Busy Work, a Wednesday night weekly held at Costa Mesa's Detroit Bar, debuted last night with Steve Aoki's Cinespace DJ crew from LA, ModRocket, Japanese Motors and headliner Har Mar Superstar. It was a strange beginning to a new event: the venue was sparsely populated till 11, then a massive influx of hipsters arrived, schmoozed, danced a little, gawked at Har Mar Superstar, then fled in droves around 12:30. Did the coke high wear off that quickly?

Anyway, to the music. Aoki's Dim Mak DJs (Dan Sena, GMO, Mike B) coaxed out of their Serato Scratch setup a stream of spiky, nerve-fraying disco/techno (dickno?) that borrows the energy from rock and Red Bull with equal tenacity. Tracks from the DFA, Kitsuné and Ed Banger labels, some CSS and a floorboard-ripping remix of a Yeah Yeah Yeahs' song ramrodded their way around the club with impressive force. And against great odds, the Rapture's “House of Jealous Lovers” still sounds amazing four years and countless spins later.

ModRocket made no impression on me at all (my bad; I was talking to friends in the back of the club) and Japanese Motors came off as an amalgam of late-'70s NYC influences, like a West Coast Strokes, which I'm sure they're sick of hearing already. I'm guessing Japanese Motors will be signed to Kemado or Dim Mak by year's end.

Har Mar Superstar (aka Sean Tillmann, aka leader of Sean Na Na) has never done anything for me. I understand his shtick, but I remain immune to its supposed kitsch, so-awful-it's-great charm. He is the Ron Jeremy of club music, but HMS lacks the Hedgehog's luxuriant pelt of body hair and comes up short in the phallic endowment department, too. But that doesn't stop Har from gradually stripping down to his tighty whiteys and shaking his chubby revenue-enhancer to a dwindling, uninterested crowd. His music is functional, shlubby electro/ironic loverman R&B, but his voice is nothing special, though he can swing a microphone cord with panache. HMS is banking it all on the absurdity of a crude lardass being a Lothario, a sack-of-potatoes putz being a sexual dynamo. And some people are buying it.

I bounced when I could sense the already topless Har was about to drop trou. I later received a text from a friend that said I'd “missed the almost full monty. My eyes are scarred for tonite. Or maybe a week.” Every once in a great while, I do the right thing.

Tonight the Glass House will be hosting the Warped Tour Pre-Party with Gallows and Big D And The Kids Table. For those of you who just absolutely cannot wait, the show will be just a teeny taste of one of the years most anticipated tours. Both bands playing tonight will be with the Tour during the majority of its duration.

Kicking off tomorrow at the Pomona Fairgrounds, the Warped Tour will make a big ass circle around the country (and select cities in Canada) before finishing back in So Cal at the Home Depot Center in Los Angeles August 25.

Along with about a million up-and-coming bands, the lineup also includes a fair amount of old-schoolers like Circle Jerks, Bad Religion and Mustard Plug. Maybe the vets can teach the new kids a thing or two.

As for tonight, the kids are on their own.
Go wish them luck.

Only 300 tickets will be sold to the public for tonight’s show.

Warped Tour Pre-Party, The Glass House, 200 W. Second St., Pomona, 7 p.m. $13

Avant-garde jam band Sonic Youth and electronic-pop tunesmith Dntel (Jimmy Tamborello of the Postal Service) will be playing a free concert to benefit KXLU-FM 88.9 (Loyola Marymount University's campus station) at Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade Urban Outfitters, Saturday, July 21 (time as yet unknown). It's part of the nationwide Free Yr Radio program (with support from Toyota Yaris, too), which aims to raise funds for non-commercial stations.

Touring behind the reissue of their highly acclaimed 1988 album Daydream Nation, which they will execute in its entirety at LA's Greek Theater July 20, Sonic Youth will perform a 30-minute set of material that spans their 25-year career. Dntel, who used to host a program on KXLU, is slated to do a DJ set.

"My experience at KXLU was easily the most valuable part of my education," says Tamborello in a press release. "I met all of my friends there because it was a whole community of other people obsessed with music. I shudder to think of where I'd be now if I'd gone to some other school and not had the experience I had at KXLU, so I'm glad I can be a part of a program like Free Yr Radio that's giving some support to help keep college radio alive."

