apartment joins

locals the Grand Marquee and others

at Indie 103.1's Viper Room show.

The music is pretty hard on the ears, kind of a flailing

attempt at dance-party relevance. But the album cover (that's the original at right) is

even harder on the eyes -- so Perry Farrell's Satellite Party revised it. Stereogum has a

compare-and-contrast. I'm not sure, but this would not have passed muster in the

Photoshop classes I slogged through years ago. This does, however, guarantee that the

album will chart. Here.

[Guest blogger August Brown is hot both because he is fly, and because he should

have worn more sunscreen.]

If Coachella success was measured in words per minute, Busdriver would have been the day's

undisputed champ. But fortunately for the old-guard L.A.-based MC, he dropped jaws and

machine-gun metaphors alike during his astonishingly dextrous set.

Busdriver was equally compelling needling the crowd with accusations of yuppiedom as

he did slaying them with fiery indignance at the ways the music industry exploits

rappers. Over a loose-limbed flurry of house and jungle-inspired beats, he extolled

cheeba and wryly freestyled that "in the Gobi tent is how an O.G. represents."

Original gangstas are few and far between at Coachella, but unless Ghostface pulls off

a miracle tomorrow, Busdriver may hit the 10 freeway home as the weekend's reigning

rhyme-slinger.

This was featured in our Downloads column last weekend (a good reason to drop

some coin on the Saturday print edition or check the pop music page on your local

newspaper's website). I've been a sucker for Travis' brand of Britpop since the first Clinton

Administration. Here's the video for "Closer," and, yeah, Ben Stiller makes a

good grocer.

Ozomatli looked to the visual for inspiration

when writing its new album, “Don’t Mess With the Dragon” (due April 3 on Concord

Records) — much of the initial songwriting came out of jam sessions at the Tropico de

Nopal art gallery. Now the veteran L.A. nine-piece might have found a vision to suit its

sound.

The new video for the single “Can’t Stop” is a dizzying collage of

stop-animation and storytelling that seems equal to Ozomatli’s mashing of Latin flavors,

rock, hip-hop and funk — a hybrid many have said is distinctly Los Angeles.

“We haven’t had a lot of luck with videos in the past,” acknowledges Ulises Bella, who

plays saxophone and clarinet for the band.

Ozomatli turned to New York-based

artist-illustrator Richard Borge for “Can’t Stop,” even though the 41-year-old, who had

done album art for bands such as Meat Beat Manifesto, had never done a music video.

The Ferrell and the Foo

We’re not sure exactly why the Foo Fighters are considered rock royalty now (“The Pretender” as a best-record nominee at the Grammys? Well, at least it lives up to its title ...), but Dave Grohl does have an admirable sense of humor. Exhibit A: His deadpan performance of “Leather and Lace” with the always loopy Will Ferrell at a recent L.A. fundraiser:

-- Geoff Boucher

Now that Super Tuesday has proven inconclusive on all fronts, let’s engage in some unfounded speculation: Might any of the presidential candidates show up at Sunday’s Grammy Awards?

The Repubs will likely stay home -– despite Mike Huckabee’s electric bass skills and Burt Bacharach’s reported fondness for John McCain, their support among pop stars is generally thin. Ron Paul can claim only Arlo Guthrie. (You can check out who’s supporting whom here.)

Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, however, are still vying for the pop star vote as well as the popular one. A quick and dirty survey of Grammy nominees reveals Clinton with six nominated stumpers -- Madonna, Tony Bennett, Jon Bon Jovi, 50 Cent, Timbaland and Barbra Streisand -– and Obama with five -- Ne-Yo, Usher, Harry Connick Jr., Win Butler of Arcade Fire and Jeff Tweedy of Wilco.

Will.i.am, Obama’s most active pop pal of late, didn’t earn any noms for his commercial flop of a solo album, but he’ll likely be on hand to pop the cork with Fergie if she takes a statue home. We could definitely see the irrepressible Black Eyed Pea pulling Barry onstage for a chorus of Fergie’s “Glamorous.”

And Hillary should really dump that Celine campaign song for an all-American medley of her pal Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” and “(You Want to) Make a Memory.” Although seeing her do the freak with Justin during 50’s “Ayo Technology”…. OK, that seems unlikely. But hey, there’s always Timbaland. He did wonders for Nelly Furtado. He could get the uber baby-boomer candidate out of her cultural rut!

In the meantime, check out Oh! Industry’s excellent roundtable of dedications to favorite candidates.

-- Ann Powers

I think I found the cure for the common TV. Of course, it's right here on your very

own Internet.

It's My Damn

Channel, a portal that is home to offerings from musician extraordinaire Don Was, along with the likes of Harry

Shearer, David Wain and others.


Was, a bassist, music supervisor, documentary director, Grammy-winning producer and a

driving force behind the cutting-edge funk outfit Was

(Not Was), has seldom been more sublimely
entertaining than as the cool-cat host of the "Wasmopolitan Dance
Party" -- a webisode filmed in the showroom of the Furniture Outlet, a
budget joint in North Hollywood. [Pardon the ads, but the installment above is well

worth their intrusion.]

There is singer-songwriter Jill Sobule, gamely playing her beautiful songs

from behind a dining-room set as shoppers mill about looking a recliners.

"I can't compete with the set-up on Letterman" Was says with a laugh.

"But doing something like this, we asked, 'What could we offer that's different?'

The answer is, the stripped-down and personal stuff."

In the ranks of overwrought music writing that have appeared in the Village Voice, Garrett Kamps is a god among fanboys. His recent review of Cat Power's flawed but arresting "Jukebox" covers record is especially troubling. It's not so much the rank misogyny or his John Yoo-level torturing of the em dash that really derails this review, but the fact that he doesn't seem to know what, exactly, a "cougar" is. Given our close approximation to Orange County, we know all too well. Cougars are sexually aggressive women on the far side of 40 peddling consequence-free hookups to inexperienced young men who will relay the tales in hushed, reverent tones over Halo 3 tournaments with their friends. Does that sound like an apt description of Cat Power (a.k.a. Chan Marshall), who once wrote a song about Patti Smith's children and her own abortion? Or the one who wrote one of 2006's most generous, uplifting Southern soul albums, "The Greatest?"

If Kamps is truly hunting for cougars, we can suggest a few better places for him to start trolling.

-- August Brown

[Cougar photo by Christine Cotter / Los Angeles Times. Chan Marshall photo by Stefano Giovannini / Beggars Group LTD via Bloomberg News]

An earlier version of this blog incorrectly referred to John Yoo as John Wu. And that was all Margaret's fault and not August's, so she will be buying him a latte something-or-another later today. Maybe.

It was an interesting week in musical contrasts.

On the invitation of Fuel TV's Daryl Berg, I stopped by Swing House in Hollywood on Monday to see the Bravery. The New York five-piece was at the recording studio-cum-rehearsal space to shoot a live segment for Fuel TV's "Check 1, 2." (If you're wondering what the connection is between the band and the action sports network, apparently two of the dudes like to surf.)

While I was there, the quintet ran through three of their songs three times each for Swing House's microphones and Fuel TV's cameras, and I would be lying if I didn't report that the performances were faultless--just like the recordings complete with spot-on vocals. Listening to the songs ("An Honest Mistake," "Believe" and "Time Won't Let Me Go"), I couldn't help but remark to Berg how incredulous I was that these guys aren't already superstars.

Seriously, the Bravery has a winning formula. It's not theirs, of course, it's Duran Duran's: five really good-looking guys with flawless haircuts and sharp outfits to match, playing insanely catchy New Wave-y tunes--hi-hat-heavy drums, octave-friendly bass, breathy keyboards, distorted rhythm guitars and crystalline leads, plus sour-sweet, whiny vocals--that sound both supremely commercial yet genuinely edgy.

The band's only modest success so far might have something to do with the fact that none of the band members--with the possible exception of the overly excited drummer--exhibited the slightest trace of personality at the shoot. I mean, it was dead silent between takes: No evidence of any camaraderie between the members; no jokes or horseplay; no comments, positive or negative, on the performances; no interaction with the crew, record company people or gawkers--just silence. They might have been wax works, but for the movement.

From the Bravery--an up-and-coming band with great chops (but no discernible personality) making a musical appearance--I go to Peter Tork, a rock 'n' roll dinosaur with questionable vocal tendencies (but tons of charisma) making a non-musical appearance.

The former Monkee was hosting a special edition of the Beauty Bar's "oldies 'n' goodies" Wednesday night event, Goodie Tu Shoes. By hosting, I mean he was autographing copies of "Cambria Hotel," a new offering from his rootsy, bluesy new rock 'n' roll band, Shoe Suede Blues.

Tork acted just the way any fan of the Monkees' ridiculous TV show (or thoroughly excellent film, "Head") would have expected: He was friendly, animated and totally goofy. I can't vouch for Shoe Suede Blues being anything more than a respectable honky tonk-style bar band, but after being an extraordinarily well-known (if not necessarily respected) superstar, he deserves a lot of credit for starting over with a new band and doing the little extracurriculars newcomers must to get the word out.

I guess the answer to the question Tork posed here is "yes." -Liam Gowing

[Photo 1: The Bravery at Swing House. Credit: Patrick Weir and Fuel TV. Photo 2: Peter Tork, right, and pal at Beauty Bar-L.A. Credit: Mary Jo Head.]

The Bird and the Bee will be

flying into the desert. Nice.

And one of those assembly-line electro acts that has me convinced technology has made

it far too easy to put out an album, the U.K.'s Does It Offend You Yeah?, will be

playing too.

Yeah, it does.

First, there was "Lip Gloss," Lil Mama's earth-crushing and drums-only ode to windburn protection that sounded more menacing and ruthless than anything on "Curtis." Now, M.I.A.-protege Rye Rye has a smoking, minimalist Baltimore club tune in "Shake It to the Ground" on Diplo's Mad Decent label. Aside from an occasional farted-out bass, the production work from DJ Blaqstarr is again strictly minimalist percussion and gum-smacking chants until practically the end of the song. Have the kids decided they don't need even a perfunctory Korg Triton stab to make a floor-filler? Either way, we dig the Misfits poster in Rye Rye's bedroom in this made-for-pennies video and like to imagine that Glenn Danzig might return the favor someday with a guest verse.

--August Brown

Happy New Year.

And good riddance, 2007.

The year brought an avalanche of music, and the recent holiday week of rumination and

CD-sorting etched in my mind the idea that a whole lot of it was ... well ... pretty

good. Yeah, pretty good, uttered with my head slightly tilted, as if I never

thought once of saying "great" or "really good." If I ever had the

radical notion to rate albums on a 10 scale,

I would swear that half the records I received this year logged somewhere between 6.5

and 6.7 -- a percentage that's skewed because all six copies of the Magic Numbers album that somehow found

their way to my desk would get a 6.2.

Maybe this was the year that trying to

keep up with new music, nationally and locally, finally overwhelmed me, what with every

baby band in the universe engaging in viral marketing, hiring publicists, working with

managers, leaving me polite entreaties on MySpace and generally undermining any belief

that a band can merely grow organically. I attended about 185 shows in 2007 too, many to

follow up on those advertising blitzes.

But after compiling my humble lists

below, I fast-forwarded to December 2009, when all good geeks will be sweating over

their seemingly inevitable Best-of-the-Aughts list. And guess what? Not a single album

from 2007 has a chance of making mine. All of the bands I consider indie icons -- and

I'm sure you can spank me for leaving out people you think are iconic -- released other

albums this decade that are superior to their 2007 releases. For the record, that

pantheon houses the National, Spoon, Modest Mouse, Arcade Fire, Bright Eyes and

Interpol, with other personal faves such as the Shins and Stars living in the backhouse.

Those heavyweights each added to their estimable catalogs, yes; it's just that I'm not

going to pull "We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank" off the shelf first

when I want to hear some Modest Mouse a few years from now.

At least, I don't

think.

The lists follow. Thanks to everybody who sends me music -- really --

and a special shout-out to the bands on the L.A. scene who've made my life so much

richer over the past 5-plus years.

My Favorite 10 Albums of 2007

1. Blonde

Redhead, "23"

2. The National, "Boxer"

3. LCD

Soundsystem, "Sound of Silver"

4. Against Me!, "New

Wave"

5. Spoon, "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga"

6. The Cribs,

"Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever"

7. Arcade Fire, "Neon

Bible"

8. Lupe Fiasco, "Cool"

9. The Shins,

"Wincing the Night Away"

10. Softlightes, "Say No to Being

Cool -- Say Yes to Being Happy" *

Comments: It's scares me how much

this list largely parallels other blogs/music mags. Yes, Fiasco's album just came out,

but on first, second and third blush it's a long-range keeper. And that's right, no

Radiohead. So sue me. 6.8.

* See final list

Buzz Bands' Top 10 L.A. Albums of 2007

1. Foreign Born, "On the Wing Now"

2. John Doe, "A Year in

the Wilderness"

3. Sea Wolf, "Leaves in the River"

4. CoCo B's, "CoCo B's"

5. Eleni Mandell, "Miracle of

Five"

6. Earlimart, "Mentor Tormentor"

7. Culver

City Dub Collective, "Dos"

8. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club,

"Baby 81"

9. Rilo Kiley, "Under the Blacklight"

10. Great Northern, "Trading Twilight for Daylight"

Comments:

Foreign Born is just plain good. CoCo B's self-released disc is a great surprise. Culver

City Dub Collective's genre-mashing is sublime. Eleni Mandell -- who needs Feist? And

Rilo Kiley's album just kept growing on me.

Ten L.A. Bands Whose Debuts Made Me Anxious for the

Sophomore Album

1. The Deadly Syndrome, "The

Ortolan"

2. The Broken West, "I Can't Go On, I'll Go On"

3. Robert Francis, "One by One"

4. The Parson Red Heads,

"King Giraffe"

5. Delta Spirit, "Delta Spirit"

6. Frankel, "Lullaby for the Passersby"

7. Year Long Disaster,

"Year Long Disaster"

8. Sara Bareilles, "Little Voice"

9. The Minor Canon, "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished"

10. No

Age, "Weirdo Rippers"

Ten L.A. Bands Whose 2007 EPs Made

Me Want More

Castledoor, the Airborne Toxic Event, the Weather

Underground, the Black Kites, Voxhaul Broadcast, Sam Sparro, Manic, Radars to the Sky,

Sara Lov, Aushua.

Three Albums From Bands Whom I Loved in the '90s and Still

Do

1. Buffalo Tom, "Three Easy Pieces"

2.

Dinosaur Jr., "Beyond"

3. Smashing Pumpkins,

"Zeitgeist"

Five Hip-Hop Albums I Would Recommend If

Anybody Believed I Recommended Hip-Hop Albums

1. Lupe Fiasco,

"Cool"

2. Kanye West, "Graduation"

3. Brother

Ali, "Undisputed Truth"

4. El-P, "I'll Sleep When You're

Dead"

5. Aesop Rock, "None Shall Pass"

Under the Radar: Six Overlooked Albums

1.

Softlightes, "Say No to Being Cool -- Say Yes to Being Happy": Cinematic

electro-pop that recalls Grandaddy at its finest.

2. The High Strung,

"Get the Guests": Catchy and clever, hold the irony, with peripatetic melody

lines that do not quit.

3. Minipop, "A New Hope": Gorgeous and

beautifully layered shoegaze-pop with rhythms that will drive you right into a dreamlike

state.

4. The Blakes, "The Blakes": Soulful garage rock that's good

for your summer sweat.

5. The Comas, "Spells": Distortion-heavy

power pop arrives in bursts, may leave marks.

6. Young Galaxy, "Young

Galaxy": Other Canadian exports (Kevin Drew, Sunset Rubdown, Feist, et. al.) earned

more buzz, but this album feel like a warm waking dream.

Comments:

Somehow I saw Softlightes play live 10 times in 2007. I left each show in a better mood

than when I arrived.

 

The next time someone tells you that booze doesn't make the world a better place, you just tell them to go listen to Corrine Bailey Rae and her remix of "Like A Star" at the wonderfully titled website www.generouspour.com. The seasonal website for Clos du Bois Wines has lovely traditonal holiday recipes for things like, um, "stoned crab cobbler with coconut" (what, are we pre-gaming for New Year's at Jimmy Buffett's beach hut?) and "Hot Italian Sausage Stuffing" (I'm pretty sure that's the gay porn version of "Roman Holiday"). Anyway, the website, which will be up through today, has a free download of "Like A Star" by Grammy nominee Rae and every time someone downloads it, Clos du Bois will donate $1 to Share Our Strength, a non-profit working against hunger and poverty in the U.S. It sounds like booze-company guilt to us, and wouldn't Amy Winehouse have been a better choice here for so many reasons? As for the music: The song is pretty much played out and the remix here is a fairly glossy affair but it is also free and unobjectionable as a dinner-party fare. So pass the potatoes...

--Geoff Boucher

The Beatle who earned his famous nickname by covering his fingers with rings is now making news with a bracelet. “Liverpool 8,” the new Capitol/EMI album from 67-year-old Ringo Starr, is being released Jan. 15 as a CD, a digital download and also as a “pre-loaded USB wristband” that includes all 12 tracks and a slew of extras, including “a personal video message, interview and track commentary from Ringo Starr, behind-the-scenes making-of footage from the recording sessions, ringtones, photos and more.” (Shouldn't those be "Ringo-tones"?) There’s more details at www.ringostarr.com but this already opens a whole new world of albums-as-accessories. How soon can we buy “Blackout” by Britney Spears in the ankle-monitor format? And how great would be to work toward the weekend by wearing Loverboy’s greatest hits in your headband?

--Geoff Boucher

Just in time to service your holiday malaise, two of my favorite DJ collectives are

conspiring to set sadness to music tonight at the downtown bar La Cita.

Give Up -- the seasonal club night initiated by the DJ collective Dublab and manned the past several years by Mark

"Frosty" McNeill and Jimmy Tamborello -- gets back into its wintry spirit as

DJs spin depressing songs on the bar's back patio. It's described as "a deeply

depressing disc sob session." Inside the bar, Part Time Punks' Michael Stock and others will

be hosting "A Sad, Slow Dance Party," promising "all slow dancing, all

night long."

There's no cover. Tears start to flow at 9 p.m.

Photo of DJ Frosty (from 2005) by Kevin Bronson/LAT

Happier choices for Tuesday, Dec. 18

Pop sextet Castledoor brings its

sublime tunes to Boardner's in the final monthly show of the year presented by Radio Free Silver Lake. The Flying Tourbillon Orchestra

and Frankel are also playing the

18-and-older show, which is free. ... Mighty Six Ninety and Io Echo rock the Troubadour. ... Oliver Future continues its Tuesday

residency at the Viper Room. ... The

Monolators head a good local bill at the Scene. ... And John Gold performs at Bordello.

The obituary this morning says Dan Fogelberg helped "define soft rock," but

that sounds kind of flaccid compared to what the singer-songwriter, who died Sunday at

age 56, meant to a bunch of kids in the working-class neighborhoods of Peoria, Ill., in

the early 1970s.

Fogelberg graduated from Woodruff High School the year before I got there, leaving

behind some stories of a rock band called the Coachmen (I actually owned the 45 at one

point -- oh, where did it go?) and the occasional rumor he'd gone off to California, a

place that seemed so distant from our Midwestern factory town as to be a mirage. Not

many of us had California dreams then; we'd do well to graduate high school and get on

at Caterpillar Tractor Co. (which accounted for something like 1 in 5 paychecks in our

city in those days). If we were really lucky, we'd go to college.

In the fall of my junior year, "Home Free" arrived, and we were mesmerized.

Fogelberg's debut album -- a beautifully orchestrated bouquet of ballads that veered

toward what we now would call alt-country -- took his alma mater by storm. It christened

the tape player in my first car; it was played endlessly at basement parties from Grand

View Drive to the lower East Bluff. I'm pretty sure there isn't a song in my collection

I've played over the years more than that second track, "Stars."

Fogelberg was our Jackson Browne, a romantic who shared our roots and who had the

courage to strike out in service of his poetry. As I trudged through the snow delivering

my Peoria Journal Stars every morning, that was a pretty important symbol.

I always blanched at, but ultimately forgave, the arch sentimentality that seemingly

oppressive production brought to Fogelberg's later albums. He had earned the right to

pursue whatever vision struck him. When my brother and I took in a Fogelberg show a few

years ago in Anaheim, it wasn't so much for musical nostalgia as it was a thank-you.

In one subtle but important way, Dan Fogelberg was the leader of our band.

Curiosity piqued by the announcement of the Gibson "Robot" Guitar, I headed down to my favorite guitar shop in L.A. on Saturday to check it out myself. I was a little disappointed, frankly.

With a name like "the Robot," I was expecting this six-stringer to jump out of the case unprovoked and run around the room, shouting, "Danger Will Robinson!" or "For those about to rock we salute you!" or "Sarah Connor?" or something. Instead, the Robot just lay in his case, looking like a standard (or, for those of you in the know, a "studio") Les Paul. The only obvious differences were larger tuning pegs and a funky-looking control where one of the standard four volume/tone knobs is usually located. This, I was told, was the "MCK" or "Master Control Knob."

"Now there's the kind of Orwellian 'oh no, the machines have achieved artificial intelligence and have enslaved all carbon-based lifeforms on the planet'-kind of language I was hoping for," I thought.

But alas, the master control knob just controls the Robot's auto-tuning mechanism. It's pretty neat, I'll admit. You pull out the knob, spin the top dial to one of several tuning-configuration presets (standard, "drop d," open-tuning, etc.), tap the top, strum the strings, wait for the tuning pegs to auto-jiggy into position, and voila--push the knob back in and your Les Paul has an alternate tuning.

For the overwhelming majority of guitar players who play in standard tuning, what are the advantages? Well, for about $1000 more than what you'd spend on a regular Les Paul, you can keep your axe in really, really, really good tune.

So who is the real market for Gibson's Robot Guitar? Wealthy guitar players who need to constantly and radically alter their tuning. If that's not you, buy a chromatic tuner and save the Robot Guitar for Joni Mitchell.

--Liam Gowing

Welcome to Soundboard, the new music blog from the L.A. Times written by a band of opinionated, sometimes cranky, sometimes ecstatic music lovers. Soundboard will blog breaking news, concert previews, album and single reviews, and lots of random observations about this vast, exciting, wacko place known as the music world. By the way, we're nomads, committed to no single genre, era or chart, so expect Soundboard to be all over the place, like a Sonic Youth song covered by Beyonce playing at a Mexican restaurant in Torrance. That song doesn't exist (yet) but you get the point.

I don't know why, but I'm thinking about record clubs. I remember a time when my older brother belonged to one and he'd show me his cool new tapes. (Yeah, tapes. Don't laugh.) "I got this for a penny!" he's say, shaking Duran Duran's "Rio" in my face. I was amazed. A penny? How can they do that??

So I started searching around to see if any are left.

Turns out that BMG Columbia House still has one but from their home page, you can tell they're making their money from DVDs. "Music Service" is off to the side. When you click on it, it takes you to one of the saddest little web pages in the world, seemingly designed by Your Local Mall's Party Store circa 1988.

I'm going to find out a little more about this whole thing, but in the meantime, does anyone still belong to a record club out there?

[Crickets.]

--Margaret Wappler

I'm not part of the pack salivating over "Raising Sand," the new Alison Krauss/Robert Plant collab -- its backwoods flavor is slightly overcooked, in my book -- but I love the CD's cover art. The frontispiece shows the two stars relaxing in some desert setting, smiling off into the distance, perhaps at T-Bone Burnett bringing them another sheaf of folk-pop obscurities to peruse.

The back's the clincher, though. Plant's back is turned, and Krauss, leaning toward him, throws a grin over her shoulder as they walk away. She looks like a contented cat making off with her canary. The Lion King may be nearly sixty and more interested in crooning than howling out all of his love, but Krauss certainly knows that by clutching that arm, she's fulfilling a fantasy that sustained generations of teen-age girls, dreaming in their bedrooms to Led Zeppelin's massive kathunking mojo blues. Though I'm sure their collaboration was strictly artistic, here's to her for having fun with her chance to quietly fly her metal horns and say, "Ladies, eat your hearts out!"

--Ann Powers

I am not necessarily a fan of the

Mormons, but as a baseball guy I just about did a spit take when I saw the

tongue-in-cheek poster for the Los Angeles band's current stand at Mr. T's Bowl. [Sorry

for the sloppy clean-up job; it's a family blog, you know.]

[Our local music spotlight, for the moment, remains pointed at power pop, because

it just seems to go so well with summertime:]


Ari Shine landed with a crunch -- and

that's the crunch of a big power chord -- when he released his debut EP

"Age/Occupation" in 2006. Quickly he became a songwriter-to-watch in the L.A.

power-pop underground, if not somebody who carries enough melodies to wriggle a bunch of

his songs onto TV shows, and his energetic stage show hinted that he might become an

artist who could transcend the frequently fey trappings of the form.

His

full-length debut, "A Force of One" (released in July on Bongo Beat), suggests

that Shine is not content to merely ride the coattails  of his forebears. There's

some boy-meets/loses-girl material here, much of it cleverly couched ("Flirtation

Device"), but he sinks his hooks into broader storytelling too (see the song

below). The album was produced by former Sparks guitarist Earle Mankey, who has worked with

L.A. notables such as Concrete Blonde and the Three O'Clock. The result is a collection

that's a little bit Elvis Costello, a little bit Matthew Sweet and maybe a bit Brendan

Benson.

||| Shine performs tonight at the Knitting Factory as part of International Pop Overthrow. He also

is playing a couple West Cost dates supporting Peter

Case prior to a Sept. 18 date at Safari Sam's as a supporting act for Miles Hunt of the Wonder Stuff.

||| Download: "Beirut 1978."

Photo by Sam Peacock

"Korn's new album doesn't have a title."

"So how do you order it?"

"You don't. It's Korn."

I missed it and, from reports, am regretting it. Bat for Lashes, the nom de tune of

Brighton, England's Natasha Khan, wowed the room last night at Spaceland. The common

sentiment I heard from a couple people: No wonder she is nominated for the Mercury

Music Prize.

You'll be hearing more about her.

For now, here is the enchanting video for "What's a Girl to Do."

Touts for Wednesday, Aug. 1

The Format starts a two-show stand (the

Avalon tonight, House of Blues tomorrow); the band for two weeks offered its latest

album, "Dog Problems," as a free download from its website and reported that

45,000 copies of the (very

good) album were ripped. ... Great

Glass Elevator (whose inventiveness kind of reminds me of the Format in a way) play

Club NME at Spaceland tonight. ... The Automatic Music

Explosion plays the Scene in Glendale. ... And the Stevenson Ranch Davidians

start a run of Wednesday shows at the Echo.

Consider this a warm-up for "The Simpsons

Movie" (opening in two weeks).

The musician's name is Zack Kim, a 24-year-old

university student who was born in Seoul, South Korea, reared in Malaysia and is now

studying in Australia. There are more examples of his technique on his website, and the

young man has his own Wikipedia

page.

He tells me via e-mail that he after he completes his studies in two years he hopes

to devote all his energies to music, and eventually he "would really love to

perform in the States, as it would be a dream come true for me."

Have to

think he'd be quite a hit at the premiere party.

Summer is here, in case you were too busy on MySpace to get the memo. The concert

calendar always seems to remind me before the real calendar, what with the Hollywood

Bowl kicking into gear and the onslaught of distinguished veteran rock bands starting to

make the stadium rounds.

(Email from a friend who went to Dodger Stadium this weekend: "They were pretty

awesome for a Police cover band.")

The smaller events have their cachet too -- the Sunday afternoon Do-Over at Crane's, the Little Radio Summer Camp. And then there was last

Thursday's Late Night at LACMA, the annual summer

solstice soiree, which attracted 7,853 museum visitors and probably disappointed

hundreds of others who waited for hours in long lines only to give up. (To be fair, what

part of "early arrival recommended" did you not understand?)

Late Night was a melange of music, hipster ephemera (T-shirt screen printing by Hit +

Run now seems mandatory if you are throwing any kind of cross-cultural event) and art.

Suffice to say there were plenty of photo ops in the Dan Flavin retrospective, a refuge

for attendees who could only handle small doses of offerings from DJs Steve Aoki,

Internationalist and handful of others. I missed the set by the always-solid Rebirth but caught one of L.A.'s favorite party

bands, Ima Robot, who got folks dancing despite

the band's relative lack of amplification.

◊ ◊ ◊

Where did June go?

The Monday night residencies end tonight at Spaceland, the Echo and Silverlake

Lounge. The L.A. quartet the Deadly

Syndrome (Spaceland) seems to have grown into polished band overnight (and wait till

you hear the album), and Thailand

(Silverlake Lounge), despite playing as a three-piece with electronic rhythms, serve up

a compelling new-wave/post-punk cocktail. And I have not made it to the Echo to see

Philadelphia ex-pats Burning Brides

(maybe tonight?), but people I trust give me good reports.

◊ ◊ ◊

At Safari Sam's on Friday night, the Silver Lake/Echo Park masses gathered to bid

farewell to Sea Level Records and its

proprietor, Todd Clifford. The independent outlet has been a locus of the Eastside music

scene for more than 5 years, and Clifford is closing more for I-need-a-life-change

reasons than business.

Today is the last day Sea Level is scheduled to be open.

Photos: LACMA attendees get up close with Dan Flavin's work; Ima Robot rocks in the

courtyard. By Kevin Bronson / LAT.

The Little Ones are still one

of this city's strongest musical happy pills, but, as a set Friday night showed, it's

hard to maintain that peak level of exuberance when you're doing it night after night,

tour after tour.

The L.A.

quintet -- "Rhymin' Simon on steroids" is how I described them last year, and

it still applies -- played an ASCAP- and Filter-sponsored music night on Friday tied to

the Silverlake Film Festival. The stuff from their "Sing Song" EP still

sounded crisp, and their new songs were upbeat and catchy too. But after having spent

the early part of this year doing some rigorous touring, the Little Ones weren't quite

as unhinged as they were when their EP was first released and Astralwerks (in the U.S.)

and Heavenly (in the U.K.) swooped in to sign the band.

Are the Little Ones still as happy as their music? "That's a good

question," frontman Edward Reyes says. "We're excited. ... Remember, we just

looked at that EP as our calling card -- we just wanted to get some shows with

it."

Their as-yet-untitled debut album is recorded and due in January, Reyes says.

"It's turning out great," he adds. "Right now we have a whole track

devoted to laughing."

||| Download Little Ones' songs from their Daytrotter session here.

◊ ◊ ◊

Passion of the Weiss has a

play-by-play of Britney Spears' Houses of Blues appearance (I will not call it a

performance). He even has some empathy.

◊ ◊ ◊

Ran into an employee of a recently merged record company who was enthused about

having adopted a puppy. Cute thing ... so what did you name him? "Andy

Slater."

◊ ◊ ◊

"So how

was Coachella?" That was the most-asked

question last week. I told inquiring minds that it was a three-day weekend of

once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and even as they were unfolding I knew I was missing

others. Wish the festival could have just hesitated a few times each day and let me

catch up.

The inconsiderate hipsters at Anthem, who throw their Coachella party during the day

while the music is going on, tell me I missed something else too -- a mask-less Thomas

Bangalter from Daft Punk [face obscured] spinning the LCD Soundsystem track "Daft

Punk Is Playing at My House." Not that anybody recognized him. But a cool party

nonetheless.

Daft Punk turned up on the turntables a couple nights later at the Echo too. Not that

anybody recognized them.

Touts for tonight

Gliss (Spaceland), the High Society (Silverlake Lounge), Bodies of Water (Echo) and Richard Bivens & Foreign Press

(Detroit Bar) start their Monday night residencies. ... Midnight Movies plays an in-store at

Amoeba. ... And London's Apartment joins

locals the Grand Marquee and others

at Indie 103.1's Viper Room show.

The music is pretty hard on the ears, kind of a flailing

attempt at dance-party relevance. But the album cover (that's the original at right) is

even harder on the eyes -- so Perry Farrell's Satellite Party revised it. Stereogum has a

compare-and-contrast. I'm not sure, but this would not have passed muster in the

Photoshop classes I slogged through years ago. This does, however, guarantee that the

album will chart. Here.

[Guest blogger August Brown is hot both because he is fly, and because he should

have worn more sunscreen.]

If Coachella success was measured in words per minute, Busdriver would have been the day's

undisputed champ. But fortunately for the old-guard L.A.-based MC, he dropped jaws and

machine-gun metaphors alike during his astonishingly dextrous set.

Busdriver was equally compelling needling the crowd with accusations of yuppiedom as

he did slaying them with fiery indignance at the ways the music industry exploits

rappers. Over a loose-limbed flurry of house and jungle-inspired beats, he extolled

cheeba and wryly freestyled that "in the Gobi tent is how an O.G. represents."

Original gangstas are few and far between at Coachella, but unless Ghostface pulls off

a miracle tomorrow, Busdriver may hit the 10 freeway home as the weekend's reigning

rhyme-slinger.

This was featured in our Downloads column last weekend (a good reason to drop

some coin on the Saturday print edition or check the pop music page on your local

newspaper's website). I've been a sucker for Travis' brand of Britpop since the first Clinton

Administration. Here's the video for "Closer," and, yeah, Ben Stiller makes a

good grocer.

Ozomatli looked to the visual for inspiration

when writing its new album, “Don’t Mess With the Dragon” (due April 3 on Concord

Records) — much of the initial songwriting came out of jam sessions at the Tropico de

Nopal art gallery. Now the veteran L.A. nine-piece might have found a vision to suit its

sound.

The new video for the single “Can’t Stop” is a dizzying collage of

stop-animation and storytelling that seems equal to Ozomatli’s mashing of Latin flavors,

rock, hip-hop and funk — a hybrid many have said is distinctly Los Angeles.

“We haven’t had a lot of luck with videos in the past,” acknowledges Ulises Bella, who

plays saxophone and clarinet for the band.

Ozomatli turned to New York-based

artist-illustrator Richard Borge for “Can’t Stop,” even though the 41-year-old, who had

done album art for bands such as Meat Beat Manifesto, had never done a music video.

How about the Super Grammys?

Now that Super Tuesday has proven inconclusive on all fronts, let’s engage in some unfounded speculation: Might any of the presidential candidates show up at Sunday’s Grammy Awards?

The Repubs will likely stay home -– despite Mike Huckabee’s electric bass skills and Burt Bacharach’s reported fondness for John McCain, their support among pop stars is generally thin. Ron Paul can claim only Arlo Guthrie. (You can check out who’s supporting whom here.)

Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, however, are still vying for the pop star vote as well as the popular one. A quick and dirty survey of Grammy nominees reveals Clinton with six nominated stumpers -- Madonna, Tony Bennett, Jon Bon Jovi, 50 Cent, Timbaland and Barbra Streisand -– and Obama with five -- Ne-Yo, Usher, Harry Connick Jr., Win Butler of Arcade Fire and Jeff Tweedy of Wilco.

Will.i.am, Obama’s most active pop pal of late, didn’t earn any noms for his commercial flop of a solo album, but he’ll likely be on hand to pop the cork with Fergie if she takes a statue home. We could definitely see the irrepressible Black Eyed Pea pulling Barry onstage for a chorus of Fergie’s “Glamorous.”

And Hillary should really dump that Celine campaign song for an all-American medley of her pal Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” and “(You Want to) Make a Memory.” Although seeing her do the freak with Justin during 50’s “Ayo Technology”…. OK, that seems unlikely. But hey, there’s always Timbaland. He did wonders for Nelly Furtado. He could get the uber baby-boomer candidate out of her cultural rut!

In the meantime, check out Oh! Industry’s excellent roundtable of dedications to favorite candidates.

-- Ann Powers

I think I found the cure for the common TV. Of course, it's right here on your very

own Internet.

It's My Damn

Channel, a portal that is home to offerings from musician extraordinaire Don Was, along with the likes of Harry

Shearer, David Wain and others.


Was, a bassist, music supervisor, documentary director, Grammy-winning producer and a

driving force behind the cutting-edge funk outfit Was

(Not Was), has seldom been more sublimely
entertaining than as the cool-cat host of the "Wasmopolitan Dance
Party" -- a webisode filmed in the showroom of the Furniture Outlet, a
budget joint in North Hollywood. [Pardon the ads, but the installment above is well

worth their intrusion.]

There is singer-songwriter Jill Sobule, gamely playing her beautiful songs

from behind a dining-room set as shoppers mill about looking a recliners.

"I can't compete with the set-up on Letterman" Was says with a laugh.

"But doing something like this, we asked, 'What could we offer that's different?'

The answer is, the stripped-down and personal stuff."

In the ranks of overwrought music writing that have appeared in the Village Voice, Garrett Kamps is a god among fanboys. His recent review of Cat Power's flawed but arresting "Jukebox" covers record is especially troubling. It's not so much the rank misogyny or his John Yoo-level torturing of the em dash that really derails this review, but the fact that he doesn't seem to know what, exactly, a "cougar" is. Given our close approximation to Orange County, we know all too well. Cougars are sexually aggressive women on the far side of 40 peddling consequence-free hookups to inexperienced young men who will relay the tales in hushed, reverent tones over Halo 3 tournaments with their friends. Does that sound like an apt description of Cat Power (a.k.a. Chan Marshall), who once wrote a song about Patti Smith's children and her own abortion? Or the one who wrote one of 2006's most generous, uplifting Southern soul albums, "The Greatest?"

If Kamps is truly hunting for cougars, we can suggest a few better places for him to start trolling.

-- August Brown

[Cougar photo by Christine Cotter / Los Angeles Times. Chan Marshall photo by Stefano Giovannini / Beggars Group LTD via Bloomberg News]

An earlier version of this blog incorrectly referred to John Yoo as John Wu. And that was all Margaret's fault and not August's, so she will be buying him a latte something-or-another later today. Maybe.

It was an interesting week in musical contrasts.

On the invitation of Fuel TV's Daryl Berg, I stopped by Swing House in Hollywood on Monday to see the Bravery. The New York five-piece was at the recording studio-cum-rehearsal space to shoot a live segment for Fuel TV's "Check 1, 2." (If you're wondering what the connection is between the band and the action sports network, apparently two of the dudes like to surf.)

While I was there, the quintet ran through three of their songs three times each for Swing House's microphones and Fuel TV's cameras, and I would be lying if I didn't report that the performances were faultless--just like the recordings complete with spot-on vocals. Listening to the songs ("An Honest Mistake," "Believe" and "Time Won't Let Me Go"), I couldn't help but remark to Berg how incredulous I was that these guys aren't already superstars.

Seriously, the Bravery has a winning formula. It's not theirs, of course, it's Duran Duran's: five really good-looking guys with flawless haircuts and sharp outfits to match, playing insanely catchy New Wave-y tunes--hi-hat-heavy drums, octave-friendly bass, breathy keyboards, distorted rhythm guitars and crystalline leads, plus sour-sweet, whiny vocals--that sound both supremely commercial yet genuinely edgy.

The band's only modest success so far might have something to do with the fact that none of the band members--with the possible exception of the overly excited drummer--exhibited the slightest trace of personality at the shoot. I mean, it was dead silent between takes: No evidence of any camaraderie between the members; no jokes or horseplay; no comments, positive or negative, on the performances; no interaction with the crew, record company people or gawkers--just silence. They might have been wax works, but for the movement.

From the Bravery--an up-and-coming band with great chops (but no discernible personality) making a musical appearance--I go to Peter Tork, a rock 'n' roll dinosaur with questionable vocal tendencies (but tons of charisma) making a non-musical appearance.

The former Monkee was hosting a special edition of the Beauty Bar's "oldies 'n' goodies" Wednesday night event, Goodie Tu Shoes. By hosting, I mean he was autographing copies of "Cambria Hotel," a new offering from his rootsy, bluesy new rock 'n' roll band, Shoe Suede Blues.

Tork acted just the way any fan of the Monkees' ridiculous TV show (or thoroughly excellent film, "Head") would have expected: He was friendly, animated and totally goofy. I can't vouch for Shoe Suede Blues being anything more than a respectable honky tonk-style bar band, but after being an extraordinarily well-known (if not necessarily respected) superstar, he deserves a lot of credit for starting over with a new band and doing the little extracurriculars newcomers must to get the word out.

I guess the answer to the question Tork posed here is "yes." -Liam Gowing

[Photo 1: The Bravery at Swing House. Credit: Patrick Weir and Fuel TV. Photo 2: Peter Tork, right, and pal at Beauty Bar-L.A. Credit: Mary Jo Head.]

The Bird and the Bee will be

flying into the desert. Nice.

And one of those assembly-line electro acts that has me convinced technology has made

it far too easy to put out an album, the U.K.'s Does It Offend You Yeah?, will be

playing too.

Yeah, it does.

First, there was "Lip Gloss," Lil Mama's earth-crushing and drums-only ode to windburn protection that sounded more menacing and ruthless than anything on "Curtis." Now, M.I.A.-protege Rye Rye has a smoking, minimalist Baltimore club tune in "Shake It to the Ground" on Diplo's Mad Decent label. Aside from an occasional farted-out bass, the production work from DJ Blaqstarr is again strictly minimalist percussion and gum-smacking chants until practically the end of the song. Have the kids decided they don't need even a perfunctory Korg Triton stab to make a floor-filler? Either way, we dig the Misfits poster in Rye Rye's bedroom in this made-for-pennies video and like to imagine that Glenn Danzig might return the favor someday with a guest verse.

--August Brown

Happy New Year.

And good riddance, 2007.

The year brought an avalanche of music, and the recent holiday week of rumination and

CD-sorting etched in my mind the idea that a whole lot of it was ... well ... pretty

good. Yeah, pretty good, uttered with my head slightly tilted, as if I never

thought once of saying "great" or "really good." If I ever had the

radical notion to rate albums on a 10 scale,

I would swear that half the records I received this year logged somewhere between 6.5

and 6.7 -- a percentage that's skewed because all six copies of the Magic Numbers album that somehow found

their way to my desk would get a 6.2.

Maybe this was the year that trying to

keep up with new music, nationally and locally, finally overwhelmed me, what with every

baby band in the universe engaging in viral marketing, hiring publicists, working with

managers, leaving me polite entreaties on MySpace and generally undermining any belief

that a band can merely grow organically. I attended about 185 shows in 2007 too, many to

follow up on those advertising blitzes.

But after compiling my humble lists

below, I fast-forwarded to December 2009, when all good geeks will be sweating over

their seemingly inevitable Best-of-the-Aughts list. And guess what? Not a single album

from 2007 has a chance of making mine. All of the bands I consider indie icons -- and

I'm sure you can spank me for leaving out people you think are iconic -- released other

albums this decade that are superior to their 2007 releases. For the record, that

pantheon houses the National, Spoon, Modest Mouse, Arcade Fire, Bright Eyes and

Interpol, with other personal faves such as the Shins and Stars living in the backhouse.

Those heavyweights each added to their estimable catalogs, yes; it's just that I'm not

going to pull "We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank" off the shelf first

when I want to hear some Modest Mouse a few years from now.

At least, I don't

think.

The lists follow. Thanks to everybody who sends me music -- really --

and a special shout-out to the bands on the L.A. scene who've made my life so much

richer over the past 5-plus years.

My Favorite 10 Albums of 2007

1. Blonde

Redhead, "23"

2. The National, "Boxer"

3. LCD

Soundsystem, "Sound of Silver"

4. Against Me!, "New

Wave"

5. Spoon, "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga"

6. The Cribs,

"Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever"

7. Arcade Fire, "Neon

Bible"

8. Lupe Fiasco, "Cool"

9. The Shins,

"Wincing the Night Away"

10. Softlightes, "Say No to Being

Cool -- Say Yes to Being Happy" *

Comments: It's scares me how much

this list largely parallels other blogs/music mags. Yes, Fiasco's album just came out,

but on first, second and third blush it's a long-range keeper. And that's right, no

Radiohead. So sue me. 6.8.

* See final list

Buzz Bands' Top 10 L.A. Albums of 2007

1. Foreign Born, "On the Wing Now"

2. John Doe, "A Year in

the Wilderness"

3. Sea Wolf, "Leaves in the River"

4. CoCo B's, "CoCo B's"

5. Eleni Mandell, "Miracle of

Five"

6. Earlimart, "Mentor Tormentor"

7. Culver

City Dub Collective, "Dos"

8. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club,

"Baby 81"

9. Rilo Kiley, "Under the Blacklight"

10. Great Northern, "Trading Twilight for Daylight"

Comments:

Foreign Born is just plain good. CoCo B's self-released disc is a great surprise. Culver

City Dub Collective's genre-mashing is sublime. Eleni Mandell -- who needs Feist? And

Rilo Kiley's album just kept growing on me.

Ten L.A. Bands Whose Debuts Made Me Anxious for the

Sophomore Album

1. The Deadly Syndrome, "The

Ortolan"

2. The Broken West, "I Can't Go On, I'll Go On"

3. Robert Francis, "One by One"

4. The Parson Red Heads,

"King Giraffe"

5. Delta Spirit, "Delta Spirit"

6. Frankel, "Lullaby for the Passersby"

7. Year Long Disaster,

"Year Long Disaster"

8. Sara Bareilles, "Little Voice"

9. The Minor Canon, "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished"

10. No

Age, "Weirdo Rippers"

Ten L.A. Bands Whose 2007 EPs Made

Me Want More

Castledoor, the Airborne Toxic Event, the Weather

Underground, the Black Kites, Voxhaul Broadcast, Sam Sparro, Manic, Radars to the Sky,

Sara Lov, Aushua.

Three Albums From Bands Whom I Loved in the '90s and Still

Do

1. Buffalo Tom, "Three Easy Pieces"

2.

Dinosaur Jr., "Beyond"

3. Smashing Pumpkins,

"Zeitgeist"

Five Hip-Hop Albums I Would Recommend If

Anybody Believed I Recommended Hip-Hop Albums

1. Lupe Fiasco,

"Cool"

2. Kanye West, "Graduation"

3. Brother

Ali, "Undisputed Truth"

4. El-P, "I'll Sleep When You're

Dead"

5. Aesop Rock, "None Shall Pass"

Under the Radar: Six Overlooked Albums

1.

Softlightes, "Say No to Being Cool -- Say Yes to Being Happy": Cinematic

electro-pop that recalls Grandaddy at its finest.

2. The High Strung,

"Get the Guests": Catchy and clever, hold the irony, with peripatetic melody

lines that do not quit.

3. Minipop, "A New Hope": Gorgeous and

beautifully layered shoegaze-pop with rhythms that will drive you right into a dreamlike

state.

4. The Blakes, "The Blakes": Soulful garage rock that's good

for your summer sweat.

5. The Comas, "Spells": Distortion-heavy

power pop arrives in bursts, may leave marks.

6. Young Galaxy, "Young

Galaxy": Other Canadian exports (Kevin Drew, Sunset Rubdown, Feist, et. al.) earned

more buzz, but this album feel like a warm waking dream.

Comments:

Somehow I saw Softlightes play live 10 times in 2007. I left each show in a better mood

than when I arrived.

 

The next time someone tells you that booze doesn't make the world a better place, you just tell them to go listen to Corrine Bailey Rae and her remix of "Like A Star" at the wonderfully titled website www.generouspour.com. The seasonal website for Clos du Bois Wines has lovely traditonal holiday recipes for things like, um, "stoned crab cobbler with coconut" (what, are we pre-gaming for New Year's at Jimmy Buffett's beach hut?) and "Hot Italian Sausage Stuffing" (I'm pretty sure that's the gay porn version of "Roman Holiday"). Anyway, the website, which will be up through today, has a free download of "Like A Star" by Grammy nominee Rae and every time someone downloads it, Clos du Bois will donate $1 to Share Our Strength, a non-profit working against hunger and poverty in the U.S. It sounds like booze-company guilt to us, and wouldn't Amy Winehouse have been a better choice here for so many reasons? As for the music: The song is pretty much played out and the remix here is a fairly glossy affair but it is also free and unobjectionable as a dinner-party fare. So pass the potatoes...

--Geoff Boucher

The Beatle who earned his famous nickname by covering his fingers with rings is now making news with a bracelet. “Liverpool 8,” the new Capitol/EMI album from 67-year-old Ringo Starr, is being released Jan. 15 as a CD, a digital download and also as a “pre-loaded USB wristband” that includes all 12 tracks and a slew of extras, including “a personal video message, interview and track commentary from Ringo Starr, behind-the-scenes making-of footage from the recording sessions, ringtones, photos and more.” (Shouldn't those be "Ringo-tones"?) There’s more details at www.ringostarr.com but this already opens a whole new world of albums-as-accessories. How soon can we buy “Blackout” by Britney Spears in the ankle-monitor format? And how great would be to work toward the weekend by wearing Loverboy’s greatest hits in your headband?

--Geoff Boucher

Just in time to service your holiday malaise, two of my favorite DJ collectives are

conspiring to set sadness to music tonight at the downtown bar La Cita.

Give Up -- the seasonal club night initiated by the DJ collective Dublab and manned the past several years by Mark

"Frosty" McNeill and Jimmy Tamborello -- gets back into its wintry spirit as

DJs spin depressing songs on the bar's back patio. It's described as "a deeply

depressing disc sob session." Inside the bar, Part Time Punks' Michael Stock and others will

be hosting "A Sad, Slow Dance Party," promising "all slow dancing, all

night long."

There's no cover. Tears start to flow at 9 p.m.

Photo of DJ Frosty (from 2005) by Kevin Bronson/LAT

Happier choices for Tuesday, Dec. 18

Pop sextet Castledoor brings its

sublime tunes to Boardner's in the final monthly show of the year presented by Radio Free Silver Lake. The Flying Tourbillon Orchestra

and Frankel are also playing the

18-and-older show, which is free. ... Mighty Six Ninety and Io Echo rock the Troubadour. ... Oliver Future continues its Tuesday

residency at the Viper Room. ... The

Monolators head a good local bill at the Scene. ... And John Gold performs at Bordello.

The obituary this morning says Dan Fogelberg helped "define soft rock," but

that sounds kind of flaccid compared to what the singer-songwriter, who died Sunday at

age 56, meant to a bunch of kids in the working-class neighborhoods of Peoria, Ill., in

the early 1970s.

