Rolling Stone quotes former Beach Boy Al Jardine saying that the surviving original members of the group will reunite for at least one concert in 2011 to mark the 50th anniversary of the band’s first release, “Surfin’.”

But that’s news both to Mike Love, the founding member who controls rights to the Beach Boys name, and to Brian Wilson, the group’s creative mastermind who has pursued a variety of ambitious solo projects and tours over the last decade.

Wilson’s manager, Jean Sievers, told The Times this week that he has no plans for Beach Boys reunion activities -- and Rolling Stone quotes her to that effect -- and that he is focusing his attention on his forthcoming solo album “Brian Wilson Reimagines George Gershwin,” in which he has recorded his versions of several Gershwin classics and completed two song fragments left behind by the composer at his death in 1937.

Love also issued a statement recently regarding Beach Boys' 50th anniversary reunion rumors, stating:

The Beach Boys continue to tour approximately 150 shows a year in multiple countries. At this time there are no plans for my cousin Brian to rejoin the tour.  He has new solo projects on the horizon and I wish him love and success.  We have had some discussions of writing and possibly recording together, but nothing has been planned.

--Randy Lewis

Photo of the Beach Boys -- Al Jardine, left, Mike Love, Carl Wilson and Brian Wilson, front; drummer Dennis Wilson, rear -- performing in 1964 at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium for "The T.A.M.I. Show." Credit: Dick Clark Productions

 
Taylor Swift’s third studio album, “Speak Now,” will be released Oct. 25, the singer and songwriter announced this week on a Web chat. She talked about how she’s worked on it steadily, once again co-producing with Nathan Chapman, in the two years since the release of “Fearless,” which became the biggest selling album of 2009.

The first single, “Mine,” is scheduled to hit radio and other outlets Aug. 16, which she said reflects the notion that “I’m never ever going to go past hoping that love can work out. I’m always hopeful.”

 

Now more than two months removed from what was perceived as a harsh New York Times profile of M.I.A., one that juxtaposed her political beliefs with her comfortable lifestyle, Pop & Hiss wasn't really interested in furthering any discussion of the worldly electronic artist that wasn't strictly on the music. But then the below clip from Funny or Die appeared, and it was too good to not be shared.

More silly that scathing, the Stoney Sharp-directed clip stars Lindy Jamil Gomez as a speedwalking suburban M.I.A. whose singing for "all the ladies whose values have changed, and are are looking for some stability." Funny or Die's "doggy"-obsessed M.I.A. partakes in Wii boxing, a game of Cranium and has a toy pony named Tom. But it's replacing the gunshots of her "Paper Planes" with squirts of toilet cleanser that truly warm the heart.

Watch after the jump.

The teen pop star shows his fans that he has the same appeal in flesh and blood as he does in the virtual world.

Maybe Justin Bieber is an airbender. He might even be an avatar, able to control all four elements, and anointed to unite disparate realms — like the grown-up world and the kid world, or hip hop-grounded teen pop and singer-songwriterly classic rock. If an arrow lurks under his famous coif, Bieber’s doing his best to conceal it; this most successful pop star is not a show-off, and he projected normality Tuesday throughout the Los Angeles stop of his “My World 2.0” tour.

But Bieber also made clear that what a teen star needs now is a new kind of magic, an ability to seamlessly move from the virtual realm of YouTube and Twitter to the physical one, where joyfully hysterical fans demand a strong emotional connection. His performance was all about securing the link between his fans’ imaginary relationship with him, established via the Internet and through the highly produced singles that have won young ears, and the one he was building with them in the Nokia Theatre L.A. Live.

The show began with Bieber seemingly stepping out of an Xbox video game. This tour is presented by Microsoft’s gaming wing, and as with so many aspects of popular culture now, Bieber’s success reflects the now-common experience of merging a physical self with a synthetic one. Skillfully alternating between lip-synching dance numbers and belting out ballads in his wavering but clear pubescent tenor, executing dance routines that were more about posing perfectly than showing much athleticism, Bieber collapsed the space between the regular boy he professes to be and the enchanted one he’s become to his fans.

