Best Coast & Iggy Pop - "Let's Boot and Rally"
 
Insane amount of Best Coast happenings. First there was her not one, but two Fleetwood Mac covers, “Storms” and “Rhiannon,” the latter on an upcoming F-Mac tribute album, Just Tell Me That You Want Me, and now she’s teaming with Iggy Pop on a cool song for “True Blood.” It premieres on this Sunday’s episode of “True Blood,” and you can hear it now via KCRW, whose Gary Calamar co-wrote the song, as music supervisor for the show. Hopefully it makes it onto a “True Blood” soundtrack, I love the song, it sounds like X at their most rockabilly.
 







 

Poolside Album preview
 
L.A. duo Poolside continue to drum up buzz for their upcoming full-length album, Pacific Standard Time. Right now it’s streaming from our friends at KCRW ‘till July 16. After that you’ll have to wait a bit to pick up a physical copy of the disc. For now, enjoy the sweet sounds of this proggy, sunny electro duo’s music with a cocktail. Something blue, maybe with a tiny umbrella.
 

Today saw the releases of new albums by Belle & Sebastian member Stevie Jackson, comedian Doug Benson and a 7” from Animal Collective, among others. Check out what’s out today and what’s coming down the pipe:
 

Stevie Jackson – (I Can’t Get No) Stevie Jackson
 
(I Can’t Get No) Stevie Jackson makes a name for itself quite outside of Belle & Sebastian, coming off like the next in line of a lineage of singer-songwriters who exist on their own terms, from John Cale to Brian Eno to Elvis Costello. Far from just being twee, Jackson rocks out to a new wave beat on “Try Me,” singing “I got pills and I’m lookin’ for thrills/At the same time I want to start a family.” The distinctive, reverb-laden lead guitar he lends Belle & Sebastian is on songs like the lovely display on the Kinks-y “Richie.” And even at his most clearly indebted to Summer of Love-era rock, he creates a varied and thoroughly rewarding listen, notably on the swinging, Mamas & Papas-style “Where Do All the Good Girls Go?”


Doug Benson – Smug Life
 
Huge pot fan and hilarious comedian Doug Benson releases two different versions of the same jokes on Smug Life, both performed on April 20 (4/20!) at the same club. It plays like a case study in how varied performances of the same material can yield such different results — in one case, you hear a comment yelled from the audience that gets incorporated into the joke in the later performance.

Comedian/actor Matt Walsh hosts this month’s charity auction at Amoeba Hollywood July 7 at 4 p.m., where the store will be auctioning off concert tickets for upcoming shows by Ariel Pink, Grimes and The Black Keys, as well as gift certificates for Trader Joe’s and Urban Outfitters, signed collectibles and more. Proceeds from the auction benefit Camp Crescent Moon, the nation's first and oldest summer camp for children with sickle cell anemia.
 
Walsh is one of the founders of the Upright Citizens Brigade, the comedy troupe that started in Chicago in the early ’90s and has seen such alumni as Amy Poehler, Horatio Sanz and Adam McKay, in addition to opening theaters in New York and Los Angeles hosting live shows and improv classes. Walsh also starred in the TV version of “Upright Citizens Brigade” on Comedy Central with Poehler, Ian Roberts and Matt Besser. Walsh has been in such Todd Phillips films as Old School, was a correspondent on “The Daily Show,” recently released on DVD his directorial debut with High Road, starring Ed Helms and Lizzy Caplan, and now stars in HBO’s “Veep” alongside Julia Louis-Dreyfus. His Comedy Central show “Dog Bites Man” hit DVD in June, detailing a hapless local news team’s fruitless attempts to portray hard-hitting issues, co-starring Zach Galifianakis, Andrea Savage and A.D. Miles. I sat down to speak with Walsh a bit about that show and his career thus far.
 
Me: Are you excited about “Dog Bites Man” coming out on DVD? Have people been asking you when it’s going to come out?
 
Walsh: I’m really excited about because I’m pretty sure a lot of people never saw it. I thought it was a really fun show to make, and it was a great cast, obviously, but I think it was a really interesting experiment in television, and I’m glad it’s out there in some form.
 
Me: Did you guys watch a lot of local news clips on YouTube or local talk show clips while making the show for inspiration? Did your work on “The Daily Show” factor in when making “Dog Bites Man”?
 
Walsh: Yeah, I think my experience on “The Daily Show” helped me own like a reporter persona and know what is silly about news. I think a lot of the story ideas came from — I think local news covers the mundane. I think there’s a simple truth to that. So a lot of the stories we came up with were mundane or classic retreads of safety issues or community issues or things like that. There’s one episode where we went to visit the KKK, but I don’t think it ever aired and I don’t think it’s on the DVD.
 
Me: Can you talk a bit about your role in Ted? I think a lot of “Family Guy” fans are wondering what to expect from the movie.
 
Walsh: I think it’s Seth’s sensibility in the movie, so I think there are a lot of hard laughs — things go on for too long, a lot of obscure references. It’s a little sweeter, more driven by emotion [than “Family Guy”]. But I’m sure true fans of the show will find similar stylistic choices. In general it feels much more like a movie than an animated half hour. I’m in a few scenes, I play Mark Wahlberg’s boss at a rental car agency. I think I’m hot shit because I’m friend with Tom Skerrit. I basically keep flaunting that in front of him, that he’ll never be friends with Tom Skerrit.
 
Walsh: How much are you allowed to do improv on “Veep”? Can you talk a bit about how that show comes together?
 
