The promo junket may take bands into unlikely terrain to pitch their wares, but watching Stephen Malkmus jockey with Fox News’ resident blowhard Greg Gutfeld on his late-night stoner show “Red Eye” is, in effect, a Republican version of Narduwar. Malkmus parries with sheepish good humor about the whole ordeal, which amounts to Gutfeld reciting things he read on a Google search and waiting for Malkmus to respond (though I didn’t know he was Cate Blanchett’s singing voice in the Bob Dylan pic “I’m Not There”). Maybe Steve ran into Julia Allison in the lobby on the way out, which would make Gawker’s collective head explode into tiny fragments.

– August Brown

You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who begrudges Death Cab for Cutie their successful pirouette from scruffy indie-pop dudes to platinum-selling major-label rock band with 2005’s “Plans.” They did their time in the indie trenches, buffed up their pop hooks on later albums for Barsuk, took a swing at the majors and somehow made it work when contemporaries the Decemberists sort of flailed as a mainstream rock act (which makes sense, as they’re pretty much Iron Butterfly as fronted by an adenoidal Dave Eggers at this point). Frontman Ben Gibbard is kind of a charisma vacuum, but the band does lots of tricky little things right: unexpectedly melodic bass lines, open spaces between the prickly guitars and a deft touch of atmosphere from producer-guitarist Chris Walla (whose neither-here-nor-there solo album proved he really is the band’s Lindsey Buckingham).

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It’s a bit of a mystery why Detroit fuzz-masters the Dirtbombs have never achieved the recognition and filthy lucre they so richly deserve. Helmed by Mick Collins – whose musical prowess has spanned two decades and shaped influential acts like ’90s garage icons the Gories and Blacktop and the funk-struttin’ Voltaire Brothers – the signature rhythm-based Dirtbombs sound is defined by two drummers, two bass players and Collins’ driving guitar work and soulful vocals.

Hampered by an ever-shifting lineup (we’re on the 17^th variation), the band has nevertheless managed to produce four incredible albums in the last 10 years, the most recent being “We Have You Surrounded,” which is nearly five years on the heels of the last album, “Dangerous Magical Noise.”

The wait was well worth it, however. The new album on In the Red Records features stark cover art from punk rock icon Gary Panter and explodes with churning energy and bombastic Detroit style. A host of original new tunes join two covers to create a rock ’n' soul package that’s hard to beat. “It’s Not Fun Until They See You Cry” and “Wreck My Flow” stand out particularly, with the inspired Sparks cover “Sherlock Holmes” and Dead Moon’s anthem “Fire in the Western World” demonstrating the Dirtbombs varied musical influences.

–Jason Gelt

Mark your calendar: The Dirtbombs storm the Troubadour on May 17.

Photo: The Dirtbombs

Read more of the Magnanimous Collector here. 

Berlin-based DJ/producer Alex Ridha, better known as Boys Noize, isn’t exactly a fan of Miami. Or a fan of cameras, for that matter.

“It’s a weird place, honestly,” he said backstage before a Scion-sponsored gig Thursday afternoon for WMC. “There are some horrible people going around here.”

Regardless, the crowd, most of whom are dance-music industry insiders from New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago, ate up his set yesterday, which was heavy on material from his lauded 2007 release Oi Oi Oi.

“In Germany the minimal scene is so dominant,” he says of his overseas success, which now looks set to cross the Atlantic with shows booked at Coachella and several UK festivals later this spring and summer.

“When I started my [Boysnoize] label three years ago, none of this music was popular,” he says. Now that kindred acts such as Justice have broken in the U.S., Boys Noize’s hard, dissonant sound is resonating with dance music and indie rock fans.

“I’m more into techno than indie dance stuff,” he says. “But I’m happy American fans are discovering me.”

After Boys Noize’s two-hour set (where he played everything from an updated electro version of Laurie Anderson’s “Superman” to Justice), another buzzing German act, Digitalism, took the stage behind the Raleigh Hotel’s pool.

The Hamburg duo have already made sizable inroads in the U.S., thanks to their brand of dance music that verges on indie rock. Some have dubbed them the German Daft Punk.

Ridha actually went to college with one of the members of Digitalism in Hamburg, but he considers his Noize different from Digitalism’s brand of dance music.

“I would never play Digitalism in my set,” he says. “What I do is straight for the clubs … but I like them.”

Spoken like a true Teutonic gentleman.

–post and photograph by Charlie Amter

German artists Boys Noize and Digitalism play the Ultra Music Festival at Winter Music Conference today.

