You don’t have to listen to much of Low Vs Diamond’s first single to get an

idea of where songwriter Lucas Field is coming from — dirty and restless guitars, muted

atmospherics, vocals pleading to “show you ‘Life After Love.’”

“As a middle-schooler in Seattle, I listened to the things you’d expect — Mudhoney,

PJ Harvey, Sonic Youth, Nirvana,” Field says. “Then I went to Colorado for school, and

it was like, ‘Oh, the String Cheese Incident is playing tonight.’ It sent me in a

different direction.”

For now, the L.A.-based quintet stands precipitously between overwrought melancholy

and chimey hopefulness, avoiding both excesses. While Field’s introspective songwriting

leans toward the former, the band’s music plays to an optimism that stops short of

outright glee.

Not that Low Vs Diamond’s commercial prospects don’t suggest the latter.

Singer-guitarist Field, drummer Howie Diamond, keyboardist Tad Moore, guitarist Anthony

Polcino and bassist Johnny Pancoast hooked up with British label Marrakesh Records

(formerly Lizard King, which initially signed the Killers) for a debut EP out Feb. 5 in

England. Then Epic inked to the band to a U.S. deal.

Only a year after playing around town as Colored Shadows and retooling its lineup,

Low Vs Diamond is recording its debut with producers Stacy Jones and Bill Lefler. “It’s

going to be sweet,” says Field, 26. “I’m always going to be into arrangements like [in

the songs of] Bacharach, Marvin Gaye and artists like that. But I want to incorporate

the big moments that rock fans love.”

||| Low Vs Diamond plays Thursday night at the Troubadour.

||| Hear "Life After

Love."

◊ ◊ ◊

Tonight’s touts: Cut Chemist holds forth at Safari Sam’s. …

Singer-songwriter Priscilla Ahn kicks off a residency at the Hotel Cafe (where Patrick

Park also performs). … Scissors for Lefty brings its dance party to Club Moscow at

Boardner’s. … And Daphne Loves Derby, Meg & Dia and Ronnie Day play an acoustic

show at the Knitting Factory — their dates Friday and Saturday at Chain Reaction in

Anaheim are sold out.

Photo: From left, Tad

Moore, Howie Diamond, Lucas Field, Anthony Polcino, John Pancoast (by Jade Loop)

Do Peaches and Peppers go together?

Well,

maybe in the spring, in the desert, on a polo field … at the Coachella Valley Music

and Arts Festival.

Yes, ’tis the season. The Coachella website hasn’t even started the countdown

to this year’s expanded, three-day shindig in Indio — for the record, it’s 100 days

away — but already fans are speculating about the lineup. The maven(ists?) at LAist are liking Gwen Stefani’s chances, which might

fit; the last generation’s Madonna played last year’s Coachella, so why not the next

generation’s at this year’s? And Idolator names a handful of bands who jumped the gun and announced their

gigs on their website.

I’m betting on the Red Hot Chili Peppers to be tabbed

as a reliable draw for one of the days. Peaches, !!! (Chk Chk Chk) and LCD Soundsystem sound good too. The Arcade Fire will be be there, touring behind what

appears to be a monster sophomore album. And I’m also thinking that the annual convoy of

fine British acts will be anchored by the Arctic

Monkeys (or maybe this year’s Arctic Monkeys, the View — hey, invite both and we can have

a battle of the bands) and the Kaiser Chiefs.

And is

there a Straight Outta Silver Lake Stage? Save me a spot for Silversun Pickups.

When I figure

out whether the "big reunion" rumors hold any water, you’ll be the first to

know.

◊ ◊ ◊

Tonight’s touts: Shiny Toy Guns play a late show at the Viper Room.

…  Mia Doi Todd plays the Silverlake Lounge, and down Sunset Boulevard at El Cid

it’s Ronnie Mack’s 19th Anniversary Barndance, with, among others, Russell Scott &

the Red Hots; Mike Stinson; Randy Weeks, the Barry Holdship Four and Kathy Robertson.

Richard Swift makes music better

society.

His sophomore album, "Dressed Up for the Letdown" (due Feb. 20 on

his band prepared for a show tonight at Spaceland.

Los Angeles was tough on you and your family. Do you miss it

much?

Swift: I miss certain aspects … the people.

I don’t miss the city, but only because I don’t miss any city.

Read Full Story

Does blogging mean never having to say you’re sorry?

Apparently. In some corners, it means never having to do your homework, either.

A review of a

song by the L.A. duo the Bird and the Bee by Michael Graham on the website Paper Thin

Walls last year went beyond mean-spirited. Graham imagines songwriter Inara George as

some kind of Hollywood princess who solicits help from her famous daddy to further her

music career:

So what does she do? Why, pick up her Sidekick III, text her dad
(Lowell George, he of Little Feat fame) for advice, pen a
tear-in-yr-latte lament to lost loves, record it with a bunch of her
hyper-connected friends (this is Los Angeles, after all) and then sit
back and watch the magic happen. Or maybe go shopping.

