Soundtracks: Lily Allen, "The Fear"

A little treat to lead you into your weekend: the video for Lily Allen's new single, out on Dec. 9! It's like a 60s Brit version of Marie Antoinette: super-pretty, super-girly, with lots of gorge pastries, dancing pastel presents, balloons and other lovely things. The song is pretty great as well. I feel like a sucker falling for Lily Allen, but fall I do for her catchy melodies and biting, clever lyrics. I'm looking forward to her new record, It's Not Me, It's You, which will be out in February of next year. Anyway -- enjoy:

Soundtracks: Crystal Stilts, Alight of Night

There are some records that you like because they make your ears do strange, fun things with their sense of bravura and experimentation, and there are some records that you dig because they're the sonic equivalent of your heart, perfectly encapsulating your emotional state in the way that only music can. And then there are some recordings that are so well-executed in songwriting, musicianship and production that you have to bow in awe, and there are some records that you just like -- they may not be "new" or they may not be "deep," but they're great to put on and groove to. Sometimes I think critics really underrate "grooviness" as a quality concern, which is too bad, because Brooklyn-based Crystal Stilts has that quality in spade. I'm not saying that they aren't good or that their music lacks emotional depth -- it doesn't at all, but the quality that stands out most for me with Alight of Night is this late-night, spooky, slightly soused amiability, which makes it a perfect fall record and a totally perfect New York City record. This is just one of those great collection of songs that shambles from your speakers like that tall, lanky drunk dude at the back of most rock shows, wearing sunglasses in the dark, minding his own business, kind of watching everyone and taking notes and being sardonic and all that. This is the guy that does that weird little lurch-y shuffle dance on the sidelines, and he probably goes home at night and writes terse entries in his super-cryptic blog. Or he goes on to write songs like those here, which are both deeply familiar in their genre (stately avant-garage pop with a shot of codeine coming out of a wind tunnel) and deeply weird with their indecipherable lyrics and removed, weirdo-mumbled deadpan vocals. The highest compliment some people will give this record would be to say that Andy Warhol would love it, which is perfect because people are always comparing Crystal Stilts to the Velvet Underground. (Or Jesus and Mary Chain, or some weird coupling of Joy Division, Suicide and a 60s Motown group.) Whatever, man -- I never really want to make out to Velvet Underground (um, ewwww), but I'd totally make out to this. Alight of Night: you can clap to it, kiss to it, dance to it, shamble to it, sleep to it. You probably don't want to eat brunch to it, but come on -- do you really need to ask more of such a oddly great record?

FAVORITE SONG: "Graveyard Orbit" (If Tarantino ever made a movie about a girl gang hiding out in a haunted house, this would be good)
MP3: "Crystal Stilts" (Don't you love a band that has a song title with their name? Kind of like a theme song!)
CRYSTAL STILTS: MYSPACE

Your Election Night Dance Party Playlist, Courtesy of DJ Freak Illness

If you're anything like me, you not only obsessively soundtrack nearly every moment of your life, but also feel relentlessly compelled to draw deep meaning out of all those moments soundtracked by others (e.g., radio DJs, bar DJs, the dude in charge of the iPod at your local coffee shop, etc.). Like, last night I was driving back from the Little Tokyo library and heard "L.E.S. Artistes" by Santogold and "Hate to Say I Told You So" by The Hives back-to-back on Indie 103.1, which I knew had to be some kind of secret Election Eve code. ("L.E.S. Artistes" is all desperate and anthemic, and I'm sure Barack Obama sang the whole song to himself in the mirror before he went to bed last night, while "Hate to Say I Told You So" would make the best victory song with which to taunt your one or two Facebook friends who've got "Blahblahblah is the blahblahblahth person to donate their status to get out the vote for John McCain" as their current status update.)

Anyway, my new deal is trying to obsessively soundtrack your life, which is why I've called upon my pal DJ Freak Illness to put together an Election Night playlist. Fire it up whenever you're in need of a 3-minute dance party (Liz Lemon-stylez) at any point this evening. (On the other hand, if the anxiety gets to be too much and you start to wig the hell out, listen to John Coltrane's A Love Supreme in its entirety. I've already done so 3 times in the last 12 hours; it's total magic.) You'll notice that the closing track here is Ghost Town DJs' "My Boo," which we just featured in the Halloween edition of Heavy Rotation. DJ Freak Illness would like yall to know that this is the song she'd currently most like to dance with Barack Obama to, even though she doesn't really want to be his lady.

So, here's a screenshot of the first almost-half of the playlist. Get to it now before RIAA shuts down Favtape! Oh, and our one demand is that you must must must dance exactly like Barack Obama on Ellen all night long. No exceptions!!!

Soundtracks: The Hundred in the Hands, "Dressed in Dresden"/"Undressed in Dresden"

I was all bummerville when I heard that local Brooklyn band the Boggs were no more; I was always way into their roots/dance/post-punk hybridity and general good-times vibe. Luckily, though, frontman Jason Friedman has started a new group, The Hundred in the Hands, with touring-Bogg Eleanore Everdell. And they've already got a single up for your downloading plaisir. It's "Undressed in Dresden"/"Dressed in Dresden" and both tracks are more straight-up dance-y affairs than the Boggs were, complete with disco polyrhythms, jagged guitars and really lovely, gorgeous vocals. "Dressed" is like, YES! I AM HAVING A GREAT DAY AND I'M GOING TO BOP DOWN THE SIDEWALK TO THIS INFECTIOUS BEAT AND SUPER FUZZY GUITAR! Whereas "Undressed" is more like, Oh, it's late night. I'm tired. Are you? Want to be tired together? To both we say: yes, thumbs up, hooray, hooray! Anyway, get to it and get downloading and enjoy getting either "Dressed" or "Undressed." Or both. At the same time? Naughty! (P.S. - Their website features their own zine, where they get their interesting friends from all over the place to say interesting things about being in those interesting places.)

Soundtracks: Girl Talk, Feed the Animals

In some shadowy corner of my brain I got the idea that Girl Talk's fourth record Feed the Animals was coming out on CD today, which apparently isn't actually happening till November 11. But the record's been available online for a long while now and I'm sick of waiting to gush on and on about its awesomeness, and who pays attention to CD release dates anyway? (I mean, I totally do, but I don't even know if I can stand by that possibly foolish old-schoolishness anymore.)

And so: It was Fluxblog, or was it Vic Tayback,* who said of Girl Talk's last record: "Like the best [mash-ups and DJ mixes], it retains its listenability because the tracks are more than a collection of reference points - nearly all of them stand up as perfectly composed pop songs in and of themselves." The same's so true of Feed the Animals, as evidenced by the fact that I've played the hell out it over the last few months and still find it all fresh-and-new-feeling. I'd even say it's maybe my favorite record of 2008, and so without further adieu I give you:

SEVEN Moments on Feed the Animals That Will Make Your Life EIGHT Times More Exciting

1."Play Your Part (Pt. 1)," 0:27 - 0:40 (Spencer Davis Group, "Gimme Some Lovin'" + UGK, "International Player's Anthem"). If we could make it so these 13 perfect seconds played on a loop at top volume everywhere all the time, the world would get so much shit done. I mean, we'd get nothing done, 'cause everyone would be too busy jumping up and down and running up the side of buildings at full speed and imploding from happiness, but...would that be such a terrible thing?

2. "Shut the Club Down," 2:08 - 2:55 (Ahmad, "Back in the Day" + Rod Stewart, "Young Hearts" + Michael Sembello, "Maniac"). Before you go home for Thanksgiving this year, you should Facebook all your high-school friends and make plans to meet up somewhere that's like a cross between the bar in "Glory Days" by Bruce Springsteen and the Peach Pit After Dark, then work it so this bit from "Shut the Club Down" is playing just as you all run into each other. Then dance on the tabletops and flip your hair around a lot.

3. "Set it Off," 0:20 - 1:21 (Jay-Z, "Roc Boys (And the Winner Is)" + Radiohead, "Paranoid Android"). BADASS, so much.

4. "No Pause," 0:18 - 0:54 (Missy Elliott, "Work It" + Nu Shooz, "I Can't Wait"). Doesn't "I Can't Wait" make you think simultaneously of nogoodforme's special summer edition of Heavy Rotation, and of Johnny Drama doing the Macarena on the deck of a boat in the south of France? Me too! What an amazing feeling.

