The group has given various answers, indicating they had begun recording a fourth disc in January, then later posting a message in July that they would spend the summer working toward an early 2010 release. Numerous delays have emerged lately, however, as most members of the quintet have devoted time to side projects.

Guitarist Albert Hammond Jr. embarked on a solo career in 2006 with Yours to Keep and has since released another album, 2008’s ¿Cómo Te Llama? Drummer Fabrizio Moretti, meanwhile, teamed with Brazilian singer/guitarist Rodrigo Amarante to form Lucky Joy, which put out its self-titled debut in late 2008.

Even the Strokes’ bassist, Nikolai Fraiture, formed his own group, the cleverly titled Nickel Eye, which issued its first work, The Time of the Assassins, in January.

So it makes some sense that, after lending his modern crooner vocals to collaborations with various other artists — Santigold, Danger Mouse, Sparklehorse, even Andy Samberg’s comedy troupe the Lonely Island — Strokes frontman Julian Casablancas would concoct his own solo record, Phrazes for the Young, which arrived Tuesday.

“I never wanted to do it,” Casablancas said during a phone interview Thursday, “but I feel like I was kind of forced a little, to be quite honest. The band wanted to go do their own thing, and that’s cool — I respect that they need to go do that. But I didn’t want to sit around.”

To promote the release, which Casablancas describes as “something between the Wailers and Thom Yorke,” the singer has undertaken a Friday-night residency this month at the rarely used Downtown Palace Theatre in Los Angeles.

Tickets for tonight’s set are sold out, and the Nov. 13 show is currently on sale via Ticketmaster. Tickets for the other dates (Nov. 20 and 27) will go on sale soon.

As a precursor to the four-night stint, Casablancas appeared at the intimate Spaceland club in Silver Lake on Monday as a surprise opener for Happy Hollows, which he says gave him the chance to “work out the kinks.”

So far, his only other planned performances comprise a string of dates along the West Coast, with stops in San Francisco, Seattle and Vancouver, followed by a short trek through the U.K. and Western Europe, wrapping in mid-December.

“Hopefully people (will) see something that they don’t usually see, and that excites and inspires, and hopefully gets the word going around so that we can do this crazy show in other places, too,” Casablancas says.

Phrazes for the Young, sporting only eight tracks (11 if you splurge for the deluxe edition), references in its title Oscar Wilde’s Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young, a short list of witty advice tidbits first published in 1894. Casablancas says he happened upon the list in a volume of Wilde’s works several years ago, and decided to incorporate the concept into his work. “I did a similar thing with First Impressions, where I had these little hidden sentences in the artwork for each song,” he explains. “So it’s kind of an evolution of that.”

Inside his solo disc’s booklet, Casablancas included his own original phrases above each song title. “There’s so much knowledge and wisdom you lose from generation to generation,” he notes, that “those were just some of those things that I just wish someone had told me when I was 16, (things) that took me so much time to learn.”

The success of the Spaceland gig has Casablancas feeling mostly optimistic about the coming residency. “(My band is) really talented … and the songs are sounding pretty crazy,” he says.

Still, he remains modest about his first full-on non-Strokes undertaking. “You’re struggling because you know it’s like a new thing that people don’t know what to expect, but at the same time you want to create this illusion that you’re coming in highly ranked.”

Whatever the outcome, fans need not worry about the Strokes disappearing permanently. “Whether it takes off or not, I’ll still do Strokes stuff,” Casablancas says. “I think (recording) is going to start in January, but I’m free for them whenever.”

The first two singles off Phrazes for the Young, “11th Dimension” and “River of Brake Lights,” are available for a free listen on Casablancas’ MySpace page. The album in its entirety costs $4.99 ($9.99 for the deluxe package) on iTunes and Amazon; a “luxury edition box set” can be purchased at www.ainr.com.

Photo courtesy of Williams + Hirakawa.

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Peter Schelden strikes again, this time to review one of Boston’s finest …

How do you warm up a crowd for a punk rock show? How about traditional Gaelic vocal arrangement set to bodhran and bagpipes?

If the contrast of Irish folk and punk rock sounds absurd, you haven’t heard Dropkick Murphys‘ take on both.

These 13-year touring veterans kicked off their fall tour with a sold-out show Wednesday night at the Grove of Anaheim, and although there were some missteps — most notably the sloppy and incessant chorus of the drug anthem “Sunshine Highway” — the band sounded pretty solid as it began the first of 16 gigs this month.

As for the missteps, lead singer Al Barr preempted any criticism: “When you get the first show … you know we’re probably going to suck,” he told a cheering audience.

The band’s backdrop — stained-glass windows inlaid with clovers — perfectly fit its identity, for though their tour bus license plates may say Massachusetts, the roots of the Dropkick sound stem from all the way across the Atlantic, and about 500 years ago.

Identity is what this band is really all about — specifically, one forged by fighting for the working man (“Boys on the Docks”), fighting against neo-cons (“Citizen C.I.A.”) and just plain fighting (“Fighting 69th”).

The Who’s “Baba O’Riley” opened the encore, with a bouzouki (somewhat like a guitar, with a teardrop-shaped body) replacing Pete Townsend’s famous oscillating organ loop. The song was perfect for Barr’s gravelly delivery, but it was a little overlong in this punk variation.

