The problems with Green Day's 'Kill the DJ'

Green Day's "Kill the DJ" starts promisingly enough. The choppy, stop-and-start guitars use the riff-as-groove in much the same way as the Clash's "Magnificent Seven." A little homage to Joe Strummer's socio-political dance-rock anthem is never not warranted, especially during an election year, and the title of "Kill the DJ" holds the promise that Green Day is again entering the culture war, a battlefield it visited on 2009's "21st Century Breakdown." 

"Kill the DJ," the second video (adult content) from Green Day's upcoming trilogy of albums, continues the bass-first approach used by the Clash as it unfolds, but the similarities soon evaporate. Strummer painted the picture of a sad sap stuck in an office cubicle and in desperate need of the revolution the Clash liked to promise was coming. Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong, on the other hand, drops some cursory nods to war and religion in the opening bars, but soon brings the imagery of waterboarding and torture straight into the dance club.

Yet, if the song is a metaphor, it isn't a very well-developed one.

It's all played rather straight. "I'll pick up what's left in the club," Armstrong sings suspiciously, and the video released Tuesday doesn't do much to present the song as a statement. Armstrong and his band stroll tiredly through a dance club while half-naked, neon-accessorized participants go nuts around them. When the club revelers start throwing punches at one another, any hope at a message is forever lost. If there's an establishment Green Day is questioning, surely it's more than one with a $20 cover and blue drinks?

So what, perhaps, does Armstrong have against DJs? Nothing, likely, and the song shouldn't be seen as a takedown of the EDM-craze sweeping the nation. The band isn't one for cheap genre shots, and Green Day rose to prominence during the last mainstream boon for DJ culture (see Moby, Fatboy Slim) without care for the movement. Also, "Kill the DJ" is a bit of a dance song in and of itself, therefore making it more trend-hopping than trend-tackling. Finally, Green Day's embrace of Broadway on "American Idiot" and use of rock 'n' orchestra suites have long proven that the band has a love of musical adventurousness. 

The most-quoted defense of the song comes from Armstrong's Q&A with Rolling Stone's David Fricke. Asked who is the DJ Green Day wants to kill, Armstrong responded, "It's about static and noise." We've heard this before from Green Day. We're living, the band sang on "21st Century Breakdown," in "the Static Age," and that song was a foaming-at-the-mouth guitar rant that everyone -- pundits, politicians, celebrities -- should stop babbling and shut up. 

"Kill the DJ," meanwhile, buries such a message. "We are the vultures," Armstrong warns, and there's bullets, fatal drownings and the oft-repeated chorus of "someone kill the DJ." Again, it's not about an actual DJ -- for real, promise. Armstrong told Rolling Stone that the song had political ambitions, inspired by how "this government cannot, will not, agree with itself. They refuse to make it work. Right, left -- it doesn't matter."

So what's an artist to do except "write a song about being drunk, going through this chaos" Armstrong said in the same Rolling Stone interview? Well, the Clash wrote that song, too, but theirs, "(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais," was presented as a challenge, a disappointed survey of halfhearted musical attempts at rebellion that were little more than excuses to get drunk and get down.

Green Day wants the person who has the floor to disappear. The Clash, blissfully idealistic as the band may have been, simply wanted the person with control of the audience to have something to say. With a trilogy of albums on the horizon -- "¡Uno!" arrives on Sept. 25, while "¡Dos!" arrives Nov.  13 and "¡Tré!" will round out the threesome on Jan. 15.  -- here's hoping Green Day does more than simply add to the static. 

ALSO:

FYF Fest has room to grow

Summer dreamin' of summer songs

Album review: Bob Mould's 'The Silver Age'

R. Kelly announces fall U.S. tour

R. Kelly is ready to put the vocal issues that have delayed his performance schedule behind him: The Grammy Award-winning singer announced Tuesday that he's hitting the road for a U.S. tour this fall.

Kelly will launch his Single Ladies tour on Oct. 13 in Columbia, S.C.,  joined by R&B songstress Tamia. The 22-date trek stretches until December and is scheduled to roll into L.A.'s Nokia Theatre on Nov. 2.

The singer has had a rough year after vocal issues sidelined him. Last summer, he was forced to take a hiatus from the stage after undergoing emergency throat surgery for an abscess on one of his tonsils.

Earlier this year, complications from that surgery put a major dent in promotional appearances for his June album, "Write Me Back," when he canceled a trip to New York and returned to Chicago for additional treatment.

"Write Me Back" continued the more genteel style of R&B he perfected on 2010's 'Love Letter,' which garnered critical acclaim when Kelly traded in his salacious brand of R&B and knocking hip-hop beats for a disc brimming with retro throwbacks.

The album opened to positive reviews and middling sales -- it debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200 after selling 68,000 copies in its first week (less than half of what the disc's predecessor pulled in), according to Nielsen Soundscan.

Kelly didn't allow vocal troubles to completely sideline him, however. He worked on additional 'Trapped in the Closet' chapters to run on IFC later this year; released his memoir, 'Soulacoaster: The Diary of Me';  and wrote and produced music for Whitney Houston's final film, 'Sparkle.' He did, however, cancel his 'Love Letter' fan cruise after he claimed the cruise's promoter, Concerts Cruise  LLC, failed to pay him.

Ticket information for the upcoming tour will become available on the singer's official website, with tickets for select dates going on sale Friday.

 

 

No Doubt to play six shows at Gibson Amphitheatre Nov. 24-Dec. 4

Following the release of No Doubt's first studio album in 11 years, 'Push and Shove,' the long-running band will settle in for a hometown stand of six shows later this year at the Gibson Amphitheatre.

No Doubt will headline Nov. 24, 26, 28, 30 and Dec. 2 and 4 at the theater, with priority tickets becoming available first to members of the group's ND2012 Club. There will be a limit of four tickets per person, and prices are set at $115 all inclusive, according to the group's website. Ticket presales begin Thursday, with a general on-sale date still to be announced.

In preparing to write and record 'Push and Shove,' No Doubt played 58 dates in 2009, primarily at sports arenas and large amphitheaters, and drew an average of more than 15,000 fans per show, according to Pollstar. That tour grossed almost $34 million and was among the Top 25 grossing tours of the year.

The No Doubt website states that there is no membership fee for the ND2012 Club, and that tickets purchased through the club will include not only priority seating but also early entry to the amphitheater and a commemorative pin and postcard set with each ticket.

Presale information is available at nodoubt.tickets.musictoday.com

A full profile of No Doubt is coming in Sunday's Arts & Books fall preview section.

ALSO:

R. Kelly announces fall U.S. tour

No Doubt opens 2009 tour in Las Vegas

No Doubt's new tour goes back to the future

Review: FYF Fest matures along with its musical acts

This post has been corrected. See below for details.

Between songs during Baltimore band Future Islands' simultaneously jarring and hypnotic late-afternoon set at the weekend FYF Fest near downtown Los Angeles, lead singer Sam Herring took a moment to highlight his wardrobe. Wearing a fitted black T-shirt and wrinkle-free brown pants, he motioned to his outfit and said proudly, "I tucked in my shirt for you!"

[For the record Sept. 3, 10:07 a.m.: The original version of this post incorrectly identified Future Islands' home base as Chicago.] 

The charismatic Herring smiled like a salesman, knowing that the stylishly unkempt young crowd at the annual festival might have a snarky thought or two about the relative squareness of his Don-Draper-on-vacation look.

The FYF Fest brought thousands of teens and twentysomethings ' what the "2012 Field Guide to Stereotypes" might describe as "L.A. hipsters" ' to the Los Angeles State Historic Park adjacent to Chinatown for a two-day roster of underground punk, electronic dance music, post-punk, post-disco, techno, electronic rock and many combinations thereof.

PHOTOS: FYF Festival 2012

For an event whose original two-word festival moniker was a cuss word followed by "Yeah!," Herring's brag about his spiffiness felt symbolic. The FYF Fest, now in its ninth year, has shed the sloppiness in favor of the clean creases of a fresh outfit.

Over nearly 24 hours of music on four stages, the FYF Fest showcased a narrow-cast roster of a young but maturing underground music scene struggling to perfect the art of performance in the YouTube age. At its best on Day 1 on Saturday, the event highlighted artists willing to take risks. This ranged from Future Islands' showcasing a nuanced mix of rhythm and drama on "Inch of Dust" to Chromatics' analog-synth wanderings of "Night Drive," which inspired rhythmic head-nodding. Sunday's early afternoon set by White Fence, the excellent L.A. project of Darker My Love's Tim Presley, set the tone for Day 2.

Veteran Scottish guitar pop band the Vaselines' wry, catchily bawdy love songs on Saturday included two cuts made famous when Nirvana covered them, "Molly's Lips" and "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam," jarring thirtysomethings' memories and confusing the teenagers who thought Kurt Cobain wrote them. Young L.A. funk impresario Dam-Funk built Prince-like bridges to 1984. And M83 proved why it is music's current Most Likely to Graduate to the Arena Rock circuit with its savvy mix of electronics and drama rock.

By 5 p.m. Sunday, German duo Tiger and Woods had the Broadway Street tent moving, its plywood floor bouncing with dancers re-engaging with the thump of deep house music that had driven many of the festival's electronic acts the night before.

Florida punk band Against Me! provided sunset angst a few hundred yards away. Singer-guitarist Laura Jane Grace, in her first L.A. festival appearance since the former Tom Gabel announced he was a pre-operative transgender, was typically ferocious, of course. "I was a teenaged anarchist," she sang as anthemic power punk rang behind her.

The FYF provided a glimpse of the most magnetic and buzziest artists of the so-called Pitchfork generation, but it also revealed the razor-thin line that separates blog hype and true artistic inspiration. This "Best New Music" world in 2012 is ruled by bands such as the Cloud Nothings, Sleigh Bells, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Atlas Sound, Beirut and Yeasayer, all of which were booked during the two days. At its least impressive, as with Sleigh Bells' shallow bombast and preference for shock and awe over texture, or with the Pains of Being Pure at Heart's thin take on 1990s shoegaze pop, you can see the use-by date fast approaching.

