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)

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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. 

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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."

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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. 

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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.

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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

FYF Fest includes up-and-coming acts

The ninth annual FYF Fest this weekend brings together some of the world's most innovative young punk, rock, electronic beat music, hip-hop and experimental groups onto the pitch of the Los Angeles State Historic Park in downtown L.A.

Headliners include British beat maker M83 and Swedish hard-core punk band Refused, but the FYF features plenty of L.A.'s young innovators too. Among more established Angeleno bands such as Warpaint, Redd Kross and Health is an undercard heavy with potential. Below are five acts worth seeing:

John Maus comes from the same CalArts-centered scene that supported underground art-dance-pop musicians Ariel Pink, Nite Jewel's Ramona Gonzalez and singer Julia Holter. Using lo-fidelity keyboard sounds and treble-heavy vocals, Maus makes synth-pop for philosophers.

Fidlar is an O.C.-born band whose most recent record EP, "Don't Try," is a four-song punk rock firecracker. Featuring compact two-minute bursts of song, the band is thrilling live too, especially when performing its anthem to the easy life, "Wake, Bake, Skate." Fans of early '80s L.A. punkers the Descendents will be thrilled.

Long simmering in the city's underground, the Growlers recently gained a devoted fan base that extends beyond the rock club circuit. Though they're not pushing at the edges of the genre as much as exploring its echoed depth, the band is killer live, suggesting a combination of surf-rock, psycho-billy and barroom rock.

Fans of the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds circa 1966-67 will find much to love in the Allah-Las, the buzzing four-piece guitar band who create maximum R&B. Coupled with that love of Fender guitars is a confident if a little staid live show. Their forthcoming record on L.A. label Innovative Leisure arrives in the fall.

Tim Presley is best known for his work with Darker My Love, but his White Fence moniker has been perking ears for a couple of years. Under this guise, Presley spits out jangly guitar pop that hints at the mid-'60s psychedelia of the Beatles. This year has been busy: White Fence has released a two-volume series called "Family Perfume" as well as a collaboration with San Francisco garage rocker Ty Segall.

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randall.roberts@latimes.com

Harry Shearer is in a topical zone with album 'Can't Take a Hint'

You can't blame Harry Shearer for feeling a twinge of regret just before the release of his latest satirical album of topical songs, "Can't Take a Hint."

"Pussy Riot and 'legitimate rape' in the news in the same week?" Shearer said, his eyes widening in disbelief as he leaned back into a love seat on the enclosed porch of his longtime home near the beach in Santa Monica. "I feel a little cheated."

But like anyone who's ever worked on an album ' or any creative endeavor, for that matter ' he also appreciates the pragmatic wisdom of Leonardo da Vinci's famous observation that "Art is never finished, only abandoned."

The 68-year-old comedian ' who's also, among other things, a voice actor ("The Simpsons"), on-screen actor ("This Is Spinal Tap") and radio show host ' has never had a shortage of subject matter to lampoon.

While his previous musical ventures include 2008's "Songs of the Bushmen," which had fun with George W. Bush's two terms as president, Shearer now takes aim at foibles in various corners of the world, from the disastrous BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico ("Macondo") to ongoing revelations about sexual abuse by members of the clergy ("Deaf Boys").

Then there's his ode to media mogul Rupert Murdoch ("When the Crocodile Cries"), a gentle disco-funk track replete with didgeridoo solo. "He'll eat his friends. Leave 'em in a pile. And then he'll flash his toothiest smile," he sings with an outback drawl. "Croc's got a temper. Everyone's aware. He's into sharing. As long as it's all his share"

"Can't Take a Hint" was recorded with help from guests, including Dr. John, British soul singer Alice Russell, "Glee" actress-singer Jane Lynch and, as often has been the case with Shearer's musical forays, his wife, Welsh jazz-pop singer and songwriter Judith Owen.

"To me, an album never really takes on a shape until after it's done and settled," Shearer said. "But this feels kind of like a little variety show, where I have various guests come to the mike to do these little ditties of mine."

There's also an impressive variety to each of his mini-commentaries, from the Sinatra-Basie-esque big-band swing of "A Few Bad Apples" to the country funk-cum-hip-hop grind of "Touch My Junk" to the a cappella doo-wop-meets-Gregorian chant of "Deaf Boys."

Shearer himself plays bass on many of the tracks ' he wasn't just pretending in his role as Derek Smalls, Spinal Tap's trapped-in-a-giant-seedpod bassist in Rob Reiner's celebrated 1984 mockumentary.

Asked how he determines which subjects best lend themselves to satirical songs rather than comedic bits on his weekly radio program "Le Show," satirical pieces he writes for various outlets or videos posted on his Internet forum "My Damn Channel," Shearer said it typically comes down to one thing: "It's words.

"I have to have singable words or phrases," he said. "Like with the BP ongoing disaster: the name of the well, Macondo. It sounds so romantic ' you could see somebody having pangs of nostalgia for something with a name like that. That just fueled the song. It's not going to happen with the other well called Deep Water Horizon.

"And then there's the Bridge to Nowhere," he said, referring to his song on which Owen offers her best Sarah Palin impression in the tale of the aborted Alaskan bridge project that became a focal point of debate in the 2008 presidential campaign.

"Apart from its political connotation," he said, "the phrase is one you can just roll around in your mouth, it has so many associations."

After the first of the year, he plans to embark on a tour supporting the album. His previous two CDs were nominated for Grammy Awards, but it's anybody's guess what kind of reception awaits "Can't Take a Hint," which was released worldwide Monday in digital form ' perhaps not coincidentally in time for 2012 Grammy consideration.

When the subject came up, it wasn't "The Simpsons" that Shearer quoted, even though the show on which he has long provided voices for billionaire Montgomery Burns, his lackey personal assistant Waylon Smithers and a host of other characters has periodically taken potshots at the music industry award ceremony.

