Beck’s dinnertime show Thursday night at the Echo was

more like an hourlong sampler platter with the usual heaping helping of surprising

flavors. The 36-year-old musical alchemist, fronting a six-piece band, test-drove all

manner of new permutations, his ensemble at their most savory and powerful through a

couple numbers that could only be described as stoner jams.

Of course, even those jams at times broke off and became something else — Beck has a

way of making everything sound like a tangent for 15 seconds. Then, suddenly, it all

works; it’s all good.

Fresh from a rehearsal, or so the band said, Beck’s sextet gave a capacity crowd (the

show was not announced until late afternoon and still attracted a long line on Sunset

Boulevard) a taste of the familiar funk and hip-hop. But the blowback from a couple

psychedelic stomps, with their clatter of shakers, cowbells, noisemakers and harmonica

and thick lines from bassist Justin

Meldal-Johnsen, packed a punch.

Waiter, a little more stoner rock, please …

◊ ◊ ◊

Beck graciously thanked the kid bands who were playing later in the night for

allowing his group’s incursion on their bill. Hey, does this mean Metro Station (a promising

electro-pop quartet) can say Beck opened for them?

◊ ◊ ◊

Later, across

town at the cozy West Hollywood club Tempest, unsigned English quartet the Screening helped kick off the first

night of Death Disco, the new Thursday night promotion from a British contingent that

includes Creation Records founder Alan McGee.

The

Screening’s quick set of punked-up Britpop was their sixth performance in three days —

ah, showcasing in Los Angeles. They soldiered through it, and probably the only faux pas

of the evening was the flip-flops worn by Liam Gallagher-channeling front man Tom Nurse.

"If you wear a leather jacket," said one astute

columnist and fashion expert, "you need to have substantial shoes."

The Screening returns to Tempest tonight for Club Underground.

◊ ◊ ◊

Touts for Friday, March 23: Anti-Flag and Alexisonfire top a bill of edgy punks at the

Wiltern. … The Start and the Randies play the Viper Room. … Elvis Perkins (whom we previ

ewed in the Calendar Weekend section of the Times) and Let’s Go Sailing are at the Echo. …

Sold-out shows: Paolo Nutini at the Avalon, and

Heavens at the Troubadour. … And many of you

have probably heard the song by the Trucks that

I cannot reference on a family blog. The Bellingham, Wash., punkers perform at El Cid.

Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

Is it bad

form to say Let’s Go Sailing is

picking up steam? Or will lines like that just sink me?

Suffice to say things are going well for the Los Angeles chamber-pop ensemble since

it self-released "The Chaos in Order" last year. On Tuesday, the album will

be properly released on Yardley Pop/GR2. Plus, a couple of the band’s songs will appear

on a popular television

program tonight, which ought to put Shana Levy and her bandmates in a pretty good

mood for gigs supporting Elvis Perkins on Friday at the Echo and Saturday at Largo.

Those shows are two early stops on a monthlong tour that should raise the band’s

visibility considerably.

||| Download: "Icicles." 

◊ ◊ ◊

Touts for Thursday, March 22: You have to be

pretty grumpy not to smile a little bit when you listen to "New Magnetic

Wonder" by veteran pop band the Apples in

Stereo. Go ahead, stream it at their site. Or see them at Spaceland tonight. … Badly Drawn Boy has a new album too,

"Born in the U.K.," as well as a show tonight at the El Rey Theatre. … Heavy

hitters Killswitch Engage head a

bill of metal-minded bands at the Wiltern. … Locals the Autumns bring their epic stylings to the Scene

in Glendale. … And Explorers Club,

a young harmonizing sextet from South Carolina who were, well, peachy keen at Spaceland

on Wednesday, play another gig, this time at the Echo. And sources who threatened to

break my fingers if I say more tell me it’s a good idea to get to the Echo early —

like, 8.

Spring is the season international bands dip their toes in the great big musical

waters of the United States, and that doesn’t just go for major-label Next Big Things

like the Fratellis, who brought their

tight pub anthems to the Troubadour on Monday.

Scruffy

indie bands angle their tour vans toward L.A. too, and they can surprise. After all, if

muscle made music memorable, I’d be able to name more than one song off the 2005 album

by these sharp-dressed lads.

And I would have forgotten the 2005 release by Goldrush altogether. Which is far from the case.