A travel advisory for emo kids everywhere: You might want to rethink that spring break in Mexico this year. The reason? Marauding hordes of crusty punks and metal heads are apparently taking to streets and pummeling anyone in sight with choppy bangs and red eyeliner. For almost a month now, mobs as large as 800 have been organizing via social-networking sites and hunting down emo kids in Mexico City, Queretaro and reportedly even more cities around the country. Why this is suddenly happening in a nation whose people’s affection for Morrissey is well-documented is unclear, and it’s striking to see fans of the current radio-dominating strain of alt-rock music in America as victims of widespread assaults. Daniel Hernandez is doing some great reporting at LA Weekly on this story, and he cites this anti-emo rant from Televisa host Kristoff as the flashpoint (with Kristoff’s choicest words coming at the :42 second mark). Mexican newspaper La Jornada goes as far as to say it’s a result of a social schism after the 2006 election tensions. There seems to be a nasty undercurrent of homophobia here, and Mexican gay-rights groups are organizing marches and meetings with local governments to quell the violence. Soundboard would never condone taste-based violence of any sort. That said, since when do Mexican riot police call Hare Krishnas for backup?– August Brown

Update: For a far more bemused take on the bruised and battered emos, read Ken Ellingwood from LA Times here.

My recently reignited obsession with Nick Cave has been well-documented here and here. But in case you didn’t think his upcoming Hollywood Bowl gig seemed awesome enough, here’s another reason to go: Cat Power has been added to the program. Will Chan and Nick perform “Henry Lee” together, as he and Polly Jean once did so sexily? One can hope….

The show takes place Sept. 17, with Ms. Marshall taking the stage at 7:30 p.m. Single tickets will be available beginning May 10 through the Bowl’s box office, (323) 850-2000, or by going to www.hollywoodbowl.com.

– Ann Powers

Photo of Chan Marshall by Roger Kisby/Getty Images

Miami’s annual dance music sleaze-a-thon, the Winter Music Conference, is nearly in full swing today, with most attendees wandering Collins Avenue looking for the best DJ events/hotel parties by 2 p.m. No one gets up before noon.

Some of today’s best events are at the Raleigh, where New York’s Lady GaGa is making her WMC debut at an Armani Exchange-sponsored rooftop terrace soiree.

Interscope has high hopes for the newly signed dance diva, who has already written songs for several artists (including Pussycat Dolls) and is on the verge of signing a publishing contract to augment her label deal.

“Jimmy [Iovine] and I get along great,” she says of the Interscope honcho from the rooftop of the Raleigh. “I’m the kind of Italian Brookyln girl he would have liked to take to the prom,” she laughs. “He loved me.”

The Lady, who’s fond of performing in naughty underwear ensembles, chains and stripper heels, got her start playing Brooklyn parties and clubs in Manhattan in 2005 with her equally brazen backup dancers. “I put together a show in New York where we spun beats on vinyl and I played keyboards over the records,” she says. “We wore matching bikinis,” the Lady giggles, adding that the show was “yummy.”

It remains to be seen whether of not the rest of America will find Lady GaGa’s musical offerings as delicious as New York does. Her music sounds not unlike a drunken Madonna, Peaches and Kylie Minogue recording session with lots of sticky Champagne spilled on the demos. Lady GaGa’s debut disc, made for the “rock and rollers who wanted to listen to pop records,” drops this summer. The big Madonna fan’s single, “Just Dance,” hits next week.

Oh, and Interscope recently moved her into a Hollywood-adjacent apartment, so look out, Angelenos.

–  Post and photo by Charlie Amter

Dizzee Rascal and Bun B couldn’t have less in common as rappers. The former is a snake-tongued young London MC making an unlikely transition from introspective, avant-garde grime into an Anglicized take on American indie rap (his recent signing to Def Jux was apt). Bun B, the surviving half of Houston vanguards UGK, keeps his cocky drawl deeply in the pocket, and sounds best over sweaty, trunk-rattling Southern bass and regal soul samples.

Yet on Dizzee’s new single, “Where Da G’s,” off 2007’s infuriatingly neglected “Maths & English,” the two have an unusual power balance: Dizzee as the whip-smart kid already aged before his time from label politics and crushing hype; Bun as the veteran professor of the Houston scene just now getting his due, but still reeling from the death of his UGK mate Pimp C. In the video, they kick it in Bun B’s home turf and lay ample hate on fake gangsters over a stark electro beat, and both have earned their vantage point to do so. They sound great for wholly different reasons — Dizzee firing his impenetrable patois in every direction, Bun coolly dismantling the beat with Texas swagger — but it adds up to a charged collaboration.