Instead, he draws from "For Your Consideration," the 2006 mock film documentary about awards shows, directed by his Spinal Tap and "A Mighty Wind" cohort Christopher Guest.

"As my character in 'For Your Consideration' said, 'It was an honor just to be almost nominated,'" Shearer said. "I really hate to quote myself, but there you go."

ALSO:

Two Pussy Riot members flee Russia

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No Doubt to kick off I Heart Radio Festival in Las Vegas

randy.lewis@latimes.com

Alanis Morissette nurtures 'Havoc and Bright Lights'

The heat outside a North Hollywood rehearsal studio is in the triple digits, and inside isn't much better, but Alanis Morissette manages a cool, beatific calm beneath the hot lights of a film crew. She is fast approaching "the fever pitch" of activity that accompanies her every album release, even after a break of four years.

A camera sweeps in on a boom for a close-up of the singer-songwriter, cheerful in a gleaming white blazer, her auburn hair long and parted down the center. She is here to talk up a new album, "Havoc and Bright Lights" (out Tuesday), and her new life of marriage and motherhood for an online video piece hosted by Wal-Mart.

A young interviewer with a clipboard asks about her newest songs, and as Morissette begins ' "On 'Woman Down' I comment about the patriarchy and misogyny ..." ' it's immediately clear that the singer's first album since 2008 will pull no punches, regardless of recent domestic bliss in her own life.

"It's a challenge to be away from my son for too long, but I live for this," Morissette, 38, says minutes later, settling into her dressing room couch. On her left forearm is a tattoo of a tiger, drawn around the word "gentle." "I live for having the larger conversations that are spawned by the content of the songs. That's what I'm here to do, whether I like it or not."

She's had those kinds of public conversations at least since 1995, when her blunt, confessional album "Jagged Little Pill" exploded with songs of intense melody and occasional rage, including the biting "You Oughta Know." Billboard declared the multi-platinum disc the bestselling album of the decade, and she's enjoyed a dedicated international following ever since.

Her son, Ever, was born about 20 months ago, and with her husband, rapper Mario "Souleye" Treadway, she has committed to intensive "attachment parenting," indefinitely on-call for breast-feeding as needed. That's kept her family in close proximity, and perhaps not coincidentally, many of the new album's dozen songs are obsessed with human connection.

On "Guardian," the album's opening track and first single, Morissette is typically fierce and melodic amid layers of guitar as she promises a loved one, "I'll be your keeper for life as your guardian / I'll be your warrior of care, your first warden / I'll be your angel on call."

The through line from the lyrics, she says, concerns "the degree of healing that is available with commitment and intimacy ' whether it's marriage or babies or commitment to friends who I imagine growing old with and dying at 108 together.... I'm terrified of intimacy, but I'm obsessed with wholeness."

The four-year break between albums is not what she planned. Morissette expected to get to work on new songs while pregnant but found that by 3 p.m. every day she was exhausted and prone on the couch. "I was down for the count," she says with a laugh. "There was no way that was going to happen."

She then suffered from postpartum depression, but five months after Ever was born she felt ready again. Morissette built a temporary recording studio in her Los Angeles living room and from England brought out producer Guy Sigsworth, her collaborator on 2008's "Flavors of Entanglement."

"He's like family to me," she says of Sigsworth, who has also produced Björk and Madonna. "He's a savant genius. And he's sensitive. We get along really well. We cry together."

With Sigsworth in the room, songs would begin with a sentence or just a word or two to establish a theme or basic idea. The final stage was handing their work over to producer Joe Chiccarelli (the Shins, Grace Potter) for a final round of polish, the result being a subtle blend of the organic and electronic. They recorded 31 songs, before cutting to the final 12, a process of weeding out she called "torturous."

Among those that made it is "Woman Down," which lashes out at various forms of abuse and neglect of women, as she sings, "Calling all woman haters / We've lowered the bar on the behavior that we will take."

Times have changed, she says, with a marked improvement for women even since the '90s, when there was as much backlash as celebration for "Jagged Little Pill." "In the '90s, it wasn't so much a sisterhood climate. Whereas today there is more of a mutual appreciation, parity and support. That wasn't the case 15 years ago," she explains. "My intention was not to vilify men. My intention was to be authentic. So I had a lot of people hating me. I had chauvinistic women hating me, and it was hard."

Morissette left Warner Music/Maverick Records in 2009 and is releasing "Havoc and Bright Lights" on Collective Sounds (owned by her management company and distributed via the Sony-owned RED).

While taking care of her son, she sang to him and inadvertently created 13 more songs for a potential children's album that she isn't sure will ever see release. And she speaks openly of her desire to "mentor" other singers as part of a television singing competition. She has appeared on "The Voice" and is interested in being a part of "American Idol," though she wouldn't yet speak in detail about the likelihood of that happening.

She has enough to keep her busy until then. The singer recently returned from a six-week promotional tour of Europe, setting up house on the top level of a double-decker bus. "I'm on the top level, on the yoga ball bouncing with my son at 4 in the morning, on the precipitous roads," she remembers with a smile.

This week she returns to the road for tours of South and North America, delivering her back to Southern California on Sept. 24 at Humphreys in San Diego and Sept. 25 at the Fox Theatre in Pomona. Her family will be there with her. She knows it can be done because it has been done.

"Sheryl Crow was my North Star," Morissette said of her fellow rocker, who has two adopted sons. "I was, like, 'If Sheryl can do it, I can do it.' She had a family on the road ' and she still rocked out."

calendar@latimes.com

The groove where jazz and dance music meet

The cavernous dance club in downtown L.A. is hopping, and the weekend is still a day away. The club is ordinarily a hotbed of thumping house music, but tonight, the headliner ' Houston-born jazz pianist and bandleader Robert Glasper ' is switching things up.

