The FYF Fest marks the unofficial close of the outdoor rock 'n' roll festival season in Southern California, bringing it to an end with dissonant guitars, vocal yelps, disaffected beach-bum punks and even a song or two inspired by the Civil War. Thirty bands and three stages, the all-day affair at the L.A. State Historic Park falls somewhere between a neighborhood block party and Chicago's Pitchfork Music Festival, taking a smaller, more targeted approach to the multi-act bill.

Plenty of it is adventurous, and some of it is even a bit tuneless. Yet the celebration of the underground, the niche and the weird is also a bargain. Tickets started at $20 for early-bird buyers, and in the days leading up to the fest, now in its second year in Chinatown, have risen only to $30. 

Rare, indeed, is an affordable all-day fest that is as pridefully left-of-center as FYF. With a bill built for discovery -- as well as one that contains plenty of local heroes -- Pop & Hiss breaks down the must-see-acts and those you may want to investigate, time permitting. The hour-by-hour guide is below.

Of all the questions to ask about Ariel Rosenberg’s late success as Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, maybe the biggest one is – why now?

Rosenberg has released enough limited-run cassettes and CD-Rs to sink a barge, and ever since 2004’s “The Doldrums” he has reliably banged out around a full-length per year of sun-damaged blissy art-pop for Animal Collective’s Paw Tracks label.

Clearly, signing to 4AD and cutting “Before Today,” his great and most sonically forthright record yet this year, has done wonders for him. Haunted Graffiti has finally grown from L.A. outsider-art’s inside secret into a thrilling (and shockingly tight) international concern. But in a way, as good as the band has gotten, it seems just as important that the surrounding culture has finally caught up with them.

All the cool kids are swapping romantic, tape-decayed pop like Nite Jewel, Wild Nothing and Neon Indian, and Pitchfork has a whole new blog network devoted to covering such things. Rosenberg could never be accused of overt careerism, and probably takes developments like selling out the Echoplex on Friday with a huge streak of amusement.  But it’s telling that just as the mainstream hipsterati knighted him as the crown prince of lo-fi, Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti took a hard turn for clarity and showmanship.

When Modesto native and former Grandaddy leader Jason Lytle opens new project Admiral Radley with the tongue-in-cheek "I Heart California," one could easily be mistaken for believing that the artist -- who long ago relocated to Montana --   is looking back at his home state with just a hint of scorn. 

Think of the cut, which also serves as the title track of the project, as a sobering summer-song antidote to Katy Perry's garden of playful decadence that is "California Gurls." Its balmy, fuzzy guitars are dotted with sparkling effects, and Lytle's vocals settle into a reassuring sway. But rather than reference the beach, Lytle croons about I-5, and there are no signs of glamor, but there are plenty of disappointed tourists.

Yet the song, said Lytle, is written with nothing but love toward the Golden State, comparing its lighthearted but well-intentioned nature to that of a comedian who mocks his or her family. 

"I don’t think it’s sarcasm," Lytle said of the song, below. "You can’t expect people to know your sense of humor. You can’t expect people to know where you’re from. I was worried this would turn into an inside joke, but there’s a lot of fondness in there. That’s just the way I’m comfortable expressing myself about the things that I am fond of, with a hint of black humor." 

Such a tone and sound will be familiar to those versed with the Grandaddy and Lytle catalog, where an upbeat title such as "Summer Here Kids" gave way to an anthem for a disastrous vacation. Working here with Aaron Espinoza and Ariana Murray of locals Earlimart, as well as Grandaddy drummer Aaron Burtch, Admiral Radley likewise delivers humor with honesty.

"Sunburn Kids," for instance, is call-and-response silliness, boasting keyboard notes that sound as if they have been lifted from an old-school video game. "Ghost of Syllables," meanwhile, is all grown-up heartache, striking what Espinoza described as Fleetwood Mac-inspired harmonies, and later, the Murray-fronted "The Thread," with its playful static, is nostalgic for days that may never come. Then, ensuring no one gets too comfortable, there's a spastic, electronic-laced rager about having a few too many beers on a sun-drenched day, complete with a title unfit for a family blog.

Consumers, apparently, wanted another version of "Bohemian Rhapsody," this one sung by the Broadway-ready cast of the Fox hit "Glee." Timed for release with last week's season finale, the six-track EP "Journey to the Regionals," the latest in a series of cash-in "Glee" products, debuted at No. 1 on the U.S. pop chart, which is published by industry trade Billboard Magazine.

The set also contains choir-backed renditions of "Over the Rainbow" and yet another take on Journey's jukebox anthem "Don't Stop Believin'." In its first week of release, the collection sold 152,000 copies in the U.S., according to Nielsen SoundScan. There's more "Glee" in the top 10, as the cross-media hit also owns the No. 7 position on the tally with "Glee: The Music, Volume 3." That album has sold more than 280,000 copies. 

The success of the "Glee" EP will no doubt be used by the media as evidence of a sort of pop-culture changing of the guard. "Glee" keeps the latest companion to vampire soap opera "Twilight," the soundtrack to this summer's "Eclipse," outside of the No. 1 position. That set, featuring the likes of Metric and L.A.'s Beck, debuts with 144,000 copies sold.

