From now through April 30, 2010, make a monetary pledge to your favorite original 826LA student song in our online pledge-a-thon fundraiser. Each song was written by 826LA students in Songwriting with The Submarines, a workshop led by singer/songwriters John Dragonetti and Blake Hazard of The Submarines. Not only that, but each student-written song has been covered by L.A. based artists such as Fiona Apple, She & Him, Cold War Kids, Tim & Eric, and many more!

Choose from student bands Hot Fudge, Pig Power, The Gummy Bears, The Peeps, The Shaking Churros, The Taco Shells, Kimi, Shizuku, and Xena, Jennifer Lopez, SLAP ENT., The 826LA Band 1, The 826LA Band 2, and The Weirdoz.

Help keep our free programs for L.A. youth strong with just a few clicks! Pledge as often and for as many bands and/or songs as you like! The most popular student song will be awarded the 826LA Gold Record!

The band’s self-released debut EP, “Hello Today,” came out in early 2007. Soon, Eastside Angelinos couldn’t escape them – they played shows pretty much every week at The Echo, Spaceland, Little Radio, Silverlake Lounge, El Cid, El Rey, The Scene and the Viper Room. Those gigs led to live appearances on KXLU and Sirius Satellite Radio as well as airplay on Indie 103.1 FM and KROQ 106.7. Local bloggers like Aquarium Drunkard, LAist, You Set the Scene, Radio Free Silver Lake, Amateur Chemist, Rock Insider and Passion of the Weiss praised their EP and their passionate live performances. They all lauded the band, but couldn’t decide if Kyle’s voice was more “raspy” or “whiskey-soaked?” One even worried that Kyle might someday sing so hard that his uvula would explode. It hasn’t yet, but the old debates will surely reignite upon listening to And Now…Le Switch.

Le Switch : Tonguetied

Le Switch : Living in Another World

These guys hail from Sacramento, but you’d think they were from Los Angeles or Colombia because the angst they expel is ferocious. Lead singer Zack Lopez doesn’t sing, he roars. Painful roaring. His voice, at times melodic and pop circa early 90′s Perry Farrell, but when he’s on fire he rages like another Zack, a de la Rocha. Drummer Sean Stockham first appears as the sadistic one–a ‘for sale’ sign painted or tattooed on his chest–and later pummels his drums to prove he’s not going for cheap. Is it angst I witnessed or was it pure passion? I don’t know, but their delivery was impressive and the often mellow San Franciscans in the crowd loved and feared them.

Listen to ‘em here.

I have nothing exciting to say about these tracks except that they’ve grown on me. El Perro Del Mar is very catchy, subtle, simple, comforting. I like that Sarah Assbring, the persona behind El Perro, has such a bold name. It can’t be her real name. How many pseudonym’s can an artist have? 

Lykke Li ’s music seems to follow the same simplicity that makes El Perro’s sound so appealing. Makes sense that they’re currently touring together. There’s something almost tribal about their music. Wonder if their live shows will feature an ensemble of strings. I don’t think there’ll be much dancing. Or maybe a new kind of dance will emerge?

Ed Harcourt‘s got an interesting thing going. He’s a bit Rufus Wainright, a bit Cold Play, and a bit pretty. I like that his freebie track below gives a shout out to prostitutes, taxis, and Marxists. Now that’s bold lyricism. Do the kids even know who Marx was anymore? 

And what about You, Me and Iowa you ask? Oh, you didn’t ask? Well, it’s simple: They seem to be having lots of fun with their music. And isn’t that how it should be? Why even write a song if you’re not feeling it? I think these folks are feeling it. Now you feel it. Listen below.

Lykke Li : Dance, Dance, Dance
El Perro Del Mar : Glory to the World
You, Me and Iowa : Dress the Stage
Ed Harcourt : Revolution of the Heart

Hello Tokyo is nothing like that. They’re a cool power trio from Brooklyn led by a singer/ keyboardist named Kat who’s voice I’d also describe as “cool.” Their songs are crisp and upbeat, and I’d bet they put on a good show. Guitarist John and drummer Sam (no last names given in the liner notes, and those given on their MySpace page are fake) round out the lineup ably, but for me it’s definitely Kat’s show. Her voice is a nice blend of a furious Corrin Tucker and a sultry Debbie Harry– and at times, Jeff Buckley.

Of course, just because Kat steals the show doesn’t mean that Hello Tokyo is a synth band– they’re not. Songs oscillate between power- chord Pixies rock and syncopated U2- style atmospherics. The best track on the record for me is “The Affair,” and I look forward to them coming to San Francisco.

Hello Tokyo website
Hello Tokyo on Myspace

Words by Lee

Which is to say that there is decidedly a time and a place for Mr. Slim, though I’m not sure that his latest, Langhorne Slim & The War Eagles, is really it.  The songs– reminiscent at times of Van Morrison, and of Exile On Main Street at others, though filtered through a David Gray- type lens– are slightly cliched, and innocuous overall.  But oh, how I long for the days when I would have paid to get drunk on shitty keg beer, play pool, and seen them live.  