Behind a bank of keyboards, Glasper leads his quartet through a restless swirl of searching piano melody, causing the crowd to sway under the hazy colored lights. As the song gathers into focus, one musician begins repeating an unmistakable, 40-year-old refrain, his voice shaded by electronics: "A love supreme'. A love supreme'"

This introduction of John Coltrane (or at least the sounds he inspired) into a modern dance club was a gratifying, chocolate-in-my-peanut-butter moment, but it isn't a singular event. The night's opener, British electronic producer and DJ Quantic, made for an easy transition to Glasper, with a live band swerving through funk and soul-jazz.

As both artists expertly blended genres to reach new audiences, their sound pointed to that natural link between jazz and EDM, or electronic dance music.

With fans turning out by the thousands for sprawling dance festivals in celebration of the beat, it's become clear that lyrics are no longer necessary to pull in a younger crowd.

Simply put, instrumental music is becoming something less exotic. EDM, which is often lyricless or dependent on a vocal loop that serves more as an instrument than a worded sentiment, is now one of the top-grossing genres of the music world.

As fans of Miles Davis and Charlie Parker learned before them, listeners drawn to the sounds of DJs such as Tiësto and Deadmau5 know that lyrics sometimes get in the way of expressing feelings in music. And it bears repeating: Jazz began as dance music.

And with artists such as Quantic and Glasper folding strains of jazz into a mix that sounds natural on the dance floor, there's growing potential for EDM to serve as a gateway drug into jazz.

Shared echoes between electronic music and improvised instrumental music have been building for years, with that shared ground most consistently explored in Europe. Squarepusher brought fretless, jazz fusion-ready bass to what was unfortunately known as Intelligent Dance Music in the '90s, and London-born electronic musician Kieran Hebden followed in the early years of the next decade in exploring abstract, jazz-like structures with a mix of programmed and live instruments for his project Four Tet.

Hebden further underscored the connection in a series of infectious collaborations with the late jazz drummer Steve Reid, who had previously backed Sun Ra, Ornette Coleman and Miles Davis. Reid died in 2010 after recording four albums with Hebden; the pairing released a live album late last year with fiery Swedish saxophonist Mats Gustafsson.

A German techno producer who began his career as a drummer in the '90s, Moritz von Oswald has said he treats jazz as a "funny valentine" with his improvisation-friendly trio, which also features fellow producers Vladislav Delay and Max Loderbauer. The group recently released its fourth album, "Fetch," which leans more heavily on a stable beat than previous works, but its opening track, "Jam," features an echoing trumpet melody from Sebastian Studnitzky that results in a song resembling something from "In a Silent Way" recorded in a haunted mainframe factory.

Oswald's bandmate Loderbauer also tapped the catalog of the European jazz and classical label ECM to arresting effect on last year's double album of remixes, the atmospheric "Re: ECM." And this only scratches the surface of European jazz artists who experiment with electronic textures in various forms, including Nils Petter Molvaer, Arve Henriksen and the late Esbjörn Svensson's trio, E.S.T.

Some U.S. hybrids have sprung out of the so-called jam band scene, which shares a bond with rave culture, in that in-the-moment live performance is valued over hearing the music anywhere else.

Somewhat goofily named groups such as Sound Tribe Sector 9 and the Disco Biscuits neatly straddle both worlds, with the latter even sharing a bill with EDM noise king Skrillex at the group's annual Camp Bisco festival in July.

Marco Benevento, a Berklee-educated keyboardist frequently lumped into the jam-oriented scene though his appearances in "Icons Among Us," a documentary on the next generation of jazz, more accurately point to his roots, and freely draws from a variety of genres. His latest album, "Tigerface" (due in September), opens with "Limbs of a Pine," which features an irresistibly driving, joyful synthesizer groove punctuated by a nonsensical vocal sample. It's a 31/2 -minute blast of swirling, tribal future-disco that could just as easily blast out of a festival dance tent.

Here in L.A., the Brainfeeder label founded by Steven Ellison (a.k.a. Flying Lotus) marks perhaps the most intriguing flash point in the country for the intersection of beat music and this new varietal of jazz. In 2010, Ellison bridged the gap to immersive effect with "Cosmogramma," a bewitching album dedicated to his great aunt, Alice Coltrane (the follow-up, "Until the Quiet Comes," is due Oct. 2). Though Ellison's primary instrument is the laptop, his album included contributions from cousin Ravi Coltrane on saxophone, and live performances have expanded to a full ensemble that merges instrumental hip-hop with "Bitches Brew"-era fusion.

Brainfeeder has already made an indelible impact on the local music scene with its hit Low End Theory night at the Airliner, but its future seems equally intriguing. Last year, Ellison's virtuosic bassist, Stephen Bruner (better known as Thundercat), released an album soaked with R&B, yacht rock and '80s jazz, as did rising young keyboardist Austin Peralta, who went from releasing standards records with Ron Carter and Billy Kilson as a teen to exploring the outer limits of space-jazz with saxophonists Ben Wendel and Zane Musa on "Endless Planets."

Another recent signee, Kamasi Washington, is a ferocious local saxophonist who performs as part of the Gerald Wilson Orchestra. Where his music goes under Brainfeeder's imprint is unknown, but it's no doubt bound for where music of all kinds inevitably starts: In a room, in front of a crowd, and moving forward, no matter what you call it.

chris.barton@latimes.com

The three 'Gigant3s' take over the Honda center

The Gigant3s Tour doesn't boast the crossover star power of this summer's other major Latin-pop trek, which earlier in the month brought Jennifer Lopez and Enrique Iglesias to the Southland for three concerts full of English-language radio hits.

But Gigant3s'with Chayanne, Marco Antonio Solís and Lopez's estranged husband Marc Anthony'lives up to its billing. For three hours Friday night at Anaheim's Honda Center, these middle-aged testosterone factories processed big emotions (separately and together) in a flashy, elaborate show that made virtues of size and volume.