The timelessly vintage indie-pop of She & Him will join a bill that already includes such A-list chefs as Ludo Lefebvre, Suzanne Goin and Mark Peel, among many others, performing a headlining set Sept. 5 at the Los Angeles Times' Celebration of Food & Wine. The musical pairing of Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward, who recently played the Hollywood Bowl with the Swell Season and the Bird & the Bee, are said to be playing a full set at the all-day Labor Day weekend affair.

The event, hosted by our co-workers at the Los Angeles Times Media Group, will run from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. on the Paramount Pictures Studio lot. General admission tickets start at $55, and there is a VIP option for $125.Times food editor Russ Parsons will lead discussions with culinary experts and chefs, and there will be cooking and mixologist demonstrations. 

There's even good news for those with more discerning palates: A press release touts the presence of craft beer, although breweries are not yet listed. If there's a downside to a date with food nerds and She & Him  -- beyond worrying about one's budget, of course -- it means some of us on Team Pop & Hiss will probably be spending a Sunday with our co-workers. 

This isn't the first time She & Him has catered to the epicurean crowd. In March, the act appeared at a party hosted by Rachael Ray at the South by Southwest industry conference in Austin, Tex. She & Him has been touring in support of its recently released "Volume 2," which saw the act gradually and subtly adding more symphonic and harmonic flourishes to its wistful Southern California pop. 

The polite food-focused studio backdrop should suit She & Him well. Even when the band turns it up, such as when it tackles Chuck Berry's "Roll Over Beethoven" or Ward's own "Magic Trick," it's still an elegant sound that seems fit for smiling bluebirds and a skip down Disneyland's Main Street. She & Him is winding down its promotion of "Volume 2," and as of now its only other California date is Oct. 17 as part of San Francisco's Treasure Island festival.

The nominees for this year's Barclay Mercury Prize, a sought-after British award bestowed upon left-of-center releases, contains a number of already familiar names to music fans on these shores. The concise electronic romance of the xx, the reflective neo-soul of Corinne Bailey Rae and veteran rock 'n' roller Paul Weller are among the crop of finalists, which in 2009 went to the jazzy acoustic hip-hop of Speech Debelle. 

Though the Mercury Prize takes a more expansive approach than most major U.S. awards, it's rarely simply a collection of unknowns. Past nominees have included the likes of Radiohead and Robert Plant, and this year singer/songwriter Laura Marling and rapper Dizzee Rascal make return appearances on the nominee list for their recent albums. 

Fast-rising folk rockers Mumford & Sons scored a 2010 nomination, as did Sub Pop indie rockers Foals. Scottish rockers Biffy Clyro, vocally adventurous rock experimentalists Wild Beasts, jazz act the Kit Downes Trio and Manchester nap rockers I Am Kloot help round out the nominees. 

Of the relatively unknown artists, worth keeping an eye on is Domino's the Villagers. Led by Conor J. O'Brien, the Irish act released its debut, "Becoming a Jackal," in the spring of this year, and it's an elegantly atmospheric effort, with spacious melodies, ghostly harmonies and dark poetics. The Villagers will be at Hollywood's Hotel Cafe next Tuesday (July 27), performing an early 8 p.m. set. Tickets are $14.50. 

Other recent winners have included Elbow, the Klaxons, the Arctic Monkeys and Antony and the Johnsons. Winning the award doesn't necessarily foretell industry success, though, and some of the bigger overseas breakouts in recent years, including La Roux and Amy Winehouse were runner-ups. The Mercury Prize is a cash award chosen by a panel of U.K. industry professionals. 

-- Todd Martens

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A list of upcoming shows across the Southland, with on-sale dates in parentheses.

Staples Center
Kangta, Girls' Generation and more, Sept. 4 (Sat.)

Gibson Amphitheatre
American Carnage Tour with Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax, Oct. 21 (Fri.)

Hollywood Palladium
O.A.R., Oct. 2 (Sat.)

Wiltern
Broken Bells, Oct. 6 (Fri.); Guided by Voices, Oct. 4 (Sat.)

El Rey Theatre
Alejandro Escovedo, Aug. 11; Mae, Nov. 13 (Thurs.); Foals, Oct. 18; Recoil, Oct. 22; Built to Spill, Oct. 28 (Sat.)

Music Box
Kele, Sept. 21 (Thurs.); Blonde Redhead, Nov. 16 (Fri.); EOTO, Sept. 23 (Sat.)