Fogelberg graduated from Woodruff High School the year before I got there, leaving

behind some stories of a rock band called the Coachmen (I actually owned the 45 at one

point -- oh, where did it go?) and the occasional rumor he'd gone off to California, a

place that seemed so distant from our Midwestern factory town as to be a mirage. Not

many of us had California dreams then; we'd do well to graduate high school and get on

at Caterpillar Tractor Co. (which accounted for something like 1 in 5 paychecks in our

city in those days). If we were really lucky, we'd go to college.

In the fall of my junior year, "Home Free" arrived, and we were mesmerized.

Fogelberg's debut album -- a beautifully orchestrated bouquet of ballads that veered

toward what we now would call alt-country -- took his alma mater by storm. It christened

the tape player in my first car; it was played endlessly at basement parties from Grand

View Drive to the lower East Bluff. I'm pretty sure there isn't a song in my collection

I've played over the years more than that second track, "Stars."

Fogelberg was our Jackson Browne, a romantic who shared our roots and who had the

courage to strike out in service of his poetry. As I trudged through the snow delivering

my Peoria Journal Stars every morning, that was a pretty important symbol.

I always blanched at, but ultimately forgave, the arch sentimentality that seemingly

oppressive production brought to Fogelberg's later albums. He had earned the right to

pursue whatever vision struck him. When my brother and I took in a Fogelberg show a few

years ago in Anaheim, it wasn't so much for musical nostalgia as it was a thank-you.

In one subtle but important way, Dan Fogelberg was the leader of our band.

Curiosity piqued by the announcement of the Gibson "Robot" Guitar, I headed down to my favorite guitar shop in L.A. on Saturday to check it out myself. I was a little disappointed, frankly.

With a name like "the Robot," I was expecting this six-stringer to jump out of the case unprovoked and run around the room, shouting, "Danger Will Robinson!" or "For those about to rock we salute you!" or "Sarah Connor?" or something. Instead, the Robot just lay in his case, looking like a standard (or, for those of you in the know, a "studio") Les Paul. The only obvious differences were larger tuning pegs and a funky-looking control where one of the standard four volume/tone knobs is usually located. This, I was told, was the "MCK" or "Master Control Knob."

"Now there's the kind of Orwellian 'oh no, the machines have achieved artificial intelligence and have enslaved all carbon-based lifeforms on the planet'-kind of language I was hoping for," I thought.

But alas, the master control knob just controls the Robot's auto-tuning mechanism. It's pretty neat, I'll admit. You pull out the knob, spin the top dial to one of several tuning-configuration presets (standard, "drop d," open-tuning, etc.), tap the top, strum the strings, wait for the tuning pegs to auto-jiggy into position, and voila--push the knob back in and your Les Paul has an alternate tuning.

For the overwhelming majority of guitar players who play in standard tuning, what are the advantages? Well, for about $1000 more than what you'd spend on a regular Les Paul, you can keep your axe in really, really, really good tune.

So who is the real market for Gibson's Robot Guitar? Wealthy guitar players who need to constantly and radically alter their tuning. If that's not you, buy a chromatic tuner and save the Robot Guitar for Joni Mitchell.

--Liam Gowing

Welcome to Soundboard, the new music blog from the L.A. Times written by a band of opinionated, sometimes cranky, sometimes ecstatic music lovers. Soundboard will blog breaking news, concert previews, album and single reviews, and lots of random observations about this vast, exciting, wacko place known as the music world. By the way, we're nomads, committed to no single genre, era or chart, so expect Soundboard to be all over the place, like a Sonic Youth song covered by Beyonce playing at a Mexican restaurant in Torrance. That song doesn't exist (yet) but you get the point.

I don't know why, but I'm thinking about record clubs. I remember a time when my older brother belonged to one and he'd show me his cool new tapes. (Yeah, tapes. Don't laugh.) "I got this for a penny!" he's say, shaking Duran Duran's "Rio" in my face. I was amazed. A penny? How can they do that??

So I started searching around to see if any are left.

Turns out that BMG Columbia House still has one but from their home page, you can tell they're making their money from DVDs. "Music Service" is off to the side. When you click on it, it takes you to one of the saddest little web pages in the world, seemingly designed by Your Local Mall's Party Store circa 1988.

I'm going to find out a little more about this whole thing, but in the meantime, does anyone still belong to a record club out there?

[Crickets.]

--Margaret Wappler

I'm not part of the pack salivating over "Raising Sand," the new Alison Krauss/Robert Plant collab -- its backwoods flavor is slightly overcooked, in my book -- but I love the CD's cover art. The frontispiece shows the two stars relaxing in some desert setting, smiling off into the distance, perhaps at T-Bone Burnett bringing them another sheaf of folk-pop obscurities to peruse.

The back's the clincher, though. Plant's back is turned, and Krauss, leaning toward him, throws a grin over her shoulder as they walk away. She looks like a contented cat making off with her canary. The Lion King may be nearly sixty and more interested in crooning than howling out all of his love, but Krauss certainly knows that by clutching that arm, she's fulfilling a fantasy that sustained generations of teen-age girls, dreaming in their bedrooms to Led Zeppelin's massive kathunking mojo blues. Though I'm sure their collaboration was strictly artistic, here's to her for having fun with her chance to quietly fly her metal horns and say, "Ladies, eat your hearts out!"

--Ann Powers

I am not necessarily a fan of the

Mormons, but as a baseball guy I just about did a spit take when I saw the

tongue-in-cheek poster for the Los Angeles band's current stand at Mr. T's Bowl. [Sorry

for the sloppy clean-up job; it's a family blog, you know.]

[Our local music spotlight, for the moment, remains pointed at power pop, because

it just seems to go so well with summertime:]


Ari Shine landed with a crunch -- and

that's the crunch of a big power chord -- when he released his debut EP

"Age/Occupation" in 2006. Quickly he became a songwriter-to-watch in the L.A.

power-pop underground, if not somebody who carries enough melodies to wriggle a bunch of

his songs onto TV shows, and his energetic stage show hinted that he might become an

artist who could transcend the frequently fey trappings of the form.

His

full-length debut, "A Force of One" (released in July on Bongo Beat), suggests

that Shine is not content to merely ride the coattails  of his forebears. There's

some boy-meets/loses-girl material here, much of it cleverly couched ("Flirtation

Device"), but he sinks his hooks into broader storytelling too (see the song

below). The album was produced by former Sparks guitarist Earle Mankey, who has worked with

L.A. notables such as Concrete Blonde and the Three O'Clock. The result is a collection

that's a little bit Elvis Costello, a little bit Matthew Sweet and maybe a bit Brendan

Benson.

||| Shine performs tonight at the Knitting Factory as part of International Pop Overthrow. He also

is playing a couple West Cost dates supporting Peter

Case prior to a Sept. 18 date at Safari Sam's as a supporting act for Miles Hunt of the Wonder Stuff.

||| Download: "Beirut 1978."

Photo by Sam Peacock

"Korn's new album doesn't have a title."

"So how do you order it?"

"You don't. It's Korn."

I missed it and, from reports, am regretting it. Bat for Lashes, the nom de tune of

Brighton, England's Natasha Khan, wowed the room last night at Spaceland. The common

sentiment I heard from a couple people: No wonder she is nominated for the Mercury

Music Prize.

You'll be hearing more about her.

For now, here is the enchanting video for "What's a Girl to Do."

Touts for Wednesday, Aug. 1

The Format starts a two-show stand (the

Avalon tonight, House of Blues tomorrow); the band for two weeks offered its latest

album, "Dog Problems," as a free download from its website and reported that

45,000 copies of the (very

good) album were ripped. ... Great

Glass Elevator (whose inventiveness kind of reminds me of the Format in a way) play

Club NME at Spaceland tonight. ... The Automatic Music

Explosion plays the Scene in Glendale. ... And the Stevenson Ranch Davidians

start a run of Wednesday shows at the Echo.

Consider this a warm-up for "The Simpsons

Movie" (opening in two weeks).

The musician's name is Zack Kim, a 24-year-old

university student who was born in Seoul, South Korea, reared in Malaysia and is now

studying in Australia. There are more examples of his technique on his website, and the

young man has his own Wikipedia

page.

He tells me via e-mail that he after he completes his studies in two years he hopes

to devote all his energies to music, and eventually he "would really love to

perform in the States, as it would be a dream come true for me."

Have to

think he'd be quite a hit at the premiere party.

Summer is here, in case you were too busy on MySpace to get the memo. The concert

calendar always seems to remind me before the real calendar, what with the Hollywood

Bowl kicking into gear and the onslaught of distinguished veteran rock bands starting to

make the stadium rounds.

(Email from a friend who went to Dodger Stadium this weekend: "They were pretty

awesome for a Police cover band.")

The smaller events have their cachet too -- the Sunday afternoon Do-Over at Crane's, the Little Radio Summer Camp. And then there was last

Thursday's Late Night at LACMA, the annual summer

solstice soiree, which attracted 7,853 museum visitors and probably disappointed

hundreds of others who waited for hours in long lines only to give up. (To be fair, what

part of "early arrival recommended" did you not understand?)

Late Night was a melange of music, hipster ephemera (T-shirt screen printing by Hit +

Run now seems mandatory if you are throwing any kind of cross-cultural event) and art.

Suffice to say there were plenty of photo ops in the Dan Flavin retrospective, a refuge

for attendees who could only handle small doses of offerings from DJs Steve Aoki,

Internationalist and handful of others. I missed the set by the always-solid Rebirth but caught one of L.A.'s favorite party

bands, Ima Robot, who got folks dancing despite

the band's relative lack of amplification.

◊ ◊ ◊

Where did June go?

The Monday night residencies end tonight at Spaceland, the Echo and Silverlake

Lounge. The L.A. quartet the Deadly

Syndrome (Spaceland) seems to have grown into polished band overnight (and wait till

you hear the album), and Thailand

(Silverlake Lounge), despite playing as a three-piece with electronic rhythms, serve up

a compelling new-wave/post-punk cocktail. And I have not made it to the Echo to see

Philadelphia ex-pats Burning Brides

(maybe tonight?), but people I trust give me good reports.

◊ ◊ ◊

At Safari Sam's on Friday night, the Silver Lake/Echo Park masses gathered to bid

farewell to Sea Level Records and its

proprietor, Todd Clifford. The independent outlet has been a locus of the Eastside music

scene for more than 5 years, and Clifford is closing more for I-need-a-life-change

reasons than business.

Today is the last day Sea Level is scheduled to be open.

Photos: LACMA attendees get up close with Dan Flavin's work; Ima Robot rocks in the

courtyard. By Kevin Bronson / LAT.

The Little Ones are still one

of this city's strongest musical happy pills, but, as a set Friday night showed, it's

hard to maintain that peak level of exuberance when you're doing it night after night,

tour after tour.

The L.A.

quintet -- "Rhymin' Simon on steroids" is how I described them last year, and

it still applies -- played an ASCAP- and Filter-sponsored music night on Friday tied to

the Silverlake Film Festival. The stuff from their "Sing Song" EP still

sounded crisp, and their new songs were upbeat and catchy too. But after having spent

the early part of this year doing some rigorous touring, the Little Ones weren't quite

as unhinged as they were when their EP was first released and Astralwerks (in the U.S.)

and Heavenly (in the U.K.) swooped in to sign the band.

Are the Little Ones still as happy as their music? "That's a good

question," frontman Edward Reyes says. "We're excited. ... Remember, we just

looked at that EP as our calling card -- we just wanted to get some shows with

it."

Their as-yet-untitled debut album is recorded and due in January, Reyes says.

"It's turning out great," he adds. "Right now we have a whole track

devoted to laughing."

||| Download Little Ones' songs from their Daytrotter session here.

◊ ◊ ◊

Passion of the Weiss has a

play-by-play of Britney Spears' Houses of Blues appearance (I will not call it a

performance). He even has some empathy.

◊ ◊ ◊

Ran into an employee of a recently merged record company who was enthused about

having adopted a puppy. Cute thing ... so what did you name him? "Andy

Slater."

◊ ◊ ◊

"So how

was Coachella?" That was the most-asked

question last week. I told inquiring minds that it was a three-day weekend of

once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and even as they were unfolding I knew I was missing

others. Wish the festival could have just hesitated a few times each day and let me

catch up.

The inconsiderate hipsters at Anthem, who throw their Coachella party during the day

while the music is going on, tell me I missed something else too -- a mask-less Thomas

Bangalter from Daft Punk [face obscured] spinning the LCD Soundsystem track "Daft

Punk Is Playing at My House." Not that anybody recognized him. But a cool party

nonetheless.

Daft Punk turned up on the turntables a couple nights later at the Echo too. Not that

anybody recognized them.

Touts for tonight

Gliss (Spaceland), the High Society (Silverlake Lounge), Bodies of Water (Echo) and Richard Bivens & Foreign Press

(Detroit Bar) start their Monday night residencies. ... Midnight Movies plays an in-store at

Amoeba. ... And London's Apartment joins

locals the Grand Marquee and others

at Indie 103.1's Viper Room show.

The music is pretty hard on the ears, kind of a flailing

attempt at dance-party relevance. But the album cover (that's the original at right) is

even harder on the eyes -- so Perry Farrell's Satellite Party revised it. Stereogum has a

compare-and-contrast. I'm not sure, but this would not have passed muster in the

Photoshop classes I slogged through years ago. This does, however, guarantee that the

album will chart. Here.

[Guest blogger August Brown is hot both because he is fly, and because he should

have worn more sunscreen.]

If Coachella success was measured in words per minute, Busdriver would have been the day's

undisputed champ. But fortunately for the old-guard L.A.-based MC, he dropped jaws and

machine-gun metaphors alike during his astonishingly dextrous set.

Busdriver was equally compelling needling the crowd with accusations of yuppiedom as

he did slaying them with fiery indignance at the ways the music industry exploits

rappers. Over a loose-limbed flurry of house and jungle-inspired beats, he extolled

cheeba and wryly freestyled that "in the Gobi tent is how an O.G. represents."

Original gangstas are few and far between at Coachella, but unless Ghostface pulls off

a miracle tomorrow, Busdriver may hit the 10 freeway home as the weekend's reigning

rhyme-slinger.

This was featured in our Downloads column last weekend (a good reason to drop

some coin on the Saturday print edition or check the pop music page on your local

newspaper's website). I've been a sucker for Travis' brand of Britpop since the first Clinton

Administration. Here's the video for "Closer," and, yeah, Ben Stiller makes a

good grocer.

Ozomatli looked to the visual for inspiration

when writing its new album, “Don’t Mess With the Dragon” (due April 3 on Concord

Records) — much of the initial songwriting came out of jam sessions at the Tropico de

Nopal art gallery. Now the veteran L.A. nine-piece might have found a vision to suit its

sound.

The new video for the single “Can’t Stop” is a dizzying collage of

stop-animation and storytelling that seems equal to Ozomatli’s mashing of Latin flavors,

rock, hip-hop and funk — a hybrid many have said is distinctly Los Angeles.

“We haven’t had a lot of luck with videos in the past,” acknowledges Ulises Bella, who

plays saxophone and clarinet for the band.

Ozomatli turned to New York-based

artist-illustrator Richard Borge for “Can’t Stop,” even though the 41-year-old, who had

done album art for bands such as Meat Beat Manifesto, had never done a music video.

Don Was channels his music straight toward your browser

I think I found the cure for the common TV. Of course, it's right here on your very

own Internet.

It's My Damn

Channel, a portal that is home to offerings from musician extraordinaire Don Was, along with the likes of Harry

Shearer, David Wain and others.


Was, a bassist, music supervisor, documentary director, Grammy-winning producer and a

driving force behind the cutting-edge funk outfit Was

(Not Was), has seldom been more sublimely
entertaining than as the cool-cat host of the "Wasmopolitan Dance
Party" -- a webisode filmed in the showroom of the Furniture Outlet, a
budget joint in North Hollywood. [Pardon the ads, but the installment above is well

worth their intrusion.]

There is singer-songwriter Jill Sobule, gamely playing her beautiful songs

from behind a dining-room set as shoppers mill about looking a recliners.

"I can't compete with the set-up on Letterman" Was says with a laugh.

"But doing something like this, we asked, 'What could we offer that's different?'

The answer is, the stripped-down and personal stuff."

In the ranks of overwrought music writing that have appeared in the Village Voice, Garrett Kamps is a god among fanboys. His recent review of Cat Power's flawed but arresting "Jukebox" covers record is especially troubling. It's not so much the rank misogyny or his John Yoo-level torturing of the em dash that really derails this review, but the fact that he doesn't seem to know what, exactly, a "cougar" is. Given our close approximation to Orange County, we know all too well. Cougars are sexually aggressive women on the far side of 40 peddling consequence-free hookups to inexperienced young men who will relay the tales in hushed, reverent tones over Halo 3 tournaments with their friends. Does that sound like an apt description of Cat Power (a.k.a. Chan Marshall), who once wrote a song about Patti Smith's children and her own abortion? Or the one who wrote one of 2006's most generous, uplifting Southern soul albums, "The Greatest?"

If Kamps is truly hunting for cougars, we can suggest a few better places for him to start trolling.

-- August Brown

[Cougar photo by Christine Cotter / Los Angeles Times. Chan Marshall photo by Stefano Giovannini / Beggars Group LTD via Bloomberg News]

An earlier version of this blog incorrectly referred to John Yoo as John Wu. And that was all Margaret's fault and not August's, so she will be buying him a latte something-or-another later today. Maybe.

It was an interesting week in musical contrasts.

On the invitation of Fuel TV's Daryl Berg, I stopped by Swing House in Hollywood on Monday to see the Bravery. The New York five-piece was at the recording studio-cum-rehearsal space to shoot a live segment for Fuel TV's "Check 1, 2." (If you're wondering what the connection is between the band and the action sports network, apparently two of the dudes like to surf.)

While I was there, the quintet ran through three of their songs three times each for Swing House's microphones and Fuel TV's cameras, and I would be lying if I didn't report that the performances were faultless--just like the recordings complete with spot-on vocals. Listening to the songs ("An Honest Mistake," "Believe" and "Time Won't Let Me Go"), I couldn't help but remark to Berg how incredulous I was that these guys aren't already superstars.

Seriously, the Bravery has a winning formula. It's not theirs, of course, it's Duran Duran's: five really good-looking guys with flawless haircuts and sharp outfits to match, playing insanely catchy New Wave-y tunes--hi-hat-heavy drums, octave-friendly bass, breathy keyboards, distorted rhythm guitars and crystalline leads, plus sour-sweet, whiny vocals--that sound both supremely commercial yet genuinely edgy.

The band's only modest success so far might have something to do with the fact that none of the band members--with the possible exception of the overly excited drummer--exhibited the slightest trace of personality at the shoot. I mean, it was dead silent between takes: No evidence of any camaraderie between the members; no jokes or horseplay; no comments, positive or negative, on the performances; no interaction with the crew, record company people or gawkers--just silence. They might have been wax works, but for the movement.

From the Bravery--an up-and-coming band with great chops (but no discernible personality) making a musical appearance--I go to Peter Tork, a rock 'n' roll dinosaur with questionable vocal tendencies (but tons of charisma) making a non-musical appearance.

The former Monkee was hosting a special edition of the Beauty Bar's "oldies 'n' goodies" Wednesday night event, Goodie Tu Shoes. By hosting, I mean he was autographing copies of "Cambria Hotel," a new offering from his rootsy, bluesy new rock 'n' roll band, Shoe Suede Blues.

Tork acted just the way any fan of the Monkees' ridiculous TV show (or thoroughly excellent film, "Head") would have expected: He was friendly, animated and totally goofy. I can't vouch for Shoe Suede Blues being anything more than a respectable honky tonk-style bar band, but after being an extraordinarily well-known (if not necessarily respected) superstar, he deserves a lot of credit for starting over with a new band and doing the little extracurriculars newcomers must to get the word out.

I guess the answer to the question Tork posed here is "yes." -Liam Gowing

[Photo 1: The Bravery at Swing House. Credit: Patrick Weir and Fuel TV. Photo 2: Peter Tork, right, and pal at Beauty Bar-L.A. Credit: Mary Jo Head.]

The Bird and the Bee will be

flying into the desert. Nice.

And one of those assembly-line electro acts that has me convinced technology has made

it far too easy to put out an album, the U.K.'s Does It Offend You Yeah?, will be

playing too.

Yeah, it does.

First, there was "Lip Gloss," Lil Mama's earth-crushing and drums-only ode to windburn protection that sounded more menacing and ruthless than anything on "Curtis." Now, M.I.A.-protege Rye Rye has a smoking, minimalist Baltimore club tune in "Shake It to the Ground" on Diplo's Mad Decent label. Aside from an occasional farted-out bass, the production work from DJ Blaqstarr is again strictly minimalist percussion and gum-smacking chants until practically the end of the song. Have the kids decided they don't need even a perfunctory Korg Triton stab to make a floor-filler? Either way, we dig the Misfits poster in Rye Rye's bedroom in this made-for-pennies video and like to imagine that Glenn Danzig might return the favor someday with a guest verse.

--August Brown

Happy New Year.

And good riddance, 2007.

The year brought an avalanche of music, and the recent holiday week of rumination and

CD-sorting etched in my mind the idea that a whole lot of it was ... well ... pretty

good. Yeah, pretty good, uttered with my head slightly tilted, as if I never

thought once of saying "great" or "really good." If I ever had the

radical notion to rate albums on a 10 scale,

I would swear that half the records I received this year logged somewhere between 6.5

and 6.7 -- a percentage that's skewed because all six copies of the Magic Numbers album that somehow found

their way to my desk would get a 6.2.

Maybe this was the year that trying to

keep up with new music, nationally and locally, finally overwhelmed me, what with every

baby band in the universe engaging in viral marketing, hiring publicists, working with

managers, leaving me polite entreaties on MySpace and generally undermining any belief

that a band can merely grow organically. I attended about 185 shows in 2007 too, many to

follow up on those advertising blitzes.

But after compiling my humble lists

below, I fast-forwarded to December 2009, when all good geeks will be sweating over

their seemingly inevitable Best-of-the-Aughts list. And guess what? Not a single album

from 2007 has a chance of making mine. All of the bands I consider indie icons -- and

I'm sure you can spank me for leaving out people you think are iconic -- released other

albums this decade that are superior to their 2007 releases. For the record, that

pantheon houses the National, Spoon, Modest Mouse, Arcade Fire, Bright Eyes and

Interpol, with other personal faves such as the Shins and Stars living in the backhouse.

Those heavyweights each added to their estimable catalogs, yes; it's just that I'm not

going to pull "We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank" off the shelf first

when I want to hear some Modest Mouse a few years from now.

At least, I don't

think.

The lists follow. Thanks to everybody who sends me music -- really --

and a special shout-out to the bands on the L.A. scene who've made my life so much

richer over the past 5-plus years.

My Favorite 10 Albums of 2007

1. Blonde

Redhead, "23"

2. The National, "Boxer"

3. LCD

Soundsystem, "Sound of Silver"

4. Against Me!, "New

Wave"

5. Spoon, "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga"

6. The Cribs,

"Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever"

7. Arcade Fire, "Neon

Bible"

8. Lupe Fiasco, "Cool"

9. The Shins,

"Wincing the Night Away"

10. Softlightes, "Say No to Being

Cool -- Say Yes to Being Happy" *

Comments: It's scares me how much

this list largely parallels other blogs/music mags. Yes, Fiasco's album just came out,

but on first, second and third blush it's a long-range keeper. And that's right, no

Radiohead. So sue me. 6.8.

* See final list

Buzz Bands' Top 10 L.A. Albums of 2007

1. Foreign Born, "On the Wing Now"

2. John Doe, "A Year in

the Wilderness"

3. Sea Wolf, "Leaves in the River"

4. CoCo B's, "CoCo B's"

5. Eleni Mandell, "Miracle of

Five"

6. Earlimart, "Mentor Tormentor"

7. Culver

City Dub Collective, "Dos"

8. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club,

"Baby 81"

9. Rilo Kiley, "Under the Blacklight"

10. Great Northern, "Trading Twilight for Daylight"

Comments:

Foreign Born is just plain good. CoCo B's self-released disc is a great surprise. Culver

City Dub Collective's genre-mashing is sublime. Eleni Mandell -- who needs Feist? And

Rilo Kiley's album just kept growing on me.

Ten L.A. Bands Whose Debuts Made Me Anxious for the

Sophomore Album

1. The Deadly Syndrome, "The

Ortolan"

2. The Broken West, "I Can't Go On, I'll Go On"

3. Robert Francis, "One by One"

4. The Parson Red Heads,

"King Giraffe"

5. Delta Spirit, "Delta Spirit"

6. Frankel, "Lullaby for the Passersby"

7. Year Long Disaster,

"Year Long Disaster"

8. Sara Bareilles, "Little Voice"

9. The Minor Canon, "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished"

10. No

Age, "Weirdo Rippers"

Ten L.A. Bands Whose 2007 EPs Made

Me Want More

Castledoor, the Airborne Toxic Event, the Weather

Underground, the Black Kites, Voxhaul Broadcast, Sam Sparro, Manic, Radars to the Sky,

Sara Lov, Aushua.

Three Albums From Bands Whom I Loved in the '90s and Still

Do

1. Buffalo Tom, "Three Easy Pieces"

2.

Dinosaur Jr., "Beyond"

3. Smashing Pumpkins,

"Zeitgeist"

Five Hip-Hop Albums I Would Recommend If

Anybody Believed I Recommended Hip-Hop Albums

1. Lupe Fiasco,

"Cool"

2. Kanye West, "Graduation"

3. Brother

Ali, "Undisputed Truth"

4. El-P, "I'll Sleep When You're

Dead"

5. Aesop Rock, "None Shall Pass"

Under the Radar: Six Overlooked Albums

1.

Softlightes, "Say No to Being Cool -- Say Yes to Being Happy": Cinematic

electro-pop that recalls Grandaddy at its finest.

2. The High Strung,

"Get the Guests": Catchy and clever, hold the irony, with peripatetic melody

lines that do not quit.

3. Minipop, "A New Hope": Gorgeous and

beautifully layered shoegaze-pop with rhythms that will drive you right into a dreamlike

state.

4. The Blakes, "The Blakes": Soulful garage rock that's good

for your summer sweat.

5. The Comas, "Spells": Distortion-heavy

power pop arrives in bursts, may leave marks.

6. Young Galaxy, "Young

Galaxy": Other Canadian exports (Kevin Drew, Sunset Rubdown, Feist, et. al.) earned

more buzz, but this album feel like a warm waking dream.

Comments:

Somehow I saw Softlightes play live 10 times in 2007. I left each show in a better mood

than when I arrived.

 

The next time someone tells you that booze doesn't make the world a better place, you just tell them to go listen to Corrine Bailey Rae and her remix of "Like A Star" at the wonderfully titled website www.generouspour.com. The seasonal website for Clos du Bois Wines has lovely traditonal holiday recipes for things like, um, "stoned crab cobbler with coconut" (what, are we pre-gaming for New Year's at Jimmy Buffett's beach hut?) and "Hot Italian Sausage Stuffing" (I'm pretty sure that's the gay porn version of "Roman Holiday"). Anyway, the website, which will be up through today, has a free download of "Like A Star" by Grammy nominee Rae and every time someone downloads it, Clos du Bois will donate $1 to Share Our Strength, a non-profit working against hunger and poverty in the U.S. It sounds like booze-company guilt to us, and wouldn't Amy Winehouse have been a better choice here for so many reasons? As for the music: The song is pretty much played out and the remix here is a fairly glossy affair but it is also free and unobjectionable as a dinner-party fare. So pass the potatoes...

--Geoff Boucher

The Beatle who earned his famous nickname by covering his fingers with rings is now making news with a bracelet. “Liverpool 8,” the new Capitol/EMI album from 67-year-old Ringo Starr, is being released Jan. 15 as a CD, a digital download and also as a “pre-loaded USB wristband” that includes all 12 tracks and a slew of extras, including “a personal video message, interview and track commentary from Ringo Starr, behind-the-scenes making-of footage from the recording sessions, ringtones, photos and more.” (Shouldn't those be "Ringo-tones"?) There’s more details at www.ringostarr.com but this already opens a whole new world of albums-as-accessories. How soon can we buy “Blackout” by Britney Spears in the ankle-monitor format? And how great would be to work toward the weekend by wearing Loverboy’s greatest hits in your headband?

--Geoff Boucher

Just in time to service your holiday malaise, two of my favorite DJ collectives are

conspiring to set sadness to music tonight at the downtown bar La Cita.

Give Up -- the seasonal club night initiated by the DJ collective Dublab and manned the past several years by Mark

"Frosty" McNeill and Jimmy Tamborello -- gets back into its wintry spirit as

DJs spin depressing songs on the bar's back patio. It's described as "a deeply

depressing disc sob session." Inside the bar, Part Time Punks' Michael Stock and others will

be hosting "A Sad, Slow Dance Party," promising "all slow dancing, all

night long."

There's no cover. Tears start to flow at 9 p.m.

Photo of DJ Frosty (from 2005) by Kevin Bronson/LAT

Happier choices for Tuesday, Dec. 18

Pop sextet Castledoor brings its

sublime tunes to Boardner's in the final monthly show of the year presented by Radio Free Silver Lake. The Flying Tourbillon Orchestra

and Frankel are also playing the

18-and-older show, which is free. ... Mighty Six Ninety and Io Echo rock the Troubadour. ... Oliver Future continues its Tuesday

residency at the Viper Room. ... The

Monolators head a good local bill at the Scene. ... And John Gold performs at Bordello.

The obituary this morning says Dan Fogelberg helped "define soft rock," but

that sounds kind of flaccid compared to what the singer-songwriter, who died Sunday at

age 56, meant to a bunch of kids in the working-class neighborhoods of Peoria, Ill., in

the early 1970s.

Fogelberg graduated from Woodruff High School the year before I got there, leaving

behind some stories of a rock band called the Coachmen (I actually owned the 45 at one

point -- oh, where did it go?) and the occasional rumor he'd gone off to California, a

place that seemed so distant from our Midwestern factory town as to be a mirage. Not

many of us had California dreams then; we'd do well to graduate high school and get on

at Caterpillar Tractor Co. (which accounted for something like 1 in 5 paychecks in our

city in those days). If we were really lucky, we'd go to college.

In the fall of my junior year, "Home Free" arrived, and we were mesmerized.

Fogelberg's debut album -- a beautifully orchestrated bouquet of ballads that veered

toward what we now would call alt-country -- took his alma mater by storm. It christened

the tape player in my first car; it was played endlessly at basement parties from Grand

View Drive to the lower East Bluff. I'm pretty sure there isn't a song in my collection

I've played over the years more than that second track, "Stars."

Fogelberg was our Jackson Browne, a romantic who shared our roots and who had the

courage to strike out in service of his poetry. As I trudged through the snow delivering

my Peoria Journal Stars every morning, that was a pretty important symbol.

I always blanched at, but ultimately forgave, the arch sentimentality that seemingly

oppressive production brought to Fogelberg's later albums. He had earned the right to

pursue whatever vision struck him. When my brother and I took in a Fogelberg show a few

years ago in Anaheim, it wasn't so much for musical nostalgia as it was a thank-you.

In one subtle but important way, Dan Fogelberg was the leader of our band.

Curiosity piqued by the announcement of the Gibson "Robot" Guitar, I headed down to my favorite guitar shop in L.A. on Saturday to check it out myself. I was a little disappointed, frankly.

With a name like "the Robot," I was expecting this six-stringer to jump out of the case unprovoked and run around the room, shouting, "Danger Will Robinson!" or "For those about to rock we salute you!" or "Sarah Connor?" or something. Instead, the Robot just lay in his case, looking like a standard (or, for those of you in the know, a "studio") Les Paul. The only obvious differences were larger tuning pegs and a funky-looking control where one of the standard four volume/tone knobs is usually located. This, I was told, was the "MCK" or "Master Control Knob."

"Now there's the kind of Orwellian 'oh no, the machines have achieved artificial intelligence and have enslaved all carbon-based lifeforms on the planet'-kind of language I was hoping for," I thought.

But alas, the master control knob just controls the Robot's auto-tuning mechanism. It's pretty neat, I'll admit. You pull out the knob, spin the top dial to one of several tuning-configuration presets (standard, "drop d," open-tuning, etc.), tap the top, strum the strings, wait for the tuning pegs to auto-jiggy into position, and voila--push the knob back in and your Les Paul has an alternate tuning.

For the overwhelming majority of guitar players who play in standard tuning, what are the advantages? Well, for about $1000 more than what you'd spend on a regular Les Paul, you can keep your axe in really, really, really good tune.

So who is the real market for Gibson's Robot Guitar? Wealthy guitar players who need to constantly and radically alter their tuning. If that's not you, buy a chromatic tuner and save the Robot Guitar for Joni Mitchell.

--Liam Gowing

Welcome to Soundboard, the new music blog from the L.A. Times written by a band of opinionated, sometimes cranky, sometimes ecstatic music lovers. Soundboard will blog breaking news, concert previews, album and single reviews, and lots of random observations about this vast, exciting, wacko place known as the music world. By the way, we're nomads, committed to no single genre, era or chart, so expect Soundboard to be all over the place, like a Sonic Youth song covered by Beyonce playing at a Mexican restaurant in Torrance. That song doesn't exist (yet) but you get the point.

I don't know why, but I'm thinking about record clubs. I remember a time when my older brother belonged to one and he'd show me his cool new tapes. (Yeah, tapes. Don't laugh.) "I got this for a penny!" he's say, shaking Duran Duran's "Rio" in my face. I was amazed. A penny? How can they do that??

So I started searching around to see if any are left.

Turns out that BMG Columbia House still has one but from their home page, you can tell they're making their money from DVDs. "Music Service" is off to the side. When you click on it, it takes you to one of the saddest little web pages in the world, seemingly designed by Your Local Mall's Party Store circa 1988.

I'm going to find out a little more about this whole thing, but in the meantime, does anyone still belong to a record club out there?

[Crickets.]

--Margaret Wappler

I'm not part of the pack salivating over "Raising Sand," the new Alison Krauss/Robert Plant collab -- its backwoods flavor is slightly overcooked, in my book -- but I love the CD's cover art. The frontispiece shows the two stars relaxing in some desert setting, smiling off into the distance, perhaps at T-Bone Burnett bringing them another sheaf of folk-pop obscurities to peruse.

The back's the clincher, though. Plant's back is turned, and Krauss, leaning toward him, throws a grin over her shoulder as they walk away. She looks like a contented cat making off with her canary. The Lion King may be nearly sixty and more interested in crooning than howling out all of his love, but Krauss certainly knows that by clutching that arm, she's fulfilling a fantasy that sustained generations of teen-age girls, dreaming in their bedrooms to Led Zeppelin's massive kathunking mojo blues. Though I'm sure their collaboration was strictly artistic, here's to her for having fun with her chance to quietly fly her metal horns and say, "Ladies, eat your hearts out!"

--Ann Powers

I am not necessarily a fan of the

Mormons, but as a baseball guy I just about did a spit take when I saw the

tongue-in-cheek poster for the Los Angeles band's current stand at Mr. T's Bowl. [Sorry

for the sloppy clean-up job; it's a family blog, you know.]

[Our local music spotlight, for the moment, remains pointed at power pop, because

it just seems to go so well with summertime:]


Ari Shine landed with a crunch -- and

that's the crunch of a big power chord -- when he released his debut EP

"Age/Occupation" in 2006. Quickly he became a songwriter-to-watch in the L.A.

power-pop underground, if not somebody who carries enough melodies to wriggle a bunch of

his songs onto TV shows, and his energetic stage show hinted that he might become an

artist who could transcend the frequently fey trappings of the form.

His

full-length debut, "A Force of One" (released in July on Bongo Beat), suggests

that Shine is not content to merely ride the coattails  of his forebears. There's

some boy-meets/loses-girl material here, much of it cleverly couched ("Flirtation

Device"), but he sinks his hooks into broader storytelling too (see the song

below). The album was produced by former Sparks guitarist Earle Mankey, who has worked with

L.A. notables such as Concrete Blonde and the Three O'Clock. The result is a collection

that's a little bit Elvis Costello, a little bit Matthew Sweet and maybe a bit Brendan

Benson.

||| Shine performs tonight at the Knitting Factory as part of International Pop Overthrow. He also

is playing a couple West Cost dates supporting Peter

Case prior to a Sept. 18 date at Safari Sam's as a supporting act for Miles Hunt of the Wonder Stuff.

||| Download: "Beirut 1978."

Photo by Sam Peacock

"Korn's new album doesn't have a title."

"So how do you order it?"

"You don't. It's Korn."

I missed it and, from reports, am regretting it. Bat for Lashes, the nom de tune of

Brighton, England's Natasha Khan, wowed the room last night at Spaceland. The common

sentiment I heard from a couple people: No wonder she is nominated for the Mercury

Music Prize.

You'll be hearing more about her.

For now, here is the enchanting video for "What's a Girl to Do."

Touts for Wednesday, Aug. 1

The Format starts a two-show stand (the

Avalon tonight, House of Blues tomorrow); the band for two weeks offered its latest

album, "Dog Problems," as a free download from its website and reported that

45,000 copies of the (very

good) album were ripped. ... Great

Glass Elevator (whose inventiveness kind of reminds me of the Format in a way) play

Club NME at Spaceland tonight. ... The Automatic Music

Explosion plays the Scene in Glendale. ... And the Stevenson Ranch Davidians

start a run of Wednesday shows at the Echo.

Consider this a warm-up for "The Simpsons

Movie" (opening in two weeks).

The musician's name is Zack Kim, a 24-year-old

university student who was born in Seoul, South Korea, reared in Malaysia and is now

studying in Australia. There are more examples of his technique on his website, and the

young man has his own Wikipedia

page.

He tells me via e-mail that he after he completes his studies in two years he hopes

to devote all his energies to music, and eventually he "would really love to

perform in the States, as it would be a dream come true for me."

Have to

think he'd be quite a hit at the premiere party.

Summer is here, in case you were too busy on MySpace to get the memo. The concert

calendar always seems to remind me before the real calendar, what with the Hollywood

Bowl kicking into gear and the onslaught of distinguished veteran rock bands starting to

make the stadium rounds.

(Email from a friend who went to Dodger Stadium this weekend: "They were pretty

awesome for a Police cover band.")

The smaller events have their cachet too -- the Sunday afternoon Do-Over at Crane's, the Little Radio Summer Camp. And then there was last

Thursday's Late Night at LACMA, the annual summer

solstice soiree, which attracted 7,853 museum visitors and probably disappointed

hundreds of others who waited for hours in long lines only to give up. (To be fair, what

part of "early arrival recommended" did you not understand?)

Late Night was a melange of music, hipster ephemera (T-shirt screen printing by Hit +

Run now seems mandatory if you are throwing any kind of cross-cultural event) and art.

Suffice to say there were plenty of photo ops in the Dan Flavin retrospective, a refuge

for attendees who could only handle small doses of offerings from DJs Steve Aoki,

Internationalist and handful of others. I missed the set by the always-solid Rebirth but caught one of L.A.'s favorite party

bands, Ima Robot, who got folks dancing despite

the band's relative lack of amplification.

◊ ◊ ◊

Where did June go?

The Monday night residencies end tonight at Spaceland, the Echo and Silverlake

Lounge. The L.A. quartet the Deadly

Syndrome (Spaceland) seems to have grown into polished band overnight (and wait till

you hear the album), and Thailand

(Silverlake Lounge), despite playing as a three-piece with electronic rhythms, serve up

a compelling new-wave/post-punk cocktail. And I have not made it to the Echo to see

Philadelphia ex-pats Burning Brides

(maybe tonight?), but people I trust give me good reports.

◊ ◊ ◊

At Safari Sam's on Friday night, the Silver Lake/Echo Park masses gathered to bid

farewell to Sea Level Records and its

proprietor, Todd Clifford. The independent outlet has been a locus of the Eastside music

scene for more than 5 years, and Clifford is closing more for I-need-a-life-change

reasons than business.

Today is the last day Sea Level is scheduled to be open.

Photos: LACMA attendees get up close with Dan Flavin's work; Ima Robot rocks in the

courtyard. By Kevin Bronson / LAT.

The Little Ones are still one

of this city's strongest musical happy pills, but, as a set Friday night showed, it's

hard to maintain that peak level of exuberance when you're doing it night after night,

tour after tour.

The L.A.

quintet -- "Rhymin' Simon on steroids" is how I described them last year, and

it still applies -- played an ASCAP- and Filter-sponsored music night on Friday tied to

the Silverlake Film Festival. The stuff from their "Sing Song" EP still

sounded crisp, and their new songs were upbeat and catchy too. But after having spent

the early part of this year doing some rigorous touring, the Little Ones weren't quite

as unhinged as they were when their EP was first released and Astralwerks (in the U.S.)

and Heavenly (in the U.K.) swooped in to sign the band.

Are the Little Ones still as happy as their music? "That's a good

question," frontman Edward Reyes says. "We're excited. ... Remember, we just

looked at that EP as our calling card -- we just wanted to get some shows with

it."

Their as-yet-untitled debut album is recorded and due in January, Reyes says.

"It's turning out great," he adds. "Right now we have a whole track

devoted to laughing."

||| Download Little Ones' songs from their Daytrotter session here.

◊ ◊ ◊

Passion of the Weiss has a

play-by-play of Britney Spears' Houses of Blues appearance (I will not call it a

performance). He even has some empathy.

◊ ◊ ◊

Ran into an employee of a recently merged record company who was enthused about

having adopted a puppy. Cute thing ... so what did you name him? "Andy

Slater."

◊ ◊ ◊

"So how

was Coachella?" That was the most-asked

question last week. I told inquiring minds that it was a three-day weekend of

once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and even as they were unfolding I knew I was missing

others. Wish the festival could have just hesitated a few times each day and let me

catch up.

The inconsiderate hipsters at Anthem, who throw their Coachella party during the day

while the music is going on, tell me I missed something else too -- a mask-less Thomas

Bangalter from Daft Punk [face obscured] spinning the LCD Soundsystem track "Daft

Punk Is Playing at My House." Not that anybody recognized him. But a cool party

nonetheless.

Daft Punk turned up on the turntables a couple nights later at the Echo too. Not that

anybody recognized them.

Touts for tonight

Gliss (Spaceland), the High Society (Silverlake Lounge), Bodies of Water (Echo) and Richard Bivens & Foreign Press

(Detroit Bar) start their Monday night residencies. ... Midnight Movies plays an in-store at

Amoeba. ... And London's Apartment joins

locals the Grand Marquee and others

at Indie 103.1's Viper Room show.

The music is pretty hard on the ears, kind of a flailing

attempt at dance-party relevance. But the album cover (that's the original at right) is

even harder on the eyes -- so Perry Farrell's Satellite Party revised it. Stereogum has a

compare-and-contrast. I'm not sure, but this would not have passed muster in the

Photoshop classes I slogged through years ago. This does, however, guarantee that the

album will chart. Here.

[Guest blogger August Brown is hot both because he is fly, and because he should

have worn more sunscreen.]

If Coachella success was measured in words per minute, Busdriver would have been the day's

undisputed champ. But fortunately for the old-guard L.A.-based MC, he dropped jaws and

machine-gun metaphors alike during his astonishingly dextrous set.

Busdriver was equally compelling needling the crowd with accusations of yuppiedom as

he did slaying them with fiery indignance at the ways the music industry exploits

rappers. Over a loose-limbed flurry of house and jungle-inspired beats, he extolled

cheeba and wryly freestyled that "in the Gobi tent is how an O.G. represents."

Original gangstas are few and far between at Coachella, but unless Ghostface pulls off

a miracle tomorrow, Busdriver may hit the 10 freeway home as the weekend's reigning

rhyme-slinger.

This was featured in our Downloads column last weekend (a good reason to drop

some coin on the Saturday print edition or check the pop music page on your local

newspaper's website). I've been a sucker for Travis' brand of Britpop since the first Clinton

Administration. Here's the video for "Closer," and, yeah, Ben Stiller makes a

good grocer.

Ozomatli looked to the visual for inspiration

when writing its new album, “Don’t Mess With the Dragon” (due April 3 on Concord

Records) — much of the initial songwriting came out of jam sessions at the Tropico de

Nopal art gallery. Now the veteran L.A. nine-piece might have found a vision to suit its

sound.

The new video for the single “Can’t Stop” is a dizzying collage of

stop-animation and storytelling that seems equal to Ozomatli’s mashing of Latin flavors,

rock, hip-hop and funk — a hybrid many have said is distinctly Los Angeles.

“We haven’t had a lot of luck with videos in the past,” acknowledges Ulises Bella, who

plays saxophone and clarinet for the band.

Ozomatli turned to New York-based

artist-illustrator Richard Borge for “Can’t Stop,” even though the 41-year-old, who had

done album art for bands such as Meat Beat Manifesto, had never done a music video.

Garrett Kamps = ‘cougar’ hunter?

In the ranks of overwrought music writing that have appeared in the Village Voice, Garrett Kamps is a god among fanboys. His recent review of Cat Power's flawed but arresting "Jukebox" covers record is especially troubling. It's not so much the rank misogyny or his John Yoo-level torturing of the em dash that really derails this review, but the fact that he doesn't seem to know what, exactly, a "cougar" is. Given our close approximation to Orange County, we know all too well. Cougars are sexually aggressive women on the far side of 40 peddling consequence-free hookups to inexperienced young men who will relay the tales in hushed, reverent tones over Halo 3 tournaments with their friends. Does that sound like an apt description of Cat Power (a.k.a. Chan Marshall), who once wrote a song about Patti Smith's children and her own abortion? Or the one who wrote one of 2006's most generous, uplifting Southern soul albums, "The Greatest?"

If Kamps is truly hunting for cougars, we can suggest a few better places for him to start trolling.

-- August Brown

[Cougar photo by Christine Cotter / Los Angeles Times. Chan Marshall photo by Stefano Giovannini / Beggars Group LTD via Bloomberg News]

An earlier version of this blog incorrectly referred to John Yoo as John Wu. And that was all Margaret's fault and not August's, so she will be buying him a latte something-or-another later today. Maybe.

It was an interesting week in musical contrasts.

On the invitation of Fuel TV's Daryl Berg, I stopped by Swing House in Hollywood on Monday to see the Bravery. The New York five-piece was at the recording studio-cum-rehearsal space to shoot a live segment for Fuel TV's "Check 1, 2." (If you're wondering what the connection is between the band and the action sports network, apparently two of the dudes like to surf.)

While I was there, the quintet ran through three of their songs three times each for Swing House's microphones and Fuel TV's cameras, and I would be lying if I didn't report that the performances were faultless--just like the recordings complete with spot-on vocals. Listening to the songs ("An Honest Mistake," "Believe" and "Time Won't Let Me Go"), I couldn't help but remark to Berg how incredulous I was that these guys aren't already superstars.

Seriously, the Bravery has a winning formula. It's not theirs, of course, it's Duran Duran's: five really good-looking guys with flawless haircuts and sharp outfits to match, playing insanely catchy New Wave-y tunes--hi-hat-heavy drums, octave-friendly bass, breathy keyboards, distorted rhythm guitars and crystalline leads, plus sour-sweet, whiny vocals--that sound both supremely commercial yet genuinely edgy.

The band's only modest success so far might have something to do with the fact that none of the band members--with the possible exception of the overly excited drummer--exhibited the slightest trace of personality at the shoot. I mean, it was dead silent between takes: No evidence of any camaraderie between the members; no jokes or horseplay; no comments, positive or negative, on the performances; no interaction with the crew, record company people or gawkers--just silence. They might have been wax works, but for the movement.

From the Bravery--an up-and-coming band with great chops (but no discernible personality) making a musical appearance--I go to Peter Tork, a rock 'n' roll dinosaur with questionable vocal tendencies (but tons of charisma) making a non-musical appearance.

The former Monkee was hosting a special edition of the Beauty Bar's "oldies 'n' goodies" Wednesday night event, Goodie Tu Shoes. By hosting, I mean he was autographing copies of "Cambria Hotel," a new offering from his rootsy, bluesy new rock 'n' roll band, Shoe Suede Blues.

Tork acted just the way any fan of the Monkees' ridiculous TV show (or thoroughly excellent film, "Head") would have expected: He was friendly, animated and totally goofy. I can't vouch for Shoe Suede Blues being anything more than a respectable honky tonk-style bar band, but after being an extraordinarily well-known (if not necessarily respected) superstar, he deserves a lot of credit for starting over with a new band and doing the little extracurriculars newcomers must to get the word out.

I guess the answer to the question Tork posed here is "yes." -Liam Gowing

[Photo 1: The Bravery at Swing House. Credit: Patrick Weir and Fuel TV. Photo 2: Peter Tork, right, and pal at Beauty Bar-L.A. Credit: Mary Jo Head.]

The Bird and the Bee will be

flying into the desert. Nice.

And one of those assembly-line electro acts that has me convinced technology has made

it far too easy to put out an album, the U.K.'s Does It Offend You Yeah?, will be

playing too.

Yeah, it does.

First, there was "Lip Gloss," Lil Mama's earth-crushing and drums-only ode to windburn protection that sounded more menacing and ruthless than anything on "Curtis." Now, M.I.A.-protege Rye Rye has a smoking, minimalist Baltimore club tune in "Shake It to the Ground" on Diplo's Mad Decent label. Aside from an occasional farted-out bass, the production work from DJ Blaqstarr is again strictly minimalist percussion and gum-smacking chants until practically the end of the song. Have the kids decided they don't need even a perfunctory Korg Triton stab to make a floor-filler? Either way, we dig the Misfits poster in Rye Rye's bedroom in this made-for-pennies video and like to imagine that Glenn Danzig might return the favor someday with a guest verse.

--August Brown

Happy New Year.

And good riddance, 2007.

The year brought an avalanche of music, and the recent holiday week of rumination and

CD-sorting etched in my mind the idea that a whole lot of it was ... well ... pretty

good. Yeah, pretty good, uttered with my head slightly tilted, as if I never

thought once of saying "great" or "really good." If I ever had the

radical notion to rate albums on a 10 scale,

I would swear that half the records I received this year logged somewhere between 6.5

and 6.7 -- a percentage that's skewed because all six copies of the Magic Numbers album that somehow found

their way to my desk would get a 6.2.

Maybe this was the year that trying to

keep up with new music, nationally and locally, finally overwhelmed me, what with every

baby band in the universe engaging in viral marketing, hiring publicists, working with

managers, leaving me polite entreaties on MySpace and generally undermining any belief

that a band can merely grow organically. I attended about 185 shows in 2007 too, many to

follow up on those advertising blitzes.

