Shawties, don’t go to the club tonight. According to a press release from Live Nation, tonight’s T.I. show is cancelled.

Read Full Story

On Saturday, “La Plazita Olvera” (read: Olvera Street) won’t be the usual quiet stop for tourists seeking to nosh and stroll the cobblestone paths looking for souvenirs. It will be home to a deluge of sounds coming from the ska, reggae and punk festival LA Sound System. The festival will offer a sonic cultural exchange with nearly 30 bands on three  stages from all over Latin America and Europe. Some of the headliners include L.A. punk-psychobilly outfit Calavera, the punk-ska of Mexico’s Seis Pistos, the dark Sick Sick Sinners from Brazil, France’s Okploide and Miami’s popular Latin reggae group Locos por Juana (they also hit the Temple Bar tonight).

LA Sound System — International Ska & Reggae festival, on Saturday, pre-sale tickets are $50, day of show, $60.

– Camilo Smith

I don’t know what makes me more squeamish — typing that title or looking at the increasingly cutesy candids of lovebirds Devendra Banhart and Moby’s old flame, Natalie Portman. From bald to beard, huh? But more importantly, the hairy freak-folk favorite has a new band, Megapuss, which will reveal itself to the world at a free Hammer Museum concert at 8 p.m. Wednesday. According to Naturalismo, the band is Banhart and Priestbird drummer Greg Rogove, who started the duo as a joke and ended up writing eight songs. One of them is the surreal-as-it-sounds “Duck People Duck Man,” which they’ll undoubtedly perform. Aziz Ansari, the “Human Giant” comedian and recent addition to the upcoming spinoff of “The Office,” promises to be on hand to contribute his vocal part.

–David Greenwald

Photo of Devendra Banhart by Annie Wells / Los Angeles Times

Nearly everything in Irvine closes at 10 p.m. Basically, if you’re a student or enjoy some sort of nightlife, you’re pretty much out of luck. Irvine is like a frozen tundra when it comes to some sort of music scene: Epic jam sessions cannot survive. Dance parties wither and die. Everyone listens to Jack Johnson.

But there’s now a ray of light in our fair corporate metropolis. Since late January, the student-run DIY group Acrobatics Everyday has been bringing local and touring indie bands to the UC Irvine campus. But wait, doesn’t Chain Reaction in Anaheim already provide this? That’s somewhat true, except the bands that play there are all emo-pop outfits from your little sister’s iPod.

AE founder Sam Farzin, a UC Irvine student and music director of KUCI-FM (88.9), felt the city needed more variety and, let’s face it, better bands: “Why not start by attempting to introduce wonderful, palatable sounds to a whole new audience that would never otherwise know they existed? My main goal is to get people in the area excited about music. Off of their computers and into classrooms, restaurants, lecture halls, conference rooms — watching music … wherever we can fit a PA.”

Also, because all the money that Acrobatics Everyday generates goes directly to the bands, there is no commercial agenda.

The ever-expanding list of bands that have played at Acrobatics Everyday include spazz-tastic Dan Deacon, heartfelt indie pop band Mount Eerie (formerly the Microphones), the stream-of-consciousness stylings of BARR and Mount Righteous, pictured above.

This Saturday, Acrobatics Everyday celebrates the beginning of summer and its six-month anniversary with the Bright Tomorrow Festival. The lineup include Devon Williams (formerly of Osker), Infinite Body, Glasser (with the BodyCity dance troupe), Rafter, Red Pony Clock, Talkdemonic, and Lloyd & Michael (formerly of Dear Nora). The fest starts at 3 p.m., costs $8 and, like every AE show, is all-ages.

“I hope people will come to an Acrobatics Everyday show,” Farzin says, “and leave happy, excited about life, and looking forward to the next show.”

Perhaps Irvine doesn’t suck anymore.

– post and photo by Vivian Lee

Future events include Bird Names and Wummin (June 25) and Thao with the Get Down Stay Down and Da Bears (Aug. 1).

For more information and the full calendar, click here.

Tomorrow at 7 p.m., Arthur Magazine and Redoubt Press present Joe Carducci reading from selected works, including his new book, “Enter Naomi,” at Book Soup in West Hollywood. Carducci (pictured at left) also guests on KXLU radio’s “Stray Pop” program tonight at 11; stream it here.

Why should you care? Here’s why:

In 1991, Joe Carducci published a massive, brilliant, stupid, exhaustive, exhausting book called “Rock and the Pop Narcotic,” which set out a theory of what mattered in rock music that inspired many and infuriated more. Since he was office manager/utility infielder at SST, one of the key labels defining American punk, Carducci had more right than most to spout on about the importance of bands like Husker Du and Black Flag.

I hated that book: Carducci came off as a macho libertarian in love with some romantic idea of the working class, who thought male bonding was the key ingredient in music-making, that establishment rock critics were namby-pamby liberals and that anything aimed at the marketplace (i.e., at girls) was hopelessly corrupt. Worst of all were rock bands with pop pretensions. I was a girl who liked U2 and loved reading rock criticism. Carducci and I were not bound to get along.