5. "Like This," 2:26 - 3:21 (Metallica, "One" + Lil Mama, "Lip Gloss"). This makes me wanna have a Scary Rollerskating Party, where everyone skates around to metal while performing satanic rituals and chewing Strawberry Splash Bubblicious.

6. "Give Me a Beat," 1:32 - 2:04 (Britney Spears, "Gimme More" + Air, "Sexy Boy" + Lloyd, "How We Do It"). And then after the Scary Rollerskating Party you can get drunk on wine coolers in the parking lot with someone really hot and then make out in the roller rink bathroom.

7. "In Step," 2:53 - 3:23 (Fergie feat. Ludacris, "Glamorous" + The Beach Boys, "God Only Knows"). "If you ain't got no money, take your broke ass home" coupled with "God only knows what I'd do without you" makes total sense, somehow.

Oh, and don't forget to check out Girl Talk when he blows through your town over the next coupla months. Check his MySpace for dates.

*If you got this "Sprockets" reference before I had to explain it, you win my lifelong love.

Zooey Deschanel is my new favorite backup singer ever (plus an almost-review of Acid Tongue by Jenny Lewis, which you need to buy right now)

That's a lie: My favorite backup singer ever is obviously Mick Jagger on "You're So Vain." But Zooey Deschanel on "The Next Messiah" (off of Acid Tongue by Jenny Lewis, which came out Tuesday) is definitely my second-favorite, at least this week. She gives her croony voice to a bunch of the songs on Acid Tongue, but for me the moment when she starts singing that sweet little "I want to tell you I love you" refrain on "The Next Messiah" is maybe the most goosebumpy bit on the whole album. (It happens right around the 6:15 mark, and I'm not going to post the mp3, but you can go download it at The Leather Canary.) I also love her because we drive the same car (I saw her once at a bar, and lordy me: her skin really is that porcelain-perfect). And I really miss her as the adorably psycho ex-girlfriend on Weeds, and I'm so annoyed at myself for always forgetting to incorporate "Heart hug!" into my daily vocabulary.

Acid Tongue, by the way, is a shiny shiny gem, and basically the only thing I've listened to since around 8 o'clock on Tuesday night. That's partly because you really gotta let it grow on you, or at least I do: On first listen I was a little thrown off by the lack of "Hey, Jenny Lewis has been reading my diary!!" reaction I usually have to her solo stuff and Rilo Kiley's albums, but by second play I was pretty much over it. The record really is every bit the piece of early-70s-AM-radio gold every other review claims it to be, at least on tracks like "Bad Man's World" and "Trying My Best to Love You." And I love how Acid Tongue starts off with two mega-slow jamz, especially the oh-so-pretty piano ballad "Black Sand." A bunch of the less-than-glowing reviews seem to regard that approach as some kind of fatal flaw, but I think it's lovely and grand and just top class. Never underestimate the power of the slow build, dudes.

Soundtracks: High Places by, um, High Places

Brooklyn-based cutie-pie duo High Places are kinda like the sonic equivalent of candy-coated happy pills (probably Starburst-flavored). The last time I saw them was at SXSW, after a very very long day of drinking many Lone Stars and spending like 9 hours at the Todd P showcase, which left me desperately longing to either take a nap on the street or hitchhike back to L.A. just to be in my own bed. But High Places made everything all better, as though I'd miraculously escaped beery Austin and stumbled into some secret dance party in the midst of a magical jungle where everyone's banging on toy instruments and pogoing around whilst slurping on mangos.

If you ever want to host of a secret magic-jungle dance party of your own, you must make High Places' new self-titled album the soundtrack. The record comes out today and I want very much to share my favorite track ("Gold Coin") with you lovelies, but instead I'm going to respect the record company's wishes and offer you the equally stellar "Visions the First" mp3 instead. So I'll guess you'll have to get thee to iTunes and hear "Gold Coin" on your own. Get it now! The magic jungle awaits.

Soundtracks: Free Kitten, Inherit + Katy Perry, One of the Boys

Oh man, I can sooooooo see Laura's eyes rolling right now, but it's Kim Gordon -- what can we do? The spirit of this blog is so informed by Kim Gordon, with her nonchalant cool and unwavering commitment to lifelong art-damage, that we totally have to tell you what we think about her Free Kitten record. This is hard for me, because I'd much rather be listening to the new Lil Wayne record, which is ten times more genius and interesting and eccentric and fascinating. My advice to you is to get Tha Carter III if you're at all rap-inclined -- it will make your life ten times more enjoyable. But this record is okay, I suppose. It's total art-punk: atonal, arty, screech-y at times, full of feedback, fuzz and drone. (I feel like drone is very de rigueur if you want to be avant-anything these days.) It's like if some crazy German punk band from the 1970s got locked up in a time warp pre-school nursery with nothing but broken instruments to play and a lot of pot to smoke -- at least, those are the songs with lead vocals by Julie Cafritz, Gordon's colleague in Free Kitten and a legend in her own right as a member of Pussy Galore. Those are the best songs, especially "Roughshod," which is the aural equivalent of a monster truck rally swimming in a pink floral teacup. The songs that don't work so well are the ones where our girl Kim thinks she's some weird rock shaman. (Maybe she's channeling Jim Morrison?) Maybe those songs are awesome, but I honestly could not listen to them all the way through despite many promising beginnings -- I always ended up skipping to one of the Cafritz tracks, which are more playful and fun and just more energetic. This record's just too torpid, even for me, the queen of slow, dark and sludgy. Sorry, Kim, but we totes love you anyway, and you should check out that new Lil Wayne record if you want to go for the real effed-up shizzit sound.

On the total pop flipside, there's the new Katy Perry record, One of the Boys. I am sure you have all heard that "I Kissed A Girl" song, right? (It's the No. 2 single on iTunes, for God's sake -- get on that!) You'll feel a little embarrassed that it gets stuck in your head, but it will definitely lodge itself in those brain cells, waiting for a chance to pop up at the most inopportune moment -- and it will never go away. I'm always the first to root for a faux-punk grrrl-powered mainstream female artist; I like to think of them as gateway drugs to even more unadulterated doses of feminism and strong lady spirit. I'm a true populist at heart -- it's cool that there's something for everyone in terms of music and feminism. But for every right-on pop hit like "I Kissed A Girl" or the metrosexual kiss-off and Madonna favorite "Ur So Gay," you have to deal with some "Dawson's"-y acoustic earnest stuff, which occurs at a slightly higher ratio than I desire on One of the Boys. I know Katy's got range and a nice set of pipes, but if I don't want gentle, heartfelt tunes in my categorical guilty pop pleasures -- I want more sassy junk. Still, I like the fact that my 2-year old niece likes this record -- that's totally acceptable to me. She really hates Free Kitten, by the way, it makes her cry. But I still hold high hopes that she'll make her way to femme-centric art noise when she gets older. Baby steps, as they say -- Katy Perry, Free Kitten, it's all connected.

Soundtracks: Santogold

I wanted to be able to write a huge old beautifully-articulated magnum opus about Santogold and her debut record, so it is with great regret that I'm so crazed and manic these days with Life Outside the Blog that I'm reduced to reviewing her record in five paragraphs or less. Which sucks, because it's not often you come across a woman (of color) in the current musical landscape making genuinely interesting, insanely catchy pop music that's so good and smart, it deserves every bit of name-drop, blog-hype, tv-placement and boutique-wallpaper it gets. With her seductive, adroitly confident mix of everything from New Wave to dub to 80s British melancholy to pure pop id, she's revelation wrapped up in hooks and brutally infectious melodies. She's going to take over and your whole summer will be permeated with her music everywhere you go, and you know what? That's why your summer will rock.

+ Continue reading "Soundtracks: Santogold"

Soundtracks: The Bangles, All Over the Place (reissue)

Much love to The Smudge of Ashen Fluff for letting us know about the just-released reissue of All Over the Place, the first full-length by The Bangles. I think I have a copy of the album somewhere but it's vinyl and most likely hidden in my parents' attic in Massachusetts, and technically it belongs to my stepdad anyway. I don't remember much of that record, but I never stopped loving "Hero Takes a Fall" and still put it on mix CDs as proof that The Bangles made a lot of fiercely perfect jangle-pop songs apart from the one about walking like an Egyptian.