Anyone wondering about the health of the Latin-pop touring business need only have counted the members of each man's band: nine for Chayanne, 15 for Anthony and a stage-crowding 22 for Solís, whose accompanists included string and horn players wearing crisp white dinner jackets.

There was stylistic breadth too, with Anthony's muscular salsa set sandwiched between Chayanne's aerobic pop tunes and Solís' soft-rock power ballads. To get a sense in English-language terms of the diversity encompassed by Gigant3s (which launched Aug. 3 in Miami and concludes Sept. 14 in Las Vegas), you might imagine a package tour featuring Jon Bon Jovi, Michael Bublé and Paul Simon.

Chayanne, whose long career began with a Menudo-style Puerto Rican boy band, opened Friday's show, exhorting the audience to 'baila, baila' while striking heroic poses arranged to highlight his statuesque features. The songs felt for the most part like less flavorful versions of hits by Ricky Martin, but Chayanne's nimble dancing served as an appealing counterpoint to his comic-book machismo.

Dressed in his customary black suit and sunglasses, Anthony, performing second, projected a different, more pungent kind of masculinity as his deep-swinging band chewed through meaty salsa grooves geared to an arena's dimensions. His singing was thrillingly florid, particularly in 'Mi Gente,' by Héctor Lavoe (the salsa star Anthony portrayed in the 2007 biopic 'El Cantate'), and 'Nadie Como Ella,' which he sang with Chayanne.

Yet Anthony was no less fascinating to watch than to listen to: On several occasions Friday he allowed his backing musicians to vamp for minutes at a time while he moved across the stage, gazing at the crowd wordlessly; he was soaking up its adulation but measuring it, too, in a way that revealed something about his role in the celebrity-industrial complex in the United States.

Solís, who closed the concert, did a little self-mythologizing of his own in a sleek video introduction that felt something like a campaign commercial. (Think images of the Mexican singer-songwriter shaking fans' hands intercut with shots of sports cars and high-end home goods.) Where Anthony oozed tabloid-target intensity, Solís embodied a relaxed noblesse oblige as he ran through unabashedly romantic songs from his solo career and from his band Los Bukis.

The music was working toward the feeling of being humanized by love. But the singer was coasting above that drama, a giant in his own mind.

Live Review: K-Pop's 2NE1 at Nokia Theatre

Pity the hapless dude who thought he was getting a lap-dance from Dara of the South Korean pop group 2NE1 on Friday.

The singer dragged him up from the audience onto the Nokia Theatre stage during the single 'Kiss,' and plonked this twentysomething white guy -- who looked as if he might actually crumple from petrified delight -- in a chair facing the stage. Dara, with her Skrillex-inspired haircut and pixie-thug getup, leaned come-hither close, surely about to crib a classic R&B stage-seduction move.

That is, until she promptly shooed him offstage with nary an actual kiss for his trouble. 2NE1 had subverted another American dance-rap cliché with feminine swagger ' a sly move from maybe the most exciting new pop group since Lady Gaga first donned hotpants.

The quartet ' Dara, CL, Minzy and Bom, leads a tide of South Korean pop groups who currently dominate Asian charts and are beginning to make major inroads with American audiences ' Korean American and otherwise.

But of the dozens of groups grappling for the brass ring of hallyu ' a catchall term for contemporary South Korean pop ' 2NE1 might have the best chance to capture mainstream American audiences. That's not just because they're reportedly working with the unerring hitmaker will.i.am on a forthcoming U.S. album.

It's because 2NE1 represents every direction that pop culture is going ' female, global, digital and  danceable.

In that respect, their L.A. debut performance to a packed 7,100-capacity Nokia Theatre proved that K-Pop today looks a lot like the future of music everywhere.  There were shirtless male dancers with pink mohawks trapped inside giant kick drums; there were huge inflatable slides shaped like lipstick tubes; there were Jeremy Scott-designed dresses made to look like the girls were trapped in the jaws of fluffy space monsters.

Why anyone would ever settle for a white guy emoting on an acoustic guitar again is beyond baffling (and there's some free advice, 'American Idol'). But more importantly, 2NE1's chemistry made the spectacle click. They have an appealing way of subverting their roles in the band ' the doe-eyed, 18-year-old Minzy turns out to have dance moves to make Snoop Lion renounce Jah and come back to hip-hop; the brash Dara builds coy steam, but proves unattainably fierce.

This show was a test case of how K-Pop can play for a mixed American crowd. While heavily Korean American, the audience was also a fascinating mix of gay couples on date night and swag-happy hip-hop aesthetes.

Western audiences can sometimes lose the plot of hallyu, because to be frank, the music is sometimes sort of beside the point. 2NE1 has laser-efficient singles like the techno-saturated 'Fire' and the blippy house hit 'Go Away.' K-Pop's ballads are often treacly,  but 2NE1's are workable ' the weeper 'Lonely' is self-aware enough to avoid camp.

But sometimes they succumbed to the Gaga Problem ' the size of their stardom and aesthetic vision can outweigh the actual songs. When zipping over mobile phones in four-minute video bursts, this isn't a big deal. But at a major two-hour L.A. headlining show, filler like a 10-minute DJ break and a Dodger Stadium-style "Kiss Cam" montage felt like a sugar crash.

But 2NE1 is pop is the best ways ' the music, the charisma and the gun-noir pyrotechnics all complement each other to create a bigger essence. When will.i.am and apl.de.ap of Black Eyed Peas came out for the closer ' the barnburner dance single, 'I Am The Best' - anyone who didn't know better would have assumed they were there to fix a microphone outage.

2NE1 were the stars Friday, and they're about to become much, much bigger ones.

