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.)