PHOTOS: FYF Festival 2012

In addition to those guitar-based sounds, the roster featured British electronic dance music stars Simian Mobile Disco, whose transcendent set of minimal house and techno closed the Spring Street stage; young New York electronics prodigy Nicolas Jaar; and minimalist Brit crooner James Blake. And in their first Stateside appearance, Spanish electronic duo Suicide of Western Culture shot walls of abrasive feedback riddled with hard beats, like My Bloody Valentine smashing into a beatbox. It played alongside hard-core punk bands such as Ceremony, Lightning Bolt and the unprintably named Canadian group otherwise known as "Messed" Up," whose rise has mirrored the FYF Fest's.

This seemingly inclusionary bent can be deceiving, though. The closest thing to a Latino act was Nebraskan singer Conor Oberst's band Desaparecidos, and Dam-Funk was the only African American artist represented. Despite the rise of a new generation of punk-inspired rappers, none save early 2000s vet Aesop Rock was at the FYF.

[For the record Sept. 3, 12:49 p.m.: An earlier version of this post incorrectly described Conor Oberst as an Oklahoman. He is from Nebraska.]

But the FYF has seldom highlighted hip-hop (though last year Odd Future made a memorable appearance). The once-renegade FYF Fest started as an Echo Park community punk event in 2004, rising from a cobbled-together day party to a serious music concern. It's had to blunt a few of the edges along the way. These compromises include booze sponsorships from Budweiser and corporate beer brother Shock Top (whose mohawked logo would seem to represent everything FYF is against) and Sailor Jerry rum (ditto the tattoo community); a backline production agreement with Coachella promoter Goldenvoice (a subsidiary of conglomerate Anschutz Entertainment Group, one of the largest owners of sports franchises and arenas in the world); and a security team that could wrestle even the most furious mosh pit into submission.

But the bouncers didn't have much wrestling to do. The vibe at FYF, other than moshing and body surfing, was well behaved, and parts of the park throughout the days and nights looked like a Georges Seurat pointillist landscape. The small hills, many of which featured trees nearly tall enough to provide shade, rolled with lounging groups of fans catching up, tossing blades of grass, while above them the frequency of beats from four stages collided in midair.

randall.roberts@latimes.com

An Appreciation: Burt Bacharach remembers Hal David

It was my great good fortune to have met Hal David, who was introduced to me by Eddy Wolpin ' the man who ran Famous Music in New York's fabled Brill Building at 1619 Broadway.

I had been out on the road conducting and playing piano for the Ames Brothers and had decided to quit and come back to New York City to try and write pop songs. In those days, the Brill Building, also known as the Music Factory, was filled with songwriters playing musical chairs, writing with different partners each day. I worked with Hal maybe two afternoons a week.

Hal had been writing for a while and he had had some hits, whereas I was just starting out. Our early songs were rather ordinary. Musically, I gave Hal material that I thought was very commercial ' nothing like what we would later write. We wrote some bad songs, songs you have never heard and never will. Songs like "Peggy's in the Pantry" and "Underneath the Overpass."

WATCH: 10 iconic Hal David songs

Even when we had our first two hits, "The Story of My Life" and "Magic Moments," we were well under the radar of where we would eventually go.

Our writing process was very interesting. We would sit in a room in the Brill Building and maybe Hal would have an idea ' a couple of lines, a title ' or I would have a music fragment. And we would go from there. It wasn't like we would sit in that room and finish a song. That never happened. Hal would take his story, get on the train, and go home to Roslyn out in Long Island.

And I would take whatever music I had and go back to my apartment. Then we'd meet a day or two later, or maybe talk it through on the phone.

VIDEO: Celebrating iconic songwriter Hal David

Those two early hits gave me the courage to start taking some chances with the music that I was giving Hal. It helped to have an extraordinary vehicle, our muse, Dionne Warwick, to make the most difficult things seem easy. Hal's real genius was that he could take these meaningful words and make them sound and fit so great on my musical notes.

Hal's instincts were so often on target. I remember playing "What the World Needs Now Is Love" for Dionne. Dionne was our main artist and she usually had first priority on songs. Dionne didn't like the song and took a pass on it. I put too much weight on Dionne's opinion and put the song in a drawer to be forgotten about.

Within the year, Hal and I were going to record Jackie DeShannon. And when Jackie came into the office, Hal said, "Why don't you take that song 'What the World Needs Now' out of the drawer and play it for Jackie?" When she started to sing it, I knew that Hal had made the right move. I would have left it in the drawer.

FULL OBITUARY: Hal David, Burt Bacharach's music partner, dies at 91

Hal and I never really socialized, except for going to the bar at the local Chinese restaurant to celebrate a particularly good recording session. Basically, we did our work and didn't hang out.

Like many relationships ours had its bumps. The big bump ' a disagreement that arose during the failed attempt to remake the film "Lost Horizon" as a musical ' was most unfortunate. Hal and I didn't speak for 10 years except through our lawyers, and I will take the count for that one ' my fault.

What we might have written in those 10 years we'll never know. Hal could write story lyrics like a miniature movie ' just listen to "24 Hours From Tulsa."

Hal, we had a great run and I'm so grateful we ever met.

Hal David and Burt Bacharach wrote the hits "Walk on By" and "Do You Know the Way to San Jose" for Dionne Warwick. In 1970, they won the Oscar for original song for "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" from "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," which became a No. 1 hit single for B.J. Thomas.

Bacharach is currently working on his memoir, titled "Anyone Who Had a Heart," to be published by HarperCollins in 2013.

For Richie Sambora, a hard-won road to 'Aftermath of the Lowdown'

The lowest moment of Richie Sambora's life was the night in 2008 when he was arrested for DUI with his then-10-year-old daughter Ava in the car.

Only a year after the Bon Jovi guitarist had left rehab for alcohol and pill abuse, he was pulled over in Laguna Beach after police saw him weaving on the highway in his Hummer. They booked and released him, and the Laguna Beach police described him as "quiet and cooperative and he didn't cause any problems."

The arrest capped a brutal year of personal trials: his divorce to actress Heather Locklear was finalized, his new relationship with Denise Richards faltered and his father died of lung cancer.

Most famous musicians would go out of their way to hide a night like that, or at least couch it in some traditional narrative of redemption on record. But on Sambora's new, unexpectedly bloodletting third solo album, "Aftermath of the Lowdown," he tackles that time in his life with plain-spoken, unsentimental rock music that doesn't whitewash or over-dramatize his failings.

"When I fell off that cliff, I realized who I was, unrelated to the band," Sambora said while on a sofa in the Palihouse lounge in West Hollywood. "I'd started to clean up five years ago, but I slipped, and made those amends. I'm lucky I wasn't a guy who lost his family or relationships."

It's a hard-won record from a very famous guitarist, one now recording for a scrappier, independent label ' Silver Lake's Dangerbird Records. Their pairing is exceedingly unlikely, but "Lowdown" could show both parties in a new light: Sambora, the ferocious instrumentalist and tough-skinned songwriter, and a Dangerbird Records unafraid to follow its instincts all the way to the doorstep of '80s arena rock.

The first question about "Lowdown" ' a collaboration that both Sambora and Dangerbird admit was unexpected ' is how the two parties ever crossed paths at all. Dangerbird's Jeff Castelaz, better known for signing the shoe-gazey snarl of Silversun Pickups and the cosmopolitan soul of Fitz & the Tantrums, first heard about the record through Phil Cassens, a mutual friend and fellow cyclist who used to helm A&R at Virgin Records.

Though Sambora actually had a history well before Bon Jovi ' he played the CBGB circuit and an earlier band, the Message, was signed to Led Zeppelin's Swan Song imprint ' Castelaz acknowledges that a personal connection was probably necessary to deflect his natural skepticism about the album.

"Phil told me about his friend Richie who had a fantastic record, and that he hoped we'd have some common ground," Castelaz said. "But growing up, I was a janitor and swept garbage at an arena where Bon Jovi played. They were a rock 'n' roll hit machine, and my generation railed against those guys."

But slowly, the recordings started to win him over. And though much of Dangerbird's cool-kid audience will run screaming for the fire exits at the thought of buying an album from a Bon Jovi side project, it's easy to hear what turned Castelaz into a believer. "Burn that Candle Down" kicks off with a psychedelic fuzz barrage that the Black Keys would be happy to call their own. If the piano-plaintive yearn of "Every Road Leads Home to You" got misfiled under Coldplay or Arcade Fire, radio programmers would salivate to play it.

"This is nothing like Bon Jovi," Castelaz said. "They make quality rock music, but this is vulnerable and real about his travails. When he first played 'Every Road Leads Home to You,' it blew my ' mind."

The album's not a contempo-indie rip-off, though ' bluesy swaggers like "Sugar Daddy" and power-pop such as "Nowadays" definitely bear Bon Jovi DNA. Sambora's in-studio band comes with a rock pedigree: Members of Paul McCartney and Beck's bands played all over it.

Some song titles like "Learning to Fly With a Broken Wing" and "Taking a Chance on the Wind" are almost defiantly un-self-aware of their author's stadium-rock heritage. But one pass through Sambora's dark-night-of-the-soul ballad "You Can Only Get So High" shows a rare skill among today's self-conscious songwriters ' singing about one's mistakes without glamorizing or wallowing in them.

Gossip rags have detailed Sambora's DUI, his divorce and his rehab stint after slipping in his Jacuzzi and succumbing to painkiller addiction for his shoulder injury. But when he sings "Empty bottle, preach the gospel / another shot ain't coming close to saving me," over a classic-country slide guitar, it's a reminder that those things happened to a real person, one with a story a lot of regular fans can relate to.

"I had cleaned up my act about 85% five years ago," Sambora said. "But I was naive. I just wanted to drink as a stress reliever, and I slipped again. When I write, I'm speaking about me, but I'm sure that's a lot of people's [problem] as well."

