► Bob Mould, whose three decades in rock includes seminal bands such as Hüsker Dü and Sugar and an estimable catalog of solo work, is feted in the program “See a Little Light: A Celebration of the Music and Legacy of Bob Mould” at Disney Hall. The program, hosted by veteran DJ Matt Pinfield, features performances by Dave Grohl, Britt Daniel, Ryan Adams, No Age, Craig Finn and Tad Kubler of the Hold Steady, Grant-Lee Phillips, Margaret Cho and Best Coast. And Mould himself will perform.
► The Cure kicks off three nights of its “Reflections” tour at the Pantages Theatre. Providing the fix: album performances of the band’s first three albums, 1979′s “Three Imaginary Boys,” 1980′s “Seventeen Seconds” and 1981′s “Faith,” plus a fourth set of fan favorites. With Morrissey playing three SoCal shows within the next week (according to a fan site, a show will be added Wednesday), it’s almost too much to bear.
► Blood Orange’s rescheduled gig goes off at the Skybar at the Mondrian Hotel.

Residency roundup
► The Janks, the Peach Kings and Rachael Cantu provide the support for Little Hurricane at the Bootleg. At top, it’s the Janks’ video for the title track of their new album, “Hands of Time.”
► Vanaprasta’s wild ride at the Satellite continues with Hands, Incan Abraham and Rainbow Jackson supporting.
► Major-label pop contender K. Flay is the biggest attraction at the Chain Gang of 1974′s Echo residency, but locals Lesands and Tic Tic Boom will add punch to the party.
► And at the Silverlake Lounge, where Hi Ho Silver Oh has been harmonizing, Leslie Stevens, Helena and the Cosmic Telegraph Company open.

Also:

Immortal Technique at the Music Box
The Maine at the Roxy
Dwntwn (and a Little Boots DJ set) at It’s a School Night at Bardot
Sarah Silverman and Russell Brand at Largo
Frank Fairfield at the Redwood
David LaBrel from Olin & the Moon at Harvard & Stone
Sleeping at Last (from the new “Twilight” soundtrack, with David Hodges) and Vital at the Hotel Cafe
Roxy King at the Mint
The Kodiaks, Even Oceans and Thousand Watt Stare at the Viper Room
Obscura and Abysmal Dawn at the Key Club
The Gromble and the Silent Comedy at the Detroit Bar in Costa Mesa
Railroad to Alaska at the Galaxy Theatre’s Constellation Room

Final Monday of the month, here goes:

► Tapes ’n Tapes, the Minneapolis quartet who early this year released their third and best album, “Outside,” visit the Satellite to do a makeup show for the scotched Sunset Junction. It’s also the final night of Stone Darling residency, and while the show isn’t free (it’s a $13 ticket), there’s plenty of value added since Willoughby is opening.
► Portland’s Unknown Mortal Orchestra visits It’s a School Night at Bardot, where they’re joined by the Submarines and Dhani Harrison’s Thenewno2. Harrison’s band has a new EP on the way featuring guest turns by RZA and Regina Spektor, among others.
► Active Child’s remarkable residency at the Echo comes to an end — get there early to catch Hot As Sun.
► Great lineup for the finale of the Ross Sea Party’s residency too, with the Smiles, LA Font and the Hectors supporting.
► And Strange Markings and Tall Tales and the Silver Lining rock the Bootleg Theater.