Soon after, the stained glass window fell away, revealing a pirate flag — just in time for the pirate jig “Shipping Up to Boston.”

Singer/bassist Ken Casey, whose voice in fast numbers affects a nasally high staccato akin to Jello Biafra’s, called for the crowd to mosh, do a jig or whatever came to mind for the powerful “Your Spirit’s Alive.” Fans followed suit, and by the time the final song played, half the mosh pit had moved on stage.

Though sometimes the band’s Irish folk/punk blend (owing much to roots laid down by the Pogues) can seem discordant, it played out nicely Wednesday night. The mellower mood of Irish classics like “Finnegan’s Wake” and “Wild Rover” spaced out the raucous punk and vice-versa, making each the more memorable.

Photo of Al Barr, from the Murphys’ 2008 show at the Grove, by Jessica Cotsonas, for the Orange County Register.

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‘Tis definitely the season for artists performing albums in their entirety.

Just since Labor Day we’ve seen Trent Reznor tear through Nine Inch Nails‘ The Downward Spiral more than once while bidding farewell to the road … Echo & the Bunnymen poured themselves into Ocean Rain with symphonic backing at Nokia Theatre two weeks ago … the Decemberists ended their Hazards of Love tour with an animation-enhanced airing at UCLA … Phish covered the Stones’ Exile on Main St. in full on Halloween at Festival 8 in Indio … and now the Pixies are midway into a three-night stand at the Hollywood Palladium, where they’re doing Doolittle front to back at each show. (And that’s just on the West Coast — back east Bruce Springsteen capped a recent run at Giants Stadium by tackling Born to Run, Darkness on the Edge of Town and Born in the U.S.A. night after night.)

Of all these special events, the legendary eccentrics of Devo dusting off their first and third albums this week at the Music Box at the Fonda was probably the least momentous to most steady concert-goers.

It’s been decades since these overgrown kooks (now all in their late 50s or early 60s) in yellow tearaway jumpsuits and flowerpot hats (excuse me … “energy domes”) have been anything but a nostalgia machine. They seem to turn up every other summer at a radio festival or county fair, always sounding solid but never suggesting that they still have a shred of vitality.

Because of that, the idea of them performing first the nervy, kinetic 1978 debut Q: Are We Not Me? A: We Are Devo! and the next night reviving all of 1980’s synth-heavy breakthrough Freedom of Choice could easily seem gimmicky even to die-hard de-evolutionists. (Both albums arrived this week in deluxe remastered editions from Warner Bros. The former also boasts the entire album performed live in London earlier this year; the latter also included the Devo Live EP from 1981.)

Yet, within moments of the quintet ripping into the urgent opening riff of “Uncontrollable Urge,” it was clear the concept would bring out the best in Devo. They’ve been a stronger live unit ever since enlisting ace drummer Josh Freese (also noted for his work with NIN, the Vandals and, most recently, Weezer), who powers the group’s herky-jerky grooves with muscle original timekeeper Alan Myers never could have mustered, even back in the day. But not since that early ’80s heyday have I seen these guys perform so robustly, so tightly — as if they had something to prove about the continued relevance of their work.

I put it down to Devo’s methodical attention to detail, something that set the outfit apart even from the time of its inception in the late ’60s as a philosophical art project among Kent State students Mark Mothersbaugh (left) and Gerald Casale. By the mid-’70s, when the band was being wooed and touted by everyone from David Bowie and Iggy Pop to King Crimson’s fretmaster Robert Fripp, its postmodernist, deconstructionist viewpoint had already been solidified — so much so that when Brian Eno came in to produce Q: Are We Not Men?, he was reportedly flummoxed by the band’s inflexibility, manifested in an unwillingness to stray too far from demo recordings.

What resulted was a fierce protectiveness of both their radical ideology and groundbreaking sound, both of which were well ahead of their time and deeply influential on the new-wave tsunami that crashed across the pop landscape in the ’80s. It also led to many confrontational performance in front of crowds of spudboys who, at the time more weaned on the Eagles and Peter Frampton, couldn’t get a handle on the band’s deliberate quirkiness.

That produced a menacing quality in Devo when it burst onto the scene, notably in late ‘78 via a memorably warped appearance on Saturday Night Live, during which they robotically shifted through their cover of the Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” only a week after the real thing had appeared on the program.

Every member of the group — though especially edgy Mothersbaugh, a beloved industry figure now who nonetheless seemed borderline psycho way back when — seemed to assume an us-vs.-them stance. Fans followed suit: Even when “Whip It” hit big at the dawn of the ’80s, it was hard to be a casual Devo fan. You either bought into their ethos or you found it just too damn weird.

Tuesday night at the Fonda, however, it was positively arresting all over again. Thanks to aggressive playing on everyone’s part and an overall vocal attack from Mothersbaugh, that long-absent menace had been fully restored, rearing its vicious face constantly, whether the rarely played song demanded it (“Praying Hands,” “Too Much Paranoias”) or could have been approached more cautiously (“Space Junk,” “Shrivel-Up”). Introducing themselves with very early footage of the group performing a slower version of its “Secret Agent Man” remake — suggesting that these two shows would be some sort of history lesson in Devology — the band soldiered on stoically, determinedly blasting through Q: Are We Not Men? as if it had just come out.