"Lowdown's" abject sincerity ' from a guy who has every right to go on hot-tub autopilot at this point in his career ' is a big part of its re-inventive, trends-be-damned sincerity.

Sambora's still committed to Bon Jovi, a day job that he describes as a "mothership ' you just get on and it goes." But after the band wrapped up its 2011 arena tour and is currently between album cycles, it's clear that "Lowdown" is his passion project and he can't wait to play it out live. After a few of the worst years of his life, Sambora feels like "Lowdown" is a song of experience ' and innocence as well.

"I'm still learning; I still have a guitar teacher and a vocal teacher," Sambora said. "I've tried to maintain my innocence as a musician and be able to tell my story, and I'm realizing it's kinda everyone's story."

august.brown@latimes.com

FYF Fest: Afternoon sets by White Fence and Nick Waterhouse

After Saturday's marathon day and night at the FYF Fest, which stretched until 1 a.m. and continued long thereafter with surprise sets by Decline of Western Culture and Lightning Bolt at the Smell, fans on Day 2  of the downtown Los Angeles festival are straggling in. 

 The sun is hot and beer is sweating out of many people's pores, but the Sunday artists are nonplussed. The evidence was there a few hours past noon, when Los Angeles four-piece guitar band White Fence took the Hill Street Stage. The band, led by talented singer and songwriter Tim Presley, offered catchy, smart rock songs that suggested the more melody-laden end of the late 1960s psychedelic underground. Presley is best known in Los Angeles for his work with Darker My Love, and is also member of an underrated Austin, Texas, guitar band, the Strange Boys. 

But he fully owns White Fence, and it showed on his band's final song, 'Harness,' from his 2011 album 'Is Growing Faith.' 

PHOTOS: FYF Festival 2012

Competing for attention on the stage next to him was the updated throwback pop of Nick Waterhouse, a well-dressed young man with Don Draper hair and an obsessive affinity for late 1950s and early '60s rock 'n'  roll. The affection would feel more anachronistic if Waterhouse and his six-piece band weren't so tight and focused, and his songs weren't so catchy. On the main stage at 2, he brought two saxophonists, who pushed through songs with the confidence of a Stax horn section -- albeit with less precision. 

Unlike many bands at the festival, who use effects pedals and looping devices to beef up their impact, Waterhouse's power came only from the convincing runs on his Epiphone and the Fender amp it was plugged into. 

In the hours to come my agenda will include sets by, among others, Sub Pop Records recording artist Father John Misty, Florida punk band Against Me!, minimalist techno producer the Field, Providence art punk band Lightning Bolt and, well, about six others later into the evening. I'm hoping Black Dice will destroy my brain for 45 sweet minutes. Check back Monday (or Tuesday) to see if I survived. 

Follow Randall Roberts on Twitter: @liledit

ALSO:

FYF Fest: A late nightcap of distinct electronica acts

FYF Fest cassette mixtape contest: Simple idea brings in a bounty

FYF Fest: The Chromatics greet sundown with head-nodding house set

FYF Fest: Ceremony thrills, but fest has room to grow

The second and final day of the FYF Fest in downtown Los Angeles was three hours old before it received a wake-up call. It came in the form of a menacing bass rumble and a cloud of dust, the latter of which was quickly becoming visible from a nearby tent dedicated to comedy and electronic music. From a distance, it looked as though something may have been wrong.

Security need not have worried, even as officials kept a nervous eye on the swelling mosh pit. All that was happening was a mid-afternoon set by Ceremony, a Northern California punk band that understands the value of musical thriftiness, the importance of a fist-in-the-air guitar riff and the crowd-unifying power of a simple lyric.

"Gonna do a new song," said singer Ross Farrar. "It's not on the Instagram or the Playstation," he added referring the mobile photo application and the video game system. "It's called 'Everything Burns.'" He paused and then added the following, just in case anyone needed clarification: "Burns. Buuuuuuurrrrrrrrns." Burrrrrrrnnnnnnnsssssssssss."

PHOTOS: FYF Festival 2012

It's not hard to figure out what followed. The bass was sharp, ready to slice anything was put in front of it, and the guitar came spiking down, the kind of riff that makes fans pretend to air guitar. As for the drums, those came in stop-and-start fits for maximum tension -- or maybe that's aggression. 

Some Ceremony songs last all of 30 seconds. Some are just moments longer. No matter how brief, they manage to pack drum solos, guitar solos and enough frenzied lyrics to make the more concerned wonder how Farrar hasn't yet destroyed every single one of his vocal chords. 

The FYF Fest, now in its ninth year and held once again at downtown's mice-infested Los Angeles State Historic Park (mice count at the time of writing: two living, one dead), specializes in this kind or rock 'n' dance simplicity. When it works -- and make no mistake, Ceremony works, managing to make the ferocity of the Sex Pistols and the bluesiness of the Stooges sound completely fresh -- the results are glorious. 

When the results aren't so winning, the FYF Fest can feel as though it hasn't yet shed its more amateur roots, when FYF events were staged at random venues or festivals were planned without enough water for the 20,000 to 25,000 fans who would attend. By and large, this year's FYF Fest is a professional event, once again a party thrown in conjunction with promoter Goldenvoice.

This also marks the first time that FYF, in its downtown location, at least, has been held over two days. And perhaps this is just the heat talking, or frustration at the fact that water on a day when temperatures topped 80 degrees are overpriced at $3, but it was becoming increasingly clear as Sunday afternoon transitioned into Sunday evening that FYF hasn't put together a lineup quite worthy of the multi-day expansion. 

With 80 or so artists, there are always going to be exceptions, and FYF has done well in booking its headliners. Sunday's headliner Yeasayer is coming off its most experimental album, and on Saturday night, Sleigh Bells singer Alexis Krauss led listeners into a fantasyland of hyper-colored noise while Tanlines created an exciting mix of synthesizers and guitar rock.

Yet it's the details that matter, and Sunday afternoon offered little to get excited about. Local rock band the Allah-Las were a pastiche of AM radio sounds, with vocals that echoed from another era and guitars that would have made Del Shannon proud. It was pleasant enough, and just a day removed from when local punks FIDLAR shouted that they felt "80 years old." 

They weren't talking about the FYF lineup on Sunday, but they may as well have been. Nick Waterhouse has a kicking band and knows how to throw a party that would have been all the rage in the days before the Beatles visited Ed Sullivan. Meanwhile, King Khan & the Shrines had a blast worshiping Sly Stone. 

Even when Sunday's artists got a little closer to the present, they were still looking backward. Wild Nothing had a few hooks, but most had already been written better by New Order. Still, one of the best of the bunch was local rock band Papa, whose swift rock 'n' roll had the power-pop flair of Big Star or "Summerteeth"-era Wilco, but unexpectedly laced the songs with keyboards drenched in soul.

A band worth watching, Papa's arrangements were leaps and bounds ahead of any number of FYF garage rockers. Leader/drummer Darren Weiss would frame songs around wind-gusts of guitars and shout a lyric before being suddenly detoured by his keyboardist. "I just want to be quiet now," he said, before instantly changing his mind and yanking the song elsewhere. 

Heavily lacking at FYF was any hip-hop, and Aesop Rock became a must-see Sunday simply for that reason. His beats offered a bleak vision of the future, and his well-detailed songs could touch on a teenage rebellion just by discussing a haircut. His late-afternoon set focused heavily on new material, which delivered social commentary with monster movie characters.

Electronic music did have a heavy presence, but FYF's electronic selections weren't all that different, in spirit, from most of its rock acts: low-fi and sometimes not ready to be heard outside someone's bedroom studio. The loungey keyboard schlock of Daughn Gibson was an unfunny joke, notable only for his Nick Cave-like voice. Yet snythy atmospheres and spoken word rarely work well, especially when the word "bone" is used as a verb.

Violinist Kish Bashi offered at least a hint at how FYF could better incorporate electronic acts. He's essentially a one-man band, and while he was no doubt sweating in his tux, he looped melody upon melody until the violin sounded almost animal. His singer/songwriter vocals offered a unique counterbalance. 

Yet it was the words of Allah-Las singer Miles Michaud that were echoing throughout the day. "It's a beautiful thing," he said of FYF, adding that it "came out of very humble beginnings in Los Angeles."

He's right, and it can indeed be a beautiful thing. Celebrating the weird, the underground and the local is a noble cause, but FYF, with two-day passes that sell for $100 once service fees are factored in, is no longer humble.

Events such as Echo Park Rising and Make Music Pasadena may lack FYF's headliners, but they book a number of like-minded artists and are free. In contrast, FYF has grown-up quick and is still booking a fest heavy on acts that would sound great at a $5 house party. Unlike Kish Bashi, FYF hasn't yet found a way to fit into its grown-up suit. 

ALSO:

FYF Fest: A late nightcap of distinct electronica acts

FYF Fest: Redd Kross, FIDLAR show the power of comedy and rock

FYF Fest: The Chromatics greet sundown with head-nodding house set

Summer dreamin' of summer songs

The season of Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" is winding down, her so-called "wish in a well" has long been thrown. The addictive ode to obsessive ambivalence, propelled into the heads of millions after a Justin Bieber tweet in the spring, can safely be called the proverbial "song of the summer."

At slumber parties and pool parties, during barbecues, while jogging or making out, in front of YouTube on repeat, remixed and covered thousands of times by amateurs, "Call Me Maybe" has been everywhere. And as such, it joins past season conquests such as Nelly's uproarious "Hot in Herre" from 2002, Beyoncé's "Crazy in Love" ('03) and Rihanna's breakout hit, "Umbrella" ('07). But summer hasn't been all roses: Recent years have seen the oppressive dumbness of the Black Eyed Peas, Katy Perry's mindless poses and LMFAO's punch-in-the-head party anthems. And gazing back further, two decades ago summer was all about Sir Mix-a-Lot's "Baby Got Back."