It's funny, looking through photos of the band now: I don't remember them dressing so much like secretly goth high-school art teachers. I can't deal with all that velvet but I do appreciate their getting the California hippie thing all tangled up with a Sunset-Strip-circa-'87 kind of glam. I just look at the hair and go, "Oh yeah, Aqua Net!" I'd forgotten that Aqua Net ever existed. And did you know that their original name was The Supersonic Bangs?

Probably the main reason I'm writing this post is I've still got hardcore Bangle smittenness left over from when I was 11 and got to meet them backstage at one of their concerts. It was me and two of my best friends, and the band was supernice and signed our 8 x 10 photos and gave us Diet Coke and asked us about our summer vacations. (Vicki was the coolest one of all; I LOVE YOU, VICKI.) Anyway, that night they opened with "Hazy Shade of Winter," which is possibly my favorite Bangles song, even though it's not actually a Bangles song. And it's not on All Over the Place either but I'm going to post the video here anyway, because maybe we'll never do another post about The Bangles again and because - in addition to my enduring Vicki Peterson crush - I've still got a mega thing for Andrew McCarthy, who never looked better than in Less Than Zero.

Soundtracks: Through the Wilderness: A Tribute to Madonna

Madonna + guitar = boring. I'm talking about all that coffeehouse strumming on American Life, and the time I saw her on the Drowned World tour and she pulled her axe out and started attacking it in this angry, messy way that I guess was supposed to be pretend-punk or something but was actually just kind of dumb.

But it turns out that if you give Madonna songs to people who aren't Madonna and have them do lots of their weird guitar stuff, it can be quite transcendent. That's the deal with my favorite tracks off of Through the Wilderness: A Tribute to Madonna, a record released yesterday by Manimal Vinyl (with 25 percent of proceeds going toward Raising Malawi). The opener is Jonathan Wilson's gorgeous version of "La Isla Bonita," a song that Mother Jones reviewer Nicole McClelland insists "was not meant to sound long-form jam-band style with tambourines." But of course it was! Jonathan even slightly rips off "War Pigs" at one point, and his turning the "all of nature, wild and free" lyric into some tripped-out coda will make you want to do that hand-twisting hippie dance all over the place. Golden Animals' rendition of "Beautiful Stranger" (which you can download at My Old Kentucky Blog) reminds me of "Maggie's Farm" by Bob Dylan, while Lavender Diamond's "Like a Prayer" is sweetly true to the original (but with lots more innocence). And "Live to Tell" (covered here by Winter Flowers, a band I've accidentally seen live about a thousand times and might finally appreciate) has this bluesy guitar refrain that makes it even more haunting than Madonna's performance (or at least more haunting than Sean Penn and Christopher Walken's hair in the video).

The less guitar-centric songs don't do it for me as much. Jeremy Jay's "Into the Groove" sounds too much like Sonic Youth's version without being nearly so fun and fucked-up, and I basically hate how Ariel Pink's "Everybody" turns one of the most perfect dance songs of all time into grating lo-fi dreck.

It also creases me that an album titled Through the Wilderness doesn't include a cover of "Like a Virgin." On the weirdo Madonna tribute of my dreams, Devendra Banhart's taken on that one, but in reality he only appears here as a member of Mountain Party. Their track is "Material Girl," this spacey/scary electro thing with white-hot vocals provided by Argentinean ex-pop-star Erica Garcia. When Erica sings "I am a material...unicorn" at the chorus I'm halfway between being like, "Oh, knock it off!" and wishing the $50 tank-top I bought at the Drowned World concert six years ago were printed with those lyrics instead of the original's.

Five ways to wear your No Age bandana

Something exciting about today is that, at any given you point, you can go out (or stay in!) and get the supertight new record Weirdo Rippers by No Age. It came out Tuesday and it's awesomely ear-shredding but still as bouncy and melodic as your most loved Ramones song (plus there's lots of pretty guitar, too). My favorite track is probs "Semi-Sorted," which takes a long time to build but then explodes into something thrashy and heart-slugging that's so perfect for running up hills (all Kate Bush-stylez - except not really). Anyway, you can download a few tracks here and then score the whole damn record at Amazon or iTunes.

You can also grab yourself a No Age bandana - now available in many vibrant colors - by PayPal-ing the band $7. I recently replaced my tired old navy-and-white bandana with a far hotter hot-pink-and-gold one, which No Age's guitarist Randy Randall says was inspired by the cover art for The Greatest by Cat Power. I like to wear mine all boring/girly (folded repeatedly till it's about 2 inches wide, then wrapped around my head and tied at the back) but there are so many more exciting ways to do it. To demonstrate for us, Randy acted as our model in a super-exclusive No Age/nogoodforme.com fashion show extravaganza gala adventure thing deal. Photos are by Alisa Lipsitt, Randy's partner in Stacks and Layers (a boutique production company - check out their stuff on YouTube).

So yeah, here we go:

1. This is how to wear your No Age bandana when you're going to dress up as Bruce Springsteen in 1984 - and then maybe feel slightly regretful about it.

2. This is how to wear your No Age bandana when you're going to dress up as that guy from Bruce Springsteen's band who wore his bandana around his forehead. You know, the guy that eventually ended up playing Silvio Dante on The Sopranos .

(It's Little Steven/Steven Van Zandt. I actually knew that the whole time.)

3. This is how to wear your No Age bandana when you're going out to rob a bank in the Old West.

P.S. Don't forget your gun!

4. I actually don't have anything clever to say about this one; I'm just crazy about Randy's t-shirt and thought that this shot showed it off really nicely.

5. Lastly, this is how to wear your No Age bandana if you are actually in No Age. It totally works here, but when we're out on the town and we see boys who are not in No Age and they're wearing neckerchiefs, we kind of break out in hives a little. Maybe the only excuse would be if you're a Boy Scout or a Cub Scout. Otherwise, no dice. Sorry.

Soundtracks: Little Dragon, "Twice"

Because I love you so, I bring you a lovely little video from Swedish band Little Dragon. What is in the water in Sweden, I ask you: Little Dragon make lovely, elegant dance-based music, but not like cheesy bad club music -- like many things Swedish, there is an intellectual detachment to their sound that no way detracts from its impact. It's leavened by singer Yukimi Nagano's husky and soulful vocals -- she clearly must have listened to a lot of Nina Simone for inspiration at one point because her voice gets that sly, sexy little growl to it sometimes. Anyway, the video is directed by Johannes Nyholm, who also did "Heartbeats" by the Knife. Man, I have to get to Sweden...

(And here is "Heartbeats," because come on! It's wobbly, identically-dressed skateboarders!)

Soundtracks: Rilo Kiley, Under the Blacklight

For some reason it took me a while to trust Jenny Lewis. The first time I paid close attention to her was the night I fell asleep on the couch and half-woke up a little bit later to find Rilo Kiley playing "Portion for Foxes" on Jimmy Kimmel or something. It was like, "Who's this redheaded ex-child-actor in the adorable babydoll dress, singing some really catchy song that makes me feel simultaneously ecstatic and terrible about liking the person I like?" She kind of unnerved me. But last year her solo record came out and I fell in love, then went back and realized Rilo Kiley are nothing to be wary of.

Nay, we should wholly embrace Rilo Kiley, if for no other reason than the fact that they're a fairly durable indie-rock band who just made a gorgeous record that sounds nothing like indie-rock. It sounds like really good radio, like spinning the dial and finding a really good disco song on one station, a really good country song on the next, then late-80s new-wave-rip off lite rock, then blue-eyed soul, then some hand-clappy perfectly Beatles-esque pop (though not exactly in that order). Jenny even kinda raps on "Dejalo" (sample rhyme: "My mama is an atheist/If I stay out late, she don't get pissed"), and it actually maybe works.

So now I guess I totally trust Jenny Lewis, at least enough to take my little sister to see the band on her 16-year-birthday next month. Plus, she's such a babe, and I'm still dreaming of that dress she wore on the cover of Rabbit Fur Coat. Is it not to die for?