But after compiling my humble lists

below, I fast-forwarded to December 2009, when all good geeks will be sweating over

their seemingly inevitable Best-of-the-Aughts list. And guess what? Not a single album

from 2007 has a chance of making mine. All of the bands I consider indie icons -- and

I'm sure you can spank me for leaving out people you think are iconic -- released other

albums this decade that are superior to their 2007 releases. For the record, that

pantheon houses the National, Spoon, Modest Mouse, Arcade Fire, Bright Eyes and

Interpol, with other personal faves such as the Shins and Stars living in the backhouse.

Those heavyweights each added to their estimable catalogs, yes; it's just that I'm not

going to pull "We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank" off the shelf first

when I want to hear some Modest Mouse a few years from now.

At least, I don't

think.

The lists follow. Thanks to everybody who sends me music -- really --

and a special shout-out to the bands on the L.A. scene who've made my life so much

richer over the past 5-plus years.

My Favorite 10 Albums of 2007

1. Blonde

Redhead, "23"

2. The National, "Boxer"

3. LCD

Soundsystem, "Sound of Silver"

4. Against Me!, "New

Wave"

5. Spoon, "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga"

6. The Cribs,

"Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever"

7. Arcade Fire, "Neon

Bible"

8. Lupe Fiasco, "Cool"

9. The Shins,

"Wincing the Night Away"

10. Softlightes, "Say No to Being

Cool -- Say Yes to Being Happy" *

Comments: It's scares me how much

this list largely parallels other blogs/music mags. Yes, Fiasco's album just came out,

but on first, second and third blush it's a long-range keeper. And that's right, no

Radiohead. So sue me. 6.8.

* See final list

Buzz Bands' Top 10 L.A. Albums of 2007

1. Foreign Born, "On the Wing Now"

2. John Doe, "A Year in

the Wilderness"

3. Sea Wolf, "Leaves in the River"

4. CoCo B's, "CoCo B's"

5. Eleni Mandell, "Miracle of

Five"

6. Earlimart, "Mentor Tormentor"

7. Culver

City Dub Collective, "Dos"

8. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club,

"Baby 81"

9. Rilo Kiley, "Under the Blacklight"

10. Great Northern, "Trading Twilight for Daylight"

Comments:

Foreign Born is just plain good. CoCo B's self-released disc is a great surprise. Culver

City Dub Collective's genre-mashing is sublime. Eleni Mandell -- who needs Feist? And

Rilo Kiley's album just kept growing on me.

Ten L.A. Bands Whose Debuts Made Me Anxious for the

Sophomore Album

1. The Deadly Syndrome, "The

Ortolan"

2. The Broken West, "I Can't Go On, I'll Go On"

3. Robert Francis, "One by One"

4. The Parson Red Heads,

"King Giraffe"

5. Delta Spirit, "Delta Spirit"

6. Frankel, "Lullaby for the Passersby"

7. Year Long Disaster,

"Year Long Disaster"

8. Sara Bareilles, "Little Voice"

9. The Minor Canon, "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished"

10. No

Age, "Weirdo Rippers"

Ten L.A. Bands Whose 2007 EPs Made

Me Want More

Castledoor, the Airborne Toxic Event, the Weather

Underground, the Black Kites, Voxhaul Broadcast, Sam Sparro, Manic, Radars to the Sky,

Sara Lov, Aushua.

Three Albums From Bands Whom I Loved in the '90s and Still

Do

1. Buffalo Tom, "Three Easy Pieces"

2.

Dinosaur Jr., "Beyond"

3. Smashing Pumpkins,

"Zeitgeist"

Five Hip-Hop Albums I Would Recommend If

Anybody Believed I Recommended Hip-Hop Albums

1. Lupe Fiasco,

"Cool"

2. Kanye West, "Graduation"

3. Brother

Ali, "Undisputed Truth"

4. El-P, "I'll Sleep When You're

Dead"

5. Aesop Rock, "None Shall Pass"

Under the Radar: Six Overlooked Albums

1.

Softlightes, "Say No to Being Cool -- Say Yes to Being Happy": Cinematic

electro-pop that recalls Grandaddy at its finest.

2. The High Strung,

"Get the Guests": Catchy and clever, hold the irony, with peripatetic melody

lines that do not quit.

3. Minipop, "A New Hope": Gorgeous and

beautifully layered shoegaze-pop with rhythms that will drive you right into a dreamlike

state.

4. The Blakes, "The Blakes": Soulful garage rock that's good

for your summer sweat.

5. The Comas, "Spells": Distortion-heavy

power pop arrives in bursts, may leave marks.

6. Young Galaxy, "Young

Galaxy": Other Canadian exports (Kevin Drew, Sunset Rubdown, Feist, et. al.) earned

more buzz, but this album feel like a warm waking dream.

Comments:

Somehow I saw Softlightes play live 10 times in 2007. I left each show in a better mood

than when I arrived.

 

The next time someone tells you that booze doesn't make the world a better place, you just tell them to go listen to Corrine Bailey Rae and her remix of "Like A Star" at the wonderfully titled website www.generouspour.com. The seasonal website for Clos du Bois Wines has lovely traditonal holiday recipes for things like, um, "stoned crab cobbler with coconut" (what, are we pre-gaming for New Year's at Jimmy Buffett's beach hut?) and "Hot Italian Sausage Stuffing" (I'm pretty sure that's the gay porn version of "Roman Holiday"). Anyway, the website, which will be up through today, has a free download of "Like A Star" by Grammy nominee Rae and every time someone downloads it, Clos du Bois will donate $1 to Share Our Strength, a non-profit working against hunger and poverty in the U.S. It sounds like booze-company guilt to us, and wouldn't Amy Winehouse have been a better choice here for so many reasons? As for the music: The song is pretty much played out and the remix here is a fairly glossy affair but it is also free and unobjectionable as a dinner-party fare. So pass the potatoes...

--Geoff Boucher

The Beatle who earned his famous nickname by covering his fingers with rings is now making news with a bracelet. “Liverpool 8,” the new Capitol/EMI album from 67-year-old Ringo Starr, is being released Jan. 15 as a CD, a digital download and also as a “pre-loaded USB wristband” that includes all 12 tracks and a slew of extras, including “a personal video message, interview and track commentary from Ringo Starr, behind-the-scenes making-of footage from the recording sessions, ringtones, photos and more.” (Shouldn't those be "Ringo-tones"?) There’s more details at www.ringostarr.com but this already opens a whole new world of albums-as-accessories. How soon can we buy “Blackout” by Britney Spears in the ankle-monitor format? And how great would be to work toward the weekend by wearing Loverboy’s greatest hits in your headband?

--Geoff Boucher

Just in time to service your holiday malaise, two of my favorite DJ collectives are

conspiring to set sadness to music tonight at the downtown bar La Cita.

Give Up -- the seasonal club night initiated by the DJ collective Dublab and manned the past several years by Mark

"Frosty" McNeill and Jimmy Tamborello -- gets back into its wintry spirit as

DJs spin depressing songs on the bar's back patio. It's described as "a deeply

depressing disc sob session." Inside the bar, Part Time Punks' Michael Stock and others will

be hosting "A Sad, Slow Dance Party," promising "all slow dancing, all

night long."

There's no cover. Tears start to flow at 9 p.m.

Photo of DJ Frosty (from 2005) by Kevin Bronson/LAT

Happier choices for Tuesday, Dec. 18

Pop sextet Castledoor brings its

sublime tunes to Boardner's in the final monthly show of the year presented by Radio Free Silver Lake. The Flying Tourbillon Orchestra

and Frankel are also playing the

18-and-older show, which is free. ... Mighty Six Ninety and Io Echo rock the Troubadour. ... Oliver Future continues its Tuesday

residency at the Viper Room. ... The

Monolators head a good local bill at the Scene. ... And John Gold performs at Bordello.

The obituary this morning says Dan Fogelberg helped "define soft rock," but

that sounds kind of flaccid compared to what the singer-songwriter, who died Sunday at

age 56, meant to a bunch of kids in the working-class neighborhoods of Peoria, Ill., in

the early 1970s.

Fogelberg graduated from Woodruff High School the year before I got there, leaving

behind some stories of a rock band called the Coachmen (I actually owned the 45 at one

point -- oh, where did it go?) and the occasional rumor he'd gone off to California, a

place that seemed so distant from our Midwestern factory town as to be a mirage. Not

many of us had California dreams then; we'd do well to graduate high school and get on

at Caterpillar Tractor Co. (which accounted for something like 1 in 5 paychecks in our

city in those days). If we were really lucky, we'd go to college.

In the fall of my junior year, "Home Free" arrived, and we were mesmerized.

Fogelberg's debut album -- a beautifully orchestrated bouquet of ballads that veered

toward what we now would call alt-country -- took his alma mater by storm. It christened

the tape player in my first car; it was played endlessly at basement parties from Grand

View Drive to the lower East Bluff. I'm pretty sure there isn't a song in my collection

I've played over the years more than that second track, "Stars."

Fogelberg was our Jackson Browne, a romantic who shared our roots and who had the

courage to strike out in service of his poetry. As I trudged through the snow delivering

my Peoria Journal Stars every morning, that was a pretty important symbol.

I always blanched at, but ultimately forgave, the arch sentimentality that seemingly

oppressive production brought to Fogelberg's later albums. He had earned the right to

pursue whatever vision struck him. When my brother and I took in a Fogelberg show a few

years ago in Anaheim, it wasn't so much for musical nostalgia as it was a thank-you.

In one subtle but important way, Dan Fogelberg was the leader of our band.

Curiosity piqued by the announcement of the Gibson "Robot" Guitar, I headed down to my favorite guitar shop in L.A. on Saturday to check it out myself. I was a little disappointed, frankly.

With a name like "the Robot," I was expecting this six-stringer to jump out of the case unprovoked and run around the room, shouting, "Danger Will Robinson!" or "For those about to rock we salute you!" or "Sarah Connor?" or something. Instead, the Robot just lay in his case, looking like a standard (or, for those of you in the know, a "studio") Les Paul. The only obvious differences were larger tuning pegs and a funky-looking control where one of the standard four volume/tone knobs is usually located. This, I was told, was the "MCK" or "Master Control Knob."

"Now there's the kind of Orwellian 'oh no, the machines have achieved artificial intelligence and have enslaved all carbon-based lifeforms on the planet'-kind of language I was hoping for," I thought.

But alas, the master control knob just controls the Robot's auto-tuning mechanism. It's pretty neat, I'll admit. You pull out the knob, spin the top dial to one of several tuning-configuration presets (standard, "drop d," open-tuning, etc.), tap the top, strum the strings, wait for the tuning pegs to auto-jiggy into position, and voila--push the knob back in and your Les Paul has an alternate tuning.

For the overwhelming majority of guitar players who play in standard tuning, what are the advantages? Well, for about $1000 more than what you'd spend on a regular Les Paul, you can keep your axe in really, really, really good tune.

So who is the real market for Gibson's Robot Guitar? Wealthy guitar players who need to constantly and radically alter their tuning. If that's not you, buy a chromatic tuner and save the Robot Guitar for Joni Mitchell.

--Liam Gowing

Welcome to Soundboard, the new music blog from the L.A. Times written by a band of opinionated, sometimes cranky, sometimes ecstatic music lovers. Soundboard will blog breaking news, concert previews, album and single reviews, and lots of random observations about this vast, exciting, wacko place known as the music world. By the way, we're nomads, committed to no single genre, era or chart, so expect Soundboard to be all over the place, like a Sonic Youth song covered by Beyonce playing at a Mexican restaurant in Torrance. That song doesn't exist (yet) but you get the point.

I don't know why, but I'm thinking about record clubs. I remember a time when my older brother belonged to one and he'd show me his cool new tapes. (Yeah, tapes. Don't laugh.) "I got this for a penny!" he's say, shaking Duran Duran's "Rio" in my face. I was amazed. A penny? How can they do that??

So I started searching around to see if any are left.

Turns out that BMG Columbia House still has one but from their home page, you can tell they're making their money from DVDs. "Music Service" is off to the side. When you click on it, it takes you to one of the saddest little web pages in the world, seemingly designed by Your Local Mall's Party Store circa 1988.

I'm going to find out a little more about this whole thing, but in the meantime, does anyone still belong to a record club out there?

[Crickets.]

--Margaret Wappler

I'm not part of the pack salivating over "Raising Sand," the new Alison Krauss/Robert Plant collab -- its backwoods flavor is slightly overcooked, in my book -- but I love the CD's cover art. The frontispiece shows the two stars relaxing in some desert setting, smiling off into the distance, perhaps at T-Bone Burnett bringing them another sheaf of folk-pop obscurities to peruse.

The back's the clincher, though. Plant's back is turned, and Krauss, leaning toward him, throws a grin over her shoulder as they walk away. She looks like a contented cat making off with her canary. The Lion King may be nearly sixty and more interested in crooning than howling out all of his love, but Krauss certainly knows that by clutching that arm, she's fulfilling a fantasy that sustained generations of teen-age girls, dreaming in their bedrooms to Led Zeppelin's massive kathunking mojo blues. Though I'm sure their collaboration was strictly artistic, here's to her for having fun with her chance to quietly fly her metal horns and say, "Ladies, eat your hearts out!"

--Ann Powers

I am not necessarily a fan of the

Mormons, but as a baseball guy I just about did a spit take when I saw the

tongue-in-cheek poster for the Los Angeles band's current stand at Mr. T's Bowl. [Sorry

for the sloppy clean-up job; it's a family blog, you know.]

[Our local music spotlight, for the moment, remains pointed at power pop, because

it just seems to go so well with summertime:]


Ari Shine landed with a crunch -- and

that's the crunch of a big power chord -- when he released his debut EP

"Age/Occupation" in 2006. Quickly he became a songwriter-to-watch in the L.A.

power-pop underground, if not somebody who carries enough melodies to wriggle a bunch of

his songs onto TV shows, and his energetic stage show hinted that he might become an

artist who could transcend the frequently fey trappings of the form.

His

full-length debut, "A Force of One" (released in July on Bongo Beat), suggests

that Shine is not content to merely ride the coattails  of his forebears. There's

some boy-meets/loses-girl material here, much of it cleverly couched ("Flirtation

Device"), but he sinks his hooks into broader storytelling too (see the song

below). The album was produced by former Sparks guitarist Earle Mankey, who has worked with

L.A. notables such as Concrete Blonde and the Three O'Clock. The result is a collection

that's a little bit Elvis Costello, a little bit Matthew Sweet and maybe a bit Brendan

Benson.

||| Shine performs tonight at the Knitting Factory as part of International Pop Overthrow. He also

is playing a couple West Cost dates supporting Peter

Case prior to a Sept. 18 date at Safari Sam's as a supporting act for Miles Hunt of the Wonder Stuff.

||| Download: "Beirut 1978."

Photo by Sam Peacock

"Korn's new album doesn't have a title."

"So how do you order it?"

"You don't. It's Korn."

I missed it and, from reports, am regretting it. Bat for Lashes, the nom de tune of

Brighton, England's Natasha Khan, wowed the room last night at Spaceland. The common

sentiment I heard from a couple people: No wonder she is nominated for the Mercury

Music Prize.

You'll be hearing more about her.

For now, here is the enchanting video for "What's a Girl to Do."

Touts for Wednesday, Aug. 1

The Format starts a two-show stand (the

Avalon tonight, House of Blues tomorrow); the band for two weeks offered its latest

album, "Dog Problems," as a free download from its website and reported that

45,000 copies of the (very

good) album were ripped. ... Great

Glass Elevator (whose inventiveness kind of reminds me of the Format in a way) play

Club NME at Spaceland tonight. ... The Automatic Music

Explosion plays the Scene in Glendale. ... And the Stevenson Ranch Davidians

start a run of Wednesday shows at the Echo.

Consider this a warm-up for "The Simpsons

Movie" (opening in two weeks).

The musician's name is Zack Kim, a 24-year-old

university student who was born in Seoul, South Korea, reared in Malaysia and is now

studying in Australia. There are more examples of his technique on his website, and the

young man has his own Wikipedia

page.

He tells me via e-mail that he after he completes his studies in two years he hopes

to devote all his energies to music, and eventually he "would really love to

perform in the States, as it would be a dream come true for me."

Have to

think he'd be quite a hit at the premiere party.

Summer is here, in case you were too busy on MySpace to get the memo. The concert

calendar always seems to remind me before the real calendar, what with the Hollywood

Bowl kicking into gear and the onslaught of distinguished veteran rock bands starting to

make the stadium rounds.

(Email from a friend who went to Dodger Stadium this weekend: "They were pretty

awesome for a Police cover band.")

The smaller events have their cachet too -- the Sunday afternoon Do-Over at Crane's, the Little Radio Summer Camp. And then there was last

Thursday's Late Night at LACMA, the annual summer

solstice soiree, which attracted 7,853 museum visitors and probably disappointed

hundreds of others who waited for hours in long lines only to give up. (To be fair, what

part of "early arrival recommended" did you not understand?)

Late Night was a melange of music, hipster ephemera (T-shirt screen printing by Hit +

Run now seems mandatory if you are throwing any kind of cross-cultural event) and art.

Suffice to say there were plenty of photo ops in the Dan Flavin retrospective, a refuge

for attendees who could only handle small doses of offerings from DJs Steve Aoki,

Internationalist and handful of others. I missed the set by the always-solid Rebirth but caught one of L.A.'s favorite party

bands, Ima Robot, who got folks dancing despite

the band's relative lack of amplification.

◊ ◊ ◊

Where did June go?

The Monday night residencies end tonight at Spaceland, the Echo and Silverlake

Lounge. The L.A. quartet the Deadly

Syndrome (Spaceland) seems to have grown into polished band overnight (and wait till

you hear the album), and Thailand

(Silverlake Lounge), despite playing as a three-piece with electronic rhythms, serve up

a compelling new-wave/post-punk cocktail. And I have not made it to the Echo to see

Philadelphia ex-pats Burning Brides

(maybe tonight?), but people I trust give me good reports.

◊ ◊ ◊

At Safari Sam's on Friday night, the Silver Lake/Echo Park masses gathered to bid

farewell to Sea Level Records and its

proprietor, Todd Clifford. The independent outlet has been a locus of the Eastside music

scene for more than 5 years, and Clifford is closing more for I-need-a-life-change

reasons than business.

Today is the last day Sea Level is scheduled to be open.

Photos: LACMA attendees get up close with Dan Flavin's work; Ima Robot rocks in the

courtyard. By Kevin Bronson / LAT.

The Little Ones are still one

of this city's strongest musical happy pills, but, as a set Friday night showed, it's

hard to maintain that peak level of exuberance when you're doing it night after night,

tour after tour.

The L.A.

quintet -- "Rhymin' Simon on steroids" is how I described them last year, and

it still applies -- played an ASCAP- and Filter-sponsored music night on Friday tied to

the Silverlake Film Festival. The stuff from their "Sing Song" EP still

sounded crisp, and their new songs were upbeat and catchy too. But after having spent

the early part of this year doing some rigorous touring, the Little Ones weren't quite

as unhinged as they were when their EP was first released and Astralwerks (in the U.S.)

and Heavenly (in the U.K.) swooped in to sign the band.

Are the Little Ones still as happy as their music? "That's a good

question," frontman Edward Reyes says. "We're excited. ... Remember, we just

looked at that EP as our calling card -- we just wanted to get some shows with

it."

Their as-yet-untitled debut album is recorded and due in January, Reyes says.

"It's turning out great," he adds. "Right now we have a whole track

devoted to laughing."

||| Download Little Ones' songs from their Daytrotter session here.

◊ ◊ ◊

Passion of the Weiss has a

play-by-play of Britney Spears' Houses of Blues appearance (I will not call it a

performance). He even has some empathy.

◊ ◊ ◊

Ran into an employee of a recently merged record company who was enthused about

having adopted a puppy. Cute thing ... so what did you name him? "Andy

Slater."

◊ ◊ ◊

"So how

was Coachella?" That was the most-asked

question last week. I told inquiring minds that it was a three-day weekend of

once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and even as they were unfolding I knew I was missing

others. Wish the festival could have just hesitated a few times each day and let me

catch up.

The inconsiderate hipsters at Anthem, who throw their Coachella party during the day

while the music is going on, tell me I missed something else too -- a mask-less Thomas

Bangalter from Daft Punk [face obscured] spinning the LCD Soundsystem track "Daft

Punk Is Playing at My House." Not that anybody recognized him. But a cool party

nonetheless.

Daft Punk turned up on the turntables a couple nights later at the Echo too. Not that

anybody recognized them.

Touts for tonight

Gliss (Spaceland), the High Society (Silverlake Lounge), Bodies of Water (Echo) and Richard Bivens & Foreign Press

(Detroit Bar) start their Monday night residencies. ... Midnight Movies plays an in-store at

Amoeba. ... And London's Apartment joins

locals the Grand Marquee and others

at Indie 103.1's Viper Room show.

The music is pretty hard on the ears, kind of a flailing

attempt at dance-party relevance. But the album cover (that's the original at right) is

even harder on the eyes -- so Perry Farrell's Satellite Party revised it. Stereogum has a

compare-and-contrast. I'm not sure, but this would not have passed muster in the

Photoshop classes I slogged through years ago. This does, however, guarantee that the

album will chart. Here.

[Guest blogger August Brown is hot both because he is fly, and because he should

have worn more sunscreen.]

If Coachella success was measured in words per minute, Busdriver would have been the day's

undisputed champ. But fortunately for the old-guard L.A.-based MC, he dropped jaws and

machine-gun metaphors alike during his astonishingly dextrous set.

Busdriver was equally compelling needling the crowd with accusations of yuppiedom as

he did slaying them with fiery indignance at the ways the music industry exploits

rappers. Over a loose-limbed flurry of house and jungle-inspired beats, he extolled

cheeba and wryly freestyled that "in the Gobi tent is how an O.G. represents."

Original gangstas are few and far between at Coachella, but unless Ghostface pulls off

a miracle tomorrow, Busdriver may hit the 10 freeway home as the weekend's reigning

rhyme-slinger.

This was featured in our Downloads column last weekend (a good reason to drop

some coin on the Saturday print edition or check the pop music page on your local

newspaper's website). I've been a sucker for Travis' brand of Britpop since the first Clinton

Administration. Here's the video for "Closer," and, yeah, Ben Stiller makes a

good grocer.

Ozomatli looked to the visual for inspiration

when writing its new album, “Don’t Mess With the Dragon” (due April 3 on Concord

Records) — much of the initial songwriting came out of jam sessions at the Tropico de

Nopal art gallery. Now the veteran L.A. nine-piece might have found a vision to suit its

sound.

The new video for the single “Can’t Stop” is a dizzying collage of

stop-animation and storytelling that seems equal to Ozomatli’s mashing of Latin flavors,

rock, hip-hop and funk — a hybrid many have said is distinctly Los Angeles.

“We haven’t had a lot of luck with videos in the past,” acknowledges Ulises Bella, who

plays saxophone and clarinet for the band.

Ozomatli turned to New York-based

artist-illustrator Richard Borge for “Can’t Stop,” even though the 41-year-old, who had

done album art for bands such as Meat Beat Manifesto, had never done a music video.

The Bravery vs. Peter Tork

It was an interesting week in musical contrasts.

On the invitation of Fuel TV's Daryl Berg, I stopped by Swing House in Hollywood on Monday to see the Bravery. The New York five-piece was at the recording studio-cum-rehearsal space to shoot a live segment for Fuel TV's "Check 1, 2." (If you're wondering what the connection is between the band and the action sports network, apparently two of the dudes like to surf.)

While I was there, the quintet ran through three of their songs three times each for Swing House's microphones and Fuel TV's cameras, and I would be lying if I didn't report that the performances were faultless--just like the recordings complete with spot-on vocals. Listening to the songs ("An Honest Mistake," "Believe" and "Time Won't Let Me Go"), I couldn't help but remark to Berg how incredulous I was that these guys aren't already superstars.

Seriously, the Bravery has a winning formula. It's not theirs, of course, it's Duran Duran's: five really good-looking guys with flawless haircuts and sharp outfits to match, playing insanely catchy New Wave-y tunes--hi-hat-heavy drums, octave-friendly bass, breathy keyboards, distorted rhythm guitars and crystalline leads, plus sour-sweet, whiny vocals--that sound both supremely commercial yet genuinely edgy.

The band's only modest success so far might have something to do with the fact that none of the band members--with the possible exception of the overly excited drummer--exhibited the slightest trace of personality at the shoot. I mean, it was dead silent between takes: No evidence of any camaraderie between the members; no jokes or horseplay; no comments, positive or negative, on the performances; no interaction with the crew, record company people or gawkers--just silence. They might have been wax works, but for the movement.

From the Bravery--an up-and-coming band with great chops (but no discernible personality) making a musical appearance--I go to Peter Tork, a rock 'n' roll dinosaur with questionable vocal tendencies (but tons of charisma) making a non-musical appearance.

The former Monkee was hosting a special edition of the Beauty Bar's "oldies 'n' goodies" Wednesday night event, Goodie Tu Shoes. By hosting, I mean he was autographing copies of "Cambria Hotel," a new offering from his rootsy, bluesy new rock 'n' roll band, Shoe Suede Blues.

Tork acted just the way any fan of the Monkees' ridiculous TV show (or thoroughly excellent film, "Head") would have expected: He was friendly, animated and totally goofy. I can't vouch for Shoe Suede Blues being anything more than a respectable honky tonk-style bar band, but after being an extraordinarily well-known (if not necessarily respected) superstar, he deserves a lot of credit for starting over with a new band and doing the little extracurriculars newcomers must to get the word out.

I guess the answer to the question Tork posed here is "yes." -Liam Gowing

[Photo 1: The Bravery at Swing House. Credit: Patrick Weir and Fuel TV. Photo 2: Peter Tork, right, and pal at Beauty Bar-L.A. Credit: Mary Jo Head.]

The Bird and the Bee will be

flying into the desert. Nice.

And one of those assembly-line electro acts that has me convinced technology has made

it far too easy to put out an album, the U.K.'s Does It Offend You Yeah?, will be

playing too.

Yeah, it does.

First, there was "Lip Gloss," Lil Mama's earth-crushing and drums-only ode to windburn protection that sounded more menacing and ruthless than anything on "Curtis." Now, M.I.A.-protege Rye Rye has a smoking, minimalist Baltimore club tune in "Shake It to the Ground" on Diplo's Mad Decent label. Aside from an occasional farted-out bass, the production work from DJ Blaqstarr is again strictly minimalist percussion and gum-smacking chants until practically the end of the song. Have the kids decided they don't need even a perfunctory Korg Triton stab to make a floor-filler? Either way, we dig the Misfits poster in Rye Rye's bedroom in this made-for-pennies video and like to imagine that Glenn Danzig might return the favor someday with a guest verse.

--August Brown

Happy New Year.

And good riddance, 2007.

The year brought an avalanche of music, and the recent holiday week of rumination and

CD-sorting etched in my mind the idea that a whole lot of it was ... well ... pretty

good. Yeah, pretty good, uttered with my head slightly tilted, as if I never

thought once of saying "great" or "really good." If I ever had the

radical notion to rate albums on a 10 scale,

I would swear that half the records I received this year logged somewhere between 6.5

and 6.7 -- a percentage that's skewed because all six copies of the Magic Numbers album that somehow found

their way to my desk would get a 6.2.

Maybe this was the year that trying to

keep up with new music, nationally and locally, finally overwhelmed me, what with every

baby band in the universe engaging in viral marketing, hiring publicists, working with

managers, leaving me polite entreaties on MySpace and generally undermining any belief

that a band can merely grow organically. I attended about 185 shows in 2007 too, many to

follow up on those advertising blitzes.

But after compiling my humble lists

below, I fast-forwarded to December 2009, when all good geeks will be sweating over

their seemingly inevitable Best-of-the-Aughts list. And guess what? Not a single album

from 2007 has a chance of making mine. All of the bands I consider indie icons -- and

I'm sure you can spank me for leaving out people you think are iconic -- released other

albums this decade that are superior to their 2007 releases. For the record, that

pantheon houses the National, Spoon, Modest Mouse, Arcade Fire, Bright Eyes and

Interpol, with other personal faves such as the Shins and Stars living in the backhouse.

Those heavyweights each added to their estimable catalogs, yes; it's just that I'm not

going to pull "We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank" off the shelf first

when I want to hear some Modest Mouse a few years from now.

At least, I don't

think.

The lists follow. Thanks to everybody who sends me music -- really --

and a special shout-out to the bands on the L.A. scene who've made my life so much

richer over the past 5-plus years.

My Favorite 10 Albums of 2007

1. Blonde

Redhead, "23"

2. The National, "Boxer"

3. LCD

Soundsystem, "Sound of Silver"

4. Against Me!, "New

Wave"

5. Spoon, "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga"

6. The Cribs,

"Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever"

7. Arcade Fire, "Neon

Bible"

8. Lupe Fiasco, "Cool"

9. The Shins,

"Wincing the Night Away"

10. Softlightes, "Say No to Being

Cool -- Say Yes to Being Happy" *

Comments: It's scares me how much

this list largely parallels other blogs/music mags. Yes, Fiasco's album just came out,

but on first, second and third blush it's a long-range keeper. And that's right, no

Radiohead. So sue me. 6.8.

* See final list

Buzz Bands' Top 10 L.A. Albums of 2007

1. Foreign Born, "On the Wing Now"

2. John Doe, "A Year in

the Wilderness"

3. Sea Wolf, "Leaves in the River"

4. CoCo B's, "CoCo B's"

5. Eleni Mandell, "Miracle of

Five"

6. Earlimart, "Mentor Tormentor"

7. Culver

City Dub Collective, "Dos"

8. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club,

"Baby 81"

9. Rilo Kiley, "Under the Blacklight"

10. Great Northern, "Trading Twilight for Daylight"

Comments:

Foreign Born is just plain good. CoCo B's self-released disc is a great surprise. Culver

City Dub Collective's genre-mashing is sublime. Eleni Mandell -- who needs Feist? And

Rilo Kiley's album just kept growing on me.

Ten L.A. Bands Whose Debuts Made Me Anxious for the

Sophomore Album

1. The Deadly Syndrome, "The

Ortolan"

2. The Broken West, "I Can't Go On, I'll Go On"

3. Robert Francis, "One by One"

4. The Parson Red Heads,

"King Giraffe"

5. Delta Spirit, "Delta Spirit"

6. Frankel, "Lullaby for the Passersby"

7. Year Long Disaster,

"Year Long Disaster"

8. Sara Bareilles, "Little Voice"

9. The Minor Canon, "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished"

10. No

Age, "Weirdo Rippers"

Ten L.A. Bands Whose 2007 EPs Made

Me Want More

Castledoor, the Airborne Toxic Event, the Weather

Underground, the Black Kites, Voxhaul Broadcast, Sam Sparro, Manic, Radars to the Sky,

Sara Lov, Aushua.

Three Albums From Bands Whom I Loved in the '90s and Still

Do

1. Buffalo Tom, "Three Easy Pieces"

2.

Dinosaur Jr., "Beyond"

3. Smashing Pumpkins,

"Zeitgeist"

Five Hip-Hop Albums I Would Recommend If

Anybody Believed I Recommended Hip-Hop Albums

1. Lupe Fiasco,

"Cool"

2. Kanye West, "Graduation"

3. Brother

Ali, "Undisputed Truth"

4. El-P, "I'll Sleep When You're

Dead"

5. Aesop Rock, "None Shall Pass"

Under the Radar: Six Overlooked Albums

1.

Softlightes, "Say No to Being Cool -- Say Yes to Being Happy": Cinematic

electro-pop that recalls Grandaddy at its finest.

2. The High Strung,

"Get the Guests": Catchy and clever, hold the irony, with peripatetic melody

lines that do not quit.

3. Minipop, "A New Hope": Gorgeous and

beautifully layered shoegaze-pop with rhythms that will drive you right into a dreamlike

state.

4. The Blakes, "The Blakes": Soulful garage rock that's good

for your summer sweat.

5. The Comas, "Spells": Distortion-heavy

power pop arrives in bursts, may leave marks.

6. Young Galaxy, "Young

Galaxy": Other Canadian exports (Kevin Drew, Sunset Rubdown, Feist, et. al.) earned

more buzz, but this album feel like a warm waking dream.

Comments:

Somehow I saw Softlightes play live 10 times in 2007. I left each show in a better mood

than when I arrived.

 

The next time someone tells you that booze doesn't make the world a better place, you just tell them to go listen to Corrine Bailey Rae and her remix of "Like A Star" at the wonderfully titled website www.generouspour.com. The seasonal website for Clos du Bois Wines has lovely traditonal holiday recipes for things like, um, "stoned crab cobbler with coconut" (what, are we pre-gaming for New Year's at Jimmy Buffett's beach hut?) and "Hot Italian Sausage Stuffing" (I'm pretty sure that's the gay porn version of "Roman Holiday"). Anyway, the website, which will be up through today, has a free download of "Like A Star" by Grammy nominee Rae and every time someone downloads it, Clos du Bois will donate $1 to Share Our Strength, a non-profit working against hunger and poverty in the U.S. It sounds like booze-company guilt to us, and wouldn't Amy Winehouse have been a better choice here for so many reasons? As for the music: The song is pretty much played out and the remix here is a fairly glossy affair but it is also free and unobjectionable as a dinner-party fare. So pass the potatoes...

--Geoff Boucher

The Beatle who earned his famous nickname by covering his fingers with rings is now making news with a bracelet. “Liverpool 8,” the new Capitol/EMI album from 67-year-old Ringo Starr, is being released Jan. 15 as a CD, a digital download and also as a “pre-loaded USB wristband” that includes all 12 tracks and a slew of extras, including “a personal video message, interview and track commentary from Ringo Starr, behind-the-scenes making-of footage from the recording sessions, ringtones, photos and more.” (Shouldn't those be "Ringo-tones"?) There’s more details at www.ringostarr.com but this already opens a whole new world of albums-as-accessories. How soon can we buy “Blackout” by Britney Spears in the ankle-monitor format? And how great would be to work toward the weekend by wearing Loverboy’s greatest hits in your headband?

--Geoff Boucher

Just in time to service your holiday malaise, two of my favorite DJ collectives are

conspiring to set sadness to music tonight at the downtown bar La Cita.

Give Up -- the seasonal club night initiated by the DJ collective Dublab and manned the past several years by Mark

"Frosty" McNeill and Jimmy Tamborello -- gets back into its wintry spirit as

DJs spin depressing songs on the bar's back patio. It's described as "a deeply

depressing disc sob session." Inside the bar, Part Time Punks' Michael Stock and others will

be hosting "A Sad, Slow Dance Party," promising "all slow dancing, all

night long."

There's no cover. Tears start to flow at 9 p.m.

Photo of DJ Frosty (from 2005) by Kevin Bronson/LAT

Happier choices for Tuesday, Dec. 18

Pop sextet Castledoor brings its

sublime tunes to Boardner's in the final monthly show of the year presented by Radio Free Silver Lake. The Flying Tourbillon Orchestra

and Frankel are also playing the

18-and-older show, which is free. ... Mighty Six Ninety and Io Echo rock the Troubadour. ... Oliver Future continues its Tuesday

residency at the Viper Room. ... The

Monolators head a good local bill at the Scene. ... And John Gold performs at Bordello.

The obituary this morning says Dan Fogelberg helped "define soft rock," but

that sounds kind of flaccid compared to what the singer-songwriter, who died Sunday at

age 56, meant to a bunch of kids in the working-class neighborhoods of Peoria, Ill., in

the early 1970s.

Fogelberg graduated from Woodruff High School the year before I got there, leaving

behind some stories of a rock band called the Coachmen (I actually owned the 45 at one

point -- oh, where did it go?) and the occasional rumor he'd gone off to California, a

place that seemed so distant from our Midwestern factory town as to be a mirage. Not

many of us had California dreams then; we'd do well to graduate high school and get on

at Caterpillar Tractor Co. (which accounted for something like 1 in 5 paychecks in our

city in those days). If we were really lucky, we'd go to college.

In the fall of my junior year, "Home Free" arrived, and we were mesmerized.

Fogelberg's debut album -- a beautifully orchestrated bouquet of ballads that veered

toward what we now would call alt-country -- took his alma mater by storm. It christened

the tape player in my first car; it was played endlessly at basement parties from Grand

View Drive to the lower East Bluff. I'm pretty sure there isn't a song in my collection

I've played over the years more than that second track, "Stars."

Fogelberg was our Jackson Browne, a romantic who shared our roots and who had the

courage to strike out in service of his poetry. As I trudged through the snow delivering

my Peoria Journal Stars every morning, that was a pretty important symbol.

I always blanched at, but ultimately forgave, the arch sentimentality that seemingly

oppressive production brought to Fogelberg's later albums. He had earned the right to

pursue whatever vision struck him. When my brother and I took in a Fogelberg show a few

years ago in Anaheim, it wasn't so much for musical nostalgia as it was a thank-you.

In one subtle but important way, Dan Fogelberg was the leader of our band.

Curiosity piqued by the announcement of the Gibson "Robot" Guitar, I headed down to my favorite guitar shop in L.A. on Saturday to check it out myself. I was a little disappointed, frankly.

With a name like "the Robot," I was expecting this six-stringer to jump out of the case unprovoked and run around the room, shouting, "Danger Will Robinson!" or "For those about to rock we salute you!" or "Sarah Connor?" or something. Instead, the Robot just lay in his case, looking like a standard (or, for those of you in the know, a "studio") Les Paul. The only obvious differences were larger tuning pegs and a funky-looking control where one of the standard four volume/tone knobs is usually located. This, I was told, was the "MCK" or "Master Control Knob."

"Now there's the kind of Orwellian 'oh no, the machines have achieved artificial intelligence and have enslaved all carbon-based lifeforms on the planet'-kind of language I was hoping for," I thought.

But alas, the master control knob just controls the Robot's auto-tuning mechanism. It's pretty neat, I'll admit. You pull out the knob, spin the top dial to one of several tuning-configuration presets (standard, "drop d," open-tuning, etc.), tap the top, strum the strings, wait for the tuning pegs to auto-jiggy into position, and voila--push the knob back in and your Les Paul has an alternate tuning.

For the overwhelming majority of guitar players who play in standard tuning, what are the advantages? Well, for about $1000 more than what you'd spend on a regular Les Paul, you can keep your axe in really, really, really good tune.

So who is the real market for Gibson's Robot Guitar? Wealthy guitar players who need to constantly and radically alter their tuning. If that's not you, buy a chromatic tuner and save the Robot Guitar for Joni Mitchell.

--Liam Gowing

Welcome to Soundboard, the new music blog from the L.A. Times written by a band of opinionated, sometimes cranky, sometimes ecstatic music lovers. Soundboard will blog breaking news, concert previews, album and single reviews, and lots of random observations about this vast, exciting, wacko place known as the music world. By the way, we're nomads, committed to no single genre, era or chart, so expect Soundboard to be all over the place, like a Sonic Youth song covered by Beyonce playing at a Mexican restaurant in Torrance. That song doesn't exist (yet) but you get the point.

I don't know why, but I'm thinking about record clubs. I remember a time when my older brother belonged to one and he'd show me his cool new tapes. (Yeah, tapes. Don't laugh.) "I got this for a penny!" he's say, shaking Duran Duran's "Rio" in my face. I was amazed. A penny? How can they do that??

So I started searching around to see if any are left.

Turns out that BMG Columbia House still has one but from their home page, you can tell they're making their money from DVDs. "Music Service" is off to the side. When you click on it, it takes you to one of the saddest little web pages in the world, seemingly designed by Your Local Mall's Party Store circa 1988.

I'm going to find out a little more about this whole thing, but in the meantime, does anyone still belong to a record club out there?

[Crickets.]

--Margaret Wappler

I'm not part of the pack salivating over "Raising Sand," the new Alison Krauss/Robert Plant collab -- its backwoods flavor is slightly overcooked, in my book -- but I love the CD's cover art. The frontispiece shows the two stars relaxing in some desert setting, smiling off into the distance, perhaps at T-Bone Burnett bringing them another sheaf of folk-pop obscurities to peruse.

The back's the clincher, though. Plant's back is turned, and Krauss, leaning toward him, throws a grin over her shoulder as they walk away. She looks like a contented cat making off with her canary. The Lion King may be nearly sixty and more interested in crooning than howling out all of his love, but Krauss certainly knows that by clutching that arm, she's fulfilling a fantasy that sustained generations of teen-age girls, dreaming in their bedrooms to Led Zeppelin's massive kathunking mojo blues. Though I'm sure their collaboration was strictly artistic, here's to her for having fun with her chance to quietly fly her metal horns and say, "Ladies, eat your hearts out!"

--Ann Powers

I am not necessarily a fan of the

Mormons, but as a baseball guy I just about did a spit take when I saw the

tongue-in-cheek poster for the Los Angeles band's current stand at Mr. T's Bowl. [Sorry

for the sloppy clean-up job; it's a family blog, you know.]

[Our local music spotlight, for the moment, remains pointed at power pop, because

it just seems to go so well with summertime:]


Ari Shine landed with a crunch -- and

that's the crunch of a big power chord -- when he released his debut EP

"Age/Occupation" in 2006. Quickly he became a songwriter-to-watch in the L.A.

power-pop underground, if not somebody who carries enough melodies to wriggle a bunch of

his songs onto TV shows, and his energetic stage show hinted that he might become an

artist who could transcend the frequently fey trappings of the form.

His

full-length debut, "A Force of One" (released in July on Bongo Beat), suggests

that Shine is not content to merely ride the coattails  of his forebears. There's

some boy-meets/loses-girl material here, much of it cleverly couched ("Flirtation

Device"), but he sinks his hooks into broader storytelling too (see the song

below). The album was produced by former Sparks guitarist Earle Mankey, who has worked with

L.A. notables such as Concrete Blonde and the Three O'Clock. The result is a collection

that's a little bit Elvis Costello, a little bit Matthew Sweet and maybe a bit Brendan

Benson.

||| Shine performs tonight at the Knitting Factory as part of International Pop Overthrow. He also

is playing a couple West Cost dates supporting Peter

Case prior to a Sept. 18 date at Safari Sam's as a supporting act for Miles Hunt of the Wonder Stuff.

||| Download: "Beirut 1978."

Photo by Sam Peacock

"Korn's new album doesn't have a title."

"So how do you order it?"

"You don't. It's Korn."

I missed it and, from reports, am regretting it. Bat for Lashes, the nom de tune of

Brighton, England's Natasha Khan, wowed the room last night at Spaceland. The common

sentiment I heard from a couple people: No wonder she is nominated for the Mercury

Music Prize.

You'll be hearing more about her.

For now, here is the enchanting video for "What's a Girl to Do."

Touts for Wednesday, Aug. 1

The Format starts a two-show stand (the

Avalon tonight, House of Blues tomorrow); the band for two weeks offered its latest

album, "Dog Problems," as a free download from its website and reported that

45,000 copies of the (very

good) album were ripped. ... Great

Glass Elevator (whose inventiveness kind of reminds me of the Format in a way) play

Club NME at Spaceland tonight. ... The Automatic Music

Explosion plays the Scene in Glendale. ... And the Stevenson Ranch Davidians

start a run of Wednesday shows at the Echo.

Consider this a warm-up for "The Simpsons

Movie" (opening in two weeks).

The musician's name is Zack Kim, a 24-year-old

university student who was born in Seoul, South Korea, reared in Malaysia and is now

studying in Australia. There are more examples of his technique on his website, and the

young man has his own Wikipedia

page.

He tells me via e-mail that he after he completes his studies in two years he hopes

to devote all his energies to music, and eventually he "would really love to

perform in the States, as it would be a dream come true for me."

Have to

think he'd be quite a hit at the premiere party.

Summer is here, in case you were too busy on MySpace to get the memo. The concert

calendar always seems to remind me before the real calendar, what with the Hollywood

Bowl kicking into gear and the onslaught of distinguished veteran rock bands starting to

make the stadium rounds.

(Email from a friend who went to Dodger Stadium this weekend: "They were pretty

awesome for a Police cover band.")

The smaller events have their cachet too -- the Sunday afternoon Do-Over at Crane's, the Little Radio Summer Camp. And then there was last

Thursday's Late Night at LACMA, the annual summer

solstice soiree, which attracted 7,853 museum visitors and probably disappointed

hundreds of others who waited for hours in long lines only to give up. (To be fair, what

part of "early arrival recommended" did you not understand?)

Late Night was a melange of music, hipster ephemera (T-shirt screen printing by Hit +

Run now seems mandatory if you are throwing any kind of cross-cultural event) and art.

Suffice to say there were plenty of photo ops in the Dan Flavin retrospective, a refuge

for attendees who could only handle small doses of offerings from DJs Steve Aoki,

Internationalist and handful of others. I missed the set by the always-solid Rebirth but caught one of L.A.'s favorite party

bands, Ima Robot, who got folks dancing despite

the band's relative lack of amplification.

◊ ◊ ◊

Where did June go?

The Monday night residencies end tonight at Spaceland, the Echo and Silverlake

Lounge. The L.A. quartet the Deadly

Syndrome (Spaceland) seems to have grown into polished band overnight (and wait till

you hear the album), and Thailand

(Silverlake Lounge), despite playing as a three-piece with electronic rhythms, serve up

a compelling new-wave/post-punk cocktail. And I have not made it to the Echo to see

Philadelphia ex-pats Burning Brides

(maybe tonight?), but people I trust give me good reports.

◊ ◊ ◊

At Safari Sam's on Friday night, the Silver Lake/Echo Park masses gathered to bid

farewell to Sea Level Records and its

proprietor, Todd Clifford. The independent outlet has been a locus of the Eastside music

scene for more than 5 years, and Clifford is closing more for I-need-a-life-change

reasons than business.

Today is the last day Sea Level is scheduled to be open.

Photos: LACMA attendees get up close with Dan Flavin's work; Ima Robot rocks in the

courtyard. By Kevin Bronson / LAT.

The Little Ones are still one

of this city's strongest musical happy pills, but, as a set Friday night showed, it's

hard to maintain that peak level of exuberance when you're doing it night after night,

tour after tour.

The L.A.

quintet -- "Rhymin' Simon on steroids" is how I described them last year, and

it still applies -- played an ASCAP- and Filter-sponsored music night on Friday tied to

the Silverlake Film Festival. The stuff from their "Sing Song" EP still

sounded crisp, and their new songs were upbeat and catchy too. But after having spent

the early part of this year doing some rigorous touring, the Little Ones weren't quite

as unhinged as they were when their EP was first released and Astralwerks (in the U.S.)

and Heavenly (in the U.K.) swooped in to sign the band.

Are the Little Ones still as happy as their music? "That's a good

question," frontman Edward Reyes says. "We're excited. ... Remember, we just

looked at that EP as our calling card -- we just wanted to get some shows with

it."

Their as-yet-untitled debut album is recorded and due in January, Reyes says.

"It's turning out great," he adds. "Right now we have a whole track

devoted to laughing."

||| Download Little Ones' songs from their Daytrotter session here.

◊ ◊ ◊

Passion of the Weiss has a

play-by-play of Britney Spears' Houses of Blues appearance (I will not call it a

performance). He even has some empathy.

◊ ◊ ◊

Ran into an employee of a recently merged record company who was enthused about

having adopted a puppy. Cute thing ... so what did you name him? "Andy

Slater."

◊ ◊ ◊

"So how

was Coachella?" That was the most-asked

question last week. I told inquiring minds that it was a three-day weekend of

once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and even as they were unfolding I knew I was missing

others. Wish the festival could have just hesitated a few times each day and let me

catch up.

The inconsiderate hipsters at Anthem, who throw their Coachella party during the day

while the music is going on, tell me I missed something else too -- a mask-less Thomas

Bangalter from Daft Punk [face obscured] spinning the LCD Soundsystem track "Daft

Punk Is Playing at My House." Not that anybody recognized him. But a cool party

nonetheless.

Daft Punk turned up on the turntables a couple nights later at the Echo too. Not that

anybody recognized them.

Touts for tonight

Gliss (Spaceland), the High Society (Silverlake Lounge), Bodies of Water (Echo) and Richard Bivens & Foreign Press

(Detroit Bar) start their Monday night residencies. ... Midnight Movies plays an in-store at

Amoeba. ... And London's Apartment joins

locals the Grand Marquee and others

at Indie 103.1's Viper Room show.

The music is pretty hard on the ears, kind of a flailing

attempt at dance-party relevance. But the album cover (that's the original at right) is

even harder on the eyes -- so Perry Farrell's Satellite Party revised it. Stereogum has a

compare-and-contrast. I'm not sure, but this would not have passed muster in the

Photoshop classes I slogged through years ago. This does, however, guarantee that the

album will chart. Here.

[Guest blogger August Brown is hot both because he is fly, and because he should

have worn more sunscreen.]

If Coachella success was measured in words per minute, Busdriver would have been the day's

undisputed champ. But fortunately for the old-guard L.A.-based MC, he dropped jaws and

machine-gun metaphors alike during his astonishingly dextrous set.

Busdriver was equally compelling needling the crowd with accusations of yuppiedom as

he did slaying them with fiery indignance at the ways the music industry exploits

rappers. Over a loose-limbed flurry of house and jungle-inspired beats, he extolled

cheeba and wryly freestyled that "in the Gobi tent is how an O.G. represents."

Original gangstas are few and far between at Coachella, but unless Ghostface pulls off

a miracle tomorrow, Busdriver may hit the 10 freeway home as the weekend's reigning

rhyme-slinger.

This was featured in our Downloads column last weekend (a good reason to drop

some coin on the Saturday print edition or check the pop music page on your local

newspaper's website). I've been a sucker for Travis' brand of Britpop since the first Clinton

Administration. Here's the video for "Closer," and, yeah, Ben Stiller makes a

good grocer.

Ozomatli looked to the visual for inspiration

when writing its new album, “Don’t Mess With the Dragon” (due April 3 on Concord

Records) — much of the initial songwriting came out of jam sessions at the Tropico de

Nopal art gallery. Now the veteran L.A. nine-piece might have found a vision to suit its

sound.

The new video for the single “Can’t Stop” is a dizzying collage of

stop-animation and storytelling that seems equal to Ozomatli’s mashing of Latin flavors,

rock, hip-hop and funk — a hybrid many have said is distinctly Los Angeles.