Bun plays the House of Blues on Friday, and Dizzee’s at the El Rey in May. Anyone interested in contemporary hip-hop should check out both.

– August Brown

It’s been quite a month for daredevil wacko and part time rapper Steve-O.

Arrested on March 3 and booked for vandalizing his own apartment and possession of a controlled substance (cocaine apparently), the “Jackass” star found himself facing eviction when he returned home. That’s when, according to his own MySpace blog, things began to spiral out of control. Or at least, more out of control than usual.

The cyberspace saga commences harmlessly enough with a posting on March 8, in which the 33-year-old announces that he’d been evicted and requests that his “Jackass” costars and friends help him move out the following morning. But the video clips in the following post from March 9 couldn’t be more terrifying. The second, “Eviction Party Begins,” shows Steve-O hosting a kind of bizzaro MTV Cribs: Half-naked and visibly intoxicated, he wanders around his trashed apartment carrying a hefty revolver, which at one point he uses to play Russian Roulette.

In the following entry, posted March 13, Steve-O announces that he’s in “the looney bin” because, the morning after his “Eviction Party Begins” was shot, his “Jackass” costars forced him into a hospital on a “5150,” a three-day psychiatric hold, later extended to a “5250,” 14-day hold.

That’s where things get really interesting.

The entries continue, posted by his assistant Jen Moore, but written by Steve-O from inside the undisclosed treatment center, where he may well have been completely sober for the first time in years. In their own way, these entries are as shocking as the infamous stunt in which Steve-O stapled his scrotum to his leg, because they reveal an intelligent, articulate, well-read and deeply philosophical individual coming to terms with a lifetime of substance abuse and related bipolar issues.

Spiked with moments of epiphany and apology, Steve-O’s confessional journey from drug-induced rock-bottom to something approaching health may be a cliche–of course, it’s one of the oldest in the Hollywood playbook–but it’s still remarkable.

Lots of questions remain: Will Steve-O stay sober or will he fall back into his bad habits? Will he be able to continue his inane stunt career after acknowledging that “the nature of my work almost embraced my addictions,” or will he retire? And what exactly are the ramifications of the dawning of the Age of Aquarius he discusses in his March 21 entry?

Time will tell.

–Liam Gowing

Not simply to aggravate all the readers who took exception to August Brown’s post on bro core, but the winner of this week’s on-sales info column is kid-core. Kids wearing Vans specifically. Yep, it’s that special time of year when teenage-centric punk, skating culture and quality footwear come together in a joyous, mobile orgy of noise and anti-consumerist consumerism known as the Vans Warped Tour, which will be making stops at the Fairplex in Pomona on June 20 and the Home Depot Center on Aug. 17.

If you’re into Angels & Airwaves, Reliant K, the Academy Is…, Every Time I Die, From First to Last, the Bronx, Street Dogs, Against Me!, Gym Class Heroes or any of the other bands on this year’s huge roster, pick up your tickets Saturday.

Yes, folks, this is the week that news of the big summer shows has started to trickle in. On the early side of things, there’s Wango Tango 2008 with Snoop Dogg, Miley Cyrus, Jonas Brothers, Danity Kane and Pitbull – coming to Verizon Wireless Amphitheater on May 10; get your tickets Saturday.

At Staples Center, tickets go on sale Saturday for a two-night stand with Dave Matthews Band, Aug. 19-20.

And at the Greek, there’s KC & the Sunshine Band on June 7, Erykah Badu and the Roots on June 12 (get tickets for both Saturday), and Crosby, Stills & Nash on June 14 (tickets Sunday).

Along the same blast-from-the-past line, though, my favorite news has to be about the Regeneration Tour, which features the Human League, Belinda Carlisle, ABC, Dead or Alive and Naked Eyes coming to the Gibson Amphitheatre on Aug. 5. Indeed, there’s always something there to remind you of the ’80s. And I’m here to remind you to get your tickets Saturday.

Finally, in a total surprise that’s just around the corner, Wu-Tang Clan member-producer RZA is playing the little old Knitting Factory on April 5. Tickets are on sale now, so run, don’t walk…

– Liam Gowing

Photo of Angels & Airwaves by Critter

P.S. — Having just been released from an oath of secrecy, I can now reveal some breaking news. Rod Stewart and special guest Bryan Adams will be performing at Verizon Wireless Amphitheater on August 1, and the tickets will go on sale Monday. It’s not quite a “stop the presses” moment, but I thought a few of you might want to know anyway.