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Skrillex, Pretty Lights announce Nashville fest 'With Your Friends'

One would think that L.A.-based electronic producer Skrillex would stick closer to home for his just-announced festival, "With Your Friends." But instead, he and fellow producer Pretty Lights on Friday planted their stakes in the country music capital of the world, Nashville. Could new subgenres bass twang and country-step be far behind?

Skrillex in the last two years has risen to superstar status and nearly singlehandedly propelled his noise-heavy version of dubstep into the mainstream. Long a headliner at festivals around the world, the artist born Sonny Moore is a natural as a festival curator.

That roster will gather in downtown Nashville on the waterfront on Oct. 26-27, and will include not only Skrillex and co-headliner/curator Pretty Lights, but also rapper Nas (with a nine-piece backing band) and fellow New Yorker Santigold, L.A. dubstep/experimental producers 12th Planet and Tokimonsta, along with Dillon Francis and Michael Menert. 

The announcement also offers further evidence of Skrillex's power in American music culture. Given that his work has accomplished the unlikely feat of crossing over not only to fans of EDM, but metal-heads and emo freaks whose desire for noise and aggression has historically excluded music remotely considered "techno," that he and Colorado-born Pretty Lights are committing to the South says something about EDM's continued dominance. It's also further confirmation of Nashville's resurgent power as a music center.

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Beck's new sheet-music album "Song Reader" available for pre-order

Twitter: @liledit

Beck's new sheet-music album 'Song Reader' available for pre-order

Los Angeles singer and songwriter Beck has begun offering his new group of compositions, "Song Reader," for pre-order, his publisher announced on Friday. The 20 new songs might be called an album, except that Beck himself won't be performing them; rather, his new work will only be available via sheet music.

That's right: As he announced last month, to hear "Song Reader," you'll either have to learn how to play the songs yourself or lower your standards and start hanging out with musicians. 

Beck's new work will be released by San Francisco publisher McSweeney's in the format that drove the music industry before the arrival of recorded sound in the early 1900s. Before 78 rpm shellacs ruled the charts, hits were driven not by artists performing their music themselves -- though that was one avenue of monetization -- but through sales of songbooks and sheet music.

"Song Reader" comes out Dec. 7, a date that feels filled with potential. How to present the work on its release date? Will Beck commission musicians? Will he pre-release any copies so that on that Tuesday artists across the world will participate in the performance of the music? Will YouTube explode with personal renditions? Do any pop musicians even know how to read music anymore?

Hopefully those latter scenarios will come true, because the term "social" has increasingly become synonomous with "staring at a little screen and punching at letters," and music consumption mostly involves plugging in a device's earbuds and vanishing into the no-conversation zone. "Song Book" has the potential to remind us what "social" really means when it comes to music: getting together with kindred spirits and playing music while friends listen.

Equally exciting is the release's artwork, especially considering McSweeney's innovative design sense. Anyone who's ever seen vintage sheet music understands the beauty of its design, which pops with color. For "Song Reader," Beck has commissioned artists including Marcel Dzama, Leanne Shapton, Jessica Hische and others to design covers for the individual songs. 

The curious can pre-order "Song Book" at the McSweeney's website. The release costs $34, and a limited number of copies signed by Beck are available for $50. 

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PBS SoCal to air 'Caribbean Fantasy' concert Sunday

It's not nice to trash-talk Staples Center, and certainly nobody in their right mind would diss the Hollywood Bowl.

But if you're a pop star searching for a dramatic performance venue, it would be hard to beat the Castillo de San Cristóbal in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The massive fortress, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is one of the largest built by the Spanish colonizers in the New World, and it commands a majestic oceanside view.

So it should supply a remarkable visual backdrop when pianist-singer-songwriter Arthur Hanlon and a formidable lineup of Latin pop stars come together for the "Encanto del Caribe" (Caribbean Fantasy) concert that airs at 7 p.m. Sunday on PBS SoCal.

Billed as the first concert ever recorded at the historic site, and accompanied by a CD/DVD release, the event unites Hanlon with Marc Anthony, Laura Pausini, Bernie Williams, Cheo Feliciano, Natalia Jiménez and Ana Isabell, among others -- some 50 musicians and dancers in all -- to celebrate the music and history of Puerto Rico and the Caribbean.

Natives ofla isla should brace themselves to get misty-eyed when Hanlon and Anthony launch into their rendition of the classic anthem 'En Mi Viejo San Juan' (In My Old San Juan).

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Review: Esperanza Spalding, Anita Baker jazz up the Hollywood Bowl

Review: Esperanza Spalding, Anita Baker jazz up the Hollywood Bowl

This post has been corrected. Please see note at the bottom for details.

Going into Wednesday night's show at the Hollywood Bowl with Anita Baker and Esperanza Spalding, it was hard not to wonder if a more interesting (and surely bolder) bill could have developed if only the headliner and opener were reversed.

The headliner, Anita Baker, is one of the key artists associated with the "quiet storm" sound, a smooth, down-tempo varietal of late-night R&B that became a radio format with artists such as Sade and the late Luther Vandross in the '80s. That was the decade when Baker was at her peak with her albums "Rapture" and "Giving You the Best That I Got" yielding several Grammy wins and an armload of adult contemporary hits.

Spalding, on the other hand, is only the most famous contemporary jazz artist of her generation. On the heels of her still-striking Grammy win for best new artist in 2011, Spalding has been all but anointed the chosen one by champions of the music with a wealth of high-profile performances, including one scheduled at Disney Hall next year with Wayne Shorter.

But if Spalding has felt any discomfort in the weight of those expectations, she showed no sign of it on her follow-up album "Radio Music Society," a mix of soul, R&B and jazz that could have only been a product of her vision.

And she certainly looked comfortable in the spotlight of a near-full Hollywood Bowl during her opening set. In her fourth appearance at the venue, including  two stints at the Playboy Jazz Festival, Spalding was almost jarringly at ease fronting an ensemble that included a seven-piece horn section in a boom box-styled bandstand.