“We haven’t had a lot of luck with videos in the past,” acknowledges Ulises Bella, who

plays saxophone and clarinet for the band.

Ozomatli turned to New York-based

artist-illustrator Richard Borge for “Can’t Stop,” even though the 41-year-old, who had

done album art for bands such as Meat Beat Manifesto, had never done a music video.

Coachella lineup (cont.)

The Bird and the Bee will be

flying into the desert. Nice.

And one of those assembly-line electro acts that has me convinced technology has made

it far too easy to put out an album, the U.K.'s Does It Offend You Yeah?, will be

playing too.

Yeah, it does.

First, there was "Lip Gloss," Lil Mama's earth-crushing and drums-only ode to windburn protection that sounded more menacing and ruthless than anything on "Curtis." Now, M.I.A.-protege Rye Rye has a smoking, minimalist Baltimore club tune in "Shake It to the Ground" on Diplo's Mad Decent label. Aside from an occasional farted-out bass, the production work from DJ Blaqstarr is again strictly minimalist percussion and gum-smacking chants until practically the end of the song. Have the kids decided they don't need even a perfunctory Korg Triton stab to make a floor-filler? Either way, we dig the Misfits poster in Rye Rye's bedroom in this made-for-pennies video and like to imagine that Glenn Danzig might return the favor someday with a guest verse.

--August Brown

Happy New Year.

And good riddance, 2007.

The year brought an avalanche of music, and the recent holiday week of rumination and

CD-sorting etched in my mind the idea that a whole lot of it was ... well ... pretty

good. Yeah, pretty good, uttered with my head slightly tilted, as if I never

thought once of saying "great" or "really good." If I ever had the

radical notion to rate albums on a 10 scale,

I would swear that half the records I received this year logged somewhere between 6.5

and 6.7 -- a percentage that's skewed because all six copies of the Magic Numbers album that somehow found

their way to my desk would get a 6.2.

Maybe this was the year that trying to

keep up with new music, nationally and locally, finally overwhelmed me, what with every

baby band in the universe engaging in viral marketing, hiring publicists, working with

managers, leaving me polite entreaties on MySpace and generally undermining any belief

that a band can merely grow organically. I attended about 185 shows in 2007 too, many to

follow up on those advertising blitzes.

But after compiling my humble lists

below, I fast-forwarded to December 2009, when all good geeks will be sweating over

their seemingly inevitable Best-of-the-Aughts list. And guess what? Not a single album

from 2007 has a chance of making mine. All of the bands I consider indie icons -- and

I'm sure you can spank me for leaving out people you think are iconic -- released other

albums this decade that are superior to their 2007 releases. For the record, that

pantheon houses the National, Spoon, Modest Mouse, Arcade Fire, Bright Eyes and

Interpol, with other personal faves such as the Shins and Stars living in the backhouse.

Those heavyweights each added to their estimable catalogs, yes; it's just that I'm not

going to pull "We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank" off the shelf first

when I want to hear some Modest Mouse a few years from now.

At least, I don't

think.

The lists follow. Thanks to everybody who sends me music -- really --

and a special shout-out to the bands on the L.A. scene who've made my life so much

richer over the past 5-plus years.

My Favorite 10 Albums of 2007

1. Blonde

Redhead, "23"

2. The National, "Boxer"

3. LCD

Soundsystem, "Sound of Silver"

4. Against Me!, "New

Wave"

5. Spoon, "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga"

6. The Cribs,

"Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever"

7. Arcade Fire, "Neon

Bible"

8. Lupe Fiasco, "Cool"

9. The Shins,

"Wincing the Night Away"

10. Softlightes, "Say No to Being

Cool -- Say Yes to Being Happy" *

Comments: It's scares me how much

this list largely parallels other blogs/music mags. Yes, Fiasco's album just came out,

but on first, second and third blush it's a long-range keeper. And that's right, no

Radiohead. So sue me. 6.8.

* See final list

Buzz Bands' Top 10 L.A. Albums of 2007

1. Foreign Born, "On the Wing Now"

2. John Doe, "A Year in

the Wilderness"

3. Sea Wolf, "Leaves in the River"

4. CoCo B's, "CoCo B's"

5. Eleni Mandell, "Miracle of

Five"

6. Earlimart, "Mentor Tormentor"

7. Culver

City Dub Collective, "Dos"

8. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club,

"Baby 81"

9. Rilo Kiley, "Under the Blacklight"

10. Great Northern, "Trading Twilight for Daylight"

Comments:

Foreign Born is just plain good. CoCo B's self-released disc is a great surprise. Culver

City Dub Collective's genre-mashing is sublime. Eleni Mandell -- who needs Feist? And

Rilo Kiley's album just kept growing on me.

Ten L.A. Bands Whose Debuts Made Me Anxious for the

Sophomore Album

1. The Deadly Syndrome, "The

Ortolan"

2. The Broken West, "I Can't Go On, I'll Go On"

3. Robert Francis, "One by One"

4. The Parson Red Heads,

"King Giraffe"

5. Delta Spirit, "Delta Spirit"

6. Frankel, "Lullaby for the Passersby"

7. Year Long Disaster,

"Year Long Disaster"

8. Sara Bareilles, "Little Voice"

9. The Minor Canon, "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished"

10. No

Age, "Weirdo Rippers"

Ten L.A. Bands Whose 2007 EPs Made

Me Want More

Castledoor, the Airborne Toxic Event, the Weather

Underground, the Black Kites, Voxhaul Broadcast, Sam Sparro, Manic, Radars to the Sky,

Sara Lov, Aushua.

Three Albums From Bands Whom I Loved in the '90s and Still

Do

1. Buffalo Tom, "Three Easy Pieces"

2.

Dinosaur Jr., "Beyond"

3. Smashing Pumpkins,

"Zeitgeist"

Five Hip-Hop Albums I Would Recommend If

Anybody Believed I Recommended Hip-Hop Albums

1. Lupe Fiasco,

"Cool"

2. Kanye West, "Graduation"

3. Brother

Ali, "Undisputed Truth"

4. El-P, "I'll Sleep When You're

Dead"

5. Aesop Rock, "None Shall Pass"

Under the Radar: Six Overlooked Albums

1.

Softlightes, "Say No to Being Cool -- Say Yes to Being Happy": Cinematic

electro-pop that recalls Grandaddy at its finest.

2. The High Strung,

"Get the Guests": Catchy and clever, hold the irony, with peripatetic melody

lines that do not quit.

3. Minipop, "A New Hope": Gorgeous and

beautifully layered shoegaze-pop with rhythms that will drive you right into a dreamlike

state.

4. The Blakes, "The Blakes": Soulful garage rock that's good

for your summer sweat.

5. The Comas, "Spells": Distortion-heavy

power pop arrives in bursts, may leave marks.

6. Young Galaxy, "Young

Galaxy": Other Canadian exports (Kevin Drew, Sunset Rubdown, Feist, et. al.) earned

more buzz, but this album feel like a warm waking dream.

Comments:

Somehow I saw Softlightes play live 10 times in 2007. I left each show in a better mood

than when I arrived.

 

The next time someone tells you that booze doesn't make the world a better place, you just tell them to go listen to Corrine Bailey Rae and her remix of "Like A Star" at the wonderfully titled website www.generouspour.com. The seasonal website for Clos du Bois Wines has lovely traditonal holiday recipes for things like, um, "stoned crab cobbler with coconut" (what, are we pre-gaming for New Year's at Jimmy Buffett's beach hut?) and "Hot Italian Sausage Stuffing" (I'm pretty sure that's the gay porn version of "Roman Holiday"). Anyway, the website, which will be up through today, has a free download of "Like A Star" by Grammy nominee Rae and every time someone downloads it, Clos du Bois will donate $1 to Share Our Strength, a non-profit working against hunger and poverty in the U.S. It sounds like booze-company guilt to us, and wouldn't Amy Winehouse have been a better choice here for so many reasons? As for the music: The song is pretty much played out and the remix here is a fairly glossy affair but it is also free and unobjectionable as a dinner-party fare. So pass the potatoes...

--Geoff Boucher

The Beatle who earned his famous nickname by covering his fingers with rings is now making news with a bracelet. “Liverpool 8,” the new Capitol/EMI album from 67-year-old Ringo Starr, is being released Jan. 15 as a CD, a digital download and also as a “pre-loaded USB wristband” that includes all 12 tracks and a slew of extras, including “a personal video message, interview and track commentary from Ringo Starr, behind-the-scenes making-of footage from the recording sessions, ringtones, photos and more.” (Shouldn't those be "Ringo-tones"?) There’s more details at www.ringostarr.com but this already opens a whole new world of albums-as-accessories. How soon can we buy “Blackout” by Britney Spears in the ankle-monitor format? And how great would be to work toward the weekend by wearing Loverboy’s greatest hits in your headband?

--Geoff Boucher

Just in time to service your holiday malaise, two of my favorite DJ collectives are

conspiring to set sadness to music tonight at the downtown bar La Cita.

Give Up -- the seasonal club night initiated by the DJ collective Dublab and manned the past several years by Mark

"Frosty" McNeill and Jimmy Tamborello -- gets back into its wintry spirit as

DJs spin depressing songs on the bar's back patio. It's described as "a deeply

depressing disc sob session." Inside the bar, Part Time Punks' Michael Stock and others will

be hosting "A Sad, Slow Dance Party," promising "all slow dancing, all

night long."

There's no cover. Tears start to flow at 9 p.m.

Photo of DJ Frosty (from 2005) by Kevin Bronson/LAT

Happier choices for Tuesday, Dec. 18

Pop sextet Castledoor brings its

sublime tunes to Boardner's in the final monthly show of the year presented by Radio Free Silver Lake. The Flying Tourbillon Orchestra

and Frankel are also playing the

18-and-older show, which is free. ... Mighty Six Ninety and Io Echo rock the Troubadour. ... Oliver Future continues its Tuesday

residency at the Viper Room. ... The

Monolators head a good local bill at the Scene. ... And John Gold performs at Bordello.

The obituary this morning says Dan Fogelberg helped "define soft rock," but

that sounds kind of flaccid compared to what the singer-songwriter, who died Sunday at

age 56, meant to a bunch of kids in the working-class neighborhoods of Peoria, Ill., in

the early 1970s.

Fogelberg graduated from Woodruff High School the year before I got there, leaving

behind some stories of a rock band called the Coachmen (I actually owned the 45 at one

point -- oh, where did it go?) and the occasional rumor he'd gone off to California, a

place that seemed so distant from our Midwestern factory town as to be a mirage. Not

many of us had California dreams then; we'd do well to graduate high school and get on

at Caterpillar Tractor Co. (which accounted for something like 1 in 5 paychecks in our

city in those days). If we were really lucky, we'd go to college.

In the fall of my junior year, "Home Free" arrived, and we were mesmerized.

Fogelberg's debut album -- a beautifully orchestrated bouquet of ballads that veered

toward what we now would call alt-country -- took his alma mater by storm. It christened

the tape player in my first car; it was played endlessly at basement parties from Grand

View Drive to the lower East Bluff. I'm pretty sure there isn't a song in my collection

I've played over the years more than that second track, "Stars."

Fogelberg was our Jackson Browne, a romantic who shared our roots and who had the

courage to strike out in service of his poetry. As I trudged through the snow delivering

my Peoria Journal Stars every morning, that was a pretty important symbol.

I always blanched at, but ultimately forgave, the arch sentimentality that seemingly

oppressive production brought to Fogelberg's later albums. He had earned the right to

pursue whatever vision struck him. When my brother and I took in a Fogelberg show a few

years ago in Anaheim, it wasn't so much for musical nostalgia as it was a thank-you.

In one subtle but important way, Dan Fogelberg was the leader of our band.

Curiosity piqued by the announcement of the Gibson "Robot" Guitar, I headed down to my favorite guitar shop in L.A. on Saturday to check it out myself. I was a little disappointed, frankly.

With a name like "the Robot," I was expecting this six-stringer to jump out of the case unprovoked and run around the room, shouting, "Danger Will Robinson!" or "For those about to rock we salute you!" or "Sarah Connor?" or something. Instead, the Robot just lay in his case, looking like a standard (or, for those of you in the know, a "studio") Les Paul. The only obvious differences were larger tuning pegs and a funky-looking control where one of the standard four volume/tone knobs is usually located. This, I was told, was the "MCK" or "Master Control Knob."

"Now there's the kind of Orwellian 'oh no, the machines have achieved artificial intelligence and have enslaved all carbon-based lifeforms on the planet'-kind of language I was hoping for," I thought.

But alas, the master control knob just controls the Robot's auto-tuning mechanism. It's pretty neat, I'll admit. You pull out the knob, spin the top dial to one of several tuning-configuration presets (standard, "drop d," open-tuning, etc.), tap the top, strum the strings, wait for the tuning pegs to auto-jiggy into position, and voila--push the knob back in and your Les Paul has an alternate tuning.

For the overwhelming majority of guitar players who play in standard tuning, what are the advantages? Well, for about $1000 more than what you'd spend on a regular Les Paul, you can keep your axe in really, really, really good tune.

So who is the real market for Gibson's Robot Guitar? Wealthy guitar players who need to constantly and radically alter their tuning. If that's not you, buy a chromatic tuner and save the Robot Guitar for Joni Mitchell.

--Liam Gowing

Welcome to Soundboard, the new music blog from the L.A. Times written by a band of opinionated, sometimes cranky, sometimes ecstatic music lovers. Soundboard will blog breaking news, concert previews, album and single reviews, and lots of random observations about this vast, exciting, wacko place known as the music world. By the way, we're nomads, committed to no single genre, era or chart, so expect Soundboard to be all over the place, like a Sonic Youth song covered by Beyonce playing at a Mexican restaurant in Torrance. That song doesn't exist (yet) but you get the point.

I don't know why, but I'm thinking about record clubs. I remember a time when my older brother belonged to one and he'd show me his cool new tapes. (Yeah, tapes. Don't laugh.) "I got this for a penny!" he's say, shaking Duran Duran's "Rio" in my face. I was amazed. A penny? How can they do that??

So I started searching around to see if any are left.

Turns out that BMG Columbia House still has one but from their home page, you can tell they're making their money from DVDs. "Music Service" is off to the side. When you click on it, it takes you to one of the saddest little web pages in the world, seemingly designed by Your Local Mall's Party Store circa 1988.

I'm going to find out a little more about this whole thing, but in the meantime, does anyone still belong to a record club out there?

[Crickets.]

--Margaret Wappler

I'm not part of the pack salivating over "Raising Sand," the new Alison Krauss/Robert Plant collab -- its backwoods flavor is slightly overcooked, in my book -- but I love the CD's cover art. The frontispiece shows the two stars relaxing in some desert setting, smiling off into the distance, perhaps at T-Bone Burnett bringing them another sheaf of folk-pop obscurities to peruse.

The back's the clincher, though. Plant's back is turned, and Krauss, leaning toward him, throws a grin over her shoulder as they walk away. She looks like a contented cat making off with her canary. The Lion King may be nearly sixty and more interested in crooning than howling out all of his love, but Krauss certainly knows that by clutching that arm, she's fulfilling a fantasy that sustained generations of teen-age girls, dreaming in their bedrooms to Led Zeppelin's massive kathunking mojo blues. Though I'm sure their collaboration was strictly artistic, here's to her for having fun with her chance to quietly fly her metal horns and say, "Ladies, eat your hearts out!"

--Ann Powers

I am not necessarily a fan of the

Mormons, but as a baseball guy I just about did a spit take when I saw the

tongue-in-cheek poster for the Los Angeles band's current stand at Mr. T's Bowl. [Sorry

for the sloppy clean-up job; it's a family blog, you know.]

[Our local music spotlight, for the moment, remains pointed at power pop, because

it just seems to go so well with summertime:]


Ari Shine landed with a crunch -- and

that's the crunch of a big power chord -- when he released his debut EP

"Age/Occupation" in 2006. Quickly he became a songwriter-to-watch in the L.A.

power-pop underground, if not somebody who carries enough melodies to wriggle a bunch of

his songs onto TV shows, and his energetic stage show hinted that he might become an

artist who could transcend the frequently fey trappings of the form.

His

full-length debut, "A Force of One" (released in July on Bongo Beat), suggests

that Shine is not content to merely ride the coattails  of his forebears. There's

some boy-meets/loses-girl material here, much of it cleverly couched ("Flirtation

Device"), but he sinks his hooks into broader storytelling too (see the song

below). The album was produced by former Sparks guitarist Earle Mankey, who has worked with

L.A. notables such as Concrete Blonde and the Three O'Clock. The result is a collection

that's a little bit Elvis Costello, a little bit Matthew Sweet and maybe a bit Brendan

Benson.

||| Shine performs tonight at the Knitting Factory as part of International Pop Overthrow. He also

is playing a couple West Cost dates supporting Peter

Case prior to a Sept. 18 date at Safari Sam's as a supporting act for Miles Hunt of the Wonder Stuff.

||| Download: "Beirut 1978."

Photo by Sam Peacock

"Korn's new album doesn't have a title."

"So how do you order it?"

"You don't. It's Korn."

I missed it and, from reports, am regretting it. Bat for Lashes, the nom de tune of

Brighton, England's Natasha Khan, wowed the room last night at Spaceland. The common

sentiment I heard from a couple people: No wonder she is nominated for the Mercury

Music Prize.

You'll be hearing more about her.

For now, here is the enchanting video for "What's a Girl to Do."

Touts for Wednesday, Aug. 1

The Format starts a two-show stand (the

Avalon tonight, House of Blues tomorrow); the band for two weeks offered its latest

album, "Dog Problems," as a free download from its website and reported that

45,000 copies of the (very

good) album were ripped. ... Great

Glass Elevator (whose inventiveness kind of reminds me of the Format in a way) play

Club NME at Spaceland tonight. ... The Automatic Music

Explosion plays the Scene in Glendale. ... And the Stevenson Ranch Davidians

start a run of Wednesday shows at the Echo.

Consider this a warm-up for "The Simpsons

Movie" (opening in two weeks).

The musician's name is Zack Kim, a 24-year-old

university student who was born in Seoul, South Korea, reared in Malaysia and is now

studying in Australia. There are more examples of his technique on his website, and the

young man has his own Wikipedia

page.

He tells me via e-mail that he after he completes his studies in two years he hopes

to devote all his energies to music, and eventually he "would really love to

perform in the States, as it would be a dream come true for me."

Have to

think he'd be quite a hit at the premiere party.

Summer is here, in case you were too busy on MySpace to get the memo. The concert

calendar always seems to remind me before the real calendar, what with the Hollywood

Bowl kicking into gear and the onslaught of distinguished veteran rock bands starting to

make the stadium rounds.

(Email from a friend who went to Dodger Stadium this weekend: "They were pretty

awesome for a Police cover band.")

The smaller events have their cachet too -- the Sunday afternoon Do-Over at Crane's, the Little Radio Summer Camp. And then there was last

Thursday's Late Night at LACMA, the annual summer

solstice soiree, which attracted 7,853 museum visitors and probably disappointed

hundreds of others who waited for hours in long lines only to give up. (To be fair, what

part of "early arrival recommended" did you not understand?)

Late Night was a melange of music, hipster ephemera (T-shirt screen printing by Hit +

Run now seems mandatory if you are throwing any kind of cross-cultural event) and art.

Suffice to say there were plenty of photo ops in the Dan Flavin retrospective, a refuge

for attendees who could only handle small doses of offerings from DJs Steve Aoki,

Internationalist and handful of others. I missed the set by the always-solid Rebirth but caught one of L.A.'s favorite party

bands, Ima Robot, who got folks dancing despite

the band's relative lack of amplification.

◊ ◊ ◊

Where did June go?

The Monday night residencies end tonight at Spaceland, the Echo and Silverlake

Lounge. The L.A. quartet the Deadly

Syndrome (Spaceland) seems to have grown into polished band overnight (and wait till

you hear the album), and Thailand

(Silverlake Lounge), despite playing as a three-piece with electronic rhythms, serve up

a compelling new-wave/post-punk cocktail. And I have not made it to the Echo to see

Philadelphia ex-pats Burning Brides

(maybe tonight?), but people I trust give me good reports.

◊ ◊ ◊

At Safari Sam's on Friday night, the Silver Lake/Echo Park masses gathered to bid

farewell to Sea Level Records and its

proprietor, Todd Clifford. The independent outlet has been a locus of the Eastside music

scene for more than 5 years, and Clifford is closing more for I-need-a-life-change

reasons than business.

Today is the last day Sea Level is scheduled to be open.

Photos: LACMA attendees get up close with Dan Flavin's work; Ima Robot rocks in the

courtyard. By Kevin Bronson / LAT.

The Little Ones are still one

of this city's strongest musical happy pills, but, as a set Friday night showed, it's

hard to maintain that peak level of exuberance when you're doing it night after night,

tour after tour.

The L.A.

quintet -- "Rhymin' Simon on steroids" is how I described them last year, and

it still applies -- played an ASCAP- and Filter-sponsored music night on Friday tied to

the Silverlake Film Festival. The stuff from their "Sing Song" EP still

sounded crisp, and their new songs were upbeat and catchy too. But after having spent

the early part of this year doing some rigorous touring, the Little Ones weren't quite

as unhinged as they were when their EP was first released and Astralwerks (in the U.S.)

and Heavenly (in the U.K.) swooped in to sign the band.

Are the Little Ones still as happy as their music? "That's a good

question," frontman Edward Reyes says. "We're excited. ... Remember, we just

looked at that EP as our calling card -- we just wanted to get some shows with

it."

Their as-yet-untitled debut album is recorded and due in January, Reyes says.

"It's turning out great," he adds. "Right now we have a whole track

devoted to laughing."

||| Download Little Ones' songs from their Daytrotter session here.

◊ ◊ ◊

Passion of the Weiss has a

play-by-play of Britney Spears' Houses of Blues appearance (I will not call it a

performance). He even has some empathy.

◊ ◊ ◊

Ran into an employee of a recently merged record company who was enthused about

having adopted a puppy. Cute thing ... so what did you name him? "Andy

Slater."

◊ ◊ ◊

"So how

was Coachella?" That was the most-asked

question last week. I told inquiring minds that it was a three-day weekend of

once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and even as they were unfolding I knew I was missing

others. Wish the festival could have just hesitated a few times each day and let me

catch up.

The inconsiderate hipsters at Anthem, who throw their Coachella party during the day

while the music is going on, tell me I missed something else too -- a mask-less Thomas

Bangalter from Daft Punk [face obscured] spinning the LCD Soundsystem track "Daft

Punk Is Playing at My House." Not that anybody recognized him. But a cool party

nonetheless.

Daft Punk turned up on the turntables a couple nights later at the Echo too. Not that

anybody recognized them.

Touts for tonight

Gliss (Spaceland), the High Society (Silverlake Lounge), Bodies of Water (Echo) and Richard Bivens & Foreign Press

(Detroit Bar) start their Monday night residencies. ... Midnight Movies plays an in-store at

Amoeba. ... And London's Apartment joins

locals the Grand Marquee and others

at Indie 103.1's Viper Room show.

The music is pretty hard on the ears, kind of a flailing

attempt at dance-party relevance. But the album cover (that's the original at right) is

even harder on the eyes -- so Perry Farrell's Satellite Party revised it. Stereogum has a

compare-and-contrast. I'm not sure, but this would not have passed muster in the

Photoshop classes I slogged through years ago. This does, however, guarantee that the

album will chart. Here.

[Guest blogger August Brown is hot both because he is fly, and because he should

have worn more sunscreen.]

If Coachella success was measured in words per minute, Busdriver would have been the day's

undisputed champ. But fortunately for the old-guard L.A.-based MC, he dropped jaws and

machine-gun metaphors alike during his astonishingly dextrous set.

Busdriver was equally compelling needling the crowd with accusations of yuppiedom as

he did slaying them with fiery indignance at the ways the music industry exploits

rappers. Over a loose-limbed flurry of house and jungle-inspired beats, he extolled

cheeba and wryly freestyled that "in the Gobi tent is how an O.G. represents."

Original gangstas are few and far between at Coachella, but unless Ghostface pulls off

a miracle tomorrow, Busdriver may hit the 10 freeway home as the weekend's reigning

rhyme-slinger.

This was featured in our Downloads column last weekend (a good reason to drop

some coin on the Saturday print edition or check the pop music page on your local

newspaper's website). I've been a sucker for Travis' brand of Britpop since the first Clinton

Administration. Here's the video for "Closer," and, yeah, Ben Stiller makes a

good grocer.

Ozomatli looked to the visual for inspiration

when writing its new album, “Don’t Mess With the Dragon” (due April 3 on Concord

Records) — much of the initial songwriting came out of jam sessions at the Tropico de

Nopal art gallery. Now the veteran L.A. nine-piece might have found a vision to suit its

sound.

The new video for the single “Can’t Stop” is a dizzying collage of

stop-animation and storytelling that seems equal to Ozomatli’s mashing of Latin flavors,

rock, hip-hop and funk — a hybrid many have said is distinctly Los Angeles.

“We haven’t had a lot of luck with videos in the past,” acknowledges Ulises Bella, who

plays saxophone and clarinet for the band.

Ozomatli turned to New York-based

artist-illustrator Richard Borge for “Can’t Stop,” even though the 41-year-old, who had

done album art for bands such as Meat Beat Manifesto, had never done a music video.

Overrated: Pitched instruments in rap production

First, there was "Lip Gloss," Lil Mama's earth-crushing and drums-only ode to windburn protection that sounded more menacing and ruthless than anything on "Curtis." Now, M.I.A.-protege Rye Rye has a smoking, minimalist Baltimore club tune in "Shake It to the Ground" on Diplo's Mad Decent label. Aside from an occasional farted-out bass, the production work from DJ Blaqstarr is again strictly minimalist percussion and gum-smacking chants until practically the end of the song. Have the kids decided they don't need even a perfunctory Korg Triton stab to make a floor-filler? Either way, we dig the Misfits poster in Rye Rye's bedroom in this made-for-pennies video and like to imagine that Glenn Danzig might return the favor someday with a guest verse.

--August Brown

Happy New Year.

And good riddance, 2007.

The year brought an avalanche of music, and the recent holiday week of rumination and

CD-sorting etched in my mind the idea that a whole lot of it was ... well ... pretty

good. Yeah, pretty good, uttered with my head slightly tilted, as if I never

thought once of saying "great" or "really good." If I ever had the

radical notion to rate albums on a 10 scale,

I would swear that half the records I received this year logged somewhere between 6.5

and 6.7 -- a percentage that's skewed because all six copies of the Magic Numbers album that somehow found

their way to my desk would get a 6.2.

Maybe this was the year that trying to

keep up with new music, nationally and locally, finally overwhelmed me, what with every

baby band in the universe engaging in viral marketing, hiring publicists, working with

managers, leaving me polite entreaties on MySpace and generally undermining any belief

that a band can merely grow organically. I attended about 185 shows in 2007 too, many to

follow up on those advertising blitzes.

But after compiling my humble lists

below, I fast-forwarded to December 2009, when all good geeks will be sweating over

their seemingly inevitable Best-of-the-Aughts list. And guess what? Not a single album

from 2007 has a chance of making mine. All of the bands I consider indie icons -- and

I'm sure you can spank me for leaving out people you think are iconic -- released other

albums this decade that are superior to their 2007 releases. For the record, that

pantheon houses the National, Spoon, Modest Mouse, Arcade Fire, Bright Eyes and

Interpol, with other personal faves such as the Shins and Stars living in the backhouse.

Those heavyweights each added to their estimable catalogs, yes; it's just that I'm not

going to pull "We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank" off the shelf first

when I want to hear some Modest Mouse a few years from now.

At least, I don't

think.

The lists follow. Thanks to everybody who sends me music -- really --

and a special shout-out to the bands on the L.A. scene who've made my life so much

richer over the past 5-plus years.

My Favorite 10 Albums of 2007

1. Blonde

Redhead, "23"

2. The National, "Boxer"

3. LCD

Soundsystem, "Sound of Silver"

4. Against Me!, "New

Wave"

5. Spoon, "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga"

6. The Cribs,

"Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever"

7. Arcade Fire, "Neon

Bible"

8. Lupe Fiasco, "Cool"

9. The Shins,

"Wincing the Night Away"

10. Softlightes, "Say No to Being

Cool -- Say Yes to Being Happy" *

Comments: It's scares me how much

this list largely parallels other blogs/music mags. Yes, Fiasco's album just came out,

but on first, second and third blush it's a long-range keeper. And that's right, no

Radiohead. So sue me. 6.8.

* See final list

Buzz Bands' Top 10 L.A. Albums of 2007

1. Foreign Born, "On the Wing Now"

2. John Doe, "A Year in

the Wilderness"

3. Sea Wolf, "Leaves in the River"

4. CoCo B's, "CoCo B's"

5. Eleni Mandell, "Miracle of

Five"

6. Earlimart, "Mentor Tormentor"

7. Culver

City Dub Collective, "Dos"

8. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club,

"Baby 81"

9. Rilo Kiley, "Under the Blacklight"

10. Great Northern, "Trading Twilight for Daylight"

Comments:

Foreign Born is just plain good. CoCo B's self-released disc is a great surprise. Culver

City Dub Collective's genre-mashing is sublime. Eleni Mandell -- who needs Feist? And

Rilo Kiley's album just kept growing on me.

Ten L.A. Bands Whose Debuts Made Me Anxious for the

Sophomore Album

1. The Deadly Syndrome, "The

Ortolan"

2. The Broken West, "I Can't Go On, I'll Go On"

3. Robert Francis, "One by One"

4. The Parson Red Heads,

"King Giraffe"

5. Delta Spirit, "Delta Spirit"

6. Frankel, "Lullaby for the Passersby"

7. Year Long Disaster,

"Year Long Disaster"

8. Sara Bareilles, "Little Voice"

9. The Minor Canon, "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished"

10. No

Age, "Weirdo Rippers"

Ten L.A. Bands Whose 2007 EPs Made

Me Want More

Castledoor, the Airborne Toxic Event, the Weather

Underground, the Black Kites, Voxhaul Broadcast, Sam Sparro, Manic, Radars to the Sky,

Sara Lov, Aushua.

Three Albums From Bands Whom I Loved in the '90s and Still

Do

1. Buffalo Tom, "Three Easy Pieces"

2.

Dinosaur Jr., "Beyond"

3. Smashing Pumpkins,

"Zeitgeist"

Five Hip-Hop Albums I Would Recommend If

Anybody Believed I Recommended Hip-Hop Albums

1. Lupe Fiasco,

"Cool"

2. Kanye West, "Graduation"

3. Brother

Ali, "Undisputed Truth"

4. El-P, "I'll Sleep When You're

Dead"

5. Aesop Rock, "None Shall Pass"

Under the Radar: Six Overlooked Albums

1.

Softlightes, "Say No to Being Cool -- Say Yes to Being Happy": Cinematic

electro-pop that recalls Grandaddy at its finest.

2. The High Strung,

"Get the Guests": Catchy and clever, hold the irony, with peripatetic melody

lines that do not quit.

3. Minipop, "A New Hope": Gorgeous and

beautifully layered shoegaze-pop with rhythms that will drive you right into a dreamlike

state.

4. The Blakes, "The Blakes": Soulful garage rock that's good

for your summer sweat.

5. The Comas, "Spells": Distortion-heavy

power pop arrives in bursts, may leave marks.

6. Young Galaxy, "Young

Galaxy": Other Canadian exports (Kevin Drew, Sunset Rubdown, Feist, et. al.) earned

more buzz, but this album feel like a warm waking dream.

Comments:

Somehow I saw Softlightes play live 10 times in 2007. I left each show in a better mood

than when I arrived.

 

The next time someone tells you that booze doesn't make the world a better place, you just tell them to go listen to Corrine Bailey Rae and her remix of "Like A Star" at the wonderfully titled website www.generouspour.com. The seasonal website for Clos du Bois Wines has lovely traditonal holiday recipes for things like, um, "stoned crab cobbler with coconut" (what, are we pre-gaming for New Year's at Jimmy Buffett's beach hut?) and "Hot Italian Sausage Stuffing" (I'm pretty sure that's the gay porn version of "Roman Holiday"). Anyway, the website, which will be up through today, has a free download of "Like A Star" by Grammy nominee Rae and every time someone downloads it, Clos du Bois will donate $1 to Share Our Strength, a non-profit working against hunger and poverty in the U.S. It sounds like booze-company guilt to us, and wouldn't Amy Winehouse have been a better choice here for so many reasons? As for the music: The song is pretty much played out and the remix here is a fairly glossy affair but it is also free and unobjectionable as a dinner-party fare. So pass the potatoes...

--Geoff Boucher

The Beatle who earned his famous nickname by covering his fingers with rings is now making news with a bracelet. “Liverpool 8,” the new Capitol/EMI album from 67-year-old Ringo Starr, is being released Jan. 15 as a CD, a digital download and also as a “pre-loaded USB wristband” that includes all 12 tracks and a slew of extras, including “a personal video message, interview and track commentary from Ringo Starr, behind-the-scenes making-of footage from the recording sessions, ringtones, photos and more.” (Shouldn't those be "Ringo-tones"?) There’s more details at www.ringostarr.com but this already opens a whole new world of albums-as-accessories. How soon can we buy “Blackout” by Britney Spears in the ankle-monitor format? And how great would be to work toward the weekend by wearing Loverboy’s greatest hits in your headband?

--Geoff Boucher

Just in time to service your holiday malaise, two of my favorite DJ collectives are

conspiring to set sadness to music tonight at the downtown bar La Cita.

Give Up -- the seasonal club night initiated by the DJ collective Dublab and manned the past several years by Mark

"Frosty" McNeill and Jimmy Tamborello -- gets back into its wintry spirit as

DJs spin depressing songs on the bar's back patio. It's described as "a deeply

depressing disc sob session." Inside the bar, Part Time Punks' Michael Stock and others will

be hosting "A Sad, Slow Dance Party," promising "all slow dancing, all

night long."

There's no cover. Tears start to flow at 9 p.m.

Photo of DJ Frosty (from 2005) by Kevin Bronson/LAT

Happier choices for Tuesday, Dec. 18

Pop sextet Castledoor brings its

sublime tunes to Boardner's in the final monthly show of the year presented by Radio Free Silver Lake. The Flying Tourbillon Orchestra

and Frankel are also playing the

18-and-older show, which is free. ... Mighty Six Ninety and Io Echo rock the Troubadour. ... Oliver Future continues its Tuesday

residency at the Viper Room. ... The

Monolators head a good local bill at the Scene. ... And John Gold performs at Bordello.

The obituary this morning says Dan Fogelberg helped "define soft rock," but

that sounds kind of flaccid compared to what the singer-songwriter, who died Sunday at

age 56, meant to a bunch of kids in the working-class neighborhoods of Peoria, Ill., in

the early 1970s.

Fogelberg graduated from Woodruff High School the year before I got there, leaving

behind some stories of a rock band called the Coachmen (I actually owned the 45 at one

point -- oh, where did it go?) and the occasional rumor he'd gone off to California, a

place that seemed so distant from our Midwestern factory town as to be a mirage. Not

many of us had California dreams then; we'd do well to graduate high school and get on

at Caterpillar Tractor Co. (which accounted for something like 1 in 5 paychecks in our

city in those days). If we were really lucky, we'd go to college.

In the fall of my junior year, "Home Free" arrived, and we were mesmerized.

Fogelberg's debut album -- a beautifully orchestrated bouquet of ballads that veered

toward what we now would call alt-country -- took his alma mater by storm. It christened

the tape player in my first car; it was played endlessly at basement parties from Grand

View Drive to the lower East Bluff. I'm pretty sure there isn't a song in my collection

I've played over the years more than that second track, "Stars."

Fogelberg was our Jackson Browne, a romantic who shared our roots and who had the

courage to strike out in service of his poetry. As I trudged through the snow delivering

my Peoria Journal Stars every morning, that was a pretty important symbol.

I always blanched at, but ultimately forgave, the arch sentimentality that seemingly

oppressive production brought to Fogelberg's later albums. He had earned the right to

pursue whatever vision struck him. When my brother and I took in a Fogelberg show a few

years ago in Anaheim, it wasn't so much for musical nostalgia as it was a thank-you.

In one subtle but important way, Dan Fogelberg was the leader of our band.

Curiosity piqued by the announcement of the Gibson "Robot" Guitar, I headed down to my favorite guitar shop in L.A. on Saturday to check it out myself. I was a little disappointed, frankly.

With a name like "the Robot," I was expecting this six-stringer to jump out of the case unprovoked and run around the room, shouting, "Danger Will Robinson!" or "For those about to rock we salute you!" or "Sarah Connor?" or something. Instead, the Robot just lay in his case, looking like a standard (or, for those of you in the know, a "studio") Les Paul. The only obvious differences were larger tuning pegs and a funky-looking control where one of the standard four volume/tone knobs is usually located. This, I was told, was the "MCK" or "Master Control Knob."

"Now there's the kind of Orwellian 'oh no, the machines have achieved artificial intelligence and have enslaved all carbon-based lifeforms on the planet'-kind of language I was hoping for," I thought.

But alas, the master control knob just controls the Robot's auto-tuning mechanism. It's pretty neat, I'll admit. You pull out the knob, spin the top dial to one of several tuning-configuration presets (standard, "drop d," open-tuning, etc.), tap the top, strum the strings, wait for the tuning pegs to auto-jiggy into position, and voila--push the knob back in and your Les Paul has an alternate tuning.

For the overwhelming majority of guitar players who play in standard tuning, what are the advantages? Well, for about $1000 more than what you'd spend on a regular Les Paul, you can keep your axe in really, really, really good tune.

So who is the real market for Gibson's Robot Guitar? Wealthy guitar players who need to constantly and radically alter their tuning. If that's not you, buy a chromatic tuner and save the Robot Guitar for Joni Mitchell.

--Liam Gowing

Welcome to Soundboard, the new music blog from the L.A. Times written by a band of opinionated, sometimes cranky, sometimes ecstatic music lovers. Soundboard will blog breaking news, concert previews, album and single reviews, and lots of random observations about this vast, exciting, wacko place known as the music world. By the way, we're nomads, committed to no single genre, era or chart, so expect Soundboard to be all over the place, like a Sonic Youth song covered by Beyonce playing at a Mexican restaurant in Torrance. That song doesn't exist (yet) but you get the point.

I don't know why, but I'm thinking about record clubs. I remember a time when my older brother belonged to one and he'd show me his cool new tapes. (Yeah, tapes. Don't laugh.) "I got this for a penny!" he's say, shaking Duran Duran's "Rio" in my face. I was amazed. A penny? How can they do that??

So I started searching around to see if any are left.

Turns out that BMG Columbia House still has one but from their home page, you can tell they're making their money from DVDs. "Music Service" is off to the side. When you click on it, it takes you to one of the saddest little web pages in the world, seemingly designed by Your Local Mall's Party Store circa 1988.

I'm going to find out a little more about this whole thing, but in the meantime, does anyone still belong to a record club out there?

[Crickets.]

--Margaret Wappler

I'm not part of the pack salivating over "Raising Sand," the new Alison Krauss/Robert Plant collab -- its backwoods flavor is slightly overcooked, in my book -- but I love the CD's cover art. The frontispiece shows the two stars relaxing in some desert setting, smiling off into the distance, perhaps at T-Bone Burnett bringing them another sheaf of folk-pop obscurities to peruse.

The back's the clincher, though. Plant's back is turned, and Krauss, leaning toward him, throws a grin over her shoulder as they walk away. She looks like a contented cat making off with her canary. The Lion King may be nearly sixty and more interested in crooning than howling out all of his love, but Krauss certainly knows that by clutching that arm, she's fulfilling a fantasy that sustained generations of teen-age girls, dreaming in their bedrooms to Led Zeppelin's massive kathunking mojo blues. Though I'm sure their collaboration was strictly artistic, here's to her for having fun with her chance to quietly fly her metal horns and say, "Ladies, eat your hearts out!"

--Ann Powers

I am not necessarily a fan of the

Mormons, but as a baseball guy I just about did a spit take when I saw the

tongue-in-cheek poster for the Los Angeles band's current stand at Mr. T's Bowl. [Sorry

for the sloppy clean-up job; it's a family blog, you know.]

[Our local music spotlight, for the moment, remains pointed at power pop, because

it just seems to go so well with summertime:]


Ari Shine landed with a crunch -- and

that's the crunch of a big power chord -- when he released his debut EP

"Age/Occupation" in 2006. Quickly he became a songwriter-to-watch in the L.A.

power-pop underground, if not somebody who carries enough melodies to wriggle a bunch of

his songs onto TV shows, and his energetic stage show hinted that he might become an

artist who could transcend the frequently fey trappings of the form.

His

full-length debut, "A Force of One" (released in July on Bongo Beat), suggests

that Shine is not content to merely ride the coattails  of his forebears. There's

some boy-meets/loses-girl material here, much of it cleverly couched ("Flirtation

Device"), but he sinks his hooks into broader storytelling too (see the song

below). The album was produced by former Sparks guitarist Earle Mankey, who has worked with

L.A. notables such as Concrete Blonde and the Three O'Clock. The result is a collection

that's a little bit Elvis Costello, a little bit Matthew Sweet and maybe a bit Brendan

Benson.

||| Shine performs tonight at the Knitting Factory as part of International Pop Overthrow. He also

is playing a couple West Cost dates supporting Peter

Case prior to a Sept. 18 date at Safari Sam's as a supporting act for Miles Hunt of the Wonder Stuff.

||| Download: "Beirut 1978."

Photo by Sam Peacock

"Korn's new album doesn't have a title."

"So how do you order it?"

"You don't. It's Korn."

I missed it and, from reports, am regretting it. Bat for Lashes, the nom de tune of

Brighton, England's Natasha Khan, wowed the room last night at Spaceland. The common

sentiment I heard from a couple people: No wonder she is nominated for the Mercury

Music Prize.

You'll be hearing more about her.

For now, here is the enchanting video for "What's a Girl to Do."

Touts for Wednesday, Aug. 1

The Format starts a two-show stand (the

Avalon tonight, House of Blues tomorrow); the band for two weeks offered its latest

album, "Dog Problems," as a free download from its website and reported that

45,000 copies of the (very

good) album were ripped. ... Great

Glass Elevator (whose inventiveness kind of reminds me of the Format in a way) play

Club NME at Spaceland tonight. ... The Automatic Music

Explosion plays the Scene in Glendale. ... And the Stevenson Ranch Davidians

start a run of Wednesday shows at the Echo.

Consider this a warm-up for "The Simpsons

Movie" (opening in two weeks).

The musician's name is Zack Kim, a 24-year-old

university student who was born in Seoul, South Korea, reared in Malaysia and is now

studying in Australia. There are more examples of his technique on his website, and the

young man has his own Wikipedia

page.

He tells me via e-mail that he after he completes his studies in two years he hopes

to devote all his energies to music, and eventually he "would really love to

perform in the States, as it would be a dream come true for me."

Have to

think he'd be quite a hit at the premiere party.

Summer is here, in case you were too busy on MySpace to get the memo. The concert

calendar always seems to remind me before the real calendar, what with the Hollywood

Bowl kicking into gear and the onslaught of distinguished veteran rock bands starting to

make the stadium rounds.

(Email from a friend who went to Dodger Stadium this weekend: "They were pretty

awesome for a Police cover band.")

The smaller events have their cachet too -- the Sunday afternoon Do-Over at Crane's, the Little Radio Summer Camp. And then there was last

Thursday's Late Night at LACMA, the annual summer

solstice soiree, which attracted 7,853 museum visitors and probably disappointed

hundreds of others who waited for hours in long lines only to give up. (To be fair, what

part of "early arrival recommended" did you not understand?)

Late Night was a melange of music, hipster ephemera (T-shirt screen printing by Hit +

Run now seems mandatory if you are throwing any kind of cross-cultural event) and art.

Suffice to say there were plenty of photo ops in the Dan Flavin retrospective, a refuge

for attendees who could only handle small doses of offerings from DJs Steve Aoki,

Internationalist and handful of others. I missed the set by the always-solid Rebirth but caught one of L.A.'s favorite party

bands, Ima Robot, who got folks dancing despite

the band's relative lack of amplification.

◊ ◊ ◊

Where did June go?

The Monday night residencies end tonight at Spaceland, the Echo and Silverlake

Lounge. The L.A. quartet the Deadly

Syndrome (Spaceland) seems to have grown into polished band overnight (and wait till

you hear the album), and Thailand

(Silverlake Lounge), despite playing as a three-piece with electronic rhythms, serve up

a compelling new-wave/post-punk cocktail. And I have not made it to the Echo to see

Philadelphia ex-pats Burning Brides

(maybe tonight?), but people I trust give me good reports.

◊ ◊ ◊

At Safari Sam's on Friday night, the Silver Lake/Echo Park masses gathered to bid

farewell to Sea Level Records and its

proprietor, Todd Clifford. The independent outlet has been a locus of the Eastside music

scene for more than 5 years, and Clifford is closing more for I-need-a-life-change

reasons than business.

Today is the last day Sea Level is scheduled to be open.

Photos: LACMA attendees get up close with Dan Flavin's work; Ima Robot rocks in the

courtyard. By Kevin Bronson / LAT.

The Little Ones are still one

of this city's strongest musical happy pills, but, as a set Friday night showed, it's

hard to maintain that peak level of exuberance when you're doing it night after night,

tour after tour.

The L.A.

quintet -- "Rhymin' Simon on steroids" is how I described them last year, and

it still applies -- played an ASCAP- and Filter-sponsored music night on Friday tied to

the Silverlake Film Festival. The stuff from their "Sing Song" EP still

sounded crisp, and their new songs were upbeat and catchy too. But after having spent

the early part of this year doing some rigorous touring, the Little Ones weren't quite

as unhinged as they were when their EP was first released and Astralwerks (in the U.S.)

and Heavenly (in the U.K.) swooped in to sign the band.

Are the Little Ones still as happy as their music? "That's a good

question," frontman Edward Reyes says. "We're excited. ... Remember, we just

looked at that EP as our calling card -- we just wanted to get some shows with

it."

Their as-yet-untitled debut album is recorded and due in January, Reyes says.

"It's turning out great," he adds. "Right now we have a whole track

devoted to laughing."

||| Download Little Ones' songs from their Daytrotter session here.

◊ ◊ ◊

Passion of the Weiss has a

play-by-play of Britney Spears' Houses of Blues appearance (I will not call it a

performance). He even has some empathy.

◊ ◊ ◊

Ran into an employee of a recently merged record company who was enthused about

having adopted a puppy. Cute thing ... so what did you name him? "Andy

Slater."

◊ ◊ ◊

"So how

was Coachella?" That was the most-asked

question last week. I told inquiring minds that it was a three-day weekend of

once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and even as they were unfolding I knew I was missing

others. Wish the festival could have just hesitated a few times each day and let me

catch up.

The inconsiderate hipsters at Anthem, who throw their Coachella party during the day

while the music is going on, tell me I missed something else too -- a mask-less Thomas

Bangalter from Daft Punk [face obscured] spinning the LCD Soundsystem track "Daft

Punk Is Playing at My House." Not that anybody recognized him. But a cool party

nonetheless.

Daft Punk turned up on the turntables a couple nights later at the Echo too. Not that

anybody recognized them.

Touts for tonight

Gliss (Spaceland), the High Society (Silverlake Lounge), Bodies of Water (Echo) and Richard Bivens & Foreign Press

(Detroit Bar) start their Monday night residencies. ... Midnight Movies plays an in-store at

Amoeba. ... And London's Apartment joins

locals the Grand Marquee and others

at Indie 103.1's Viper Room show.

The music is pretty hard on the ears, kind of a flailing

attempt at dance-party relevance. But the album cover (that's the original at right) is

even harder on the eyes -- so Perry Farrell's Satellite Party revised it. Stereogum has a

compare-and-contrast. I'm not sure, but this would not have passed muster in the

Photoshop classes I slogged through years ago. This does, however, guarantee that the

album will chart. Here.

[Guest blogger August Brown is hot both because he is fly, and because he should

have worn more sunscreen.]

If Coachella success was measured in words per minute, Busdriver would have been the day's

undisputed champ. But fortunately for the old-guard L.A.-based MC, he dropped jaws and

machine-gun metaphors alike during his astonishingly dextrous set.

Busdriver was equally compelling needling the crowd with accusations of yuppiedom as

he did slaying them with fiery indignance at the ways the music industry exploits

rappers. Over a loose-limbed flurry of house and jungle-inspired beats, he extolled

cheeba and wryly freestyled that "in the Gobi tent is how an O.G. represents."

Original gangstas are few and far between at Coachella, but unless Ghostface pulls off

a miracle tomorrow, Busdriver may hit the 10 freeway home as the weekend's reigning

rhyme-slinger.

This was featured in our Downloads column last weekend (a good reason to drop

some coin on the Saturday print edition or check the pop music page on your local

newspaper's website). I've been a sucker for Travis' brand of Britpop since the first Clinton

Administration. Here's the video for "Closer," and, yeah, Ben Stiller makes a

good grocer.

Ozomatli looked to the visual for inspiration

when writing its new album, “Don’t Mess With the Dragon” (due April 3 on Concord

Records) — much of the initial songwriting came out of jam sessions at the Tropico de

Nopal art gallery. Now the veteran L.A. nine-piece might have found a vision to suit its

sound.

The new video for the single “Can’t Stop” is a dizzying collage of

stop-animation and storytelling that seems equal to Ozomatli’s mashing of Latin flavors,

rock, hip-hop and funk — a hybrid many have said is distinctly Los Angeles.

“We haven’t had a lot of luck with videos in the past,” acknowledges Ulises Bella, who

plays saxophone and clarinet for the band.

Ozomatli turned to New York-based

artist-illustrator Richard Borge for “Can’t Stop,” even though the 41-year-old, who had

done album art for bands such as Meat Beat Manifesto, had never done a music video.

2007: Rear-View Mirror

Happy New Year.

And good riddance, 2007.

The year brought an avalanche of music, and the recent holiday week of rumination and

CD-sorting etched in my mind the idea that a whole lot of it was ... well ... pretty

good. Yeah, pretty good, uttered with my head slightly tilted, as if I never

thought once of saying "great" or "really good." If I ever had the

radical notion to rate albums on a 10 scale,

I would swear that half the records I received this year logged somewhere between 6.5

and 6.7 -- a percentage that's skewed because all six copies of the Magic Numbers album that somehow found

their way to my desk would get a 6.2.