Will Jepsen join Sir Mix-a-Lot and Hoobastank ("The Reason," '04) in history's dustbin? Maybe. "Call Me" was certainly alive with pleasure, but far from a classic, especially considering what else happened this summer in pop music: Frank Ocean, Frank Ocean and Frank Ocean.

INTERACTIVE: The stars on Hollywood's Walk of Fame

Which is to say, Jepsen's light pop track will likely be more of the "Baby Got Back" variety song fondly recalled but more as an asterisk. Few remember 1992 as the summer of Sir Mix-a-Lot. That was the summer Nirvana's "Nevermind" reigned supreme, and much of non-rocker Los Angeles ' and America ' was singularly obsessed with Dr. Dre's "The Chronic," which didn't contain a song of the summer so much as a vibe of the summer.

Jepsen's light pop gem is better than "Baby Got Back," but isn't as good as "Hot in Herre," the Neptunes-produced banger about a heat so burning that the singer and his date gotta take their clothes off. Nor does "Call Me Maybe" touch the sheer power of "Crazy in Love." For my money, Nelly Furtado's brilliant Timbaland-produced summer track "Promiscuous," from '06, is so much more dynamic ' and empowering ' than "Call Me Maybe."

But it certainly does its job: Jepsen has ruled my internal jukebox since I first heard it, and its "Hey, I just met you ..." chorus is rolling around in my head ' against my will ' as I write this. Like many others around the world, it's been competing for space in there (again, not that I'm happy about it) with Gotye's "Somebody That I Used to Know."

LIST: 100 things to do this summer

In the realm of non-Aussie sunroof jams perfect for driving, much cruising was soundtracked by SchoolboyQ and ASAP Rocky's "Hands on the Wheel," which rumbled with more urgency than the season's commercial hip-hop success story, the middling rapper 2 Chainz. My favorite single of summer 2012, the one that I'd place qualitatively higher than any other track, was Usher's searing "Climax," his face-the-facts breakup breakdown. Not a happy song, what's a summer without a little private bummer?

For me, a few different musical moments will remain imprinted in my memory when anyone mentions the summer of '12. The first occurred on July 17 at Ocean's sold out gig at the Wiltern. He'd released "Channel Orange" the day before, and as he came out onstage to big applause, he broke into "Thinkin Bout You," its first single. The song isn't your typical summer anthem. It's hard to sing along to at full volume, the lyrics are jam-packed with syllables and internal rhymes ' and there are so many of them.

But as Ocean crooned, nearly the entire theater sang along, illustrating how the thousands had internalized not only the words but every rise and fall of Ocean's singsong phrasing. While tweens and their moms were bouncing to Carly Rae's easily memorized ditty, a generation ahead of them was obsessed with the vast lyrical programming within "Channel Orange," which announced a major new talent with courage to speak the truth.

The other moment happened far removed from the crowds and featured as its soundtrack the Emerson brothers' slow jam "Baby." A 40-year-old song resurrected by both a reissue and a well-timed cover version by L.A. singer Ariel Pink (who released it as the first single on his new record), "Baby" became my singular obsession in June. I thought it was mine alone.

But one gorgeous night as my fiancée and I were walking through my apartment building's courtyard, the Emerson song was on repeat in my head. As that was happening, Donnie Emerson's innocent falsetto drifted out of a neighbor's window, as though we'd conjured it into being. Its presence startled me. This, I had thought, was our song. But leaning against the window was a couple kissing as though the moment were staged. Presented for our enjoyment, "Baby" come to life in West Hollywood.

randall.roberts@latimes.com

All the world's onstage at Levitt Pavilion

As dusk fell over the Levitt Pavilion at MacArthur Park one recent Friday, Eddie Cota drank in the scene with quiet satisfaction.

On the lawn, kids and adults executed Brazilian capoeira moves while an impromptu drumming coterie tapped out muscular rhythms. Nearby, vendors selling tamales and pupusas did a brisk trade with Central American and Mexican families who were popping open picnic coolers, while clumps of twentysomethings spread blankets and snogged under the trees.

Half an hour remained before the evening's free entertainment, the Brazilian American soul-funk-samba artist Quetzal Guerrero, was due to step onto the Levitt bandshell and fire up his electric-blue violin. But the atmosphere already suggested a friendly fusion of neighborhood block party and indie nightclub.

"MacArthur Park, it's possibly the most interesting neighborhood in the country right now," said Cota, 29, artistic director of the Levitt Pavilion summer concert series at MacArthur Park as well as the Levitt Pavilion's sister series in Memorial Park Pasadena. "Within a five-mile radius, the number of ethnic cultures and city cultures and subcultures and pop cultures that I have access to is mind-blowing. And it takes one artist to bring all those people together."

Superlatives aside, Cota indeed could make a strong case for the Westlake neighborhood's ethnic wow factor. But what's equally striking about what's happening this summer at MacArthur Park is the range and vitality of the Levitt Pavilion's performers, especially its slate of Latin-alternative and progressive world-music acts such as the Colombian electro-tropical ensemble Bomba Estéreo and the Malian hip-hip folk group SMOD.

The Levitt's lineup in those categories easily ranks among the country's most cutting-edge, drawing hundreds and sometimes thousands of weekend visitors to the city-owned urban oasis just west of downtown.

"The core is Latin and also it's an experimental community," said Cota, who spent several years working in radio station promotions before joining the Levitt organization in 2008. "We just had Nosaj Thing. That to me is very sophisticated music that just happens to be electronic, but there's classical elements, there's jazz elements. It's a very complicated neighborhood, and for that reason complicated music works."

Thanks in part to the Levitt Pavilion series, MacArthur Park's growing reputation as a warm-weather cultural hub has cast a new light on the surrounding area: a blue-collar but gentrifying enclave that's trying to shake off its old image as an after-hours paradise for gangbangers, crack dealers and fake-ID hustlers.

"I think the work Eddie's doing is amazing," said Guerrero, who moved to L.A. from his native Arizona six years ago, "because he's giving a stage for a lot of obscure or outside-of-the-box, outside-of-the-status-quo musicians and artists to really express themselves."

The 6-year-old Levitt series at MacArthur Park and its 10-year-old Pasadena sibling are relative upstarts in Southern California's outdoor concert universe. Unlike the Greek Theatre or Hollywood Bowl, which lean toward familiar names with the proven power to draw, the Levitt series favor artists just surfacing from below the radar. And unlike those venerable venues, the Levitt series are free and open to all comers. So if you're accustomed to VIP parking and luxury-box seating, you're pretty much out of luck.

Or in luck, as the case may be. Three weeks ago, at the Quetzal Guerrero show, the attendees sprawled on the grass included not only working-class immigrant families who arrived on foot but also Elizabeth Levitt Hirsch, vice president of the Mortimer Levitt Foundation and daughter of the late custom-shirt magnate Mortimer Levitt and his wife, Mimi, the New York philanthropists whose largesse helps support Levitt pavilions in several cities in addition to those in L.A. and Pasadena.

Each pavilion has its own independent board of directors and must secure additional individual sponsors and grants to meet its financial goals, said Cota, who estimates MacArthur Park's annual budget at $650,000 and Pasadena's at $480,000. It's up to Cota, who oversees booking at both sites, to recruit artists who will give each space a separate and distinct identity.

Cota said he pays artists competitively so he can keep up with bidding against clubs such as the Echo, the Troubadour and the Satellite. Artists who've performed at MacArthur Park say they enjoy playing to audiences that are more demographically diverse than a typical club crowd.

"It's very exciting to see how it's developing," said Levitt Hirsch, who was accompanied by Renee Bodie, executive director for the Levitt Pavilion MacArthur Park. "Eddie has an intuitive sense about how to mix music and community and blend that experience. Eddie will go to every club imaginable and Eddie will go into that underground-DJ, 5-o'clock-in-the-morning experience to hear what's going on so he can be that much ahead of what everybody else is doing."

This summer's MacArthur Park series will continue Sept. 2 with a 7 p.m. show by Dehli 2 Dublin, a Canadian band that mashes up Celtic music, Bhangra, dub, reggae and electronica. Sept. 6 will bring the garage jazz of Killsonic, followed on Sept. 7 by the AfroBeatles, which is just what it sounds like: a hothouse hybrid of beats by Afro-pop pioneer Fela Kuti and tunes by the Fab Four.

On Sept. 8, the Levitt will host a Colombian double bill of electronic-dance artists Palenke Soultribe and Monsieur Periné, a photogenic young gypsy-jazz swing band that Cota recruited after spotting them at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas.

Cota, raised in San Diego by Tijuana-immigrant parents, said that programming Latin and world music doesn't just fit the Levitt's core mission "to reflect the community." More to the point, he believes, Latin culture is becoming the mainstream culture of a city whose population is about half-Latino, plus a recombinant ethnic cocktail of everything else.

"When you go to a La Santa Cecilia show you see everybody dancing ' black, white, yellow, brown," Cota said, referring to the neo-folkloric pop ensemble that performed last summer at MacArthur Park. "La Santa Cecilia isn't a Latin band; it's an L.A. band."

Amy Davidman, a booking agent at the Windish Agency who has arranged for several client artists to perform at Levitt MacAthur Park, said Cota and his colleagues have brought much-needed attention to emerging Latin and Latino artists.

"I don't think it takes away from a focus on any other group," Davidman said. "The thing is that the community gets marginalized and not focused on all the time, so I think it's great to put some extra emphasis on that community."

Other local Latin-music advocates echo that assessment. Tomas Cookman, founder-owner of Nacional Records, a North Hollywood-based label that specializes in alternative Latin music, said he thinks "it's really brave of them doing the programming that they have done." Last year the Chilean rapper Ana Tijoux, who records with Nacional, drew more than 2,000 people to MacArthur Park.

"The challenge that they have is that it's still MacArthur Park, and as warm and fuzzy as people may want to try to make it to be, it still can get a little shady at times," Cookman said. "But if you can get beyond that, and I think enough people can, then I think it's great."

Cota said he wants the Levitt Pavilion not only to draw attention to up-and-coming L.A. bands but to let L.A. artists hear the great music the rest of the world is doing and be inspired to raise their own games accordingly.