After taking time to introduce her band -- Spalding is nothing if not a democratic leader, almost compulsively back-announcing every musician's solo -- the lean bassist turned to "Hold On Me," a swoony ballad carried by sparkling big band horns that closed with a beautiful, long-held vocal flourish from Spalding that arced into the night.

She showed an easy way with making the Bowl feel intimate while talking with the crowd, at one point playfully discussing the "right kind of man" while introducing the breezy "Crowned and Kissed." But an exchange with backing vocalist Chris Turner before the soulfully buoyant "Black Gold" veered close to the theatrical, despite its welcome nod toward the larger world with Turner's mournful falsetto referencing Trayvon Martin.

But for all her vocal gifts, Spalding was captivating as an instrumentalist, particularly on the Wayne Shorter cover, "Endangered Species." Playing a fretless Fender bass, Spalding anchored the zig-zagging rhythm while carrying a knotty vocal melody, leading the way for a swerving trumpet solo from Igmar Thomas in a percolating instrumental break that could've gone on far longer, and into any number of directions.

The 27-year-old Spalding spoke of keeping jazz on the airwaves in introducing "Radio Song," which felt like an almost quaint sentiment given the format's declining influence among most people her age and younger. But the pointed thought drew a dotted line to Baker, considering parts of "Radio Music Society" wouldn't have sounded that far out of place in the quiet storm era.

Wearing a black dress and a nearly permanent grin, the endearingly personable Baker coursed through a battery of hits including "No One In the World" and "Sweet Love," and even nodding toward funk with a brief cover of Chaka Khan's "Ain't Nobody." But it was surprising there was no mention of a new album coming on Blue Note in October, her first in eight years.

But maybe she was just having too much fun. With frequent breaks to banter with the audience and special guests, including vocalists Tamia Hill and Lalah Hathaway, the show had the feeling of an elegant Vegas gig, which may be fitting given that Baker's next date is at an Inland Empire casino.

"Singers singing!" Baker gushed after the dusky-voiced Hathaway left the stage, making reference to an earlier comment about what she was all about. Given the Bowl's roaring response for most of her set, there was no doubt what the crowd thought about the night's headliner.

[For the Record, 4:50 p.m., Aug. 23: An earlier  version of this post indicated this was Spalding's third appearance at the Bowl. It was her fourth, including a 2010 performance at Herbie Hancock's 70th birthday celebration.]

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Ana Tijoux: the political and the personal

Two and a half years ago, Ana Tijoux tore up the rule book of Latin hip-hop with her breakout record, "1977." The title alluded to Tijoux's generation of Chileans whose parents had fled the brutal 17-year regime of Gen. Augusto Pinochet and had gone into European exile.

Tijoux's equally ambitious follow-up, "La Bala" (The Bullet), released in January in the United States, gave a sympathetic shout-out to Chile's recent wave of youth-led street protests demanding education reforms and attacking the country's growing gulf between rich and poor.

So when a Skype call finally reached her one morning as she walked the streets of Santiago, it was easy to picture Tijoux racing off to a political rally or en route to a benefit concert for victims of the dark days of the Pinochet dictatorship.

Instead, Tijoux said, she was shopping for a birthday gift for her father, relishing what Latin Americans call la vida cotidiana: the pleasant, unremarkable events that enrich our mundane lives.

"I think daily life is the most beautiful and wonderful thing that anyone can have," Tijoux said, speaking in Spanish. "I think we live in a world where the most important thing is daily life: sharing a space with your family, making meals, being with your people. It's not only the idea of privacy, it's the beauty of the moment, at a time in the world when everything goes really fast ' too fast."

Splicing political observations with intimate personal reflections has become a forte of the 35-year-old singer-MC, who'll lead a bill with Montreal's Nomadic Massive on Saturday night at California Plaza in downtown L.A. as part of the Grand Performances outdoor concert series.

Tijoux can lay down tongue-twisting social commentaries with as much panache as any of her macho counterparts. As a member of the influential hip-hop group Makiza in the late 1990s, her sharp-minded rapping helped revive Santiago's moribund music culture in the liberating post-Pinochet era.

But what sets Tijoux apart in the male-dominated hip-hop world is her lush sense of melody, her sensual, jazz-infused phrasing, and her penchant for introspective disclosure over bombastic self-promotion. Her albums brim with witty confessionals about her own personal and career struggles, such as "Crisis de un MC" (Crisis of an MC), and many of her songs sound as if Tijoux is acting out pages from her diary.

"I think it's important to believe that within hip-hop I have the ability to explore and express other musical forms," she said.

Chile ' first as a distant abstraction, then as a bustling reality ' lies at the core of Tijoux's artistic identity. She said she still draws on the example of such Chilean folk singers as Violeta Parra and Victor Jara, whom she calls "our greatest poets."

"It's music you listen to as a child and that you don't let go of listening," she said. "It accompanies you for your entire life through adolescence and adulthood."

Yet as a child, most of what Tijoux knew about her troubled homeland came through family dinner-table discussions. The rest of the time she was immersed in the lively world of France's immigrant-refugee community.

Her mother, a social worker, sometimes would bring Tijoux along on her treks through Paris' streets. Her truck-driver father would take her on trips across the continent, exposing her to different cultures.

Among Tijoux and her adolescent playmates, hip-hop became a lingua franca that united people across different backgrounds and languages. She became enamored of hip-hop-centric artists, particularly those such as Wu-Tang Clan and A Tribe Called Quest who used rap as a doorway into deeper melodic realms and away from gangsta cliches.

"Bling makes me laugh, because we don't see it in Chile," she told The Times in 2010.