Maybe this was the year that trying to

keep up with new music, nationally and locally, finally overwhelmed me, what with every

baby band in the universe engaging in viral marketing, hiring publicists, working with

managers, leaving me polite entreaties on MySpace and generally undermining any belief

that a band can merely grow organically. I attended about 185 shows in 2007 too, many to

follow up on those advertising blitzes.

But after compiling my humble lists

below, I fast-forwarded to December 2009, when all good geeks will be sweating over

their seemingly inevitable Best-of-the-Aughts list. And guess what? Not a single album

from 2007 has a chance of making mine. All of the bands I consider indie icons -- and

I'm sure you can spank me for leaving out people you think are iconic -- released other

albums this decade that are superior to their 2007 releases. For the record, that

pantheon houses the National, Spoon, Modest Mouse, Arcade Fire, Bright Eyes and

Interpol, with other personal faves such as the Shins and Stars living in the backhouse.

Those heavyweights each added to their estimable catalogs, yes; it's just that I'm not

going to pull "We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank" off the shelf first

when I want to hear some Modest Mouse a few years from now.

At least, I don't

think.

The lists follow. Thanks to everybody who sends me music -- really --

and a special shout-out to the bands on the L.A. scene who've made my life so much

richer over the past 5-plus years.

My Favorite 10 Albums of 2007

1. Blonde

Redhead, "23"

2. The National, "Boxer"

3. LCD

Soundsystem, "Sound of Silver"

4. Against Me!, "New

Wave"

5. Spoon, "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga"

6. The Cribs,

"Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever"

7. Arcade Fire, "Neon

Bible"

8. Lupe Fiasco, "Cool"

9. The Shins,

"Wincing the Night Away"

10. Softlightes, "Say No to Being

Cool -- Say Yes to Being Happy" *

Comments: It's scares me how much

this list largely parallels other blogs/music mags. Yes, Fiasco's album just came out,

but on first, second and third blush it's a long-range keeper. And that's right, no

Radiohead. So sue me. 6.8.

* See final list

Buzz Bands' Top 10 L.A. Albums of 2007

1. Foreign Born, "On the Wing Now"

2. John Doe, "A Year in

the Wilderness"

3. Sea Wolf, "Leaves in the River"

4. CoCo B's, "CoCo B's"

5. Eleni Mandell, "Miracle of

Five"

6. Earlimart, "Mentor Tormentor"

7. Culver

City Dub Collective, "Dos"

8. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club,

"Baby 81"

9. Rilo Kiley, "Under the Blacklight"

10. Great Northern, "Trading Twilight for Daylight"

Comments:

Foreign Born is just plain good. CoCo B's self-released disc is a great surprise. Culver

City Dub Collective's genre-mashing is sublime. Eleni Mandell -- who needs Feist? And

Rilo Kiley's album just kept growing on me.

Ten L.A. Bands Whose Debuts Made Me Anxious for the

Sophomore Album

1. The Deadly Syndrome, "The

Ortolan"

2. The Broken West, "I Can't Go On, I'll Go On"

3. Robert Francis, "One by One"

4. The Parson Red Heads,

"King Giraffe"

5. Delta Spirit, "Delta Spirit"

6. Frankel, "Lullaby for the Passersby"

7. Year Long Disaster,

"Year Long Disaster"

8. Sara Bareilles, "Little Voice"

9. The Minor Canon, "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished"

10. No

Age, "Weirdo Rippers"

Ten L.A. Bands Whose 2007 EPs Made

Me Want More

Castledoor, the Airborne Toxic Event, the Weather

Underground, the Black Kites, Voxhaul Broadcast, Sam Sparro, Manic, Radars to the Sky,

Sara Lov, Aushua.

Three Albums From Bands Whom I Loved in the '90s and Still

Do

1. Buffalo Tom, "Three Easy Pieces"

2.

Dinosaur Jr., "Beyond"

3. Smashing Pumpkins,

"Zeitgeist"

Five Hip-Hop Albums I Would Recommend If

Anybody Believed I Recommended Hip-Hop Albums

1. Lupe Fiasco,

"Cool"

2. Kanye West, "Graduation"

3. Brother

Ali, "Undisputed Truth"

4. El-P, "I'll Sleep When You're

Dead"

5. Aesop Rock, "None Shall Pass"

Under the Radar: Six Overlooked Albums

1.

Softlightes, "Say No to Being Cool -- Say Yes to Being Happy": Cinematic

electro-pop that recalls Grandaddy at its finest.

2. The High Strung,

"Get the Guests": Catchy and clever, hold the irony, with peripatetic melody

lines that do not quit.

3. Minipop, "A New Hope": Gorgeous and

beautifully layered shoegaze-pop with rhythms that will drive you right into a dreamlike

state.

4. The Blakes, "The Blakes": Soulful garage rock that's good

for your summer sweat.

5. The Comas, "Spells": Distortion-heavy

power pop arrives in bursts, may leave marks.

6. Young Galaxy, "Young

Galaxy": Other Canadian exports (Kevin Drew, Sunset Rubdown, Feist, et. al.) earned

more buzz, but this album feel like a warm waking dream.

Comments:

Somehow I saw Softlightes play live 10 times in 2007. I left each show in a better mood

than when I arrived.

 

The next time someone tells you that booze doesn't make the world a better place, you just tell them to go listen to Corrine Bailey Rae and her remix of "Like A Star" at the wonderfully titled website www.generouspour.com. The seasonal website for Clos du Bois Wines has lovely traditonal holiday recipes for things like, um, "stoned crab cobbler with coconut" (what, are we pre-gaming for New Year's at Jimmy Buffett's beach hut?) and "Hot Italian Sausage Stuffing" (I'm pretty sure that's the gay porn version of "Roman Holiday"). Anyway, the website, which will be up through today, has a free download of "Like A Star" by Grammy nominee Rae and every time someone downloads it, Clos du Bois will donate $1 to Share Our Strength, a non-profit working against hunger and poverty in the U.S. It sounds like booze-company guilt to us, and wouldn't Amy Winehouse have been a better choice here for so many reasons? As for the music: The song is pretty much played out and the remix here is a fairly glossy affair but it is also free and unobjectionable as a dinner-party fare. So pass the potatoes...

--Geoff Boucher

The Beatle who earned his famous nickname by covering his fingers with rings is now making news with a bracelet. “Liverpool 8,” the new Capitol/EMI album from 67-year-old Ringo Starr, is being released Jan. 15 as a CD, a digital download and also as a “pre-loaded USB wristband” that includes all 12 tracks and a slew of extras, including “a personal video message, interview and track commentary from Ringo Starr, behind-the-scenes making-of footage from the recording sessions, ringtones, photos and more.” (Shouldn't those be "Ringo-tones"?) There’s more details at www.ringostarr.com but this already opens a whole new world of albums-as-accessories. How soon can we buy “Blackout” by Britney Spears in the ankle-monitor format? And how great would be to work toward the weekend by wearing Loverboy’s greatest hits in your headband?

--Geoff Boucher

Just in time to service your holiday malaise, two of my favorite DJ collectives are

conspiring to set sadness to music tonight at the downtown bar La Cita.

Give Up -- the seasonal club night initiated by the DJ collective Dublab and manned the past several years by Mark

"Frosty" McNeill and Jimmy Tamborello -- gets back into its wintry spirit as

DJs spin depressing songs on the bar's back patio. It's described as "a deeply

depressing disc sob session." Inside the bar, Part Time Punks' Michael Stock and others will

be hosting "A Sad, Slow Dance Party," promising "all slow dancing, all

night long."

There's no cover. Tears start to flow at 9 p.m.

Photo of DJ Frosty (from 2005) by Kevin Bronson/LAT

Happier choices for Tuesday, Dec. 18

Pop sextet Castledoor brings its

sublime tunes to Boardner's in the final monthly show of the year presented by Radio Free Silver Lake. The Flying Tourbillon Orchestra

and Frankel are also playing the

18-and-older show, which is free. ... Mighty Six Ninety and Io Echo rock the Troubadour. ... Oliver Future continues its Tuesday

residency at the Viper Room. ... The

Monolators head a good local bill at the Scene. ... And John Gold performs at Bordello.

The obituary this morning says Dan Fogelberg helped "define soft rock," but

that sounds kind of flaccid compared to what the singer-songwriter, who died Sunday at

age 56, meant to a bunch of kids in the working-class neighborhoods of Peoria, Ill., in

the early 1970s.

Fogelberg graduated from Woodruff High School the year before I got there, leaving

behind some stories of a rock band called the Coachmen (I actually owned the 45 at one

point -- oh, where did it go?) and the occasional rumor he'd gone off to California, a

place that seemed so distant from our Midwestern factory town as to be a mirage. Not

many of us had California dreams then; we'd do well to graduate high school and get on

at Caterpillar Tractor Co. (which accounted for something like 1 in 5 paychecks in our

city in those days). If we were really lucky, we'd go to college.

In the fall of my junior year, "Home Free" arrived, and we were mesmerized.

Fogelberg's debut album -- a beautifully orchestrated bouquet of ballads that veered

toward what we now would call alt-country -- took his alma mater by storm. It christened

the tape player in my first car; it was played endlessly at basement parties from Grand

View Drive to the lower East Bluff. I'm pretty sure there isn't a song in my collection

I've played over the years more than that second track, "Stars."

Fogelberg was our Jackson Browne, a romantic who shared our roots and who had the

courage to strike out in service of his poetry. As I trudged through the snow delivering

my Peoria Journal Stars every morning, that was a pretty important symbol.

I always blanched at, but ultimately forgave, the arch sentimentality that seemingly

oppressive production brought to Fogelberg's later albums. He had earned the right to

pursue whatever vision struck him. When my brother and I took in a Fogelberg show a few

years ago in Anaheim, it wasn't so much for musical nostalgia as it was a thank-you.

In one subtle but important way, Dan Fogelberg was the leader of our band.

Curiosity piqued by the announcement of the Gibson "Robot" Guitar, I headed down to my favorite guitar shop in L.A. on Saturday to check it out myself. I was a little disappointed, frankly.

With a name like "the Robot," I was expecting this six-stringer to jump out of the case unprovoked and run around the room, shouting, "Danger Will Robinson!" or "For those about to rock we salute you!" or "Sarah Connor?" or something. Instead, the Robot just lay in his case, looking like a standard (or, for those of you in the know, a "studio") Les Paul. The only obvious differences were larger tuning pegs and a funky-looking control where one of the standard four volume/tone knobs is usually located. This, I was told, was the "MCK" or "Master Control Knob."

"Now there's the kind of Orwellian 'oh no, the machines have achieved artificial intelligence and have enslaved all carbon-based lifeforms on the planet'-kind of language I was hoping for," I thought.

But alas, the master control knob just controls the Robot's auto-tuning mechanism. It's pretty neat, I'll admit. You pull out the knob, spin the top dial to one of several tuning-configuration presets (standard, "drop d," open-tuning, etc.), tap the top, strum the strings, wait for the tuning pegs to auto-jiggy into position, and voila--push the knob back in and your Les Paul has an alternate tuning.

For the overwhelming majority of guitar players who play in standard tuning, what are the advantages? Well, for about $1000 more than what you'd spend on a regular Les Paul, you can keep your axe in really, really, really good tune.

So who is the real market for Gibson's Robot Guitar? Wealthy guitar players who need to constantly and radically alter their tuning. If that's not you, buy a chromatic tuner and save the Robot Guitar for Joni Mitchell.

--Liam Gowing

Welcome to Soundboard, the new music blog from the L.A. Times written by a band of opinionated, sometimes cranky, sometimes ecstatic music lovers. Soundboard will blog breaking news, concert previews, album and single reviews, and lots of random observations about this vast, exciting, wacko place known as the music world. By the way, we're nomads, committed to no single genre, era or chart, so expect Soundboard to be all over the place, like a Sonic Youth song covered by Beyonce playing at a Mexican restaurant in Torrance. That song doesn't exist (yet) but you get the point.

I don't know why, but I'm thinking about record clubs. I remember a time when my older brother belonged to one and he'd show me his cool new tapes. (Yeah, tapes. Don't laugh.) "I got this for a penny!" he's say, shaking Duran Duran's "Rio" in my face. I was amazed. A penny? How can they do that??

So I started searching around to see if any are left.

Turns out that BMG Columbia House still has one but from their home page, you can tell they're making their money from DVDs. "Music Service" is off to the side. When you click on it, it takes you to one of the saddest little web pages in the world, seemingly designed by Your Local Mall's Party Store circa 1988.

I'm going to find out a little more about this whole thing, but in the meantime, does anyone still belong to a record club out there?

[Crickets.]

--Margaret Wappler

I'm not part of the pack salivating over "Raising Sand," the new Alison Krauss/Robert Plant collab -- its backwoods flavor is slightly overcooked, in my book -- but I love the CD's cover art. The frontispiece shows the two stars relaxing in some desert setting, smiling off into the distance, perhaps at T-Bone Burnett bringing them another sheaf of folk-pop obscurities to peruse.

The back's the clincher, though. Plant's back is turned, and Krauss, leaning toward him, throws a grin over her shoulder as they walk away. She looks like a contented cat making off with her canary. The Lion King may be nearly sixty and more interested in crooning than howling out all of his love, but Krauss certainly knows that by clutching that arm, she's fulfilling a fantasy that sustained generations of teen-age girls, dreaming in their bedrooms to Led Zeppelin's massive kathunking mojo blues. Though I'm sure their collaboration was strictly artistic, here's to her for having fun with her chance to quietly fly her metal horns and say, "Ladies, eat your hearts out!"

--Ann Powers

I am not necessarily a fan of the

Mormons, but as a baseball guy I just about did a spit take when I saw the

tongue-in-cheek poster for the Los Angeles band's current stand at Mr. T's Bowl. [Sorry

for the sloppy clean-up job; it's a family blog, you know.]

[Our local music spotlight, for the moment, remains pointed at power pop, because

it just seems to go so well with summertime:]


Ari Shine landed with a crunch -- and

that's the crunch of a big power chord -- when he released his debut EP

"Age/Occupation" in 2006. Quickly he became a songwriter-to-watch in the L.A.

power-pop underground, if not somebody who carries enough melodies to wriggle a bunch of

his songs onto TV shows, and his energetic stage show hinted that he might become an

artist who could transcend the frequently fey trappings of the form.

His

full-length debut, "A Force of One" (released in July on Bongo Beat), suggests

that Shine is not content to merely ride the coattails  of his forebears. There's

some boy-meets/loses-girl material here, much of it cleverly couched ("Flirtation

Device"), but he sinks his hooks into broader storytelling too (see the song

below). The album was produced by former Sparks guitarist Earle Mankey, who has worked with

L.A. notables such as Concrete Blonde and the Three O'Clock. The result is a collection

that's a little bit Elvis Costello, a little bit Matthew Sweet and maybe a bit Brendan

Benson.

||| Shine performs tonight at the Knitting Factory as part of International Pop Overthrow. He also

is playing a couple West Cost dates supporting Peter

Case prior to a Sept. 18 date at Safari Sam's as a supporting act for Miles Hunt of the Wonder Stuff.

||| Download: "Beirut 1978."

Photo by Sam Peacock

"Korn's new album doesn't have a title."

"So how do you order it?"

"You don't. It's Korn."

I missed it and, from reports, am regretting it. Bat for Lashes, the nom de tune of

Brighton, England's Natasha Khan, wowed the room last night at Spaceland. The common

sentiment I heard from a couple people: No wonder she is nominated for the Mercury

Music Prize.

You'll be hearing more about her.

For now, here is the enchanting video for "What's a Girl to Do."

Touts for Wednesday, Aug. 1

The Format starts a two-show stand (the

Avalon tonight, House of Blues tomorrow); the band for two weeks offered its latest

album, "Dog Problems," as a free download from its website and reported that

45,000 copies of the (very

good) album were ripped. ... Great

Glass Elevator (whose inventiveness kind of reminds me of the Format in a way) play

Club NME at Spaceland tonight. ... The Automatic Music

Explosion plays the Scene in Glendale. ... And the Stevenson Ranch Davidians

start a run of Wednesday shows at the Echo.

Consider this a warm-up for "The Simpsons

Movie" (opening in two weeks).

The musician's name is Zack Kim, a 24-year-old

university student who was born in Seoul, South Korea, reared in Malaysia and is now

studying in Australia. There are more examples of his technique on his website, and the

young man has his own Wikipedia

page.

He tells me via e-mail that he after he completes his studies in two years he hopes

to devote all his energies to music, and eventually he "would really love to

perform in the States, as it would be a dream come true for me."

Have to

think he'd be quite a hit at the premiere party.

Summer is here, in case you were too busy on MySpace to get the memo. The concert

calendar always seems to remind me before the real calendar, what with the Hollywood

Bowl kicking into gear and the onslaught of distinguished veteran rock bands starting to

make the stadium rounds.

(Email from a friend who went to Dodger Stadium this weekend: "They were pretty

awesome for a Police cover band.")

The smaller events have their cachet too -- the Sunday afternoon Do-Over at Crane's, the Little Radio Summer Camp. And then there was last

Thursday's Late Night at LACMA, the annual summer

solstice soiree, which attracted 7,853 museum visitors and probably disappointed

hundreds of others who waited for hours in long lines only to give up. (To be fair, what

part of "early arrival recommended" did you not understand?)

Late Night was a melange of music, hipster ephemera (T-shirt screen printing by Hit +

Run now seems mandatory if you are throwing any kind of cross-cultural event) and art.

Suffice to say there were plenty of photo ops in the Dan Flavin retrospective, a refuge

for attendees who could only handle small doses of offerings from DJs Steve Aoki,

Internationalist and handful of others. I missed the set by the always-solid Rebirth but caught one of L.A.'s favorite party

bands, Ima Robot, who got folks dancing despite

the band's relative lack of amplification.

◊ ◊ ◊

Where did June go?

The Monday night residencies end tonight at Spaceland, the Echo and Silverlake

Lounge. The L.A. quartet the Deadly

Syndrome (Spaceland) seems to have grown into polished band overnight (and wait till

you hear the album), and Thailand

(Silverlake Lounge), despite playing as a three-piece with electronic rhythms, serve up

a compelling new-wave/post-punk cocktail. And I have not made it to the Echo to see

Philadelphia ex-pats Burning Brides

(maybe tonight?), but people I trust give me good reports.

◊ ◊ ◊

At Safari Sam's on Friday night, the Silver Lake/Echo Park masses gathered to bid

farewell to Sea Level Records and its

proprietor, Todd Clifford. The independent outlet has been a locus of the Eastside music

scene for more than 5 years, and Clifford is closing more for I-need-a-life-change

reasons than business.

Today is the last day Sea Level is scheduled to be open.

Photos: LACMA attendees get up close with Dan Flavin's work; Ima Robot rocks in the

courtyard. By Kevin Bronson / LAT.

The Little Ones are still one

of this city's strongest musical happy pills, but, as a set Friday night showed, it's

hard to maintain that peak level of exuberance when you're doing it night after night,

tour after tour.

The L.A.

quintet -- "Rhymin' Simon on steroids" is how I described them last year, and

it still applies -- played an ASCAP- and Filter-sponsored music night on Friday tied to

the Silverlake Film Festival. The stuff from their "Sing Song" EP still

sounded crisp, and their new songs were upbeat and catchy too. But after having spent

the early part of this year doing some rigorous touring, the Little Ones weren't quite

as unhinged as they were when their EP was first released and Astralwerks (in the U.S.)

and Heavenly (in the U.K.) swooped in to sign the band.

Are the Little Ones still as happy as their music? "That's a good

question," frontman Edward Reyes says. "We're excited. ... Remember, we just

looked at that EP as our calling card -- we just wanted to get some shows with

it."

Their as-yet-untitled debut album is recorded and due in January, Reyes says.

"It's turning out great," he adds. "Right now we have a whole track

devoted to laughing."

||| Download Little Ones' songs from their Daytrotter session here.

◊ ◊ ◊

Passion of the Weiss has a

play-by-play of Britney Spears' Houses of Blues appearance (I will not call it a

performance). He even has some empathy.

◊ ◊ ◊

Ran into an employee of a recently merged record company who was enthused about

having adopted a puppy. Cute thing ... so what did you name him? "Andy

Slater."

◊ ◊ ◊

"So how

was Coachella?" That was the most-asked

question last week. I told inquiring minds that it was a three-day weekend of

once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and even as they were unfolding I knew I was missing

others. Wish the festival could have just hesitated a few times each day and let me

catch up.

The inconsiderate hipsters at Anthem, who throw their Coachella party during the day

while the music is going on, tell me I missed something else too -- a mask-less Thomas

Bangalter from Daft Punk [face obscured] spinning the LCD Soundsystem track "Daft

Punk Is Playing at My House." Not that anybody recognized him. But a cool party

nonetheless.

Daft Punk turned up on the turntables a couple nights later at the Echo too. Not that

anybody recognized them.

Touts for tonight

Gliss (Spaceland), the High Society (Silverlake Lounge), Bodies of Water (Echo) and Richard Bivens & Foreign Press

(Detroit Bar) start their Monday night residencies. ... Midnight Movies plays an in-store at

Amoeba. ... And London's Apartment joins

locals the Grand Marquee and others

at Indie 103.1's Viper Room show.

The music is pretty hard on the ears, kind of a flailing

attempt at dance-party relevance. But the album cover (that's the original at right) is

even harder on the eyes -- so Perry Farrell's Satellite Party revised it. Stereogum has a

compare-and-contrast. I'm not sure, but this would not have passed muster in the

Photoshop classes I slogged through years ago. This does, however, guarantee that the

album will chart. Here.

[Guest blogger August Brown is hot both because he is fly, and because he should

have worn more sunscreen.]

If Coachella success was measured in words per minute, Busdriver would have been the day's

undisputed champ. But fortunately for the old-guard L.A.-based MC, he dropped jaws and

machine-gun metaphors alike during his astonishingly dextrous set.

Busdriver was equally compelling needling the crowd with accusations of yuppiedom as

he did slaying them with fiery indignance at the ways the music industry exploits

rappers. Over a loose-limbed flurry of house and jungle-inspired beats, he extolled

cheeba and wryly freestyled that "in the Gobi tent is how an O.G. represents."

Original gangstas are few and far between at Coachella, but unless Ghostface pulls off

a miracle tomorrow, Busdriver may hit the 10 freeway home as the weekend's reigning

rhyme-slinger.

This was featured in our Downloads column last weekend (a good reason to drop

some coin on the Saturday print edition or check the pop music page on your local

newspaper's website). I've been a sucker for Travis' brand of Britpop since the first Clinton

Administration. Here's the video for "Closer," and, yeah, Ben Stiller makes a

good grocer.

Ozomatli looked to the visual for inspiration

when writing its new album, “Don’t Mess With the Dragon” (due April 3 on Concord

Records) — much of the initial songwriting came out of jam sessions at the Tropico de

Nopal art gallery. Now the veteran L.A. nine-piece might have found a vision to suit its

sound.

The new video for the single “Can’t Stop” is a dizzying collage of

stop-animation and storytelling that seems equal to Ozomatli’s mashing of Latin flavors,

rock, hip-hop and funk — a hybrid many have said is distinctly Los Angeles.

“We haven’t had a lot of luck with videos in the past,” acknowledges Ulises Bella, who

plays saxophone and clarinet for the band.

Ozomatli turned to New York-based

artist-illustrator Richard Borge for “Can’t Stop,” even though the 41-year-old, who had

done album art for bands such as Meat Beat Manifesto, had never done a music video.

Last chance to do something good in 2007

The next time someone tells you that booze doesn't make the world a better place, you just tell them to go listen to Corrine Bailey Rae and her remix of "Like A Star" at the wonderfully titled website www.generouspour.com. The seasonal website for Clos du Bois Wines has lovely traditonal holiday recipes for things like, um, "stoned crab cobbler with coconut" (what, are we pre-gaming for New Year's at Jimmy Buffett's beach hut?) and "Hot Italian Sausage Stuffing" (I'm pretty sure that's the gay porn version of "Roman Holiday"). Anyway, the website, which will be up through today, has a free download of "Like A Star" by Grammy nominee Rae and every time someone downloads it, Clos du Bois will donate $1 to Share Our Strength, a non-profit working against hunger and poverty in the U.S. It sounds like booze-company guilt to us, and wouldn't Amy Winehouse have been a better choice here for so many reasons? As for the music: The song is pretty much played out and the remix here is a fairly glossy affair but it is also free and unobjectionable as a dinner-party fare. So pass the potatoes...

--Geoff Boucher

The Beatle who earned his famous nickname by covering his fingers with rings is now making news with a bracelet. “Liverpool 8,” the new Capitol/EMI album from 67-year-old Ringo Starr, is being released Jan. 15 as a CD, a digital download and also as a “pre-loaded USB wristband” that includes all 12 tracks and a slew of extras, including “a personal video message, interview and track commentary from Ringo Starr, behind-the-scenes making-of footage from the recording sessions, ringtones, photos and more.” (Shouldn't those be "Ringo-tones"?) There’s more details at www.ringostarr.com but this already opens a whole new world of albums-as-accessories. How soon can we buy “Blackout” by Britney Spears in the ankle-monitor format? And how great would be to work toward the weekend by wearing Loverboy’s greatest hits in your headband?

--Geoff Boucher

Just in time to service your holiday malaise, two of my favorite DJ collectives are

conspiring to set sadness to music tonight at the downtown bar La Cita.

Give Up -- the seasonal club night initiated by the DJ collective Dublab and manned the past several years by Mark

"Frosty" McNeill and Jimmy Tamborello -- gets back into its wintry spirit as

DJs spin depressing songs on the bar's back patio. It's described as "a deeply

depressing disc sob session." Inside the bar, Part Time Punks' Michael Stock and others will

be hosting "A Sad, Slow Dance Party," promising "all slow dancing, all

night long."

There's no cover. Tears start to flow at 9 p.m.

Photo of DJ Frosty (from 2005) by Kevin Bronson/LAT

Happier choices for Tuesday, Dec. 18

Pop sextet Castledoor brings its

sublime tunes to Boardner's in the final monthly show of the year presented by Radio Free Silver Lake. The Flying Tourbillon Orchestra

and Frankel are also playing the

18-and-older show, which is free. ... Mighty Six Ninety and Io Echo rock the Troubadour. ... Oliver Future continues its Tuesday

residency at the Viper Room. ... The

Monolators head a good local bill at the Scene. ... And John Gold performs at Bordello.

The obituary this morning says Dan Fogelberg helped "define soft rock," but

that sounds kind of flaccid compared to what the singer-songwriter, who died Sunday at

age 56, meant to a bunch of kids in the working-class neighborhoods of Peoria, Ill., in

the early 1970s.

Fogelberg graduated from Woodruff High School the year before I got there, leaving

behind some stories of a rock band called the Coachmen (I actually owned the 45 at one

point -- oh, where did it go?) and the occasional rumor he'd gone off to California, a

place that seemed so distant from our Midwestern factory town as to be a mirage. Not

many of us had California dreams then; we'd do well to graduate high school and get on

at Caterpillar Tractor Co. (which accounted for something like 1 in 5 paychecks in our

city in those days). If we were really lucky, we'd go to college.

In the fall of my junior year, "Home Free" arrived, and we were mesmerized.

Fogelberg's debut album -- a beautifully orchestrated bouquet of ballads that veered

toward what we now would call alt-country -- took his alma mater by storm. It christened

the tape player in my first car; it was played endlessly at basement parties from Grand

View Drive to the lower East Bluff. I'm pretty sure there isn't a song in my collection

I've played over the years more than that second track, "Stars."

Fogelberg was our Jackson Browne, a romantic who shared our roots and who had the

courage to strike out in service of his poetry. As I trudged through the snow delivering

my Peoria Journal Stars every morning, that was a pretty important symbol.

I always blanched at, but ultimately forgave, the arch sentimentality that seemingly

oppressive production brought to Fogelberg's later albums. He had earned the right to

pursue whatever vision struck him. When my brother and I took in a Fogelberg show a few

years ago in Anaheim, it wasn't so much for musical nostalgia as it was a thank-you.

In one subtle but important way, Dan Fogelberg was the leader of our band.

Curiosity piqued by the announcement of the Gibson "Robot" Guitar, I headed down to my favorite guitar shop in L.A. on Saturday to check it out myself. I was a little disappointed, frankly.

With a name like "the Robot," I was expecting this six-stringer to jump out of the case unprovoked and run around the room, shouting, "Danger Will Robinson!" or "For those about to rock we salute you!" or "Sarah Connor?" or something. Instead, the Robot just lay in his case, looking like a standard (or, for those of you in the know, a "studio") Les Paul. The only obvious differences were larger tuning pegs and a funky-looking control where one of the standard four volume/tone knobs is usually located. This, I was told, was the "MCK" or "Master Control Knob."

"Now there's the kind of Orwellian 'oh no, the machines have achieved artificial intelligence and have enslaved all carbon-based lifeforms on the planet'-kind of language I was hoping for," I thought.

But alas, the master control knob just controls the Robot's auto-tuning mechanism. It's pretty neat, I'll admit. You pull out the knob, spin the top dial to one of several tuning-configuration presets (standard, "drop d," open-tuning, etc.), tap the top, strum the strings, wait for the tuning pegs to auto-jiggy into position, and voila--push the knob back in and your Les Paul has an alternate tuning.

For the overwhelming majority of guitar players who play in standard tuning, what are the advantages? Well, for about $1000 more than what you'd spend on a regular Les Paul, you can keep your axe in really, really, really good tune.

So who is the real market for Gibson's Robot Guitar? Wealthy guitar players who need to constantly and radically alter their tuning. If that's not you, buy a chromatic tuner and save the Robot Guitar for Joni Mitchell.

--Liam Gowing

Welcome to Soundboard, the new music blog from the L.A. Times written by a band of opinionated, sometimes cranky, sometimes ecstatic music lovers. Soundboard will blog breaking news, concert previews, album and single reviews, and lots of random observations about this vast, exciting, wacko place known as the music world. By the way, we're nomads, committed to no single genre, era or chart, so expect Soundboard to be all over the place, like a Sonic Youth song covered by Beyonce playing at a Mexican restaurant in Torrance. That song doesn't exist (yet) but you get the point.

I don't know why, but I'm thinking about record clubs. I remember a time when my older brother belonged to one and he'd show me his cool new tapes. (Yeah, tapes. Don't laugh.) "I got this for a penny!" he's say, shaking Duran Duran's "Rio" in my face. I was amazed. A penny? How can they do that??

So I started searching around to see if any are left.

Turns out that BMG Columbia House still has one but from their home page, you can tell they're making their money from DVDs. "Music Service" is off to the side. When you click on it, it takes you to one of the saddest little web pages in the world, seemingly designed by Your Local Mall's Party Store circa 1988.

I'm going to find out a little more about this whole thing, but in the meantime, does anyone still belong to a record club out there?

[Crickets.]

--Margaret Wappler

I'm not part of the pack salivating over "Raising Sand," the new Alison Krauss/Robert Plant collab -- its backwoods flavor is slightly overcooked, in my book -- but I love the CD's cover art. The frontispiece shows the two stars relaxing in some desert setting, smiling off into the distance, perhaps at T-Bone Burnett bringing them another sheaf of folk-pop obscurities to peruse.

The back's the clincher, though. Plant's back is turned, and Krauss, leaning toward him, throws a grin over her shoulder as they walk away. She looks like a contented cat making off with her canary. The Lion King may be nearly sixty and more interested in crooning than howling out all of his love, but Krauss certainly knows that by clutching that arm, she's fulfilling a fantasy that sustained generations of teen-age girls, dreaming in their bedrooms to Led Zeppelin's massive kathunking mojo blues. Though I'm sure their collaboration was strictly artistic, here's to her for having fun with her chance to quietly fly her metal horns and say, "Ladies, eat your hearts out!"

--Ann Powers

I am not necessarily a fan of the

Mormons, but as a baseball guy I just about did a spit take when I saw the

tongue-in-cheek poster for the Los Angeles band's current stand at Mr. T's Bowl. [Sorry

for the sloppy clean-up job; it's a family blog, you know.]

[Our local music spotlight, for the moment, remains pointed at power pop, because

it just seems to go so well with summertime:]


Ari Shine landed with a crunch -- and

that's the crunch of a big power chord -- when he released his debut EP

"Age/Occupation" in 2006. Quickly he became a songwriter-to-watch in the L.A.

power-pop underground, if not somebody who carries enough melodies to wriggle a bunch of

his songs onto TV shows, and his energetic stage show hinted that he might become an

artist who could transcend the frequently fey trappings of the form.

His

full-length debut, "A Force of One" (released in July on Bongo Beat), suggests

that Shine is not content to merely ride the coattails  of his forebears. There's

some boy-meets/loses-girl material here, much of it cleverly couched ("Flirtation

Device"), but he sinks his hooks into broader storytelling too (see the song

below). The album was produced by former Sparks guitarist Earle Mankey, who has worked with

L.A. notables such as Concrete Blonde and the Three O'Clock. The result is a collection

that's a little bit Elvis Costello, a little bit Matthew Sweet and maybe a bit Brendan

Benson.

||| Shine performs tonight at the Knitting Factory as part of International Pop Overthrow. He also

is playing a couple West Cost dates supporting Peter

Case prior to a Sept. 18 date at Safari Sam's as a supporting act for Miles Hunt of the Wonder Stuff.

||| Download: "Beirut 1978."

Photo by Sam Peacock

"Korn's new album doesn't have a title."

"So how do you order it?"

"You don't. It's Korn."

I missed it and, from reports, am regretting it. Bat for Lashes, the nom de tune of

Brighton, England's Natasha Khan, wowed the room last night at Spaceland. The common

sentiment I heard from a couple people: No wonder she is nominated for the Mercury

Music Prize.

You'll be hearing more about her.

For now, here is the enchanting video for "What's a Girl to Do."

Touts for Wednesday, Aug. 1

The Format starts a two-show stand (the

Avalon tonight, House of Blues tomorrow); the band for two weeks offered its latest

album, "Dog Problems," as a free download from its website and reported that

45,000 copies of the (very

good) album were ripped. ... Great

Glass Elevator (whose inventiveness kind of reminds me of the Format in a way) play

Club NME at Spaceland tonight. ... The Automatic Music

Explosion plays the Scene in Glendale. ... And the Stevenson Ranch Davidians

start a run of Wednesday shows at the Echo.

Consider this a warm-up for "The Simpsons

Movie" (opening in two weeks).

The musician's name is Zack Kim, a 24-year-old

university student who was born in Seoul, South Korea, reared in Malaysia and is now

studying in Australia. There are more examples of his technique on his website, and the

young man has his own Wikipedia

page.

He tells me via e-mail that he after he completes his studies in two years he hopes

to devote all his energies to music, and eventually he "would really love to

perform in the States, as it would be a dream come true for me."

Have to

think he'd be quite a hit at the premiere party.

Summer is here, in case you were too busy on MySpace to get the memo. The concert

calendar always seems to remind me before the real calendar, what with the Hollywood

Bowl kicking into gear and the onslaught of distinguished veteran rock bands starting to

make the stadium rounds.

(Email from a friend who went to Dodger Stadium this weekend: "They were pretty

awesome for a Police cover band.")

The smaller events have their cachet too -- the Sunday afternoon Do-Over at Crane's, the Little Radio Summer Camp. And then there was last

Thursday's Late Night at LACMA, the annual summer

solstice soiree, which attracted 7,853 museum visitors and probably disappointed

hundreds of others who waited for hours in long lines only to give up. (To be fair, what

part of "early arrival recommended" did you not understand?)

Late Night was a melange of music, hipster ephemera (T-shirt screen printing by Hit +

Run now seems mandatory if you are throwing any kind of cross-cultural event) and art.

Suffice to say there were plenty of photo ops in the Dan Flavin retrospective, a refuge

for attendees who could only handle small doses of offerings from DJs Steve Aoki,

Internationalist and handful of others. I missed the set by the always-solid Rebirth but caught one of L.A.'s favorite party

bands, Ima Robot, who got folks dancing despite

the band's relative lack of amplification.

◊ ◊ ◊

Where did June go?

The Monday night residencies end tonight at Spaceland, the Echo and Silverlake

Lounge. The L.A. quartet the Deadly

Syndrome (Spaceland) seems to have grown into polished band overnight (and wait till

you hear the album), and Thailand

(Silverlake Lounge), despite playing as a three-piece with electronic rhythms, serve up

a compelling new-wave/post-punk cocktail. And I have not made it to the Echo to see

Philadelphia ex-pats Burning Brides

(maybe tonight?), but people I trust give me good reports.

◊ ◊ ◊

At Safari Sam's on Friday night, the Silver Lake/Echo Park masses gathered to bid

farewell to Sea Level Records and its

proprietor, Todd Clifford. The independent outlet has been a locus of the Eastside music

scene for more than 5 years, and Clifford is closing more for I-need-a-life-change

reasons than business.

Today is the last day Sea Level is scheduled to be open.

Photos: LACMA attendees get up close with Dan Flavin's work; Ima Robot rocks in the

courtyard. By Kevin Bronson / LAT.

The Little Ones are still one

of this city's strongest musical happy pills, but, as a set Friday night showed, it's

hard to maintain that peak level of exuberance when you're doing it night after night,

tour after tour.

The L.A.

quintet -- "Rhymin' Simon on steroids" is how I described them last year, and

it still applies -- played an ASCAP- and Filter-sponsored music night on Friday tied to

the Silverlake Film Festival. The stuff from their "Sing Song" EP still

sounded crisp, and their new songs were upbeat and catchy too. But after having spent

the early part of this year doing some rigorous touring, the Little Ones weren't quite

as unhinged as they were when their EP was first released and Astralwerks (in the U.S.)

and Heavenly (in the U.K.) swooped in to sign the band.

Are the Little Ones still as happy as their music? "That's a good

question," frontman Edward Reyes says. "We're excited. ... Remember, we just

looked at that EP as our calling card -- we just wanted to get some shows with

it."

Their as-yet-untitled debut album is recorded and due in January, Reyes says.

"It's turning out great," he adds. "Right now we have a whole track

devoted to laughing."

||| Download Little Ones' songs from their Daytrotter session here.

◊ ◊ ◊

Passion of the Weiss has a

play-by-play of Britney Spears' Houses of Blues appearance (I will not call it a

performance). He even has some empathy.

◊ ◊ ◊

Ran into an employee of a recently merged record company who was enthused about

having adopted a puppy. Cute thing ... so what did you name him? "Andy

Slater."

◊ ◊ ◊

"So how

was Coachella?" That was the most-asked

question last week. I told inquiring minds that it was a three-day weekend of

once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and even as they were unfolding I knew I was missing

others. Wish the festival could have just hesitated a few times each day and let me

catch up.

The inconsiderate hipsters at Anthem, who throw their Coachella party during the day

while the music is going on, tell me I missed something else too -- a mask-less Thomas

Bangalter from Daft Punk [face obscured] spinning the LCD Soundsystem track "Daft

Punk Is Playing at My House." Not that anybody recognized him. But a cool party

nonetheless.

Daft Punk turned up on the turntables a couple nights later at the Echo too. Not that

anybody recognized them.

Touts for tonight

Gliss (Spaceland), the High Society (Silverlake Lounge), Bodies of Water (Echo) and Richard Bivens & Foreign Press

(Detroit Bar) start their Monday night residencies. ... Midnight Movies plays an in-store at

Amoeba. ... And London's Apartment joins

locals the Grand Marquee and others

at Indie 103.1's Viper Room show.

The music is pretty hard on the ears, kind of a flailing

attempt at dance-party relevance. But the album cover (that's the original at right) is

even harder on the eyes -- so Perry Farrell's Satellite Party revised it. Stereogum has a

compare-and-contrast. I'm not sure, but this would not have passed muster in the

Photoshop classes I slogged through years ago. This does, however, guarantee that the

album will chart. Here.

[Guest blogger August Brown is hot both because he is fly, and because he should

have worn more sunscreen.]

If Coachella success was measured in words per minute, Busdriver would have been the day's

undisputed champ. But fortunately for the old-guard L.A.-based MC, he dropped jaws and

machine-gun metaphors alike during his astonishingly dextrous set.

Busdriver was equally compelling needling the crowd with accusations of yuppiedom as

he did slaying them with fiery indignance at the ways the music industry exploits

rappers. Over a loose-limbed flurry of house and jungle-inspired beats, he extolled

cheeba and wryly freestyled that "in the Gobi tent is how an O.G. represents."

Original gangstas are few and far between at Coachella, but unless Ghostface pulls off

a miracle tomorrow, Busdriver may hit the 10 freeway home as the weekend's reigning

rhyme-slinger.

This was featured in our Downloads column last weekend (a good reason to drop

some coin on the Saturday print edition or check the pop music page on your local

newspaper's website). I've been a sucker for Travis' brand of Britpop since the first Clinton

Administration. Here's the video for "Closer," and, yeah, Ben Stiller makes a

good grocer.

Ozomatli looked to the visual for inspiration

when writing its new album, “Don’t Mess With the Dragon” (due April 3 on Concord

Records) — much of the initial songwriting came out of jam sessions at the Tropico de

Nopal art gallery. Now the veteran L.A. nine-piece might have found a vision to suit its

sound.

The new video for the single “Can’t Stop” is a dizzying collage of

stop-animation and storytelling that seems equal to Ozomatli’s mashing of Latin flavors,

rock, hip-hop and funk — a hybrid many have said is distinctly Los Angeles.

“We haven’t had a lot of luck with videos in the past,” acknowledges Ulises Bella, who

plays saxophone and clarinet for the band.

Ozomatli turned to New York-based

artist-illustrator Richard Borge for “Can’t Stop,” even though the 41-year-old, who had

done album art for bands such as Meat Beat Manifesto, had never done a music video.

Ringo: “I wanna hold your hand … with my new album”

The Beatle who earned his famous nickname by covering his fingers with rings is now making news with a bracelet. “Liverpool 8,” the new Capitol/EMI album from 67-year-old Ringo Starr, is being released Jan. 15 as a CD, a digital download and also as a “pre-loaded USB wristband” that includes all 12 tracks and a slew of extras, including “a personal video message, interview and track commentary from Ringo Starr, behind-the-scenes making-of footage from the recording sessions, ringtones, photos and more.” (Shouldn't those be "Ringo-tones"?) There’s more details at www.ringostarr.com but this already opens a whole new world of albums-as-accessories. How soon can we buy “Blackout” by Britney Spears in the ankle-monitor format? And how great would be to work toward the weekend by wearing Loverboy’s greatest hits in your headband?

--Geoff Boucher

Just in time to service your holiday malaise, two of my favorite DJ collectives are

conspiring to set sadness to music tonight at the downtown bar La Cita.

Give Up -- the seasonal club night initiated by the DJ collective Dublab and manned the past several years by Mark

"Frosty" McNeill and Jimmy Tamborello -- gets back into its wintry spirit as

DJs spin depressing songs on the bar's back patio. It's described as "a deeply

depressing disc sob session." Inside the bar, Part Time Punks' Michael Stock and others will

be hosting "A Sad, Slow Dance Party," promising "all slow dancing, all

night long."

There's no cover. Tears start to flow at 9 p.m.

Photo of DJ Frosty (from 2005) by Kevin Bronson/LAT

Happier choices for Tuesday, Dec. 18

Pop sextet Castledoor brings its

sublime tunes to Boardner's in the final monthly show of the year presented by Radio Free Silver Lake. The Flying Tourbillon Orchestra

and Frankel are also playing the

18-and-older show, which is free. ... Mighty Six Ninety and Io Echo rock the Troubadour. ... Oliver Future continues its Tuesday

residency at the Viper Room. ... The

Monolators head a good local bill at the Scene. ... And John Gold performs at Bordello.

The obituary this morning says Dan Fogelberg helped "define soft rock," but

that sounds kind of flaccid compared to what the singer-songwriter, who died Sunday at

age 56, meant to a bunch of kids in the working-class neighborhoods of Peoria, Ill., in

the early 1970s.

Fogelberg graduated from Woodruff High School the year before I got there, leaving

behind some stories of a rock band called the Coachmen (I actually owned the 45 at one

point -- oh, where did it go?) and the occasional rumor he'd gone off to California, a

place that seemed so distant from our Midwestern factory town as to be a mirage. Not

many of us had California dreams then; we'd do well to graduate high school and get on

at Caterpillar Tractor Co. (which accounted for something like 1 in 5 paychecks in our

city in those days). If we were really lucky, we'd go to college.

In the fall of my junior year, "Home Free" arrived, and we were mesmerized.

Fogelberg's debut album -- a beautifully orchestrated bouquet of ballads that veered

toward what we now would call alt-country -- took his alma mater by storm. It christened

the tape player in my first car; it was played endlessly at basement parties from Grand

View Drive to the lower East Bluff. I'm pretty sure there isn't a song in my collection

I've played over the years more than that second track, "Stars."

Fogelberg was our Jackson Browne, a romantic who shared our roots and who had the

courage to strike out in service of his poetry. As I trudged through the snow delivering

my Peoria Journal Stars every morning, that was a pretty important symbol.

I always blanched at, but ultimately forgave, the arch sentimentality that seemingly

oppressive production brought to Fogelberg's later albums. He had earned the right to

pursue whatever vision struck him. When my brother and I took in a Fogelberg show a few

years ago in Anaheim, it wasn't so much for musical nostalgia as it was a thank-you.

In one subtle but important way, Dan Fogelberg was the leader of our band.

Curiosity piqued by the announcement of the Gibson "Robot" Guitar, I headed down to my favorite guitar shop in L.A. on Saturday to check it out myself. I was a little disappointed, frankly.

With a name like "the Robot," I was expecting this six-stringer to jump out of the case unprovoked and run around the room, shouting, "Danger Will Robinson!" or "For those about to rock we salute you!" or "Sarah Connor?" or something. Instead, the Robot just lay in his case, looking like a standard (or, for those of you in the know, a "studio") Les Paul. The only obvious differences were larger tuning pegs and a funky-looking control where one of the standard four volume/tone knobs is usually located. This, I was told, was the "MCK" or "Master Control Knob."

"Now there's the kind of Orwellian 'oh no, the machines have achieved artificial intelligence and have enslaved all carbon-based lifeforms on the planet'-kind of language I was hoping for," I thought.

But alas, the master control knob just controls the Robot's auto-tuning mechanism. It's pretty neat, I'll admit. You pull out the knob, spin the top dial to one of several tuning-configuration presets (standard, "drop d," open-tuning, etc.), tap the top, strum the strings, wait for the tuning pegs to auto-jiggy into position, and voila--push the knob back in and your Les Paul has an alternate tuning.

For the overwhelming majority of guitar players who play in standard tuning, what are the advantages? Well, for about $1000 more than what you'd spend on a regular Les Paul, you can keep your axe in really, really, really good tune.

So who is the real market for Gibson's Robot Guitar? Wealthy guitar players who need to constantly and radically alter their tuning. If that's not you, buy a chromatic tuner and save the Robot Guitar for Joni Mitchell.

--Liam Gowing

Welcome to Soundboard, the new music blog from the L.A. Times written by a band of opinionated, sometimes cranky, sometimes ecstatic music lovers. Soundboard will blog breaking news, concert previews, album and single reviews, and lots of random observations about this vast, exciting, wacko place known as the music world. By the way, we're nomads, committed to no single genre, era or chart, so expect Soundboard to be all over the place, like a Sonic Youth song covered by Beyonce playing at a Mexican restaurant in Torrance. That song doesn't exist (yet) but you get the point.

I don't know why, but I'm thinking about record clubs. I remember a time when my older brother belonged to one and he'd show me his cool new tapes. (Yeah, tapes. Don't laugh.) "I got this for a penny!" he's say, shaking Duran Duran's "Rio" in my face. I was amazed. A penny? How can they do that??

So I started searching around to see if any are left.

Turns out that BMG Columbia House still has one but from their home page, you can tell they're making their money from DVDs. "Music Service" is off to the side. When you click on it, it takes you to one of the saddest little web pages in the world, seemingly designed by Your Local Mall's Party Store circa 1988.

I'm going to find out a little more about this whole thing, but in the meantime, does anyone still belong to a record club out there?

[Crickets.]

--Margaret Wappler

I'm not part of the pack salivating over "Raising Sand," the new Alison Krauss/Robert Plant collab -- its backwoods flavor is slightly overcooked, in my book -- but I love the CD's cover art. The frontispiece shows the two stars relaxing in some desert setting, smiling off into the distance, perhaps at T-Bone Burnett bringing them another sheaf of folk-pop obscurities to peruse.

The back's the clincher, though. Plant's back is turned, and Krauss, leaning toward him, throws a grin over her shoulder as they walk away. She looks like a contented cat making off with her canary. The Lion King may be nearly sixty and more interested in crooning than howling out all of his love, but Krauss certainly knows that by clutching that arm, she's fulfilling a fantasy that sustained generations of teen-age girls, dreaming in their bedrooms to Led Zeppelin's massive kathunking mojo blues. Though I'm sure their collaboration was strictly artistic, here's to her for having fun with her chance to quietly fly her metal horns and say, "Ladies, eat your hearts out!"

--Ann Powers

I am not necessarily a fan of the

Mormons, but as a baseball guy I just about did a spit take when I saw the

tongue-in-cheek poster for the Los Angeles band's current stand at Mr. T's Bowl. [Sorry

for the sloppy clean-up job; it's a family blog, you know.]

[Our local music spotlight, for the moment, remains pointed at power pop, because

it just seems to go so well with summertime:]


Ari Shine landed with a crunch -- and

that's the crunch of a big power chord -- when he released his debut EP

"Age/Occupation" in 2006. Quickly he became a songwriter-to-watch in the L.A.

power-pop underground, if not somebody who carries enough melodies to wriggle a bunch of

his songs onto TV shows, and his energetic stage show hinted that he might become an

artist who could transcend the frequently fey trappings of the form.

