There are too many stories like this one.

Scott Harding, a Canadian-born, New York-based musician and producer who’s worked with artists including the Wu Tang Clan, Salif Keita, Prince Paul, and Medeski, Martin and Wood, was recently involved in a life-shattering accident. Leaving his Brooklyn recording studio in a cab during the wee hours of February 9, he was hit and run by a driver who remains unapprehended. Harding’s back was broken in the accident, and his spine was damaged. He’s in the hospital, waiting to have major surgery, and right now he’s being classified as a paraplegic.

That’s imponderably bad. On top of it, like so many music people, Scotty Hard (as his friends call him) has no health insurance. It’s unclear how he will pay for his own urgent care, not to mention the major rehabilitation he will soon embark upon.

Harding does have good friends, and they’ve set up a trust for him. His old musical partner and best pal Dennis is blogging about his recovery every day; you can obtain details about how to donate to Scott’s fund at his website. If you want to be more intimately involved, you can also get on an email list: just write scottyupdates@gmail.com.

Read Full Story

Will.i.am has done it again. The multiplatinum-selling rapper-singer-producer behind the Barack Obama-boosting viral blockbuster “Yes We Can” posted a new music video promoting the Illinois senator’s presidential run this morning. Check out “We Are the Ones” here.

Since going online in early February, “Yes We Can” (which features various and sundry boldfaced names including Scarlett Johansson, John Legend and Laker great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar singing and reciting an Obama campaign stump speech) has been streamed some 16 million times. “We Are the Ones” similarly showcases an eclectic array of boldfaced names — Jessica Alba (pictured, from the video), Ryan Phillippe, Macy Gray and George Lopez among them — chanting “Oh-bah-ma! Oh-bah-ma!” over a hip-hop beat with sparse piano accompaniment. Some of them also sing or alternately explain their aspirations for candidate and country.

“I think the thing that inspires me the most about Barack Obama is that he really is going to be the president of the United States,” says actress Kerry Washington. “He’s not going to be the president of the top 10% or the president of the most powerful corporations or the president of the most powerful lobbyists. He’s going to be our president.” According to a spokeswoman for the video, will.i.am put the song’s music together in just two hours. And he didn’t so much enlist the celebrity contingent (which also includes “Ugly Betty” star Eric Mabius, John Leguizamo, Regina King, actor Luis Guzman and rapper-singer Tyrese) as they enlisted him. The Black Eyed Peas frontman went forward after scores of famous well-wishers asked him if they could be part of a subsequent pro-Obama viral video. “Everybody came to him,” spokeswoman Elina Heng explained of will.i.am. “There wasn’t too much outreach on his part.”

– Chris Lee

P.S. Some members of Arcade Fire will also be stumping for Obama in Ohio at free concerts on March 2 and 3.

There’s something more than a little dorky about the whole neo-rockabilly genre. It’s most popular incarnations, psychobilly and horrorbilly (both terms are difficult to type with a straight face) are the silliest by far, amping up and gamely aping trends pioneered nearly 30 years ago by the far-more-innovative Cramps and Meteors. Spider web tattoos, mile-high pompadours and tongue-in-cheek ‘tude are the distinguishing characteristics of current bands such as Nekromantix, Mad Sin and the insufferable Horrorpops, whose borrowed look and sound already seem dated and corny.

Real rockabilly is more of a state of mind than a fashion statement. It’s as basic as the blues, a sweaty, switchblade-wielding, gin-fueled primal yelp that is one of the backbones of modern rock ‘n’ roll. Although rooted in a style that first made the scene more than 50 years ago, it doesn’t have to be a hollow nostalgia trip. That’s why it was such a joy to stumble across one of the best new rockabilly acts on wax, located right here in our own backyard – in the San Fernando Valley, to be exact.

Luis and the Wildfires, a Latino four-piece with a raw sound that harks back to the simple purity of hillbilly rockers like Hayden Thompson and Johnny Carroll, bursts with energy and style without getting in-your-face about it. Sure, they sport pompadours and ’50s threads, and charismatic frontman Luis Arriaga wields his acoustic guitar Elvis-style, but they also play unfiltered, straight-ahead rockabilly music that burns all the way down like a double shot of Kentucky bourbon. Enough so to catch the ear of distinguished R&B label Norton Records, which recently released their debut LP, “Brain Jail,” a jumpin’ collection of tight, catchy numbers that are fun and dangerous simultaneously, a cocktail that is generally lost to the current crop of rockabilly pretenders. First released on CD by cool local rockabilly revival label Wild Records, the vinyl version contains two bonus cuts previously unavailable.