"I want you to look at my season and see a story of what Los Angeles is," he said. "And I feel like every show is a page in the book."

reed.johnson@latimes.com

Billy Ray Cyrus plays L.A.'s Bootleg Bar

Twenty years ago Billy Ray Cyrus was feasting on the fruits of his debut album, 'Some Gave All,' which spawned the hit single 'Achy Breaky Heart' and became the biggest-selling disc of 1992.

On Friday night the country singer played a concert for approximately 200 people at the Bootleg, a funky indie-rock club near Echo Park.

Yet this wasn't a case of a has-been music star sopping up the dregs of his residual fame. (Or at least it wasn't that entirely.)

Cyrus, 51, was launching what he referred to as a world tour with his new band, Good Bad Habit, in front of a rowdy crowd populated by friends and family, including his daughter Miley. The show came at the start of a busy fall for Cyrus, who's due to perform at Nashville's hallowed Grand Ole Opry this month before joining the cast of 'Chicago' on Broadway.

Near the end of Friday's gig he asked for the Bootleg's air conditioning to be turned off, as he was 'sweating like a hog,' he said, and didn't want to develop laryngitis before an upcoming appearance on 'The Tonight Show.'

More surprising than Cyrus' packed schedule ' to anyone, that is, who's witnessed the diminishing artistic results of his last several albums ' was the quality of his 40-minute set.

Forceful, precise and clear-minded about its virtues, the show felt like the exact opposite of the straw-grasping exercise you might've expected. It cleared a space for Cyrus as something more than a one-hit wonder, which may have been his goal: 'This was my second No. 1 record,' he said before 'Could've Been Me,' in fact a No. 2 record according to Billboard but a very handsome tune all the same.

Backed with compact Southern-rock muscle by the five-piece Good Bad Habit, Cyrus sang 'Could've Been Me' in an aspirated growl that sounded inspired by Bruce Springsteen and John Mellencamp; his voice has grown burlier and less refined since his early days, a tone the part-time actor put to natural use Friday in 'Hillbilly Heart,' which he recently performed on the CW's '90210.'

That song was one of several Cyrus played from a new album due out later this year, along with the Black Crowes-ish 'Change My Mind' and a raucous number whose chorus repurposed a down-home aphorism he said he learned from his father: 'The more you stomp in poop, the more it stinks.' (Cyrus somewhat famously utilized the saying on the 'Today' show in 2008, explaining his reticence over a controversial Vanity Fair photo in which daughter Miley, then 15, appeared to be topless.)

The singer also did 'In the Heart of a Woman,' a schmaltzy power ballad from his 1993 album 'It Won't Be the Last,' and, of course, 'Achy Breaky Heart,' which rode a stiff honky-tonk groove.

But in his bumptious new material Cyrus was purposely breaking from his old image as a slice of undifferentiated country-music beefcake ' Nashville's Michael Bolton, more or less.

At the end of the poop-stomping number, his band, with one guy who looked like he might have been in Train and another who seemed on loan from some Laurel Canyon indie outfit, segued into a breakneck double-time version of Chuck Berry's 'Johnny B. Goode,' electric guitars squealing like sirens.

Presiding over a small but loyal audience, Cyrus was relishing an unlikely opportunity to be bad.

Celebrating iconic songwriter Hal David

Hal David, the lyricist of pop music standards such as "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head" and "(They Long to Be) Close to You" has died. He was 91.

David died of complications from a stroke Saturday morning in Los Angeles, according to the Associated Press.

David and his longtime partner composer Burt Bacharach etched an indelible footprint on the American songbook when they penned dozens of top 40 hits.

WATCH: 10 iconic Hal David songs

The two crafted a slew of memorable singles in the 1960s and early 1970s for a range of artists including Dionne Warwick, the Carpenters, Dusty Springfield, Gene Pitney and Tom Jones.

Some of the standards in the Bacharach-David catalog include "Walk on By," "Do You Know the Way to San Jose," "I Say a Little Prayer" and "One Less Bell to Answer" ' and dozens more that were hits on radio and on soundtracks to film and TV for decades.

This year  the two were honored with the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song during a White House tribute concert attended by President Obama.

To celebrate his permanent mark in American music Pop & Hiss has collected a few looks at some of David's classic works:

"One Less Bell to Answer / A House is Not a Home" -- "Glee"

"Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" -- BJ Thomas

"(They Long to Be) Close to You" -- Tamia feat. Gerald Levert

 "What's New Pussycat" -- Mike Myers

 

"I Say a Little Prayer" -- "My Best Friend's Wedding"

RELATED:

Hal David: Songwriter

Bacharach and David: Reconciled and Honored

Burt Bacharach prepares for 'Some Lovers,' his first stage musical in four decades 

 

 

In Rotation: Joey + Rory blend sharp humor and sincerity

A series in Sunday Calendar about what Times writers and contributors are listening to right now...

Joey + Rory's "His and Hers," the third album from the husband-wife duo Joey and Rory Feek, is a balanced blend of traditional country deep emotion and good-humored irreverence that turns the spotlight more often on hubby Rory's modestly engaging voice after this collection's two predecessors chiefly showcased Joey's sparkling singing.

The opening track, 'Josephine,' is set against the Civil War but skillfully probes the multiplicity of emotions all soldiers go through not knowing if or when they might come home. Led by Rory's winsome vocals, 'When I Grow Up' visits the average-Joe territory Garth Brooks plied so well in his prime in a charming and lighthearted song about the stuffy qualities that are often attached to society's idea of what defines adulthood.

The duo invoke the lively sound of 1950s Sun Records in the frisky 'Let's Pretend We Never Met,' while 'A Bible and a Belt' is certain to incite debate over its proclamation of the necessity of both items in the raising of children.

They've got a certified tear-jerker in 'When I'm Gone,' a slice of advice from a loved one who knows she won't always be around, and 'Teaching Me to Love You' is one of those country message songs that too often sinks into bathos, but Rory's delivery deftly dances around sappy sentimentality.

The homespun feel of it all dovetails warmly with the mostly acoustic instrumental backing, fleshed out with judiciously applied Nashville orchestration.

Joey + Rory

'His and Hers'

(Vanguard/Sugar Hill)

ALSO:

In Rotation: Mindy Smith's self-titled new album

In Rotation: Antibalas keeps Afrobeat moving forward

In Rotation: Australia's Pnau forges dance gems from '70s sounds

Anti-Obama country concert in Charlotte is canceled

Here's a second example of empty chairs  throwing off planned conservative convention festivities this week. 

A planned anti-President Obama concert, "Rock the Red," had been  scheduled as counter-programming to the Democratic National Convention next week. Country artists including Travis Tritt, Charlie Daniels and Lee Brice were booked at the 11,000-seat Bojangles Coliseum for a show organized by Jason Lambert, a North Carolina Republican consultant.  Though not an official Republican event, the set was planned as a conservative riposte to the DNC festivities. 

But the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority, which operates the Coliseum, pulled the plug on the event Thursday. Kimberly Meesters, the director of marketing for the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority, told Talking Points Memo that organizers "didn't meet their financial obligations by the deadline we require," which appears to be shorthand for very low ticket sales. 

In a post on their Facebook site, organizers for Rock the Red stated "Bojangles claims the change was due to low ticket sales on Ticketmaster. However, it was nearly impossible to find the event on Ticketmaster for ticket purchasers, and we received no promotional help as promised, contractually."

The group says it's scrambling to find an alternate location for the concert, and is giving refunds for the event. But who is the real villain in all of this, according to Rock the Red? "We REFUSE to be bullied by the liberal city of Charlotte and their counterparts," organizers wrote in their post. 

ALSO:

Pussy Riot and protest: Punk band prompts benefit efforts

Tom Morello rips Rage Against the Machine fan Paul Ryan

Silversun Pickups ask Romney campaign to stop playing "Panic Switch"

Critic's Notebook: The Titanic in Bob Dylan's 'Tempest'

Bob Dylan

'Tempest'

(Columbia)

Bob Dylan's new album, 'Tempest,' which arrives Sept. 11, is already generating considerable attention for the title track, his take on the sinking of the Titanic during the centenary year of the tragic disaster at sea. And rightly so ' it's one of the most extraordinary compositions from the most acclaimed songwriter of the rock era.

We'll have an in-depth review of the entire album by Times pop music critic Randall Roberts in the days ahead, but here are some thoughts about the album's centerpiece track, which clocks in at just under 14 minutes.

Elsewhere on the album, Dylan and his crack touring band again mine rootsy grooves as the settings of a dizzying array of topics that the Bard of Hibbing, Minn., has elected to tackle during this 50th anniversary year of the release of his 1962 debut album, 'Bob Dylan.' In a couple of instances, he magically works a simple chord or two for entire songs.

PHOTOS: Iconic rock guitars and their owners

For 'Tempest,' he's conjured up an Irish-Celtic waltz feel as he chronicles this oft-told tale, in a voice as tattered as a shattered china cup, across 45 verses with no chorus. Because everything Dylan does becomes fair game for fan and critic speculation, it's hard not to wonder whether, consciously or unconsciously, he also chose to write the song without a bridge, either, knowing the passengers and crew on the ill-fated liner had none at their disposal.

It's been widely reported that Dylan drops the name 'Leo' into the song, name-checking the fictional protaganist of James Cameron's hit 1997 film version, but it wasn't until my second hearing of the song that I realized he's also tipping his hat to Kate Winslet's character, Rose, in the opening verse:

The pale moon rose in its glory

Out on the western town

She told a sad, sad story

Of the great ship that went down

Dylan's not only putting his own spin on the Titanic story ' one that brings the artist's perspective that allows the facts to take on a different, deeper resonance than just hearing them dryly recounted ' but he's celebrating an earlier age when tragic songs spun off the news of the day were commonplace in our culture.