Also:

Frank Fairfield at the Redwood
Garfunkel and Oates at Largo
Dead Celebrities at the Viper Room
Rachael Harryman at Bar Lubitsch
Fortunate Youth at the Roxy
Seapony’s free in-store at Origami Vinyl
Greenhorse at Lot 1 Cafe

Here are Monday’s mighty touts:

► Bardot brings two unique female artists to L.A. as part of their It’s A School Night series. Although Rickie Lee Jones is a legend in her own right for writing songs that cover every bit of the music spectrum, U.K.’s young Mercury Prize-nominated and pop-dubstep queen Katy B may be the one perking ears up. Unlike Jamie Woon, the BRIT School graduate is staying on top of the mainstream charts while she brightens the pop scene with those Rinse FM fan-friendly beats. [That's the video for her upcoming single "Witches Brew" above.]
► Robert Francis wraps up his residency over at Bootleg Theater. As if his new songs weren’t charming enough, he’s got both Jenny O. and Soft Pipes as support to sweeten the night. Rachel Goodrich and the Constellations also play.
► The Ross Sea Party continue to headline the Silverlake Lounge. Rumspringa, the Lexingtons and the Breakups are all on board this week.
► The Satellite swings their spotlight on residents Stone Darling again with Chappo, the Withers and Gothic Tropic on the bill, too.
► Correatown and Random Patterns support Active Child‘s popular residency over at the Echo, and we highly recommend getting there in time to catch White Sea (the solo project of M83‘s Morgan Kibby). If you’d like a preview of tonight’s back to back magic, go ahead and grab their spectacular remix of Active Child’s track, “Hanging On” below. [See original track.]

• ||| Download: Active Child, “Hanging On” (White Sea remix) via Rolling Stone

Also:

Frank Fairfield at Redwood Bar
Scarlet Grey, Dead Country, the Dear & Departed, the New Post at the Troubadour
The Mulhollands and Some Hear Explosions at the Viper Room
The Relative Strangers (residency), Repeater, Robotanists at Detroit Bar
Pebs at the Hotel Cafe
Kyler England, John Schmidt and more at Room 5
Aristocat, Quix-05, Sleeper at the Central SAPC
Mary-Charlotte and Justin Dzuban at Saint Rocke
Hot TV and My Parade at Lot 1 Cafe
Clipping, MC Gaff E, DJ Baglady at Pehrspace
Bent Knee at the Mint
Ground Zero at House of Blues

The 2nd New Los Angeles Folk Fest goes off Saturday in a strange, wonderful and probably overheated place known as Zorthian Ranch in Altadena. To give you a taste of the event’s deliriously eclectic lineup — the music ranges from old-timey to fractured folk to psychedelia, with a lot in between — this edition of our Buzzsicle mixtapes is devoted to 10 of the artists playing Saturday. Enjoy.

||| Download: Buzzsicle 15

||| Also: After the jump, the tracklist, and the set times for Saturday’s festival:

Tracklisting for Buzzsicle 15

Ferraby Lionheart, “Holdin’ Me Back”
Radical Face, “A Pound of Flesh”
Amanda Jo Williams, “The Bear Eats Me”
Frank Fairfield, “Hesitating Blues”
Ana Caravelle, “Where Have You Been?”
Yellow Red Sparks, “My Machine Gun”
The Stevenson Ranch Davidians, “Do You Feel Free?”
Stone Darling, “I Stopped Missing You Today”
The Dustbowl Revival, “Holy Ghost Station”
Tommy Santee Klaws, “No More”

Set times for the 2nd New Los Angeles Folk Fest

(Be sure to background yourselves on Zorthian Ranch at their website)

Dustbowl Revival (2-2:35pm)
Matt Taylor And His Laurels (2:15-2:50pm)
Ghiant (2:35-3:10pm)
Very Be Careful (2:55-3:30pm)
Ferraby Lionheart (3:30-4:05pm)
Jenny Luna And The Moondogs (4:05-4:40pm)
Stone Darling (4:40-5:15pm)
Ruthann Friedman (5-5:35pm)
Yellow Red Sparks (5:15-5:50pm)
Radical Face (5:50-6:25pm)
Emily Lacy (6-6:35pm)
Nasambu And The Mystic Nomads (6:55-7:30pm)
Frank Fairfield (7-7:40pm)
Fabiano Do Nascimento Trio (7:35-8:10pm)
Space Comes Soft (7:50-8:25pm)
Cowboy And Indian (8:10-8:45pm)
Julia Holter (8:45-9:20pm)
Triple Chicken Foot (9-10pm)
Ramona Gonzalez of Nite Jewel (9:20-9:55pm)
Tommy Santee Klaws (9:55-10:30pm)
Ana Caravelle (10:15-10:50pm)
The Stevenson Ranch Davidians (10:25-10:55pm)
RT N’ The 44′s (10:30-11:05pm)
Amanda Jo Williams (11:05-11:40pm)
The Djin Aquarian Band (11:15-11:50pm)
Spindrift (11:40-12:15am)