–Jason Gelt

Catch them live tonight at the Westchester Bar and Grill.

Photo: Wild Records

The Magnanimous Collector, aka Jason Gelt, has 2,500 LPs, 45s and 10-inches. In true collector-nerd style, he once calculated that he could spin different records nonstop for more than 65 days. He collects R&B, soul, rockabilly, psychedelic, ’60s garage, bubblegum, Jamaican ska, old country, exotica, novelty records, lots and lots of ’70s, ’80s and beyond punk rock, and garage rock. In short, he is open — nay, open-hearted — to everything. For at least one spin, anyway…

Her name is Katie White. Not Stacey, not Jane, not “her” or any of that other stuff she rap-sings in the wonderfully addictive single “That’s Not My Name.” White is blond, stylish, and when she’s not rockin the mic, she straps on a guitar and fronts the Ting Tings, the critically acclaimed duo straight outta Salford, U.K.

Her dashing drummer, Jules De Martino, supplies backing vocals. Together, the Ting Tings have created a dynamic, fresh sound evoking ’80s hooks at the right moments, all of which earned them a rightful place on year-end Top 10 critics’ lists all over England in 2007.

Only problem is, unless you live in the U.K., you won’t (for now) be able to buy any Ting Tings off iTunes, including “That’s Not My Name.” (But if you make it after the jump, there might be something special awaiting you.)

Speaking of names, in a recent interview with NME — which recently praised the duo as being “by far the best pop band the UK has produced in years” — White explained that the band name comes from an actual person. “I used to work for a girl called Ting Ting. We didn’t really decide to be a band but everybody said they liked us so we decided to pick a name and Ting Ting was it. Then we Googled it and found out that it meant ‘the sound of innovation on an open mind’, so we just thought screw it let’s call us that!”

Read Full Story

Mezzanine Owls might have the most passive-aggressive sound around.

Front man Jack Burnside sings woundedly, tossing around snippets of imagery that could have come from a dog-eared journal, while trading twitchy, fuzzed-out guitar lines with Jonathan Zeitlin. Atop the churning rhythms laid out by bassist Dan Horne and drummer Pauline Mu, the results can be otherworldly. “It’s not like you make a conscious choice — you sing it the way it feels to you,” Burnside says. “Sometimes it becomes its own reality.”

That concept plays out in the song/metaphor “Snow Globe,” an insular three minutes of fury off the L.A. quartet’s new EP. The release, a vinyl 7-incher with a four-song digital download (on a new imprint, Jaxart, spun off the local Rock Insider blog), follows last year’s Owls debut, “Slingshot Echoes.” Both were recorded in Athens, Ga., with Andy LeMaster (the man behind Now It’s Overhead who also has collaborated with Bright Eyes and Azure Ray, among others). “We tried to be true to what we sound like live,” Burnside says.

The Owls’ local shows have proven enough of a hoot to win them fans among the shoegaze-pop followers of bands such as the Jesus and Mary Chain and Ride, as well as a fan or two closer to home. Burnside’s mother weighed in after a recent show: “She said we sounded apocalyptic,” he says. “How cool is that?”

||| Live: Mezzanine Owls play the Echo tonight with Eagle & Talon, Frankel and the Mae Shi.

||| Download: “Snow Globe.”

Photo by Timothy Norris

Other highlights for tonight, Feb. 28

The Walkmen and the Delta Spirit perform as part of the indie rock series at the Orange County Performing Artscenter’s Samueli Theatre. … Taken by Trees (ex-Concretes singer Victoria Bergsman) plays the Roxy. … British Sea Power winds up its two-night L.A. stand with a show at Spaceland. … The Vacation finishes up its residency at the Viper Room, with Run Run Run also playing .. And Tulsa, along with What Made Milwaukee Famous, plays the Silverlake Lounge.

– Kevin Bronson

To all following this ongoing Maxim-fake-reviews saga (now starring Nas!) who suspected there might be something more devious afoot in Maxim’s editorial policy toward reviews, David Peisner, the Maxim free-lancer responsible for penning the two hypothetical reviews, agrees with you.

