Click the photo for more snaps from the show.

I had absurdly high expectations for Free the Robots' OC live debut—and, knock me over with a feather, those expectations were exceeded. That experience is so rare, I'd almost forgotten what it feels like. Seeing Free the Robots (SanTana impresario/musicians Chris Alfaro and Phil Nisco, who are also readying the potentially awesome Crosby restaurant/club) walk off the stage at Detroit Bar after their riveting, teasingly brief set, I was overwhelmed with a selfish desire for them to extend their performance indefinitely, work tomorrow be damned. Yes, Free the Robots are so good, they can inspire irresponsible urges in music editors.

With Nisco manning the Nord Electro 2 keyboard and Alfaro handling the Akai MPD24 pad controller, PowerBook and Vestax turntable, the duo started with a goth-hop head-nodder fueled by a Black Sabbath vocal sample (don't tell Ozzy—or Sharon). They proceeded with more eerie downtempo funk that could chill the Wu-Tang Clan's marrow. Alfaro's intricate beat programming with frantic marimba embellishments made “Yoga Fire” a dynamite pulse-elevator. The accelerated funk with shimmering, shattered guitar riff of “Wake Up Or Die” was an indelible favorite, and ditto for the baroque, moody-blue prog-hop of “Diary.”

The sizable crowd bellowed for an encore, but Free the Robots appeared to be spent. However, they called a friend named Hannah onstage to play the sassily swinging “Jazzhole” on the Nord, which really emphasized the song's upliftingly melancholy tune.

In 2007, it's extremely hard to add new wrinkles to hip-hop's three-decade-old visage, but Free the Robots are doing just that. With their distinctive beat patterns, memorably odd melodies and tracks that allude to the florid end of progressive and heavy rock and really old-school jazz, these young Orange County artists are creating music that's both playful and seriously inventive. I am confident in predicting that Free the Robots are one or two break(beat)s away from blowing up nationally.

Alfaro (far left) and Nisco (second from right) will be soundbombing Detroit Bar tonight.

Recent OC Weekly cover boys Chris Alfaro (aka Free the Robots) and Phil Nisco (Black Lung Pop) will be joining forces tonight for their first live performance in an Orange County venue. The Santa Ana musicians are taking a break from getting their restaurant/club The Crosby ready in order to drop some scintillating sonic science for homie Dan Sena's Busywork night at Detroit Bar.

With Free the Robots' inventive jazz/psych/prog-accented instrumental hip-hop (he earned the honor of best local hip-hop artist in this week's best-of issue) combining with Nisco's nuanced experimental-rock instincts, some thrilling sparks should ensue. In a MySpace bulletin, Alfaro said: “Prepare for some weird shit! A bit of change from what you're used to... It's loud, it's moody, it's dirty, it's everything you want it to be, all in one live electronic session.”

Iconic British punk group the Sex Pistols have re-recorded “Anarchy in the U.K.” for the video game Guitar Hero™ III: Legends of Rock; they've also redone “Pretty Vacant” for another game called skate. Original members John Lydon, guitarist Steve Jones and drummer Paul Cook cut the track with Chris Thomas in London's Air Studios. The band—including original bassist Glen Matlock—will also play in that city's Brixton Academy Nov. 8-10 [all dates are sold out], and to complete the Pistols multimedia blast, their sole studio album, Never Mind the Bollocks, Here are the Sex Pistols, will be reissued on vinyl on Oct. 29, 30 years after its initial release.

I've never been hung up about musicians maintaining punk-rock integrity, but it seems as if these moves (the video-game re-recording and reunion show sans Sid Vicious, whose corpse could probably play bass just as well as he did while alive) will chap some uptight, denim-clad asses. Cynical cash-ins apparently are now punk rock, dig? Nurse, administer the smelling salts...

Here's the Sex Pistols in more fresh-faced days performing “Anarchy.”

Full press release after the jump.

It's not Friday, but we thought we'd give out tickets anyway.