Things We Look Forward To: PJ Harvey, White Chalk

There's always so much we love to anticipate about fall: wearing coats and boots, cooler temperatures, that general feeling of purposefulness and endeavor that you get about new projects and fresh, clean notebooks just waiting to be filled with all sorts of ideas and goodness. And there's also the "serious" movies that come out, not to mention loads of records and art exhibitions and bands touring that you just have to catch because you know that in some way, it will change your life. Usually, of course, this doesn't happen, because movies are boring or records are disappointments or people just suck. But life-changing revelation generally happens more often for me in the case of the genius that is PJ Harvey, so this fall I am so looking forward to her new record, titled White Chalk and out on September 24th.

We've loved Harvey going on years now: I can remember driving out on I-90 as a thunderstorm rolled in, listening to the opening chords of her first record, Dry, and feeling like my own private world had come into view for the very first time. And I still have a tape that Liz sent me ages ago of a live Boston show that still manages to startle and wow me like never before. White Chalk is full of ghostly piano melodies and a surprising fragility to those more accustomed to Harvey's guitar and vocal theatrics. It's a succinct and haunted 30-odd minutes of music, with songs exploring mortality, time and, you know, the agonies of love.

Harvey's visual transformations don't get as much ink, but she's just as much of an experimentalist with her image as someone like Madonna or even Cindy Sherman. From her days as a post-punk riff on the riot grrrl for Dry to the fearsome diva of To Bring You My Love to the art-damaged ingenue of Is This Desire?, we've always been interested in her "look." For White Chalk, it appears she's going for a sort of Victorian thing; the recent cover art looks straight out of a Whistler painting:

But in a weird way it's not so different from her take on useless feminine accoutrement that was at the heart of her 1992 video for "Dress," which is still ever-awesome, fifteen years on, and somehow seminal in my psyche for my continual conflicted pleasure in and detachment from overtly feminine fashion:

Patti Smith and her $11 truck-stop jeans

Last Wednesday night around dusk I was walking down the street in beautiful Colorado, and I saw a sign that read "Patti Smith and Her Band, August 8 at Boulder Theater." And then I realized that August 8 was that very day, and that Boulder Theater was just around the corner. So after coughing up the 30 bucks and convincing the dude at the door that my I.D. was indeed not a fake, I stealthily snaked my way through the crowd and slid into the little nook between the far right corner of the stage and the big wall o' speakers. And the band came on right away, and it was my sixth time seeing Patti Smith ever but the first time in about five years, and I was such a silly giddy jumpy mess.

Apart from the covers of "Gimme Shelter" and "White Rabbit" and Neil Young's "Helpless," the fucking awesome renditions of "Redondo Beach" and "Gloria" and "We Three" and "Dancing Barefoot," and all the weirdo stage banter about Twin Peaks and long-lost children's books and televised talent shows from the 50s, my favorite part was when Patti told a story about buying a pair of jeans (or, uh, "dungarees") for $11 that afternoon at a truck stop. She was wearing the jeans onstage, along with cowboy boots, her trademark black blazer, and a white t-shirt Sharpie-graffitied with a peace sign and the word 'LOVE.' (She was also wearing a homemade peace-sign wristband, which I noticed when she came over and sat on the stage right in front of me and held hands with the five-year-old boy standing to my left - a real heart-clutcher of a moment if ever I've witnessed one.)

So, yeah, here's some more blurry pictures of Patti Smith and her $11 truck-stop jeans. I hope that if you've never seen Patti Smith live, then you will someday, even if you think you don't care about her much: It's terribly unlikely that any other rock star in the world might ever make you feel so excited about being a living breathing human.

(Please note the presence of the wonderful Lenny Kaye in half of these photos. Another one of my favorite moments from last Wednesday was when Lenny got on the mike and sang "Pushin' Too Hard" by The Seeds, and in the middle of the song Patti danced up to him and did all these funny poses, like blowing on her nails and looking so bored - oh my god! And during "Dancing Barefoot" he caught me gazing at him so doe-eyed and adoringly, and he broke into a charmingly amused grin and then my face turned something redder than the reddest fire engines and/or candy apples.)

Evripidis And His Tragedies

This is the most charming band I've seen and heard in quite some time! Barcelona's Evripidis and His Tragedies conjures the Brill Building sound, with bits of Gershsin and Porter. Their album Ya a La Venta is only available through a Spanish label, Touch Me Records, but we're hoping for an American release or New York show sometime soon...

The Getting-Ready Soundtrack: Fast Times at Ridgemont High at Hollywood Forever Cemetery

I almost don't want to tell anyone else in the world about tomorrow night's screening of Fast Times at Ridgemont High at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, since I'm sure the line's already going to be so insanely long that I should probably just go there and start waiting now. But I'm trying to be a nicer person in general, so here we are. To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Amy Heckerling/Cameron Crowe's teen-movie masterpiece, Cinespia is hosting a cemetery screening that kicks off at 9 p.m. (but gates are at 7:30). And below you'll find a YouTube clip of one of my favorite scenes, in which Damone attempts to seduce a cardboard cut-out of Debbie Harry. It's especially dear to my heart because, umm, my first kiss happened about an hour after the guy played me "Kashmir" by Led Zeppelin - ack!

Anyway, even though Damone ultimately makes me skeeve, I tend to appreciate his style more than almost anyone else in the movie (and if memory serves, there was a little charticle in Spin five or so years ago about how to tell the difference between Damone and a member of The Strokes - hahaha). If only he weren't such a dirtbag, I might let him take me out for linguini with white clam sauce and a Coke with no ice.

THE LOOK: At one point in time, even just a few months ago, I would've been all about going as one of those girls who looks just like Pat Benatar. But now, like Laura, I'm more into the Jeff Spicoli aesthetic (although I don't think I'll ever able to deal with Hawaiian shirts).

THE MUST-HAVE: Vans Classic Slip-On in Checkerboards (my preferred color scheme: Fig/Lotus)

THE SONGS:
The Go-Gos "Speeding"
Tom Petty "American Girl"
Oingo Boingo "Goodbye, Goodbye"
Billy Squier "Fast Times (The Best Years Of Our Lives)"
Stevie Nicks "Sleeping Angel"
The Cars "Moving In Stereo"
The Go-Gos "We Got The Beat"
Jackson Browne "Somebody's Baby"
Led Zeppelin "Kashmir"
The Ravyns "Raised on the Radio"

Soundtracks: The Sea and Cake Everybody

The Sea and Cake really live out their name: Their songs always sound like the ocean and fancy sugar. The Chicago foursome's new, seventh album Everybody has been stuck in my headphones lately and it's perfect spring-into-summer music, all jangly guitars and floaty pop melodies and Sam Prekop's hazy-sweet vocals. Classic Sea and Cake stuff, it's like a less precious Belle and Sebastian, brighter and bouncier and much less naptime-appropriate. (Download two of the best tracks, "Up on Crutches" and "Crossing Line," at The Rawking Refuses to Stop!.)

And as with any Sea and Cake record, Everybody makes me think in cerulean blues and seafoam greens. Here, some of the pretty, ocean-colored things I want to wear to their shows this weekend at The Troubadour in West Hollywood*: Made with Love by Hannah's Blue Tree Top skirt (sold out at CUT + PASTE but available at Hannah's website), House of Spy's Miss Pac Man smocked top (at Paper-Doll), Snoflake's Train A bubble skirt (Paper-Doll too), and Forever 21's ruffled knit top.





* They're playing Saturday and Sunday nights with The Zincs and Robbers on High Street. Tickets are $15 in advance; $18 day of.

Soundtracks: Mary Timony Band The Shapes We Make

Practically everything I worship about Mary Timony is magically exemplified in the transition from track 7 to track 8 on her new record The Shapes We Make. The former ("Pink Clouds") is all-out prog-rock weirdo wizardry, with some monster guitar riffs and a lot of high-drama keyboard that sounds lifted straight from "Tom Sawyer" by Rush. And the latter ("Window") is a delicate piano waltz, with Mary whisper-singing about trees and bumblebees and "universal truth." Mary's my favorite because she's a total guitar god - without ever pulling some wanky bullshit - but she's also got that ethereal, airy-fairy (in the non-pejorative sense) quality that's gotta be at least partly responsible for my post-adolescent obsession with horses and tigers and other such majestic creatures. And The Shapes We Make is full of some of her rulingest songs yet, not to mention a few really awesome kiss-offs tucked into the lyrics. (The best is on the poppy, bouncy opener "Sharpshooter," where she disses Ted Nugent by ripping off a line from the Bad Boys theme. Also fantastic, from "Pause/Off": "My reaction to your faction?/ Go back to school and learn your fractions!")