Sunday’s shortlist:

► Peter Murphy hits SoCal behind his first solo album in seven years, “Ninth.” Check out the hand-painted sets in his video for “I Spit Roses.” Murphy plays the Detroit Bar in Costa Mesa tonight, with a date Wednesday at the Troubadour in the offing.
► Big noise at the Wiltern tonight, where re-formed ’90s stoner-rock dudes  Sleep will be joined by by Harvey Milk and Premonition 13, the new band from Scott “Wino” Weinrich (the Obsessed, Saint Vitus).
► Taking Back Sunday and Thursday rock the House of Blues.
► And three nice free shows, all starting early — Funeral Club, Jackson Tanner and Kip Boardman at Grand Ole Echo at the Echo (5 p.m.); Mia Doi Todd’s in-store at Amoeba (5 p.m.); and Frank Fairfield’s in-store at Origami Vinyl (6 p.m.).

Also:

Dr. John and Guitar Shorty at the Long Beach Bayou Festival
Jonah Matranga at the Hotel Cafe
The Dirtbombs at Alex’s Bar
Yellow Magic Orchestra, Cibo Matto and Buffalo Daughter at the Hollywood Bowl
Neil Hamburger at the Satellite
Mana at Staples Center
Face to Face at the Glass House
Bryce Vine at the Viper Room
Nic Jackson at the Mint
Sarah Jarosz at McCabe’s

Cass McCombs’ drop-dead-beautiful 2008 album “Catacombs” embraced a welcome candor — intimate and open-hearted, his songs rode in on simple guitar chords and made themselves at home on his velvety vocals. Now the 33-year-old has prepared a follow-up, “Wit’s End,” his fifth album, due April 12 on Domino. Like on his previous record, McCombs worked with L.A. producer Ariel Rechtshaid (of Foreign Born). Exhibiting the same spaciousness as the best stuff on “Catacombs,” the teaser track “County Line” seems to have a heartbeat all its own.

||| Stream: “County Line”:

||| Live: Cass McCombs, joined by Big Search (the project fronted by Matt Popieluch of Foreign Born) and Frank Fairfield, performs Friday at the Center for the Arts in Eagle Rock.

Top 5 local shows on a night of interesting local shows:

☛ Frank Fairfield and Simon Stokes — along with members of Spindrift performing as Boy Scout Jamboree, Triple Chicken Foot, Vaud & the Villains, Amanda Jo Williams and Olentangy John (that’s his video of “O! Be Joyful,” above) — perform tonight at the Echoplex on a night devoted to “Murder Ballads.” Kind of a great Halloween-appropriate idea, and you don’t need to dress up. (Don’t bring any sharp objects, though.)
☛ Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros return for an almost-hometown show at the Grove of Anaheim.
☛ Giant Drag, joined by Lonely Trees and Square on Square, resurfaces for a gig at the Bootleg Theater.
☛ Over west of the 405, HoneyHoney plays the Central in Santa Monica (with Lara Kincanon).
☛ And Mad Planet kicks off a tour behind its new album “All Elephants” at the Silverlake Lounge, with Ballerina Black opening.

Meanwhile …: Reigning Sound (with the Ettes and the Shirley Rolls) at the Echo; Thrones and Christian Mistress at Spaceland; Neon Trees (free) at Universal CityWalk; Never Shout Never at the Wiltern; Seabear and Grandchildren at the Troubadour; Selena Gomez’s charity concert for UNICEF at the Roxy; Eliza Doolittle at the Hotel Cafe; Billy McLaughlin at the House of Blues; the Hollabacks and Sleeping With Angels at the Viper Room; the Mormons at the Redwood Bar and James Lavell’s 7 p.m. in-store (DJ set) at Amoeba.