"KXLU-FM 88.9 is thrilled to be a part of Free Yr Radio," says KXLU General Manager Daisy Buchanan. "The program will be fun and entertaining and will bring attention back to true indie radio."

Entry to the show will be permitted to those who present an official event invitation, which can be accessed and printed from www.freeyrradio.com. Store capacity will determine the number of fans who'll be admitted, so it's advisable to get there early.

Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur (released June 12 by Warner Bros.) is a two-CD set of rich, famous musicians covering John Lennon songs that will raise funds to help the ravaged civilians of Sudan. It is worth the mild pain you'll experience to donate money to this eminently worthy cause while listening to some of your favorite Beatle's best solo material get molded into bland sonic paste. (You can peep the track listing here.)

The highlights for me are Youssou N'Dour's ultra-tender interpretation of “Jealous Guy” and, shockingly, Christina Aguilar's passionate “Mother.” Lowlights include Lenny Kravitz's slackjawed run through of one of Lennon's most harrowing tunes, “Cold Turkey,” Avril Lavigne's “Imagine” (Lennon's most overrated song done to syrupy ickiness by an overrated hack out of her depth), Flaming Lips' “(Just Like) Starting Over” (a cloying song sugared up to retching point), and Jakob Dylan/Dhani Harrison's limp, defanged “Gimme Some Truth.”

Still, it's only fair that you suffer a bit, even in your charitable mode, to get an infinitesimal idea of what Darfur's unfortunates are going through.

I have nothing to say about this issue.

The Parson Red Heads photo by Zach Schrock

The three bands on this bill proved that rock can be uplifting without being corny—which was an inspirational lesson on a Sunday night in a mostly empty house. Detroit Bar's desolation was a shame and maybe to be expected, as the lineup seemed to be cobbled together at the last minute. But the groups proved to be troopers, playing as if to a packed room.

LA's Parson Red Heads number eight (four guitarists, a bassist, a drummer, a keyboardist and a tambourine specialist) and dress all in white onstage. They radiate a euphoric positivity, like Polyphonic Spree at one-third the membership, but with a tougher psychedelic edge than the Texas-based orch-pop troupe. PRH's six-dude/two-gal lineup infuse their sunshiny, angelic psych pop with some scrappy Anglo-fied indie-rock guitars that made me think of the C86 cassette NME magazine issued 21 years ago (surely you remember that?). I could listen to PRH sing “ooh la la la-la” for hours (see “Mossback” for proof). After their set, I bought their King Giraffe CD, and I'm not disappointed at all.

Austin, Texas' Brothers and Sisters are mellow-gold soft-rock revivalists; they're so sincere, they dissolve your cynicism during their first song. Their smooth country-ish rock—replete with steel guitar and dulce male/female vocals—is as comfortable as decade-old denim pants. They make ultra-familiar songwriting tropes evergreen against great odds. Plus, the male singer has the thickest beard this side of ZZ Top. That has to count for something, especially in muggy Texas.

Fullerton/Garden Grove's My Pet Saddle look like high schoolers, but their music harks back to the mid-'60s, two decades before they were born. These fresh-faced youths are unabashed freakbeat throwbacks, but their energy and chops are undeniably contagious. Their MySpace includes quoted lyrics by Tom Waits and a video of Velvet Underground's “European Son,” betokening promising things for this quartet.

The Parson Red Heads play The Prospector in Long Beach on June 26.

The Police
June 21, 2007
Honda Center, Anaheim
Better Than: Sting solo.

Sting and Stewart Copeland have aged as well as most of the Police’s back catalog; Andy Summers, not so much (he looked like a marathoner in his 25th mile by the third song). To my mild surprise, the trio, who have owned a sizable chunk of the radioscape since 1978, yet again have become a well-oiled hit machine a mere 21 years after their last concert together. The sold-out Honda Center crowd was, to paraphrase one especially touching Police ballad (which they played tonight), “wrapped around their finger.” (Just because every live review will likely use this meme, doesn’t mean it isn’t true.) I doubt the cheers for the Ducks’ Stanley Cup victory outdecibeled those heard for the Police tonight.