Who? Toots & The Maytals
When? Wednesday, September 26th at 7pm
Where? House of Blues, 1530 Disneyland Blvd., Anaheim, CA

To nab one of the 25 pairs we've got, email: ocpromotions AT ocweekly DOT com with your NAME, AGE, and PHONE NUMBER. Venue is 16+ without a guardian.

(Note: free parking for 3 hrs, 4 extra hours with validation from the venue)

Use this.

I don't know what the deal is, but lately I've been receiving a lot of phone calls and emails from musicians asking how they can get their work reviewed in this paper, as if there were some great mystery involved.

It's really quite simple; bands have been doing it for decades (or paying people to do it for them for that long). I'm only going to say this once, as I don't have time to field calls and reply to emails all day about this awfully basic concept. If you're a friend of a musician who doesn't have internet access or who doesn't read this blog, please pass on this info to him/her. Here goes...

1.Record extraordinary music.
2.Put that extraordinary music onto a format such as CD or vinyl (MP3s are shite, mate).
3.Send that extraordinary music to me at this address, or drop it off yourself: Dave Segal/OC Weekly, 1666 N Main St #500, Santa Ana CA 92701
4.Give me 7-10 days to listen to and evaluate your (I hope) extraordinary music, then shoot me an email [dsegal@ocweekly.com] to ask about coverage.
5.Keep expectations low, as space is limited, releases are plentiful and the music editor is a picky bastard.

And that's it. Good luck.

As my colleague Erin DeWitt has pointed out, other than Machine Head and a couple of anonymous House of Blues employees, none of the main mucky-mucks involved in the Disney-bans-metal controversy are talking. At all. And the speech clampdown has filtered down through all levels of the Anaheim HOB, so much that not even the bartenders, security or service-industry workers will sing.

That's what I found last night at the Rentals/Copeland/Goldenboy show. Asked a server in the restaurant, “Hey, what's this about metal shows being banned?” -- got a “You'll have to ask someone inside the club.”

Asked one of the wand-waving security dudes: “I don't know anything about that.”

Asked the upstairs patio bartender, one who looked vaguely “metal”-ish with his scraggly goatee, who might have wanted to vent his pissed-offness to me (and after I told him about reading an LA Times article about the ban over the weekend): “I dunno, I don't read newspapers...” then, pointing to a fellow barkeep nearby, “...and neither does she.”

Guy, you better be making some serious bank at your job if you're that afraid of losing it.

Anaheim’s House Of Blues cancellation of the Machine Head show earlier this month was just the beginning in Disney’s slow and steady elimination of all things metal.

Immediately after the cancellation, Machine Head released a statement citing the venue’s reasons for canceling the show (with just a 48 hour notice) as “undesirable fans” and “offensive lyrics”. Within days, Orlando’s House Of Blues, also on Disney property, dropped the band’s Sept. 17 date.

Rumors started to swirl that Disney had heavily pressured and even threatened Live Nation (the promoter who owns the House Of Blues chain) to eliminate the show even though it meant the venue would be dark that night.

Disgruntled Anaheim HOB employees blamed new Talent Buyer Todd Miller, who handles all of the in-house booking, as the cause of the first cancellation. However, once the 2nd cancellation occurred across the country, it was obvious the decision came from higher up.

Miller, who had only started 2 weeks earlier, had no comment and suggested statements be obtained from Live Nation VP of Communications John Vlautin.

Vlautin had (surprise, surprise) no comment either.

The recently launched FlogMusic.com hopes to become “the most comprehensive review-aggregator on the Internet,” according to San Francisco-based owner/founder Kara Murphy. At the core of this ambitious project resides the touchingly naïve belief that most people still have faith in the expertise of professional music critics. As a critic myself, I support what FlogMusic.com is attempting to do and wish it the best of luck. As an outside observer, I have doubts this site will catch on in a major way or usurp metacritic.com, although I hope I'm wrong. Let a thousand music-criticism aggregators bloom.

