Orange County Music Blog

​

Chris Bishow

​

Orange County singer/songwriter Stacy Clark is certainly no stranger to "placement" (that's what they call getting your songs in the background of TV, movies or commercials in the, um, "biz")--she had her song "Touch and Go" featured on an ad for the Canadian release of the Palm Pre cell phone just last month, for instance. But you're nobody until you've gotten a song on a CW young adult drama, which is exactly what Ms. Clark has netted for tonight, when her track "All Time Low" (not to be confused with the wildly popular Baltimore-based pop-punk band of the same name) will be played during a surely riveting scene on One Tree Hill (yep, that show's still on).

One Tree Hill airs at 8 p.m. on the CW, which locally is KTLA, channel 5. Clark is actually the second female singer from Orange County to get a song on the Hill in 2009--our pal Trisha Smith's band, Honeypie, got their song "Never Get Enough" on an episdoe back in April. Read our interview with Smith about it here.

Of course, not to take anything away from either of those fine talents, but both spots ultimately pale in comparison to the greatest moment from OTH this year--and maybe TV history. That's after the jump.

Conan O'Brien has been doing his show on the west coast since June, but it took him until last night to make it to Orange County. Well, technically speaking, this segment was filmed at the Barbershop Harmony Society International Convention at the Hilton Anaheim and Honda Center, which took place June 28 through July 5. But the bit didn't air until last night, so, y'know.

As far as "Conan interacts with eccentric folks who take themselves surprisingly seriously" go, it's no "Conan playing old-timey baseball," but it's still pretty good. ("It's one of those rare competitions where there are no winners. Only losers.") Don't be confused by Michael Moore up there! The video will start right with the barbershop segment. (Well, after an ad or two.)

​Nick Jr.'s Yo Gabba Gabba! isn't a typical kiddie fare and anyone that's into music should know that by now, and it's not just those oddly appealing monsters and robots like the Gary Baseman-esque Muno. The show--co-created by Huntington Beach resident/Aquabats lead singer Christian Jacobs, by the way--has featured surprisingly hip bands so many times that it's really not surprising any more. Among the names: the Roots, Of Montreal, Mates of States, the Shins, Hot Hot Heat, Chromeo and Mark Mothersbaugh; all performing absolutely kid-friendly yet not strictly "kiddie" tunes.

Several of those acts are on the upcoming Music Is Awesome! a compilation, a soundtrack featuring some Gabba's best performances due out on October 20. Track listing, courtesy Pitchfork, after the jump.

​

So, apparently everyone else already knew this a year ago, but apparently Alex's Bar in Long Beach is used as the location for "Fangtasia," the vampire bar on HBO drama True Blood, currently in its second season.

I just learned this yesterday through a post on The District's site. I posted about it on our Twitter, and got some typical responses, like "good question, because i think everyone else in the OC figured it out last season.. lol," from the amusingly Twitter-named "drnkandfkedup."

​

Yeah, this is an LA event, but come on. It's worth the trip.

From 1993 to 1995 MTV aired a sketch comedy show called The State, which launched the careers of future comic superstars--er, stars--Michael Ian Black, Michael Showalter, David Wain (the three awesome dudes from Stella) and Reno 911's Thomas Lennon, Ben Garant and Kerri Kenney. (Not to mention Ken Marino, from Veronica Mars and Party Down and a bunch of other stuff. And Joe Lo Truglio, who's now on Reno 911 and had that great cameo in Superbad. And Michael Patrick Jann, who directed Drop Dead Gorgeous. And Todd Holoubek and Kevin Allison, who haven't done so much, or, at all since.)

For me and many other people my age, it was a huge influence on what type of stuff I find funny. Essentially, it's my favorite show ever. And now it's finally on DVD, after years of of rumor, innuendo and release dates that were later scrapped. Given the many false starts and like, 14 years or dreaming about such a day (even though I admittedly didn't know what a DVD was in 1995), I said I wouldn't believe it until I held the DVD in my hand, even though a firm July 14 release date was announced a few weeks ago.



Now I believe.

Any band with a drummer named "Coffin Joe" has to be worth seeing, right? Well, you'll have your chance to do just so on September 30, when London's The Horrors come to Detroit Bar. Can't make that? Why, they'll be at the Glass House two days later, on October 2!

This is the band's return to the area, following their gig opening up for the Kills at the Glass House last month. Tickets for both shows go on sale this Friday; 10 a.m. for the Detroit show and noon for the Glass House. The latter show is $15, don't see a Detroit Bar price yet. (Probably around there, eh?)