Poison

prose, huh? Except that Lowell George died in 1979.

Depite the fact that several commenters pointed out the egregious gaffe, the review

has remained intact since it was posted. As for George, she reacted with characteristic

aplomb. "I didn’t know what to do," she said of her decision to take the high

road and ignore the cheap shot. "It’s kind of sad, really."

||| After a couple performances at the Sundance Film Festival, the Bird and the Bee

return to L.A. for a show at the Troubadour on

Jan. 23, the day their self-titled album is released on Blue Note.

"Cavalry of Light," the EP from L.A.’s Lavender Diamond, will be re-released by

Matador Records on Jan. 30 as the psych-pop quartet gears up for the release of its

full-length in May. The album, to be titled "Imagine Our Love," was undergoing

some remastering this week, as multi-talented dude Ron Rege Jr. (drummer/cartoonist)

finished up the artwork. "I’m just to the moment of listening to it and thinking

‘Oh my God,’" singer Becky Starks says.

||| The quartet has a gig Jan. 25 at Safari Sam’s.

||| Still available: a download of "Yo

u Broke My Heart."

◊ ◊ ◊

The husband-and-wife team of Sean and Juliette Beavan, who as 8mm released the lovely, languorous "Songs to

Love and Die By" last year, have put up a video for their song

"Stunning." It’s a D.I.Y. affair, shot by Juliette on a Samsung cellphone and

edited in iMovie.

◊ ◊ ◊

Fast forward:  Ex-Something Corporate guitarist William Tell’s hook-happy, power-poppy

"You Can’t hold Me Down" will be out  March 6 on Universal imprint 

New Door Records. . . . The One Am Radio, the name under which Hrishikesh Hirway (just

call him "rishie") makes poignant bedroom pop, releases "This Too Will

Pass" Feb. 20 on Dangerbird Records; he’s offering a download of "In the Time

We’ve Got" of his MySpace page

and a handful of older songs here. . .

. Youthful rockers the Willowz, the

newest addition to the roster of Dim Mak, release their third album,

"Chautauqua," on March 20; the play Jan. 26 at the House of Blues Anaheim

with  Moving Units.

◊ ◊ ◊

Tonight’s touts: Mash-up madman Girl Talk whips folks into a frenzy tonight at the

Echo; the Plug Independent Music Awards show at

the Little Radio warehouse features a couple of L.A.’s best unsigned acts, Foreign Born

and the Gray Kid, along with Great Northern (debut out May 20); metal from Neurosis at

the El Rey; and, well, if anybody sees this please satisfy my morbid curiosity and

report back to me — Lucy

Lawless (that’s Xena) at the Roxy. Tonight’s show is sold out; there’s another

Sunday.

Annie Hardy is now alone as Giant Drag, she

confirmed this week. The singer-guitarist for the L.A. shoegazer two-piece says that

collaborator Micah Calabrese — who played drums and keyboards (often at the same time)

– has left the band just as Hardy prepares to record a new album.

"I am pretty

bummed," Hardy says. "I knew from the beginning that being in a band was not

necessarily his dream, but [because] we were best friends he kind of did it for me. I

think he got to the point that he just got tired of it … the touring, not making money

…"

Calabrese’s distinctive playing — he delivered the song’s bass lines by playing a

small keyboard with his left hand while drumming with his right — along with Hardy’s

distortion-fueled guitar gave Giant Drag a bigger sound than you’d expect from a

two-piece. Memorable among the duo’s performances was a set at last year’s Coachella,

when Calabrese was confounded by a loose connection on his keyboard and soldiered

through the set with Giant Drag’s tour manager onstage, holding a cable in place.

"I felt kind of unsure whether I should continue as Giant Drag," Hardy

says. "Micah contributed a lot. But they are my songs and I came up with the

name."

Hardy aims to begin recording the follow-up to 2005’s "Hearts and Unicorns"

(released on Interscope imprint Kickball) in mid-February. She says she’ll be working in

New York City with Mike Musmanno, who has produced L.A. rockers the Icarus Line.

◊ ◊ ◊

Tonight’s touts: The BellRays at Safari-Sam’s; Cold War Kids at the

Silverlake Lougne (sold out); I See Hawks in L.A. and Mike Stinson at the Echo; Keller

Williams at the Fonda Theatre; Hotel Cafe six-year anniversary show with, among others,

Jay Nash, Buddy, Charlotte martin, Jim Bianco and Cary Brothers.

Also: Poo-Bah Records, the label spun off from the Pasadena record

store, is throwing a one-night stand at the L.A.C.E. Gallery in Hollywood. It’s a

record-release party for three artists, and will include DJ sets, live screenprinting

and visual installations. Doors at 7:30.

Photo: Annie Hardy during Giant Drag’s Coachella set last April (Kevin

Bronson/LAT)

Talent’s a lot like headgear; it depends on how you wear it. Red Hunter, the young

Austin, Texas, indie-pop auteur who goes by Peter and the Wolf, wears his

smartly, maybe too smartly, like a straw hat with the brim turned low, as if he doesn’t

want you to see how handsome he really is. Do you really want your lovelorn troubadour

to be the coolest dude in the room?

