Peanut Butter Wolf isn’t the first DJ to use music videos in conjunction with the usual DJ arts of crowd-reading, beat-blending, mixing and scratching.
A DJ and producer since the early ’80s, the former Chris Manak of San Jose (pictured above) turned the dance floor inside out Tuesday night at Cinespace’s Dim Mak weekly event. Videos blasted out from a big screen that PBW (or the Wolf, as many call him) was more than happy to share.
“It’s almost like a YouTube set, I guess. But I don’t get any of my videos from YouTube because it’s low quality,” he said after blasting the crowd with a mix of ’80s and ’90s dance and rap hits. This was his first time on the mixer since coming back from a tour stop in Japan, though he frequently performs at the Dim Mak showcase.
How do you become an instant celebrity in Los Angeles? Punching out a B-list actor at a pre-Grammy event in February is a nice way to start, especially if TMZ cameras are there to capture it all, but U.K.-born “rapper” Mams Taylor wants to be known for more than popping “Desperate Housewives” star Jesse Metcalfe right in the kisser.
Taylor recently dropped the video for his first single, “L.A. Girls,” on his rapidly growing group of “friends” on MySpace, featuring such notable, um, “girls,” as Carmen Electra and Mila Kunis. Musical collaborator Joel Madden of Good Charlotte also is in the video and on the track.
Taylor moved to Los Angeles four years ago and clearly positioned himself in the right music industry circles. The tattooed, menacing-looking rapper-singer was most recently dating actress and musician Taryn Manning, but the pair have split, Manning’s publicist Siri Garber confirmed Thursday. To help heal his wounds, Taylor took in a private Prince concert Sunday, attended by “maybe 30 other guests” at the artist’s Bel-Air mansion, according to his MySpace blog. Taylor has also already lined up respected DJ Tiësto to remix “L.A. Girls,” all without support from any major label (Taylor is currently unsigned, as far as we know).
However, judging by his first real single and video, Taylor still has a ways to go before he becomes the next Justin Timberlake. Lyrically, the cautionary tale (actresses doing cocaine in L.A.? You don’t say!) of “L.A. Girls” leaves much to be desired. With embarrassingly bad lines like “baking in the California sun/man I think I gotta get me one,” we’re pretty sure Interscope isn’t going to be beating a path to Taylor’s door anytime soon.
Still, Taylor seems to have charisma in spades and name recognition to boot (among the tabloid-watching teen set, anyway). And really, what guy hasn’t dreamed of landing that perfect punch that drops a dude straight to the ground? Just like MacGyver!
Meanwhile, Taylor’s ex has her own new music out. Manning’s band Boomkat released its first single in four years, the haunting “Runaway,” in early April. A second single/video, “Stomp,” will be forthcoming this summer from her record, “A Million Trillion Stars,” which should be out this year on iTunes.
So, where do we stand re: Mams versus Taryn? Right now, we’re siding with team Taryn’s music (so far, anyway). Unless Mams comes up with something just a bit more hard-hitting this year, that is. (Please don’t punch us for that one, Mams.)
Jack White and his boys are getting to be like those friends who call you up at 4 p.m. and say, “Hey, we’re coming over for dinner.” Give us a little warning, eh? Hot on the heels of the sudden release of their second album, “Consolers of the Lonely,” the band is playing a short-notice show this Sunday at the Music Box @ Fonda. Tickets go on sale Friday at noon PDT at this link. Imaad Wasif with Two Part Beast open the show.
What’s Flea’s favorite Metallica song? That would be the vintage shred-a-thon “Fight Fire With Fire,” a fact revealed near the end of Metallica’s show at the Wiltern last night. That’s when the Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist, who organized the concert (which also featured Scars on Broadway) as the annual fundraiser for his Silverlake Conservatory of Music, stepped from the wings and played second bass on an absolutely scorching rendition of the 1984 song.
Flea’s guest spot capped an impressive return to action for the headbanging headliners, who have been all but absent from U.S. stages for some four years.
“We haven’t played here in a long time,” singer James Hetfield said early in the show, Metallica’s first in the Southland since 2004. “It feels good to be playing live again.”
It better. With their first studio album since 2003’s “St Anger” set to come out in September, the hard-rock titans, who also play Saturday at the KROQ Weenie Roast at Verizon Wireless Amphitheater, figure to be back full force. Little rust was evident Wednesday as they plowed through a 15-song set of prime fan favorites, and if the sound remains dark and the themes riddled with angst and anger, they played with the exuberant spirit of kids who’d escaped from detention.
Beachwood Sparks, the L.A.-based band that breathed some new life into California psychedelia in the early part of this decade, will play the Sunset Junction Street Festival in August as part of a reformation that will see the group begin work on its third full-length album.
