This Saturday, Montreal pop enchantress Grimes will play the free show Make Music Pasadena in Old Town Pasadena, at 5 p.m. on the Playhouse District Eclectic Stage at 23 S. Madison Ave. (see the whole schedule here). She joins an impressive lineup, which this year includes indie pop stars Cults, psych-dance band The Chain Gang of 1974, and lots of local heroes like Dam-Funk (see photos of his Amoeba DJ set), Electric Guest, Dengue Fever, Grouplove, So Many Wizards, The Lonely Wild, NO, The Happy Hollows and more.
 
Grimes aka Claire Boucher stopped by Amoeba to pick up a few records and DVDs, and her choices aren’t necessarily what you’d expect. No K-pop and light on obscure electronica (save for Balam Acab’s Wander/Wonder), Boucher instead opted for guilty pleasures — a couple of Blink-182 and Justin Bieber DVDs, a T.A.T.U. record, that sort of thing. Having watched this thing a couple of times now, I’m most taken with Boucher’s ease and candor as she talks about really uncool music many of us secretly like.

Hey y’all. Every Friday I’m gonna check in with what’s popping in the LA/SF area music scenes, plus my show picks for LA. This week Ariel Pink debuted a new song — well, a cover, really — called “Baby,” from his forthcoming album Mature Themes, due Aug. 21 on 4AD. The ultra-smooth jam features Dâm-Funk on a cover of a song by Donnie & Joe Emerson. It’s pretty great, as is the original — listen to the original here and check out the amazing record sleeve. They look like Scott Baio and Corey Haim if they were conjoined twins. Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti will be in SF Oct. 1 at Bimbo’s 365 Club and LA Oct. 5 at the Fonda Theatre.

 

Speaking of Haim, the wonderful LA pop trio of singing sisters has a video for their summer jam “Forever.” I blogged a while back about how rad this song is, and now there’s a cool wheely-poppin’ video to accompany it. I need to find a pool right now.