Goldrush isn’t likely to be tabbed Next Big Thing; the Oxford, England, act is

merely a blue-collar quartet with an unlikely ear for Americana and the endurance, for

now, to be starving artists. The follow-up to the band’s 2005 collection

"Ozona" is titled "The Heart Is the Place" (due April 10). The

electronica-tinged album is loopier and more experimental than its twangy predecessor

while still retaining the country-boy charm that front man Robin Bennett exudes

onstage.

Goldrush

arrives at Spaceland tonight for Club NME

with labelmates the Electric Soft

Parade (both bands have U.S. deals with L.A. label Better Looking Records). Hailing from

Brighton, England, onetime Mercury Prize nominee ESP is the handiwork of brothers Tom

and Alex White, who fashion slightly warped but highly cinematic melodies that will

appeal to adventurous ears. Their U.S. debut, "No Need to Be Down-Hearted" is

due out April 24.

||| Download Goldrush’s "Heaven’s My Destination."

||| Exclusive download of the Electric Soft Parade’s "Appropri

ate Ending."

◊ ◊ ◊

Touts for Wednesday, March

21: Charlie Wadham and the

Harmony Brothers celebrate the release of "Free Up Your Schedule" at Bordello. … Three great bands in one spot at

the Echo — Dirty on Purpose, the Helio Sequence and the Besnard Lakes. … Foreign Born is the opening act at the

Troubadour. … At the Knitting Factory it’s (Rockstar Supernova finalist) Storm Large & the Balls on the

main stage and 400 Blows in the front

room. … The Whigs headline the Viper

Room. … IAMX (Chris Corner of the Sneaker

Pimps) has sold out Safari Sam’s. … And Radars to the Sky play the Silverlake

Lounge.

Indie rock quartet the Slow Signal

Fade, who carved out a nice shoegazey sound on one album and two EPs over five

years, are calling it quits. The Los Angeles band said in an e-mail: "No tales of

bad blood, scorned love affairs or baby’s mama drama here, the band has mutually decided

that it was no longer possible to sustain a ‘normal’ existence on the always ‘on the

verge’ lifestyle."

||| The Slow Signal Fade plays a goodbye show April 16 at the Troubadour. It’s free.

||| Hear some SSF here.

The show scheduled for Spaceland tonight featuring British songstress Amy Winehouse has been canceled by the artist,

a spokesperson for the venue said this afternoon.

"We’re waiting to hear an official reason," the spokesperson said. "We

heard she complained the stage was too small, but … "

Winehouse, who has earned quite a bit of acclaim for her pipes, also has a history of erratic behavior,

although none of that was in evidence Monday night during her show at the Roxy Theatre,

after which she made nice with plenty of important people. A phone call

to the artist’s publicist was not immediately returned.

[Hoofing it to the record store again …]

Recommended

The

Willowz, "Chautauqua," (Dim Mak): The Orange County quartet

stretches its retro-psychedelic stomp on its third album (and first for DJ Steve Aoki’s

label), and that’s not always a good thing. But largely you have to give

singer-guitarist Richie James Follin and bassist-singer Jessica Reynoza (now joined by

guitarist Aric Bohn and Ted Humphrey) credit for aiming their darts squarely at the

center of the Stones rock pantheon. The bluesy squalor will remind you of the likes of

Neil Young, Dinosaur Jr. and even Dead Moon–perfect for hot summer days and long rides

in that flower-painted VW bus.

||| Download: "Evil Son."

||| And prepare for a new coat of paint on the walls at Cinespace: The Willowz celebrate the

album’s release with a show at the Hollywood Boulevard venue tonight. They will be

joined by Vietnam, Wolf & Cub and the Horrors.

Also

recommended

El-P, "I’ll Sleep When You’re

Dead" (Definitive Jux): Five years in the making, the explosive sophomore effort by

the Def Jux main man features ear-splitting production and brain-bending lyrics, not to

mention guest turns by the likes of Cage, Aesop Rock, Trent Reznor, members of the Mars

Volta and James McNew of Yo La Tengo. Make room on those year-end Top 10 lists.

Other opinions

In case you missed your Sunday paper, here’s a couple The Times reviewed in Record

Rack:

||| LCD

Soundsystem, "Sound of Silver."

||| M

odest Mouse, "We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank."