Songs that grew out of World War I turned out to be some of the biggest hits of the second decade of the 20th century, among them Henry Burr's 1918 hit 'Just a Baby's Prayer at Twilight (for Her Daddy Over There)," the American Quartet's 'Over There' in 1917 and Irish tenor John McCormack's 'It's  Long Way to Tipperary' in 1915.

Musical treatments of the Titanic story began popping up within days of the sinking. Musicologist A.E. Perkins in 1922 reported that 'The Titanic sank on Sunday, April 14, 1912. The following Sunday I saw on a train a blind preacher selling a ballad he had composed on the disaster. The title was 'Didn't That Ship Go Down?'' Another, 'Titanic (Husbands and Wives),' a.k.a. 'It Was Sad When That Great Ship Went Down,' has become a contemporary folk classic often reprinted in the pages of camp songbooks.

PHOTOS: Iconic rock guitars and their owners

Dylan himself is a PhD-level musicologist, and he exhibited his passion regularly during the run of his weekly satellite radio show 'Theme Time Radio Hour.'

The second verse of the song casts the story in terms that take it beyond mere mortal tragedy into the realm of the mythological:

'Twas the fourteenth day of April

Over the waves she rode

Sailing into  tomorrow

To a golden age foretold

And then Dylan injects an intriguing sense of mystery and foreboding fatalism into the third verse:

The night was bright with starlight

The seas were sharp and clear

Moving through the shadows

The promised hour was near

'Promised hour'? Who might have promised such an hour, and why?

Soon, he introduces the character of the ship's watchman, who will reappear three more times before the song's end. Dylan subtly, even wittily, alludes to him being asleep on the job.

The watchman he lay dreaming

As the ballroom dancers twirled

He dreamed the Titanic was sinking

Into the underworld

Then life imitates art with the allusion to the invented element from Cameron's film:

Leo took his sketchbook

He was often so inclined

He closed his eyes and painted

The scenery in his mind

As with nearly every subject Dylan addresses, this one occupies more than one level of meaning. Tragic as the loss of life on Titanic was, the tale resonates so deeply because of the more complex issues it touches in terms of human hubris, as well as the analogies to the ship of state inherent in any story of a seagoing vessel.

He heard a loud commotion

Something sounded wrong

His inner spirit was saying

That he couldn't stand here long

The reference to an 'inner spirit' implies an outer spirit and in this context suggests an inner transformation under way. And sure enough, Dylan sees an earthly disaster in spiritual terms, and ominously spiritual at that:

The ship was going under

The universe had opened wide

The roll was called up yonder

The angels turned aside

He makes no mention of an iceberg, or lifeboats, but conjures the scene better than on-site hi-def cameras with his words:

Passengers were flying

Backward forward, far and fast

They mumbled, fumbled, tumbled

Each one more weary than the last

Along the way he notes acts of cowardice and bravery, horror and heart-rending sacrifice as the ship lists in the frigid waters of the North Atlantic:

Mothers and their daughters

Descending down the stairs

Jumped into the icy waters

Love and pity sent their prayers'

Jim Dandy smiled

He never learned to swim

Saw the little crippled child

And gave his seat to him

He captures what surely must have been the Titanic captain's sense of overwhelming helplessness as he realized what was happening:

The captain, barely breathing

Kneeling at the wheel

Above him and beneath him

Fifty thousand tons of steel

Like his biggest songwriting mentor, Woody Guthrie, Dylan excavates broader truths out of what in others' hands are mere facts about those who perished, those who survived and those who watched from a distance:

When the Reaper's task had ended

Sixteen hundred had gone to rest

The good, the bad, the rich, the poor

The loveliest and the best

They waited at the landing

And they tried to understand

But there is no understanding

On the judgment of God's hand

A half-century down the line, Bob Dylan is at the absolute top of his game. And that's just one song. Elsewhere he offers a touching and oblique benediction on the death of John Lennon in 'Roll On John,' crafts a deliciously dark murder ballad in 'Tin Angel,' and kicks the album off with a rollicking, bluesy metaphorical train ride in 'Duquesne Whistle.'

I leave the rest to Randall, who'll have more to offer soon.

ALSO:

Rolling Stones to play U.S., U.K. shows in November?

Spike Lee bringing Michael Jackson documentary to ABC

Video: Taylor Swift's 'We Are Never, Ever Getting Back Together'

FYF Fest turns a mature 9 years old

Sean Carlson is glad he doesn't have to sweat the details anymore for his FYF Fest, which will turn 9 when it opens Saturday afternoon at a downtown state park. After some difficult years, filled with logistical disasters, Carlson is once again leaving the heavy lifting to Goldenvoice, the L.A.-based promoter responsible for the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival.

This year's event, featuring adventurous rock and electronic acts such as Refused, M83, Purity Ring and Warpaint, marks the second time the fest has been a partnership between FYF and Goldenvoice. The big-time, AEG Live-owned promoter "stepped in to provide the funding and support to run these events in a seamless manner," according to Sean Woods, superintendent for the Los Angeles sector of California State Parks.

As FYF Fest has matured, it hasn't lost its ability to surprise. Experimental Spanish electronic act the Suicide of Western Culture will be performing one of its first U.S. shows at FYF, and lesser-known hard-core bands such as American Nightmare and Converge will get the chance to perform to as many as 25,000 people.

Weekend passes are available for $89. Carlson said single-day tickets will be sold for $45 each day at the event.

"A lot of these bands, when they play Los Angeles, it's $30 or $35," Carlson said. "I've received hundreds of emails from kids that this is too expensive, but if you nickel and dime it and break it down, it's cheap."

Carlson acknowledges he needed help in running the two-day festival. In 2010 the fan experience was marred by a drastic shortage of water, hour-plus lines for bathroom facilities, severe logjams at the gates and a general lack of shade and food. A Los Angeles Times review labeled FYF as one of "the most frustrating concert experiences in recent memory." Carlson immediately issued a public apology.

Now that the festival is on more solid footing, the Los Angeles State Historic Park, once an undersed 32-acre green space adjacent to Chinatown, is on the verge of an $18-million renovation that will add a dedicated farmers market space, a concert plaza and a cafe, all thanks to the help of festivals such as FYF and the dance-focused HARD.

"We realize that it is important for Los Angeles to have a place to house these events," said Woods. "L.A. deserves that."

When he started hosting shows in 2002 and '03, Carlson was sometimes organizing concerts at nontraditional venues and staged as glorified house parties. Today, as FYF Fest celebrates four years downtown, Carlson says he didn't fully know what he was doing when he began.

"There were a few things I didn't understand then," Carlson said. "Insurance for shows? I didn't understand why you would get that. I had a very narrow-minded punk rock philosophy. I believed no one would sue you if they got hurt. I was wrong. I've been sued a few times with people getting hurt at FYF shows, so now we have insurance."

Carlson stresses numerous times that he is not a professional concert promoter, this despite being able to afford a pair of full-time employees at his Eagle Rock offices and staging about 50 concerts per year under the FYF banner. Yet he's right in that FYF is far from a traditional promoter.

FYF pursues a close relationship with fans. Carlson started a loyalty-card program for frequent show-goers and has been known to host last-minute free "fan appreciation" gigs. FYF's affiliation with Goldenvoice has also tightened, and the once-random events ' punk rock concerts at downtown lofts, for instance ' have tapered off.

"It takes more work to do a show for 100 people in a random location than it does to do a show for 1,500 in a theater," Carlson said. "You have to deal with permitting, insurance, the show getting shut down, neighbors. If you're a touring band, and your show gets shut down and you have to give refunds and you have 200 angry kids, that's a problem."

todd.martens@latimes.com

Hip-hop manager Chris Lighty dies in apparent suicide

Chris Lighty, the manager of prominent hip-hop artists including 50 Cent, Diddy and Mariah Carey, died Thursday morning in New York in an apparent suicide, police sources say. He was 44. 

Lighty, who died of what police sources say appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound, was found inside his Bronx apartment, reportedly after an argument with his ex-wife, Veronica. The two divorced last year.

According to various reports and law enforcement sources, Lighty also owed significant debts to the IRS, totaling near $5 million.

PHOTOS: Celebrities react to Chris Lighty's death

Around the time of the divorce, Lighty's management firm, Violator Management, merged with a second firm to become Primary Violator.  Lighty got his start in management when he joined Lyor Cohen and Russell Simmons' firm Rush Management in the late '80s. Past clients included Missy Elliott, Busta Rhymes and Nas.

Artists and fellow managers expressed shock at the news on Twitter. Scooter Braun, Justin Bieber's manager, said: "Hard to believe it is true but RIP to my friend Chris Lighty. gone too soon." Russell Simmons added, "RIP Chris Lighty. Today, we lost a hip-hop hero and one of its greatest architects."

ALSO:

Life is good for hip-hop's Nas

Rock the Bells: old-school, new-school collide

Odd Future announces carnival at Club Nokia

Redd Kross isn't mellowing with age

Redd Kross' Jeff McDonald has a simple rule when it comes to lyric writing: "If it doesn't give me a stomachache, I like it."

Turn that sentence into a math equation and one reaches the following conclusion: The co-founder of Redd Kross, a group that's long been a staple of L.A.'s underground rock scene, has composed at least 10 songs in 15 years that don't didn't induce nausea.

"Researching the Blues," released this month on North Carolina indie Merge Records, sees McDonald, 49, re-anchoring the band he formed with his younger brother, Steven, 45. The two have been playing together since they were budding middle-school punk rockers in suburban Hawthorne, offering a more adolescent and humorous take on the genre than their harder-edged mentors Black Flag.

In the early '80s, sources of frustration for the brothers McDonald included the jocks and surfers who inspired the song "I Hate My School," the racist kids (and parents) down the street, and the dreaded "pseudo-intellectuals."

But on a recent Sunday afternoon at Victor's restaurant in Hollywood, with the band set to co-headline this weekend's two-day FYF Fest downtown, it's clear that while Redd Kross might have an older point of view than Sleigh Bells, Yeasayer, Warpaint and other younger FYF acts, the droll brothers' attitude hasn't changed much.