Perhaps because of that intense commitment to the material — who knew these geezers could still punk it up with such authority on “(Slap Your Mammy)” — the album sounded as fresh as ever; many of today’s bumper crop of electro-rock bands, none of whom have half as much vision, would kill to have recorded music so riveting, so strikingly original. (There were plenty of longtime admirers on hand to witness its rebirth, by the way, including No Doubt bassist Tony Kanal, Rage Against the Machine’s Zack de la Rocha and Alkaline Trio’s Matt Skiba.)

The only disappointment was the relative brevity of the set — just Q: Are We Not Men? from start to finish, followed by a two-song encore, leading with a roaring rendition of “Smart Patrol/Mr. DNA” and then a teaser from Freedom of Choice, “Gates of Steel.” But in a sense, despite the somewhat steep cost to see both Fonda shows (though some shelled out big for a meet-and-greet), this was only half of an experience that demanded closure.

I missed out on completeness, opting to see the Pixies do Doolittle instead. But my colleague Peter Larsen made it out for Night 2 …

Devo, Part II, Wednesday, Nov. 4:  Freedom of Choice

As with the first night, Devo kicked off its second set in Los Angeles with a reminder of just how far out and different they were at the start, playing the original music videos for “Girl U Want,” “Whip It” and “Freedom of Choice,” all three still remarkably fresh and subversive pieces of visual art.

You almost wondered, though, whether it was a mistake to begin with a visit to past: How could they possibly seem as fresh and vital today as they did three decades ago?

But as the band slipped into position on the darkened stage and struck up the first chords of “Girl U Want,” any such concerns melted away. As they did on opening night, Devo flat-out roared through the 12 tracks of this third album, their biggest commercial hit by far.

Dressed in period-perfect costumes — the flowerpot hats (er, energy dome) and short-sleeved jumpsuits with red belts around their waists and across their chests — Mark Mothersbaugh and Gerry Casale sang in voices that showed little signs of the passage of time.

With Freedom of Choice, the band moved from electric guitars to synths for many tracks, so most of the night  Bob Mothersbaugh (Bob 1) was found on lead guitar — and seemingly the exact one he played on tour in 1980, based on YouTube evidence of that outing. Josh Freese remained on drums, and Mothersbaugh, Casale and Bob Casale (Bob 2) all joined on keyboards.

In an interview a few weeks before the tour kicked off, Mothersbaugh said the band was a little unsure how this album would fare in full, especially considering that its bigger hits are mostly in the first half. And sure, the crowd response was loudest to those best-known songs – “Whip It,” with Mothersbaugh acting out the whip-cracks of the video, and the title track, which rocked hard enough to leave the wood floorboards vibrating.

But the album tracks that probably hadn’t been played in years — easy to spot, as occasionally you could see Mothersbaugh glancing down to check lyrics — felt every bit as good, with songs such as “Snowball” and “Ton o’ Luv” getting Gerry Casale pogoing in place behind his synth. Side 2 tunes such as “That’s Pep!” and “Mr. B’s Ballroom” found Mothersbaugh barking out vocals with the energy of the younger self that originally wrote and recorded those numbers.

As they left at the end of the album, Mothersbaugh smiled and said something that sounded like ‘I never thought we’d do that.”

The two-song encore opened with Gerry Casale singing the relatively obscure “Be Stiff,” followed by an extended version of “Beautiful World,” off 1981’s New Traditionalists, during which Mothersbaugh left the stage briefly before returning in costume as Booji Boy, a character from the band’s early self-mythology.

Singing in a high falsetto, and telling a rambling story mostly about Michael Jackson … (how MJ had taken Booji Boy under his wing when the band arrived in L.A., and how if Michael were to act out his “Thriller” video for real and get out of his grave, he’d come over to the theater and, well, what what would he say? “It’s a beautiful world we live in”) … Mothersbaugh ended the show by bouncing a a few hundred brightly colored super balls into the crowd as the rest of the band blasted through the final notes.

Walking out onto Hollywood Boulevard, smiles all around, the only shame was that, as with Night 1, it had all ended too soon.

Photos by Andrew Youssef, courtesy of Stereogum.

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As exhibited during recent concerts from, among others, the Decemberists, Phish and this week’s two shows from Devo, playing an album in its entirety is currently fashionable — and Wednesday night at the Hollywood Palladium, one of alternative rock’s most influential acts, Pixies, added its name to that growing list with a full-blown 20th anniversary performance of the group’s 1989 breakthrough, Doolittle.

During the first of three sold-out dates at the landmark venue, Doolittle’s everlasting awesomeness was once again an unstoppable force, emanating from the band’s exuberantly youthful performance. It seemed to possess the audience with sing-shouting, foot-stomping enthusiasm, evoking a nostalgic unity between the band and its fans as these old friends, together after years of hiatus (they played scattered dates in 2004-07), celebrated one of the most viscerally mind-blowing releases in rock history.

This is the album that landed Pixies a deal with Elektra Records and helped elevate them to an international level of stardom, which subsequently exposed audiences to its predecessor, Surfer Rosa. Doolittle’s signature flirtation with surrealism — translated lyrically and musically through quiet-to-loud dynamics peppered with the unrelenting screams of frontman Black Francis and the guitar riffs of Joey Santiago — is arguably the embodiment of Pixies’ legacy in rock.