[Correspondent August Brown checks in from Monday night’s party at the

Wiltern:]

Kele Okereke isn’t the real front man of Bloc Party. Yes, he’s the sexy, visually arresting

guy in the middle of the stage reminiscing about drug-addled young London and picking

blackberries. But their set at the Wiltern made it clear that their goofy, ferocious and

perpetually shirtless drummer, Matt Tong, is the actual reason they won the post-punk

revivalist sweepstakes. He was also the most interesting thing happening on stage, for

better or worse.

Drawing

equally from their experimental and politically volatile new album “A Weekend In The

City” and their barnstorming debut “Silent Alarm,” the band struggled to get its footing

through a sludgy live mix. Bloc Party is in the tricky position of being popular enough

to fill the Wiltern yet not quite explosive enough to command a stage that size.

Underrated guitarist Russell Lissack squealed and skronked through his anti-solo on “The

Prayer” while Tong propelled the band with disciplined, pummeling precision. But Bloc

Party sounds best in a packed room after many, many drinks, and leaner clubby hits like

“Banquet” felt like a more natural speed for the group, at least in a live setting.

Okereke is in the middle of a identity crisis with the music press right now, as their

album earns raves while gossip vampires speculate about his sexuality. A

gender-ambiguous love story makes “I Still Remember” a brave and touching track, one of

the new album’s best. But their live show could have used a bit more of that tension.

Photo: Vice Records.

South by Southwest, that temblor of music

(and commerce, omigosh!) that finally subsided in Austin

over the weekend, has sent out its waves of guitar-toting, van-driving rock bands, which

in the next few days will wash over Los Angeles like a tsunami. Which means there are

going to be some tough show-going decisions this week.

Among

tonight’s offerings is M for Montreal, a

showcase of up-and-coming Quebecers that arrives at the El Rey Theatre with a spiffy tour bus

and, presumably, the same Canadian charm that caused us to swoon over the likes of Arcade Fire, Wolf Parade and the Dears. Which is cool, except that if I were

slugging it out in an indie band in Echo Park, I might be just a little bit envious that

similarly itty-bitty bands from halfway across the world get what amounts to a free ride

to showcase their wares in L.A.

M for Montreal, after all, is sponsored by

the Government of Canada, the Quebec Government Office and Musicaction Canada, among

others. Recent tours that brought Swedish, Finnish (really dug the moose on the logo of

the Finnish Moosic Tour, by the way) and

Australian bands to the U.S. also had the backing of government agencies and/or arts

councils, all of which believe that exporting music to the U.S. is good for their

respective economies. Even the British

government has gotten into the act; it is behind the West Coast appearances of the

London quartet Scanners over the next

couple weeks.

Can you envision the Export Silver Lake Music bus heading out

on tour with three of the neighborhood’s finest music acts aboard? Me neither. I can,

however, imagine the political wrangling that must go on to decide which bands merit

government sponsorship.

So tonight, at the El Rey, here’s what the fine

French-speaking province is exporting: Les

Breastfeeders, a pop-punk sextet with a sound somewhere between the female-fronted

bands that play L.A.’s Kiss or Kill nights

and what the Like want to sound like;

Patrick Watson, a quartet with an

oddly cinematic Nick Drake-inspired sound; and Plaster, a cool, experimental-minded

electronic trio whose stuff could be the soundtrack to a case of the hiccups. Greet them

warmly.

◊ ◊ ◊

More touts for Monday, March 19:

The next-big-thing (we’ll see about that) trio out of Scotland, the Fratellis, have sold out the Troubadour. …

A Buzz Band loyalist who was in Austin tells me: "There was so much Amy Winehouse hype it felt like you were

missing God if you didn’t see her." She plays the Roxy. … And the local bands

playing residencies on the Eastside have some party-crashers: Australian stoner-rock

specialists Wolf & Cub join Berko at Spaceland; and strobe-happy Londoners the Horrors play at the Airborne Toxic Event’s event at

the Echo. … And speaking of the Like, the L.A. trio opens for Bloc Party at the sold-out Wiltern.

Photo of Les Breastfeeders by John Londono.

Seems as if the whole world is in Austin without me.

It’s hard to follow

the South by Southwest Music Festival from a

distance because folks are frequently partying too hard to report very coherently. Radio Free Silverlake rounded up

a few of the blogs that are covering, and L.A.’s Little Radio is webcasting its

shindig, with uneven results.