Greek Theatre
Donald Fagen, Michael McDonald and Boz Scaggs, Sept. 29; Train, Sept. 30 (Sat.)

You'd be forgiven for having forgotten about Autolux. Their first and only album came out six years ago, which is practically pre-Cambrian in Internet time. That was before Pitchfork had launched a website devoted to micro music trends and a million blogs had sprung up to capture increasingly greenhorn bands.

Indeed, the stellar and polished "Future Perfect," dropped in September of 2004, before the online music world had begun its blood-lust to be first, an evolution that can only lead to live streams and live-tweets of first rehearsals in Williamsburg featuring four flannel-clad men surrounded by Macbooks, effects pedals, samplers, and a rarely used beard trimmer.

Before Silversun Pickups built on their neo-shoegaze template and ran with it, the trio of Eugene Goreshter (vocals/bass), Greg Edwards (guitar/vocals), and Carla Azar (vocals/drums) were the initial breakout band from Silver Lake. Signed to T-Bone Burnett's DMZ records, the record drew favorable comparisons to Sonic Youth, Blonde Redhead, and the Jesus & Mary Chain, while touring with big names like Beck and the White Stripes.

The runaway hit single of the still-young summer of 2010 is Katy Perry's bubbly "California Gurls." More than just a bouncy ode to sun and fun in the Southland, it's something of a long-delayed female take on the same theme famously celebrated 45 years ago in the Beach Boys' "California Girls."

Perry bypasses the region-hopping comparisons that the Beach Boys founders Brian Wilson and Mike Love engaged in for their song, but both salute the ongoing appeal of the sight of beautiful women in bikinis on a beach near the surf.

So I put the question out to Wilson: What do you think of this variation on your theme, and are you flattered or infuriated by it?

"I love her vocal," the Beach Boys' creative mastermind said Monday through his manager. "She sounds very clear and energetic."

UPDATE on July 21 at 4:17 p.m.: Mike Love also has become a Perry fan.

“I think she’s really clever,” Love said Wednesday, reached at his hotel in Medford, Ore., where the Beach Boys were performing that night. “We have a lot in common now: We both have done songs called ‘California Girls’ and we’ve both kissed girls and liked it.”

Perry’s song, he said, “obviously brings to mind our ‘California Girls,’ it’s just in a different vernacular, a different way of appreciating the same things. The Beach Boys have always accentuated the positive, and hers is a positive message about California Girls, so what’s not to like?”

Wilson also liked the version that includes a guest rap by Snoop Dogg that makes a nod to the original.

"The melody is infectious, and I'm flattered that Snoop Dogg used our lyric on the tag," Wilson noted. "I wish them well with this cut."

Little wishing appears to be necessary. "California Gurls" just completed a run of six weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart and has sold more than 2.6 million copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan, with the vast majority being digital downloads.

Perry's musical homage has done so well that the obvious follow-up for the Santa Barbara-born singer might just have to be "Gud Vibrations."

-- Randy Lewis

Left photo: Brian Wilson poolside at his home in 2008: Credit: Karen Tapia-Andersen / Los Angeles Times

Right photo: Katy Perry and Snoop Dogg. Credit: Mario Anzuoni / Reuters

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One entertaining sight at Sunday's debut L.A. performance of One Day as a Lion at the Center for the Arts in Eagle Rock was the bobbing head of Tom Morello, guitarist for Zack de la Rocha's other band, Rage Against the Machine, as he rocked out forcefully to his friend's cutting-edge ensemble. The sight of Morello made me realize that this library-turned-community center would be a perfect venue for his own other project, the Nightwatchman -- a folk-flavored effort that puts Morello in Woody Guthrie mode.

That got me wondering about the potential of this venue, which has lately been attracting capacity crowds and media attention with its inventive bookings. I'd also noticed Sean Carlson running around looking harried but happy. The young promoter who's also behind the annual FYF Fest has been instrumental in bringing buzzed-about acts to the room.

Recently, a family show featuring garage rock legend Roky Erikson, several sold-out performances by Ryan Gosling's children's choir, Dead Man's Bones, and the L.A. debut of Jose Gonzales' new band, Junip, have raised the visibility of a space that's dragging Westsiders (and residents of  nearby bohemian enclaves Silver Lake and Echo Park) into a neighborhood known for artists' studios and hip young families, but not so much for music-oriented nightlife.

