Spring is the season international bands dip their toes in the great big musical

waters of the United States, and that doesn’t just go for major-label Next Big Things

like the Fratellis, who brought their

tight pub anthems to the Troubadour on Monday.

Scruffy

indie bands angle their tour vans toward L.A. too, and they can surprise. After all, if

muscle made music memorable, I’d be able to name more than one song off the 2005 album

by these sharp-dressed lads.

And I would have forgotten the 2005 release by Goldrush altogether. Which is far from the case.

Goldrush isn’t likely to be tabbed Next Big Thing; the Oxford, England, act is

merely a blue-collar quartet with an unlikely ear for Americana and the endurance, for

now, to be starving artists. The follow-up to the band’s 2005 collection

"Ozona" is titled "The Heart Is the Place" (due April 10). The

electronica-tinged album is loopier and more experimental than its twangy predecessor

while still retaining the country-boy charm that front man Robin Bennett exudes

onstage.

Goldrush

arrives at Spaceland tonight for Club NME

with labelmates the Electric Soft

Parade (both bands have U.S. deals with L.A. label Better Looking Records). Hailing from

Brighton, England, onetime Mercury Prize nominee ESP is the handiwork of brothers Tom

and Alex White, who fashion slightly warped but highly cinematic melodies that will

appeal to adventurous ears. Their U.S. debut, "No Need to Be Down-Hearted" is

due out April 24.

||| Download Goldrush’s "Heaven’s My Destination."

||| Exclusive download of the Electric Soft Parade’s "Appropri

ate Ending."

◊ ◊ ◊

Touts for Wednesday, March

21: Charlie Wadham and the

Harmony Brothers celebrate the release of "Free Up Your Schedule" at Bordello. … Three great bands in one spot at

the Echo — Dirty on Purpose, the Helio Sequence and the Besnard Lakes. … Foreign Born is the opening act at the

Troubadour. … At the Knitting Factory it’s (Rockstar Supernova finalist) Storm Large & the Balls on the

main stage and 400 Blows in the front

room. … The Whigs headline the Viper

Room. … IAMX (Chris Corner of the Sneaker

Pimps) has sold out Safari Sam’s. … And Radars to the Sky play the Silverlake

Lounge.

South by Southwest, that temblor of music

(and commerce, omigosh!) that finally subsided in Austin

over the weekend, has sent out its waves of guitar-toting, van-driving rock bands, which

in the next few days will wash over Los Angeles like a tsunami. Which means there are

going to be some tough show-going decisions this week.

Among

tonight’s offerings is M for Montreal, a

showcase of up-and-coming Quebecers that arrives at the El Rey Theatre with a spiffy tour bus

and, presumably, the same Canadian charm that caused us to swoon over the likes of Arcade Fire, Wolf Parade and the Dears. Which is cool, except that if I were

slugging it out in an indie band in Echo Park, I might be just a little bit envious that

similarly itty-bitty bands from halfway across the world get what amounts to a free ride

to showcase their wares in L.A.

M for Montreal, after all, is sponsored by

the Government of Canada, the Quebec Government Office and Musicaction Canada, among

others. Recent tours that brought Swedish, Finnish (really dug the moose on the logo of

the Finnish Moosic Tour, by the way) and

Australian bands to the U.S. also had the backing of government agencies and/or arts

councils, all of which believe that exporting music to the U.S. is good for their

respective economies. Even the British

government has gotten into the act; it is behind the West Coast appearances of the

London quartet Scanners over the next

couple weeks.

Can you envision the Export Silver Lake Music bus heading out

on tour with three of the neighborhood’s finest music acts aboard? Me neither. I can,

however, imagine the political wrangling that must go on to decide which bands merit

government sponsorship.

So tonight, at the El Rey, here’s what the fine

French-speaking province is exporting: Les

Breastfeeders, a pop-punk sextet with a sound somewhere between the female-fronted

bands that play L.A.’s Kiss or Kill nights

and what the Like want to sound like;

Patrick Watson, a quartet with an

oddly cinematic Nick Drake-inspired sound; and Plaster, a cool, experimental-minded

electronic trio whose stuff could be the soundtrack to a case of the hiccups. Greet them

warmly.

◊ ◊ ◊

More touts for Monday, March 19:

The next-big-thing (we’ll see about that) trio out of Scotland, the Fratellis, have sold out the Troubadour. …

A Buzz Band loyalist who was in Austin tells me: "There was so much Amy Winehouse hype it felt like you were

missing God if you didn’t see her." She plays the Roxy. … And the local bands

playing residencies on the Eastside have some party-crashers: Australian stoner-rock

specialists Wolf & Cub join Berko at Spaceland; and strobe-happy Londoners the Horrors play at the Airborne Toxic Event’s event at

the Echo. … And speaking of the Like, the L.A. trio opens for Bloc Party at the sold-out Wiltern.