Occasional Buzz Bands

correspondent Jeff Miller is filing some entertaining notes here, and he calls to point out

that OreskaBand, the six-girl ska-punk outfit

from Japan, will be playing in Hollywood on Sunday at the Knitting Factory. "Tight

horn section, super-super fun," he says.

Also getting a lot of attention

was Tom Morello’s set at the Hotel Cafe party. Performing (as he did in recent months at

the Cahuenga Boulevard venue) as the

Nightwatchman, Morello knocked ‘em dead with guests such as Perry Farrell, Pete

Townshend, Slash and Wayne Kramer.

Some folks didn’t make the party. Flamenco

metal guitar duo Rodrigo y Gabriela had visa problems and couldn’t get into the U.S. in

time. And Gliss, poor Gliss. The L.A. trio

reports they are stranded in Van Horn, Texas, the band’s van (newly converted to

biodiesel) having broken down.

Also amusing is some backlash directed at the

Swedish trio Peter Bjorn and John, whose

single "Young Folks" has become a favorite of, well, young folks — and who

kind of spoiled for us at their recent

Roxy show by lip-syncing the whistling part. Is this hater for real? Or is it

somebody’s ploy to get the Swedes even more attention? I only know that their current

album, while nice and twee, is no match for their gutsier 2004 release "Falling Out," which was virtually overlooked.

Photo

of OreskaBand at a December show from OreskaBand.com.

◊ ◊ ◊

Touts for Friday, March 16: The Briggs lead a nice punk lineup at the

Knitting Factory. … The Zombies rock you back at the Fonda Theatre. … The Clipse raps at the El Rey Theatre. … Latin

ska band Almalafa

celebrates the release of its CD at Safari Sam’s. … And if you’ve never seen Laurence Juber play guitar, you’re missing out.

I saw him play a living room show several years ago and the fingerstyle guitarist, who

played next to Paul McCartney in Wings for a while, was mesmerizing. Juber plays at 8

tonight at Dr. Music, 1812 Colorado Blvd. in Eagle Rock. Tickets are $15. (323)

258-9010.

Bands

that trade in detached cool usually finish runners-up to the crowds in Silver Lake, that

vast expanse of music fans with arms folded or hands in pockets. You get heads to bob or

feet to tap at Spaceland, and folks are liable to think you’re the catchiest thing since

those really tall PBR drafts. More than that, and you might get an offer to do a reality

TV show.

How refreshing, then, to see bodies actually move Wednesday night at Club NME,

without the headliner even having to ask (which is really bad form), or even bantering

very much. Yes, the cool professionalism with which Fijuiya & Miyagi laid out their grooves

was a thing of beauty, for fans familiar with their debut "Transparent Things"

(which came out last month) as well as those who showed up on somebody’s recommendation

expecting to see a Japanese duo. And there were the latter.

Fujiya & Miyagi are a trio, ironically named, and a very British trio at that.

Warm-up suits zipped to the top, collars up. Eye contact with the equipment only.

"Thanks" as a conversation starter and ender. And David Best’s whisper-sung

lyrics about ankle injuries, collarbones, shoes and sundry machines, all very witty,

thank you. The brilliantly sparse presentation left listeners focused on the grooves,

which for all their synthetics are mighty powerful. You’d never call it any one thing;

instead, Fujiya & Miyagi merely nod, as if they were walking briskly down the street

and tacitly acknowledging their music’s ghosts: funk, dancefloor, electro-pop,

Krautrock.

Whatever works. As Silver Lake’s almost-dancers gave in to actual wriggling on

Wednesday, somebody wisecracked: "Whoa, look out there, somebody’s glasses might

fly off."

It was even better, kind of. This morning, seemingly coming out of the back of my

head, was the sticky bassline to "Sucker Punch." Now that’s the opposite of

detached.

Photo: Bassist Matt Hainsby (Kevin Bronson/LAT)

◊ ◊ ◊

Touts for Thursday, March 15: Not everybody is in Austin for

South by Southwest. I don’t think. Head

Automatica brings its seemingly radio-ready formula to the Troubadour (with

hard-eged up-and-comers Takota opening). … The Shore headlines Spaceland. … And folkie

Thao Nguyen performs at Tangier.