It is the kind of masterpiece that separates Pixies, giants of their genre, from the rest of those attempting full album run-throughs.

But before fans were treated to the complete album, the Pixies played a short round of Doolittle B-sides, leading with the eccentric-yet-slaphappy “Dancing the Manta Ray,” and wrapped up on the similarly titled — yet far more momentous — “Manta Ray.” Already the audience plunged into bouts of jovial bouncing that, as the Pixies launched into Doolittle’s first track, “Debaser,” exploded into unrestrained jumping, even some isolated moshing.

Many fans will remember Doolittle for its pleasant singles — “Wave of Mutilation,” for instance, or the band’s MTV-ready “Here Comes Your Man,” which the Pixies will perform Friday on The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien. But the Hollywood kickoff, supplemented by a backdrop that featured an assortment of disturbing black-and-white film clips alongside creepy graphics, was an aggressive reminder that this album is anything but cutesy and poppy.

Performed live in this context, songs such as “Tame,” “Crackity Jones” and “Monkey Gone to Heaven” refueled the vitality of Francis’ spine-chilling shrieks and Santiago’s raw, jarring riffs that wholly anticipated the uncurbed instrumentation of the grunge movement that loomed heavy when Doolittle was first released.

David Lovering’s beats remained potent as ever, but the drummer displayed his full range of talent when he took over vocal duties in addition to his punctual pounding on “La La Love You.” Similarly, bassist Kim Deal (below, right) presented herself most pleasingly with her ghostly intonations on the experimental, chaotic B-side “Into the White,” closing the first encore with the Pixies shrouded in a billowing fog.

Witnessing Doolittle played in-full was as surreal as the album’s thematic content, yet the show’s climax came during the second encore, a three-song Surfer Rosa mini-set that concluded with “Where Is My Mind?,” best known (to some younger fans, anyway) for its use in Fight Club.

For those in the know, however, the band’s choice to pull from its full-length debut for the show’s enchanting conclusion signified much more than a greatest-hits plug — it was a final nod to the audacious nature of Doolittle, the album that gave the world access to the organic genius of the Pixies’ earlier work in the first place, and solidified their unremitting musical influence.

Minimalist duo No Age, a mainstay at L.A. underground club the Smell, opened Wednesday; Black Gold is slated to open tonight, while Rain Machine (a solo project from Kyp Malone of TV on the Radio) warms up on Friday. The Pixies also will appear supporting Frank Black at benefit concerts Dec. 8-9 at the Echoplex. Members of Pixies, Love & Rockets and She Wants Revenge, as well as “Weird Al” Yankovic, Michael Penn and the 88, will participate. Call 213-413-8200 for more info.

Photos by Armando Brown, for the Orange County Register.

Set List: Pixies at Hollywood Palladium, Nov. 4, 2009
Main set: Dancing the Manta Ray / Weird at My School / Bailey’s Walk / Manta Ray / Debaser / Tame / Wave of Mutilation / I Bleed / Here Comes Your Man / Dead / Monkey Gone to Heaven / Mr. Grieves / Crackity Jones / La La Love You / No. 13 Baby / There Goes My Gun / Hey / Silver / Gouge Away
First encore: Wave of Mutilation (UK Surf) / Into the White
Second encore: Isla de Encanta / Gigantic / Where Is My Mind?

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We start this week with things we already know but are now going on sale — chiefly, U2 at Angel Stadium on June 6.

That 360° Tour second-leg stop, the band’s first stadium appearance in Orange County (wrong: Zoo TV played there in ‘92), was announced the day after last month’s massive Rose Bowl show, the love-it-or-loathe-it response to which suggests not all U2 fans are so thrilled that Bono & Co. have returned to playing enormous spaces.

Regardless, tickets go on sale Monday, Nov. 9, at 10 a.m. There will be an opening act, to be named later.

Meanwhile, local dates of Bon Jovi’s previously discussed 2010-11 outing, The Circle World Tour — Feb. 26 at Honda Center and March 4 at Staples Center — both go on sale Nov. 16 at 10 a.m.

John Mayer may be dropping Battle Studies, his fourth studio album (and first in three years), on Nov. 17 — but his tour behind it, kicking off Feb. 8 in Charleston, S.C., won’t arrive in Southern California until March 25, at Staples Center. Michael Franti + Spearhead, finally catching fire in the mainstream via “Say Hey,” will open.

Tickets are likely to go on sale Nov. 21, though an American Express card-holder pre-sale runs Nov. 16-20. Also visit Mayer’s official site before Nov. 10 to pre-order the new album and gain access to an exclusive pre-sale that allows you to purchase up to 12 tickets.

Lady Gaga is just mega right now — two Nokia Theatre shows sold out, so she’s added a third, Dec. 23. As with the other nghts, Kid Cudi opens. Tickets, $19.75-$79.75, are on sale now.

Also at Nokia Theatre: A Wonder Winter’s Night Presents Stevie’s 14th Annual House Full of Toys Beneift Concert, which is a really wordy way of telling you Stevie Wonder is playing Dec. 12 with several special guests — including Jonas Brothers. (Maybe this time Joe — is it Joe? Nick? Tito? I couldn’t care less — will remember the words to “Superstition.”) Tickets, $45.25-$149.75, go on sale Friday at 10 a.m.