Top 3 places to be tonight if you’re not a metal fan:

☛ Lyrics Born, whose new album “Lies X 3″ comes out next week, is the late headliner at the Roxy. That’s the Yoram Benz-directed video for the title track, above. And here’s a little bonus — a song from the album that features vocals from Francis Farewell Starlite (Francis and the Lights):

• ||| Download: “Something Better”

☛ Film School [see yesterday's post] headlines the Echo, supported by Lovelikefire and Rabbits Rabbits Rabbits.
☛ Born Ruffians play the Troubadour; their album “Say It” should not be overlooked. Go here for a free download of “Sole Brother.”

Top place to be tonight if you are a metal fan:

☛ Why, that would be the “Clash of the Titans” show with Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax at the Gibson Amphitheatre, of course.

Elsewhere: Wiz Khalifa at the sold-out Music Box; Frank Fairfield and Shakey Graves at the Redwood Bar; Los Enanitos Verdes at the House of Blues; Laurie Anderson at Royce Hall; Stacy Clark at the Viper Room; Hedley at the Roxy (early show); Big Dick (Little Richard cover band) at Spaceland; Dead Country and Death on Wednesday at the Silverlake Lounge; Hawksley Workman and Alex Dezen at the Hotel Cafe; Four Year Strong at the Glass House in Pomona; Eugene Chadbourne at the Smell; and Griffin House at Saint Rocke.

Kid Cudi and Travie McCoy have been added to the lineup for the Sunset Strip Music Festival, which during its Aug. 26-28 run will be bookended by a Thursday evening Tribute to Slash at the House of Blues and a Saturday night headlining performance by the Smashing Pumpkins. The indoor-outdoor event, which features stages on a closed-down Sunset Boulevard as well as entertainment in five venues, features a massive lineup of bands old and new. [At the end of this post, the lineup as its stands now; sorry no set times yet.]

☛ That $20-per-day ticket for the annual Sunset Junction Fair have you scared off? Today only (until midnight), two-day passes for the Aug. 21-22 Silver Lake soiree will be going for half price — $20 total — if you buy them here.

☛ And Akron/Family [left], Langhorne Slim, Active Child and Frank Fairfield are among the artists playing the Aug. 15 “Free For All: A Hands On Music and Arts Festival” — a rather distinctive event being mounted by the When You Awake blog. The one-day festival at the Echo/Echoplex is not only pay-what-you-can, but it’s participatory: Attendees are invited to bring musical instruments to jam with the bands during breaks and/or get their inner creative on at any of the several art stations situated in the venues. Akron/Family will also be doing a live recording of “Woody Guthrie’s America,” and there’s more. Check it.

Sunset Strip Music Festival

THURSDAY, AUGUST 26
IN THE VENUES:
House of Blues
Tribute to Slash

Whisky A Go-Go
Beth Hart featuring special guests
Son Of A Gun
Whiskey Six
Motive

Key Club
Y & T
Feisty Piranhas
Riot Brides

Viper Room
Purple Melon

Cat Club
David George Band
Rick Cornette
The Branches
Tucker Jameson & The Hot Mugs

FRIDAY, AUGUST 27
IN THE VENUES:
Cat Club
The Outline
Goldenstate
The Paper Dolls
The Other Side Of Morning

Viper Room
Warner Drive
Run Devil Run
Delta Rose
The Silent Comedy

Whisky A Go-Go
P.O.D.
Static Pulse
Thick As Thieves
Slant
Asphalt Messiah
Sound Of Ugly