Oh, and something I worship about Mary Timony that's got practically nothing to do with this record or with her music at all: her fantastic ability to make jeans + t-shirt look really exciting and rock onstage. I don't know if it's a tomboy thing or what, but it works and makes me feel prouder of my ridiculously extensive vintage tee collection. As proof of the hotness, a few live photos generously shared by the fabulous Eleana Whitesell, maybe the only person in the world who's seen Mary more times than me (and my show count's probably nearing 20 or something, I'm guessing).

Soundtracks: The Boggs, Forts

Nothing is more awesome than seeing local bands make good, especially ones you've been seeing 'round town for awhile now. Here's the deal about the Boggs and their new record, Forts: leader Jason Friedman is like a pied piper leading a revolving cast of musicians into a highly textured, rollicking hot mess of folk, blues, punk and whatever fun sounds are lying around. (This time around, it's peeps from bands like Enon, the Liars and Au Revoir Simone who are joining him.) Words don't mean a thing, really, though -- what matters is how the songs veer and propel you along, and just when you think it's going to fall into total chaos, they swerve into that great old-fashioned feeling they used to call "abandon." Calling the Boggs are more organic Rapture would be cheating, but you get the idea: sometimes danceable, often haphazard and always a damn good time.

Becky Stark, Queen of the World

The first time I fell for Becky Stark was in the movie High School Record, in which she plays a chirpy-voiced peacenik drama teacher who wears lots of sparkly dresses kinda reminiscent of your third-grade tap recital costume. A few hours after the screening I saw her band Lavender Diamond for the first time - they opened with a save-your-life song called "You Broke My Heart" (mp3), Becky wore some antique fairy-princess gown, and it was impossible not to love her forever. Her voice was golden and gorgeous and anything but chirpy; the music was exultant, revelatory stuff that can most easily be classified as folk but also has some kind of magic-pop thing going on.

That all happened more than two years ago, and ever since I have been waiting with breath that is bated for Lavender Diamond's first full-length record, Imagine Our Love. And today it's here, and it's like Christmas all over again. A testament to how damn charming and obsession-worthy this band is: I've seen them so many times since early 2005 that I know half the album's lyrics by heart, even though I've only ever heard them live until now. Finally getting to play those songs whenever I want is the best present, as is this giddy little video for Imagine Our Love's first single, "Open Your Heart":

And here's the "Queen of the World" scene from High School Record, promised to warm the cockles of your heart:

Soundtracks: Feist, The Reminder

I really tried not to like Feist, but then I gave in like a lot of other people once I heard "Mushaboom" out and about so often. I liked her last record, Let It Die, well enough, with her "Sade for indie rockers" feel and her lissome, rich voice. (And we're suckers for any musical ingenue with a Francoise Hardy vibe and a thing for Vanessa Bruno.) Let It Die was kind of easy listening, pleasant Sunday cleaning-your-apartment music, and not unlike something you'd hear piped over the stereo system at your local Starbucks, something we found both alarming and strangely intriguing. Her music's essential likeability can make a casual listener discount it, and in some ways, with her new record The Reminder, I'm still not convinced that her songs own me and my imagination the same way, say, Joanna Newsom's did last year. Still, the songs this time around have more jagged edges and hidden little eccentricities, but they're still incredibly attractive, kind of like that mysterious, pretty girl who lived down the hall from you in college that you found out was sad, melancholy and a little goofy like everyone else. And there's still Feist's voice, which is more affecting and warm as it gets less and less studied and careful. So, yeah, I'm intrigued, although I'd still love to see Feist really rip into it at some point. As Iggy once said, "Gimme danger," right?

His and Hers Weirdo Folk-Rock

We want to go out with Bill Callahan (aka "Smog" or sometimes even "(Smog)"), but not because we're all that interested in doing couply stuff like holding hands or shopping the mall for his next pair of khakis. We basically just want to worm our way into the Girlfriends of Bill Callahan Club, as past members supposedly include Cynthia Dall, Chan Marshall, and Lisa Crystal Carver (one of our favorite writers in the whole wide world). And last we checked, Bill was still sittin' in a tree with Joanna Newsom, and - cutely enough - both lovely lovers have new records coming out today.

From him: Woke on a Whaleheart, a lazy-hazy-folky affair that makes us want to swing in a hammock and drink mint juleps all day long. We dig the occasional gospel-inspired backup vocals from Deani Pugh Flemmings (a nice complement to Bill's froggy old-man voice) and like that the album's got a bit of vintage-rock twang (which probably has much to do with co-producer Neil Michael Hagerty, ex-Royal Trux guitarist/singer and former better half of our style idol Jennifer Herrema). Download one of our favorite songs - "Diamond Dancer" - from Un Violon, Un Jambon.

And then there's the Joanna Newsom and the Ys Street Band EP, whose three tracks include one jaunty, banjo-inflected new song ("Colleen") and acoustic renditions of "Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie" and "Cosmia." Springsteen references aside, this is a street band you'd only ever encounter at Ren Fair. And though we won't be donning jester hats anytime soon, our peasant hearts continue to fill with love for Joanna, so much so that her voice hardly ever gives us bad shivers anymore.

Soundtracks: Midnight Movies Lion the Girl

You know how sometimes you get so stupid-lovey over someone who's just wrong, so you wrap yourself up in dreamy music that makes you feel like your heartbreak's this glamorous event of epic and cinematic proportions? That's what I did with Midnight Movies' first record, and now I kind of never want to hear it again. It seems like it's taken 8 million years for their follow-up to come out, but tomorrow's it's finally here and my Midnight Movies void has been gorgeously filled. Lion the Girl's got more of the same arthouse-horror-movie spookiness found on the L.A. band's 2004 debut, but this time around it's mixed up with stuff like the straight-up pop of "Hide Away" (maybe the only Midnight Movies song you can't not dance to) and the girl-group sway of "Ribbons." (MP3s of two other yummy tracks, "Coral Den" and "Patient Eye," are available at I Rock Cleveland.)

By the way, frontgirl Gena Olivier is one of our biggest rock crushes, with her Nico voice and her serene, not-of-this-realm brand of foxiness. I used to go all googly-eyed watching her sing and play drums at their shows, though apparently the band's got a new drummer (and bassist) for this album. But the swirly/shoegazy guitar noise is still coming from Larry Schemel, who I endlessly worship just for being the brother of Hole's Patty Schemel (aka one of the greatest drummers in the world ever).

Also out this week: New High & Ord by L.A.'s Silver Daggers, best described here as "hi-fi song fuckery that infects the brain like simian fever hopping from cage to cage." And at the record release party last night The Man Who Fell to Earth was onscreen during their set, and David Bowie's skinny creepy redheadedness only made my head explode all the more. Download the song "Joy" over at the page I just linked to.

Soundtracks: Grinderman

So usually we like to be a little more girlcentric here at nogoodforme.com, but since Nick Cave was responsible for one of my personal iconic fashion moments in life, we'll let this review slide. Picture it: a hot, steamy July day in 1994. Lollapalooza, before it became a one-day thing crawling with indie yuppies and their spawn. All the boys back then had those floppy skater-y haircuts, baggy pants, and that awkward, gawky thing going on where they can't even put the moves on you because they're too, you know, shy and sensitive. So who comes rounding the corner like some gang in a Sergio Leone film but Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds -- with ink-dark hair, cowboy hats, aviator sunglasses and black suits so tight they would have made Hedi Slimane cry hallelujah in the sweltering heat. It was at that moment when I realized, Wow, men look really fucking good in suits, and a libidinal impulse was born.