And there are two radio bashes headed to the L.A. Live venue: KIIS-FM’s Jingle Ball, starring Taylor Swift, Keri Hilson, Fabolous, the Ting Tings, 3OH!3, LMFAO, Jay Sean and Jason Derulo, Dec. 5, $80.25-$115.25, on sale now … and the KLOS Mark & Brian Christmas Show, featuring Heart, Foreigner, Richie Sambora, William Shatner reading ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas, and more, Dec. 16, $59.55-$79.55, on sale Friday at 10 a.m.

Elsewhere at L.A. Live: Salt-n-Pepa, Dec. 26 at Club Nokia, $38.50-$50, on sale Friday at 10 a.m.

Los Lonely Boys are embarking on a stripped-down outing, The Acoustic Brotherhood Tour, with fellow Texan artists Alejandro Escovedo and Carrie Rodriguez in tow. That trek makes three SoCal stops: Feb. 14 at the Grove of Anaheim ($35-$40, on sale Saturday at 10 a.m.), Feb. 16 at the Wiltern (on sale Friday at 10 a.m.) and Feb. 18 at the Canyon Club in Agoura Hills ($48.50, on sale Thursday at 10 a.m.).

Also at the Grove: the Dan Band, Dec. 18, $20-$22.50 … War with the Family Stone Band,  Dec. 27, $42-$52 … two nights of Paramount’s Original LaserSpectaculars, the first (Dec. 29) featuring the music of Pink Floyd, the second (Dec. 30) showcasing Michael Jackson, $22-$27 per show (includes glasses) … and smooth soul star Will Downing, Feb. 13, $55-$65. All of those go on sale Saturday at noon.

Here’s another previously announced show finally going on sale: Mark Knopfler, April 17 at the Pantages Theatre, $56-$131, on sale Sunday at 10 a.m.

Deftones have added a second night (Nov. 20) to their benefit stand at Avalon in Hollywood in honor of The Chi Cheng Special Needs Trust. Nov. 19 is sold out. Tickets for the second show are on sale now.

And another Avalon charity gig: the PabLove Benefit featuring Tom Morello (aka the Nightwatchman), Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Shirley Manson of Garbage, Butch Walker, Tom Gable of Against Me!, Jarrod Gorbel of the Honorary Title, Charlotte Martin and more. Tickets, $35-$65, are on sale now.

Here comes another side-project supergroup: Where’s the Band? featuring Dustin Kensrue of Thrice, Chris Conley of Saves the Day, Matt Pryor of the Get Up Kids and Anthony Raneri of Bayside. That lineup plays Jan. 9 at House of Blues Anaheim.

Also at the Mouse House: Adam Richman from Man vs. Food, Dec. 15 (also Dec. 16 at the Wiltern) … Reel Big Fish with Chase Long Beach and Starpool, Dec. 28 (also Dec. 27 at House of Blues Sunset Strip, with Starpool and Chris Murray) … KC & the Sunshine Band, Dec. 29 … and acclaimed singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile, touring behind her third album (Give Up the Ghost), March 12. All of those shows go on sale Saturday at 10 a.m. (Also at the West Hollywood House: Genitorturers, Jan. 23.)

Saxophonist Dave Koz will bring his Smooth Jazz Christmas 2009 production to Gibson Amphitheatre on Dec. 23, with help from Rick Braun, David Benoit and Peter White & Brenda Russell. Tickets go on sale Saturday at 1 p.m. (A portion of proceeds will benefit the L.A. Regional Food Bank.)

Two increasingly popular comedians are stepping up the Wiltern stage: Maz Jobrani on Jan. 23 and Gabriel Iglesias on Feb. 5 (the latter also plays May 1 at Long Beach Terrace Theater.) Tickets go on sale Saturday at 10 a.m.

And new at L.A.’s El Rey Theatre: Black Lips with Nobunny, Jan. 23, $19, on sale Friday at 10 a.m. …and Rooney with newly announced openers Tally Hall and the Crash Kings, Nov. 27, $20-$50, on sale now.

Last but not least, the Playing for Change show slated for Nov. 13 at Club Nokia has added appearances from Toots Hibbert of Toots & the Maytals and Ziggy Marley, Nov. 13, $23.50-$100, on sale now.

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Silversun Pickups celebrated a triumphant return to Los Angeles Tuesday night, basking in the warmth of a crowd that was clearly head over heels for L.A.’s newest local darlings to have broken big on a national scale.

The nearly sold-out crowd at Gibson Amphitheatre, on hand for LA Weekly’s first LA 101 show (a replacement of sorts for  its usual Detour festival), was on its feet as soon as the lights dimmed — and didn’t sit down until the final distorted notes faded out. Mid-set, “The Royal We” built to such a frenetic level that the crowd didn’t want to stop clapping when the song was over. So frontman Brian Aubert just took it all in, then seized the moment to send some love right back to the crowd.

“Forgive us if it’s a little cheeseball,” he said, “but we’ve been waiting so long to say these three little words: Hello, Los Angeles!”