Key Club
Unwritten Law
Nico Vega
Super Groupie

House of Blues
Kix
LA Nookie

SATURDAY, AUGUST 28
OUTDOOR STAGES:
The Smashing Pumpkins
Slash featuring Myles Kennedy & Fergie
Common
Kid Cudi
Travie McCoy
Neon Trees
Steel Panther
Semi Precious Weapons
Big B

IN THE VENUES:
Cat Club
Oh No Not Stereo
The Dollies
Hillbilly Herald
Lonely Drunks Club
White Arrows
Rattlesnake Shake
HDR
Casper And The Bad Spirits
Dirty Sweet
Diamond Lane
Prohibition Rose
JD Bender
Cast Of Kings
Love And A .38
Lady Sinatra
The Binges
The Royal Highness
Links

Key Club
Vanaprasta
Volbeat
The Divine
AWOLnation
Dommin
Transfer
Casxio
Blowing Up the Moon
98.7 FM’s Rockstar Battle of The Bands winner

The Roxy Theatre
Cisco Adler
Tomorrows Bad Seeds
Zen Robbi
Nikki & Rich
John West
Andy Grammer
Wicker
Audible Mainframe
New Kingdom
Juke Kartel
Shuvel

Whisky A Go-Go
Adler’s Appetite
Billy Boy On Poison
Ankla
Forrest Day
The Shrill
Yeti
Soma
Subliminal Trip
Reason To Rebel
Electra
Lost Patrol
Acidic
Desecrate
Sean Rex
Tornado Rider
Save Our Souls

Photo by Laurie Scavo

 

“Relax,” Alex Ebert told the crowd Tuesday night at the El Rey Theatre. “Just relax.”

A simple enough entreaty. The barefoot and bare-chested Ebert and his 12-member ensemble, Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, were playing hippie hymns fit for a 1960s love-in, but the capacity crowd was demanding and edgy, almost fit for Chicago during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. It was as if the Born Too Late Generation were fighting for limited seats on a time machine bound for the Age of Aquarius.

• ||| Photo gallery by Laurie Scavo

Tips for your next hippie gathering: 1) Check your testosterone at the door; 2) Respect your fellow concert-goer’s personal space; 3) Don’t chatter through the opening act, especially when it is a 25-member choir of gowned women; 4) Don’t shout coarsely at the lead singer; 5) Keep your “bro wear” (polo shirts with designer logos, ballcaps worn sideways) to a minimum; 6) Tip your bartender.

That said, the Big Love exuded by Ebert, partner-in-song Jade Castrinos and the rest of the band carried the evening. The adulation bestowed upon the Magnetic Zeros, who less than a year ago were an underground phenomenon, was palpable — and even bankable: Somebody threw cash onstage (which Ebert tossed back to the masses).

The soulful folk songs on the band’s debut, “Up From Below,” are paeans to harmony with the power to be a hedge against a madding world, but the charged atmosphere of the El Rey made them seem larger than life. “40 Day Dream” and “Carries On” fairly levitated the crowd; “Home” induced smiles all around with its call-and-response chemistry between Ebert and Castrinos; tunes like “Desert Song” turned the main floor into a popcorn popper of arms and bodies. Ebert forayed into the crowd to sing one number, and an encore featured a just-winging-it version of a  song that the frontman said guitarist Nico Aglietti “had just written,” as well as a couple’s onstage marriage proposal.

Coming as it did at the end of a long tour, Tuesday’s headlining show must have felt like a milestone, and at times Ebert — the former frontman of dance-rockers Ima Robot who has now segued to music that feels more organic — seemed overwhelmed by the reception. “It’s a dream,” he told the crowd. “Thank you so much.”

Frank Fairfield, and then the 25-member LA Ladies Choir (which featured a lot of voices from the L.A. indie scene) opened, with Joe McCord (father of Magnetic Zero Orpheo McCord) performing a brief mime sketch prior to the headliners.

||| Live: Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros perform Sunday at the Abbot Kinney Festival in Venice and Oct. 3 at the Manimal Vinyl Festival at Pappy & Harriet’s in Pioneertown.