Striding onstage to the Wailers’ “Get Up, Stand Up,” the Police slipped quickly into "Message in a Bottle" after drummer Copeland’s ceremonial gong hit. It almost seemed as if we were back in 1979, so smooth and natural did this version sound. Copeland’s still a badass funky metronome on his large kit (which includes an array of hanging chimes, cymbals, kettles, xylophone and other exotic percussive ornaments) and bassist/vocalist Sting leapt during the song’s climactic chord like a man 30 years his junior.

"Synchronicity II followed, as lithe and full of adrenaline and intrigue as ever. Guitarist Summers tore off a fibrillating, whammy-barred solo, which he did often tonight. As Sting quipped later in “So Lonely” during the first encore, “Welcome to the Andy Summers Show.” Winded though he looked, Summers seemed hell-bent on establishing his ax-hero credentials: It was charming or pathetic, depending on your view of gratuitous showboating.

Then came one of the Police’s most endearing oddities, the eerie, spacious dub excursion “Walking on the Moon.” Sting’s voice is a bit lower and less limber than it used to be, but it’s still pretty supple and robust. He often left lyrical gaps for the crowd to fill in with their massed voices, and this worked particularly well with “Moon”’s “ee-oh ee-oh”s.

When the band shifted into “Voices Inside My Head,” one of their funkiest, spookiest compositions, my spirits skyrocketed. They soon plummeted when the tune prematurely morphed into “When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What’s Still Around.” Now, I’m all for messing with expectations and tweaking the canon, but the Police never let “Voices” zoom like it needs to zoom. Still, when they accelerated the tempo for “World” and ventured into a spicy jazz-jam tangent, transgressions were forgiven. Similarly, the trio expanded their first hit, “Roxanne,” into an extended dub workout illumined by Sting’s jazzier, scatty vocals.

On “Don’t Stand So Close to Me,” Sting’s phrasing was way more mellow on the chorus, deflating much of the album version’s tension. This change just seemed wrong. But on “Driven to Tears,” everyone played with a savage vengeance, which seemed more right than ever, as today’s world is, believe it or not, more fucked-up than it was in 1980, when “Tears” was released.

Over the 19-song, 110-minute, two-encore set, the Police hit most of the expected touchstones and a few slightly less-traveled pockets of their oeuvre (the Esperanto’d Eno-Byrne homage “Walking in Your Footsteps,” “Truth Hits Everybody,” “The Bed’s Too Big Without You”). In fact, masses commenced exodus after “Every Breath You Take,” the conventional-wisdom finale, but the Police shocked many by finishing with the amphetamine-fueled “Next to You” off their debut LP. I applaud the group’s decision to close a long set with one of their most energetic tracks, even if it meant having paramedics stage-side keeping a close eye on Summers. . . .

Critic’s Notebook
Personal Bias: I own Message in a Box, the boxed set that contains every note the Police recorded, and in a recent DJ set, I played “Voices Inside My Head,” which, you'll be pleased to know, provoked a very good reaction.
Random Detail: Estimated average age of attendee: 48.
By the way: This tour’s official charity is Water Aid, an international NGO committed to reducing poverty by improving access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene information.

Check out the Police slide show.

Karizma breaks it down for y'all. If you don't agree with at least 90 percent of what he's saying, you're just frontin'. Hat tip to my Seattle homie J-Justice.

Various Artists
Si, Para Usted: The Funky Beats of Revolutionary Cuba Volume One
(Waxing Deep)
Release date: June 5, 2007

Curb Your Cynicism is a recurring blogtastic feature in which the music editor pithily enthuses about new releases and reissues he thinks will enhance your life and erode your cynicism about the state of music, circa now.

Just when you think there can't possibly be any more scenes that need unearthing, along comes this shocker. Who knew that Cuba, in all its Castro-ated iron-fistedness, was a hotbed of funkadelic inventiveness?