The Pickups played a blisteringly hot, roughly 90-minute set that included eight of 10 tracks from the band’s April release, Swoon. “Getting Older Is Getting Old” –- an unassuming if solid mid-album cut–- rose to the occasion as an opening track, while the breakdown of “Panic Switch” eventually reached a fever pitch, with Aubert’s vocals and guitar screaming over impressive drumming.

“Lazy Eye” was perhaps a predictable closer but the sugary sweetness of the melody, countered by gritty guitar, showed why it’s the band’s biggest song. Silversun fans easily could have walked away on that long-awaited high, but the band returned for an encore that included the sultry “Catch and Release.” That didn’t top “Lazy Eye,” but it’s tough to end such a special show, so no complaints here over hearing a few more songs, ending with Aubert’s spinning exit that exemplified the set’s dissolve into dizzying distortion.

In an attempt to replicate the festival feel of Detour while miniaturizing it, LA 101 spread its talent across two stages, one large, one small. Outside, KROQ’s Locals Only platform showcased Funeral Party, O.C. favorite Aushua and the Flying Tourbillion Orchestra. Inside, the main stage featured Cambodian L.A. transplants Dengue Fever along with New York duo Matt & Kim and, from Portland, Ore., the Dandy Warhols (below).

M&K were huge crowd-pleasers, judging by the raucous applause they received, but the response to the Dandys was a bit underwhelming -– a shame considering how their show was a musical tour de force.

The quartet used their all-too-brief set to showcase the depth and variety of their catalog, from soft, ambient tunes to the pure country of “The New Country,” building up to the chaotic climax of “Bohemian Like You.”

The music crashed over the crowd like a 100-foot wall of sound, thanks in part to superb sound quality at Gibson. Technicians brought out every layer of the Warhols’ complex melodies, each instrument clear and distinct, blending seamlessly into a cohesive whole bigger than the sum of its parts. A highlight was the guitar solos added into the live version of “Godless,” breaking up the poppy rhythm with a metal-worthy axe shred.

Hearing Silversun and the Dandys together made a surprising amount of sense. Both bands carry the ’90s sound like a badge of honor, and the abundant flannel and leather in the crowd was an overt ode to a decade past. The Dandys first album dropped in 1995; its muddy guitar riffs owe a lot to the Northwestern grunge scene they grew up in. And there were moments during Silversun’s set when it was nearly impossible not to hear the Smashing Pumpkins.

Each band may use different spices to create unique melodies, but they share the same simple formula: layering tons of noise and distortion over simple pop beats equals magic.

Photos by Armando Brown, for the Orange County Register.

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Peter Schelden, who reviewed Devendra Banhart at the Mouse House in August, is back with a report on last year’s buzziest buzz band as it gears up for a new album …

Vampire Weekend, the NYC  quartet who drew great acclaim last year for its charming self-titled debut, sounded tight and well-rehearsed Monday night as they began a series of California shows this month with a sold-out performance at Long Beach’s renovated Art Theater. The gigs are a prelude of sorts to the release of the band’s sophomore effort, Contra, due Jan. 11.

VW, who met taking English classes at Columbia University, deliver pop gems compounded with Ivy League wit that is sometimes awkwardly precious. The songs tend to tell a story, usually obscurely, often set to world-beat rhythms touched up by jangly guitar.

But what came through most Monday night were the band’s influences.

Lead singer/guitarist Ezra Koenig (above, at the All Points West festival earlier this year) was dressed in a broad-striped blue polo shirt, reminiscent of Brian Wilson, while his guitar snarled with a cheap, gritty sound akin to the Velvet Underground. There was a lot borrowed from Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m on Fire” in the fourth song of the night, “I Stand Corrected,” and maybe a nod to Daniel Smith in the shrill hook of  “One (Blake’s Got a New Face).”

Their most complete pop song, “A-Punk,” came smack-dab in the middle of the show and marked the highlight of the evening. It’s a song that sounds like falling in love yet actually sneaks in a sad story, and like many other Vampire songs uses slightly archaic language that owes more to poetry than Paul McCartney, sounding like nothing so much as the Decemberists.

They had the crowd dancing with abandon for that first half of the show, but after “A-Punk” things calmed down a little. VW songs trade on driving bass-drum-heavy rhythms that can become predictable after too many songs in a row, eventually failing to incite much body movement.

But overall VW hit the mark with some great, inventive pop numbers. The strength of their material, including Contra samples, relies on cleverness, but the songs’ deliberate simplicity overcomes that ambition from time to time. Will this promising young band become a major force next year with new material that maybe breaks away from tried-and-true patterns? We shall see.

Photo by Jason DeCrow, The Associated Press.

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Dressed in black Doc Martens, soccer knee pads, black shorts, a Devo T-shirt and — most beautiful to behold – a trademark red flowerpot hat, he absentmindedly moves his fingers over the keys of what looks like a vintage adding machine grafted onto an accordion as we take a seat to talk about the band’s coming tour and new album.

The outing opens with shows Tuesday and Wednesday at the Music Box at the Fonda in Hollywood, with the band playing full albums in the original running order both nights. The group’s strikingly original debut, Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! (1978) is set for tonight, followed by Devo’s third effort and biggest commercial hit, Freedom of Choice (1980), on Wednesday.