His

full-length debut, "A Force of One" (released in July on Bongo Beat), suggests

that Shine is not content to merely ride the coattails  of his forebears. There's

some boy-meets/loses-girl material here, much of it cleverly couched ("Flirtation

Device"), but he sinks his hooks into broader storytelling too (see the song

below). The album was produced by former Sparks guitarist Earle Mankey, who has worked with

L.A. notables such as Concrete Blonde and the Three O'Clock. The result is a collection

that's a little bit Elvis Costello, a little bit Matthew Sweet and maybe a bit Brendan

Benson.

||| Shine performs tonight at the Knitting Factory as part of International Pop Overthrow. He also

is playing a couple West Cost dates supporting Peter

Case prior to a Sept. 18 date at Safari Sam's as a supporting act for Miles Hunt of the Wonder Stuff.

||| Download: "Beirut 1978."

Photo by Sam Peacock

"Korn's new album doesn't have a title."

"So how do you order it?"

"You don't. It's Korn."

I missed it and, from reports, am regretting it. Bat for Lashes, the nom de tune of

Brighton, England's Natasha Khan, wowed the room last night at Spaceland. The common

sentiment I heard from a couple people: No wonder she is nominated for the Mercury

Music Prize.

You'll be hearing more about her.

For now, here is the enchanting video for "What's a Girl to Do."

Touts for Wednesday, Aug. 1

The Format starts a two-show stand (the

Avalon tonight, House of Blues tomorrow); the band for two weeks offered its latest

album, "Dog Problems," as a free download from its website and reported that

45,000 copies of the (very

good) album were ripped. ... Great

Glass Elevator (whose inventiveness kind of reminds me of the Format in a way) play

Club NME at Spaceland tonight. ... The Automatic Music

Explosion plays the Scene in Glendale. ... And the Stevenson Ranch Davidians

start a run of Wednesday shows at the Echo.

Consider this a warm-up for "The Simpsons

Movie" (opening in two weeks).

The musician's name is Zack Kim, a 24-year-old

university student who was born in Seoul, South Korea, reared in Malaysia and is now

studying in Australia. There are more examples of his technique on his website, and the

young man has his own Wikipedia

page.

He tells me via e-mail that he after he completes his studies in two years he hopes

to devote all his energies to music, and eventually he "would really love to

perform in the States, as it would be a dream come true for me."

Have to

think he'd be quite a hit at the premiere party.

Summer is here, in case you were too busy on MySpace to get the memo. The concert

calendar always seems to remind me before the real calendar, what with the Hollywood

Bowl kicking into gear and the onslaught of distinguished veteran rock bands starting to

make the stadium rounds.

(Email from a friend who went to Dodger Stadium this weekend: "They were pretty

awesome for a Police cover band.")

The smaller events have their cachet too -- the Sunday afternoon Do-Over at Crane's, the Little Radio Summer Camp. And then there was last

Thursday's Late Night at LACMA, the annual summer

solstice soiree, which attracted 7,853 museum visitors and probably disappointed

hundreds of others who waited for hours in long lines only to give up. (To be fair, what

part of "early arrival recommended" did you not understand?)

Late Night was a melange of music, hipster ephemera (T-shirt screen printing by Hit +

Run now seems mandatory if you are throwing any kind of cross-cultural event) and art.

Suffice to say there were plenty of photo ops in the Dan Flavin retrospective, a refuge

for attendees who could only handle small doses of offerings from DJs Steve Aoki,

Internationalist and handful of others. I missed the set by the always-solid Rebirth but caught one of L.A.'s favorite party

bands, Ima Robot, who got folks dancing despite

the band's relative lack of amplification.

◊ ◊ ◊

Where did June go?

The Monday night residencies end tonight at Spaceland, the Echo and Silverlake

Lounge. The L.A. quartet the Deadly

Syndrome (Spaceland) seems to have grown into polished band overnight (and wait till

you hear the album), and Thailand

(Silverlake Lounge), despite playing as a three-piece with electronic rhythms, serve up

a compelling new-wave/post-punk cocktail. And I have not made it to the Echo to see

Philadelphia ex-pats Burning Brides

(maybe tonight?), but people I trust give me good reports.

◊ ◊ ◊

At Safari Sam's on Friday night, the Silver Lake/Echo Park masses gathered to bid

farewell to Sea Level Records and its

proprietor, Todd Clifford. The independent outlet has been a locus of the Eastside music

scene for more than 5 years, and Clifford is closing more for I-need-a-life-change

reasons than business.

Today is the last day Sea Level is scheduled to be open.

Photos: LACMA attendees get up close with Dan Flavin's work; Ima Robot rocks in the

courtyard. By Kevin Bronson / LAT.

The Little Ones are still one

of this city's strongest musical happy pills, but, as a set Friday night showed, it's

hard to maintain that peak level of exuberance when you're doing it night after night,

tour after tour.

The L.A.

quintet -- "Rhymin' Simon on steroids" is how I described them last year, and

it still applies -- played an ASCAP- and Filter-sponsored music night on Friday tied to

the Silverlake Film Festival. The stuff from their "Sing Song" EP still

sounded crisp, and their new songs were upbeat and catchy too. But after having spent

the early part of this year doing some rigorous touring, the Little Ones weren't quite

as unhinged as they were when their EP was first released and Astralwerks (in the U.S.)

and Heavenly (in the U.K.) swooped in to sign the band.

Are the Little Ones still as happy as their music? "That's a good

question," frontman Edward Reyes says. "We're excited. ... Remember, we just

looked at that EP as our calling card -- we just wanted to get some shows with

it."

Their as-yet-untitled debut album is recorded and due in January, Reyes says.

"It's turning out great," he adds. "Right now we have a whole track

devoted to laughing."

||| Download Little Ones' songs from their Daytrotter session here.

◊ ◊ ◊

Passion of the Weiss has a

play-by-play of Britney Spears' Houses of Blues appearance (I will not call it a

performance). He even has some empathy.

◊ ◊ ◊

Ran into an employee of a recently merged record company who was enthused about

having adopted a puppy. Cute thing ... so what did you name him? "Andy

Slater."

◊ ◊ ◊

"So how

was Coachella?" That was the most-asked

question last week. I told inquiring minds that it was a three-day weekend of

once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and even as they were unfolding I knew I was missing

others. Wish the festival could have just hesitated a few times each day and let me

catch up.

The inconsiderate hipsters at Anthem, who throw their Coachella party during the day

while the music is going on, tell me I missed something else too -- a mask-less Thomas

Bangalter from Daft Punk [face obscured] spinning the LCD Soundsystem track "Daft

Punk Is Playing at My House." Not that anybody recognized him. But a cool party

nonetheless.

Daft Punk turned up on the turntables a couple nights later at the Echo too. Not that

anybody recognized them.

Touts for tonight

Gliss (Spaceland), the High Society (Silverlake Lounge), Bodies of Water (Echo) and Richard Bivens & Foreign Press

(Detroit Bar) start their Monday night residencies. ... Midnight Movies plays an in-store at

Amoeba. ... And London's Apartment joins

locals the Grand Marquee and others

at Indie 103.1's Viper Room show.

The music is pretty hard on the ears, kind of a flailing

attempt at dance-party relevance. But the album cover (that's the original at right) is

even harder on the eyes -- so Perry Farrell's Satellite Party revised it. Stereogum has a

compare-and-contrast. I'm not sure, but this would not have passed muster in the

Photoshop classes I slogged through years ago. This does, however, guarantee that the

album will chart. Here.

[Guest blogger August Brown is hot both because he is fly, and because he should

have worn more sunscreen.]

If Coachella success was measured in words per minute, Busdriver would have been the day's

undisputed champ. But fortunately for the old-guard L.A.-based MC, he dropped jaws and

machine-gun metaphors alike during his astonishingly dextrous set.

Busdriver was equally compelling needling the crowd with accusations of yuppiedom as

he did slaying them with fiery indignance at the ways the music industry exploits

rappers. Over a loose-limbed flurry of house and jungle-inspired beats, he extolled

cheeba and wryly freestyled that "in the Gobi tent is how an O.G. represents."

Original gangstas are few and far between at Coachella, but unless Ghostface pulls off

a miracle tomorrow, Busdriver may hit the 10 freeway home as the weekend's reigning

rhyme-slinger.

This was featured in our Downloads column last weekend (a good reason to drop

some coin on the Saturday print edition or check the pop music page on your local

newspaper's website). I've been a sucker for Travis' brand of Britpop since the first Clinton

Administration. Here's the video for "Closer," and, yeah, Ben Stiller makes a

good grocer.

Ozomatli looked to the visual for inspiration

when writing its new album, “Don’t Mess With the Dragon” (due April 3 on Concord

Records) — much of the initial songwriting came out of jam sessions at the Tropico de

Nopal art gallery. Now the veteran L.A. nine-piece might have found a vision to suit its

sound.

The new video for the single “Can’t Stop” is a dizzying collage of

stop-animation and storytelling that seems equal to Ozomatli’s mashing of Latin flavors,

rock, hip-hop and funk — a hybrid many have said is distinctly Los Angeles.

“We haven’t had a lot of luck with videos in the past,” acknowledges Ulises Bella, who

plays saxophone and clarinet for the band.

Ozomatli turned to New York-based

artist-illustrator Richard Borge for “Can’t Stop,” even though the 41-year-old, who had

done album art for bands such as Meat Beat Manifesto, had never done a music video.

Holiday spirits? C’mon, get sad

Just in time to service your holiday malaise, two of my favorite DJ collectives are

conspiring to set sadness to music tonight at the downtown bar La Cita.

Give Up -- the seasonal club night initiated by the DJ collective Dublab and manned the past several years by Mark

"Frosty" McNeill and Jimmy Tamborello -- gets back into its wintry spirit as

DJs spin depressing songs on the bar's back patio. It's described as "a deeply

depressing disc sob session." Inside the bar, Part Time Punks' Michael Stock and others will

be hosting "A Sad, Slow Dance Party," promising "all slow dancing, all

night long."

There's no cover. Tears start to flow at 9 p.m.

Photo of DJ Frosty (from 2005) by Kevin Bronson/LAT

Happier choices for Tuesday, Dec. 18

Pop sextet Castledoor brings its

sublime tunes to Boardner's in the final monthly show of the year presented by Radio Free Silver Lake. The Flying Tourbillon Orchestra

and Frankel are also playing the

18-and-older show, which is free. ... Mighty Six Ninety and Io Echo rock the Troubadour. ... Oliver Future continues its Tuesday

residency at the Viper Room. ... The

Monolators head a good local bill at the Scene. ... And John Gold performs at Bordello.

The obituary this morning says Dan Fogelberg helped "define soft rock," but

that sounds kind of flaccid compared to what the singer-songwriter, who died Sunday at

age 56, meant to a bunch of kids in the working-class neighborhoods of Peoria, Ill., in

the early 1970s.

Fogelberg graduated from Woodruff High School the year before I got there, leaving

behind some stories of a rock band called the Coachmen (I actually owned the 45 at one

point -- oh, where did it go?) and the occasional rumor he'd gone off to California, a

place that seemed so distant from our Midwestern factory town as to be a mirage. Not

many of us had California dreams then; we'd do well to graduate high school and get on

at Caterpillar Tractor Co. (which accounted for something like 1 in 5 paychecks in our

city in those days). If we were really lucky, we'd go to college.

In the fall of my junior year, "Home Free" arrived, and we were mesmerized.

Fogelberg's debut album -- a beautifully orchestrated bouquet of ballads that veered

toward what we now would call alt-country -- took his alma mater by storm. It christened

the tape player in my first car; it was played endlessly at basement parties from Grand

View Drive to the lower East Bluff. I'm pretty sure there isn't a song in my collection

I've played over the years more than that second track, "Stars."

Fogelberg was our Jackson Browne, a romantic who shared our roots and who had the

courage to strike out in service of his poetry. As I trudged through the snow delivering

my Peoria Journal Stars every morning, that was a pretty important symbol.

I always blanched at, but ultimately forgave, the arch sentimentality that seemingly

oppressive production brought to Fogelberg's later albums. He had earned the right to

pursue whatever vision struck him. When my brother and I took in a Fogelberg show a few

years ago in Anaheim, it wasn't so much for musical nostalgia as it was a thank-you.

In one subtle but important way, Dan Fogelberg was the leader of our band.

Curiosity piqued by the announcement of the Gibson "Robot" Guitar, I headed down to my favorite guitar shop in L.A. on Saturday to check it out myself. I was a little disappointed, frankly.

With a name like "the Robot," I was expecting this six-stringer to jump out of the case unprovoked and run around the room, shouting, "Danger Will Robinson!" or "For those about to rock we salute you!" or "Sarah Connor?" or something. Instead, the Robot just lay in his case, looking like a standard (or, for those of you in the know, a "studio") Les Paul. The only obvious differences were larger tuning pegs and a funky-looking control where one of the standard four volume/tone knobs is usually located. This, I was told, was the "MCK" or "Master Control Knob."

"Now there's the kind of Orwellian 'oh no, the machines have achieved artificial intelligence and have enslaved all carbon-based lifeforms on the planet'-kind of language I was hoping for," I thought.

But alas, the master control knob just controls the Robot's auto-tuning mechanism. It's pretty neat, I'll admit. You pull out the knob, spin the top dial to one of several tuning-configuration presets (standard, "drop d," open-tuning, etc.), tap the top, strum the strings, wait for the tuning pegs to auto-jiggy into position, and voila--push the knob back in and your Les Paul has an alternate tuning.

For the overwhelming majority of guitar players who play in standard tuning, what are the advantages? Well, for about $1000 more than what you'd spend on a regular Les Paul, you can keep your axe in really, really, really good tune.

So who is the real market for Gibson's Robot Guitar? Wealthy guitar players who need to constantly and radically alter their tuning. If that's not you, buy a chromatic tuner and save the Robot Guitar for Joni Mitchell.

--Liam Gowing

Welcome to Soundboard, the new music blog from the L.A. Times written by a band of opinionated, sometimes cranky, sometimes ecstatic music lovers. Soundboard will blog breaking news, concert previews, album and single reviews, and lots of random observations about this vast, exciting, wacko place known as the music world. By the way, we're nomads, committed to no single genre, era or chart, so expect Soundboard to be all over the place, like a Sonic Youth song covered by Beyonce playing at a Mexican restaurant in Torrance. That song doesn't exist (yet) but you get the point.

I don't know why, but I'm thinking about record clubs. I remember a time when my older brother belonged to one and he'd show me his cool new tapes. (Yeah, tapes. Don't laugh.) "I got this for a penny!" he's say, shaking Duran Duran's "Rio" in my face. I was amazed. A penny? How can they do that??

So I started searching around to see if any are left.

Turns out that BMG Columbia House still has one but from their home page, you can tell they're making their money from DVDs. "Music Service" is off to the side. When you click on it, it takes you to one of the saddest little web pages in the world, seemingly designed by Your Local Mall's Party Store circa 1988.

I'm going to find out a little more about this whole thing, but in the meantime, does anyone still belong to a record club out there?

[Crickets.]

--Margaret Wappler

I'm not part of the pack salivating over "Raising Sand," the new Alison Krauss/Robert Plant collab -- its backwoods flavor is slightly overcooked, in my book -- but I love the CD's cover art. The frontispiece shows the two stars relaxing in some desert setting, smiling off into the distance, perhaps at T-Bone Burnett bringing them another sheaf of folk-pop obscurities to peruse.

The back's the clincher, though. Plant's back is turned, and Krauss, leaning toward him, throws a grin over her shoulder as they walk away. She looks like a contented cat making off with her canary. The Lion King may be nearly sixty and more interested in crooning than howling out all of his love, but Krauss certainly knows that by clutching that arm, she's fulfilling a fantasy that sustained generations of teen-age girls, dreaming in their bedrooms to Led Zeppelin's massive kathunking mojo blues. Though I'm sure their collaboration was strictly artistic, here's to her for having fun with her chance to quietly fly her metal horns and say, "Ladies, eat your hearts out!"

--Ann Powers

I am not necessarily a fan of the

Mormons, but as a baseball guy I just about did a spit take when I saw the

tongue-in-cheek poster for the Los Angeles band's current stand at Mr. T's Bowl. [Sorry

for the sloppy clean-up job; it's a family blog, you know.]

[Our local music spotlight, for the moment, remains pointed at power pop, because

it just seems to go so well with summertime:]


Ari Shine landed with a crunch -- and

that's the crunch of a big power chord -- when he released his debut EP

"Age/Occupation" in 2006. Quickly he became a songwriter-to-watch in the L.A.

power-pop underground, if not somebody who carries enough melodies to wriggle a bunch of

his songs onto TV shows, and his energetic stage show hinted that he might become an

artist who could transcend the frequently fey trappings of the form.

His

full-length debut, "A Force of One" (released in July on Bongo Beat), suggests

that Shine is not content to merely ride the coattails  of his forebears. There's

some boy-meets/loses-girl material here, much of it cleverly couched ("Flirtation

Device"), but he sinks his hooks into broader storytelling too (see the song

below). The album was produced by former Sparks guitarist Earle Mankey, who has worked with

L.A. notables such as Concrete Blonde and the Three O'Clock. The result is a collection

that's a little bit Elvis Costello, a little bit Matthew Sweet and maybe a bit Brendan

Benson.

||| Shine performs tonight at the Knitting Factory as part of International Pop Overthrow. He also

is playing a couple West Cost dates supporting Peter

Case prior to a Sept. 18 date at Safari Sam's as a supporting act for Miles Hunt of the Wonder Stuff.

||| Download: "Beirut 1978."

Photo by Sam Peacock

"Korn's new album doesn't have a title."

"So how do you order it?"

"You don't. It's Korn."

I missed it and, from reports, am regretting it. Bat for Lashes, the nom de tune of

Brighton, England's Natasha Khan, wowed the room last night at Spaceland. The common

sentiment I heard from a couple people: No wonder she is nominated for the Mercury

Music Prize.

You'll be hearing more about her.

For now, here is the enchanting video for "What's a Girl to Do."

Touts for Wednesday, Aug. 1

The Format starts a two-show stand (the

Avalon tonight, House of Blues tomorrow); the band for two weeks offered its latest

album, "Dog Problems," as a free download from its website and reported that

45,000 copies of the (very

good) album were ripped. ... Great

Glass Elevator (whose inventiveness kind of reminds me of the Format in a way) play

Club NME at Spaceland tonight. ... The Automatic Music

Explosion plays the Scene in Glendale. ... And the Stevenson Ranch Davidians

start a run of Wednesday shows at the Echo.

Consider this a warm-up for "The Simpsons

Movie" (opening in two weeks).

The musician's name is Zack Kim, a 24-year-old

university student who was born in Seoul, South Korea, reared in Malaysia and is now

studying in Australia. There are more examples of his technique on his website, and the

young man has his own Wikipedia

page.

He tells me via e-mail that he after he completes his studies in two years he hopes

to devote all his energies to music, and eventually he "would really love to

perform in the States, as it would be a dream come true for me."

Have to

think he'd be quite a hit at the premiere party.

Summer is here, in case you were too busy on MySpace to get the memo. The concert

calendar always seems to remind me before the real calendar, what with the Hollywood

Bowl kicking into gear and the onslaught of distinguished veteran rock bands starting to

make the stadium rounds.

(Email from a friend who went to Dodger Stadium this weekend: "They were pretty

awesome for a Police cover band.")

The smaller events have their cachet too -- the Sunday afternoon Do-Over at Crane's, the Little Radio Summer Camp. And then there was last

Thursday's Late Night at LACMA, the annual summer

solstice soiree, which attracted 7,853 museum visitors and probably disappointed

hundreds of others who waited for hours in long lines only to give up. (To be fair, what

part of "early arrival recommended" did you not understand?)

Late Night was a melange of music, hipster ephemera (T-shirt screen printing by Hit +

Run now seems mandatory if you are throwing any kind of cross-cultural event) and art.

Suffice to say there were plenty of photo ops in the Dan Flavin retrospective, a refuge

for attendees who could only handle small doses of offerings from DJs Steve Aoki,

Internationalist and handful of others. I missed the set by the always-solid Rebirth but caught one of L.A.'s favorite party

bands, Ima Robot, who got folks dancing despite

the band's relative lack of amplification.

◊ ◊ ◊

Where did June go?

The Monday night residencies end tonight at Spaceland, the Echo and Silverlake

Lounge. The L.A. quartet the Deadly

Syndrome (Spaceland) seems to have grown into polished band overnight (and wait till

you hear the album), and Thailand

(Silverlake Lounge), despite playing as a three-piece with electronic rhythms, serve up

a compelling new-wave/post-punk cocktail. And I have not made it to the Echo to see

Philadelphia ex-pats Burning Brides

(maybe tonight?), but people I trust give me good reports.

◊ ◊ ◊

At Safari Sam's on Friday night, the Silver Lake/Echo Park masses gathered to bid

farewell to Sea Level Records and its

proprietor, Todd Clifford. The independent outlet has been a locus of the Eastside music

scene for more than 5 years, and Clifford is closing more for I-need-a-life-change

reasons than business.

Today is the last day Sea Level is scheduled to be open.

Photos: LACMA attendees get up close with Dan Flavin's work; Ima Robot rocks in the

courtyard. By Kevin Bronson / LAT.

The Little Ones are still one

of this city's strongest musical happy pills, but, as a set Friday night showed, it's

hard to maintain that peak level of exuberance when you're doing it night after night,

tour after tour.

The L.A.

quintet -- "Rhymin' Simon on steroids" is how I described them last year, and

it still applies -- played an ASCAP- and Filter-sponsored music night on Friday tied to

the Silverlake Film Festival. The stuff from their "Sing Song" EP still

sounded crisp, and their new songs were upbeat and catchy too. But after having spent

the early part of this year doing some rigorous touring, the Little Ones weren't quite

as unhinged as they were when their EP was first released and Astralwerks (in the U.S.)

and Heavenly (in the U.K.) swooped in to sign the band.

Are the Little Ones still as happy as their music? "That's a good

question," frontman Edward Reyes says. "We're excited. ... Remember, we just

looked at that EP as our calling card -- we just wanted to get some shows with

it."

Their as-yet-untitled debut album is recorded and due in January, Reyes says.

"It's turning out great," he adds. "Right now we have a whole track

devoted to laughing."

||| Download Little Ones' songs from their Daytrotter session here.

◊ ◊ ◊

Passion of the Weiss has a

play-by-play of Britney Spears' Houses of Blues appearance (I will not call it a

performance). He even has some empathy.

◊ ◊ ◊

Ran into an employee of a recently merged record company who was enthused about

having adopted a puppy. Cute thing ... so what did you name him? "Andy

Slater."

◊ ◊ ◊

"So how

was Coachella?" That was the most-asked

question last week. I told inquiring minds that it was a three-day weekend of

once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and even as they were unfolding I knew I was missing

others. Wish the festival could have just hesitated a few times each day and let me

catch up.

The inconsiderate hipsters at Anthem, who throw their Coachella party during the day

while the music is going on, tell me I missed something else too -- a mask-less Thomas

Bangalter from Daft Punk [face obscured] spinning the LCD Soundsystem track "Daft

Punk Is Playing at My House." Not that anybody recognized him. But a cool party

nonetheless.

Daft Punk turned up on the turntables a couple nights later at the Echo too. Not that

anybody recognized them.

Touts for tonight

Gliss (Spaceland), the High Society (Silverlake Lounge), Bodies of Water (Echo) and Richard Bivens & Foreign Press

(Detroit Bar) start their Monday night residencies. ... Midnight Movies plays an in-store at

Amoeba. ... And London's Apartment joins

locals the Grand Marquee and others

at Indie 103.1's Viper Room show.

The music is pretty hard on the ears, kind of a flailing

attempt at dance-party relevance. But the album cover (that's the original at right) is

even harder on the eyes -- so Perry Farrell's Satellite Party revised it. Stereogum has a

compare-and-contrast. I'm not sure, but this would not have passed muster in the

Photoshop classes I slogged through years ago. This does, however, guarantee that the

album will chart. Here.

[Guest blogger August Brown is hot both because he is fly, and because he should

have worn more sunscreen.]

If Coachella success was measured in words per minute, Busdriver would have been the day's

undisputed champ. But fortunately for the old-guard L.A.-based MC, he dropped jaws and

machine-gun metaphors alike during his astonishingly dextrous set.

Busdriver was equally compelling needling the crowd with accusations of yuppiedom as

he did slaying them with fiery indignance at the ways the music industry exploits

rappers. Over a loose-limbed flurry of house and jungle-inspired beats, he extolled

cheeba and wryly freestyled that "in the Gobi tent is how an O.G. represents."

Original gangstas are few and far between at Coachella, but unless Ghostface pulls off

a miracle tomorrow, Busdriver may hit the 10 freeway home as the weekend's reigning

rhyme-slinger.

This was featured in our Downloads column last weekend (a good reason to drop

some coin on the Saturday print edition or check the pop music page on your local

newspaper's website). I've been a sucker for Travis' brand of Britpop since the first Clinton

Administration. Here's the video for "Closer," and, yeah, Ben Stiller makes a

good grocer.

Ozomatli looked to the visual for inspiration

when writing its new album, “Don’t Mess With the Dragon” (due April 3 on Concord

Records) — much of the initial songwriting came out of jam sessions at the Tropico de

Nopal art gallery. Now the veteran L.A. nine-piece might have found a vision to suit its

sound.

The new video for the single “Can’t Stop” is a dizzying collage of

stop-animation and storytelling that seems equal to Ozomatli’s mashing of Latin flavors,

rock, hip-hop and funk — a hybrid many have said is distinctly Los Angeles.

“We haven’t had a lot of luck with videos in the past,” acknowledges Ulises Bella, who

plays saxophone and clarinet for the band.

Ozomatli turned to New York-based

artist-illustrator Richard Borge for “Can’t Stop,” even though the 41-year-old, who had

done album art for bands such as Meat Beat Manifesto, had never done a music video.

Dan Fogelberg, 1951-2007

The obituary this morning says Dan Fogelberg helped "define soft rock," but

that sounds kind of flaccid compared to what the singer-songwriter, who died Sunday at

age 56, meant to a bunch of kids in the working-class neighborhoods of Peoria, Ill., in

the early 1970s.

Fogelberg graduated from Woodruff High School the year before I got there, leaving

behind some stories of a rock band called the Coachmen (I actually owned the 45 at one

point -- oh, where did it go?) and the occasional rumor he'd gone off to California, a

place that seemed so distant from our Midwestern factory town as to be a mirage. Not

many of us had California dreams then; we'd do well to graduate high school and get on

at Caterpillar Tractor Co. (which accounted for something like 1 in 5 paychecks in our

city in those days). If we were really lucky, we'd go to college.

In the fall of my junior year, "Home Free" arrived, and we were mesmerized.

Fogelberg's debut album -- a beautifully orchestrated bouquet of ballads that veered

toward what we now would call alt-country -- took his alma mater by storm. It christened

the tape player in my first car; it was played endlessly at basement parties from Grand

View Drive to the lower East Bluff. I'm pretty sure there isn't a song in my collection

I've played over the years more than that second track, "Stars."

Fogelberg was our Jackson Browne, a romantic who shared our roots and who had the

courage to strike out in service of his poetry. As I trudged through the snow delivering

my Peoria Journal Stars every morning, that was a pretty important symbol.

I always blanched at, but ultimately forgave, the arch sentimentality that seemingly

oppressive production brought to Fogelberg's later albums. He had earned the right to

pursue whatever vision struck him. When my brother and I took in a Fogelberg show a few

years ago in Anaheim, it wasn't so much for musical nostalgia as it was a thank-you.

In one subtle but important way, Dan Fogelberg was the leader of our band.

Curiosity piqued by the announcement of the Gibson "Robot" Guitar, I headed down to my favorite guitar shop in L.A. on Saturday to check it out myself. I was a little disappointed, frankly.

With a name like "the Robot," I was expecting this six-stringer to jump out of the case unprovoked and run around the room, shouting, "Danger Will Robinson!" or "For those about to rock we salute you!" or "Sarah Connor?" or something. Instead, the Robot just lay in his case, looking like a standard (or, for those of you in the know, a "studio") Les Paul. The only obvious differences were larger tuning pegs and a funky-looking control where one of the standard four volume/tone knobs is usually located. This, I was told, was the "MCK" or "Master Control Knob."

"Now there's the kind of Orwellian 'oh no, the machines have achieved artificial intelligence and have enslaved all carbon-based lifeforms on the planet'-kind of language I was hoping for," I thought.

But alas, the master control knob just controls the Robot's auto-tuning mechanism. It's pretty neat, I'll admit. You pull out the knob, spin the top dial to one of several tuning-configuration presets (standard, "drop d," open-tuning, etc.), tap the top, strum the strings, wait for the tuning pegs to auto-jiggy into position, and voila--push the knob back in and your Les Paul has an alternate tuning.

For the overwhelming majority of guitar players who play in standard tuning, what are the advantages? Well, for about $1000 more than what you'd spend on a regular Les Paul, you can keep your axe in really, really, really good tune.

So who is the real market for Gibson's Robot Guitar? Wealthy guitar players who need to constantly and radically alter their tuning. If that's not you, buy a chromatic tuner and save the Robot Guitar for Joni Mitchell.

--Liam Gowing

Welcome to Soundboard, the new music blog from the L.A. Times written by a band of opinionated, sometimes cranky, sometimes ecstatic music lovers. Soundboard will blog breaking news, concert previews, album and single reviews, and lots of random observations about this vast, exciting, wacko place known as the music world. By the way, we're nomads, committed to no single genre, era or chart, so expect Soundboard to be all over the place, like a Sonic Youth song covered by Beyonce playing at a Mexican restaurant in Torrance. That song doesn't exist (yet) but you get the point.

I don't know why, but I'm thinking about record clubs. I remember a time when my older brother belonged to one and he'd show me his cool new tapes. (Yeah, tapes. Don't laugh.) "I got this for a penny!" he's say, shaking Duran Duran's "Rio" in my face. I was amazed. A penny? How can they do that??

So I started searching around to see if any are left.

Turns out that BMG Columbia House still has one but from their home page, you can tell they're making their money from DVDs. "Music Service" is off to the side. When you click on it, it takes you to one of the saddest little web pages in the world, seemingly designed by Your Local Mall's Party Store circa 1988.

I'm going to find out a little more about this whole thing, but in the meantime, does anyone still belong to a record club out there?

[Crickets.]

--Margaret Wappler

I'm not part of the pack salivating over "Raising Sand," the new Alison Krauss/Robert Plant collab -- its backwoods flavor is slightly overcooked, in my book -- but I love the CD's cover art. The frontispiece shows the two stars relaxing in some desert setting, smiling off into the distance, perhaps at T-Bone Burnett bringing them another sheaf of folk-pop obscurities to peruse.

The back's the clincher, though. Plant's back is turned, and Krauss, leaning toward him, throws a grin over her shoulder as they walk away. She looks like a contented cat making off with her canary. The Lion King may be nearly sixty and more interested in crooning than howling out all of his love, but Krauss certainly knows that by clutching that arm, she's fulfilling a fantasy that sustained generations of teen-age girls, dreaming in their bedrooms to Led Zeppelin's massive kathunking mojo blues. Though I'm sure their collaboration was strictly artistic, here's to her for having fun with her chance to quietly fly her metal horns and say, "Ladies, eat your hearts out!"

--Ann Powers

I am not necessarily a fan of the

Mormons, but as a baseball guy I just about did a spit take when I saw the

tongue-in-cheek poster for the Los Angeles band's current stand at Mr. T's Bowl. [Sorry

for the sloppy clean-up job; it's a family blog, you know.]

[Our local music spotlight, for the moment, remains pointed at power pop, because

it just seems to go so well with summertime:]


Ari Shine landed with a crunch -- and

that's the crunch of a big power chord -- when he released his debut EP

"Age/Occupation" in 2006. Quickly he became a songwriter-to-watch in the L.A.

power-pop underground, if not somebody who carries enough melodies to wriggle a bunch of

his songs onto TV shows, and his energetic stage show hinted that he might become an

artist who could transcend the frequently fey trappings of the form.

His

full-length debut, "A Force of One" (released in July on Bongo Beat), suggests

that Shine is not content to merely ride the coattails  of his forebears. There's

some boy-meets/loses-girl material here, much of it cleverly couched ("Flirtation

Device"), but he sinks his hooks into broader storytelling too (see the song

below). The album was produced by former Sparks guitarist Earle Mankey, who has worked with

L.A. notables such as Concrete Blonde and the Three O'Clock. The result is a collection

that's a little bit Elvis Costello, a little bit Matthew Sweet and maybe a bit Brendan

Benson.

||| Shine performs tonight at the Knitting Factory as part of International Pop Overthrow. He also

is playing a couple West Cost dates supporting Peter

Case prior to a Sept. 18 date at Safari Sam's as a supporting act for Miles Hunt of the Wonder Stuff.

||| Download: "Beirut 1978."

Photo by Sam Peacock

"Korn's new album doesn't have a title."

"So how do you order it?"

"You don't. It's Korn."

I missed it and, from reports, am regretting it. Bat for Lashes, the nom de tune of

Brighton, England's Natasha Khan, wowed the room last night at Spaceland. The common

sentiment I heard from a couple people: No wonder she is nominated for the Mercury

Music Prize.

You'll be hearing more about her.

For now, here is the enchanting video for "What's a Girl to Do."

Touts for Wednesday, Aug. 1

The Format starts a two-show stand (the

Avalon tonight, House of Blues tomorrow); the band for two weeks offered its latest

album, "Dog Problems," as a free download from its website and reported that

45,000 copies of the (very

good) album were ripped. ... Great

Glass Elevator (whose inventiveness kind of reminds me of the Format in a way) play

Club NME at Spaceland tonight. ... The Automatic Music

Explosion plays the Scene in Glendale. ... And the Stevenson Ranch Davidians

start a run of Wednesday shows at the Echo.

Consider this a warm-up for "The Simpsons

Movie" (opening in two weeks).

The musician's name is Zack Kim, a 24-year-old

university student who was born in Seoul, South Korea, reared in Malaysia and is now

studying in Australia. There are more examples of his technique on his website, and the

young man has his own Wikipedia

page.

He tells me via e-mail that he after he completes his studies in two years he hopes

to devote all his energies to music, and eventually he "would really love to

perform in the States, as it would be a dream come true for me."

Have to

think he'd be quite a hit at the premiere party.

Summer is here, in case you were too busy on MySpace to get the memo. The concert

calendar always seems to remind me before the real calendar, what with the Hollywood

Bowl kicking into gear and the onslaught of distinguished veteran rock bands starting to

make the stadium rounds.

(Email from a friend who went to Dodger Stadium this weekend: "They were pretty

awesome for a Police cover band.")

The smaller events have their cachet too -- the Sunday afternoon Do-Over at Crane's, the Little Radio Summer Camp. And then there was last

Thursday's Late Night at LACMA, the annual summer

solstice soiree, which attracted 7,853 museum visitors and probably disappointed

hundreds of others who waited for hours in long lines only to give up. (To be fair, what

part of "early arrival recommended" did you not understand?)

Late Night was a melange of music, hipster ephemera (T-shirt screen printing by Hit +

Run now seems mandatory if you are throwing any kind of cross-cultural event) and art.

Suffice to say there were plenty of photo ops in the Dan Flavin retrospective, a refuge

for attendees who could only handle small doses of offerings from DJs Steve Aoki,

Internationalist and handful of others. I missed the set by the always-solid Rebirth but caught one of L.A.'s favorite party

bands, Ima Robot, who got folks dancing despite

the band's relative lack of amplification.

◊ ◊ ◊

Where did June go?

The Monday night residencies end tonight at Spaceland, the Echo and Silverlake

Lounge. The L.A. quartet the Deadly

Syndrome (Spaceland) seems to have grown into polished band overnight (and wait till

you hear the album), and Thailand

(Silverlake Lounge), despite playing as a three-piece with electronic rhythms, serve up

a compelling new-wave/post-punk cocktail. And I have not made it to the Echo to see

Philadelphia ex-pats Burning Brides

(maybe tonight?), but people I trust give me good reports.

◊ ◊ ◊

At Safari Sam's on Friday night, the Silver Lake/Echo Park masses gathered to bid

farewell to Sea Level Records and its

proprietor, Todd Clifford. The independent outlet has been a locus of the Eastside music

scene for more than 5 years, and Clifford is closing more for I-need-a-life-change

reasons than business.

Today is the last day Sea Level is scheduled to be open.

Photos: LACMA attendees get up close with Dan Flavin's work; Ima Robot rocks in the

courtyard. By Kevin Bronson / LAT.

The Little Ones are still one

of this city's strongest musical happy pills, but, as a set Friday night showed, it's

hard to maintain that peak level of exuberance when you're doing it night after night,

tour after tour.

The L.A.

quintet -- "Rhymin' Simon on steroids" is how I described them last year, and

it still applies -- played an ASCAP- and Filter-sponsored music night on Friday tied to

the Silverlake Film Festival. The stuff from their "Sing Song" EP still

sounded crisp, and their new songs were upbeat and catchy too. But after having spent

the early part of this year doing some rigorous touring, the Little Ones weren't quite

as unhinged as they were when their EP was first released and Astralwerks (in the U.S.)

and Heavenly (in the U.K.) swooped in to sign the band.

Are the Little Ones still as happy as their music? "That's a good

question," frontman Edward Reyes says. "We're excited. ... Remember, we just

looked at that EP as our calling card -- we just wanted to get some shows with

it."

Their as-yet-untitled debut album is recorded and due in January, Reyes says.

"It's turning out great," he adds. "Right now we have a whole track

devoted to laughing."

||| Download Little Ones' songs from their Daytrotter session here.

◊ ◊ ◊

Passion of the Weiss has a

play-by-play of Britney Spears' Houses of Blues appearance (I will not call it a

performance). He even has some empathy.

◊ ◊ ◊

Ran into an employee of a recently merged record company who was enthused about

having adopted a puppy. Cute thing ... so what did you name him? "Andy

Slater."

◊ ◊ ◊

"So how

was Coachella?" That was the most-asked

question last week. I told inquiring minds that it was a three-day weekend of

once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and even as they were unfolding I knew I was missing

others. Wish the festival could have just hesitated a few times each day and let me

catch up.

The inconsiderate hipsters at Anthem, who throw their Coachella party during the day

while the music is going on, tell me I missed something else too -- a mask-less Thomas

Bangalter from Daft Punk [face obscured] spinning the LCD Soundsystem track "Daft

Punk Is Playing at My House." Not that anybody recognized him. But a cool party

nonetheless.

Daft Punk turned up on the turntables a couple nights later at the Echo too. Not that

anybody recognized them.

Touts for tonight

Gliss (Spaceland), the High Society (Silverlake Lounge), Bodies of Water (Echo) and Richard Bivens & Foreign Press

(Detroit Bar) start their Monday night residencies. ... Midnight Movies plays an in-store at

Amoeba. ... And London's Apartment joins

locals the Grand Marquee and others

at Indie 103.1's Viper Room show.

The music is pretty hard on the ears, kind of a flailing

attempt at dance-party relevance. But the album cover (that's the original at right) is

even harder on the eyes -- so Perry Farrell's Satellite Party revised it. Stereogum has a

compare-and-contrast. I'm not sure, but this would not have passed muster in the

Photoshop classes I slogged through years ago. This does, however, guarantee that the

album will chart. Here.

[Guest blogger August Brown is hot both because he is fly, and because he should

have worn more sunscreen.]

If Coachella success was measured in words per minute, Busdriver would have been the day's

undisputed champ. But fortunately for the old-guard L.A.-based MC, he dropped jaws and

machine-gun metaphors alike during his astonishingly dextrous set.

Busdriver was equally compelling needling the crowd with accusations of yuppiedom as

he did slaying them with fiery indignance at the ways the music industry exploits

rappers. Over a loose-limbed flurry of house and jungle-inspired beats, he extolled

cheeba and wryly freestyled that "in the Gobi tent is how an O.G. represents."

Original gangstas are few and far between at Coachella, but unless Ghostface pulls off

a miracle tomorrow, Busdriver may hit the 10 freeway home as the weekend's reigning

rhyme-slinger.

This was featured in our Downloads column last weekend (a good reason to drop

some coin on the Saturday print edition or check the pop music page on your local

newspaper's website). I've been a sucker for Travis' brand of Britpop since the first Clinton

Administration. Here's the video for "Closer," and, yeah, Ben Stiller makes a

good grocer.

Ozomatli looked to the visual for inspiration

when writing its new album, “Don’t Mess With the Dragon” (due April 3 on Concord

Records) — much of the initial songwriting came out of jam sessions at the Tropico de

Nopal art gallery. Now the veteran L.A. nine-piece might have found a vision to suit its

sound.

The new video for the single “Can’t Stop” is a dizzying collage of

stop-animation and storytelling that seems equal to Ozomatli’s mashing of Latin flavors,

rock, hip-hop and funk — a hybrid many have said is distinctly Los Angeles.

“We haven’t had a lot of luck with videos in the past,” acknowledges Ulises Bella, who

plays saxophone and clarinet for the band.

Ozomatli turned to New York-based

artist-illustrator Richard Borge for “Can’t Stop,” even though the 41-year-old, who had

done album art for bands such as Meat Beat Manifesto, had never done a music video.

Playing the Robot

Curiosity piqued by the announcement of the Gibson "Robot" Guitar, I headed down to my favorite guitar shop in L.A. on Saturday to check it out myself. I was a little disappointed, frankly.

With a name like "the Robot," I was expecting this six-stringer to jump out of the case unprovoked and run around the room, shouting, "Danger Will Robinson!" or "For those about to rock we salute you!" or "Sarah Connor?" or something. Instead, the Robot just lay in his case, looking like a standard (or, for those of you in the know, a "studio") Les Paul. The only obvious differences were larger tuning pegs and a funky-looking control where one of the standard four volume/tone knobs is usually located. This, I was told, was the "MCK" or "Master Control Knob."

"Now there's the kind of Orwellian 'oh no, the machines have achieved artificial intelligence and have enslaved all carbon-based lifeforms on the planet'-kind of language I was hoping for," I thought.

But alas, the master control knob just controls the Robot's auto-tuning mechanism. It's pretty neat, I'll admit. You pull out the knob, spin the top dial to one of several tuning-configuration presets (standard, "drop d," open-tuning, etc.), tap the top, strum the strings, wait for the tuning pegs to auto-jiggy into position, and voila--push the knob back in and your Les Paul has an alternate tuning.

For the overwhelming majority of guitar players who play in standard tuning, what are the advantages? Well, for about $1000 more than what you'd spend on a regular Les Paul, you can keep your axe in really, really, really good tune.

So who is the real market for Gibson's Robot Guitar? Wealthy guitar players who need to constantly and radically alter their tuning. If that's not you, buy a chromatic tuner and save the Robot Guitar for Joni Mitchell.

--Liam Gowing

Welcome to Soundboard, the new music blog from the L.A. Times written by a band of opinionated, sometimes cranky, sometimes ecstatic music lovers. Soundboard will blog breaking news, concert previews, album and single reviews, and lots of random observations about this vast, exciting, wacko place known as the music world. By the way, we're nomads, committed to no single genre, era or chart, so expect Soundboard to be all over the place, like a Sonic Youth song covered by Beyonce playing at a Mexican restaurant in Torrance. That song doesn't exist (yet) but you get the point.

I don't know why, but I'm thinking about record clubs. I remember a time when my older brother belonged to one and he'd show me his cool new tapes. (Yeah, tapes. Don't laugh.) "I got this for a penny!" he's say, shaking Duran Duran's "Rio" in my face. I was amazed. A penny? How can they do that??

So I started searching around to see if any are left.

Turns out that BMG Columbia House still has one but from their home page, you can tell they're making their money from DVDs. "Music Service" is off to the side. When you click on it, it takes you to one of the saddest little web pages in the world, seemingly designed by Your Local Mall's Party Store circa 1988.

I'm going to find out a little more about this whole thing, but in the meantime, does anyone still belong to a record club out there?

[Crickets.]

--Margaret Wappler

I'm not part of the pack salivating over "Raising Sand," the new Alison Krauss/Robert Plant collab -- its backwoods flavor is slightly overcooked, in my book -- but I love the CD's cover art. The frontispiece shows the two stars relaxing in some desert setting, smiling off into the distance, perhaps at T-Bone Burnett bringing them another sheaf of folk-pop obscurities to peruse.

The back's the clincher, though. Plant's back is turned, and Krauss, leaning toward him, throws a grin over her shoulder as they walk away. She looks like a contented cat making off with her canary. The Lion King may be nearly sixty and more interested in crooning than howling out all of his love, but Krauss certainly knows that by clutching that arm, she's fulfilling a fantasy that sustained generations of teen-age girls, dreaming in their bedrooms to Led Zeppelin's massive kathunking mojo blues. Though I'm sure their collaboration was strictly artistic, here's to her for having fun with her chance to quietly fly her metal horns and say, "Ladies, eat your hearts out!"

--Ann Powers

I am not necessarily a fan of the

Mormons, but as a baseball guy I just about did a spit take when I saw the

tongue-in-cheek poster for the Los Angeles band's current stand at Mr. T's Bowl. [Sorry

for the sloppy clean-up job; it's a family blog, you know.]

[Our local music spotlight, for the moment, remains pointed at power pop, because

it just seems to go so well with summertime:]


Ari Shine landed with a crunch -- and

that's the crunch of a big power chord -- when he released his debut EP

"Age/Occupation" in 2006. Quickly he became a songwriter-to-watch in the L.A.

power-pop underground, if not somebody who carries enough melodies to wriggle a bunch of

his songs onto TV shows, and his energetic stage show hinted that he might become an

artist who could transcend the frequently fey trappings of the form.

His

full-length debut, "A Force of One" (released in July on Bongo Beat), suggests

that Shine is not content to merely ride the coattails  of his forebears. There's

some boy-meets/loses-girl material here, much of it cleverly couched ("Flirtation

Device"), but he sinks his hooks into broader storytelling too (see the song

below). The album was produced by former Sparks guitarist Earle Mankey, who has worked with

L.A. notables such as Concrete Blonde and the Three O'Clock. The result is a collection

that's a little bit Elvis Costello, a little bit Matthew Sweet and maybe a bit Brendan

Benson.

||| Shine performs tonight at the Knitting Factory as part of International Pop Overthrow. He also

is playing a couple West Cost dates supporting Peter

Case prior to a Sept. 18 date at Safari Sam's as a supporting act for Miles Hunt of the Wonder Stuff.

||| Download: "Beirut 1978."

Photo by Sam Peacock

"Korn's new album doesn't have a title."

"So how do you order it?"

"You don't. It's Korn."

I missed it and, from reports, am regretting it. Bat for Lashes, the nom de tune of

Brighton, England's Natasha Khan, wowed the room last night at Spaceland. The common

sentiment I heard from a couple people: No wonder she is nominated for the Mercury

Music Prize.

You'll be hearing more about her.

For now, here is the enchanting video for "What's a Girl to Do."

Touts for Wednesday, Aug. 1

The Format starts a two-show stand (the

Avalon tonight, House of Blues tomorrow); the band for two weeks offered its latest

album, "Dog Problems," as a free download from its website and reported that

45,000 copies of the (very

good) album were ripped. ... Great

Glass Elevator (whose inventiveness kind of reminds me of the Format in a way) play

Club NME at Spaceland tonight. ... The Automatic Music

Explosion plays the Scene in Glendale. ... And the Stevenson Ranch Davidians

start a run of Wednesday shows at the Echo.

Consider this a warm-up for "The Simpsons

Movie" (opening in two weeks).

The musician's name is Zack Kim, a 24-year-old

university student who was born in Seoul, South Korea, reared in Malaysia and is now

studying in Australia. There are more examples of his technique on his website, and the

young man has his own Wikipedia

page.

He tells me via e-mail that he after he completes his studies in two years he hopes

to devote all his energies to music, and eventually he "would really love to

perform in the States, as it would be a dream come true for me."

Have to

think he'd be quite a hit at the premiere party.

Summer is here, in case you were too busy on MySpace to get the memo. The concert

calendar always seems to remind me before the real calendar, what with the Hollywood

Bowl kicking into gear and the onslaught of distinguished veteran rock bands starting to

make the stadium rounds.

(Email from a friend who went to Dodger Stadium this weekend: "They were pretty

awesome for a Police cover band.")

The smaller events have their cachet too -- the Sunday afternoon Do-Over at Crane's, the Little Radio Summer Camp. And then there was last

Thursday's Late Night at LACMA, the annual summer

solstice soiree, which attracted 7,853 museum visitors and probably disappointed

hundreds of others who waited for hours in long lines only to give up. (To be fair, what

part of "early arrival recommended" did you not understand?)

Late Night was a melange of music, hipster ephemera (T-shirt screen printing by Hit +

Run now seems mandatory if you are throwing any kind of cross-cultural event) and art.

Suffice to say there were plenty of photo ops in the Dan Flavin retrospective, a refuge

for attendees who could only handle small doses of offerings from DJs Steve Aoki,

Internationalist and handful of others. I missed the set by the always-solid Rebirth but caught one of L.A.'s favorite party

bands, Ima Robot, who got folks dancing despite

the band's relative lack of amplification.

◊ ◊ ◊

Where did June go?

The Monday night residencies end tonight at Spaceland, the Echo and Silverlake

Lounge. The L.A. quartet the Deadly

Syndrome (Spaceland) seems to have grown into polished band overnight (and wait till

you hear the album), and Thailand

(Silverlake Lounge), despite playing as a three-piece with electronic rhythms, serve up

a compelling new-wave/post-punk cocktail. And I have not made it to the Echo to see

Philadelphia ex-pats Burning Brides

(maybe tonight?), but people I trust give me good reports.

◊ ◊ ◊

At Safari Sam's on Friday night, the Silver Lake/Echo Park masses gathered to bid

farewell to Sea Level Records and its

proprietor, Todd Clifford. The independent outlet has been a locus of the Eastside music

scene for more than 5 years, and Clifford is closing more for I-need-a-life-change

reasons than business.

Today is the last day Sea Level is scheduled to be open.

Photos: LACMA attendees get up close with Dan Flavin's work; Ima Robot rocks in the

courtyard. By Kevin Bronson / LAT.

The Little Ones are still one

of this city's strongest musical happy pills, but, as a set Friday night showed, it's

hard to maintain that peak level of exuberance when you're doing it night after night,

tour after tour.

The L.A.

quintet -- "Rhymin' Simon on steroids" is how I described them last year, and

it still applies -- played an ASCAP- and Filter-sponsored music night on Friday tied to

the Silverlake Film Festival. The stuff from their "Sing Song" EP still

sounded crisp, and their new songs were upbeat and catchy too. But after having spent

the early part of this year doing some rigorous touring, the Little Ones weren't quite

as unhinged as they were when their EP was first released and Astralwerks (in the U.S.)

and Heavenly (in the U.K.) swooped in to sign the band.