Turns out these Commies could get down—and maybe Fidel cut some slack for his country's músicos, the old softy. Si, Para Usted documents a thriving community of musicians who merged their country's renowned rhythmic verve with the piquant progressive-rock, psychedelic and funk elements that were infiltrating bands worldwide during the '70s. Such was the exploratory/creative power of the times (and the potent drugs) that these influences penetrated the Communist cultural gatekeepers and seeped into Cuba's stream of (altered) consciousness.

It's safe to say that most of Si, Para Usted's lineup (compiled by Dan Zacks, who hosts the podcast Waxing Deep Radio) will be unfamiliar to most listeners; the only names I recognize are Irakere and Jorge Reyes. Nonetheless, nearly every track's a keeper and many are as sublime as the best specimens any band in the “free” world had to offer.

A feverish Afro-Caribbean sensuality permeates the rhythms of many of the cuts here, and intense heat waves of rococo guitar, brass, woodwind and keyboard also predominate. Many selections made me think of Santana jamming with Fela Kuti's Africa 70 and Os Mutantes in an equatorial opium den. The 17 songs on Si, Para Usted coruscate, radiate and oscillate beyond the Buena Vista Social Club's templates while still acknowledging their importance. Si, Para Usted is a helluva rumba in the jungle.

What: The Death Dance Tour
When: Saturday June 16
Where: The Glass House, Pomona

Maybe this should be called the Scions of Anticon Tour (although Alias still records for the Oakland underground-hip-hop label). He and anticon alumni Buck 65 and Sage Francis are now seasoned vets of the stage and they commandeer it with ruthless authority while subtly tinkering with hip-hop's DNA.

I missed most of Buddy Wakefield's set, but what I did catch revealed a spoken-word performer of considerable energy, charisma and the expected lib-rull leanings. Whether waxing poetic about life on the road and its series of memorable characters or ruminating about the juvenile idiocy of holy wars, Wakefield used his robust life force to bust through apathy and cynicism and make you empathize with him.

A beefy white guy from Maine, Alias declaims rapidly over his own hard, staccato funk beats. His urgent, acerbic flow complements his pugnacious demeanor and beats. He comes off like a smart, blue-collar artisan who happens to know how to work a sampler and write biting lyrics. After one song, Alias said, "I've got some bad news for y'all: hip-hop is dead. Nas said it, so it must be true." (And I've seen shirts at Urban Outfitters emblazoned with the same sentiment. Let us all have a minute of silence.)

Ever wonder what Beatles songs done in Metallica's heavy, hyper style would sound like? Me neither. But the clever buggers in Beatallica thought this would be a smashing concept; hence the forthcoming release of Sgt. Hetfield's Motorbreath Pub Band (out July 10 on Oglio Records). The group consist of Jaymz Lennfield, Grg Hammetson, Kliff McBurtney and Ringo Larz. They put the pun in punishment.

As is the case with most of these novelty projects that aren't Spinal Tap, the song titles are the most enjoyable aspects of Beatallica: “...And Justice for All My Loving,” “Leper Madonna,” “Blackened the U.S.S.R.,” “Hey Dude,” “Helvester of Skelter,” etc. Sgt. Hetfield's is essentially a comedy album, and therefore is worth perhaps one spin... unless you really like Metallica and the Beatles to an unhealthy degree. In which case you'll be happier than Paul McCartney perusing his bank statement.

Beatallica will be playing the San Diego County Fair June 22-24.

Poor Kelly, looks like the star has finally cooled.

Announced Thursday, Miss Clarkson’s summer tour has been cancelled, she was scheduled to play Anaheim’s Honda Center on Tuesday (refunds are available at point of purchase).

Her newest album, My December, was set to release in July but was leaked online early, getting less than stellar reviews. Her label released two singles, one right after the other, hoping to get some positive feedback from Mainstream America. No such luck. If you’ve heard either “Never Again” or “Sober”, you know what I’m talking about: ehhh, they’re OK. Some people are saying the new album is absolutely shiteous, I’m going to be nice and say it’s forgettable. It definitely looks like crap when compared to Breakaway (One of the best post-breakup albums of all time, just ask any broken hearted female under 30).

Rumor has it Clive Davis offered her a whopping $10 million to cut 5 tracks and replace them with songs that had more hit potential. But, apparently, you can’t tell Miss Independent what to do, she prided herself on having more creative input on this album.