“We did All Tomorrow’s Parties in London in May,” Mothersbaugh explains, referring to the eclectic U.K. music festival that each year is “curated” by fellow artists (among them Thurston Moore, the Mars Volta, Portishead, the Breeders, Sleater-Kinney, the Shins, next year Pavement, who are reuniting).

For May’s first of two ATP weekends, Devo was asked to play their first album. “And we thought, ‘Oh, that’s not going to work!’ But we did it, and we were surprised at how well it worked.”

So plans for a quick November tour eventually centered on the same concept.

“We know (Are We Not Men?) is going to work,” Mothersbaugh says. “But the second night, Freedom of Choice, that’s going to be interesting, because a lot of the songs that charted are front-loaded on it.”

The goal, he says, is to play it as close to how Devo originally recorded and performed it at the time.

“Some of the electronics I had back then are lost or destroyed, so we’ll have to make some changes to it,” Mothersbaugh says. “But it’ll be pretty dang accurate — that’s d-a-n-g.”

It’s a short tour, just 14 dates in seven cities, partly because Mothersbaugh’s other career, composing music for movies and TV shows, obliges him to be back in Los Angeles by the end of the month to work with an orchestra on the score for Ramona and Beezus, a movie based on children’s author Beverly Cleary’s popular characters, due next summer.

Yet, though Devo has taken off long stretches of time as members pursued their own interests, Mothersbaugh says that playing live is still a blast even 35 or so years on.

“That’s the best part of the whole day,” he says. “On a tour, playing the show is the best part of your day. When I was 20, everything was exciting. It was great to be in a whole new Marriott in a whole new city every day. It’s a better gig for a 20-year-old than when you’re in your 50s.”

Devo also is wrapping up work on its first album of new material in roughly 20 years, Mothersbaugh says.

“It’s 9/10ths done with us writing and recording our tracks. We decided to try this concept — we had of a number of different remixers getting involved, and that’s been the most fun. We like the idea of positive mutation, so we like bringing people in who use what their take on Devo is, or what they remember Devo being. And it often makes us laugh.

“We’re essentially doing what we did to the Rolling Stones back in 1977,” Mothersbaugh says, referring to the band’s famously radical reworking of “Satisfaction.”

The still-untitled album will probably come out at the end of the year or early 2010, he says. Or maybe a little bit at a time.

“I don’t feel the need to put out 10-20 tracks on a record,” Mothersbaugh points out. “I like the model where a few songs come out at once, and then a few more … and then eventually the album comes out.”

To that end, Devo already has released online “Watch Us Work It,” the song for which they were shooting a video the day we met Mothersbaugh. While we’re not allowed to tell you yet what show the video will eventually appear on, we can tell you to head over to MySpace.com/Devo to find the song.

Post from: Soundcheck

At its core, Vermont jam band Phish is a fascinating blend of dichotomies — serious and silly, focused yet erratic, sublime while stumbling — all of which adds to the don’t-you-dare-miss-a-single-show mentality that pervades its fan base. Phish-heads turn out in droves wherever the band schedules dates because they know that somewhere in the midst of those dichotomies will be one (or many) shining moments that will keep them coming back, again and again.

Yet, on Sunday, the final day of the band’s Festival 8 at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, all sides of Phish were on display for the estimated 40,000 attendees.

EXHIBIT A: THE ACOUSTIC SET

The day began with Phish’s first all-acoustic set since back-to-back nights at Neil Young’s Bridge School Benefit in 1998. While coffee and figure-8-shaped donuts were distributed, the band members took their (unusual) places — on opposite sides of the stage than normal, with a smaller kit for drummer Jon Fishman, a lone grand piano instead of the arsenal of keyboards employed by Page McConnell and a stool apiece for bassist Mike Gordon and guitarist Trey Anastasio.

Early in the 90-minute set, Anastasio suggested the audience sit instead of stand, as the band would be “playing a bunch of mellow songs.”  Eager to please their shaggy, bespectacled icon, the majority of fans did just that for the better part of the set. While the gesture was one of respect for the band and its music, it contributed to a chatty crowd; that usually isn’t a problem during an electric Phish performance, but on Sunday morning it proved an unfortunate distraction.

Loquaciousness aside, Phish’s selections walked the line between the safe and standard (“Water in the Sky,” “Driver”) and the more adventurous and rearranged (“The Curtain With,” “McGrupp and the Watchful Hosemasters”). The latter two shone as examples of what Phish can do when the band members put their noses to the proverbial grindstone and actually practice (another stellar example being the previous night’s front-to-back cover of the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main St.).

Towards the end of the acoustic set, Anastasio chopped out the four-note intro to “Wilson,” and as the audience chanted back, he and Gordon leapt to their feet (with the crowd following instantly thereafter) — and the sit-down portion of the show was officially over. Anastasio even apologized mid-song for asking everyone to take a seat, confessing that his own attention-deficit personality makes it hard for him to sit still. If that doesn’t scream dichotomy, nothing does.

EXHIBIT B: THE SECOND SET

After a nearly three-hour break, Phish returned to the stage for an 80-minute electric set marked by a number of its more challenging songs, ones with odd time signatures, stop-on-a-dime changes and complicated arrangements. With the exception of a relatively rare Fishman flub halfway through the rigid-then-relaxed “Reba,” Phish mostly nailed the rickety twists and turns of “Rift” and the swinging, fugue-like portions of “Guelah Papyrus” (all songs written in the first decade of the band’s existence).

