If there existed such a thing as an aural dictionary, Martha Davis of the Motels’ voice would be a nice choice under “longing.”The Los Angeles-based singer’s stellar vocals (filled with the kind of subtlety and late-night pathos someone like Courtney Love would kill for) were on full display Monday night at Spaceland in a rare live gig announced just days ago and not on the venue’s official calendar.Tipped off by my co-worker Kevin Bronson, I jumped at the opportunity to see the band at the Silver Lake club. Growing up in Denver, I was weaned on a steady diet of Motels videos (and a host of other L.A.-based new wave acts, such as Berlin and Missing Persons, but the Motels somehow out-classed other L.A. bands from the era, even the Go-Go’s), thanks to a weekly public television show called “Teletunes” on KBDI-TV.

I have nothing but fond childhood memories of watching earnest yet well-crafted early videos like “Suddenly, Last Summer” and “Only the Lonely” from the Motels during the early 1980s, before MTV became a vehicle for higher budget videos from genres other than rock, a la Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” Despite overwhelming odds, the Motels briefly were stars in the early 1980s, scoring a Top 10 hit with “Only the Lonely” in 1982 and even performing on “Saturday Night Live” in January 1983.

And while nothing can match my memories of a young Davis on SNL and “Teletunes” on a decidedly down-market RCA screen at my childhood home, Monday’s concert came damn close.

Davis’ new band blew away the small audience lucky enough to catch the set. Who’s in Martha’s new lineup? An immensely talented bunch of lads, including Clint Walsh on lead guitar (he is also Gnarls Barkley’s touring guitarist), Eric Gardner on drums (Gardner is also in the touring version of Gnarls), Jon Siebels on bass (a former Eve 6 member) and Nick Johns on keyboards (who often tours with Ben Lee).

The embarrassment of riches on display served Davis well; as her backup band perfectly meshed with Davis’ pent-up vox on several classic Motels tunes such as “Only the Lonely” and the show opening “So L.A.” The only complaint? No “Take the L” and a somewhat abbreviated set (the Motels were stuck on the bill as the first of several acts at Spaceland).

If you have the chance, try and catch this lineup the next time they play in the area (Sept. 19 at the L.A. County Fair). The band’s manager, Jason Burkhart, says they are “working right now on putting together some more [earlier] dates for L.A.” We’ll keep you posted.

– Charlie Amter

The bad news out of western China just gets worse after Monday’s earthquake in the Sichuan province. So, with a bit of a heavy heart, we offer this new track from the bluegrass singer-songwriter Abigail Washburn, who frequently writes and performs in Mandarin. “Great Big Wall in China” is off her forthcoming self-titled album with the Sparrow Quartet (when Bela Fleck is your sideman, you know you’re doing something right), and it’s a lovely, restless and occasionally sinister elaboration on the genre of banjo-driven Sino-folk she all but invented on her album “Song of the Traveling Daughter.” Her set at last year’s Stagecoach Festival was an absolute joy to watch, but recent events just make this sad song hit even harder.

Abigail Washburn: Great Big Wall in China

-August Brown

Photo by Bob Delevante

Last week’s episode of “Gossip Girl,” the CW’s televised homage to headbands and madras, ended with a cliffhanger: Serena told best frenemy Blair that she’d murdered someone, OMG! My theory is that she drove someone to suicide with one of her previous dalliances — I’m not seeing a pistol to the gut on the CW. Anyway, tonight’s episode should give us a bigger, sordid reveal on this whole murder thing, along with a cameo from Lisa Loeb, the ’90s bespectacled siren of the one-hit wonder “Stay (I Missed You)”! Occasional Soundboard contributer Enid Portuguez fills us in on the details of Loeb’s appearance here. Expect at least one pair of tortoise shell glasses amid “Gossip Girl’s” unusually high quota of leggings and sparkle.

– Margaret Wappler

Photo by Mark Mainz/Getty Images

Obsessive “Donnie Darko”-philes (or, we suppose, fans of “Southland Tales” too) who keep up with writer/director Richard Kelly’s blog saw this little update on production of his new Cameron Diaz-James Marsden nail-biter “The Box“:

“The last few months have been an amazing time for us on the editing of
‘The Box.’ We’re starting to work with a very famous band who is honoring us with
being the first filmmakers they’ve ever scored a film with. Hopefully there will be an announcement soon about who it is!”

If you’re inclined to trust the website of noted producer whiz Markus Dravs (which we are), that band is none other than Canada’s favorite apocalypse-minded hurdy-gurdy purveyors, Arcade Fire. It would be the first film collaboration for the band, and odds are fairly high that Win Butler’s less-than-optimistic worldview (and Eli Sunday-inspired wardrobe) will be a prefect fit for Kelly’s affection for prophetic outsiders.

– August Brown

Photo by Jim Dyson / Getty Images

If you don’t read Monitor Mix, the National Public Radio blog by Sleater-Kinney’s Carrie Brownstein, you should start now. Today’s item has a touch of scintillating news, if anything regarding the penultimate jam band the Grateful Dead, defunct but forever-rolling-away-the-dew in some mushroom patch or another, can be described as scintillating.

According to Brownstein, who posted a mix of songs today featuring the Small Faces and Television, the Grateful Dead refused to give her one of its tunes for posting “unless we promised to do a piece on them on All Things Considered. In addition, we would need to run a feature on The Dead on the site that they would write for us.”

She continues to rant, good-naturedly: “Here’s a sentence I’ve never written: Someone needs to take a bong hit and chill out. Just a simple ‘no thanks’ would have sufficed. Are The Dead really in need of publicity?”

