Kevin Bronson on June 12th, 2009

1

Monsters of Folk – the supergroup with Conor Oberst, Jim James, M. Ward and Mike Mogis – are signing to Santa Monica-based Shangri-La Music, home to the likes of the Pretenders, the Duke Spirit and up-and-comers Amazing Baby and Band of Skulls. One insider described the terms as for “make-or-break-a-label money.” Rolling Stone says to expect an album Sept. 22.

The Story of Anvil (cont.): Recently saw the heartstrings-tugging documentary “Anvil: The Story of Anvil” in L.A., and I can’t recommend it enough. Director Sasha Gervasi brilliantly captured the pathos of the Canadian metal woulda- (or shoulda-) beens. But as much as your heart roots for them, your ears sometimes beg to differ. (And I’m not just judging from the rough post-movie set June 1 in the Regency Fairfax Cinemas.) The postscript to the story is that now Anvil has been slotted to open the July 28 and 31 shows for AC/DC in New York and Boston, respectively.

Tours and dates: The summer/fall schedule just announced by the Airborne Toxic Event makes me tired just looking at it – the U.K., Korea, Japan, Europe and the U.K. again, Australia/New Zealand and, finally, the U.S. (including Sept. 17 at the Fox Theatre in Pomona). Meanwhile the quintet’s self-titled debut has zoomed past the 100,000 sales mark. … By the way, exactly two months after its release, Silversun Pickups‘ sophomore effort “Swoon” also crossed the 100,000 threshold. … In a nice pairing of gifted young songwriters, Robert Francis [pictured] will do 15 U.S. dates with Priscilla Ahn. Francis is part of the crew performing tonight at Spaceland in the benefit for the fire-damaged TacoZone truck. … Young (and unsigned) Long Beach quartet Avi Buffalo has been invited to play the Monolith Festival. Nice. There’s also a plan in the works for the band to do another L.A. residency in the late summer. … Bat for Lashes is doing an acoustic set Sunday at the Lucky Brand Jeans store on Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade (RSVP needed). … And everyone’s twittering over the Dead Weather having announced an L.A. date. The Jack White-Alison Moorhart project plays the Roxy on Wednesday – tickets go on sale at noon Saturday. Good luck with that.

Around the clubs: The jaw-droppingest I witnessed recently was [Post-foetus], the project of 20-year-old Will Wiesenfeld. During a recent set at the Echo, I did the word-association thing on my notepad and scribbled down the following phrases, “orchestral pop,” “backpack rap,” “IDM,” “noise-pop,” “nerd-core,” “mixed live,” and a couple others I can’t read now. It was lyrically sharp and absolutely compelling and totally unclassifiable. More on him later. … For straight-ahead rock shows, Band of Skulls delivered in their various shows last week, and trustworthy sources report that Australia’s Children Collide rocked the sheen out of Spaceland on Thursday night. … And singer-songwriter Chris Ayer [pictured] gets a lot out of his guy-with-a-guitar aesthetic. His winsome folk-pop made him a winner in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest, and his recent set at the Mint was highlighted by an acoustic folk cover of OutKast’s “Hey Ya!” Wish he had that one on his MySpace, just for grins.