Their new song "Uglier," for instance, takes a fed-up look at the outside world and then brings the focus closer to home in its final moments, where it deals with some of the less glamorous aspects of aging. "You're getting uglier," Jeff rasps matter-of-factly. "I'm getting uglier."

"I think it's really interesting now that the questioning of an age limit in rock is less and less relevant," Steven says, reflecting on Redd Kross' evolution from cult favorites to rock elders. "With free music and more music available, people like what they like. It doesn't matter if it's an 18-year-old or a 45-year-old."

Redd Kross, which bounced from record label to record label as much as it ricocheted between impassioned guitar-rock and animated, hook-filled power-pop, has found a home at Merge Records. The indie, which also works with Arcade Fire and Spoon, is run by longtime Superchunk anchors Laura Ballance and Mac McCaughan, whose last album, 2010's "Majesty Shredding," was a statement of no-nonsense, rock 'n' roll perseverance.

"This record, like the Superchunk record, does reflect that there's validity to that older voice, whether or not it's that teenaged rock archetype," Steven says. "You can have middle-age angst, or a middle-aged love of teen angst. If you mean it, it's vital."

But what took so long? The band was persuaded to reunite after almost a decade apart for a 2006 Spanish festival. The lineup that came together was the same one from its 1987 album "Neuorotica." That album had begun to reach a new audience after it was reissued in 2002 by Go-Go's guitarist Charlotte Caffey and That Dog's Anna Waronker (Caffey is married to Jeff and Warnonker to Steven). Recording on a new album began in earnest in 2007.

Talk to the brothers and numerous reasons will be offered as to why the new songs sat in the vaults for a number of years. Gigs with other bands, production work, children and even Steven's 12-month employment as an A&R exec for Warner Bros. He helped bring rootsy pop-rockers Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. to the label and then ultimately lost interest in the corporate life.

"It was eye-opening, the one year I spent being a full-time staffer at a label," Steven says. "I was trying to get the best deals for everyone, but it was weird. Why was I trying to get a band's hard-earned live cash and merch money? I should be focusing on my own band ' my own band's merch money and live money."

And yet it's not as if the Redd Kross vaults are overflowing with material. Reflecting on his brother's songwriting pace, Steven says, "I don't think Jeff can be accused of being corrupted by his ambition."

"Are you," Jeff interjects, "saying I'm not ambitious?"

Such back and forth fills much of an hourlong conversation. Jeff reveals that he has songs for another Redd Kross album and even an album title and genre for it.

"It's adult rock," he says, only to be admonished by his brother.

"That word has connotations," Steven says.

Fine, says Jeff, he'll use the term "in private."

Meanwhile, Merge is waiting ' for now.

"We hope this will be more than a one-off," Merge's Ballance says. "But it has been 15 years since their last record, so if it takes them another 15 years, then who knows?"

todd.martens@latimes.com

Review: Divine Fits at Hollywood Forever Cemetery's Masonic Hall

When the members of new band Divine Fits, best described as an indie-rock supergroup (even if it sounds silly), first hooked up, they had a common goal. 

'We basically wanted to write songs together, make an album, and go and play those songs live,' guitarist-singer Dan Boeckner said in a recent interview with Pitchfork. 'We wanted to start a band.' 

Featuring Boeckner, best known for his work with Wolf Parade and Handsome Furs, singer and guitarist Britt Daniel of the band Spoon, and New Bomb Turks drummer Sam Brown, the group hit its goal as it concluded its month-long Los Angeles residency Tuesday night at the gorgeous, acoustically rich Masonic Temple at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

Dreams really can come true: Divine Fits' debut album, "A Thing Called Divine Fits," hit the stores Tuesday. But as evidenced by the volumes of new music pouring out of every portal known to man, one of the last things the world needs now is another album by another band of dreamers.

Or so it sometimes seems. Judging by the Fits' powerful, at times hypnotic gig at the Masonic Temple, however, three men with recognizable gifts and a keen sense of song can build mesmerizing musical structures despite the volume of wannabes surrounding them.   

Over August, Divine Fits has been working out the live part of its stated goal with little club shows around L.A. Last week, the band crammed onto the Hotel Cafe stage for a thrilling, nearly identical, set of songs that illustrated its compact, tight power. There, songs such as 'Love Is Real' recalled postpunk and/or rock singers such as early-period Elvis Costello, Tom Petty and the Cars' Ric Ocasek:  Taking-care-of-business songs about the urgency of desire. Earlier in the month, the band did the little Bootleg Theater on East Beverly.

At the Masonic, this compactness was given room to breathe, and the songs reacted by taking on the echoed quality of the room. With its high, pitched wooden roof and cavernous construction, the venue adds a natural reverb.  

You could best hear that on 'The Salton Sea,' a synthesizer-driven mantra sung by Daniel that echoed through the temple. While drummer Brown, who's pulled back the hard-pound requirements of the New Bomb Turks, crafted a simpler, though no less powerful, metronomic beat, touring keyboardist Alex Fischel created deep, rumbling tones.

On 'For Your Heart,' Boeckner led the band into an odd abyss of a song that harnessed the Underworld-era rave sounds as a weapon in a sturdily structured rock song. On the group's record, the track sounds like a lost new wave club hit. The Temple amplified the bass tones to create more throbbing pulse, as though the band wrote a rock song on Kraftwerk's analog synths. And their version of Tom Petty's "You Got Lucky" was even darker, if that's possible, than the original. (Admittedly, we were in a cemetery.)

It's a double-edged sword, being a noted singer and songwriter in an acclaimed but not gushingly so band -- touring, trying to sell records, licensing music, making ends meet and making good new songs. On the one hand, it makes for an interesting life. On the other, you get into a rut and no doubt start to worry that fans are getting bored. 

On Tuesday, Daniel, Boeckner and the rest of the band proved the best remedy for this is pretty basic: Start a new group, write some (really good) songs, make a (catchy) record, then play them (incredibly well) live.

ALSO:

Will.i.am's new single premiering on Mars

Ely Guerra changes image, and maybe Mexico City's

Video debut: Justin Vernon's Silver Lake Chorus single

Twitter: @liledit

Pandora shares jumped nearly 12% after earnings report

Internet radio company Pandora Media's losses tripled in its second quarter but investors didn't seem to mind as they pushed the company's shares up nearly 12% immediately after its financial report was released Wednesday afternoon.

Instead, Wall Street focused on Pandora's revenue, which jumped 51% from a year earlier to $101.3 million in the quarter ended July 31. Analysts had expected the Oakland, Calif., company to post $100.4 million in sales. Losses of $5.4 million for the quarter were three times last year's loss of $1.8 million, weighed down by growing music licensing and marketing costs.

Pandora threw the market an added sweetener by issuing forecasts for the current third quarter that were higher than what financial analysts had expected. The company said revenue would be as high as $118 million, exceeding the $114 million analysts had forecast.

In addition, Pandora said it would probably break even in the third quarter or even make a penny a share, fueled by the growing number of mobile listeners who pay $3.99 a month for Pandora's premium, ad-free service. Pandora also saw a 53% uptick in advertising revenue, which grew to $89.4 million last quarter, up from $58.3 million in 2011.

Pandora's shares had closed at $10.08, down 10 cents, but spiked by 11.5% in after-hours trading following its earnings release. The stock settled at $10.99, up 9%, by late afternoon.

Still, the digital music company continually struggles to make a profit. That's because Pandora must pay a music licensing fee each time a song is played. With close to 55 million listeners clocking more than 1 billion minutes of music a month, that added up to $60.5 million in fees paid in the second quarter, or roughly half of the company's revenue.

Pandora has begun to lobby Congress to lower its licensing rate, which is set by the federal Copyright Royalty Board. The company has argued that it pays a far higher rate than satellite radio or streaming radio offered through cable companies.

The rate for satellite radio is set at 7.5% of gross revenue, while cable music service providers pay 15% of gross revenue. Pandora, however, pays about 2 cents per hour of streaming music -- which often has added up to 50% or more of the company's revenue.

Record companies and musicians, who have become increasingly dependent on revenue from digital music as sales of CDs continue to fall off the cliff, are opposed to lowering Pandora's licensing rates.

"Instead of trying to shortchange its own suppliers, Pandora should perhaps follow recent recommendations of Wall Street analysts and invest in monetizing its service," the Recording Industry Assn. of America said in a statement issued Wednesday.

ALSO:

Pandora's number of listeners grow 59%

Pandora Media prices IPOs at $16 a share

Pandora stock drops 19% on rising loss, falling revenue estimate

Follow Alex Pham on Twitter.

 

 

Charts: Trey Songz debuts high; Adele shows signs of being human

Lascivious R&B singer Trey Songz debuts at No. 1 on the U.S. pop charts, but the top 10 this week is more notable for who's absent than who's present. Gone for the first time during its 79-week run is Adele's "21," which slips this week from the ninth spot to No. 12.

The young British soul star had a marvelous run, having now sold more than 9.7 million copies of "21" in the U.S. alone, according to Nielsen SoundScan. With 78 weeks in the top 10 of the Billboard rankings, the chart publisher notes that "21" is tied with Michael Jackson's "Thriller" and Def Leppard's "Hysteria" for the third-longest streak since the formation of the modern album charts in 1963. 

Billboard reports that the only artist with a longer top-10 run is Bruce Springsteen, whose "Born in the U.S.A." logged 84 weeks. The soundtrack to "The Sound of Music" was able to hit 109 weeks in the top 10. Meanwhile, Adele's debut, "19," is still in the top 100, resting at exactly No. 100 this week. In 86 weeks on the chart, "19" has sold more than 2.3 million copies.

As for Songz, "Chapter V" is the star's first No 1 album, but he's fared better when it comes to debut-week sales. "Chapter V" opened with 135,000 copies sold, the only top-10 album to top six figures. Yet his previous effort, "Passion, Pain & Pleasure," narrowly missed the top spot in 2010 with a more hearty 240,000 first week copies sold. Prior to the bow of "Passion, Pain & Pleasure," Songz had never sold more than 131,000 albums in a single week. 