“It just feels like everybody involved, including the audience and the fans, are ready for it,” singer-bassist Brent Rademaker says from Tampa, Fla., the hometown to which he returned two years ago. “We started the process a while back, and when Chris [Gunst] came down for my wedding, we said, ‘You know, we’ve got to get Beachwood Sparks started again.’ ”
Beachwood Sparks never actually broke up, but the band has been idle since 2003. It released two albums and an EP on Sub Pop, which announced last spring that the group would reunite to play July 13 in Seattle in honor of the label’s 20th birthday. It turns out — and Rademaker acknowledged the band wasn’t quite certain of this — that Beachwood Sparks is still under contract to Sub Pop for a third album. Now he says the band is aiming to hit the studio this winter — somewhere around an Australian tour, the details of which have not yet been announced.
During Beachwood Sparks’ down time, its members have been involved, variously, with bands such as Mystic Chords of Memory, the Tyde, Frausdots and All Night Radio, among others. The reunion shows will likely go off without key member Farmer Dave Scher, who is working as the touring keyboardist for Interpol. The lineup will look something like this: Rademaker (vocals/bass), Gunst (vocals/guitar), Aaron Sperske (drums), Jen Cohen Gunst (Gunst’s wife and collaborator in Mystic Chords, on keys), Ben Knight (guitar) and Dan Horne (pedal steel).
No word yet on which night Beachwood Sparks will play. Stay tuned for lineup updates.
Continuing the grand tradition of Bay Area garage acts dressed in outrageous costumes (remember the Vulcaneers, the Trashwomen and the Mummies?) Oakland’s Nobunny has hippity-hopped into the public eye with his debut LP, “Love Visions.” Released by San Francisco’s Bubbledumb Records, there are a total of 1,000 pressings, the first 200 of which are on swirly pink vinyl and are already sold out. But these are mundane details of interest only to collector nerds. The real issue at hand is that Nobunny has released a rip-roaring good-times party album that comes on like the illegitimate offspring of the Archies, Joey Ramone, Hasil Adkins and Kim Fowley. A mixture of gritty, fuzzy garage rock and giddy, sticky bubblegum music, the catchy songs, including the hilarious “Land of 1,000 Dances” parody, “Nobunny Loves You,” and the creepy-yet-bouncy “The Boneyard,” are all instant classics. Several of the tunes are available for preview on his MySpace page.
In an inspired act of bizarre-o branding, Nobunny has also hopped into the hearts of fans with a trippy animated video for “The Boneyard” and an action figure that comes complete with fuzzy ears and a carrot microphone. Check out the oddball commercial:
Good things come in threes this week, at least as far as musical icons go.
To wit, George Michael will be coming to the Honda Center on June 27 (tickets go on sale Sunday); Stevie Wonder will be hitting the Hollywood Bowl on July 7 (tickets on sale Sunday); and Tina Turner will be playing the Staples Center on Oct. 13 and the Honda Center on Oct. 14 (tickets Monday).
In hip-hop news, the big announcement came from Power 106, which is putting on Powerhouse ‘08 with Chris Brown, Lil’ Wayne, the Game, T-Pain, Ice Cube and Colby O’Donis at the Honda Center on June 21 (tickets on sale Saturday).
In rock, the big show news came from My Morning Jacket, who’ll be playing the Greek on Sept. 21 (tickets Saturday). The little-r, indie-r news was every bit as noteworthy though, with the Black Angels playing the Troubadour on June 5 (on sale now) the Faint playing the Music Box at the Fonda Aug. 7 and 8 (Saturday) and Stereolab playing the Glass House on Sept. 21 and the Music Box at the Fonda Oct. 23 (on sale now).
The “where are they now?” category had entries as well from the ’70s, ’80s and the ’90s with: Morris Day, the S.O.S. Band, Zapp, Midnight Starr and Con Funk Shun playing the Greek Theatre on Aug. 9 (tickets Sunday); the English Beat, the Alarm and the Fixx playing the House of Blues Anaheim on July 27 (Saturday); and Live, Collective Soul and Blues Traveler playing the Greek on Sept. 21 (Saturday).
But who’s the winner? Well, the American Idols Live show, which will bring all top-10 finalists from the current season of the show to the Staples Center on July 7 (tickets available Saturday), will probably get more ink. But I have to go with Rancid, who announced eight shows at once.
The West Coast punks are playing the House of Blues Anaheim Sept. 20 and 21 and the Music Box at the Fonda Sept. 30 through Oct. 5. You have to hand it to the band for their work ethic — that six-night stand is no joke — and for bringing so many of their brohemians along for the ride. Yes, the band will have a different opening act each night: H2O and Civet on Sept. 20; Guana Batz and Bad Luck Bandits on Sept. 21; the Adolescents and Left Alone on Sept. 30; T.S.O.L. and Banda Newsense on Oct. 1; Dr. Know and Switchblade Riot on Oct. 2; Manic Hispanic and Society’s Parasites on Oct. 3; the Aquabats and the Oohlas on Oct. 4; and MXPX and Los Creepers on Oct. 5.
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 (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.
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.
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.