After her family moved back to Chile in 1993, Tijoux fell in with Santiago's burgeoning hip-hop scene. But it was her singing abilities that eventually would lead her to be sought out by artists such as the Argentine electronic-tango ensemble Bajofondo and the Mexican pop-rocker Julieta Venegas, who enlisted Tijoux to accompany her hit song "Eres Para Mi."

"I've never really considered Ana Tijoux a political performer," says Tomas Cookman, owner-founder of Nacional Records, the North Hollywood-based label that has released Tijoux's two last albums.

"But I think also living in Chile and having a young child, you just can't help but be affected by what's happening politically. Especially in a country like Chile, where for so many years people really did not have the luxury to go out and protest the way they're doing now or even speak the way they're doing now."

Certainly "La Bala" doesn't refrain from political outspokenness. The album's explosive title tune has been widely interpreted as an outraged reply to a student protester's shooting death. Its second track, "Shock," registers solidarity with the youthful street activists.

"I think what's going on in Chile is affecting all the arts," Tijoux said. "I think it's going to produce the effect of an art that's more reflective, an art that debates, an art that criticizes, and not only in music but in dance, in visual art, in sculpture, in theater."

By contrast, another song on the new album, "Quizás" (Maybe), is a beautifully languorous R&B-rap account of a meeting with an old friend that prompts thoughts about paths not taken.

Featuring an English-language backing vocal by Detroit-based chanteuse Monica Blaire, "Quizás" showcases the album's funky production mix by Studio A Recording Inc. in Detroit. Surrounded on several tracks by a string quartet (two violins, viola and cello) and a miniature horn section, Tijoux taps into a jazz-diva mode quite different from her urban-provocateur persona.

Tijoux also recruited several prominent guest artists, including Uruguayan singer-songwriter Jorge Drexler and Brazilian hip-hop/samba fusionist Curumin, to lend varied South American textures to the new record.

What makes such experimental blending possible is Tijoux's verbal agility. Some Latin American MCs tie their tongues in knots trying to force Spanish words and phrases into hip-hop cadences that were cut to fit Bronx and South Central speech patterns.

Tijoux has no inhibitions about stretching out vowels or caressing syllables to make her wordplay mesh organically with her emotions. Reviewing "La Bala" for The Times in January, critic Ernesto Lechner described the record as "perhaps the most sumptuous album that rap en español has known."

Tijoux said she has no artistic plans beyond her current tour and seems content to let her next disc come when it may. Then, as the Skype conversation drew to a close, she apologized for the Internet hiccups that broke up the interview several times over the 5,500 miles between Los Angeles and Santiago.

"Vale la pena," the reporter told her ' "The pain was worth the trouble."

Tijoux laughed. "The pain," she replied, as if speaking about something else, "is always worth it."

reed.johnson@latimes.com

Echo Park Rising goes locals-only for its second year

When last year's Sunset Junction festival in Silver Lake fell apart because of long-standing permit troubles, several nightclubs and business owners in neighboring Echo Park cobbled a last-minute replacement event that they called Echo Park Rising. This year, they had the luxury of actually planning for the fest.

"It has been easier this year," said Liz Garo, the talent buyer for the Echo and Echoplex, who helped organize the event. "Last year, we threw it together and the next thing we knew it was actually happening. But we'd always said we should do something like this, and it was just the kick we needed."

For its second year, Echo Park Rising splays out over dozens of neighborhood businesses, corralling many of the best bands in the area's club circuit along with a bevy of restaurant and booze deals. It's a showcase of L.A.'s best neighborhood for rock music, and catches Echo Park at a moment of genuine mixed-culture appeal.

As a new festival project from Garo and Origami Vinyl owner Neil Schield, it's no surprise that the event skims the best of the local club-residency gantlet. Bands like No, Youngblood Hawke, Hands and HOTT MT are among the headliners, and they actually reflect a shift in mission from 2011's madcap assemblage.

Last year, many of the bands were national acts scrambling for shows in Junction's wake. This year's free, locals-only lineup better reflects what Garo had in mind all along.

"For me, I like it local and neighborhood-y, and there's always enough acts here that are just about to break out," she said. "Ninety-nine percent of the bands are playing for free because they love the neighborhood and have connections to it."

The centerpiece of the fest is an outdoor stage in the parking lot of the local French restaurant-institution Taix, and organizers expect 2,000 to 3,000 people over the course of the day. But there's lots of nonmusic appeal as well. Most of the myriad bars, restaurants and galleries along Sunset Boulevard will have art shows and drink specials, and the Echoplex will host zine-making workshops and a book and record fair.

In a lot of ways, the neighborhood today evokes the environment that prompted the original Sunset Junction ' a historically Latino enclave rapidly infusing with artist types and their businesses, sometimes uneasily. But as the early incarnation of Junction proved, a free festival can highlight a blended neighborhood's appeal.

"It was never meant to be just a music thing," Garo said. "It really is a celebration of Echo Park in general."

august.brown@latimes.com

Two guitar festivals bring six-string aces to Southland

Aficionados of guitar-driven music have a bounty of riches ahead this week with two events focused on players who are masters of the six- (and sometimes more) stringed instrument.

Southern California native John Jorgenson is involved in both -- the first unfolding Thursday, Aug. 23,  at Orange County's Great Park in Irvine, the second the 2012 Los Angeles Guitar Festival holding court in Redondo Beach. Others joining in include Eric Johnson, Albert Lee and Robben Ford.

Jorgenson and his quintet, which specialize in music of and inspired by Gypsy jazz great Django Reinhardt, will be joined Thursday by blues guitar hero Junior Watson and folk-rock guitarist Mark Turnbull at a show assembled by veteran Orange County music writer Jim Washburn.

'I've been nuts on the guitar since 1964,' Washburn writes in a press release for the event, 'but have just about had my fill of it, except for those exceptional few players who don't go wheedle-wheedle-wee (as Frank Zappa described it) but who use their instruments as an expressive tool, to carry on a wordless dialogue about what it is to be alive and human.'