Michael Rapino, CEO of Livenation made this statement Wednesday:
“Ticket sales have not been what we anticipated and we came to the realization that we had bit off more than we could chew. In the end, we are in the Kelly Clarkson business and for that reason we believe that this decision will only benefit her and her fans in the longrun.”

She’s not even a person, she’s a business now. Ouch.

If that’s not enough stress, she also fired her manager Jeff Kwatinetz earlier this week.

Ever the optimist, Clarkson told her fans not to fret. “I promise you that we’re going to get back out there as soon as is humanly possible to give you a show that is even better.” She posted on her website.

Better than cancelling an entire tour at the last minute? I frikkin hope so!

Ex-Soundgarden/ex-Audioslave vocalist Chris Cornell recently released a solo album, Carry On, which is an effortfully mediocre and thoroughly undistinguished collection of 40-something-former-hard-rock-guy-tentatively-enters-maturity songs. Ordinarily, I would let its arrival go without mention or second thought, but it contains one especially heinous crime to the auditory canals that deserves censure. I'm talking about his rendition of Michael Jackson's “Billie Jean.”

First, I doubt anyone—especially your humble blogger—needs to hear “Billie Jean” ever again. As great and indelibly catchy as it is, the song's been overplayed so much, it's become as familiar and innocuous as the sound of your electric toothbrush or refrigerator hum. (I don't care how badly Jacko needs the money; please let this song go unsung.) Second, if you are going to cover “Billie Jean,” why would you ditch its incredibly funky and lithe rhythm and substitute it with a leaden blues arrangement and add a generic Guitar Center jagoff ax solo? And then why would you over-emote so wretchedly that you make Joe Cocker seem reserved in comparison? Like his fellow grunge icon Eddie Vedder, Cornell is under the tragic delusion that he has soul. Seriously, Chris (and Interscope Records), what the hell were you thinking? In a court of law, you would be sentenced to 10 years of looking at this website.

The kid's a little green, but he shows potential.

Channel 3 has been around since the beginning of the Southern California Punk Movement, touring with Black Flag and Husker Du, and they’ve seen it morph from one form to the next since their signing in 1980. The band tried to adapt with the changing times, but once Channel 3 steered away from their original style of boozy punk rock and veered toward glam and roots, both fans and band members became disenchanted and one of the most respected punk rock bands was forgotten.

However, the strong friendship between founding members Mike Magrann and Kimm Gardener held together, and Channel 3 has reemerged with a European tour showcasing their return to old school punk, and a full length documentary, One More For All My True Friends, chronicling the bands adventures and misfortunes through one of the most influential music scenes in American history.

One More For All My True Friends by film maker Erik Carreon includes interviews with members of Rancid, Adolescents, The Adicts and The Simpletons along with classic Channel 3 footage.

There will be a free premiere of One More For All My True Friends on Saturday June 16, at the Art Theatre (2025 4th St.) in Long Beach, 9 p.m.

The talent-heavy hip-hop festival Rock the Bells (which we previewed here) will now take place at Hyundai Pavilion at Glen Helen Saturday, Aug. 11.

Performers include Wu-Tang Clan, Public Enemy and MF Doom.

All tickets for the originally scheduled National Orange Show Events Center will be honored.

Blues Control
Blues Control
(Holy Mountain)
Release date: May 29, 2007

Curb Your Cynicism is a recurring blogtastic feature in which the music editor pithily enthuses about new releases and reissues he thinks will enhance your life and erode your cynicism about the state of music, circa now.

Any band with “Blues” in its name in 2007 should be viewed with suspicion. Chances are they'll be overly ironic or excruciatingly purist. Either way, they're probably not gonna be worth your time. That being said, Queens, New York's Blues Control obliterate my little pet theory with their debut album on the estimable Holy Mountain Records.