Nick's gotten more and more refined and literate in his musicmaking since he started out in the Birthday Party, but he's always been a sharp-dressed man who knows the power of a rakishly refined suit. (Hey, it worked on Polly Harvey for a bit.) So when we heard he was taking some of the Seeds (Warren Ellis, Jim Sclavunos and Martyn Casey) and doing a rougher, less polished version of his Leonard Cohen-inflected art-punk blues in his Grinderman project, we were worried that it would be one of those embarrassing things where old dudes try to relive their wild youths. But Grinderman is kind of awesome. The record itself is a primordial, brutal kind of thing, really rough and dirty and kind of obscene in parts, the way you wish the new Stooges record would be. But what it is more than anything is really fun, with a confrontational sense of irony and humor. (Cave practically has a meltdown over not getting any on "No Pussy Blues" and it's both fierce and hilarious.) The record slows a bit towards the end, but ends in a stomp and grind with "When My Love Comes Down" and "Love Bomb." What can I say? The man's fifty and still has that fire. And he still looks good in a suit.

And as further proof that Goth art-rockers can be funny, here's Einsturzende Neubauten frontman/Bad Seed guitarist Blixa Bargeld doing a commercial for German do-it-yourself store Hornbach where he reads from their catalog. He's not in Grinderman, but why not?

Soundtracks: Blonde Redhead, 23

We've made no secret of our love for Blonde Redhead -- and our admiration of frontwoman Kazu Makino's ineffable style. Their new record 23 comes out domani on 4AD and it's this gorgeous thing, full of shoegazer swirls of songs that make me remember bands like the Pale Saints in the best of ways. (I can still listen to the Saints' "Kinky Love" single on repeat with no problem.) Sometimes I miss Blonde Redhead's old jagged, shard-of-noise-lodging-itself-into-your-brain sound, but they've steadily progressed to a warmer, more romantic thing that's equally seductive and pretty much perfect "cold spring" music. Catch the Melodie McDaniel-directed video below:

What we heart most, style-wise, is how lovely Kazu looks, with the little cutouts at the shoulder on her backless white dress and her black stockings. The clothes, and the shoegazer-type sound, makes me think obliquely of those shirts with the shoulder cutout from Merry-Go-Round in the early 90s, not to mention spring of 1995 when girls ran around college wearing plaid kilts and thick black thigh-high stockings -- but Kazu here looks thoroughly elegant instead of slightly slutty and hookerish.

Soundtracks: New from RTX & Au Revoir Simone & The Ponys

Though I tend not to go all idol-worshippy over girls in bands like I used to, this month there's a bunch of record releases that kinda make me want to sell my cat and go live in a tour van for a while. We've got new stuff from The Rosebuds and Amy Winehouse and other foxes, but these three acts are the lions and lambs I'm most wild for in March '07. Rawwwr.

1. Jennifer Herrema of RTX (left)

I've already drooled all over Jennifer here, as she's maybe the hottest and scariest rock chick alive right now. The new album's called Western Xterminator, and it's full-on metal in a way that will finally make you understand what "face-melting" means. Click-click here to download "Black Bananas," whose intro's got this crazy classic-rock guitar riff that's ripped straight from 1974 or something.

2. Au Revoir Simone (center)

Definitely more the lamby type, each member of Brooklyn's Au Revoir Simone's comes with her own keyboard to make pretty, dreamy, floaty sounds with. They're kind of like some weirdly close-knit trio of arty girls you'd often see around the dining hall in college, always dressed very much alike, and you'd feel somewhat irked by their absurd cuteness but slightly suspicious that they're all actually supernice. Despite the fact that their name's a Pee-Wee's Big Adventure reference, I wasn't completely sold on the band till I saw them last Sunday at the Knitting Factory, where I was charmed as all get-out by how Annie headbanged her way through their entire set. We also greatly appreciate anyone who can write really snappy lyrics about horses, such as on "Night Majestic" from the new Bird of Music (hear it at Untitled).

3. Melissa Elias of The Ponys (right)

My favorite-ever Ponys song is the one where Melissa screams all over the chorus (it's called "She's Broken," and it's on 2005's garage-rock gem Celebration Castle). On their new Turn the Lights Out, her husband takes over most of the vocal duties, which is too bad, since she's a waaaay more compelling singer. But fortunately we still get her fuzzy, plunky basslines on tracks like "Harakiri" (mp3 at Pretentious Prattle), the one that's gotten most stuck in my head so far.

Soundtracks: Wet Confetti Laughing Gasping

Ever since we first discovered Alberta Poon last spring we've been scheming ways to get our hot little hands on every last necklace in her Frozen Peas Accessories line (especially Oddball Paul the Pony, featured on DailyCandy just yesterday). We heart Frozen Peas because pretty ponies and other such animals are our weakness, and because here they're drawn and silkscreened so charmingly you just want to snuggle them up till you can't breathe anymore. But we heart Alberta because she's one of those fiercely multi-talented crafty ladies, moonlighting as the bassist/singer for Portland's post-punk trio Wet Confetti, whose sophomore record Laughing Gasping (Pampelmoose) comes out today. Also very envy-inspiring is the fact that Gang of Four's Dave Allen produced the album and released it on his label, having taken a shining to Wet Confetti a few years back.

Unlike Alberta's hugging bear wallets and wooden fawn earrings, the new album's not all cute and cuddly and twee: There's a lot of dark synthy stuff going on, some super-intense and urgent vocals, a little heavy guitar sludge here and there. But it's still so catchy - thanks mostly to the bouncy basslines and dancey drumbeats - and songs like "Take My Advice" will get stuck in your head and not come out for a really long time. Download an mp3 of "Sorry Dinosaur" over at You Ain't No Picasso, and check the band's MySpace for more songs.

The Getting-Ready Soundtrack: Girl Talk, January 13 at The Echo in L.A.

This shit is totally sold out. Which makes me sad, but then I realized The Echo is kind of all wrong for Girl Talk, whose Night Ripper is my first big obsession of 2007. Right now on my stereo Salt-N-Pepa and Bell Biv Devoe and Naughty By Nature and Candyman and Positive K are all squished together in the same two minutes, and I wish the show were at some rollerskating rink, preferably one with glow-in-the-dark lighting. Anyway, this all happens tomorrow night, with cutie pies Matt and Kim opening. There'll be a few tickets at the door, which'll cost 12 bucks. Download Night Ripper's "Hold Up" and "Bounce That" over at Illegal Art, if you know what's good for you.

THE LOOK: Roller rink tacky-sweet, like maybe even a satin baseball jacket and side ponytail.

THE MUST-HAVE: The Giant Heart Purse from Fred Flare, in which you can hide your Kools and Kissing Potion.

THE SONGS: Our favorite Night Ripper-ripped tracks, like:
J.J. Fad "Supersonic"
The Breeders "Cannonball"
LL Cool J "Around the Way Girl"
Billy Squier "The Stroke"
Hall & Oates "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)"
Juelz Santana "There It Go (The Whistle Song)"
Purple Ribbon All-Stars "Kryptonite (I'm on It)"
Elastica "Connection"
Pharrell ft. Gwen Stefani "Can I Have It Like That"
Paul McCartney and Wings "Jet"
Manfred Mann "Blinded by the Light"
X-Ray Spex "Oh Bondage Up Yours"
The Waitresses "I Know What Boys Like"
Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam "Head to Toe"

Soundtracks: Joanna Newsom Ys

We may be falling for newly "NYLON-endorsed fashion icon" Joanna Newsom, and not just because one of the press photos for her just-released record Ys shows the 24-year-old San Franciscan harpist wearing a wolf pelt on her head (although that helps very much). While I do have some big love for "Peach, Plum, Pear" (at least partly because of its use in Gaelle Denis's beautiful short film City Paradise, which you will watch immediately if you like stuff that makes you blissfully giddy), I never really felt totally consumed by Joanna's first record The Milk-Eyed Mender. But Ys is sort of my world right now, one of the first CDs in a long time that I've felt compelled to put on "repeat" on my stereo before bed just so I can fall asleep to the songs and hear them upon waking up in the middle of the night (which I always do, for some reason).

Probably you already know the basics: five tracks, all at least nine minutes long; a 32-person orchestra, with arrangements by Van Dyke Parks; mixed by Jim O'Rourke; partially recorded by Steve Albini. But even though Ys is this epic and awesomely ambitious thing, there's something so sweetly quiet and - dare I say? -intimate about the album, and most of the time you feel like it's just you and the creaky-voiced singer, and she's reading to you from some dusty old fairy-tale storybook and letting you turn the pages all on your own.