In another era, the Swell Season’s performance of “Falling Slowly” at the Hollywood Bowl on Sunday night would have been accompanied by 17,000 Bic lighters glowing in the summer air. 

The ballad catapulted the Swell Season, the Irish/Czech duo comprised of Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, into the American mainstream when they won the Academy Award for best original song in the indie film “Once.” It’s a song tailor-made for heavy petting, and on Sunday night it certainly pleased the crowd.

But by that point – nearly three hours into the show, part of KCRW's World Festival -- the masses didn’t need much prompting. On an evening also featuring openers She & Him and the Bird & the Bee, the Swell Season walked onto the stage after the other two male/female duos (and backing bands) had rolled out a red carpet of lush, bouncy songs that filled the Bowl with good spirit.

“Have a glass of Chardonnay for me,” requested the Bird and the Bee singer Inara George as she greeted the crowd, accurately capturing its tastes. Wearing a sparkling flapper’s dress and offering sophsiticated cocktail pop music, George and musical partner Greg Kurstin, accompanied by a seven-piece band,   delivered a sound that recalled Burt Bacharach’s adult-oriented songcraft. As well, they played two songs from the Bird and the Bee’s recent tribute album to Hall & Oates—”Sara Smile” and “I Heard It on the Radio”-- which set the crowd into nostalgia mode.

She & Him, the project of actress Zooey Deschanel and guitarist/songwriter M. Ward, offered a catchier fare, one that’s steeped in Brill Building pop and 1970s-era country music. Deschanel proved herself more than merely an actress with a singing hobby; her voice was powerful and confident, especially during the band’s final song, a take on Screaming Jay Hawkins’ “I Put a Spell on You.” 

The Swell Season’s set pushed up the volume from the start. At times Hansard sang so hard it seemed like his eyes might pop out of his head. 

One of the highlights, though, was Irglova’s solo turn in front of the mike. Strumming an acoustic guitar, she dedicated a gorgeous, nuanced version of “I Have Loved You Wrong” to the actor Colin Farrell, who presented the Swell Season with their Academy Award at the 2008 ceremony. 

 

The nine-piece band crafted a sound that blended classic ‘60s soul – Hansard’s got a voice to rival Van Morrison’s and Otis Redding’s – with a brand of blue collar rock that suggested Bruce Springsteen. The Boss, in fact, wrote the final song that the Swell Season performed: “Drive All Night.” It perfectly captured what the Swell Season does best: conveying a passionate honesty that cuts through pretense and tackles pure emotion. 

-- Randall Roberts

Photos: Glen Hansard, top right, and Marketa Irglova. The Bird and the Bee's Inara George, center, and She & Him's M. Ward, bottom left, with Zooey Deschanel. Credits: Gina Ferazzi  / Los Angeles Times

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Sheryl Crow’s seventh studio album is a summer skinny-dip into the retro-soul sound that has updated ’60s nostalgia for the post hip-hop generation. With a title invoking the distance between Crow’s Missouri hometown and the home of Elvis and Al Green, it’s more an exploration of the rhythm-and-blues diaspora than a straightforward re-creation of any particular Southern sound.

There’s a little Stax in the horns, a little Motown in the backing vocals, and quite a bit of Al Green and Willie Mitchell’s Hi Records simmer in the grooves producers Doyle Bramhall II and Justin Stanley cultivate. But Crow also throws in a reggae cut (with guitar from England’s favorite classic-rock rude boy, Keith Richards), a couple of nonspecifically political anthems that Ben Harper would have been happy to have written, and a duet with Citizen Cope on that blue-eyed soul slacker’s own “Sideways” that nicely taps into his heavy mellowness. Justin Timberlake also has a cameo, singing backup on a version of Terence Trent D’Arby's late-’80s seduction “Sign Your Name.”