Are the Little Ones still as happy as their music? "That's a good

question," frontman Edward Reyes says. "We're excited. ... Remember, we just

looked at that EP as our calling card -- we just wanted to get some shows with

it."

Their as-yet-untitled debut album is recorded and due in January, Reyes says.

"It's turning out great," he adds. "Right now we have a whole track

devoted to laughing."

||| Download Little Ones' songs from their Daytrotter session here.

◊ ◊ ◊

Passion of the Weiss has a

play-by-play of Britney Spears' Houses of Blues appearance (I will not call it a

performance). He even has some empathy.

◊ ◊ ◊

Ran into an employee of a recently merged record company who was enthused about

having adopted a puppy. Cute thing ... so what did you name him? "Andy

Slater."

◊ ◊ ◊

"So how

was Coachella?" That was the most-asked

question last week. I told inquiring minds that it was a three-day weekend of

once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and even as they were unfolding I knew I was missing

others. Wish the festival could have just hesitated a few times each day and let me

catch up.

The inconsiderate hipsters at Anthem, who throw their Coachella party during the day

while the music is going on, tell me I missed something else too -- a mask-less Thomas

Bangalter from Daft Punk [face obscured] spinning the LCD Soundsystem track "Daft

Punk Is Playing at My House." Not that anybody recognized him. But a cool party

nonetheless.

Daft Punk turned up on the turntables a couple nights later at the Echo too. Not that

anybody recognized them.

Touts for tonight

Gliss (Spaceland), the High Society (Silverlake Lounge), Bodies of Water (Echo) and Richard Bivens & Foreign Press

(Detroit Bar) start their Monday night residencies. ... Midnight Movies plays an in-store at

Amoeba. ... And London's Apartment joins

locals the Grand Marquee and others

at Indie 103.1's Viper Room show.

The music is pretty hard on the ears, kind of a flailing

attempt at dance-party relevance. But the album cover (that's the original at right) is

even harder on the eyes -- so Perry Farrell's Satellite Party revised it. Stereogum has a

compare-and-contrast. I'm not sure, but this would not have passed muster in the

Photoshop classes I slogged through years ago. This does, however, guarantee that the

album will chart. Here.

[Guest blogger August Brown is hot both because he is fly, and because he should

have worn more sunscreen.]

If Coachella success was measured in words per minute, Busdriver would have been the day's

undisputed champ. But fortunately for the old-guard L.A.-based MC, he dropped jaws and

machine-gun metaphors alike during his astonishingly dextrous set.

Busdriver was equally compelling needling the crowd with accusations of yuppiedom as

he did slaying them with fiery indignance at the ways the music industry exploits

rappers. Over a loose-limbed flurry of house and jungle-inspired beats, he extolled

cheeba and wryly freestyled that "in the Gobi tent is how an O.G. represents."

Original gangstas are few and far between at Coachella, but unless Ghostface pulls off

a miracle tomorrow, Busdriver may hit the 10 freeway home as the weekend's reigning

rhyme-slinger.

This was featured in our Downloads column last weekend (a good reason to drop

some coin on the Saturday print edition or check the pop music page on your local

newspaper's website). I've been a sucker for Travis' brand of Britpop since the first Clinton

Administration. Here's the video for "Closer," and, yeah, Ben Stiller makes a

good grocer.

Ozomatli looked to the visual for inspiration

when writing its new album, “Don’t Mess With the Dragon” (due April 3 on Concord

Records) — much of the initial songwriting came out of jam sessions at the Tropico de

Nopal art gallery. Now the veteran L.A. nine-piece might have found a vision to suit its

sound.

The new video for the single “Can’t Stop” is a dizzying collage of

stop-animation and storytelling that seems equal to Ozomatli’s mashing of Latin flavors,

rock, hip-hop and funk — a hybrid many have said is distinctly Los Angeles.

“We haven’t had a lot of luck with videos in the past,” acknowledges Ulises Bella, who

plays saxophone and clarinet for the band.

Ozomatli turned to New York-based

artist-illustrator Richard Borge for “Can’t Stop,” even though the 41-year-old, who had

done album art for bands such as Meat Beat Manifesto, had never done a music video.

Bookmark us, please

Welcome to Soundboard, the new music blog from the L.A. Times written by a band of opinionated, sometimes cranky, sometimes ecstatic music lovers. Soundboard will blog breaking news, concert previews, album and single reviews, and lots of random observations about this vast, exciting, wacko place known as the music world. By the way, we're nomads, committed to no single genre, era or chart, so expect Soundboard to be all over the place, like a Sonic Youth song covered by Beyonce playing at a Mexican restaurant in Torrance. That song doesn't exist (yet) but you get the point.

I don't know why, but I'm thinking about record clubs. I remember a time when my older brother belonged to one and he'd show me his cool new tapes. (Yeah, tapes. Don't laugh.) "I got this for a penny!" he's say, shaking Duran Duran's "Rio" in my face. I was amazed. A penny? How can they do that??

So I started searching around to see if any are left.

Turns out that BMG Columbia House still has one but from their home page, you can tell they're making their money from DVDs. "Music Service" is off to the side. When you click on it, it takes you to one of the saddest little web pages in the world, seemingly designed by Your Local Mall's Party Store circa 1988.

I'm going to find out a little more about this whole thing, but in the meantime, does anyone still belong to a record club out there?

[Crickets.]

--Margaret Wappler

I'm not part of the pack salivating over "Raising Sand," the new Alison Krauss/Robert Plant collab -- its backwoods flavor is slightly overcooked, in my book -- but I love the CD's cover art. The frontispiece shows the two stars relaxing in some desert setting, smiling off into the distance, perhaps at T-Bone Burnett bringing them another sheaf of folk-pop obscurities to peruse.

The back's the clincher, though. Plant's back is turned, and Krauss, leaning toward him, throws a grin over her shoulder as they walk away. She looks like a contented cat making off with her canary. The Lion King may be nearly sixty and more interested in crooning than howling out all of his love, but Krauss certainly knows that by clutching that arm, she's fulfilling a fantasy that sustained generations of teen-age girls, dreaming in their bedrooms to Led Zeppelin's massive kathunking mojo blues. Though I'm sure their collaboration was strictly artistic, here's to her for having fun with her chance to quietly fly her metal horns and say, "Ladies, eat your hearts out!"

--Ann Powers

I am not necessarily a fan of the

Mormons, but as a baseball guy I just about did a spit take when I saw the

tongue-in-cheek poster for the Los Angeles band's current stand at Mr. T's Bowl. [Sorry

for the sloppy clean-up job; it's a family blog, you know.]

[Our local music spotlight, for the moment, remains pointed at power pop, because

it just seems to go so well with summertime:]


Ari Shine landed with a crunch -- and

that's the crunch of a big power chord -- when he released his debut EP

"Age/Occupation" in 2006. Quickly he became a songwriter-to-watch in the L.A.

power-pop underground, if not somebody who carries enough melodies to wriggle a bunch of

his songs onto TV shows, and his energetic stage show hinted that he might become an

artist who could transcend the frequently fey trappings of the form.

His

full-length debut, "A Force of One" (released in July on Bongo Beat), suggests

that Shine is not content to merely ride the coattails  of his forebears. There's

some boy-meets/loses-girl material here, much of it cleverly couched ("Flirtation

Device"), but he sinks his hooks into broader storytelling too (see the song

below). The album was produced by former Sparks guitarist Earle Mankey, who has worked with

L.A. notables such as Concrete Blonde and the Three O'Clock. The result is a collection

that's a little bit Elvis Costello, a little bit Matthew Sweet and maybe a bit Brendan

Benson.

||| Shine performs tonight at the Knitting Factory as part of International Pop Overthrow. He also

is playing a couple West Cost dates supporting Peter

Case prior to a Sept. 18 date at Safari Sam's as a supporting act for Miles Hunt of the Wonder Stuff.

||| Download: "Beirut 1978."

Photo by Sam Peacock

"Korn's new album doesn't have a title."

"So how do you order it?"

"You don't. It's Korn."

I missed it and, from reports, am regretting it. Bat for Lashes, the nom de tune of

Brighton, England's Natasha Khan, wowed the room last night at Spaceland. The common

sentiment I heard from a couple people: No wonder she is nominated for the Mercury

Music Prize.

You'll be hearing more about her.

For now, here is the enchanting video for "What's a Girl to Do."

Touts for Wednesday, Aug. 1

The Format starts a two-show stand (the

Avalon tonight, House of Blues tomorrow); the band for two weeks offered its latest

album, "Dog Problems," as a free download from its website and reported that

45,000 copies of the (very

good) album were ripped. ... Great

Glass Elevator (whose inventiveness kind of reminds me of the Format in a way) play

Club NME at Spaceland tonight. ... The Automatic Music

Explosion plays the Scene in Glendale. ... And the Stevenson Ranch Davidians

start a run of Wednesday shows at the Echo.

Consider this a warm-up for "The Simpsons

Movie" (opening in two weeks).

The musician's name is Zack Kim, a 24-year-old

university student who was born in Seoul, South Korea, reared in Malaysia and is now

studying in Australia. There are more examples of his technique on his website, and the

young man has his own Wikipedia

page.

He tells me via e-mail that he after he completes his studies in two years he hopes

to devote all his energies to music, and eventually he "would really love to

perform in the States, as it would be a dream come true for me."

Have to

think he'd be quite a hit at the premiere party.

Summer is here, in case you were too busy on MySpace to get the memo. The concert

calendar always seems to remind me before the real calendar, what with the Hollywood

Bowl kicking into gear and the onslaught of distinguished veteran rock bands starting to

make the stadium rounds.

(Email from a friend who went to Dodger Stadium this weekend: "They were pretty

awesome for a Police cover band.")

The smaller events have their cachet too -- the Sunday afternoon Do-Over at Crane's, the Little Radio Summer Camp. And then there was last

Thursday's Late Night at LACMA, the annual summer

solstice soiree, which attracted 7,853 museum visitors and probably disappointed

hundreds of others who waited for hours in long lines only to give up. (To be fair, what

part of "early arrival recommended" did you not understand?)

Late Night was a melange of music, hipster ephemera (T-shirt screen printing by Hit +

Run now seems mandatory if you are throwing any kind of cross-cultural event) and art.

Suffice to say there were plenty of photo ops in the Dan Flavin retrospective, a refuge

for attendees who could only handle small doses of offerings from DJs Steve Aoki,

Internationalist and handful of others. I missed the set by the always-solid Rebirth but caught one of L.A.'s favorite party

bands, Ima Robot, who got folks dancing despite

the band's relative lack of amplification.

◊ ◊ ◊

Where did June go?

The Monday night residencies end tonight at Spaceland, the Echo and Silverlake

Lounge. The L.A. quartet the Deadly

Syndrome (Spaceland) seems to have grown into polished band overnight (and wait till

you hear the album), and Thailand

(Silverlake Lounge), despite playing as a three-piece with electronic rhythms, serve up

a compelling new-wave/post-punk cocktail. And I have not made it to the Echo to see

Philadelphia ex-pats Burning Brides

(maybe tonight?), but people I trust give me good reports.

◊ ◊ ◊

At Safari Sam's on Friday night, the Silver Lake/Echo Park masses gathered to bid

farewell to Sea Level Records and its

proprietor, Todd Clifford. The independent outlet has been a locus of the Eastside music

scene for more than 5 years, and Clifford is closing more for I-need-a-life-change

reasons than business.

Today is the last day Sea Level is scheduled to be open.

Photos: LACMA attendees get up close with Dan Flavin's work; Ima Robot rocks in the

courtyard. By Kevin Bronson / LAT.

The Little Ones are still one

of this city's strongest musical happy pills, but, as a set Friday night showed, it's

hard to maintain that peak level of exuberance when you're doing it night after night,

tour after tour.

The L.A.

quintet -- "Rhymin' Simon on steroids" is how I described them last year, and

it still applies -- played an ASCAP- and Filter-sponsored music night on Friday tied to

the Silverlake Film Festival. The stuff from their "Sing Song" EP still

sounded crisp, and their new songs were upbeat and catchy too. But after having spent

the early part of this year doing some rigorous touring, the Little Ones weren't quite

as unhinged as they were when their EP was first released and Astralwerks (in the U.S.)

and Heavenly (in the U.K.) swooped in to sign the band.

Are the Little Ones still as happy as their music? "That's a good

question," frontman Edward Reyes says. "We're excited. ... Remember, we just

looked at that EP as our calling card -- we just wanted to get some shows with

it."

Their as-yet-untitled debut album is recorded and due in January, Reyes says.

"It's turning out great," he adds. "Right now we have a whole track

devoted to laughing."

||| Download Little Ones' songs from their Daytrotter session here.

◊ ◊ ◊

Passion of the Weiss has a

play-by-play of Britney Spears' Houses of Blues appearance (I will not call it a

performance). He even has some empathy.

◊ ◊ ◊

Ran into an employee of a recently merged record company who was enthused about

having adopted a puppy. Cute thing ... so what did you name him? "Andy

Slater."

◊ ◊ ◊

"So how

was Coachella?" That was the most-asked

question last week. I told inquiring minds that it was a three-day weekend of

once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and even as they were unfolding I knew I was missing

others. Wish the festival could have just hesitated a few times each day and let me

catch up.

The inconsiderate hipsters at Anthem, who throw their Coachella party during the day

while the music is going on, tell me I missed something else too -- a mask-less Thomas

Bangalter from Daft Punk [face obscured] spinning the LCD Soundsystem track "Daft

Punk Is Playing at My House." Not that anybody recognized him. But a cool party

nonetheless.

Daft Punk turned up on the turntables a couple nights later at the Echo too. Not that

anybody recognized them.

Touts for tonight

Gliss (Spaceland), the High Society (Silverlake Lounge), Bodies of Water (Echo) and Richard Bivens & Foreign Press

(Detroit Bar) start their Monday night residencies. ... Midnight Movies plays an in-store at

Amoeba. ... And London's Apartment joins

locals the Grand Marquee and others

at Indie 103.1's Viper Room show.

The music is pretty hard on the ears, kind of a flailing

attempt at dance-party relevance. But the album cover (that's the original at right) is

even harder on the eyes -- so Perry Farrell's Satellite Party revised it. Stereogum has a

compare-and-contrast. I'm not sure, but this would not have passed muster in the

Photoshop classes I slogged through years ago. This does, however, guarantee that the

album will chart. Here.

[Guest blogger August Brown is hot both because he is fly, and because he should

have worn more sunscreen.]

If Coachella success was measured in words per minute, Busdriver would have been the day's

undisputed champ. But fortunately for the old-guard L.A.-based MC, he dropped jaws and

machine-gun metaphors alike during his astonishingly dextrous set.

Busdriver was equally compelling needling the crowd with accusations of yuppiedom as

he did slaying them with fiery indignance at the ways the music industry exploits

rappers. Over a loose-limbed flurry of house and jungle-inspired beats, he extolled

cheeba and wryly freestyled that "in the Gobi tent is how an O.G. represents."

Original gangstas are few and far between at Coachella, but unless Ghostface pulls off

a miracle tomorrow, Busdriver may hit the 10 freeway home as the weekend's reigning

rhyme-slinger.

This was featured in our Downloads column last weekend (a good reason to drop

some coin on the Saturday print edition or check the pop music page on your local

newspaper's website). I've been a sucker for Travis' brand of Britpop since the first Clinton

Administration. Here's the video for "Closer," and, yeah, Ben Stiller makes a

good grocer.

Ozomatli looked to the visual for inspiration

when writing its new album, “Don’t Mess With the Dragon” (due April 3 on Concord

Records) — much of the initial songwriting came out of jam sessions at the Tropico de

Nopal art gallery. Now the veteran L.A. nine-piece might have found a vision to suit its

sound.

The new video for the single “Can’t Stop” is a dizzying collage of

stop-animation and storytelling that seems equal to Ozomatli’s mashing of Latin flavors,

rock, hip-hop and funk — a hybrid many have said is distinctly Los Angeles.

“We haven’t had a lot of luck with videos in the past,” acknowledges Ulises Bella, who

plays saxophone and clarinet for the band.

Ozomatli turned to New York-based

artist-illustrator Richard Borge for “Can’t Stop,” even though the 41-year-old, who had

done album art for bands such as Meat Beat Manifesto, had never done a music video.

Remember record clubs?

I don't know why, but I'm thinking about record clubs. I remember a time when my older brother belonged to one and he'd show me his cool new tapes. (Yeah, tapes. Don't laugh.) "I got this for a penny!" he's say, shaking Duran Duran's "Rio" in my face. I was amazed. A penny? How can they do that??

So I started searching around to see if any are left.

Turns out that BMG Columbia House still has one but from their home page, you can tell they're making their money from DVDs. "Music Service" is off to the side. When you click on it, it takes you to one of the saddest little web pages in the world, seemingly designed by Your Local Mall's Party Store circa 1988.

I'm going to find out a little more about this whole thing, but in the meantime, does anyone still belong to a record club out there?

[Crickets.]

--Margaret Wappler

I'm not part of the pack salivating over "Raising Sand," the new Alison Krauss/Robert Plant collab -- its backwoods flavor is slightly overcooked, in my book -- but I love the CD's cover art. The frontispiece shows the two stars relaxing in some desert setting, smiling off into the distance, perhaps at T-Bone Burnett bringing them another sheaf of folk-pop obscurities to peruse.

The back's the clincher, though. Plant's back is turned, and Krauss, leaning toward him, throws a grin over her shoulder as they walk away. She looks like a contented cat making off with her canary. The Lion King may be nearly sixty and more interested in crooning than howling out all of his love, but Krauss certainly knows that by clutching that arm, she's fulfilling a fantasy that sustained generations of teen-age girls, dreaming in their bedrooms to Led Zeppelin's massive kathunking mojo blues. Though I'm sure their collaboration was strictly artistic, here's to her for having fun with her chance to quietly fly her metal horns and say, "Ladies, eat your hearts out!"

--Ann Powers

I am not necessarily a fan of the

Mormons, but as a baseball guy I just about did a spit take when I saw the

tongue-in-cheek poster for the Los Angeles band's current stand at Mr. T's Bowl. [Sorry

for the sloppy clean-up job; it's a family blog, you know.]

[Our local music spotlight, for the moment, remains pointed at power pop, because

it just seems to go so well with summertime:]


Ari Shine landed with a crunch -- and

that's the crunch of a big power chord -- when he released his debut EP

"Age/Occupation" in 2006. Quickly he became a songwriter-to-watch in the L.A.

power-pop underground, if not somebody who carries enough melodies to wriggle a bunch of

his songs onto TV shows, and his energetic stage show hinted that he might become an

artist who could transcend the frequently fey trappings of the form.

His

full-length debut, "A Force of One" (released in July on Bongo Beat), suggests

that Shine is not content to merely ride the coattails  of his forebears. There's

some boy-meets/loses-girl material here, much of it cleverly couched ("Flirtation

Device"), but he sinks his hooks into broader storytelling too (see the song

below). The album was produced by former Sparks guitarist Earle Mankey, who has worked with

L.A. notables such as Concrete Blonde and the Three O'Clock. The result is a collection

that's a little bit Elvis Costello, a little bit Matthew Sweet and maybe a bit Brendan

Benson.

||| Shine performs tonight at the Knitting Factory as part of International Pop Overthrow. He also

is playing a couple West Cost dates supporting Peter

Case prior to a Sept. 18 date at Safari Sam's as a supporting act for Miles Hunt of the Wonder Stuff.

||| Download: "Beirut 1978."

Photo by Sam Peacock

"Korn's new album doesn't have a title."

"So how do you order it?"

"You don't. It's Korn."

I missed it and, from reports, am regretting it. Bat for Lashes, the nom de tune of

Brighton, England's Natasha Khan, wowed the room last night at Spaceland. The common

sentiment I heard from a couple people: No wonder she is nominated for the Mercury

Music Prize.

You'll be hearing more about her.

For now, here is the enchanting video for "What's a Girl to Do."

Touts for Wednesday, Aug. 1

The Format starts a two-show stand (the

Avalon tonight, House of Blues tomorrow); the band for two weeks offered its latest

album, "Dog Problems," as a free download from its website and reported that

45,000 copies of the (very

good) album were ripped. ... Great

Glass Elevator (whose inventiveness kind of reminds me of the Format in a way) play

Club NME at Spaceland tonight. ... The Automatic Music

Explosion plays the Scene in Glendale. ... And the Stevenson Ranch Davidians

start a run of Wednesday shows at the Echo.

Consider this a warm-up for "The Simpsons

Movie" (opening in two weeks).

The musician's name is Zack Kim, a 24-year-old

university student who was born in Seoul, South Korea, reared in Malaysia and is now

studying in Australia. There are more examples of his technique on his website, and the

young man has his own Wikipedia

page.

He tells me via e-mail that he after he completes his studies in two years he hopes

to devote all his energies to music, and eventually he "would really love to

perform in the States, as it would be a dream come true for me."

Have to

think he'd be quite a hit at the premiere party.

Summer is here, in case you were too busy on MySpace to get the memo. The concert

calendar always seems to remind me before the real calendar, what with the Hollywood

Bowl kicking into gear and the onslaught of distinguished veteran rock bands starting to

make the stadium rounds.

(Email from a friend who went to Dodger Stadium this weekend: "They were pretty

awesome for a Police cover band.")

The smaller events have their cachet too -- the Sunday afternoon Do-Over at Crane's, the Little Radio Summer Camp. And then there was last

Thursday's Late Night at LACMA, the annual summer

solstice soiree, which attracted 7,853 museum visitors and probably disappointed

hundreds of others who waited for hours in long lines only to give up. (To be fair, what

part of "early arrival recommended" did you not understand?)

Late Night was a melange of music, hipster ephemera (T-shirt screen printing by Hit +

Run now seems mandatory if you are throwing any kind of cross-cultural event) and art.

Suffice to say there were plenty of photo ops in the Dan Flavin retrospective, a refuge

for attendees who could only handle small doses of offerings from DJs Steve Aoki,

Internationalist and handful of others. I missed the set by the always-solid Rebirth but caught one of L.A.'s favorite party

bands, Ima Robot, who got folks dancing despite

the band's relative lack of amplification.

◊ ◊ ◊

Where did June go?

The Monday night residencies end tonight at Spaceland, the Echo and Silverlake

Lounge. The L.A. quartet the Deadly

Syndrome (Spaceland) seems to have grown into polished band overnight (and wait till

you hear the album), and Thailand

(Silverlake Lounge), despite playing as a three-piece with electronic rhythms, serve up

a compelling new-wave/post-punk cocktail. And I have not made it to the Echo to see

Philadelphia ex-pats Burning Brides

(maybe tonight?), but people I trust give me good reports.

◊ ◊ ◊

At Safari Sam's on Friday night, the Silver Lake/Echo Park masses gathered to bid

farewell to Sea Level Records and its

proprietor, Todd Clifford. The independent outlet has been a locus of the Eastside music

scene for more than 5 years, and Clifford is closing more for I-need-a-life-change

reasons than business.

Today is the last day Sea Level is scheduled to be open.

Photos: LACMA attendees get up close with Dan Flavin's work; Ima Robot rocks in the

courtyard. By Kevin Bronson / LAT.

The Little Ones are still one

of this city's strongest musical happy pills, but, as a set Friday night showed, it's

hard to maintain that peak level of exuberance when you're doing it night after night,

tour after tour.

The L.A.

quintet -- "Rhymin' Simon on steroids" is how I described them last year, and

it still applies -- played an ASCAP- and Filter-sponsored music night on Friday tied to

the Silverlake Film Festival. The stuff from their "Sing Song" EP still

sounded crisp, and their new songs were upbeat and catchy too. But after having spent

the early part of this year doing some rigorous touring, the Little Ones weren't quite

as unhinged as they were when their EP was first released and Astralwerks (in the U.S.)

and Heavenly (in the U.K.) swooped in to sign the band.

Are the Little Ones still as happy as their music? "That's a good

question," frontman Edward Reyes says. "We're excited. ... Remember, we just

looked at that EP as our calling card -- we just wanted to get some shows with

it."

Their as-yet-untitled debut album is recorded and due in January, Reyes says.

"It's turning out great," he adds. "Right now we have a whole track

devoted to laughing."

||| Download Little Ones' songs from their Daytrotter session here.

◊ ◊ ◊

Passion of the Weiss has a

play-by-play of Britney Spears' Houses of Blues appearance (I will not call it a

performance). He even has some empathy.

◊ ◊ ◊

Ran into an employee of a recently merged record company who was enthused about

having adopted a puppy. Cute thing ... so what did you name him? "Andy

Slater."

◊ ◊ ◊

"So how

was Coachella?" That was the most-asked

question last week. I told inquiring minds that it was a three-day weekend of

once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and even as they were unfolding I knew I was missing

others. Wish the festival could have just hesitated a few times each day and let me

catch up.

The inconsiderate hipsters at Anthem, who throw their Coachella party during the day

while the music is going on, tell me I missed something else too -- a mask-less Thomas

Bangalter from Daft Punk [face obscured] spinning the LCD Soundsystem track "Daft

Punk Is Playing at My House." Not that anybody recognized him. But a cool party

nonetheless.

Daft Punk turned up on the turntables a couple nights later at the Echo too. Not that

anybody recognized them.

Touts for tonight

Gliss (Spaceland), the High Society (Silverlake Lounge), Bodies of Water (Echo) and Richard Bivens & Foreign Press

(Detroit Bar) start their Monday night residencies. ... Midnight Movies plays an in-store at

Amoeba. ... And London's Apartment joins

locals the Grand Marquee and others

at Indie 103.1's Viper Room show.

The music is pretty hard on the ears, kind of a flailing

attempt at dance-party relevance. But the album cover (that's the original at right) is

even harder on the eyes -- so Perry Farrell's Satellite Party revised it. Stereogum has a

compare-and-contrast. I'm not sure, but this would not have passed muster in the

Photoshop classes I slogged through years ago. This does, however, guarantee that the

album will chart. Here.

[Guest blogger August Brown is hot both because he is fly, and because he should

have worn more sunscreen.]

If Coachella success was measured in words per minute, Busdriver would have been the day's

undisputed champ. But fortunately for the old-guard L.A.-based MC, he dropped jaws and

machine-gun metaphors alike during his astonishingly dextrous set.

Busdriver was equally compelling needling the crowd with accusations of yuppiedom as

he did slaying them with fiery indignance at the ways the music industry exploits

rappers. Over a loose-limbed flurry of house and jungle-inspired beats, he extolled

cheeba and wryly freestyled that "in the Gobi tent is how an O.G. represents."

Original gangstas are few and far between at Coachella, but unless Ghostface pulls off

a miracle tomorrow, Busdriver may hit the 10 freeway home as the weekend's reigning

rhyme-slinger.

This was featured in our Downloads column last weekend (a good reason to drop

some coin on the Saturday print edition or check the pop music page on your local

newspaper's website). I've been a sucker for Travis' brand of Britpop since the first Clinton

Administration. Here's the video for "Closer," and, yeah, Ben Stiller makes a

good grocer.

Ozomatli looked to the visual for inspiration

when writing its new album, “Don’t Mess With the Dragon” (due April 3 on Concord

Records) — much of the initial songwriting came out of jam sessions at the Tropico de

Nopal art gallery. Now the veteran L.A. nine-piece might have found a vision to suit its

sound.

The new video for the single “Can’t Stop” is a dizzying collage of

stop-animation and storytelling that seems equal to Ozomatli’s mashing of Latin flavors,

rock, hip-hop and funk — a hybrid many have said is distinctly Los Angeles.

“We haven’t had a lot of luck with videos in the past,” acknowledges Ulises Bella, who

plays saxophone and clarinet for the band.

Ozomatli turned to New York-based

artist-illustrator Richard Borge for “Can’t Stop,” even though the 41-year-old, who had

done album art for bands such as Meat Beat Manifesto, had never done a music video.

Why is Alison Krauss smiling?

I'm not part of the pack salivating over "Raising Sand," the new Alison Krauss/Robert Plant collab -- its backwoods flavor is slightly overcooked, in my book -- but I love the CD's cover art. The frontispiece shows the two stars relaxing in some desert setting, smiling off into the distance, perhaps at T-Bone Burnett bringing them another sheaf of folk-pop obscurities to peruse.

The back's the clincher, though. Plant's back is turned, and Krauss, leaning toward him, throws a grin over her shoulder as they walk away. She looks like a contented cat making off with her canary. The Lion King may be nearly sixty and more interested in crooning than howling out all of his love, but Krauss certainly knows that by clutching that arm, she's fulfilling a fantasy that sustained generations of teen-age girls, dreaming in their bedrooms to Led Zeppelin's massive kathunking mojo blues. Though I'm sure their collaboration was strictly artistic, here's to her for having fun with her chance to quietly fly her metal horns and say, "Ladies, eat your hearts out!"

--Ann Powers

I am not necessarily a fan of the

Mormons, but as a baseball guy I just about did a spit take when I saw the

tongue-in-cheek poster for the Los Angeles band's current stand at Mr. T's Bowl. [Sorry

for the sloppy clean-up job; it's a family blog, you know.]

[Our local music spotlight, for the moment, remains pointed at power pop, because

it just seems to go so well with summertime:]


Ari Shine landed with a crunch -- and

that's the crunch of a big power chord -- when he released his debut EP

"Age/Occupation" in 2006. Quickly he became a songwriter-to-watch in the L.A.

power-pop underground, if not somebody who carries enough melodies to wriggle a bunch of

his songs onto TV shows, and his energetic stage show hinted that he might become an

artist who could transcend the frequently fey trappings of the form.

His

full-length debut, "A Force of One" (released in July on Bongo Beat), suggests

that Shine is not content to merely ride the coattails  of his forebears. There's

some boy-meets/loses-girl material here, much of it cleverly couched ("Flirtation

Device"), but he sinks his hooks into broader storytelling too (see the song

below). The album was produced by former Sparks guitarist Earle Mankey, who has worked with

L.A. notables such as Concrete Blonde and the Three O'Clock. The result is a collection

that's a little bit Elvis Costello, a little bit Matthew Sweet and maybe a bit Brendan

Benson.

||| Shine performs tonight at the Knitting Factory as part of International Pop Overthrow. He also

is playing a couple West Cost dates supporting Peter

Case prior to a Sept. 18 date at Safari Sam's as a supporting act for Miles Hunt of the Wonder Stuff.

||| Download: "Beirut 1978."

Photo by Sam Peacock

"Korn's new album doesn't have a title."

"So how do you order it?"

"You don't. It's Korn."

I missed it and, from reports, am regretting it. Bat for Lashes, the nom de tune of

Brighton, England's Natasha Khan, wowed the room last night at Spaceland. The common

sentiment I heard from a couple people: No wonder she is nominated for the Mercury

Music Prize.

You'll be hearing more about her.

For now, here is the enchanting video for "What's a Girl to Do."

Touts for Wednesday, Aug. 1

The Format starts a two-show stand (the

Avalon tonight, House of Blues tomorrow); the band for two weeks offered its latest

album, "Dog Problems," as a free download from its website and reported that

45,000 copies of the (very

good) album were ripped. ... Great

Glass Elevator (whose inventiveness kind of reminds me of the Format in a way) play

Club NME at Spaceland tonight. ... The Automatic Music

Explosion plays the Scene in Glendale. ... And the Stevenson Ranch Davidians

start a run of Wednesday shows at the Echo.

Consider this a warm-up for "The Simpsons

Movie" (opening in two weeks).

The musician's name is Zack Kim, a 24-year-old

university student who was born in Seoul, South Korea, reared in Malaysia and is now

studying in Australia. There are more examples of his technique on his website, and the

young man has his own Wikipedia

page.

He tells me via e-mail that he after he completes his studies in two years he hopes

to devote all his energies to music, and eventually he "would really love to

perform in the States, as it would be a dream come true for me."

Have to

think he'd be quite a hit at the premiere party.

Summer is here, in case you were too busy on MySpace to get the memo. The concert

calendar always seems to remind me before the real calendar, what with the Hollywood

Bowl kicking into gear and the onslaught of distinguished veteran rock bands starting to

make the stadium rounds.

(Email from a friend who went to Dodger Stadium this weekend: "They were pretty

awesome for a Police cover band.")

The smaller events have their cachet too -- the Sunday afternoon Do-Over at Crane's, the Little Radio Summer Camp. And then there was last

Thursday's Late Night at LACMA, the annual summer

solstice soiree, which attracted 7,853 museum visitors and probably disappointed

hundreds of others who waited for hours in long lines only to give up. (To be fair, what

part of "early arrival recommended" did you not understand?)

Late Night was a melange of music, hipster ephemera (T-shirt screen printing by Hit +

Run now seems mandatory if you are throwing any kind of cross-cultural event) and art.

Suffice to say there were plenty of photo ops in the Dan Flavin retrospective, a refuge

for attendees who could only handle small doses of offerings from DJs Steve Aoki,

Internationalist and handful of others. I missed the set by the always-solid Rebirth but caught one of L.A.'s favorite party

bands, Ima Robot, who got folks dancing despite

the band's relative lack of amplification.

◊ ◊ ◊

Where did June go?

The Monday night residencies end tonight at Spaceland, the Echo and Silverlake

Lounge. The L.A. quartet the Deadly

Syndrome (Spaceland) seems to have grown into polished band overnight (and wait till

you hear the album), and Thailand

(Silverlake Lounge), despite playing as a three-piece with electronic rhythms, serve up

a compelling new-wave/post-punk cocktail. And I have not made it to the Echo to see

Philadelphia ex-pats Burning Brides

(maybe tonight?), but people I trust give me good reports.

◊ ◊ ◊

At Safari Sam's on Friday night, the Silver Lake/Echo Park masses gathered to bid

farewell to Sea Level Records and its

proprietor, Todd Clifford. The independent outlet has been a locus of the Eastside music

scene for more than 5 years, and Clifford is closing more for I-need-a-life-change

reasons than business.

Today is the last day Sea Level is scheduled to be open.

Photos: LACMA attendees get up close with Dan Flavin's work; Ima Robot rocks in the

courtyard. By Kevin Bronson / LAT.

The Little Ones are still one

of this city's strongest musical happy pills, but, as a set Friday night showed, it's

hard to maintain that peak level of exuberance when you're doing it night after night,

tour after tour.

The L.A.

quintet -- "Rhymin' Simon on steroids" is how I described them last year, and

it still applies -- played an ASCAP- and Filter-sponsored music night on Friday tied to

the Silverlake Film Festival. The stuff from their "Sing Song" EP still

sounded crisp, and their new songs were upbeat and catchy too. But after having spent

the early part of this year doing some rigorous touring, the Little Ones weren't quite

as unhinged as they were when their EP was first released and Astralwerks (in the U.S.)

and Heavenly (in the U.K.) swooped in to sign the band.

Are the Little Ones still as happy as their music? "That's a good

question," frontman Edward Reyes says. "We're excited. ... Remember, we just

looked at that EP as our calling card -- we just wanted to get some shows with

it."

Their as-yet-untitled debut album is recorded and due in January, Reyes says.

"It's turning out great," he adds. "Right now we have a whole track

devoted to laughing."

||| Download Little Ones' songs from their Daytrotter session here.

◊ ◊ ◊

Passion of the Weiss has a

play-by-play of Britney Spears' Houses of Blues appearance (I will not call it a

performance). He even has some empathy.

◊ ◊ ◊

Ran into an employee of a recently merged record company who was enthused about

having adopted a puppy. Cute thing ... so what did you name him? "Andy

Slater."

◊ ◊ ◊

"So how

was Coachella?" That was the most-asked

question last week. I told inquiring minds that it was a three-day weekend of

once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and even as they were unfolding I knew I was missing

others. Wish the festival could have just hesitated a few times each day and let me

catch up.

The inconsiderate hipsters at Anthem, who throw their Coachella party during the day

while the music is going on, tell me I missed something else too -- a mask-less Thomas

Bangalter from Daft Punk [face obscured] spinning the LCD Soundsystem track "Daft

Punk Is Playing at My House." Not that anybody recognized him. But a cool party

nonetheless.

Daft Punk turned up on the turntables a couple nights later at the Echo too. Not that

anybody recognized them.

Touts for tonight

Gliss (Spaceland), the High Society (Silverlake Lounge), Bodies of Water (Echo) and Richard Bivens & Foreign Press

(Detroit Bar) start their Monday night residencies. ... Midnight Movies plays an in-store at

Amoeba. ... And London's Apartment joins

locals the Grand Marquee and others

at Indie 103.1's Viper Room show.

The music is pretty hard on the ears, kind of a flailing

attempt at dance-party relevance. But the album cover (that's the original at right) is

even harder on the eyes -- so Perry Farrell's Satellite Party revised it. Stereogum has a

compare-and-contrast. I'm not sure, but this would not have passed muster in the

Photoshop classes I slogged through years ago. This does, however, guarantee that the

album will chart. Here.

[Guest blogger August Brown is hot both because he is fly, and because he should

have worn more sunscreen.]

If Coachella success was measured in words per minute, Busdriver would have been the day's

undisputed champ. But fortunately for the old-guard L.A.-based MC, he dropped jaws and

machine-gun metaphors alike during his astonishingly dextrous set.

Busdriver was equally compelling needling the crowd with accusations of yuppiedom as

he did slaying them with fiery indignance at the ways the music industry exploits

rappers. Over a loose-limbed flurry of house and jungle-inspired beats, he extolled

cheeba and wryly freestyled that "in the Gobi tent is how an O.G. represents."

Original gangstas are few and far between at Coachella, but unless Ghostface pulls off

a miracle tomorrow, Busdriver may hit the 10 freeway home as the weekend's reigning

rhyme-slinger.

This was featured in our Downloads column last weekend (a good reason to drop

some coin on the Saturday print edition or check the pop music page on your local

newspaper's website). I've been a sucker for Travis' brand of Britpop since the first Clinton

Administration. Here's the video for "Closer," and, yeah, Ben Stiller makes a

good grocer.

Ozomatli looked to the visual for inspiration

when writing its new album, “Don’t Mess With the Dragon” (due April 3 on Concord

Records) — much of the initial songwriting came out of jam sessions at the Tropico de

Nopal art gallery. Now the veteran L.A. nine-piece might have found a vision to suit its

sound.

The new video for the single “Can’t Stop” is a dizzying collage of

stop-animation and storytelling that seems equal to Ozomatli’s mashing of Latin flavors,

rock, hip-hop and funk — a hybrid many have said is distinctly Los Angeles.

“We haven’t had a lot of luck with videos in the past,” acknowledges Ulises Bella, who

plays saxophone and clarinet for the band.

Ozomatli turned to New York-based

artist-illustrator Richard Borge for “Can’t Stop,” even though the 41-year-old, who had

done album art for bands such as Meat Beat Manifesto, had never done a music video.

The Mormons hit one out of the park

I am not necessarily a fan of the

Mormons, but as a baseball guy I just about did a spit take when I saw the

tongue-in-cheek poster for the Los Angeles band's current stand at Mr. T's Bowl. [Sorry

for the sloppy clean-up job; it's a family blog, you know.]

[Our local music spotlight, for the moment, remains pointed at power pop, because

it just seems to go so well with summertime:]


Ari Shine landed with a crunch -- and

that's the crunch of a big power chord -- when he released his debut EP

"Age/Occupation" in 2006. Quickly he became a songwriter-to-watch in the L.A.

power-pop underground, if not somebody who carries enough melodies to wriggle a bunch of

his songs onto TV shows, and his energetic stage show hinted that he might become an

artist who could transcend the frequently fey trappings of the form.

His

full-length debut, "A Force of One" (released in July on Bongo Beat), suggests

that Shine is not content to merely ride the coattails  of his forebears. There's

some boy-meets/loses-girl material here, much of it cleverly couched ("Flirtation

Device"), but he sinks his hooks into broader storytelling too (see the song

below). The album was produced by former Sparks guitarist Earle Mankey, who has worked with

L.A. notables such as Concrete Blonde and the Three O'Clock. The result is a collection

that's a little bit Elvis Costello, a little bit Matthew Sweet and maybe a bit Brendan

Benson.

||| Shine performs tonight at the Knitting Factory as part of International Pop Overthrow. He also

is playing a couple West Cost dates supporting Peter

Case prior to a Sept. 18 date at Safari Sam's as a supporting act for Miles Hunt of the Wonder Stuff.

||| Download: "Beirut 1978."

Photo by Sam Peacock

"Korn's new album doesn't have a title."

"So how do you order it?"

"You don't. It's Korn."

I missed it and, from reports, am regretting it. Bat for Lashes, the nom de tune of

Brighton, England's Natasha Khan, wowed the room last night at Spaceland. The common

sentiment I heard from a couple people: No wonder she is nominated for the Mercury

Music Prize.

You'll be hearing more about her.

For now, here is the enchanting video for "What's a Girl to Do."

Touts for Wednesday, Aug. 1

The Format starts a two-show stand (the

Avalon tonight, House of Blues tomorrow); the band for two weeks offered its latest

album, "Dog Problems," as a free download from its website and reported that

45,000 copies of the (very

good) album were ripped. ... Great

Glass Elevator (whose inventiveness kind of reminds me of the Format in a way) play

Club NME at Spaceland tonight. ... The Automatic Music

Explosion plays the Scene in Glendale. ... And the Stevenson Ranch Davidians

start a run of Wednesday shows at the Echo.

Consider this a warm-up for "The Simpsons

Movie" (opening in two weeks).

The musician's name is Zack Kim, a 24-year-old

university student who was born in Seoul, South Korea, reared in Malaysia and is now

studying in Australia. There are more examples of his technique on his website, and the

young man has his own Wikipedia

page.

He tells me via e-mail that he after he completes his studies in two years he hopes

to devote all his energies to music, and eventually he "would really love to

perform in the States, as it would be a dream come true for me."

Have to

think he'd be quite a hit at the premiere party.

Summer is here, in case you were too busy on MySpace to get the memo. The concert

calendar always seems to remind me before the real calendar, what with the Hollywood

Bowl kicking into gear and the onslaught of distinguished veteran rock bands starting to

make the stadium rounds.

(Email from a friend who went to Dodger Stadium this weekend: "They were pretty

awesome for a Police cover band.")

The smaller events have their cachet too -- the Sunday afternoon Do-Over at Crane's, the Little Radio Summer Camp. And then there was last

Thursday's Late Night at LACMA, the annual summer

solstice soiree, which attracted 7,853 museum visitors and probably disappointed

hundreds of others who waited for hours in long lines only to give up. (To be fair, what

part of "early arrival recommended" did you not understand?)

Late Night was a melange of music, hipster ephemera (T-shirt screen printing by Hit +

Run now seems mandatory if you are throwing any kind of cross-cultural event) and art.

Suffice to say there were plenty of photo ops in the Dan Flavin retrospective, a refuge

for attendees who could only handle small doses of offerings from DJs Steve Aoki,

Internationalist and handful of others. I missed the set by the always-solid Rebirth but caught one of L.A.'s favorite party

bands, Ima Robot, who got folks dancing despite

the band's relative lack of amplification.

◊ ◊ ◊

Where did June go?

The Monday night residencies end tonight at Spaceland, the Echo and Silverlake

Lounge. The L.A. quartet the Deadly

Syndrome (Spaceland) seems to have grown into polished band overnight (and wait till

you hear the album), and Thailand

(Silverlake Lounge), despite playing as a three-piece with electronic rhythms, serve up

a compelling new-wave/post-punk cocktail. And I have not made it to the Echo to see

Philadelphia ex-pats Burning Brides

(maybe tonight?), but people I trust give me good reports.

◊ ◊ ◊

At Safari Sam's on Friday night, the Silver Lake/Echo Park masses gathered to bid

farewell to Sea Level Records and its

proprietor, Todd Clifford. The independent outlet has been a locus of the Eastside music

scene for more than 5 years, and Clifford is closing more for I-need-a-life-change

reasons than business.

Today is the last day Sea Level is scheduled to be open.

Photos: LACMA attendees get up close with Dan Flavin's work; Ima Robot rocks in the

courtyard. By Kevin Bronson / LAT.

The Little Ones are still one

of this city's strongest musical happy pills, but, as a set Friday night showed, it's

hard to maintain that peak level of exuberance when you're doing it night after night,

tour after tour.

The L.A.

quintet -- "Rhymin' Simon on steroids" is how I described them last year, and

it still applies -- played an ASCAP- and Filter-sponsored music night on Friday tied to

the Silverlake Film Festival. The stuff from their "Sing Song" EP still

sounded crisp, and their new songs were upbeat and catchy too. But after having spent

the early part of this year doing some rigorous touring, the Little Ones weren't quite

as unhinged as they were when their EP was first released and Astralwerks (in the U.S.)

and Heavenly (in the U.K.) swooped in to sign the band.

Are the Little Ones still as happy as their music? "That's a good

question," frontman Edward Reyes says. "We're excited. ... Remember, we just

looked at that EP as our calling card -- we just wanted to get some shows with

it."

Their as-yet-untitled debut album is recorded and due in January, Reyes says.

"It's turning out great," he adds. "Right now we have a whole track

devoted to laughing."

||| Download Little Ones' songs from their Daytrotter session here.

◊ ◊ ◊

Passion of the Weiss has a

play-by-play of Britney Spears' Houses of Blues appearance (I will not call it a

performance). He even has some empathy.

◊ ◊ ◊

Ran into an employee of a recently merged record company who was enthused about

having adopted a puppy. Cute thing ... so what did you name him? "Andy

Slater."

◊ ◊ ◊

"So how

was Coachella?" That was the most-asked

question last week. I told inquiring minds that it was a three-day weekend of

once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and even as they were unfolding I knew I was missing

others. Wish the festival could have just hesitated a few times each day and let me

catch up.

The inconsiderate hipsters at Anthem, who throw their Coachella party during the day

while the music is going on, tell me I missed something else too -- a mask-less Thomas

Bangalter from Daft Punk [face obscured] spinning the LCD Soundsystem track "Daft

Punk Is Playing at My House." Not that anybody recognized him. But a cool party

nonetheless.

Daft Punk turned up on the turntables a couple nights later at the Echo too. Not that

anybody recognized them.

Touts for tonight

Gliss (Spaceland), the High Society (Silverlake Lounge), Bodies of Water (Echo) and Richard Bivens & Foreign Press

(Detroit Bar) start their Monday night residencies. ... Midnight Movies plays an in-store at

Amoeba. ... And London's Apartment joins

locals the Grand Marquee and others

at Indie 103.1's Viper Room show.

The music is pretty hard on the ears, kind of a flailing

attempt at dance-party relevance. But the album cover (that's the original at right) is

even harder on the eyes -- so Perry Farrell's Satellite Party revised it. Stereogum has a

compare-and-contrast. I'm not sure, but this would not have passed muster in the

Photoshop classes I slogged through years ago. This does, however, guarantee that the

album will chart. Here.

[Guest blogger August Brown is hot both because he is fly, and because he should

have worn more sunscreen.]

If Coachella success was measured in words per minute, Busdriver would have been the day's

undisputed champ. But fortunately for the old-guard L.A.-based MC, he dropped jaws and

machine-gun metaphors alike during his astonishingly dextrous set.

Busdriver was equally compelling needling the crowd with accusations of yuppiedom as

he did slaying them with fiery indignance at the ways the music industry exploits

rappers. Over a loose-limbed flurry of house and jungle-inspired beats, he extolled

cheeba and wryly freestyled that "in the Gobi tent is how an O.G. represents."

Original gangstas are few and far between at Coachella, but unless Ghostface pulls off

a miracle tomorrow, Busdriver may hit the 10 freeway home as the weekend's reigning

rhyme-slinger.

This was featured in our Downloads column last weekend (a good reason to drop

some coin on the Saturday print edition or check the pop music page on your local

newspaper's website). I've been a sucker for Travis' brand of Britpop since the first Clinton

Administration. Here's the video for "Closer," and, yeah, Ben Stiller makes a

good grocer.

Ozomatli looked to the visual for inspiration

when writing its new album, “Don’t Mess With the Dragon” (due April 3 on Concord

Records) — much of the initial songwriting came out of jam sessions at the Tropico de

Nopal art gallery. Now the veteran L.A. nine-piece might have found a vision to suit its

sound.

The new video for the single “Can’t Stop” is a dizzying collage of

stop-animation and storytelling that seems equal to Ozomatli’s mashing of Latin flavors,

rock, hip-hop and funk — a hybrid many have said is distinctly Los Angeles.

“We haven’t had a lot of luck with videos in the past,” acknowledges Ulises Bella, who

plays saxophone and clarinet for the band.

Ozomatli turned to New York-based

artist-illustrator Richard Borge for “Can’t Stop,” even though the 41-year-old, who had

done album art for bands such as Meat Beat Manifesto, had never done a music video.

Ears Wide Open: Ari Shine shows his polish

[Our local music spotlight, for the moment, remains pointed at power pop, because

it just seems to go so well with summertime:]


Ari Shine landed with a crunch -- and

that's the crunch of a big power chord -- when he released his debut EP

"Age/Occupation" in 2006. Quickly he became a songwriter-to-watch in the L.A.

power-pop underground, if not somebody who carries enough melodies to wriggle a bunch of

his songs onto TV shows, and his energetic stage show hinted that he might become an

artist who could transcend the frequently fey trappings of the form.

His

full-length debut, "A Force of One" (released in July on Bongo Beat), suggests

that Shine is not content to merely ride the coattails  of his forebears. There's

some boy-meets/loses-girl material here, much of it cleverly couched ("Flirtation

Device"), but he sinks his hooks into broader storytelling too (see the song

below). The album was produced by former Sparks guitarist Earle Mankey, who has worked with

L.A. notables such as Concrete Blonde and the Three O'Clock. The result is a collection

that's a little bit Elvis Costello, a little bit Matthew Sweet and maybe a bit Brendan

Benson.

||| Shine performs tonight at the Knitting Factory as part of International Pop Overthrow. He also

is playing a couple West Cost dates supporting Peter

Case prior to a Sept. 18 date at Safari Sam's as a supporting act for Miles Hunt of the Wonder Stuff.

||| Download: "Beirut 1978."

Photo by Sam Peacock

"Korn's new album doesn't have a title."

"So how do you order it?"

"You don't. It's Korn."