Consisting of keyboardist Lea Cho and guitarist/sound manipulator Russ Waterhouse, Blues Control are to their hoary namesake genre what Jamie Lidell is to soul music: a brilliant mutational aberration. Disc opener “Blues Control” sounds like a Blue Cheer song run through a newfangled digital signal processing unit set to GROTESQUE. Right away, we know this isn't going to be your typical exercise in heavy-rock worship. “Boiled Peanuts” is surprisingly pretty, albeit in a strangely distant and warped way. A spluttering motor forms the beat, the guitar sounds like a duck squawking in glorious agony, and a two-chord piano motif mesmerizes like Bill Evans in a Sufi trance. These somewhat unpromising elements coalesce into one of the album's best tracks. It's neither fish nor fowl, for which I, being vegan, give thanks. “Migration” evokes the dewy melodic splendor and transformative drone power of German immortals Popol Vuh. “The Blue Sheep” could be a bent-brained remix of David Bowie's “Art Decade.” “No Sweat” starts off heart-rendingly gorgeous and slightly reminiscent of Brian Eno's “Here Come the Warm Jets” until a gut-wrenching, seesawing, downtuned guitar riff barges in and takes things to Butthole Surfers' bad-trip basement of bloated hallucinations. The reverbed percussion solo at the end is a perfectly unexpected kiss-off.

Blues Control know rock and blues history, and they condemn themselves to fuck with these genres till they're barely recognizable. With sly, sinister intent, they refurbish them into bizarre new forms. In a way, Blues Control perform the same task—but with heavier atmospheric pressure and rock crunch—that the Residents have been doing for over three decades: making the familiar seem utterly alien. You can't say that the familiar didn't have it coming. . . .

Every few days or so, I schlep over to Dave the Music Editor's desk to see if he's got any new musical gems to lend me. Today was one of those schlepping days, and he handed me The Comas latest album Spells. The cover caught my eye, first of all, with an illustration of little stuffed animals with scary button eyes and pointy claws running ritualistically around in a circle. I'm a sucker for cover art, and decided they got bonus points for an aesthetically haunting but fuzzy wuzzy visual.

The first song on the CD is called "Red Microphones." Hey! I know this one! I keep this ratty notebook to write down songs and bands I like, so I can look them up later (I never do, of course). Sure enough, "Red Microphones" by The Comas was in there. I don't even remember where I heard it, but it's got a catchy melody that's hard to forget. The kind of catchy melody I end up listening to over and over and over until I get sick of it. I've already listened to it 4 times today. Right now, I'm in the just-got-my-hands-on-a-copy stage of obsession, and it sparkles with thrilling newness, similar to a new crush.

About the 4th listen, I started catching some of the lyrics, though. "Red Microphones from your eyes, they're everywhere...We grind the bones of liar giants and drink the blood of maidens swooning." What the hell?!

Seems my new crush has a kinky streak.

"Light The Pad" is another good one, it has an stoney quality combined with dreamy vocals that sing "transmission's down" repeatedly with a crawling slowness that's sorta creepy. At one point, I swear there's someone screaming in the background but you can barely hear it.

The Comas end Spells with a track titled "After the Afterglow." I love it when an album ends with a sad, sad love song (It's how I usually end my mix tapes). Soft guitar strumming goes sweetly with forlorn vocals singing the chorus "13 evil buzzards circling our love, 13 evil buzzards waiting up above." How romantic!

Come to think of it, the entire album blends the lines between weird and pretty. It's like The Comas have created an imaginary whimsical world, and they're letting you have a look.

And then sending you home with nightmares.

"Wintertime in Hollywood" by the Lovetones is not the type of song that normally takes hostage of my internal jukebox in 2007, but it's been doing just that for the last two days. Its full, chiming guitars, swooping bass line, mellifluous white soul vocals and profound tone of bittersweet wistfulness move me to my almost-hollow core. That and it reminds me a lot of George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" crossed with Ringo Starr's "It Don't Come Easy," which is a fantastic thing to be reminded of—even in 2007.

You can find "Wintertime in Hollywood" on the Lovetones' sporadically brilliant psych-rock album, Axiom (Tee Pee Records; out June 19) or go to the Australian band's MySpace page for immediate gratification. I'm also pleased to report that they will be playing The Prospector in Long Beach on June 16.