This should all add up to an excellent outing, but Crow’s effort has problems. Nearly every song overstays its welcome; what may have felt like a bunch of great jams in the studio grows tedious over the course of 12 tracks. Crow sings with sensitivity throughout, but she just doesn’t have the fat tone that would have lifted the more up-tempo songs higher; best among those is “Long Road Home,” which goes more in a country direction. The bonus track that has her reprising the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back” convincingly demonstrates the Michael-like tone that caused the late superstar to hire her as a backup singer long ago, but the goofy backing vocals leaves one longing for Jermaine and the other brothers.

Crow has said that she wanted to make a sexier album than “Detours,” which she recorded in the aftermath of both breast cancer and her breakup with cyclist Lance Armstrong. Indeed, “Memphis” works best when she brings the rhythm down and the focus in close. “Stop,” a Shelby Lynne-style showstopper, features one of her most expressive recent vocals, and the moody “Roses and Moonlight” tantalizingly hints at what Crow might have offered if she’d made a proper blues album instead of this one. Now that’s a genre that actually needs reviving. Crow might do a service to her fans, herself, and pop history by taking that dustier back road next time.

— Ann Powers

Sheryl Crow
“100 Miles From Memphis”
A&M;
Two stars (Out of four)

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Paramnesia refers to a cranial condition in which memory is distorted and fantasy and objective experience are confused. Judging from Rick Ross’ career trajectory, this is one of his greatest assets.

Two years ago, the Smoking Gun revealed William Roberts’ prison guard past. For a man who had constructed an elaborate self-portrait as a yacht-sailing, crab-eating, cocaine-peddling kingpin, it should’ve been a death blow — particularly when perpetual opportunist 50 Cent equated him to Chris Rock’s faux-gangsta from “CB4.” But unlike the rose wine from which he derived his “Rozay” nickname, Ross has improved with age.

Hence “Teflon Don,” which refers to Ross’ ability to duck any credibility allegations. Whereas his first album, “Port of Miami,” relied on Michael Bay-worthy bombast, Ross has evolved into a surprisingly nimble rapper, as revealed on “Free Mason,” “Live Fast, Die Young,” and “Maybach Music III,” where his husky blunt-burned boasts hold their own against fellow heavyweights Jay-Z, T.I., Kanye West and Jadakiss.

His chimerical mythologizing is as stubbornly entertaining as anything James Cameron could cook up, but Ross also reveals an endearing peek behind the platinum curtain. The Cee-Lo-assisted “Tears of Joy” examines the perils of holding the top perch, while “All the Money in the World” mourns his deceased dad.

Sonically, the album is beautifully constructed, with West, No I.D., the Inkredibles and the J.U.S.T.I.C.E League creating a symphonic grandeur to match Ross’ elaborate delusions.

One of the best summer blockbusters in recent memory, “Teflon Don” proves how thin the line is between a flight of fancy and something fantastic.

— Jeff Weiss

Rick Ross
“Teflon Don”
Def Jam
Three and a half stars (Out of four)

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The Books’ first album in five years marks the most sophisticated collage yet from the audio-ransacking duo of Nick Zammuto and Paul de Jong. Culling from 4,000 tapes collected on their last tour, “The Way Out” samples hypnotherapy gurus, answering machine messages, Talkboy cassettes of playfully violent children and other unlikely sources. It’s a meticulous yet absurd work to get lost in, like a labyrinth of shattered mirrors painstakingly reassembled.

On the album’s second track, a series of soothing directives underscored by gentle guitar picking are issued from the lost sages of the New Age. “I am the loop that goes ’round and ’round in your head, flowing warmth,” breathes a woman. “Your body is now a glass container,” a man coos. And, in case you always wondered what to wear to your self-actualization party, one instructs to “put on some undergarments and go deeper and deeper and deeper.”

The recurring motif of throwing off the ego is a fitting one for the Books, who aim to plunge the listener into a near hypnotic state where the detritus of recorded information — found and original recordings — can wash over the listener in one primal wave. The ear may rest on specific pieces, like seashells on the Pacific’s floor, but it’s all part of a vast ocean of sound. It’s folk music for the Digital Age — instead of the needle popping on a dusty field recording, you hear the catch of electronics, an anonymous voice calling out from the slipstream of time.