I missed it and, from reports, am regretting it. Bat for Lashes, the nom de tune of

Brighton, England's Natasha Khan, wowed the room last night at Spaceland. The common

sentiment I heard from a couple people: No wonder she is nominated for the Mercury

Music Prize.

You'll be hearing more about her.

For now, here is the enchanting video for "What's a Girl to Do."

Touts for Wednesday, Aug. 1

The Format starts a two-show stand (the

Avalon tonight, House of Blues tomorrow); the band for two weeks offered its latest

album, "Dog Problems," as a free download from its website and reported that

45,000 copies of the (very

good) album were ripped. ... Great

Glass Elevator (whose inventiveness kind of reminds me of the Format in a way) play

Club NME at Spaceland tonight. ... The Automatic Music

Explosion plays the Scene in Glendale. ... And the Stevenson Ranch Davidians

start a run of Wednesday shows at the Echo.

Consider this a warm-up for "The Simpsons

Movie" (opening in two weeks).

The musician's name is Zack Kim, a 24-year-old

university student who was born in Seoul, South Korea, reared in Malaysia and is now

studying in Australia. There are more examples of his technique on his website, and the

young man has his own Wikipedia

page.

He tells me via e-mail that he after he completes his studies in two years he hopes

to devote all his energies to music, and eventually he "would really love to

perform in the States, as it would be a dream come true for me."

Have to

think he'd be quite a hit at the premiere party.

Summer is here, in case you were too busy on MySpace to get the memo. The concert

calendar always seems to remind me before the real calendar, what with the Hollywood

Bowl kicking into gear and the onslaught of distinguished veteran rock bands starting to

make the stadium rounds.

(Email from a friend who went to Dodger Stadium this weekend: "They were pretty

awesome for a Police cover band.")

The smaller events have their cachet too -- the Sunday afternoon Do-Over at Crane's, the Little Radio Summer Camp. And then there was last

Thursday's Late Night at LACMA, the annual summer

solstice soiree, which attracted 7,853 museum visitors and probably disappointed

hundreds of others who waited for hours in long lines only to give up. (To be fair, what

part of "early arrival recommended" did you not understand?)

Late Night was a melange of music, hipster ephemera (T-shirt screen printing by Hit +

Run now seems mandatory if you are throwing any kind of cross-cultural event) and art.

Suffice to say there were plenty of photo ops in the Dan Flavin retrospective, a refuge

for attendees who could only handle small doses of offerings from DJs Steve Aoki,

Internationalist and handful of others. I missed the set by the always-solid Rebirth but caught one of L.A.'s favorite party

bands, Ima Robot, who got folks dancing despite

the band's relative lack of amplification.

◊ ◊ ◊

Where did June go?

The Monday night residencies end tonight at Spaceland, the Echo and Silverlake

Lounge. The L.A. quartet the Deadly

Syndrome (Spaceland) seems to have grown into polished band overnight (and wait till

you hear the album), and Thailand

(Silverlake Lounge), despite playing as a three-piece with electronic rhythms, serve up

a compelling new-wave/post-punk cocktail. And I have not made it to the Echo to see

Philadelphia ex-pats Burning Brides

(maybe tonight?), but people I trust give me good reports.

◊ ◊ ◊

At Safari Sam's on Friday night, the Silver Lake/Echo Park masses gathered to bid

farewell to Sea Level Records and its

proprietor, Todd Clifford. The independent outlet has been a locus of the Eastside music

scene for more than 5 years, and Clifford is closing more for I-need-a-life-change

reasons than business.

Today is the last day Sea Level is scheduled to be open.

Photos: LACMA attendees get up close with Dan Flavin's work; Ima Robot rocks in the

courtyard. By Kevin Bronson / LAT.

The Little Ones are still one

of this city's strongest musical happy pills, but, as a set Friday night showed, it's

hard to maintain that peak level of exuberance when you're doing it night after night,

tour after tour.

The L.A.

quintet -- "Rhymin' Simon on steroids" is how I described them last year, and

it still applies -- played an ASCAP- and Filter-sponsored music night on Friday tied to

the Silverlake Film Festival. The stuff from their "Sing Song" EP still

sounded crisp, and their new songs were upbeat and catchy too. But after having spent

the early part of this year doing some rigorous touring, the Little Ones weren't quite

as unhinged as they were when their EP was first released and Astralwerks (in the U.S.)

and Heavenly (in the U.K.) swooped in to sign the band.

Are the Little Ones still as happy as their music? "That's a good

question," frontman Edward Reyes says. "We're excited. ... Remember, we just

looked at that EP as our calling card -- we just wanted to get some shows with

it."

Their as-yet-untitled debut album is recorded and due in January, Reyes says.

"It's turning out great," he adds. "Right now we have a whole track

devoted to laughing."

||| Download Little Ones' songs from their Daytrotter session here.

◊ ◊ ◊

Passion of the Weiss has a

play-by-play of Britney Spears' Houses of Blues appearance (I will not call it a

performance). He even has some empathy.

◊ ◊ ◊

Ran into an employee of a recently merged record company who was enthused about

having adopted a puppy. Cute thing ... so what did you name him? "Andy

Slater."

◊ ◊ ◊

"So how

was Coachella?" That was the most-asked

question last week. I told inquiring minds that it was a three-day weekend of

once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and even as they were unfolding I knew I was missing

others. Wish the festival could have just hesitated a few times each day and let me

catch up.

The inconsiderate hipsters at Anthem, who throw their Coachella party during the day

while the music is going on, tell me I missed something else too -- a mask-less Thomas

Bangalter from Daft Punk [face obscured] spinning the LCD Soundsystem track "Daft

Punk Is Playing at My House." Not that anybody recognized him. But a cool party

nonetheless.

Daft Punk turned up on the turntables a couple nights later at the Echo too. Not that

anybody recognized them.

Touts for tonight

Gliss (Spaceland), the High Society (Silverlake Lounge), Bodies of Water (Echo) and Richard Bivens & Foreign Press

(Detroit Bar) start their Monday night residencies. ... Midnight Movies plays an in-store at

Amoeba. ... And London's Apartment joins

locals the Grand Marquee and others

at Indie 103.1's Viper Room show.

The music is pretty hard on the ears, kind of a flailing

attempt at dance-party relevance. But the album cover (that's the original at right) is

even harder on the eyes -- so Perry Farrell's Satellite Party revised it. Stereogum has a

compare-and-contrast. I'm not sure, but this would not have passed muster in the

Photoshop classes I slogged through years ago. This does, however, guarantee that the

album will chart. Here.

[Guest blogger August Brown is hot both because he is fly, and because he should

have worn more sunscreen.]

If Coachella success was measured in words per minute, Busdriver would have been the day's

undisputed champ. But fortunately for the old-guard L.A.-based MC, he dropped jaws and

machine-gun metaphors alike during his astonishingly dextrous set.

Busdriver was equally compelling needling the crowd with accusations of yuppiedom as

he did slaying them with fiery indignance at the ways the music industry exploits

rappers. Over a loose-limbed flurry of house and jungle-inspired beats, he extolled

cheeba and wryly freestyled that "in the Gobi tent is how an O.G. represents."

Original gangstas are few and far between at Coachella, but unless Ghostface pulls off

a miracle tomorrow, Busdriver may hit the 10 freeway home as the weekend's reigning

rhyme-slinger.

This was featured in our Downloads column last weekend (a good reason to drop

some coin on the Saturday print edition or check the pop music page on your local

newspaper's website). I've been a sucker for Travis' brand of Britpop since the first Clinton

Administration. Here's the video for "Closer," and, yeah, Ben Stiller makes a

good grocer.

Ozomatli looked to the visual for inspiration

when writing its new album, “Don’t Mess With the Dragon” (due April 3 on Concord

Records) — much of the initial songwriting came out of jam sessions at the Tropico de

Nopal art gallery. Now the veteran L.A. nine-piece might have found a vision to suit its

sound.

The new video for the single “Can’t Stop” is a dizzying collage of

stop-animation and storytelling that seems equal to Ozomatli’s mashing of Latin flavors,

rock, hip-hop and funk — a hybrid many have said is distinctly Los Angeles.

“We haven’t had a lot of luck with videos in the past,” acknowledges Ulises Bella, who

plays saxophone and clarinet for the band.

Ozomatli turned to New York-based

artist-illustrator Richard Borge for “Can’t Stop,” even though the 41-year-old, who had

done album art for bands such as Meat Beat Manifesto, had never done a music video.

Overheard at the office

"Korn's new album doesn't have a title."

"So how do you order it?"

"You don't. It's Korn."

I missed it and, from reports, am regretting it. Bat for Lashes, the nom de tune of

Brighton, England's Natasha Khan, wowed the room last night at Spaceland. The common

sentiment I heard from a couple people: No wonder she is nominated for the Mercury

Music Prize.

You'll be hearing more about her.

For now, here is the enchanting video for "What's a Girl to Do."

Touts for Wednesday, Aug. 1

The Format starts a two-show stand (the

Avalon tonight, House of Blues tomorrow); the band for two weeks offered its latest

album, "Dog Problems," as a free download from its website and reported that

45,000 copies of the (very

good) album were ripped. ... Great

Glass Elevator (whose inventiveness kind of reminds me of the Format in a way) play

Club NME at Spaceland tonight. ... The Automatic Music

Explosion plays the Scene in Glendale. ... And the Stevenson Ranch Davidians

start a run of Wednesday shows at the Echo.

Consider this a warm-up for "The Simpsons

Movie" (opening in two weeks).

The musician's name is Zack Kim, a 24-year-old

university student who was born in Seoul, South Korea, reared in Malaysia and is now

studying in Australia. There are more examples of his technique on his website, and the

young man has his own Wikipedia

page.

He tells me via e-mail that he after he completes his studies in two years he hopes

to devote all his energies to music, and eventually he "would really love to

perform in the States, as it would be a dream come true for me."

Have to

think he'd be quite a hit at the premiere party.

Summer is here, in case you were too busy on MySpace to get the memo. The concert

calendar always seems to remind me before the real calendar, what with the Hollywood

Bowl kicking into gear and the onslaught of distinguished veteran rock bands starting to

make the stadium rounds.

(Email from a friend who went to Dodger Stadium this weekend: "They were pretty

awesome for a Police cover band.")

The smaller events have their cachet too -- the Sunday afternoon Do-Over at Crane's, the Little Radio Summer Camp. And then there was last

Thursday's Late Night at LACMA, the annual summer

solstice soiree, which attracted 7,853 museum visitors and probably disappointed

hundreds of others who waited for hours in long lines only to give up. (To be fair, what

part of "early arrival recommended" did you not understand?)

Late Night was a melange of music, hipster ephemera (T-shirt screen printing by Hit +

Run now seems mandatory if you are throwing any kind of cross-cultural event) and art.

Suffice to say there were plenty of photo ops in the Dan Flavin retrospective, a refuge

for attendees who could only handle small doses of offerings from DJs Steve Aoki,

Internationalist and handful of others. I missed the set by the always-solid Rebirth but caught one of L.A.'s favorite party

bands, Ima Robot, who got folks dancing despite

the band's relative lack of amplification.

◊ ◊ ◊

Where did June go?

The Monday night residencies end tonight at Spaceland, the Echo and Silverlake

Lounge. The L.A. quartet the Deadly

Syndrome (Spaceland) seems to have grown into polished band overnight (and wait till

you hear the album), and Thailand

(Silverlake Lounge), despite playing as a three-piece with electronic rhythms, serve up

a compelling new-wave/post-punk cocktail. And I have not made it to the Echo to see

Philadelphia ex-pats Burning Brides

(maybe tonight?), but people I trust give me good reports.

◊ ◊ ◊

At Safari Sam's on Friday night, the Silver Lake/Echo Park masses gathered to bid

farewell to Sea Level Records and its

proprietor, Todd Clifford. The independent outlet has been a locus of the Eastside music

scene for more than 5 years, and Clifford is closing more for I-need-a-life-change

reasons than business.

Today is the last day Sea Level is scheduled to be open.

Photos: LACMA attendees get up close with Dan Flavin's work; Ima Robot rocks in the

courtyard. By Kevin Bronson / LAT.

The Little Ones are still one

of this city's strongest musical happy pills, but, as a set Friday night showed, it's

hard to maintain that peak level of exuberance when you're doing it night after night,

tour after tour.

The L.A.

quintet -- "Rhymin' Simon on steroids" is how I described them last year, and

it still applies -- played an ASCAP- and Filter-sponsored music night on Friday tied to

the Silverlake Film Festival. The stuff from their "Sing Song" EP still

sounded crisp, and their new songs were upbeat and catchy too. But after having spent

the early part of this year doing some rigorous touring, the Little Ones weren't quite

as unhinged as they were when their EP was first released and Astralwerks (in the U.S.)

and Heavenly (in the U.K.) swooped in to sign the band.

Are the Little Ones still as happy as their music? "That's a good

question," frontman Edward Reyes says. "We're excited. ... Remember, we just

looked at that EP as our calling card -- we just wanted to get some shows with

it."

Their as-yet-untitled debut album is recorded and due in January, Reyes says.

"It's turning out great," he adds. "Right now we have a whole track

devoted to laughing."

||| Download Little Ones' songs from their Daytrotter session here.

◊ ◊ ◊

Passion of the Weiss has a

play-by-play of Britney Spears' Houses of Blues appearance (I will not call it a

performance). He even has some empathy.

◊ ◊ ◊

Ran into an employee of a recently merged record company who was enthused about

having adopted a puppy. Cute thing ... so what did you name him? "Andy

Slater."

◊ ◊ ◊

"So how

was Coachella?" That was the most-asked

question last week. I told inquiring minds that it was a three-day weekend of

once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and even as they were unfolding I knew I was missing

others. Wish the festival could have just hesitated a few times each day and let me

catch up.

The inconsiderate hipsters at Anthem, who throw their Coachella party during the day

while the music is going on, tell me I missed something else too -- a mask-less Thomas

Bangalter from Daft Punk [face obscured] spinning the LCD Soundsystem track "Daft

Punk Is Playing at My House." Not that anybody recognized him. But a cool party

nonetheless.

Daft Punk turned up on the turntables a couple nights later at the Echo too. Not that

anybody recognized them.

Touts for tonight

Gliss (Spaceland), the High Society (Silverlake Lounge), Bodies of Water (Echo) and Richard Bivens & Foreign Press

(Detroit Bar) start their Monday night residencies. ... Midnight Movies plays an in-store at

Amoeba. ... And London's Apartment joins

locals the Grand Marquee and others

at Indie 103.1's Viper Room show.

The music is pretty hard on the ears, kind of a flailing

attempt at dance-party relevance. But the album cover (that's the original at right) is

even harder on the eyes -- so Perry Farrell's Satellite Party revised it. Stereogum has a

compare-and-contrast. I'm not sure, but this would not have passed muster in the

Photoshop classes I slogged through years ago. This does, however, guarantee that the

album will chart. Here.

[Guest blogger August Brown is hot both because he is fly, and because he should

have worn more sunscreen.]

If Coachella success was measured in words per minute, Busdriver would have been the day's

undisputed champ. But fortunately for the old-guard L.A.-based MC, he dropped jaws and

machine-gun metaphors alike during his astonishingly dextrous set.

Busdriver was equally compelling needling the crowd with accusations of yuppiedom as

he did slaying them with fiery indignance at the ways the music industry exploits

rappers. Over a loose-limbed flurry of house and jungle-inspired beats, he extolled

cheeba and wryly freestyled that "in the Gobi tent is how an O.G. represents."

Original gangstas are few and far between at Coachella, but unless Ghostface pulls off

a miracle tomorrow, Busdriver may hit the 10 freeway home as the weekend's reigning

rhyme-slinger.

This was featured in our Downloads column last weekend (a good reason to drop

some coin on the Saturday print edition or check the pop music page on your local

newspaper's website). I've been a sucker for Travis' brand of Britpop since the first Clinton

Administration. Here's the video for "Closer," and, yeah, Ben Stiller makes a

good grocer.

Ozomatli looked to the visual for inspiration

when writing its new album, “Don’t Mess With the Dragon” (due April 3 on Concord

Records) — much of the initial songwriting came out of jam sessions at the Tropico de

Nopal art gallery. Now the veteran L.A. nine-piece might have found a vision to suit its

sound.

The new video for the single “Can’t Stop” is a dizzying collage of

stop-animation and storytelling that seems equal to Ozomatli’s mashing of Latin flavors,

rock, hip-hop and funk — a hybrid many have said is distinctly Los Angeles.

“We haven’t had a lot of luck with videos in the past,” acknowledges Ulises Bella, who

plays saxophone and clarinet for the band.

Ozomatli turned to New York-based

artist-illustrator Richard Borge for “Can’t Stop,” even though the 41-year-old, who had

done album art for bands such as Meat Beat Manifesto, had never done a music video.

Bat for Lashes, now there’s a prize

I missed it and, from reports, am regretting it. Bat for Lashes, the nom de tune of

Brighton, England's Natasha Khan, wowed the room last night at Spaceland. The common

sentiment I heard from a couple people: No wonder she is nominated for the Mercury

Music Prize.

You'll be hearing more about her.

For now, here is the enchanting video for "What's a Girl to Do."

Touts for Wednesday, Aug. 1

The Format starts a two-show stand (the

Avalon tonight, House of Blues tomorrow); the band for two weeks offered its latest

album, "Dog Problems," as a free download from its website and reported that

45,000 copies of the (very

good) album were ripped. ... Great

Glass Elevator (whose inventiveness kind of reminds me of the Format in a way) play

Club NME at Spaceland tonight. ... The Automatic Music

Explosion plays the Scene in Glendale. ... And the Stevenson Ranch Davidians

start a run of Wednesday shows at the Echo.

Consider this a warm-up for "The Simpsons

Movie" (opening in two weeks).

The musician's name is Zack Kim, a 24-year-old

university student who was born in Seoul, South Korea, reared in Malaysia and is now

studying in Australia. There are more examples of his technique on his website, and the

young man has his own Wikipedia

page.

He tells me via e-mail that he after he completes his studies in two years he hopes

to devote all his energies to music, and eventually he "would really love to

perform in the States, as it would be a dream come true for me."

Have to

think he'd be quite a hit at the premiere party.

Summer is here, in case you were too busy on MySpace to get the memo. The concert

calendar always seems to remind me before the real calendar, what with the Hollywood

Bowl kicking into gear and the onslaught of distinguished veteran rock bands starting to

make the stadium rounds.

(Email from a friend who went to Dodger Stadium this weekend: "They were pretty

awesome for a Police cover band.")

The smaller events have their cachet too -- the Sunday afternoon Do-Over at Crane's, the Little Radio Summer Camp. And then there was last

Thursday's Late Night at LACMA, the annual summer

solstice soiree, which attracted 7,853 museum visitors and probably disappointed

hundreds of others who waited for hours in long lines only to give up. (To be fair, what

part of "early arrival recommended" did you not understand?)

Late Night was a melange of music, hipster ephemera (T-shirt screen printing by Hit +

Run now seems mandatory if you are throwing any kind of cross-cultural event) and art.

Suffice to say there were plenty of photo ops in the Dan Flavin retrospective, a refuge

for attendees who could only handle small doses of offerings from DJs Steve Aoki,

Internationalist and handful of others. I missed the set by the always-solid Rebirth but caught one of L.A.'s favorite party

bands, Ima Robot, who got folks dancing despite

the band's relative lack of amplification.

◊ ◊ ◊

Where did June go?

The Monday night residencies end tonight at Spaceland, the Echo and Silverlake

Lounge. The L.A. quartet the Deadly

Syndrome (Spaceland) seems to have grown into polished band overnight (and wait till

you hear the album), and Thailand

(Silverlake Lounge), despite playing as a three-piece with electronic rhythms, serve up

a compelling new-wave/post-punk cocktail. And I have not made it to the Echo to see

Philadelphia ex-pats Burning Brides

(maybe tonight?), but people I trust give me good reports.

◊ ◊ ◊

At Safari Sam's on Friday night, the Silver Lake/Echo Park masses gathered to bid

farewell to Sea Level Records and its

proprietor, Todd Clifford. The independent outlet has been a locus of the Eastside music

scene for more than 5 years, and Clifford is closing more for I-need-a-life-change

reasons than business.

Today is the last day Sea Level is scheduled to be open.

Photos: LACMA attendees get up close with Dan Flavin's work; Ima Robot rocks in the

courtyard. By Kevin Bronson / LAT.

The Little Ones are still one

of this city's strongest musical happy pills, but, as a set Friday night showed, it's

hard to maintain that peak level of exuberance when you're doing it night after night,

tour after tour.

The L.A.

quintet -- "Rhymin' Simon on steroids" is how I described them last year, and

it still applies -- played an ASCAP- and Filter-sponsored music night on Friday tied to

the Silverlake Film Festival. The stuff from their "Sing Song" EP still

sounded crisp, and their new songs were upbeat and catchy too. But after having spent

the early part of this year doing some rigorous touring, the Little Ones weren't quite

as unhinged as they were when their EP was first released and Astralwerks (in the U.S.)

and Heavenly (in the U.K.) swooped in to sign the band.

Are the Little Ones still as happy as their music? "That's a good

question," frontman Edward Reyes says. "We're excited. ... Remember, we just

looked at that EP as our calling card -- we just wanted to get some shows with

it."

Their as-yet-untitled debut album is recorded and due in January, Reyes says.

"It's turning out great," he adds. "Right now we have a whole track

devoted to laughing."

||| Download Little Ones' songs from their Daytrotter session here.

◊ ◊ ◊

Passion of the Weiss has a

play-by-play of Britney Spears' Houses of Blues appearance (I will not call it a

performance). He even has some empathy.

◊ ◊ ◊

Ran into an employee of a recently merged record company who was enthused about

having adopted a puppy. Cute thing ... so what did you name him? "Andy

Slater."

◊ ◊ ◊

"So how

was Coachella?" That was the most-asked

question last week. I told inquiring minds that it was a three-day weekend of

once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and even as they were unfolding I knew I was missing

others. Wish the festival could have just hesitated a few times each day and let me

catch up.

The inconsiderate hipsters at Anthem, who throw their Coachella party during the day

while the music is going on, tell me I missed something else too -- a mask-less Thomas

Bangalter from Daft Punk [face obscured] spinning the LCD Soundsystem track "Daft

Punk Is Playing at My House." Not that anybody recognized him. But a cool party

nonetheless.

Daft Punk turned up on the turntables a couple nights later at the Echo too. Not that

anybody recognized them.

Touts for tonight

Gliss (Spaceland), the High Society (Silverlake Lounge), Bodies of Water (Echo) and Richard Bivens & Foreign Press

(Detroit Bar) start their Monday night residencies. ... Midnight Movies plays an in-store at

Amoeba. ... And London's Apartment joins

locals the Grand Marquee and others

at Indie 103.1's Viper Room show.

The music is pretty hard on the ears, kind of a flailing

attempt at dance-party relevance. But the album cover (that's the original at right) is

even harder on the eyes -- so Perry Farrell's Satellite Party revised it. Stereogum has a

compare-and-contrast. I'm not sure, but this would not have passed muster in the

Photoshop classes I slogged through years ago. This does, however, guarantee that the

album will chart. Here.

[Guest blogger August Brown is hot both because he is fly, and because he should

have worn more sunscreen.]

If Coachella success was measured in words per minute, Busdriver would have been the day's

undisputed champ. But fortunately for the old-guard L.A.-based MC, he dropped jaws and

machine-gun metaphors alike during his astonishingly dextrous set.

Busdriver was equally compelling needling the crowd with accusations of yuppiedom as

he did slaying them with fiery indignance at the ways the music industry exploits

rappers. Over a loose-limbed flurry of house and jungle-inspired beats, he extolled

cheeba and wryly freestyled that "in the Gobi tent is how an O.G. represents."

Original gangstas are few and far between at Coachella, but unless Ghostface pulls off

a miracle tomorrow, Busdriver may hit the 10 freeway home as the weekend's reigning

rhyme-slinger.

This was featured in our Downloads column last weekend (a good reason to drop

some coin on the Saturday print edition or check the pop music page on your local

newspaper's website). I've been a sucker for Travis' brand of Britpop since the first Clinton

Administration. Here's the video for "Closer," and, yeah, Ben Stiller makes a

good grocer.

Ozomatli looked to the visual for inspiration

when writing its new album, “Don’t Mess With the Dragon” (due April 3 on Concord

Records) — much of the initial songwriting came out of jam sessions at the Tropico de

Nopal art gallery. Now the veteran L.A. nine-piece might have found a vision to suit its

sound.

The new video for the single “Can’t Stop” is a dizzying collage of

stop-animation and storytelling that seems equal to Ozomatli’s mashing of Latin flavors,

rock, hip-hop and funk — a hybrid many have said is distinctly Los Angeles.

“We haven’t had a lot of luck with videos in the past,” acknowledges Ulises Bella, who

plays saxophone and clarinet for the band.

Ozomatli turned to New York-based

artist-illustrator Richard Borge for “Can’t Stop,” even though the 41-year-old, who had

done album art for bands such as Meat Beat Manifesto, had never done a music video.

‘Simpsons’ theme, all tapped out

Consider this a warm-up for "The Simpsons

Movie" (opening in two weeks).

The musician's name is Zack Kim, a 24-year-old

university student who was born in Seoul, South Korea, reared in Malaysia and is now

studying in Australia. There are more examples of his technique on his website, and the

young man has his own Wikipedia

page.

He tells me via e-mail that he after he completes his studies in two years he hopes

to devote all his energies to music, and eventually he "would really love to

perform in the States, as it would be a dream come true for me."

Have to

think he'd be quite a hit at the premiere party.

Summer is here, in case you were too busy on MySpace to get the memo. The concert

calendar always seems to remind me before the real calendar, what with the Hollywood

Bowl kicking into gear and the onslaught of distinguished veteran rock bands starting to

make the stadium rounds.

(Email from a friend who went to Dodger Stadium this weekend: "They were pretty

awesome for a Police cover band.")

The smaller events have their cachet too -- the Sunday afternoon Do-Over at Crane's, the Little Radio Summer Camp. And then there was last

Thursday's Late Night at LACMA, the annual summer

solstice soiree, which attracted 7,853 museum visitors and probably disappointed

hundreds of others who waited for hours in long lines only to give up. (To be fair, what

part of "early arrival recommended" did you not understand?)

Late Night was a melange of music, hipster ephemera (T-shirt screen printing by Hit +

Run now seems mandatory if you are throwing any kind of cross-cultural event) and art.

Suffice to say there were plenty of photo ops in the Dan Flavin retrospective, a refuge

for attendees who could only handle small doses of offerings from DJs Steve Aoki,

Internationalist and handful of others. I missed the set by the always-solid Rebirth but caught one of L.A.'s favorite party

bands, Ima Robot, who got folks dancing despite

the band's relative lack of amplification.

◊ ◊ ◊

Where did June go?

The Monday night residencies end tonight at Spaceland, the Echo and Silverlake

Lounge. The L.A. quartet the Deadly

Syndrome (Spaceland) seems to have grown into polished band overnight (and wait till

you hear the album), and Thailand

(Silverlake Lounge), despite playing as a three-piece with electronic rhythms, serve up

a compelling new-wave/post-punk cocktail. And I have not made it to the Echo to see

Philadelphia ex-pats Burning Brides

(maybe tonight?), but people I trust give me good reports.

◊ ◊ ◊

At Safari Sam's on Friday night, the Silver Lake/Echo Park masses gathered to bid

farewell to Sea Level Records and its

proprietor, Todd Clifford. The independent outlet has been a locus of the Eastside music

scene for more than 5 years, and Clifford is closing more for I-need-a-life-change

reasons than business.

Today is the last day Sea Level is scheduled to be open.

Photos: LACMA attendees get up close with Dan Flavin's work; Ima Robot rocks in the

courtyard. By Kevin Bronson / LAT.

The Little Ones are still one

of this city's strongest musical happy pills, but, as a set Friday night showed, it's

hard to maintain that peak level of exuberance when you're doing it night after night,

tour after tour.

The L.A.

quintet -- "Rhymin' Simon on steroids" is how I described them last year, and

it still applies -- played an ASCAP- and Filter-sponsored music night on Friday tied to

the Silverlake Film Festival. The stuff from their "Sing Song" EP still

sounded crisp, and their new songs were upbeat and catchy too. But after having spent

the early part of this year doing some rigorous touring, the Little Ones weren't quite

as unhinged as they were when their EP was first released and Astralwerks (in the U.S.)

and Heavenly (in the U.K.) swooped in to sign the band.

Are the Little Ones still as happy as their music? "That's a good

question," frontman Edward Reyes says. "We're excited. ... Remember, we just

looked at that EP as our calling card -- we just wanted to get some shows with

it."

Their as-yet-untitled debut album is recorded and due in January, Reyes says.

"It's turning out great," he adds. "Right now we have a whole track

devoted to laughing."

||| Download Little Ones' songs from their Daytrotter session here.

◊ ◊ ◊

Passion of the Weiss has a

play-by-play of Britney Spears' Houses of Blues appearance (I will not call it a

performance). He even has some empathy.

◊ ◊ ◊

Ran into an employee of a recently merged record company who was enthused about

having adopted a puppy. Cute thing ... so what did you name him? "Andy

Slater."

◊ ◊ ◊

"So how

was Coachella?" That was the most-asked

question last week. I told inquiring minds that it was a three-day weekend of

once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and even as they were unfolding I knew I was missing

others. Wish the festival could have just hesitated a few times each day and let me

catch up.

The inconsiderate hipsters at Anthem, who throw their Coachella party during the day

while the music is going on, tell me I missed something else too -- a mask-less Thomas

Bangalter from Daft Punk [face obscured] spinning the LCD Soundsystem track "Daft

Punk Is Playing at My House." Not that anybody recognized him. But a cool party

nonetheless.

Daft Punk turned up on the turntables a couple nights later at the Echo too. Not that

anybody recognized them.

Touts for tonight

Gliss (Spaceland), the High Society (Silverlake Lounge), Bodies of Water (Echo) and Richard Bivens & Foreign Press

(Detroit Bar) start their Monday night residencies. ... Midnight Movies plays an in-store at

Amoeba. ... And London's Apartment joins

locals the Grand Marquee and others

at Indie 103.1's Viper Room show.

The music is pretty hard on the ears, kind of a flailing

attempt at dance-party relevance. But the album cover (that's the original at right) is

even harder on the eyes -- so Perry Farrell's Satellite Party revised it. Stereogum has a

compare-and-contrast. I'm not sure, but this would not have passed muster in the

Photoshop classes I slogged through years ago. This does, however, guarantee that the

album will chart. Here.

[Guest blogger August Brown is hot both because he is fly, and because he should

have worn more sunscreen.]

If Coachella success was measured in words per minute, Busdriver would have been the day's

undisputed champ. But fortunately for the old-guard L.A.-based MC, he dropped jaws and

machine-gun metaphors alike during his astonishingly dextrous set.

Busdriver was equally compelling needling the crowd with accusations of yuppiedom as

he did slaying them with fiery indignance at the ways the music industry exploits

rappers. Over a loose-limbed flurry of house and jungle-inspired beats, he extolled

cheeba and wryly freestyled that "in the Gobi tent is how an O.G. represents."

Original gangstas are few and far between at Coachella, but unless Ghostface pulls off

a miracle tomorrow, Busdriver may hit the 10 freeway home as the weekend's reigning

rhyme-slinger.

This was featured in our Downloads column last weekend (a good reason to drop

some coin on the Saturday print edition or check the pop music page on your local

newspaper's website). I've been a sucker for Travis' brand of Britpop since the first Clinton

Administration. Here's the video for "Closer," and, yeah, Ben Stiller makes a

good grocer.

Ozomatli looked to the visual for inspiration

when writing its new album, “Don’t Mess With the Dragon” (due April 3 on Concord

Records) — much of the initial songwriting came out of jam sessions at the Tropico de

Nopal art gallery. Now the veteran L.A. nine-piece might have found a vision to suit its

sound.

The new video for the single “Can’t Stop” is a dizzying collage of

stop-animation and storytelling that seems equal to Ozomatli’s mashing of Latin flavors,

rock, hip-hop and funk — a hybrid many have said is distinctly Los Angeles.

“We haven’t had a lot of luck with videos in the past,” acknowledges Ulises Bella, who

plays saxophone and clarinet for the band.

Ozomatli turned to New York-based

artist-illustrator Richard Borge for “Can’t Stop,” even though the 41-year-old, who had

done album art for bands such as Meat Beat Manifesto, had never done a music video.

Lights, action, summer …

Summer is here, in case you were too busy on MySpace to get the memo. The concert

calendar always seems to remind me before the real calendar, what with the Hollywood

Bowl kicking into gear and the onslaught of distinguished veteran rock bands starting to

make the stadium rounds.

(Email from a friend who went to Dodger Stadium this weekend: "They were pretty

awesome for a Police cover band.")

The smaller events have their cachet too -- the Sunday afternoon Do-Over at Crane's, the Little Radio Summer Camp. And then there was last

Thursday's Late Night at LACMA, the annual summer

solstice soiree, which attracted 7,853 museum visitors and probably disappointed

hundreds of others who waited for hours in long lines only to give up. (To be fair, what

part of "early arrival recommended" did you not understand?)

Late Night was a melange of music, hipster ephemera (T-shirt screen printing by Hit +

Run now seems mandatory if you are throwing any kind of cross-cultural event) and art.

Suffice to say there were plenty of photo ops in the Dan Flavin retrospective, a refuge

for attendees who could only handle small doses of offerings from DJs Steve Aoki,

Internationalist and handful of others. I missed the set by the always-solid Rebirth but caught one of L.A.'s favorite party

bands, Ima Robot, who got folks dancing despite

the band's relative lack of amplification.

◊ ◊ ◊

Where did June go?

The Monday night residencies end tonight at Spaceland, the Echo and Silverlake

Lounge. The L.A. quartet the Deadly

Syndrome (Spaceland) seems to have grown into polished band overnight (and wait till

you hear the album), and Thailand

(Silverlake Lounge), despite playing as a three-piece with electronic rhythms, serve up

a compelling new-wave/post-punk cocktail. And I have not made it to the Echo to see

Philadelphia ex-pats Burning Brides

(maybe tonight?), but people I trust give me good reports.

◊ ◊ ◊

At Safari Sam's on Friday night, the Silver Lake/Echo Park masses gathered to bid

farewell to Sea Level Records and its

proprietor, Todd Clifford. The independent outlet has been a locus of the Eastside music

scene for more than 5 years, and Clifford is closing more for I-need-a-life-change

reasons than business.

Today is the last day Sea Level is scheduled to be open.

Photos: LACMA attendees get up close with Dan Flavin's work; Ima Robot rocks in the

courtyard. By Kevin Bronson / LAT.

The Little Ones are still one

of this city's strongest musical happy pills, but, as a set Friday night showed, it's

hard to maintain that peak level of exuberance when you're doing it night after night,

tour after tour.

The L.A.

quintet -- "Rhymin' Simon on steroids" is how I described them last year, and

it still applies -- played an ASCAP- and Filter-sponsored music night on Friday tied to

the Silverlake Film Festival. The stuff from their "Sing Song" EP still

sounded crisp, and their new songs were upbeat and catchy too. But after having spent

the early part of this year doing some rigorous touring, the Little Ones weren't quite

as unhinged as they were when their EP was first released and Astralwerks (in the U.S.)

and Heavenly (in the U.K.) swooped in to sign the band.

Are the Little Ones still as happy as their music? "That's a good

question," frontman Edward Reyes says. "We're excited. ... Remember, we just

looked at that EP as our calling card -- we just wanted to get some shows with

it."

Their as-yet-untitled debut album is recorded and due in January, Reyes says.

"It's turning out great," he adds. "Right now we have a whole track

devoted to laughing."

||| Download Little Ones' songs from their Daytrotter session here.

◊ ◊ ◊

Passion of the Weiss has a

play-by-play of Britney Spears' Houses of Blues appearance (I will not call it a

performance). He even has some empathy.

◊ ◊ ◊

Ran into an employee of a recently merged record company who was enthused about

having adopted a puppy. Cute thing ... so what did you name him? "Andy

Slater."

◊ ◊ ◊

"So how

was Coachella?" That was the most-asked

question last week. I told inquiring minds that it was a three-day weekend of

once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and even as they were unfolding I knew I was missing

others. Wish the festival could have just hesitated a few times each day and let me

catch up.

The inconsiderate hipsters at Anthem, who throw their Coachella party during the day

while the music is going on, tell me I missed something else too -- a mask-less Thomas

Bangalter from Daft Punk [face obscured] spinning the LCD Soundsystem track "Daft

Punk Is Playing at My House." Not that anybody recognized him. But a cool party

nonetheless.

Daft Punk turned up on the turntables a couple nights later at the Echo too. Not that

anybody recognized them.

Touts for tonight

Gliss (Spaceland), the High Society (Silverlake Lounge), Bodies of Water (Echo) and Richard Bivens & Foreign Press

(Detroit Bar) start their Monday night residencies. ... Midnight Movies plays an in-store at

Amoeba. ... And London's Apartment joins

locals the Grand Marquee and others

at Indie 103.1's Viper Room show.

The music is pretty hard on the ears, kind of a flailing

attempt at dance-party relevance. But the album cover (that's the original at right) is

even harder on the eyes -- so Perry Farrell's Satellite Party revised it. Stereogum has a

compare-and-contrast. I'm not sure, but this would not have passed muster in the

Photoshop classes I slogged through years ago. This does, however, guarantee that the

album will chart. Here.

[Guest blogger August Brown is hot both because he is fly, and because he should

have worn more sunscreen.]

If Coachella success was measured in words per minute, Busdriver would have been the day's

undisputed champ. But fortunately for the old-guard L.A.-based MC, he dropped jaws and

machine-gun metaphors alike during his astonishingly dextrous set.

Busdriver was equally compelling needling the crowd with accusations of yuppiedom as

he did slaying them with fiery indignance at the ways the music industry exploits

rappers. Over a loose-limbed flurry of house and jungle-inspired beats, he extolled

cheeba and wryly freestyled that "in the Gobi tent is how an O.G. represents."

Original gangstas are few and far between at Coachella, but unless Ghostface pulls off

a miracle tomorrow, Busdriver may hit the 10 freeway home as the weekend's reigning

rhyme-slinger.

This was featured in our Downloads column last weekend (a good reason to drop

some coin on the Saturday print edition or check the pop music page on your local

newspaper's website). I've been a sucker for Travis' brand of Britpop since the first Clinton

Administration. Here's the video for "Closer," and, yeah, Ben Stiller makes a

good grocer.

Ozomatli looked to the visual for inspiration

when writing its new album, “Don’t Mess With the Dragon” (due April 3 on Concord

Records) — much of the initial songwriting came out of jam sessions at the Tropico de

Nopal art gallery. Now the veteran L.A. nine-piece might have found a vision to suit its

sound.

The new video for the single “Can’t Stop” is a dizzying collage of

stop-animation and storytelling that seems equal to Ozomatli’s mashing of Latin flavors,

rock, hip-hop and funk — a hybrid many have said is distinctly Los Angeles.

“We haven’t had a lot of luck with videos in the past,” acknowledges Ulises Bella, who

plays saxophone and clarinet for the band.

Ozomatli turned to New York-based

artist-illustrator Richard Borge for “Can’t Stop,” even though the 41-year-old, who had

done album art for bands such as Meat Beat Manifesto, had never done a music video.

The Little Ones, and other Monday musings

The Little Ones are still one

of this city's strongest musical happy pills, but, as a set Friday night showed, it's

hard to maintain that peak level of exuberance when you're doing it night after night,

tour after tour.

The L.A.

quintet -- "Rhymin' Simon on steroids" is how I described them last year, and

it still applies -- played an ASCAP- and Filter-sponsored music night on Friday tied to

the Silverlake Film Festival. The stuff from their "Sing Song" EP still

sounded crisp, and their new songs were upbeat and catchy too. But after having spent

the early part of this year doing some rigorous touring, the Little Ones weren't quite

as unhinged as they were when their EP was first released and Astralwerks (in the U.S.)

and Heavenly (in the U.K.) swooped in to sign the band.

Are the Little Ones still as happy as their music? "That's a good

question," frontman Edward Reyes says. "We're excited. ... Remember, we just

looked at that EP as our calling card -- we just wanted to get some shows with

it."

Their as-yet-untitled debut album is recorded and due in January, Reyes says.

"It's turning out great," he adds. "Right now we have a whole track

devoted to laughing."

||| Download Little Ones' songs from their Daytrotter session here.

◊ ◊ ◊

Passion of the Weiss has a

play-by-play of Britney Spears' Houses of Blues appearance (I will not call it a

performance). He even has some empathy.

◊ ◊ ◊

Ran into an employee of a recently merged record company who was enthused about

having adopted a puppy. Cute thing ... so what did you name him? "Andy

Slater."

◊ ◊ ◊

"So how

was Coachella?" That was the most-asked

question last week. I told inquiring minds that it was a three-day weekend of

once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and even as they were unfolding I knew I was missing

others. Wish the festival could have just hesitated a few times each day and let me

catch up.

The inconsiderate hipsters at Anthem, who throw their Coachella party during the day

while the music is going on, tell me I missed something else too -- a mask-less Thomas

Bangalter from Daft Punk [face obscured] spinning the LCD Soundsystem track "Daft

Punk Is Playing at My House." Not that anybody recognized him. But a cool party

nonetheless.

Daft Punk turned up on the turntables a couple nights later at the Echo too. Not that

anybody recognized them.

Touts for tonight

Gliss (Spaceland), the High Society (Silverlake Lounge), Bodies of Water (Echo) and Richard Bivens & Foreign Press

(Detroit Bar) start their Monday night residencies. ... Midnight Movies plays an in-store at

Amoeba. ... And London's Apartment joins

locals the Grand Marquee and others

at Indie 103.1's Viper Room show.

The music is pretty hard on the ears, kind of a flailing

attempt at dance-party relevance. But the album cover (that's the original at right) is

even harder on the eyes -- so Perry Farrell's Satellite Party revised it. Stereogum has a

compare-and-contrast. I'm not sure, but this would not have passed muster in the

Photoshop classes I slogged through years ago. This does, however, guarantee that the

album will chart. Here.

[Guest blogger August Brown is hot both because he is fly, and because he should

have worn more sunscreen.]

If Coachella success was measured in words per minute, Busdriver would have been the day's

undisputed champ. But fortunately for the old-guard L.A.-based MC, he dropped jaws and

machine-gun metaphors alike during his astonishingly dextrous set.

Busdriver was equally compelling needling the crowd with accusations of yuppiedom as

he did slaying them with fiery indignance at the ways the music industry exploits

rappers. Over a loose-limbed flurry of house and jungle-inspired beats, he extolled

cheeba and wryly freestyled that "in the Gobi tent is how an O.G. represents."

Original gangstas are few and far between at Coachella, but unless Ghostface pulls off

a miracle tomorrow, Busdriver may hit the 10 freeway home as the weekend's reigning

rhyme-slinger.

This was featured in our Downloads column last weekend (a good reason to drop

some coin on the Saturday print edition or check the pop music page on your local

newspaper's website). I've been a sucker for Travis' brand of Britpop since the first Clinton

Administration. Here's the video for "Closer," and, yeah, Ben Stiller makes a

good grocer.

Ozomatli looked to the visual for inspiration

when writing its new album, “Don’t Mess With the Dragon” (due April 3 on Concord

Records) — much of the initial songwriting came out of jam sessions at the Tropico de

Nopal art gallery. Now the veteran L.A. nine-piece might have found a vision to suit its

sound.

The new video for the single “Can’t Stop” is a dizzying collage of

stop-animation and storytelling that seems equal to Ozomatli’s mashing of Latin flavors,

rock, hip-hop and funk — a hybrid many have said is distinctly Los Angeles.

“We haven’t had a lot of luck with videos in the past,” acknowledges Ulises Bella, who

plays saxophone and clarinet for the band.

Ozomatli turned to New York-based

artist-illustrator Richard Borge for “Can’t Stop,” even though the 41-year-old, who had

done album art for bands such as Meat Beat Manifesto, had never done a music video.

Close your eyes, cover your ears

The music is pretty hard on the ears, kind of a flailing

attempt at dance-party relevance. But the album cover (that's the original at right) is

even harder on the eyes -- so Perry Farrell's Satellite Party revised it. Stereogum has a

compare-and-contrast. I'm not sure, but this would not have passed muster in the

Photoshop classes I slogged through years ago. This does, however, guarantee that the

album will chart. Here.

[Guest blogger August Brown is hot both because he is fly, and because he should

have worn more sunscreen.]

If Coachella success was measured in words per minute, Busdriver would have been the day's

undisputed champ. But fortunately for the old-guard L.A.-based MC, he dropped jaws and

machine-gun metaphors alike during his astonishingly dextrous set.

Busdriver was equally compelling needling the crowd with accusations of yuppiedom as

he did slaying them with fiery indignance at the ways the music industry exploits

rappers. Over a loose-limbed flurry of house and jungle-inspired beats, he extolled

cheeba and wryly freestyled that "in the Gobi tent is how an O.G. represents."

Original gangstas are few and far between at Coachella, but unless Ghostface pulls off

a miracle tomorrow, Busdriver may hit the 10 freeway home as the weekend's reigning

rhyme-slinger.

This was featured in our Downloads column last weekend (a good reason to drop

some coin on the Saturday print edition or check the pop music page on your local

newspaper's website). I've been a sucker for Travis' brand of Britpop since the first Clinton

Administration. Here's the video for "Closer," and, yeah, Ben Stiller makes a

good grocer.

Ozomatli looked to the visual for inspiration

when writing its new album, “Don’t Mess With the Dragon” (due April 3 on Concord

Records) — much of the initial songwriting came out of jam sessions at the Tropico de

Nopal art gallery. Now the veteran L.A. nine-piece might have found a vision to suit its

sound.

The new video for the single “Can’t Stop” is a dizzying collage of

stop-animation and storytelling that seems equal to Ozomatli’s mashing of Latin flavors,

rock, hip-hop and funk — a hybrid many have said is distinctly Los Angeles.

“We haven’t had a lot of luck with videos in the past,” acknowledges Ulises Bella, who

plays saxophone and clarinet for the band.

Ozomatli turned to New York-based

artist-illustrator Richard Borge for “Can’t Stop,” even though the 41-year-old, who had

done album art for bands such as Meat Beat Manifesto, had never done a music video.

Busdriver takes the Gobi tent to school.

[Guest blogger August Brown is hot both because he is fly, and because he should

have worn more sunscreen.]

If Coachella success was measured in words per minute, Busdriver would have been the day's

undisputed champ. But fortunately for the old-guard L.A.-based MC, he dropped jaws and

machine-gun metaphors alike during his astonishingly dextrous set.

Busdriver was equally compelling needling the crowd with accusations of yuppiedom as

he did slaying them with fiery indignance at the ways the music industry exploits

rappers. Over a loose-limbed flurry of house and jungle-inspired beats, he extolled

cheeba and wryly freestyled that "in the Gobi tent is how an O.G. represents."

Original gangstas are few and far between at Coachella, but unless Ghostface pulls off

a miracle tomorrow, Busdriver may hit the 10 freeway home as the weekend's reigning

rhyme-slinger.

This was featured in our Downloads column last weekend (a good reason to drop

some coin on the Saturday print edition or check the pop music page on your local

newspaper's website). I've been a sucker for Travis' brand of Britpop since the first Clinton

Administration. Here's the video for "Closer," and, yeah, Ben Stiller makes a

good grocer.

Ozomatli looked to the visual for inspiration

when writing its new album, “Don’t Mess With the Dragon” (due April 3 on Concord

Records) — much of the initial songwriting came out of jam sessions at the Tropico de

Nopal art gallery. Now the veteran L.A. nine-piece might have found a vision to suit its

sound.

The new video for the single “Can’t Stop” is a dizzying collage of

stop-animation and storytelling that seems equal to Ozomatli’s mashing of Latin flavors,

rock, hip-hop and funk — a hybrid many have said is distinctly Los Angeles.

“We haven’t had a lot of luck with videos in the past,” acknowledges Ulises Bella, who

plays saxophone and clarinet for the band.

Ozomatli turned to New York-based

artist-illustrator Richard Borge for “Can’t Stop,” even though the 41-year-old, who had

done album art for bands such as Meat Beat Manifesto, had never done a music video.

New video from Travis

This was featured in our Downloads column last weekend (a good reason to drop

some coin on the Saturday print edition or check the pop music page on your local

newspaper's website). I've been a sucker for Travis' brand of Britpop since the first Clinton

Administration. Here's the video for "Closer," and, yeah, Ben Stiller makes a

good grocer.

Ozomatli looked to the visual for inspiration

when writing its new album, “Don’t Mess With the Dragon” (due April 3 on Concord

Records) — much of the initial songwriting came out of jam sessions at the Tropico de

Nopal art gallery. Now the veteran L.A. nine-piece might have found a vision to suit its

sound.

The new video for the single “Can’t Stop” is a dizzying collage of

stop-animation and storytelling that seems equal to Ozomatli’s mashing of Latin flavors,

rock, hip-hop and funk — a hybrid many have said is distinctly Los Angeles.

“We haven’t had a lot of luck with videos in the past,” acknowledges Ulises Bella, who

plays saxophone and clarinet for the band.

Ozomatli turned to New York-based

artist-illustrator Richard Borge for “Can’t Stop,” even though the 41-year-old, who had

done album art for bands such as Meat Beat Manifesto, had never done a music video.

Visuals for Ozomatli’s vision quest

Ozomatli looked to the visual for inspiration

when writing its new album, “Don’t Mess With the Dragon” (due April 3 on Concord

Records) — much of the initial songwriting came out of jam sessions at the Tropico de

Nopal art gallery. Now the veteran L.A. nine-piece might have found a vision to suit its

sound.

The new video for the single “Can’t Stop” is a dizzying collage of

stop-animation and storytelling that seems equal to Ozomatli’s mashing of Latin flavors,

rock, hip-hop and funk — a hybrid many have said is distinctly Los Angeles.

“We haven’t had a lot of luck with videos in the past,” acknowledges Ulises Bella, who

plays saxophone and clarinet for the band.

Ozomatli turned to New York-based

artist-illustrator Richard Borge for “Can’t Stop,” even though the 41-year-old, who had

done album art for bands such as Meat Beat Manifesto, had never done a music video.