Photo of Les Breastfeeders by John Londono.

When ex-Something

Corporate guitarist William Tell

first struck out on his own, you had to like his prospects. Handsome, charismatic Orange

County guy, with almost saccharine melodies and plenty of pretty songs about girls,

about relationships and about … well, girls. It wasn’t a stretch to imagine that Tell

might have the same kind of appeal that Something Corporate’s chief songwriter, Andrew

McMahon, had when he turned his pop sophistication into hits as Jack’s Mannequin.

But when

Tell’s solo debut "You Can Hold Me Down" (Universal) comes out Tuesday, the

first single won’t be a croony teenage make-out anthem. It’s "Fairfax (You’re Still

the Same)," a cautionary tale about the Hollywood party life.

"Some

of the newer songs I’ve written are more about observations," Tell says.

"’Fairfax’ is more of a warning song, about the things that people can get caught

up in."

"You Can Hold Me Down" still holds its share of sticky

stuff — songs written for what the 27-year-old calls his "teenage me." But

rather than a snapshot of a moment in the singer-songwriter’s life, the album offers

instead a glimpse of a timeline of the 2-plus-year period over which Tell penned the

material.

"That’s what ended up being so cool about it — it shows how

much I’ve grown," he says. "Yes, you still have your songs about girls, and

those are still me. But I feel like I’ve grown so much."

Still present

is Tell’s feel for Beatles/Beach Boys melodies. "I’m a sucker for that," he

says. "Other than to impart something on people, that’s the thing for me about a

song — trying to find a strong melody."

||| William Tell plays his

record-release show Tuesday at the Troubadour, with the Oohlas.

Photo by Celiece

Aurea.

◊ ◊ ◊

Touts for Monday, March 12: The Airborne Toxic Event’s

residency at the Echo gets unplugged tonight, with acoustic sets by the headliners, Foreign Born and the Mezzanine Owls, among others. … Metro Station and Oslo are among the bands on the bill for Indie

103.1’s "Check One .. Two" night at the Viper Room. … The Sword and Priestbird bring their big metal sound tothe

Troubadour. … Children Collide and Low Vs Diamond are among the support

bands as Berko continues his residency at Spaceland.

… Gosling headlines at Safari Sam’s. …

And Buffalo Roam and Castledoor continue their dual

residency at the Silverlake Lounge.

Forever cherubic KROQ-FM DJ Rodney Bingenheimer will be honored

this morning with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (11:30 a.m. in front of the

Knitting Factory at 7021 Hollywood Blvd.). The ceremonies — and a concert saluting him

tonight at the Henry Fonda Theatre — put Bingenheimer back in the public eye some four

years after the documentary "Mayor of the Sunset Strip" presented him as

something of a tragicomic figure.

The man who first gave airplay to the likes of the Ramones, Sex Pistol, Joan Jett,

the GoGo’s, Blondie, Oasis and Coldplay is now relegated to a weekly show at midnight

Sundays on the FM giant, his elfin voice no better suited for radio now than it was

decades ago. Even KROQ’s heavyweight morning guys, Kevin & Bean, delight in

mercilessly skewering Bingenheimer — doing so this morning while playing two

"songs" that Rodney recorded ("I Hate the Nineties" and

"Teenage Woman") while wondering aloud why they helped raised the $25,000 Walk

of Fame sponsorship fee. (Sam Nelson, son

of the late Rick Nelson, spearheaded the idea.) It all makes good radio, I suppose.

The Donnas, Redd Kross, the Nymphs and Channel 3 are performing at tonight’s show,

which figures to be a lovefest for Bingenheimer, who turns 60 later this year. It’s also

a cheap ticket at $10.67, but I wish Dramarama were playing too.

◊ ◊ ◊

Touts for Friday, March 9: Earlimart, its great new album "Mentor

Tormentor" in the can and looking for a label to release it, plays a sold-out show

at the Getty Center. … A reunited Sebadoh plays

the Troubadour. … Local pop trio Everybody Else celebrates its record

release with a show at Safari Sam’s. … Brits Razorlight try to make good at the El Rey

Theatre. … South Gate’s the Reyes

Brothers top a big hip-hop lineup at the Knitting Factory. … And atop a good

lineup of indie bands at El Cid are the Deadly Syndrome and To Live and Die in L.A. 

What do breakup songs

become, as the heartbreak recedes in the rear-view mirror and time heals the wounds of

the jilted? Greg Laswell is finding

out. It’s going on three years since the Long Beach-raised, San Diego-based

singer-songwriter wrote the material for his sophomore album, “Through Toledo” (released

in July on Vanguard). It’s a heartfelt dissection of the “sudden dissolution” of his

five-year marriage.

“After a while, the songs take on a life of their own;

they become different things to different people,” Laswell says. “And to me, they become

songs of what I was then and am not now.”