Apparently so. Peter and the Wolf silenced a typically chatty Silverlake Lounge crowd

on Wednesday night wielding only a duct-taped guitar. He did so by thinking outside the

box; this is, after all, a guy who did a 12-stop tour this summer via sailboat. His song

sketches (and they are not yet full portraits) featured  a little harmonica, a

little whistling — and whistling is the new handclaps, in case you haven’t heard this — and some brilliant but

understated percussion from the San Francisco duo Dodo Bird, which opened. You know, the

standard stuff: folk songs with island beats.

Having only released some spare home recordings, though, Peter and the Wolf bears

watching. He’ll be around Los Angeles the next month or so, making his first proper

album at Moonshine Studios in Atwater Village. He says he’ll play all 27 instruments on

the record — including a Chinese fiddle and an igil. Stay tuned.

||| Pitchfork has 2 downloads here.

◊ ◊ ◊

Tonight’s touts: Softlightes at the Silverlake Lounge; the Colour at Spaceland

Photo: Peter and the Wolf, by Kevin Bronson/LAT.

Shows by the fledgling band SoftLightes promise to be feast for the eyes as well as

the ears — and even fodder for the heart, judging from the quartet’s first single,

“Heart Made of Sound.”

The brainchild of San Diego-based Ron Fountenberry, Softlightes are an outgrowth of

the Incredible Moses Leroy, the persona under which he released albums in 2001 and 2003.

His new work, “Say No to Being Cool — Say Yes to Being Happy” (due Feb. 13), exudes the

cinematic qualities of Mercury Rev and the bedroom vulnerability of the Postal Service,

with some Flaming Lips psychedelia mixed in. It’s pop that floats on its own virtue, and

invites you along for the ride.

Live, however, SoftLightes are not just another four-piece.

Read Full Story

Is hip-hop any good when it isn’t bad? Pigeon John tried mightily Monday night in

front of a half-full house at Safari Sam’s, distributing lively banter and

dude-next-door humor while the faithful bounced and waved their arms. Sure, he was

headlining a bill called "Hawthorne’s Most Wanted," but John was about as

ominous as an uncle who slips a double entendre into dinner-table conversation.

This rapper’s

street smarts are more like cul-de-sac common sense: Love thy neighbor. Practice

tolerance. Dance until you’re too exhausted to hate. Lost your girlfriend? Don’t slap

anybody around, sing a pop chorus. Broke? Don’t blame it on the man, tell a funny story.

Even with his vocals weighing in thinner than they come off on 2006’s engaging

"Pigeon John … and the Summertime Pool Party," John showed the Sam’s crowd a

good time, even if you weren’t always convinced it was his party.

If it didn’t always work Monday, maybe John played the underdog card too often. His

best numbers — the rousing "Moneyback Guarantee" and the freeway anthem

"San Diego" (on which he shared MC duties with turntablist B. Twice) — relied

on clever storytelling. His weakest, the well-intended "Be Yourself," felt

heavy-handed.

It was impossible to leave without feeling at least a bit of

John’s euphoria. Besides, if you felt really like doing something reckless you could

drive through at Taco Bell. Stuff ain’t good for you, you know.

Photo of

Pigeon John by Kevin Bronson/LAT.

||| Pigeon John opens for Subtle on Jan. 19 at the Troubadour.

◊ ◊ ◊

Tonight’s

touts: Singer-songwriter Peter Walker

holds forth at the Troubadour; Get Set Go

leads a deep lineup at the Key Club’s all-ages Ruby night; the Deadly Syndrome play DJ Franki Chan’s

"Check Yo Ponytail" night at Safari Sam’s; Glacier Hiking tees it up at Spaceland;

Thomas Fehlman spins at the Echo; the Procession kicks off a run of four Tuesdays

at El Cid; and the Living Sisters (Eleni Mandell, Inara George and Becky Stark)

harmonize at Tangier.

Ross Flournoy is nervous. The singer-guitarist of Los Angeles’ the Broken West is facing the biggest

month of his young band’s life — its debut album “I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On”

comes out Jan. 23 on Merge Records, and

quintet is honing its chops for a hard year of touring by playing the Monday residency

this month at Spaceland. It sounds like the first act of every indie rocker’s dream,

sure, but Flournoy seems to be floating in the same emotional space as the songs on the

Byrds- and Teenage Fanclub-informed album: boxing with the uncertainty of future and

humming a catchy tune with every punch. We got the rundown from Flournoy, 27, on the

band’s name change (they were formally the Brokedown), and did our best to make him

laugh:

So what’s with the name change? I have a feeling lawyers were involved …

Flournoy: Someone threatened to sue us. There was a band in Illinois called the

Brokedowns; we knew they existed, so in the summer of 2004 when we found out about them,

we just lost the “s.” We thought that was enough of a distinction, although

our lawyer said it wasn’t.

Read Full Story