— Margaret Wappler

The Books
“The Way Out”
Temporary Residence Limited
Three stars (Out of four)

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A jazz veteran who has collaborated with Sun Ra, Don Cherry and Sam Rivers as well as leading his own ensembles, violinist Billy Bang (born Billy Walker in 1947) may not be a household name. Yet listeners who might ordinarily shy away from the at-times turbulent world of free jazz shouldn’t miss this recording, a rewarding and often gorgeous record that hopefully will remedy Bang’s comparatively low profile.

Though jazz violin is a relative rarity (New York’s eclectic Jenny Scheinman and our own Jeff Gauthier immediately come to mind), “Prayer for Peace” is as much about Bang’s compositional verve and nimble backing band as it is his instrument. Opening with a cover of “Only Time Will Tell” by fellow jazz violinist Stuff Smith, Bang’s quintet swings with such understated elegance that it’s easy to imagine the song turning up in the jazz-mad HBO series “Treme.”

Bang’s tastes run too eclectic to stay in one style long. Rising out of a clockwork groove from bassist Todd Nicholson and pianist Andrew Bemkey, “Dance of the Manakin” is a slowly escalating study in joyfully adventurous jazz-funk. In addition to touching on Monkish bop with “Jupiter’s Future,” Bang also showcases a deft hand with Latin jazz on “At Play in the Fields of the Lord,” which builds to a swerving, sawing violin crescendo, and Compay Segundo’s Cuban classic “Chan Chan” gets a fairly straightforward reworking with some bawdy trumpet work from James Zollar.

But it’s the album’s title track that leaves the greatest impression. The song’s nearly 20-minute run time coasts by in a blink, with every movement evolving into the next with a lush, captivating grace reminiscent of “A Love Supreme.” Some might still call it avant-garde, but leave it to a man who took his name from a cartoon to prove labels don’t mean a thing.

— Chris Barton

Billy Bang
“Prayer for Peace”
TUM Records
Three stars (Out of four)

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Dr. Dre's "The Chronic" is one of those albums that has inspired so many words, any discussion of its merits involves reiterating well-worn cliches. It kick-started the G-Funk era and the reign of Death Row Records. It provided a poignant look at L.A. in the aftermath of the riots. It offered most of the world's introduction to Snoop Dogg, Tha Dogg Pound and Warren G. It ended the career of Tim Dog. It is responsible for the widespread dissemination of the words "skeezer" and "busta."

It was one of those rare records that any West Coaster of a certain age remembers with a permanent nostalgia. Listening to it provides instant transport to the era when schoolyard fashions canted toward khakis and absurdly oversized shirts with chronic leaves, Raiders and Kings caps and an AM/FM stereo blaring Power 106 and the late 92.3, the Beat. And blank tape in the cassette deck ready to record the latest hydraulic-ready hit burrowing out of South L.A.

Two summers ago, I made a Summer Jam mix that represented my best attempt to capture the brief window when G-Funk ruled the world (the download link is still active, F.Y.I.). After all, the higher the mercury goes, the better Dr. Dre's masterpiece sounds. It may have been released in December 1992, but it was recorded the previous June, right in time for the stifling furnace of the Los Angeles summer.

Nearly 20 years after its release, "The Chronic's" only flaw is that for most of us, it has been played so many times that it's impact has been blunted. While it's impossible to go back to a time before most us heard it, the collection of samples from "The Chronic" done by local hip-hop blogger Hip-Hop Is Read allows for a new window into the genius of the record. Specifically, Dre's reworking of classic soul and funk records to create something wholly new.

For those looking for something ferociously funky on a scorching summer day, there is little better than listening to vintage Parliament/Funkadelic, Leon Haywood, Donny Hathaway, Willie Hutch and Joe Tex. You may even catch something you didn't notice the first time. I've probably heard both a hundred times, but I never before caught that the drums from "Lyrical Gangbang" were swiped from Led Zeppelin's "When the Levee Breaks." And while you're at it, you may want to dig up that old copy of "The Chronic" -- like you always do about this time.

-- Jeff Weiss

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Much has been made over the last few years of the declining value of the album and song, what with 99 cent downloads and $2.99 digital albums on Amazon.com. But maybe it's time to start talking about the rapidly declining cost of the concert ticket. Days after Live Nation executives confessed that concert ticket prices are too high, the company continued to ramp up its low-priced ticket promotions.