Also coming to Detroit: Steve Aoki--DJ, founder of Dim Mak records, former Newport Beach resident and son of late Benihana founder Rocky Aoki. He'll be there August 12 along with "DJ MomJeans," aka Danny Masterson from That '70s Show. (Really with Seth and Amy?)

So many guest stars! It's sad to see another season of the totally outrageously hilariously awesome 30 Rock end, especially given today's totally outrageously completely lame news that it once again won't start until midseason next year. Blerg indeed.

But savor the good times with this video, from last week's season finale, featuring Clay Aiken sharing the mic with Elvis Costello, a surprisingly relevant "We Are the World" parody, a conspicuously absent MCA, and a bunch of people--like Steve Earle and Rachael Yamagata--that were never identified during the episode and thus a lot of people probably didn't recognize. Sad!

Well, hopefully someone will post a better video of this, but here's No Doubt's appearance on Gossip Girl last night. They played an '80s parallel universe version of themselves (called "Snowed Out," ahahahahaha, so clever) in a mostly flashback episode meant to test the waters for a possible spinoff starring Brittany Snow at a young Lily Rhodes (what we call in the business a "backdoor pilot"). They performed their cover of "Stand and Deliver" by Adam and the Ants, the same tune they played during the encore of their return show at Bamboozle earlier this month.

No Doubt will be playing Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Irvine on July 31, August 1, August 2 and August 4; scattered tickets still available through Live Nation.

We told you earlier in the week about Huntington Beach folk-poppers honeypie getting their music on One Tree Hill, and now one of their songs will be featured on another network TV show, this time on the weekly excuse to show Jennifer Love Hewitt wearing revealing tops, Ghost Whisperer on CBS.  (Surely two of the average Heard Mentality reader's favorite shows, no?)

The song is "Uh Oh," and Ghost Whisperer airs 'round these parts 8 p.m. Friday (that's tonight, yup) on channel 2. Honeypie plays eVocal tomorrow, and yesterday they were on KUCI performing a cover of "Hey Jude" along with the members of Yellow Red Sparks, We Are The Pilots and the New Limb. Video after the jump, and you just may spot someone you recognize! (Hint: it's me!)

Sorry, For the Love of Ray J fans. Not just sorry because you admit to liking For the Love of Ray J (that just means you're honest), but sorry because Ray J's show at the newly reopened Galaxy in Santa Ana, scheduled for Thursday May 7, has been canceled. Truly disappointing news for anyone hoping to attend and soak up some of his smooth playa ways.

Word from the Galaxy is that Ray J's booking agent double-booked him, and given that Ray J's MySpace has him playing in New York that night, there was clearly some epic miscommunication going on. According to the Galaxy, that night will instead feature Colby O'Donis, the featured artist on Lady Gaga's smash hit "Just Dance." Plus, he's never, to our knowledge, been in a sex tape with Kim Kardashian, so he's got that going for him. Ticketmaster still has the Ray J show listed, but it's gone from the Galaxy's site.

On the horizon for the Galaxy: the English Beat on May 9, De La Soul on June 20 (they were originally supposed to play the reopening of the venue in March), the Smithereens on July 24 and OMG, Warrant on August 14. Should be a cool drink of water; possibly a sweet surprise.

EDIT: Apparently the Colby O'Donis show isn't happening either: it's not on his MySpace, or the Galaxy's Web site.

Sarah Buss

Huntington Beach band Honeypie had their song "Never Get Enough" played on last night's episode of the CW's charmingly absurd One Tree Hill. A cool deal for any band, but especially for them, given their relative newness--their second show (ever!) as a band takes place this Saturday at eVocal. I talked to Honeypie lead singer Trisha Smith this afternoon about how it all came about--another show appearance in the very near future.

Smith credits her association with Jeremy Barnett of Buddy Buddy Music Publishing, whom she met when still with the band Venus Infers.

"He got our songs when I was in that band on The Real World and The Gauntlet," she says. "I was talking to him about how after we parted ways and everything that I really wanted to get back in a band, record, do something with music."

Through Barnett, Smith met Darian Zahedi, who wrote the four songs on Honeypie's EP.

To get the obvious out of the way first: Yes, One Tree Hill is still on the air. New episodes. I know, weird, right?

Anyway, local band honeypie--who only have one live show under their belt so far!--will have their song "Never Get Enough" featured on the whacked out teen drama (well, there were teens on it at one point, at least) tonight. The timing works out well for them, as they're having their second show this Saturday at eVocal, along with Yellow Red Sparks, the New Limb and We Are the Pilots.