As for the players he's lined up for Thursday's show, Washburn tells Pop & Hiss, 'Watson is nearly the only blues guitarist I can stand, because he plays with so much personality and unexpected humor; Turnbull is a great songwriter who uses the guitar to further color his compositions and Jorgenson, as you know, is the prime American player of the Gypsy jazz style pioneered by Django Reinhardt.'

The evening, cleverly dubbed 'Jim Washburn's Guitar Picks,' is free and starts at 7:30 p.m. at the Great Park's Palm Court Stage.

Guitar collector Washburn says he'll also have a display of some of the wackier instruments he's acquired over nearly half a century of poking around pawn shops, thrift stores and starving musicians' garages.

'The guitars,' Washburn says, 'will be a mix of the sacred and the profane, including a mid-'60s Strat and Gibson J-160E (the guitar model featured on more Beatles records than any other), a 1957 canary yellow Harmony Stratotone with 'Harmometal' trim similar to a '50s dinette set, [and] a circa 1957 Japanese 'Havana' electric guitar, which is the strangest guitar I've ever seen -- despite the Cuban name, it looks like the electric guitar an Egyptian boy king would take to his tomb with him."

The two-day L.A. Guitar Festival gets under way Friday in Redondo Beach with rock-blues-jazz player Eric Johnson and widely renowned rock and country picker Albert Lee, who has played with Jerry Lee Lewis, Emmylou Harris and dozens of other luminaries. On Saturday, Jorgenson's quintet shares the bill with Renegade Creation, featuring Robben Ford and Michael Landau, Pepe D'Agostino and Doug MacLeod.

It will take place at the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center. Tickets run $30 to $125. Information: (562) 556-4824 or www.laguitarfestival.com.

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Alex Cuba will tune out 'Static,' turn on soul in L.A.-area shows

This post has been corrected. Please see note at bottom for details.

When your name is Alex Cuba and you were born and raised on a certain island 90 miles south of Florida, people naturally expect you to make Cuban music.

But the Cuban-Canadian singer-songwriter isn't a big fan of preconceived expectations. The winner of the 2010 Latin Grammy for new artist, Cuba swings among various hybrids of jazz, funk, pop and traditional Caribbean boleros and sones, playing guitar and bass and singing in both Spanish and English with a gentle sincerity that never subsides into stickiness.

One of his favorite collaborators is his fellow Canadian artist Nelly Furtado; they wrote nine songs together for Furtado's 2009 Spanish-language debut, the plantinum-selling "Mi Plan."

Cuba's fourth album, "Ruido en el Sistema" (Static in the System), will be released in October, and he'll be playing Thursday evening at the Santa Monica Pier and on Saturday at the H2O Music Festival at the Los Angeles State Historic Park downtown, where he'll be part of a lineup that includes Wisin & Yandel, Snoop Dogg, John Legend and Ozomatli.

We spoke with him Wednesday morning from his home in Canada, where his family moved when he was a child. Here's an edited transcript of the interview, in which Cuba switched back and forth between Spanish and English.

What did you want to do with this new record, which in some ways is quite different from your previous ones?

I think it's a disc that expresses my essence more. I think it goes to a sound that's much more 'owned' by Alex Cuba, in a way. The point of view of the compositions and the songs is more catchy, the singing is more easy-going. It's a disc perhaps more designed to be popular. After the Grammys two years ago, maybe my vision opened up a little more to all of Latin America. I think this record has more to do with all of Latin America.

I've heard that when you go into the recording studio you always have about two-dozen new songs. Does songwriting come pretty easy to you?

Yes, it's pretty easy. Thanks to something, I have the ability above all to believe that I am a songwriter. [laughs] It's marvelous to have this confidence, no? There is a difference between those who have talent and those who believe they do. Many people have talent, but they don't think they can do it, so they never do. It's one of the things I've enjoyed most in my career: I can convert anything into a song. [laughs] But yes, I always try to write the most songs that I can before going into the studio.

The title song, "Static in the System," refers to the static that's constantly going on in our personal lives as well as in the world at large. But it's a very soft song that contrasts with this noise that's all around us.

Absolutely. It is a quiet statement of what's happening in the world today. I realize that too many musicians are punching you to say things that are happening today, but in a very aggressive way. I think not too many people are paying attention to being gentle in music, you know what I mean? Especially coming from a man, and especially coming from a Cuban man! [laughs] And something's that's very important is that it crosses the language barrier right away. People don't need to [understand] it to be attracted by it. And it's one of those songs that people are going to have a hard time realizing their CD players don't have any more volume!

This album has some darker tones than your previous records.

This seems to be a more socially conscious album. Because I've never spoken openly before how I feel about war and peace and things like that.  So songs like "Creo," it's an anthem against war. "Unanime," the closing track, is -- how can I say? -- it's a rhapsody or an opera, whatever, for peace. I ask God to give paz, because we haven't found it yet.

Your friend Nelly sings with you on one song on this album.

We seem to have an incredible vibe when we work together. I actually just wrote her latest single for her, in Spanish.

How do you try to maintain creative independence as an artist?

The world is changing now so rapidly, I think faster than ever. And things are speeding up at a pace that the only way we can catch up with it is by being 100% yourself and by not letting anybody tell you what to do. So the old model of record labels, of how an artist is being served to people, that's dying. People want to hear something real, and that there is no screaming intention in the background of, "I want a hit! I want a hit! I want a hit song! Buy me! Buy me! Buy me!" People are tired of that.

[For the Record, 4:45 p.m. Aug. 22, 2012: An earlier version of this post said Alex Cuba would be playing at the Santa Monica Pier on Friday instead of Thursday. Also, the earlier post said the photograph was by Andrew MacNaughtan instead of Christina Woerns.]

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