Cheap Time’s first seven-inch, released by Vancouver, Canada’s Sweet Rot Records, was a spunky and lovable little slice of punk rock. Although a tad slavish in its devotion to “Born Innocent”-era Redd Kross, it nonetheless hinted at greater things to come with its sheer energy and bratty youthfulness. The Nashville trio fulfills this destiny with interest – and with a sound that is much more its own – on its self-titled debut platter from L.A.’s In the Red Records.

Songwriter, singer and guitarist Jeffrey Novak, though barely in his 20s, has already been around the block a time or two, releasing a great screamer with his former band, Rat Traps, on Shattered Records and dishing out a few CDRs and stray import singles with his one-man-band act. But he and his Cheap Time band mates have entered bold new territory with their latest release.

There’s something timeless about this record, something that goes beyond genre boundaries with a fresh, unique approach to punk, new wave and glam influences. The 14 songs rarely stray beyond the two-minute mark, but none of them feels chopped or rushed. Each cut is a polished gem, produced with genuine analog warmth by Mike McHugh at Costa Mesa’s Distillery. There’s a smoking cover of “People Talk” from Jack Oblivian’s pre-Oblivians’ new wave band, The End, but the rest are well-wrought, energetically played and precisely written originals. Standouts include the churning “Living in the Past,” the snarling “Ballad of Max Frost,” (an ode to the anti-hero of cult ’60s youth revolt movie “Wild in the Streets”) and the triumphant strutter “Ginger Snaps.”

Cheap Time is all about youthful insurrection. At 28 total minutes, this album is insolent, angry and so full of energy that it fairly bursts at the seams. Fans of no-holds-barred rock ‘n’ roll will be counting on Novak to stay true to this trajectory as he forages into the future.  

Mark your calendars: Cheap Time will storm the Echo with Jay Reatard on July 30. 

– Jason Gelt 

Photo: In the Red Records 

Read more of the Magnanimous Collector here.

Never mind all the secret shows lately. What is it about big-name bands trying to get back to their roots by playing in smaller clubs?

First Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers — with a couple of rhythm section substitutions — played the Troubadour in a reunion of the little-known Heartbreaker precursor band Mudcrutch. Then Hall & Oates booked its imminent two-night stand at the Troubadour as, well, Daryl Hall and John Oates. Now Green Day is heading to the Roxy to perform as its garagier alter ego, Foxboro Hot Tubs, next Tuesday.

Regardless of the anonymity-seeking nom de plume, the nature of which the members of Green Day kept under wraps until fairly recently, it’s always endearing when a band that could fill an arena plays a club the size of the Roxy, although the logistics are bound to be a nightmare. You guessed it: Tickets go on sale at the Roxy box office the night of the show.

Doors open at 7 p.m. Enjoy yourself in the inevitable queue.

In other news, there wasn’t that much other news. Here’s a taste: The legendary Tina Turner added another night at Staples Center, Oct. 16, (tickets already on sale);  psychedelic indie-pop duo the Helio Sequence will play the Echoplex on June 12 (tickets on sale now); alt rockers Everclear, Soul Asylum and Camper Van Beethoven will play the House of Blues on June 26 (tickets go on sale Thursday) as part of the Sunset Strip Music Festival; and funky singer-songwriter Meshell Ndegeocello will play the Key Club on June 29 (tickets on sale Saturday).

In the hottest news, dance rockers Hot Chip will play a two-night stand at the Wiltern but it’s a long way off: Sept. 21-22. Get your tickets Friday for that one.

– Liam Gowing

Photo of Green Day, a.k.a. Foxboro Hot Tubs, by Reuters / Mario Anzuoni

In the entertainment business, it’s always about who you know. For rapper Tyga, his cousin and Gym Class Heroes’ frontman Travis McCoy is that dude. But he’s also got Pete Wentz and Lil Wayne in his corner. Who can be mad at that? The video for his single “Coconut Juice” features cameos from all three — and let’s not forget the fantastic Harry Nilsson song Tyga uses as a base.

Tyga’s brand of pop-rap balances the emo essence of FOB with tracks like “Don’t Regret It Now” featuring Patrick Stump on the hook, and “Teenage Crush,” which reinterprets a Slick Rick song, against the more typical rapper entries of “Diamond Life” and “Supersize Me.”