That place, like the new batch of

songs he has in the works, is “a little bit less tortured,” he says, acknowledging his

new music leans toward the observational, a quality well-suited to the storytelling in

his amiable live shows.

Not that “Through Toledo” framed him as a sad sack,

even as he came to the realization that his ex-wife would be among the listeners. “I

feel like I was writing private notes in class and was caught by the teacher and she’s

reading them aloud,” he says.

Now Laswell is gaining traction beyond the

album with his cover of the Cyndi Lauper hit “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” which appeared

on the season premiere of MTV’s “The Hills.” “It’s funny,” Laswell says, “I played the

song live, and the next day my manager called me and said, ‘The next time you rehearse

that song, just hit record.’”

||| Laswell performs tonight and every

Wednesday this month at the Hotel Cafe.

Download: His cover

of "Girls Just Want

to Have Fun."

◊ ◊ ◊

Touts for Wednesday, March 7: The Young Knives, the tweed-favoring British

post-punk trio, play Spaceland’s Club NME behind their new album "Voices of Animals

and Men." … Bright Eyes have sold out the El Rey Theatre, and it’ll probably get

crowded at Amoeba for Albert Hammond Jr.’s in-store performance too. … Australia’s Sick Puppies headline the Troubadour. … And

locals Golden Arms will play a farewell

show at the Silverlake Lounge.

When Porcelain first crossed the International

Dateline to bring their amped-up melodrama to L.A., it was 2003, and the Australian

quintet brought a little bit of everything — heavy metal riffage, a punk sensibility

and an electronic violin that made it all sound proggy. After playing to crowds in the

thousands in their native country, they were slugging it out in downtrodden Hollywood

clubs, trying to get the industry’s ear. "Buoyant and mesmerizing" is how it

seemed to me when I wrote about them in August of that year.

That they had signed to Universal escaped my notice until this week, when they

announced their showcase tonight (7:45) at the Roxy, with a backgrounder telling of

"musical sessions" with a litany of A-listers as they marched through the

arduous process of making their debut album. That process began in late 2005, and the

yet-to-be-titled album is only now being mixed, guitarist Ben Richards says, with an eye

on a late-summer release.

Porcelain eventually recorded the album with producer Mike Green, who has worked with

another violin-toting rock outfit, Yellowcard. On the sampler CD, "Better Off

Without You" and "Heaven Let It Rain" come off as a bit overwrought, but,

hey, that’s epic to some listeners. I’ll wait for the full album to decide. One thing

for sure: People like their rock stars, and Porcelain front woman Lo Roberts has that

quality. Between her emotive caterwauling, Richards’ guitar leads and Asha Mevlana’s

violin, the quintet brings arena-rock energy to their live show. Overlong sessions in

the studio won’t change that.

◊ ◊ ◊

The Taste of Chaos Tour lands at the Long Beach

Arena tonight, with the Used and 30 Seconds to Mars headlining. Orange County quintet Saosin, the subject of my Buzz Bands column in The Times print edition this week, is on the bill too.

◊ ◊ ◊

Tonight’s touts: Nice benefit at Safari Sam’s, with the likes of the Prix, the

Shakes and New Fidelity performing the music of the Byrds, Love and the Kinks. A canned

food donation gets you $2 off admission price. … Cold War Kids have a sold-out show at the

Troubadour. … Gomez guys Ian Ball and Ben Ottewell perform at the Hotel Cafe. …

Michael Franti & Spearhead, along with Blacklicious, rock the Wiltern. … Flogging

Molly plays a sold-out gig at the Fonda Theatre. … And Polus and Red Monroe are among

the acts playing the Echo.

Ambient music can make you feel as if you’re enveloped by

fog, torn between the comfort of its womb-like sonics and the anxiety over what might

lie beyond the shroud. The aptly named L.A. band In Waves wratchets up the tension

considerably, with furious, melodic drums punctuating distortion-laden guitar and

reverb-heavy vocals. Ethereal, meet ghostly.

A collaboration between Orange

County boyhood friends Jimmy Notorleva and Dean Cooper — "We’d play old surf songs

while our parents talked about mortgages," Notorleva says — In Waves landed in

local clubs about a year ago with no proper recordings (they have only now begun that

process), their sense of experimentation intact. In stark contrast to many of the bands

with which they were billed, the two-piece featured just Notorleva’s echoing voice and

guitar (often over prerecorded loops) and Cooper’s rhythms.

"We started

as kind of a post-punk band, but we never felt like it was our thing. So Dean and I kept

practicing until our own voice emerged," Notorleva says, not that he is quite sure

of that voice’s origins. "But it seems the most subconscious things come from

darker places."