Good question. We’re used to such tricks from publicists who want to promote some starlet clinging to the bottom of the B-list in exchange for five minutes with Clooney, but this, from the Grateful Dead? Phil Lesh and friends have never shied away from making a buck, but hustling NPR for stories seems rather desperate. Isn’t that preaching to the choir anyway?

Brownstein does not identify the song she wanted (update: she asked for “Friend of the Devil”) but here’s betting it wasn’t one of the biggies. For “Uncle John’s Band,” what would the price be? A lunch with foreign correspondent Corey Flintoff? For “Sugar Magnolia,” perhaps a morning hike with “All Things Considered” host Robert Siegel? For “Truckin’,” it seems no less than a skiing trip to the Alps with Terry Gross and Ira Glass, holding hands with the remaining Dead members as they cut through powdery slopes, could be accepted.

Anyway, we tease the Dead, as Bill Maher would say. We have not heard the band’s side of the story yet. A call to longtime publicist and official biographer Dennis McNally reveals that he “knows nothing about it.” We’ve put in a few other calls, so stay tuned.

UPDATE: Browstein, in the last hour or so, posted this clarification on the blog. Although she doesn’t identify the label, Rhino Records manages the band’s intellectual property: “The Grateful Dead were not involved with the decision regarding the requested track. It was the band’s label who would not give permission for the track to be used in its entirety. The label also suggested that it might be easier to get permission if we did a piece on the band on All Things Considered and on the NPR website.”

– Margaret Wappler

Photo: The Associated Press

Legendary Bay Area rock band Metallica has just announced a special concert benefiting Red Hot Chili Pepper bassist Flea’s Silverlake Conservatory of Music, taking place Wednesday, May 14, at the 2,200-person-capacity Wiltern in Los Angeles. Tickets for the gig go on sale tomorrow (Sunday) at 10 a.m. via Ticketmaster and will set you back $200 (plus handling fees) — an arguably small price to pay to see the metal gods in such an intimate setting.

Metallica will headline the show, with Scars on Broadway (featuring members of System of a Down), opening.

VIP packages at $500 are also available; these will include a gift bag and admission to the after-party. For more information on how to purchase VIP tickets for the event, contract Jennifer Rey at the Silverlake Conservatory of Music.

Update: As of Monday at 12:30 p.m., $200 tickets are still available for the show via Ticketmaster’s website.

– Charlie Amter

Photo of frontman James Hetfield in 2003 by Stefano Paltera / For the Times

Sweden has been pumping out great underground rock ‘n’ roll for quite some time now, including guitar noodlers the Hellacopters, garage punk experimentalists Regulations and hardcore purists Amdi Petersen’s Arme, not to mention its most high-profile punk rock export, the crowd-pleasing Hives.

Add Poppets to the list, a lo-fi, drum machine-based duo that consists of former Heartattacks front man Magnus Andersson and his girlfriend, Lina. Over the course of four tight, catchy tunes, the fearless pair serves up a stripped-down, pop punk landscape that is definitely one of the best releases yet from Sacramento’s primo Plastic Idol Records. With another seven-inch available on Austria’s Bachelor Records and a forthcoming one slated for San Francisco’s Bubbledumb Records, Poppets are one hard-working band. Reward them for their efforts by picking up a copy of the latest EP – after all, only 300 copies were pressed.

–Jason Gelt

Photo: Plastic Idol Records

Read more of the Magnanimous Collector here.

All right, we get why Tom Waits passed us by (he’s a third city kind of man) but Coldplay, so far, ain’t coming here. Today, the British post-ballad balladeers announced their North American tour for “Viva La Vida,” their new album due June 17. This is in addition to the free shows June 16 at Brixton Academy in London and June 23 at Madison Square Garden. The contest is still open for winning tickets to those blow-outs; in the meantime, we LA folk without enough Jet Blue or Virgin miles will sit here twiddling our thumbs. Keep checking for updates — something tells me Chris Martin will be here, if only to pick up some cupcakes for Gwynie at Joan’s on Third.

–Margaret Wappler

Listen: “Violet Hill” on the band’s website; “Viva La Vida” is an exclusive on iTunes, available with pre-purchase of the album. Read more about “Violet Hill” and “Viva La Vida” at Extended Play.

Photo by Stephan Craneanscki

A quick stroll through the rapper-blog gantlet reveals a few things we already knew: Kanye West has been keeping up with his Dwell subscription and Prodigy’s latest prison blog for Vibe Magazine is just slathered in awesome. In this installment, we learn what really happened to the Sphinx! After the jump: ironic yuppie Dixie cups, cubist fish tanks and demonic owls.

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Proving the adage that old pop stars don’t ever really retire (they just fade away until the time is right for a comeback), iconic soul-R&B diva Tina Turner has announced that she will return to the road for the first time in eight years. The 68-year-old Grammy-winning Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee will embark on a North American tour scheduled to reach Staples Center on Oct. 13 (tickets on sale Monday).

In 2000, Turner, one of the most dynamic performers of her generation, played a farewell world tour marking the end of her career as a live performer. But her part in a well-received duet at this year’s Grammys lured the singer back to the touring circuit.

“After performing with Beyoncé at the Grammy Awards, the response was overwhelming,” Turner said in a statement. “Everywhere I went people were asking me when I was going back on tour. So after a lot of thought and planning, I can answer the only way I know how: See you in Kansas City, where we’ll kick the tour off!”

– Chris Lee

Photo of Turner at the Grammys by Lawrence K. Ho/Los Angeles Times