The Compton-area native, whose name spells out Thank You God Always, is all gangly limbs and fully tattooed from his eyebrows down to his fingers. A huge Young Money Entertainment medallion (Wayne’s company) swings from his neck. Tyga already has a name for his own imprint, etched into his face above his eyebrows: “G.E.D” on one side, “Inc.” on the other. It stands for either Getting Dollars Everyday, Getting Education Everyday or Grinding Every Day, take your pick.

His debut album “No Introduction,” hits stores June 10, the same day as the critical cognoscenti crush-fest that will be Lil Wayne’s “Carter III,” which includes a Tyga guest spot.

After finishing up a nearby photo shoot in the Hollywood area, the 18-year-old heartthrob — he’s one of CosmoGirls’ Hot 100 Celebs — chatted with us while relaxing outside a Melrose coffee shop.

You have a lot of tattoos. When did you start getting ink?
My first one was when I was in ninth grade. On Halloween. I was 14 and I got my mom’s name [Passionaye] on my neck. She was mad. She said,”You can’t come in my house with that on your neck.” And I did come into her house but it was with her name. Her friends were braggin’, “that’s so sweet of him.”

I have probably like 30 something [tattoos]. I lost count after 30.

So, you’re singed to Pete Wentz’s Decaydence label, Travis McCoy from Gym Class Heroes is your cousin and you’re part of Lil Wayne’s crew. Any pressure in trying to impress such successful co-signers?
I don’t put pressure on myself. I’m just doing music for everybody. Nobody’s looking for the next Game. Just be yourself.

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It’s been a quiet nine years for Q-Tip, the charismatic on-again off-again frontman for the seminal Queens, New York, hip-hop quartet A Tribe Called Quest — one of the most respected rappers to ever rock a mic.

But that doesn’t mean the Abstract Poetic hasn’t been keeping busy. While largely staying out of the public eye during that time, the hard rhyming, famously adenoidal MC recorded two never-released, widely bootlegged albums (“Kamaal the Abstract” in 2002 and 2005’s “Open”) and bounced between every major hip-hop record label with the exception of Island Def Jam before landing at Universal Motown this year. July will finally greet the arrival of Q-Tip’s long gestating CD, “The Renaissance,” his first album to see a commercial release since 1999’s gold-selling “Amplified.”

It’s a monster of a record, with guest appearances by Norah Jones, D’Angelo and Raphael Saadiq — as well as a vocal contribution by Barack Obama in what must certainly qualify as his first hip-hop “collabo.” But more on all that in a future article.

Over an omakase sushi dinner in New York last week, Q-Tip revealed to The Times that he doesn’t intend to keep up his J.D. Salinger act any longer; the rapper is planning to go back into the studio before the end of the year to cut another album. And although Tip self-produced “The Renaissance,” he’s enlisting the help of a heavyweight Grammy-winning producer for its follow up.

If you’re imagining any of the usual rap rainmakers — Timbaland or the Neptunes, Pete Rock or DJ Premier — you’d be wrong. Try Nigel Godrich, the British engineer-producer whose densely layered, atmospheric sound has become closely identified with Radiohead. In fact, Godrich is sometimes referred to as the morose Brit rock group’s “sixth member” for producing every album it’s put out since 1997’s “OK Computer.” But he’s also racked up an impressive list of characteristically downbeat, brooding albums for the likes of Beck and Charlotte Gainsbourg, Air and Pavement.

Godrich is hardly the no-brainer choice for Q-Tip — himself a Zelig-like figure who turns up all over the pop culture grid and has never been confined by a narrow view of what hip-hop is and isn’t supposed to be — although it remains to be heard how the two’s musical sensibilities will mesh.

“He’s a big fan of rap,” Q-Tip said of the producer. “It’ll be cool working with him. We’re going to make a film out of the project too.”

And the charter member of the Native Tongues rap collective seems untroubled by the notion that Godrich’s dour sonic palette might detract from rap’s abiding party hearty aesthetic.

“He’s just on some real hip-hop [stuff]. It’s gonna be a lot of sampling,” the rapper said, adding an encomium not often associated with Godrich. “He’s really dope!”

– Chris Lee

Photo by Stephan Osman / Los Angeles Times

Peripheral New Pornographers member Dan Bejar was born and raised in Vancouver, Canada,  in the latter half of the 20th century, but sometimes he’ll sing a line, drop a reference or use a woman’s name that sounds plucked from some other era, some exotic place far away from a North America blinking with bland neon signs and cellphone signals.