~lee.

*I’ve written of this before, but it bears repeating here:  my fake ID (which was handed down to me through a tradition I am forever sworn to secrecy about) was an old ID of a guy named Justin Gage– his name and stats forever burned into my brain, you can quiz me– and he now lives in Los Angeles and runs one of the best music blogs around, An Aquarium Drunkard. I didn’t know him then, and I don’t know him now, but nonetheless I just think that this is serendipitously hilarious. 

Yet even in the back of my early twenty- something mind I knew that Perry Farrell warbling “Cash in now, honey!“ at me was more than just a little ironic.

And speaking of cringe- inducing, “Hope- I-die-before-I-get-old” -isms, my favorite Jane’s Addiction song was always “Idiots Rule,” which of course contains the line “You know the man you hate?/ You look more like him everyday!”  And when Eric Avery‘s new album, Help Wanted, came across my desk, I immediately thought of this couplet and hoped–knowing that I’d pull a Tim Russert on him here–that he wouldn’t suffer the same cliched fate as his former band mates.

He doesn’t. Instead what we have is a mostly downbeat, left- of- center, deconstructed and then reconstructed record that sits very comfortably I think in the 21st century.  

Surprisingly, it turns out that Mr. Avery’s world- weary singing voice has a lot in common with both The National’s Matt Berninger and with one Thin White Duke. Indeed, David Bowie’s influence, especially the Eno stuff and “Diamond Dogs” (though there is no “Rebel Rebel” moment), seems to be all over the record. The cover art and liner notes appear to suggest that Los Angeles has been attacked by aliens (anyone remember the television show “V”?) and many of the lyrics are about dreams, dystopia, nuclear war, flying, and falling to Earth– all very Bowie, and Pink Floyd’s The Final Cut, to me, but also very Arcade Fire and Radiohead at the same time. Everything goes in cycles.  

Avery is backed up on most tracks by Taylor Hawkins (the Foo Fighters’ hard- hitting drummer), in what must be a departure for him, in that there aren’t a lot of hard- hitting, dynamic moments–the Fighters’ signature. Garbage’s Shirley Manson collaborates on one song, as does Flea, though he is on horns only.

Flea’s inclusion brings me to the only pointed criticism of the album I really have, besides that lyrically the album isn’t very varied: Where the hell is the bass?  Jane’s Addiction’s bass lines were some of the most memorable in all of late 80′s/ early 90′s rock n’ roll (“Mountain Song,” “Three Days,” “Summertime Rolls,”) and on Help Wanted there seems to be more discernible xylophone than bass. Call me crazy, but doesn’t that seem like a grand, or gross, misappropriation?

Nevertheless Help Wanted is a cool record whether you prefer 70′s Bowie, Disintegration-era Cure, Love & Rockets, or The National. Just don’t buy it if you’re expecting “Mountain Song” or “Idiots Rule”–there may have been a time, but Eric Avery is comfortably saying “none like now.”

Words by Lee

The album “Fireproof” is the fruit of that labor. The title, obviously, suggests both vulnerability and indestructibility: I’m sure Ms. Landes is much more protective of all the things in her life following her home invasion. “Now you know what you want/ You want what you had/ But you can’t have that/ You can’t go back,” she sings in “Private Little Hell.” A sad lesson learned, indeed.

The songs that comprise “Fireproof” are reminiscent to me both of Athens, GA band Azure Ray, and of Sub Pop recording artist and Seattle native Rosie Thomas (that’s to say only that they all seem to synthesize the same influences). Lyrically, I’m not always with her– “La la la la Life’s a gag/ La la la la You’re a fag” doesn’t exactly have the air of high- mindedness, though it’s probably simply an inside joke– but musically, color me impressed. Ms. Landes isn’t reinventing the wheel here, yet she seems right in her wheelhouse when it comes to some of the more offbeat Waits-ian instrumentation offered here (optigan, banjo, toy piano).

And at the end of the day, who can argue with the lines, “When it’s hard to breathe in the city/ It’s easier to drink”? Not I, said the fly (drunkenly).

All in all, I’m glad this album came across my desk. Not just for me, but for my wife– who I only think agreed to marry me as a thanks for introducing her to Azure Ray and to Ms. Chan (Cat Power) Marshall. This is a good one to have on while cooking dinner, with a bottle of Biodynamic Oregon Pinot open next to the stove. Be sure to look out for the hidden Tom Petty cover (“I Won’t Back Down,” at the end of album closer “You Alone”), and, finally, be sure to heed “Fireproof”‘s cautionary tale– that while, of course, you should look out for and guard steadfastly what’s most important to you, everything ultimately is just like what Bob Dylan once said: “It’s not the experience that matters, it’s the attitude towards the experience.”

Available on Cooking Vinyl USA

Dawn Landes on Myspace

Words by Lee Henderson