So, the good news: Fans of the Jonas Brothers and Wolf Parade, and dozens of other acts, can snare $10 tickets to upcoming Southern California shows for one day only -- Tuesday. The bad news: If you've already paid, say, $57.98 for two Wolf Parade tickets for July 31 at the Wiltern, you're out of luck. The Live Nation fire-sale discount is even greater for the Jonas Brothers, where two of the cheapest seats to the act's Sept. 19 Irvine date would normally cost $99.70.

Perhaps its not surprising to see a tribute to Journey given the $10 treatment ($9.99 too high, if Pop & Hiss were asked, which it wasn't), but also included in the promo is Ozzfest's Aug. 14 gig in Devore, where the two cheapest tickets would normally run a fan $79.

One needn't look much further than Live Nation's own presentation to Wall Street last week to get some insight into the motivation behind such promotions. With the concert biz facing a slow summer, Live Nation has noted that North American concert attendance is down 3%, and sales at its Ticketmaster division are trending down 11%. When all is said and done, the company projected that 2010 sales for the top 100 touring acts could be down more than 15%.

A bright spot for the company has been its "no service fee" sales. The company noted that previous one-day discounts to $10 fueled a 7,000% increase in daily sales. The fine print states that $10 will be available only while "supplies last" during a 24-hour period beginning July 20. 

The bigger question, however, is whether the frequency of such promotions will permanently change consumer buying habits, forcing fans to wait to the last minute and forever question the cost of tickets. 

A full list of Live Nation's $10 promotions is available after the jump.

--Todd Martens

When the stage crew set up a large screen behind the small stage at the former Carnegie library that is now home to the Center for the Arts in Eagle Rock, audience members might have anticipated some sweet multimedia. One Day As a Lion, the project combining the talents of Rage Against the Machine town crier Zack de la Rocha and ex-Mars Volta drummer Jon Theodore, was about to play its second-ever live show. A barrage of images, maybe ripped from news sites on the Web, would complement the band's political lyrics and multi-directional avant-rock sound.

The screen remained blank, though, after De La Rocha, Theodore and keyboardist Joey Karam tromped onstage to excited applause and began a 40-minute set. It was merely there to block the sunlight streaming through the large glazed window behind the band. The late-afternoon sun still found its way in, lending a beatific glow to De la Rocha's wiry mop of hair. He looked about as happy as a restless 40-year-old rock star could be.

One Day As a Lion released an EP in 2008, but didn't play any live shows. It seemed that the project might only serve as an experiment for its two principals -- a kind of two-man retreat through which each would rethink the already challenging rock sounds they'd already developed in their better-known groups. But this set and the one ODAAL performed the previous afternoon in Pomona featured new music alongside the song from their debut -- and a new member, Karam, who freed De la Rocha from his own keyboard, allowing him to step out and stir up the crowd while delivering his rapid-fire verbal flow. This trio was fully armed for present and future assaults.

If you've spent any time in the Silver Lake/Echo Park axis over the last half decade, chances are you've seen the Parson Red Heads. They're hard to miss, an all-white-costumed crew who have, over the years, swelled to as many as eight people, looking like a cross between Danielson Famile and the Partridge Family, and playing sun-soaked and serene tunes that touched on the Beachwood Sparks and the usual Laurel Canyon suspects (The Byrds, Fleetwood Mac, CSNY).

Their live shows ran the gamut between drowsy folk-tinged acoustic sets and unruly psychedelic guitar workouts. The band played early, often and everywhere, with residencies at Spaceland, the Echo, and Silverlake Lounge that evidenced a visible joy that distinguished them from the often ultra-serious swarm of indie bands. Lamentably, the jubilation and jams will be far less frequent in these parts, with the band's core trio of Evan Way (guitars, vocals), his wife, Brett Marie Way (drums, vocals), and Sam Fowles (guitar, vocals) announcing that they will be relocating back to their native Oregon.

The band's departure statement cited the cheaper rents of Portland and the "closeness to numerous musicians there that will help them continue to explore their art and keep them on the road." Among their confederates in Portland include childhood friends, the Sub Pop-signed Blitzen Trapper.

In Afrikaans, the band name Die Antwoord means "The Answer." But one big unsolved question has followed the South African rap-rave trio since their deliciously bonkers music videos began circulating online months ago -- are they for real?