On “Trouble in Dreams,” his eighth record as Destroyer, a misleadingly nihilistic moniker for what is essentially a poet’s glam-rock band, Bejar sings: “Oh, I didn’t go out into this world to be stung by rich man’s hornets.” The gimlet-eyed line makes the wild-haired Bejar seem like a character in an Oscar Wilde play, lounging in a satin jacket, petting a white Persian, fumigating a rare French tobacco.

It’s an act, sort of. Speaking from a remote part of Alberta on tour, Bejar isn’t nearly the foppish dandy he presents on record, but he does admire and seek out a certain honeyed version of the sublime.

“I seem to be aiming for beauty these days. I’m not saying every Destroyer song is 100% beautiful all the time, but that is the kind of lyrics and images I want, that evoke some kind of emotional resonance and impact. I try to stay away from intellectual matters.”

Bejar’s songs aren’t devoid of the intellectual but they are first and foremost concerned with aesthetic pleasure. A previous album, “Destroyer’s Rubies,” is a fantastically rich opus of a record, brimming over with images such as watercolors spilling into the ocean and girls like gazelles, with tinkling pianos and sumptuous guitars and horns. For “Trouble in Dreams,” he stripped it down a bit and followed the nerve-wracking process of letting the songs shape themselves with no reference point.

“With ‘Rubies,’ I was into this certain feel of rock bands that existed in a very specific way on very specific albums with very specific people, like a Mick Ronson production. For ‘Trouble in Dreams,’ it was more like starting with a blank slate. It was more like we’ve knocked these songs about in a practice space and it’s more noisy, but still, after a handful of practices, we don’t have any clear idea what this is supposed to sound like … we kind of like playing the songs differently every time we play them. So, you don’t really know what the hell the song is supposed to be like, and it’s not like it has to sound like anything. It was a different way of working.”

What that might portend for tonight’s show at the Troubadour is anyone’s guess, but Bejar has great love for the form. “I like playing live in the same way that I like playing music in a room with people where no one’s watching … it’s a lot different from the recording process. In some ways, it’s a lot better. Playing live is kind of why you do it.”

– Margaret Wappler

Local musician Devon Williams opens; you can stream “Trouble in Dreams” here.

Photo courtesy of Merge

“Complacency of accepting ‘givens’ takes people away from the vitality of the art.”

So says master jazz-rock guitarist Wayne Krantz, who could never be accused of complacency. He’s returning to Los Angeles for three dates this week after a seven-year absence from performing here with his own band.

Why L.A. now?

“I was stuck in New York doing this gig [an almost-weekly appearance at the 55 Bar for more than 10 years] and I got stuck in a comfort zone. I wanted to get out more but there were a lot of logistical difficulties… The thing that facilitated it this time was that my drummer [Cliff Almond] was living in San Diego part of the time and [bassist] Tal Wilkenfeld is living out there now.”

The L.A. gigs should be exciting.  “[Tal and Cliff] have played together exactly once before this gig,” says Krantz. “I know that this combination was able to take off before. You know, if it feels right.”

The new trio will have some big shoes to fill. Krantz has had explosive rhythm sections in the past, most notably the 1998-2006 trio of drummer Keith Carlock and bassist Tim Lefebvre (both now playing in Rudder). Their 2003 recording, “Your Basic Live” (only available on Krantz’s website), is one of the essential small ensemble jazz-rock recordings of the last 20 years and utterly indispensable to guitarists of any stripe.

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Missed out on snagging tickets to see U.K. rockers the Kooks tonight at the Wiltern? If you are unable to make it to the sold-out show (tickets have been sold out now for over a month), you may not be totally out of luck.

The group plays an outdoor show Wednesday for “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” (taping in the early evening, for free tickets and information go here), and Soundboard has exclusively learned that the chart-topping outfit will play a secret acoustic set Tuesday night at the Kibitz Room on Fairfax Avenue. The special set begins at 9 p.m., and like all shows at the Kibitz, is free. The Brighton-based Kooks also plan to busk at several other undisclosed locations throughout the day Tuesday, a band representative said.