From June 10-16, L.A. disc jockey and Stone Throw Records honcho Peanut Butter Wolf (Chris Manak) is attempting what could be interpreted as the decathlon of DJing. Over seven consecutive nights, he'll be spinning a different style in a different Los Angeles club. Making the feat even more impressive, if only through the sheer amount of weight he'll be lugging around town, he'll be using vinyl (sorry, but hitting "shuffle" on your iPod is not DJing).

"The idea came when I was moving last month," Wolf says on Stones Throw's website. "After 28 years of record buying, I started organizing my records into genres for the first time. It occurred to me that LA is that rare city where as a DJ, you could do a whole week-long tour in a 10-mile radius, where all kinds of people could appreciate all styles of music."

Below are PBW's club dates and the genres he'll be dropping on the City of Angels.

Day 1: Sun, June 10 The Do-Over @ Crane's Tavern - '80s early house
Day 2: Mon, June 11 Funkmosphere @ Carbon - '80s rare soul & boogie
Day 3: Tue, June 12 Cinespace - '90s hipster ironic badd covers
Day 4: Wed, June 13 Dub Club @ The Echo - '70s dub & roots reggae 45s
Day 5: Thu, June 14 The Root Down @ Little Temple - '80s hip-hop 45s
Day 6: Fri, June 15 Firecracker @ Grand Star - '70s Afro-Latin & disco
Day 7: Sat, June 16 Funky Sole @ Star Shoes - '60s deep funk 45s

Photo by: João Canziani

Ima Robot rocked the House Of Blues in Downtown Disney on Monday night. I would have loved to include some pictures of all the crazy and lovely people who showed up, but if any of you have ever been to Mickey's HOB, you know there's absolutely no cameras allowed, no way, no how. Unless of course you can get your shit together two days in advance and get the proper credentials, which of course I didn't.

Oh well, you can't fight the Mouse.

I always like to get to shows not more than an hour after the doors open. That way I can be sure to catch the opening acts, because sometimes those little diamonds in the rough shine brighter than the headliners. Its damn near impossible to upstage Ima Robot, but all three of the opening acts gave it a really good try. Hairbrain Scheme got the crowd warmed up playing an electronic set in full body metallic jumpsuits. Tiger City brought back the '70s porn vibe with tight three piece suits and soprano vocals, and Los Abandoned's frontwoman thrashed and gyrated through their set in a really hideous ice skating leotard. Funny, all three opening bands left more of an impression visually than audibly, all that sparkle and sequins kind of outshone the music.

Right around 11 p.m. Ima Robot took the stage and what felt like thousands of androgenously dressed young adults crammed into each other in front of the stage. And I was squished right in the middle. If you've ever heard Ima Robot, it's hard to imagine a mosh pit forming to their digital, gender-bending glam but it happened. Oh, I used to love all those people thrashing violently around the teenage version of myself, which involved nasty purple hair dye and ridiculous facial piercings. Not so much these days, especially when my foot was stomped, no- crushed, inside my very expensive black flats and I was just as worried about my precious shoes as my broken foot bones (both are OK, if you're wondering).

But Ima Robot was amazing. They played equal parts of new stuff to old stuff, and paused between songs to talk shit on the establishment (a broad statement), and to assure their fans that Ima Robot doesn't give a flying fuck about...actually, they never really said. Whatever. They were entertaining as all hell, and I danced danced danced the night away, far away from the pit of course.

A recent article from The Lefsetz Letter site waxes foreboding about the CD's imminent demise and the inevitable restructuring of the music industry. Reading it induces a bit of schadenfreude in anyone who remembers when record companies introduced the format in the early '80s. Major-label moguls proclaimed that the CD would make us all eagerly dispose of our vinyl, as the smaller silvery disc promised "perfect sound forever." Turned out that forecast was awry, as CDs proved merely to offer "imperfect sound for a time quite a bit short of eternity."

Here's one particularly bracing prediction from the Lefsetz piece:

Best Buy and its brethren are going to kill the CD. They're gonna shrink floor space and titles and one day they're just going to stop selling discs completely. This will happen long before record labels desire to give up on the physical format. Retail is in tune with its customers' whims, it has to keep moving forward to survive. Soon CDs will be evidence of the past, and these stores want to be the future. Big box retailers will kill the CD the same way the industry killed the cassette and vinyl. They'll just stop stocking them, and the consumer will go elsewhere.