Murphy says FlogMusic will differ from all other such sites “because it breaks music down by genre so people know what's out right now. The charts, according to Billboard and Dusted Magazine, let people know what's especially popular.”

Anyway, for the curious, you can view what publications it will be mining for opinions (this list will expand, Murphy notes) and its rating system here. Flog will also have a blog.

After the jump is the press release. Go forth and read and consume.

Holy Fuck, generating more aural ecstasy. Photo by Jalapeño

I raved about the Holy Fuck live experience (no, it's not a nun/clergy orgy, but isn't that a pretty thought?) before in this Heard Mentality post, but that show was a mere warm-up for what transpired last night. From start to finish at their Prospector gig, the Toronto quartet proved that they are one of the best bands in the world right now. (They're currently opening for Wolf Parade on a North American tour, which hit The Glass House Saturday; Sunday's was a special one-off performance with their Long Beach buds Free Moral Agents.)

The archetypal Holy Fuck song is propulsive and mesmerizing, powered by lean, motorik grooves and ornamented with juddering, chromium keyboard tones and whorling solar-wind effects forged from gear that appears to predate the Reagan era. Their tracks typically are relentless cascades of bass and keyboards (and occasionally melodica) that build to shattering climaxes and then stop abruptly. One track near set's end seems to spring out of the coda from the Who's "Baba O'Riley" and takes it even further out with accelerating spasms of analog-synth histrionics. The exception to the rule is "Lovely Allen," which is the most vertical Holy Fuck song and the one possessing the most soul-stirring melody. You will reflexively raise your illuminated cell phone to it upon impact.

Between one lull in the action, somebody shouted, "More bass!" Someone else yelled, "More drums!" Another wiseacre cracked, "More notes!" The paradox of Holy Fuck is that they're minimalists with a massive sound who should be playing Honda Center, not the tiny Prospector. And they don't need more of anything (except maybe cowbell). With their dubadelic techno-funk excursions that could theoretically ramble on till the sun bursts, Holy Fuck are ecstasy-generators par excellence.

After the set, I asked keyboardist Brian Borcherdt how in the hell had Holy Fuck become the best band in the world since I last saw them in May. He laughed and said, "Um, just add water?" Even stranger, the masses of indie-pop kids who flock to Wolf Parade concerts have been digging the Holy Fuck jams. There may be hope for humanity yet.

Free Moral Agents get tighter and more majestic every time I see 'em. If Siouxsie and the Banshees in their prime were a florid prog-rock and a brutal dub ensemble totally devoid of cliché, they might sound as amazing as Free Moral Agents. They're another band better suited for a cavernous venue instead of the tiny confines of The Prospector. The Mars Volta (with whom FMA's keyboardist Ikey Owens also plays) should take them on their next tour, although they run the risk of being outshone by their openers.

UPDATE: Photos from Payback are up.

Us Southern Californians sure don’t like to give up our summers. In fact, it took Costa Mesa’s Detroit Bar half way through September before they held Payback, an End Of Summer party.

But our favorite season went out with a bang this year. Technically summer doesn't end until the 23rd, but it might as well be over since everyone's back in school.

The usual boundaries of Detroit spilled out into the parking lot with a huge covered tent for all the smokers and night sky admirers.

Inside, the masses ran back and forth between dueling DJs in two rooms. Long Beach favorites Mashed Potatos played an early set spinning remixes of practically everything you can think of (highlight: Rockwell’s “Somebody’s Watching Me”).

Them Jean rocked the house as always, pumping the air full of crunk and attitude, keeping in tone with the live set by Sparrow Love Crew, who got the floor quaking with a healthy dose of ghettotech.

Le Receptionist was there to take photos of all the artists, musicians (Hi, Cavil At Rest!) and all around gorgeous people who came to dance and drink and close the place down at 2 a.m.

In those early hours, the sea of drunks and half drunks were ushered out, disrupting the quiet city with their lingering inebriated ardor.

To soak up the booze, most found their way around the corner to Rooster Cafe (open til 3 a.m.), where Le Receptionist found the floor.