The Kooks are currently riding high worldwide, after a No. 1 debut in England of their latest offering, “Konk.” The disc entered at No. 41 on the Billboard Top 200 last month, and the band has received strong support from alt-rock radio outlets over the course of their four-year career.

– Charlie Amter

Photo courtesy Tom Sheehan

This week’s announcement that Shania Twain and hubby-producer Robert John “Mutt” Lange are splitting up is sad, if not utterly a shock. After all, if anything is part and parcel of country music tradition, it’s D-I-V-O-R-C-E.

Nevertheless, it’s always hard to hear about a marriage that’s failed, doubly so when there are kids involved. Of course, celebrity splits are practically a daily occurrence, the baggage that comes with fame and fortune astronomically amplifying the challenges every couple faces in trying to nurture love over the long term.

Yet what immediately went through my mind when I heard the news was her 1998 hit “You’re Still the One.”

Look how far we’ve come my baby
We mighta took the long way
We knew we’d get there someday
They said, ‘I bet they’ll never make it’
But just look at us holding on
We’re still together still going strong

When it went to No. 1 on the country chart, it was a quintessential crystallization of country’s shift away from songs that grapple with life’s struggles to those that are eager — perhaps overeager — to revel in its victories.

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Dance party on Sunset Boulevard — alert the authorities.

Brooklyn eight-piece !!! (Chk Chk Chk) will be announced as a Sunday headliner for the Sunset Junction Street Festival, sources say. The two-day, three-stage fair — with carnival rides, food booths and plenty of toasty pavement — goes off Aug. 23-24 in Silver Lake.

Isaac Hayes and Stephanie Mills will join the party too — along with the likes of Langhorne Slim, Menomena and Health. Previously confirmed for the festival were Cold War Kids and Broken Social Scene on Saturday night, and Sister Nancy, Kinky and the Black Keys on Sunday night, as well as a reunion of psych-rockers Beachwood Sparks.

The Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra will be headlining the Sanborn Stage on Saturday night.

The annual steamy shindig always offers a pretty decent barometer of the local scene too, with SoCal bands occupying the afternoon and early-evening slots on the rock-oriented Bates Stage. This year’s no different — besides ascendant noise-rock outfit Health, the Happy Hollows, Radars to the Sky, the Henry Clay People and Gram Rabbit are a handful of the locals said to be playing the festival. Stay tuned for more.

The schedule so far is posted here.

– Kevin Bronson

Photo/collage of !!! courtesy of Warp Records

He’s the kid with the easy smile and the ball cap tugged crooked — the one who sticks out among his hard-partying friends because, as he likes to joke, he’s “the only black kid in Malibu.” But over the last 2 1/2 years, Shwayze learned quickly where the party stops and work begins: in the studio of producer Cisco Adler.

It was with Adler at the controls that the aspiring rapper made “Shwayze,” his debut album (due July 15 on Suretone/Geffen). “Malibu’s a small town, and I knew Cisco was a rock ’n’ roller and I knew he had helped Mickey Avalon” as producer of two of Avalon’s singles, says Shwayze, born Aaron Smith. “I only knew him as a partyer, but he is one hard-working dude. Still, we would not have guessed this two years ago.”

Shwayze’s humorous, easy-going rapping might not venture much further topically than weed and women, but combined with Adler’s sticky musical backdrops, it’s made the 22-year-old a hot commodity. The single “Buzzin’” has hit major radio; Shwayze played the lead-in set to Miley Cyrus at Saturday’s KIIS-FM blowout Wango Tango; and an MTV reality show launches in July.

Most rewarding, Shwayze says, is how the album came together. “We made the record before we were signed,” he says, noting the absence of multiple producers or scads of guests (Dave Navarro appears on one song, “Flashlight”). “We were just doing our own thing.”

Indeed, it’s the handiwork of the 29-year-old Adler — the Whitestarr frontman, son of entertainment impresario Lou Adler and unofficial captain of the Malibu party squad for which Shwayze is now the unofficial spokesman. Says Shwayze: “Cisco is one talented dude.”

||| Live: Shwayze plays Crash Mansion on Friday and is a headliner on this year’s Warped Tour (June 20 in Pomona; June 22 in Ventura).

||| Listen: To Shwayze’s single “Buzzin’.”

–Kevin Bronson

Photo of Shwayze and Cisco Adler courtesy of Big Hassle Media