Cooper’s artful work emerged as he slowly "learned

to articulate things" over a 10-year love affair with the kit. "The drums can

speak a lot more [in In Waves’ setting] than they can in just a regular rock song with a

backbeat," he says. "The rhythms add texture to the songs … On a lot of our

stuff, I just listen to Jimmy’s lead and play to that, either to complement or

call-and-answer his parts."

For this month’s Tuesday night residency In

Silverlake, the duo has added bassist Tim Gregorio, who will be in on the band’s

three-song recording project for Henry Records.

||| In Waves plays tonight at

the Silverlake Lounge and next Tuesday at

El Cid.

Photo of Jimmy Notorleva, left, and Dean Cooper by Brian White.

◊ ◊ ◊

Tonight’s touts: Northern continues its residency

at the Key Club’s Ruby Tuesdays. … Silverchair plays a sold-out show at the El Rey

Theatre, and the House of Blues, with Cartel, Cobra Starship and Boys Like Girls on the

bill, is sold out too. … The Minor Canon has an in-store performance at Sea level

Records for its album "No Good Dead Goes Unpunished." … Johnette Napolitano

performs at the Hotel Cafe. … And, as noted earlier today, Jesu’s Spaceland show was

cancelled due to the British band’s problems getting U.S. work permits. 

Sam Lanni’s struggles to get his east Hollywood nightclub Safari Sam’s open were well-documented. It hasn’t

been exactly smooth sailing since — for one thing, the patio smoking area had to be

shut down for a few months while permissions were sorted out. Then, on Jan. 27, Safari

Sam’s lost its "face." The sign on Sunset Boulevard bearing the silhouetted

Sam’s mask shorted out, caught fire and burned.

No one was hurt, unless you

count egos.

Tonight at 7 the club will hold a wake for the sign, followed by

a benefit featuring performances by the Freak Show Deluxe, Conquistador, Lion of

Panishir and Drive A. A moment of silence, please. But only a moment.

◊ ◊

◊

Tonight’s touts: Pretty indie-rock rules on the Eastside

tonight, with Syd Straw performing at

the Echo and the Autumn Defense at

Spaceland. … Todd Snider (with Mike Stinson

supporting) entertains at the Troubadour. … Cradle of Filth heads a heavy metal lineup at

the Fonda Theatre. … And pianist Christopher O’Riley salutes Nick

Drake with a show at UCLA’s Royce Hall.

The first act of the Astra Heights

story sounds like a waking dream: The band of brothers escapes its native Houston for

Los Angeles, impresses people with its pop chops and one year later gets signed to

Universal.

“It’s all going smoothly

— well, not exactly smoothly,” says singer-guitarist Mark Morales, who migrated to L.A.

with brothers James, Joshua and Timothy before the foursome added guitarist Bernard Yin.

“But whatever happens happens.”

So far, fate happened. The A&R representative that signed Astra Heights left the

company, leaving the quintet with nobody to champion its cause. The band spent much of

2006 recording its album (tentatively slated for a late spring release), an amalgam of

hooky rock with referents ranging from the Stooges to Queen to Matthew Sweet. “We

actually started out more power-poppish, but we’ve taken on this classic rock/glam-type

feel,” Mark says, adding with a laugh: “We’re calling it ballsy pop.”

And they’re playing it as if they can bring T. Rex back from extinction. It’s no

accident that during its Silverlake Lounge residency this month, Astra Heights is

playing as if its life depended on it. “Moving to L.A. forced us to get a lot better

because of the quality of all the bands here,” Mark says. “For now, we just have to

continue to build a following.”

||| Astra Heights plays the Silverlake Lounge tonight.

Photo:

From left, Bernard Yin, Mark V. Morales, Joshua P.

Morales, Timothy D. Morales, James S. Morales (By Ruthie Brownfield).

◊ ◊ ◊

Tonight’s touts: Albert Hammond Jr.’s show at the

Troubadour (with Har Mar Superstar opening) is sold out. … Common brings it, with two shows at the House of Blues. … The

Roots play the House of Blues

Anaheim. … And there will be a photo kissing booth at Spaceland, where the Shys and the Gray Kid perform. XO, and all that.

Dave

Gibbs knows better than to interpret “new” too broadly when it modifies “music.”

“Every year you get the new Stooges, or the new Velvet Underground, or the new Pixies,”

says Gibbs, the singer-guitarist of 1990s garage-poppers the Gigolo Aunts. “But it seems

nobody wants to be the new Crosby, Stills & Nash, or the new Eagles, maybe because

they’re seen as so uncool.”

Give fashion a rest. And meet Low

Stars, who are about as cool as an iced mocha.

Distinctive first because they are a coalescence of four front-man-caliber

singer-songwriters — Jude, Chris Seefried, Jeff Russo and Gibbs — Low Stars revisit the

days when virtuoso vocals and melodies ruled pop, and three- and four-part harmonies

piled up like layer cake.

Read Full Story