How do these examples fit the binary nature of the band?

Well, to be fair, they’re not the most complicated songs Phish has written — “Divided Sky” and “Fluffhead” both made well-executed appearances on Saturday — but they’re excellent examples of tunes that the band shied away from in its “post-hiatus” years of 2002-04, avoided mostly because the daily practice-practice-practice mentality that earned Phish its stripes early on seemed to fall by the wayside during those years.

Ever since Phish’s return to touring this past March, there’s a distinct focus on nailing many of these difficult compositions, as though the band members fully understand that they indeed have something to prove. This take-no-prisoners approach is vastly different (at least on the surface) than the happy-go-lucky young guns who rose to the jam band promontory in the ’90s.

EXHIBIT C: THE FINAL SET

Beginning with the syncopated throaty funk of “Tweezer” and finishing with the ascendant peak of “Slave to the Traffic Light,” Phish fired on nearly all cylinders during its concluding set. Here, the dichotomy lay in the vastly differing styles of songs that comprised the nearly two-hour finale, as the band moved from the aquatic, slip-sliding “Free” through the oddly timed polyrhythms of “Sugar Shack” and “Limb by Limb” to the disco-tinged delight of their cover of Deodato’s “2001” theme.

The highlight of the set (perhaps the day, perhaps the whole weekend) was the late-set arrival of “Light,” a cathartic epistle in which the band claims “the light is growing brighter now” and begs to “guide us to our goal / purify our souls.”  On the recently released Joy, “Light” begins with 80 seconds of plush ambience before storming through another three-minutes-plus of straight-ahead rock ‘n’ roll.  On Sunday night, Phish reversed the formula: Anastasio strummed the opening chords to “Light” as the closing cacophony of “2001” died out; here, the space opened up after the main thrust of the song ended.

As McConnell moved from piano to organ to synthesizer, and the jam out of “Light” grew heavier and spacier, a towering wall of diode-carrying balloons arose from the side of the stage, fluttering in flashy hues of blue, orange and pink. Eventually, the jam folded in upon itself just as fluidly as the balloon structure eventually sank back to earth, accompanied by washes of synthesizer, beating toms and volume swells.

This bizarre blend of scintillating arena-rock and gutsy atmospheric turbulence serves as a  pronounced example of the new Phish, its latent dichotomous nature, and how the band best serves its two halves just as those halves serve the band.  Like the set-closing “Slave to the Traffic Light,” it’s a ponderous lesson in group dynamics. Hearing loud and rowdy give way to gentle and delicate (or the other way around), seeing all smiles even when someone flubs a particularly difficult change, or feeling the way through a kinda-first-time outing on acoustic instruments, it’s all what makes Phish’s shining moments easier to find than miss.

Photos by Jeff Miller, for the Orange County Register.

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While the Bravery may continue to sound like a hybrid born out of early Cure and War-era U2, the quintet’s strong concert Sunday night at House of Blues Anaheim was certainly no tribute act.

Under the charismatic leadership of singer Sam Endicott, the group’s thrilling 70-minute show celebrated the New York band’s blend of post-punk, new-wave and alt-rock with 18 songs pulled from the past as well as its coming release, Stir the Blood, a self-described angry album due Dec. 1.

The Bravery had several things going in its favor at the Mouse House: a large and enthusiastic crowd in tune with the outfit’s approach plus a set list showcasing the band’s songwriting and live skills at their best.

Whether performing its best-known material (“Unconditional,” “Believe,” “An Honest Mistake,” “The Ocean”) or new songs (“I Have Seen the Future,” “Jack O’ Lantern Man”), the Bravery’s cohesive sound blended with artful projections of lights and films shown behind and over them. Endicott, lead guitarist Michael Zakarin, bassist Mike Hindert, drummer Anthony Burulcich and keyboardist John Conway didn’t use the visuals so they could scale back their own musical attack, but rather to enhance the show.

Among the strong new sneak peeks in the mix were “Slow Poison,” bolstered by both a driving dance beat and a layered guitar sound (Zakarin used a violin bow to play his electric guitar, evoking Sigur Rós), and “Red Hands and White Knuckles,” which Endicott described as his love song to New York City.

The Bravery has a potent one-two attack with a lineup that features both a commanding lead singer and a skillful lead guitarist. Endicott used his outgoing personality and striking vocals to lead the proceedings with Zakarin fitting in comfortably nearby, before suddenly unleashing memorable fretwork that provided extra zing throughout the set.

A true bonus for those who caught the Bravery Sunday night was the inclusion of two strong opening acts. Although the Dustys and Living Things each performed for only 30 minutes, both acts made the most of their brief turns.
The former, from Arlington, Va., recall England’s Doves, offering up alluring indie-rock; the latter, out of St. Louis, creates retro rock that’s an unlikely sonic cross between the Ramones and ’70s Stones, punched up by raw, in-your-face lyrics.

(The bill plays again tonight at House of Blues San Diego, 1055 5th Ave., $17, and Thursday at the Wiltern, 3790 Wilshire Blvd., in Los Angeles, $25.)

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