Walsh: We spent probably three or four weeks rehearsing before we shot anything. We would get scripts and put them on our feet and perform. … I think once they saw our take on the character, they’d take the scripts away and rewrite them and you’d see some of the jokes you heard in the room. … On the day [of filming], we were always doing two or three improv takes where we hit the points, but we were able to have fun and explore.
 
Me: How did you put High Road together? As the film is based on improvisation, did you rehearse a lot or just keep filming till you found something you liked? And what’s the response been like?
 
Walsh: High Road came about because I’ve always been a fan of the improv movie. I love Christopher Guess movies like Spinal Tap, so that was my goal at some point, put all the funny improvisers I knew into one movie. We took 70 scenes, spent two weeks at the UCB theater introducing the characters to each other. … By the time we started filming, they didn’t have to make anything up. … Generally we would kind of hit the takes and get pretty tight and hone what we like, and then if there was something new, we’d explore a tangent. We had jokes for certain scenes to make sure there were hard laughs in the movie. And it’s been really well-received. I got an award at the Newport [Beach] Film Festival lat year. … We’ve done like four or five film festivals and did a brief theatrical run in L.A. and New York, and then it came out on DVD.
 
Me: What else are you working on these days?
 
Walsh: I have a couple of movies I’m trying to get off the ground. We go back to “Veep” in October, so hopefully in the next couple months I’ll be shooting a small indie comedy. I’m going to New York for the UCB festival this weekend, and enjoying the Valley heat.
 
Me: What do you think UCB means for L.A. comedy?
 
Walsh: Hopefully UCB comedy means good comedy. It’s all things funny. We have improv, standup, sketch comedy, musicals, one-person shows … the formats are wide open. It’s not limited to one specific style. I think the quality’s good, it’s really competitive to get in there. … We try to stay in touch with what’s new and what’s out there. … I think people take it real serious and enjoy it. The other benefit is the audience has been trained. It’s not like they have to pay 20 bucks and buy two drinks. I think the audiences are great and are more game, more open to the wonderful expectation of “I’m not sure what’s its going to be, but I know it’s going to be funny.” I think that’s a wonderful environment for a performer to step into. I think that’s the other blessing of L.A. is that on any given night, there are established comedians looking to get on stage, whether it’s Patton Oswalt or Paul F. Tompkins or Sarah Silverman. We’re really fortunate that our theater pool is so great because there are so many great people looking to get on stage every night.

Foodies, heads up: dineLA Restaurant Week is upon us, taking place July 16-27. Some of L.A.’s best restaurants feature reduced prices on lunch and dinner, priced from $15-$45. Amoeba is providing Rolling Stone LA and Susan Feniger’s STREET with $10 Amoeba gift certificates to give out to the first 15 dineLA patrons July 16. Ask for certificates while supplies last. Cheap, good food and discounted records — a dream come true.
 

Check out some pics to whet your appetites:

Tasty looking spread from Rolling Stone LA




Fried chicken from Susan Feniger's STREET!

San Francisco’s The Fresh & Onlys have announced the title, Long Slow Dance, and tracklist for their new album, as well as tour dates for a West Coast tour. For anyone who loved 2010’s Play It Strange, and there were plenty of us, the news of a new album from The Fresh & Onlys is exciting stuff. From the sound of “Yes or No,” they’ve ditched a lot of the reverb for a more straightforward shimmery rock sound. I say all the better; “Yes or No” is the best thing I’ve heard from them yet, unafraid to hide its gorgeous melody in the garage. The album comes out Sept. 4 on Mexican Summer.
 
 

Tour dates:
 
07/21 San Francisco, CA Phono Del Sol
08/05 Big Sur, CA Woodsist Fest / Henry Miller Library
09/05 Santa Ana, CA Constellation Room *
09/06 San Diego, CA Soda Bar *
09/07 Los Angeles, CA The Echo *
09/08 San Francisco, CA The Independent *
09/09 Santa Cruz, CA The Catalyst Atrium *
09/11 Sacramento, CA Ace of Spades *
09/13 Portland, OR Mississippi Studios *#
09/14 Bellingham, WA The Shakedown *
09/15 Vancouver, BC The Media Club *
09/16 Seattle, WA Crocodile *
 
* = with Terry Malts
# = with Grass Widow
 
 
Tracklist: 
 
1. 20 Days and 20 Nights
2. Yes or No
3. Long Slow Dance
4. Presence of Mind
5. Dream Girls
6. Fire Alarm
7. Executioner's Song
8. No Regard
9. Euphoria
10. Foolish Person
11. Wanna Do Right By You
 
 
 
I’m a huge fan of L.A.’s Lavender Diamond. There are few artists you can say are truly “special,” and Lavender Diamond and their frontwoman, Becky Stark, truly are. This week they released the first song, “Oh My Beautiful World,” from their upcoming new album, Incorruptible Heart, due Sept. 25 on Paracadute. On releases like Imagine Our Love and The Cavalry of Light EP, Stark and co. constructed grandiose folk-rock songs that relayed a disarming, unforced naivete. “Oh My Beautiful World” has glorious harmonies, sounding somewhat like Stark’s other musical project, The Living Sisters, but producer David Fridman (Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev) ups the girl group quotient with big “Be My Baby” drums and acidic breakdowns partway through. I never would have thought to pair Fridman with Lavender Diamond, and I can’t wait to hear what else they come up with.
 

 
Tracklist:
 
1.     Everybody's Heart's Breaking Now
2.     Dragonfly
3.     I Don't Recall
4.     Just Passing By
5.     Teach Me How to Waken
6.     Come Home
7.     Forgive
8.     Light My Way
9.     Oh My Beautiful World
10.  Perfect Love
11.  Everybody's Song
12.  All The Stars