I wrote rather lovingly about honeypie in our Locals Only feature a couple of months ago, so it's cool to see them get something like this so early in their (thus far quite promising) careers. I even said that "Never Get Enough" delivered "a sweet, pastoral folk, with a tinge of old-school country." Exactly what One Tree Hill needs!

Now, when I think about One Tree Hill, I'll have something else to think about other than this awesome, awesome clip from The Soup.

The latest wacky coming-of-age comedy is Adventureland, and it's coming out this Friday. It doesn't necessarily look like anything too special (kid gets a goofy job! meets the girl of his dreams! who would guess! some sight gags in between!), but it does have a few things going for it: Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig, the undeniable hunkiness of Ryan Reynolds, and, though the movie takes place in 1987, the song "Call In The Cavalry" by our very own the Shys in one of the TV spots. Hey, here it is!

Yep. Both of the Orange County folks in the top 36--Mishavonna Henson and Kai Kalama--were eliminated last night during the American Idol results show. Not really surprising, given the thoroughly lukewarm responses to their performances last night, but still, a bit of a letdown, no? They do have a chance to return via the exciting new "wildcard" round on March 5 ("wildcard, bitches!" to echo Charlie from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia), so we'll see how all that goes. I knew Train was a bad idea.

Oh boy. Both of our remaining local American Idol hopefuls--Mishavonna Henson and Kai Kalama--performed on the shizow last night.

Videos and surely insightful commentary after the jump, yep.

American Idol finalized their top 36 last night, and Orange County is responsible for two of them--that's 5.555(and so on) percent! Not too shabby.

Irvine's Mishavonna Henson (left) and San Clemente's Kai Kalama both made it through into the live episodes, which start this Tuesday with the first crop of 12 semifinalists performing. We'll be tracking their progress here, of course. Go team OC! Yay for opportunties to make still-funny Ryan Seacrest jokes!

We're big fans of Venus Infers here, so it's rather heartening to hear that this week they've made it to one of rock music's pinnacles. Namely, they had their music played on the back ground of one of the many spinoffs of MTV faux-reality sensation "The Hills."

It's not every day that my love for serialized teen dramas intersects with my sworn duty to cover our local music scene, but a wonderful thing occurred during tonight's Gossip Girl on The CW: Blair's fateful late-episode meeting regarding her Yale application was scored by "Mexican Dogs," a song from the latest Cold War Kids release, Loyalty to Loyalty. The show always does well its musical cues, and that song really added some extra emotional punch (honestly!) to the climactic scene, as well as hooking up CWK with one of those "Music heard on tonight's Gossip Girl..." plugs at the end of the episode, complete with a shot of the album cover. Good for you, guys, but Chuck's uncle is still a real dick.

The star of tonight's American Idol eighth (I know, only eight?) season premiere of American Idol is surely Katrina Darrell, already known the world over as "Bikini Girl." That clever nickname is derived from the fact that she wore a bikini to the audition, which seems to be the only reason she made it through despite a subpar version of Mariah Carey's "Vision of Love."

Anyway, even though the auditions shown were shot in Phoenix, she's actually from Chino Hills (according to no less a source than the Popcrunch blog), a town bordering our own fair county. So given that we cover Long Beach, Pomona and Cerritos, we might as well claim her as ours. Um...yay? I'll take her over Rick Warren.

Here's the video. It's pretty creepy for several reasons: the lascivious slow-mo and close-ups, the obvious sexism of the male judges and the attempts by Ryan Seacrest to appear like he didn't find Darrell's making out offer gross. The fact that there's a fourth judge now is also disorienting, but she appears to be a good bit sharper than the other three (clearly not too impressive of a feat), so good for her.

Here's the video. There's some weird crap tacked onto the end of it, I dunno why.

American Idol, a show a small number of you may have a passing familiarity with, returns tonight (8 p.m., Fox) with a sure-to-be-scintillating two hour eighth season premiere. Of course, the first few weeks are always just auditions, so if you're one of those people who only like to watch bad folks fail spectacularly (like say, this guy), then this is definitely the time to tune in.

The first round of televised auditions are from Phoenix (home of season six winner Jordin Sparks; check out a totally awesome article I wrote about that here), which is sort of weird for me. Not only is that where I'm from, this is also the first year in a while that AI has started and I'm not doing TV coverage of any sort as part of my job. I can only imagine the great night that I would have in front of me sitting at home and watching all this on TV! And writing about it! Sigh. Instead I'll just go out and see music instead. But if I'm lucky, maybe someone from around here will end up as one of the finalists! And I can write about that! Oh, that'd be great. Almost as cool as that interview I did with the kid that won the "Grease" reality show two years ago.