Country-turned-pop star Talyor Swift continues to own the top-selling digital track in the U.S. with her breakup single "We Are Never Getting Back Together." After setting a record last week for the best first-week digital sales for a single by a female artist, the song sold an additional 307,000 downloads this week.

That builds upon Swift's debut of 623,000 tracks sold for a two-week total of more than 930,000 paid downloads. Her forthcoming album, 'Red," is due Oct. 22.

Last week's chart-topper, rapper 2 Chainz, falls to No. 2 with his "Based on a T.R.U. Story." In its second week, it sold just 48,000 copies in the runner-up spot, down from last week's 195,000 copies.

Also new in the top 10 this week is rapper DJ Khaled, whose "Kiss the Ring" enters at No. 4 (more than 40,000 copies), as well as the Carly Rae Jepsen-bolstered fourth album from electronic act Owl City, "The Midsummer Station." The latter enters at No. 7 with 30,000 copies sold. The fourth and final top-10 newcomer comes from Christian rock act "Tenth Avenue North," whose album "The Struggle" sold 25,000 copies.

Outside the top 10 and quietly becoming one of the year's most consistent sellers is the Lumineers' self-titled debut. The Denver act plays folk rock as if it's arena anthems, and the band is at No. 15 this week. In 21 weeks, the title has sold more than 237,000 copies.

ALSO:

Video debut: Justin Vernon's Silver Lake Chorus single

Critic's Notebook: Pussy Riot is more about message than music

Michael Jackson's 'Human Nature': An NYC classic on his birthday

Foo Fighters not done with touring quite yet

During the alt-rock titans Foo Fighters' show headlining the Reading Festival in England on Monday night, singer Dave Grohl almost gave some fans a heart attack. "Well, well, well, the ... Reading Festival," he said onstage. "You guys realize we've got a lot of songs to play. It's the last show of the tour and it's the last show for a long time."

Apparently, some fans and reports misunderstood that as the Foos' last show forever, and news quickly spread that the band had called it quits at Reading.  While Reading would hypothetically be an apropos place to call it off -- Monday night was the 20th anniversary of Nirvana's legendary set there -- it doesn't appear to be the case.

The band has at least three shows impending -- a Rock the Vote appearance at the Democratic National Convention on Sept. 5, and then two festivals in Atlanta and Pensacola, Fla., later that month.

And for what it's worth, the Foos' official tour schedule site still features a large banner saying, "We are coming for you too. More shows being added here soon."

The Reading set was mammoth -- 26 songs, including the live rarities "Alone + Easy Target," "Exhausted" and a rousing "Happy Birthday" rendition to Grohl's mom. But fans worried that they just missed the last Foo Fighters show ever can resume normal breathing. 

ALSO:

FYF Fest includes up-and-coming acts

Alanis Morissette nurtures 'Havoc & Bright Lights'

Rihanna, Frank Ocean added to packed VMA roster

Spike Lee bringing Michael Jackson documentary to ABC

ABC has acquired the television rights to Spike Lee's upcoming Michael Jackson documentary, the network announced Tuesday.  

The acclaimed filmmaker, who had previously collaborated with Jackson, has been prepping 'Bad25,' a documentary tracing the late king of pop's creative vision during the making of 'Bad,' the follow-up to his groundbreaking 'Thriller.' It is one of two major projects pegged to the 25th anniversary of the 1987 hit-filled album.

'This will be a very special Thanksgiving for all families to enjoy the genius of Michael Jackson,' Lee said in a statement. 'Big thanks to ABC for allowing people to witness the making of Michael Jackson's 'Bad' album.'

Lee teamed with Jackson's estate and Legacy/Epic Records to search their archives for never-before-seen footage, including some shot by Jackson himself. The director also conducted interviews with some of Jackson's confidants, choreographers, musicians and collaborators, including Martin Scorsese, Mariah Carey, Sheryl Crow, L.A. Reid and Kanye West.

Before Lee's documentary "Bad 25" airs on Thanksgiving, the film will premiere next month at the Toronto International Film Festival.

'Bad,' the third and final album collaboration between Jackson and Quincy Jones, made history with five consecutive No. 1 singles.

To commemorate the anniversary, his estate, in collaboration with Epic/Legacy Recordings, will reissue the disc -- the first re-release of an album from Jackson's catalog since his 2009 death.

Dubbed 'Bad 25" (like his 2008 'Thriller' reissue), the deluxe package will feature three CDs, two collectible booklets and the first-ever authorized DVD release of a concert from his record-breaking Bad tour.

Of the three CDs, one is a remastered version of 'Bad,' another features demos and songs recorded in Jackson's studio that didn't make the cut, as well as remixes, and the third will feature audio from the soundtrack recordings of the accompanying DVD, making it Jackson's first live album.

The album will hit stores Sept. 18.

RELATED:

For fans, will the Jackson 4 add up? 

Michael Jackson's 'Bad' to get 25th anniversary reissue 

The Jacksons ignore family drama at Greek Theatre show

Follow me on Twitter @GerrickKennedy

Critic's Notebook: Pussy Riot is more about message than music

Tucked away within the collected lyrics of Pussy Riot is a two-word declaration that captures the Cliffs Notes version of the Russian punk band's message: "We exist!"

Sung in Russian, the lyric arrives during "Putin Got Scared," a song about the realization that civil action against the state can yield results. It's part of a chant that repeats the words, "riot in Russia!" and conveys the overarching political theme of a group with three members serving two years in prison for hooliganism.

"We exist" has been a central message of punk since its birth in the 1970s, whether within the filthy Detroit scuzz of Iggy Pop singing songs of degradation, Kurt Cobain conveying a disaffected generation's version with the line, "Here we are now, entertain us," or Bikini Kill's riot grrl invectives about gender politics.

But amid the Western media ruckus over Pussy Riot, the specific lyrical message the band is conveying has been eclipsed by the trial, the members' eloquent speeches at their sentencing hearing and the magnetism of the multi-colored-hooded February performance of their song "Punk Prayer" in the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow.

PHOTOS: Russian punk band on trial

The world now knows Pussy Riot ' prisoners Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Yekaterina Samutsevich, and nine others ' exists. What does its music have to say, and is it any good? It's a valid question. The band has been lifted onto a pedestal not due to the aesthetic success or failure of the performance per se, but because of the police and the prosecutors' reaction to it ' even as its music has generally been dismissed for its color-by-numbers simplicity.

The collective's complete works clock in at less than 15 minutes. In addition to the aforementioned two songs, Pussy Riot's discography includes (as translated by the Free Pussy Riot website) "Kropotkin Vodka," "Death to Prison, Freedom to Protest" and "Raze the Pavement." The band has never released physical product, nor can you buy the Russian band's songs on iTunes or stream them on Spotify. But all are available free on YouTube, where the band has been much easier to find than performing live in Moscow.

Most of its performances have been at subway stops, on bus roofs and in public spaces. This is intentional, the group told the St. Petersburg Times in February: "We come and take over platforms that don't belong to us and use them for free."

Digging into the many lyric translations makes it obvious why, in Putin's increasingly restrictive Russia, band members landed in jail. These are not snotty mall punks spitting empty words about cookie-cutter rebellion. These are artists whose intent is to send very clear messages of dissent via an age-old medium, music, and who landed in court because of the clarity of these messages. As evidenced by the band's name, it's got little need for unnecessary symbolism; the finer points of musical arranging be damned. The art is in the act itself.

For example, the band's newest song, "Putin Got Scared," released after the sentencing earlier this month, does not have a good beat, and you cannot dance to it. It's a low-fidelity wind sprint of screaming invectives that wouldn't sound out of place on a 1984 hard-core punk compilation. The music? What you can hear of it is poorly recorded; guitars sound like they're two blocks away with the drummer in a neighboring basement. It's a Jackson Pollack mess of chaos.

Whether the band is advancing a musical conversation or trying to reinvent rock, on the most basic level, is beside the point. That said, on strictly an aesthetic level, it's a drag that the music that landed Pussy Riot in jail is so retrogressive. Though primal, little within the band's oeuvre can be considered of-the-moment. The women aren't delivering messages via in-your-face dubstep, sealed within Europop sheen, or through the rhymes of an eloquent rapper able to speak truth to power with extended verse.

Rather, Pussy Riot trades in verbal and musical exclamation points. "Freedom's phantom's gone to heaven!" members scream in "Punk Prayer," the performance of which landed them in jail. "Gay Pride's chained and in detention! KGB's chief saint descends to guide the punks to prison vans!" In "Raze the Pavement," the band connects the Egyptian revolution to Russia's plight: "The Egyptian air is good for the lungs / Let's do a Tahrir on the Red Square."

They call out a sexist politician in the rolling, spooky "Kropotkin Vodka" (Peter Kropotkin was a 19th century anarchist) and do it with chunka-chunka guitar chords that suggest early Sonic Youth noise bursts, though with less regard for technique. They're not a "better" band than Bikini Kill, nor are they as practiced as Sleater-Kinney.

But just because punk rock has aged and evolved in the West doesn't mean that Russia's following the same timeline. In 1977, while the Sex Pistols were preaching Anarchy in the U.K. and the Ramones were threatening in an album title to send a "Rocket to Russia," the closed Soviet society was experiencing one of the empire's last gasps of prosperity before starting to crumble in the 1980s. This was about the same time that Moscow rock clubs started opening, allowing bands that previously existed underground to perform in public.

And chronology is beside the point in today's what-comes-around-goes-around world culture. It's heartening, in fact, to know that we're not all singing the same song the same way at the same time.

There are young rockabilly bands in South Korea who act as though Link Wray and Eddie Cochran are gods. Detroit singer Rodriguez can release music that resonates in South Africa while being virtually ignored in his native America. Chicago house was reborn in London. And Pussy Riot most certainly now exists, even if its marches are less about innovation than communication.

randall.roberts@latimes.com