I first heard Ys in early September while walking to a cabin in the woods in the mountains of Colorado at dusk, and in the middle of the first track about 20 horses came galloping across the road and over to the pasture to my right. Which is so perfect it's kind of ridiculous, but if you can orchestrate a similar scenario for yourself, I'd highly recommend it. I'm sure it's going to make the most gorgeous soundtrack for mid-winter walking through the snow, and maybe you can even get yourself a wolf pelt to help keep your happy ears all nice and warm while you're listening.

Soundtracks: Beach House

Some music you just fall in love with: there's something about musical insta-love in which someone just blissfully sinks into a gorgeous drift of sound, turning the listener into a dreamer who imagines far-off lands or a life removed from the detritus and boringness of everyday life. The trick with the music of the deftly-named Beach House, though, is how it takes the everyday and makes it really beautiful. Beach House, a duo from Baltimore, make music that sounds almost exactly what the name evokes: it's equal parts 70s Californiana, psychedelic shoegazer, gothic starlit folk not unlike Opal or Mazzy Star, and a pop sensibility bubbling up through the Velvet-y gauzy layers of sound. But with songs like "Auburn and Ivory," singer Victoria Legrand's voice has a strength and heft that hints at a more dynamic range that Beach House could be capable of; the effect is like a sheet of sunshine pouring through a clouded window. It's the sort of moment when pretty turns into slightly disquieting, and it's this veiled eccentricity that makes the band more than just pretty noisemakers. (Their self-titled debut is out now on Carpark Records.)

Soundtracks: The Decemberists, The Crane Wife

Colin Meloy of the Decemberists is like that insanely hyper-creative boy you knew in college, the one who had nerdy-cool glasses, wore a cardigan and was always scribbling in notebooks when he wasn't running around school doing theater and being oblivious to girls who secretly had crushes on him. He has the impulses of a storyteller; his songwriting betray his concerns with narrative and character, and in the past I've almost felt that the lyrics and song structure were so strong as to overwhelm the music itself, which was a rich, intriguing sort of prog-folk. Not so with The Crane Wife, the Decemberists' major label debut for Capitol. Taking its inspiration from a Japanese fable, The Crane Wife is still telling tales, but the music is just as much a character as the lyrics, with each song's instrumentation filling in the shades and subtleties of the stories within each track. There are so many epics here that a listener may feel like they've been to the edge of the sea and back (as in the 12-minute track "The Island") but all the journeys are worth it, full of secret destinations and hairpin turns. (The Crane Wife is out now.)

Soundtracks: Over The Atlantic Junica

Although press-release-referencing record reviews are my least favorite thing ever, worse even than Twizzlers and the movie The Last Kiss, I want to tell you that the release for Over The Atlantic's new CD Junica describes their sound as "the Breakfast Club soundtrack for the post-Breakfast Club generation," which is pretty genius and right-on. Over The Atlantic are two lovely-voiced New Zealand boys who were hardly born when The Breakfast Club came out, and yet use their guitar and laptop to make really pretty pop/new-wave that sounds stolen straight from some lovelorn and misunderstood youth's Walkman headphones in 1985. Of all the songs on the actual Breakfast Club soundtrack, Junica probably most resembles that dreamy, breathy instrumental piece that plays while Judd Nelson and Molly Ringwald are sensitively making out in the closet and as Ally Sheedy first emerges from her makeover to steal Emilio Estevez's tortured little heart.

Which, by the way, is so our least favorite part of the movie. When we were little we knew we were supposed to want to be Molly Ringwald, but secretly we idolized the mop-haired, pathologically lying, dandruff-art-producing Allison a thousand times more. She's grunge at least a half-decade before most people cared, and we wish we could get stuck in detention with her now so she could show us how she gets her eyeliner so damn perfect. But then she goes and prisses out and puts on that weird headband - and all for a tank-top-wearing dude who answers to the name Sporto! Inspired by Over The Atlantic, we're going to pretend she kept "that black shit" on her eyes and ended up with Anthony Michael Hall's character. We'll have them go on to start a guitar-and-laptop band of their own, with a debut record titled (of course) When You Grow Up, Your Heart Dies.

Over The Atlantic's Junica comes out today; download the track "I Cannot Believe" over at MP3 blog Milk Milk Lemonade.

Soundtracks: Emily Haines and the Soft Skeleton, Knives Don't Have Your Back

It is sort of a mystery why we haven't written about Emily Haines earlier. As frontwoman of powerpop group Metric, she's part of a lineage of strong, charismatic, energetic rock ladies, more akin to the 1990s alternaheroine a la Kim Deal than the emotional withdrawal and eccentricity of contemporaries like Cat Power and the like. Haines is a cool customer, and would never shamble like a mess onstage; it's this self-possession and dignity that ultimately draw people to her as a vocalist and performer. So it's sort of a shuffle and feint that her new solo album, Knives Don't Have Your Back, is much more plagent and introspective than anything she's put out before with Metric. Knives is sparse and haunting, adorned with only piano, a bit of tasteful string or other instrumental arrangement here and there and her husky, rich alto. Haines has written a suite of songs focused strongly on loss, doubt and uncertainty, and while it's no easy listening, it's riveting to hear so much honesty and emotion in a singer whose band work has perfected the ironic sneer to a work of art. Even strong girls have their vulnerable moments, but if we could all have moments that felt as beautiful and melancholy as this.

Emily Haines plays tonight at Joe's Pub in New York.

Soundtracks: Viva Voce, Get Yr Blood Sucked Out

You may be forgiven for thinking that Viva Voce would sound similarly garage-y to another girl-boy guitar-drums duo most people know and love. (Hint: think red and white and deathly pallor.) So get schooled quick: Viva Voce are from Portland, they execute a much more shambolic visual presentation, and the girl plays guitar and the boy plays drums. Viva Voce still has the stomp and bite of rock, with plenty of hooks and a bit of rock psychedelia for good measure. But there's a dreaminess and dark texture to Viva Voce that makes for a subtler musical experience. Calling Get Yr Blood Sucked Out their "dark and sultry" record, melancholy is definitely a subtext in the minor-key harmonies, but songs like "From the Devil Himself" have a certain propelling force underneath the Anita Robinson's soft, shoegazer vocals and acoustic guitars, thanks to Kevin Robinson's drumming. But in case things get too pretty, there's always something off-kilter to shake you out of a lull, like how piano ballad "We Do Not Fuck Around" (a phrase we're adopting as our unofficial motto) veers up in tempo and a stomp of percussion and guitar comes in just in time for the chorus. The production may be a little polite for some songs, but Viva Voce are on tour now, so I fully expect them to blast the fuck out of these songs live.

Effi Briest

We caught the seven-member band Effi Briest at a late show with the Double last Friday at Tonic. They had tech difficulties with a microphone before they even played their first song, which gave everyone in the sizable audience plenty of time to realize how incredibly stylish they all were. The whole range of a certain type of Brooklyn feminine style was represented, whether it was Patti Smith-inspired androgyny, hippie-inflected hipster, hipster-inflected hippie, vintage dolly, boho minimalist or sexy tomboy. Their music is intriguing: a sort of psych-swamp filled with clarinet, accordion, guitar, chanting, Nico-style chanteusing and other noises that create a sort of chaos that owes as much to a romanticized freak-folk sense of native Americana as it does d.i.y. Their songs are a little rough around the edges, but a great Jim Pepper cover in their set convinced me that, given time to develop some solid songs, their moment will come. They certainly won't need the services of a stylist when it does. (The Double, by the way, were fantastic.)

Soundtracks: Grizzly Bear, Yellow House

Grizzly Bear make music that is the equivalent of that beloved fall sweater that you keep for years and years because it's so soft, warm and voluminous; their sound fills a room with echo-y, lo-fi goodness so beautiful you just want to sink into it. The Brooklyn band's last record, Horn of Plenty, had a lovely, hazy campfire feel, with found sounds, gently strummed guitars and the occasional electronic texture lying underneath it all. It was the type of record you put on during a rainy evening, with a cup of tea and a good book: intimate and warm and perfectly melancholy, with its emphasis on sound insulating you from the big, bad world outside. But as gorgeous as Horn of Plenty was, Yellow House leaps ten paces ahead for its solid songcraft. Whether its the Beach Boys-lost-in-the-forest feel of "Knife" or the delicacy of "Lullabye," the melodies linger in the room long after the sound is gone. The full band presence gives heft to each song's peaks and troughs, with several songs showcasing the Grizzly genius for arrangement. The result is definitely one of my favorite records of the year, perfect for the beautiful grey days ahead.