This is usually a silly debate in the artifice-obsessed world of pop music. But Die Antwoord so perfectly upends every au courant collision in urban, electronica and world music today that, well, larger forces seem at play. The band's founder, Ninja (Waddy Jones, a longtime rap-and art-scene veteran in Johannesburg), is a leonine, flat-topped MC covered in crude prison-style tattoos who's frequently onstage in little more than "Dark Side of the Moon" boxer shorts. The band's producer, DJ Hi-Tek, is a rotund and mute beatsmith fond of marijuana-themed bandanas and cutting tracks on his "PC computer" that he uploads to the "interwebs worldwide." And then there's the typographically exquisite creature of Yo-Landi Vi$$er, an age-indeterminate, gutter-mouthed Shiva in gold Lycra and a cascading mullet.

All members are white; all derive their musical signposts from discarded Ibiza trance compilations; all have a vast vocabulary of infectious patois where to be "So zef, so fres" is to occupy a state of post-racial, post-colonial zen bliss. They are rap's opposite -- and the fulfillment of its every possibility. And after their Saturday night set at the El Rey Theater, which was hastily rescheduled after the cancellation of HARD LA, they gave an apropos answer to their most fundamental question. Who knows if they're for "Real," but they did give a riveting performance (or piece of performance art).

Regardless of Die Antwoord's mythology, one fact not up for debate is its members' skills behind a microphone. Like another recently rehabilitated white rapper (that'd be Eminem), Ninja doesn't try to match a stereotypically "black" delivery but instead found his own rhythmically exacting flow that functions as a serving tray for his Afrikaans slang and droll boasting.

Vi$$er plays the role of sneering, unattainable sex kitten, a beloved trope in rap from Salt-N-Pepa to Nicki Minaj. She sees no schism between thrusting a hand up her crop-top and dropping low at Ninja's behest while wearing oversized sweatpants with a vulgar and definitive rejection notice printed across the rear. DJ Hi-Tek, alas, is afraid of flying, so they have a masked stand-in, the sonorously-nicknamed Vuilgeboost, perform in his stead overseas.

It's unfortunate that Die Antwoord's breakthrough single, "Enter The Ninja," veers closest to novelty. While the notorious (and suspiciously glossy) video is a Lynchian pandora's box -- Why is every picture in Vi$$er's apartment a magazine cutout of Ninja? Who is the unnerving little man that pops up between cuts? -- it's also their least satisfying track. Die Antwoord opened with it, and for a brief moment the crowd evinced the very modern pleasure of the Internet coming to visit you in person. But then the show took an intriguing turn. As Die Antwoord unloaded some truly thrilling bangers from their forthcoming album, "$0$," the audience grew uncertain of its obligation to actual, unwinking fandom.

The effervescent singalong "Fish Paste" sports one of the most casually genius, lost-in-translation Oedipal insults in global rap, and the spectacularly profane "Beat Boy" is built on a chilly, crescendoing trail of virtuoso beatboxing. But while their barn-burning 15-minute Coachella set had possibly the best reception of the fest, the El Rey's crowd oscillated between ravenous crowd surfing and confusion that the answer to their "WTF?" take on Die Antwoord wasn't quite what they'd prepared for. To give in to Die Antwoord's deadpan majesty involves suspending some disbelief that this music really is as deliriously fun as it feels like.

Rap has conquered the ethnic music of nearly every culture on earth, and rave sounds have underpinned American pop for the last two years, and global club music for much longer. But Die Antwoord blows both up to such previously unseen caricatures that even pop culture's outsized appetite for the bizarre has trouble processing it. We love to be played with by our artists, but with Die Antwoord it's hard to know who is yanking who's chain.

Fortunately, Die Antwoord allows for any number of takes, and the least fulfilling one may be attempting to pull back the curtain on them. When Ninja's hypnotically vulgar pelvic thrusts collide with Vi$$er's I'll-cut-you grin and a techno beat so massive it can unite continents, cultures and every corner of those aforementioned "interwebs," who needs more of an answer than that?

-- August Brown

Photos, from top: South African rap-rave trio Die Antwoord perform at the El Rey Theater, and Ninja and Yo-Landi Vi$$er get into the music. Credit: Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times