Now that I’m less defensive about strong thinkers whose viewpoints contradict my own, I can see the value in Carducci’s impassioned embrace of the miraculous transformations that happen when a few sweaty dudes — and, Carducci acknowledges, possibly a woman or two — make loud music together. I dip into “Rock and the Pop Narcotic” (which he revised in 1995, and published in a third edition on Redoubt Press in 2005) when I need a shot of provocative thinking or a great description of garage rock.

What brought me back to Carducci, though, was an online tribute he wrote in 2005 (still accessible here) about a woman who never made music, though she loved punk and played a role in its glory days.

Read Full Story

If you love to wrap yourself in the musical form of the Union Jack or you went to high school in the early ’90s or even listened to the radio in the last 15 years, you have James’ “Laid” burned on your brain. No one can forget those military drums, singer Tim Booth’s yodel and certainly not the lyric celebrating the orgasmic powers of the cowgirl position. True James fans will argue that the Manchester band’s work goes way beyond “Laid” and they’d be 100% right, but that mighty hit is the most visible centerpiece of their legacy,  and that’s not a bad bauble to have.

With “Hey Ma,” their first album in seven years getting stellar reviews over the pond — it’s due stateside in September — James will be performing a secret (well, not anymore) show at Spaceland on Friday night with most of the original members. Band goes on at 11 sharp so don’t dilly-dally!

– Margaret Wappler

Here’s the very effective, politically direct title track:

And, oh, you know…:

Pharrell Williams’ latest proteges, Chester French, are playing a free acoustic show tonight at sneaker store Undefeated’s Silver Lake branch. Funny how the Harvard alums, who have a song titled “The Jimmy Choo’s,” chose a sneaker spot to celebrate the release of their debut album — but then again, some pairs at Undefeated do cost just as much as a Choo. The event starts at 7:30 p.m., and we hear free drinks will be served.

– Enid Portuguez

Photo credit: Stefano Paltera/For The Times

Veronica, Alison, get thee to the El Rey tonight: Rumor has it that your favorite bespectacled Catholic (lapsed?) will be playing a secret show after his turn tonight at the Hollywood Bowl. We confess we know no more than that but a phone call to the El Rey revealed someone rehearsing in the background, though there is nary a name on the official schedule for tonight.

–Margaret Wappler

Photo by Ken Hively / Los Angeles Times

For me, middle age officially begins on June 7 of this year. That’s when Prince, whose sexy-utopian music defined my college nights, turns 50. And I’ve just learned that any attempt to hide from my mid-40s reality will be further hindered by the 50th birthday of Jello Biafra, another formative influence, just 10 days after the Purple One.

Jello’s contributions to the punk rock canon aren’t as lauded as Joey Ramone’s or Johnny Rotten’s, but he’s been a guiding light (well, more like a guiding car alarm) for Bay Area punks since the turn of the ’80s. As lead provocateur in the Dead Kennedys, Biafra helped invent the American take on political punk.

When I first heard the band’s debut, “Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables,” in 1980, I was a Clash-loving high school girl trying to rebel, but not sure how. The name “Dead Kennedys” alone sent a nervous ripple through my Catholic heart. But it was the music, and most of all Jello’s yowl, that secured loyalty — ripping satirical songs like “Holiday in Cambodia” and “Kill the Poor” were as absurd as Monty Python, way more confrontational than the anti-nuke rallies then on offer for budding lefties, and (in its own ugly way) as catchy as the Beach Boys. No point in resisting. Soon, I’d discover mosh pits and just how sweaty shirtless hard-core boys got in them.

The band’s sound got harder and faster, then more experimental, on subsequent releases. Biafra’s thinking grew more complex too, but he never gave up one millimeter of edge. After enduring an obscenity trial for bundling a sexually graphic poster created by Swiss surrealist HR Giger inside 1985’s “Frankenchrist” LP, the DKs eventually signed off; subsequent encounters between Biafra and his former bandmates would be marred by conflicts in court.

Biafra evolved into a post-punk amalgam of Allan Kaprow and Lenny Bruce, staging hilarious anarchist interventions wherever he went. In 2000, he contended with Ralph Nader for the Green Party’s presidential nomination (he’d also run for mayor of San Francisco in 1979, at age 21), delivering a well-received speech at the party’s nominating convention. He’s done political reporting and commentary for Indymedia, released a bunch of spoken word albums and helmed Alternative Tentacles, the underground label he and DK’s guitarist East Bay Ray co-founded in 1979.

He’s also continued to play punk rock. Lately, his band has been the Melvins – a super-heavy band and the perfect match for Jello’s jeremiads.

Alternative Tentacles is throwing a big party at San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall to celebrate Jello’s half-century of causing trouble, so punks old and young might want to plan a getaway to the Bay for June 16 and 17. The birthday man himself will play with the Melvins, and debut a new band that includes some other semi-legendary old punks. Full info here.

– Ann Powers

Photo by Erin Lubin

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