Read Full Story

As if you didn’t get enough Elton John on Oscar night — OK, in fairness, his Academy Awards afterparty did raise $5.1 million for his AIDS Foundation — the knighted Brit has announced a show at the Honda Center on April 19. If you’re a fan, get yourself a ticket Monday. Word is ol’ Reggie still puts on a great show and isn’t afraid to play the hits.

Now, that’s the big fish, but there are lots of big names adding additional dates and venues to their ongoing tours this week: To wit, hip-hop royalty Mary J. Blige and Jay-Z will be at Verizon Wireless Amphitheater on April 18 (get tickets Saturday); prog gods Rush have added May 8 to their stay at the Nokia Theatre (get tickets Saturday); and the cowpunk icons of X have added April 11 to their visit to the Music Box @ Fonda.

But the longest (if not the biggest) announcements also bear repeating: First off, the emo carnival that is Bamboozle Left will be taking over Verizon Wireless Amphitheater for two nights: There’s Paramore, Jimmy Eat World, Face to Face and the All-American Rejects on April 5; and My Chemical Romance, Blaqk Audio, Anti-Flag, Chiodos, the Dillinger Escape Plan and From First to Last on April 6. You’ll have to wait for the shows, but you can buy your tickets right now.

That’s all well and good, but frankly, if you want a taste of truly “alternative” music, Spaceland has your number Sunday, when the club celebrates its 13th anniversary with an impressive slew of indie punk, rock and even rawk groups — 400 Blows, the Blood Arm, Earlimart, Wiskey Biscuit, Radar Bros., Oliver Future, Run Run Run, the Vacation, the Broken West, the Movies, Let’s Go Sailing and the Tyde.

Yep. Twelve bands for a 13th anniversary party. If that seems fishy, your nose is working. Count on a “surprise” artist balancing out the numbers.

– Liam Gowing

Photo of Elton John by Dan Steinberg/Associated Press

Rickie Lee Jones capped off her February residency at the Echoplex last night with a 2-hour-and-15-minute show that covered just about all the bases of her quirky 30-year career. But that still wasn’t enough for the folk-jazzbo poet. Making good on her musings to our own Richard Cromelin before the start of her four-show series – when she’d said she wanted to do “something different every night,” including ” ‘West Side Story,’ some or all of it” – Jones has added a show next Monday, in which she’ll take on the musical, with help from violinist-vocalist Petra Haden, bassist Rob Wasserman (who was part of her supporting cast Monday) and others. Tickets on sale now.

–Frank Farrar

Photo of Jones at Echoplex last night by Stefano Paltera/For The Times.

In the first recorded instance of tact in its publishing history, Maxim has officially apologized to the Black Crowes for making up a bunch of stuff about what their album might have sounded like if they’d heard it. Says Maxim editorial director James Kaminsky in a statement released today:

“It is Maxim’s editorial policy to assign star ratings only to those albums that have been heard in their entirety. Unfortunately, that policy was not followed in the March 2008 issue of our magazine and we apologize to our readers.”

Read Full Story

Dear Ann,

It was so cute at the Oscars when Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova won for that song from the “Once” soundtrack and then both stumped for indie art. What are some of your favorite soundtracks, especially ones that have helped expose new artists?

– Marina P., Glendale, Calif.

***

Dear Cinephile,

My Irish American heart swelled to see Mr. Hansard finally getting some stateside love after years of laboring with the Frames – a great band that still hasn’t really broken here. Hooking up with a Czech teen prodigy was a smart move. “Once” is a special case, because John Carney made it as an homage to Hansard’s music (before turning to film, Carney was a Frame) and to the magic of his musical connection with Irglova. But I digress…. “Juno” is, of course, the other big soundtrack of the season — why the supremely droll Kimya Dawson didn’t get an Oscar nod is beyond me. That film follows a common path in soundtracks, using one quirky musical voice to echo and enhance those of the main characters. “Juno” takes an interesting turn when lead actors Ellen Page and Michael Cera actually sing a song by Dawson’s duo, the Moldy Peaches – effectively switching roles with Dawson, echoing and enhancing her voice. This melding of cinematic vision and the pop sound was pioneered in the late 1960s, when rock dominated the zeitgeist and the bad boys of the art house reigned. “The Graduate” defined the era. Director Mike Nichols found a perfect counterpart to Dustin Hoffman’s middle-class lost boy in nebbishy Paul Simon, then at his most museful and quietly furious. Nichols essentially wrote the film to fit around Simon & Garfunkel’s post-collegiate pop.

Read Full Story