Yet bet on "Eclipse" to be a sales force throughout the summer. In its first full week of release, the soundtrack to "New Moon" sold 153,000 copies, and it moved more than 260,000 copies in 10 days (the album was released off-cycle on a Friday, and Nielsen SoundScan tracks data through the end of business on Sunday). "New Moon" has sold more than 1.1 million copies, and the soundtrack to the first installment of the undead romance saga has sold more than 2.5 million copies. 

When 4AD officially releases "Before Today" from Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti on Tuesday, it will be the Highland Park-based artist's ninth album. Or perhaps his 24th. But as far as Pink (real name: Ariel Rosenberg) is concerned, his myriad of independent and self-released cassettes, CD-Rs and vinyl offerings need not even be counted.

"Before Today," Pink says in Sunday's Los Angeles Times Calendar piece, is his "first album" -- at least the first record Pink has made "with any kind of thought or consciousness that I have an audience." 

In the past, Pink largely worked on his own, but "Before Today" represents a shift, seeing him collaborate with a proper band and producer. Though he's been releasing limited-edition runs of old material, most everything Pink previously issued was recorded before 2004.

"I didn't want to make any new music until I got paid for it," Pink says in the Simon Reynolds piece. So, what, exactly, did Beggars Group's 4AD pay for? Take a look at the above clip of Pink and his Haunted Graffiti performing "L'estat (Acc. to the Widow's Maid)," a mini-low-fi suite of pop oddities and retro melodicism -- there's a guitar riff that echoes '70s prog at its most loungey, and a keyboard that references '80s romanticism. There's also some yelping. 

Yet for all of Pink's Syd Barrett-like expansion of sounds, there's an invitingly delicate aura to "L'estat (Acc. to the Widow's Maid)," as well as much of "Before Today" (listen to the full album here). At times, it feels lovingly resurrected from another time. Moments later, it's all roughed-up and skewed with an almost childlike whimsy.

Ariel Pink and the Haunted Graffiti will perform at the Echoplex, 1154 Glendale Blvd., on July 9. Tickets are $12.

-- Todd Martens

Related:

Ariel Pink is firmly in control of Haunted Graffiti

Album premiere: 'Before Today' by Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti

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Here are a few historic firsts for you. Next Tuesday, L.A.-based musician Ariel Pink and his band Haunted Graffiti will issue a new album, "Before Today," which he calls his first record (despite much evidence to the contrary). The release is their first for the 4AD label after a decade spent releasing obscure CDs, records and cassettes on countless bedroom labels (including Animal Collective's Paw Tracks imprint).

Pink's forthcoming album also constitutes another historical marker: for the first time, The Times will be offering an exclusive stream of a full-length album in advance of its official release. For the next week, Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti's "Before Today"  will be playable in its entirety in the embed below, as well as on our music home page.

Don't know Pink? Writer Simon Reynolds, author of the tome, "Rip It Up and Start Again: Post-Punk 1978-1984" and "Generation Ecstasy: Into the World of Techno and Rave Culture," among others, has penned a profile of Pink that will be published in next Sunday's L.A. Times.

In the piece, Reynolds captures one of the central tensions inside the sound of "Before Today":

What's odd about Ariel Pink is that the lo-fi, mumbly-vocal DIY tradition that his early music belonged to was originally vehemently opposed to the slick, big-budget AOR and '80s rock 'n soul that he's so inspired by. Hall & Oates are a perennial touchstone, while on "Before Today" you can hear Blue Oyster Cult circa "Don't Fear the Reaper" in "Butt-House Blondies" and the Police circa "Every Breath You Take" in "Round and Round".

More often, though, the echoes are less specific, his music like a puree of jumbled-up eras. Born in 1978, Pink belongs to the post-historical generation, shaped by the endless shuffle-mode of VH1 and classic rock radio, and, more recently, iPod and YouTube. "We have no concept of time," he says, talking of how some people in his generation "who like Sixties music, they live there forever."

For the last decade, prolific singer, songwriter and all-around musical freak Ariel Pink has churned out a singular brand of rock-'n- roll. It's a body of work that's nearly indescribable, in fact, but not because it's necessarily inaccessible but because he seems to draw on the entire history of rock and roll and boil it down to its essence -- and then bury it within the depths of a low-fidelity sound he achieves by recording on dinky 4- and 8-track analog recorders.

His new album changes all that, and the L.A. Times will offer the evidence when we present the American premiere of "Before Today" on Tuesday, June 1. The full-length album, his first for the legendary 4AD Records imprint, will be The Times' first foray into album premieres; we'll offer a stream of it for the week preceding its June 8 release date.

With "Before Today," Pink, whom writer Simon Reynolds will be profiling for The Times next week, fulfills a promise that has drawn a small but obsessive fan base to snatch up his many self-released albums, CDs and cassettes. On those releases, a few of which were from the Animal Collective's Paw Tracks imprint, Pink and his band, Haunted Graffiti, poured forth dozens of little ditties that sounded like crazy leftovers from 1970s AM radio -- recorded from transistor radio and onto cassette. He was overflowing with ideas and seemed to record and release every single one of them.

The new record is more focused, better recorded and captures a dozen of Pink's oddly engaging rock and pop songs. It's his best work to date, and we're excited to be connected to an album that the British newspaper the Guardian already has called one of its favorite albums of the year -- a sentiment that we wholeheartedly endorse.

Here's an MP3 teaser:

Ariel Pinks Haunted Graffiti - Round and Round

-- Randall Roberts

Photo: Ariel Pink. Credit: 4AD Records

 

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