Oh well, formats come and go; no need to mourn too hard. Like vinyl has done over the last quarter century, CDs will serve a niche audience before going the way of the 8 track or entering a new incarnation as high-end coasters and/or coke mirrors. Meanwhile, millions of DJs will continue to spin vinyl as if it never received the music biz's death sentence. Wax has last laugh over aluminum—film at 11.

The Crate Kings site is a national treasure. Scratch that: it's an intergalactic treasure. Somebody (or a team of individuals perhaps) with a lot of time on his hands and the kind of obsessiveness I admire almost more than anything else in the world encoded to MP3 snippets of 300 breakbeats that form the foundation of hip-hop. Hello, Mr. Nobel? I would like to nominate the cat(s) behind this Herculean project for one of your medals. Please look into it.

Scrutinize the names here and you'll see many of the usual suspects associated with hip-hop's genesis (James Brown, the Meters, Sly & the Family Stone, Funkadelic, Kool and the Gang, Billy Squier) and some totally WTF? entries (Billy Joel, Annette Peacock, Thin Lizzy, Christine McVie, Black Oak Arkansas [bottom photo], Spooky Tooth, Turtles, Tommy Roe [top photo]). This cornucopia of diverse artists illustrates hip-hop's mongrel nature and pays tribute to the original producers and DJs who could locate minuscule segments of greatness from sometimes otherwise dud songs lurking in unexpected realms of the sonic universe.

The guy(s) behind Crate Kings are essentially shattering hip-hop's mystique (what little there is that's left, anyway), but it's all for the greater good of humanity. Many of these beats are still being used today, and even if they're totally played out in a sheer numerical sense, they never exhaust their headnod-ability. Give the drummer some, but don't forget to break off a slice for the diggers who isolated their handiwork for posterity (and posteriors).

Can't say I'm a huge fan of new American reggae, but if any band's going to convert me to its charms, it would have to be the Aggrolites. The L.A.-based quintet reverently recreate the soulful vibe of vintage '70s Kingston Studio One productions. Modern-day reggae isn't exactly a hotbed of innovation; rather, it's all about tapping into that deep, ganja-laced skank that erases all your stress and cares with well-executed choppy guitar licks, gently pumping keyboards, snappy rimshots and cymbal splashes, and uplifting vocals. All of which the Aggrolites accomplish with convincing authenticity and traces of Meters-like funk.

They'll be celebrating the release of their new album, Reggae Hit L.A. (Hellcat) Wed. June 6 at Santa Ana's Galaxy Theatre. You get a free CD when you purchase a $17 ticket. Such a deal! Doors at 6 p.m., show at 8.

I spent last night at Sachi, where our very own darling Ryan and Kevin have started a pet project to be held the last Thursday of the month. The last Thursday? Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's what they told me, we'll let you know. But for those of you who somehow missed the bombardment of pretty pretty advertising, it was an amazing lineup.

The Outline opened, followed by Something For Rockets and TheStart headlined. Having never seen any of them before, I thought it was going to be a night of musical discoveries and newfound favorites. But unbeknownst to me, I had seen TheStart before. My friend Kacey told me we had seen them open for Alkaline Trio, like, six years ago. How the hell did she remember that? Or worse: How the hell didn't I? Probably had something to do with the bottle of Captain Morgan we drank in the parking lot (gimme a break, I was 19).

Anyhoo- the bands were all wonderful, there was a nice high-energy-electronic-rock kind of consistency among the three, and the setup was as flashy and sharp as it gets. TheStart brought the house down with their stellar stage show, which apparently they've had at least six years to master. Even though it was a Thursday, lotsa people came out (including a certain No Doubt-er. Oh, and someone said the oldest brother from Home Improvement was there. What's his name? I thought he was in rehab with Eddie Furlong or something).

I did discover a new favorite though. Ryan introduced me to Peach Stoli. Mixed with tonic it becomes what I always imagined Ambrosia to taste like.

I know, I know. Peach Stoli isn't too far off from Captain Morgan, but at least I remember the night.