Soundtracks: Nouvelle Vague Bande A Part

What better way to ignore the release of Paris Hilton's first CD than to go and fetch the new record from Nouvelle Vague? Just as on last year's eponymous debut, producers Marc Collin and Olivier Libaux have assembled a troupe of dishy, daffy, mostly unfamous sirens to purr out early 80s punk and new wave tracks they've never actually heard before. Set to breezy bossa nova, the covers featured on Bande a Part (Luaka Bop) include total classics like Echo and the Bunnymen's "Killing Moon," The Buzzcocks' "Ever Fallen in Love," New Order's "Blue Monday," and - probably my fave - Billy Idol's "Dancing with Myself."

That kitschy stuff aside, we love how the ladies of Nouvelle Vague are true chanteuses, all honeyed voices and flirty intrigue. The music may be tinged with the gorgeously tacky Technicolor of a late-1950s cocktail party, but we can only see these girls in Godard's timeless black-and-white.

Melanie Pain

Phoebe Killdeer

Marina Celeste

Soundtracks: Ratatat, Classics

You're thinking we're listening to Ratatat's Classics because they've got a cool little wildcat graphic on the cover and you've secretly suspected the subtitle of this blog was "Things With Animal Motifs That We Seem To Like A Lot." But that's not true: we were sweating this Brooklyn duo's quirky, outsider take on electro back in 2003, their track "Cherry" is a leftfield makeout classic and their brilliant remix of Missy Elliott's "I'm Really Hot" (from their self-released tour exclusive Ratatat Remixes) would easily open a nogoodforme.com Thursday night dance party in our perfect world. (Or would that be a makeout party? We can't decide, but in a perfect world one shouldn't have to.)

The new record finds Ratatat still mellow, and they draw upon a wider palette of textures and sounds, although the super-processed guitars, organic noises and straight-up hooks still feature heavily in the mix. I'm totally heartbroken that their upcoming Bowery Ballroom gig in September is sold out, but it's totally okay: there's always the dance party in my bedroom, you know?

("Rule #1: Extreme backlighting makes everyone very interesting.")

The Getting-Ready Soundtrack: Fuck Yeah Fest, August 18-20 in Echo Park

THE LOOK: Remember when Fuck Yeah Fest cost just a few bucks instead of $55 for a weekend pass? Us too! And although I feel compelled to complain, I'll try to get over it and focus on the many, many rad bands who'll be playing at the Echo, the Jensen Rec Center, and Sea Level Records over the next three days and thereby making the ticket price well worth an empty wallet. Nonetheless, festival fashion will be of the very low-budge variety: cute t-shirt and good jeans all the way, dudes.

THE MUST-HAVE: In honor of Annie from Saturday night headliner Giant Drag, who secretly belongs to the feline species: Brooklyn Industries' Jaguar tee (on sale now for just 16 bones).

THE SONGS:
Giant Drag "Yflmd"
The Ponys "Get Black"
Mika Miko "Jogging Songs (He's Your Mr. Right)"
Dead Meadow "Babbling Flower"
Brother Reade "Invasion on Eight Legs"
No Age "Neck Escaper"
BARR "Like, I Used to Like"
Silversun Pickups "Comeback Kid"
Midnight Movies "Mirage"
Erase Errata "Take You"
Shapes and Sizes "Northern Lights"
The Gris Gris "Necessary Separation"
Darker My Love "Hello Traveler"

Giant Drag

Dead Meadow

Midnight Movies

Soundtracks: Matthew Friedberger Winter Women/Holy Ghost Language School

Of course we adore Eleanor Friedberger so much and sometimes want to be her, partly because it would mean we’d get to have Matthew Friedberger for a brother. One of my favorite things about Fiery Furnaces shows is watching Eleanor up front and foxy in her cowboy boots and good jeans—kind of like if the 1975 Patti Smith weren’t such a boy—while Matt sits hunched over his keyboards, scruffy hair all in his face. That mad-scientist kind of hunchiness is all over Matt’s two solo records, Winter Women and Holy Ghost Language School, packaged together and released today and probably most reminiscent of the second Fiery Furnaces album Blueberry Boat. I can’t listen to the two CDs all the way through and back-to-back, else I start to get this fever-dream kind of itchiness that must have to do with all the mazy storytelling and weirdo keyboards (typical Friedberger stuff, but less offset by the sort of pop relief Fiery Furnaces usually administer). Still, there are some tracks I want to hear over and over and over, especially Winter Women’s beautifully breezy “Up the River.” It feels like every song I ever heard when I was six-years-old, from the Free to Be You and Me soundtrack to my mom’s Zombies records to the AM radio my grandfather was always playing in his Chevy Impala. Sneak a listen over at Good Hodgkins, my new favorite MP3 blog.

Matt with his kid sister.

Soundtracks: Erase Errata, Night Life

All talk of owls brings me to the cover of the latest Erase Errata release, Night Life. (How's that for an awkward transition?) We've long been huge, huge fans of their particularly nerve-twitching, angular post-punk and wondered how they would fare upon the departure of founding guitarist Sara Jaffe, whose nervy, nearly acrobatic playing was a huge part of the Errata sound.

As it turns out, none of the band's biting intelligence, political urgency or sheer energy have left; instead, there is a more elastic sound, able to stretch out to accommodate the smart, conceptual lyrics questioning the American government, consumerism, nightlife escapism and celebrity culture. Highly contradictory that we're writing about this in a fashion blog, but contradictions make for a fertile mind. Listen to Night Life, think, dance and be smart and beautiful.

Soundtracks: Silversun Pickups Carnavas

First I loved Silversun Pickups because they're named for my favorite place to buy booze (Silversun Liquors in Silver Lake) and because their first single "Kissing Families" felt like my heart was being ripped out and made into something cleaner and dirtier at the same time. Then I loved them more because bassist/singer Nikki Monninger turned out to be one of those sophisticated-and-serene-looking indie-rock girls who transmogrifies into a snarly, spazzy monster onstage. There's just something so exciting about watching ostensibly reserved ladies make big huge rock in A-line skirts.

Right now I can't stop listening to "Lazy Eye" off Silversun Pickups' debut full-length Carnavas, out today and totally goosebump-inducing.

Getting-Ready Soundtrack: Siren Festival, Coney Island, Brooklyn

THE LOOK: The Village Voice Siren Music Festival, this Saturday at Coney Island in the beloved borough of Brooklyn, draws summer fun excess of all sorts: cotton candy and other carnival treats, illicit behavior on the Ferris wheel, gobbling Nathan's hotdogs and of course, a glut of music like you wouldn't believe. This year's line-up features the likes of Tapes 'N Tapes, Art Brut, Dirty on Purpose, the Stills, Celebration, Serena Maneesh and oh yeah, Scissor Sisters. Anything goes, as long as it's sun-friendly, crowd-friendly and a little dirty-insured, as in 'oh, I don't mind this random ironic hipster dude spilling beer on the back of my cute yet comfy sundress just as long as he's not that dude who stands in front of short girls at rock shows.'

THE MUST-HAVE: Don't try to get all fashionista if you're going to bake in the sun all day - leave those slouchy leather boots at home and give into the sundress. You know you want to. The key is finding one in the proper pattern: colorful enough to hypnotize, dense enough to camouflage whatever mess happens during the day. This one by Nieves Lavi, over at my new favorite e-shop La Garconne, fits the bill nicely:

THE SONGS: "War," Celebration
"Her Name is Suicide," Serena Maneesh
"Just Drums", Tapes 'N Tapes
"Emily Kane," Art Brut
"Mind Blindness", Dirty on Purpose
"Tear You Apart," She Wants Revenge
"Never Learn to Cry," the Rogers Sisters
"Van Helsing Boombox," Man Man
"In the Beginning," the Stills
"Laura," Scissor Sisters

Soundtracks: Some Girls Crushing Love

Juliana Hatfield’s band Some Girls put out their second record this week, and if all were right in the universe this post would include a scan of the Juliana-centric fashion spread that Sassy ran in its feature well sometime in the early ‘90s. But in real life, my mom threw away all of my issues of Sassy whilst on a basement-cleaning jag sometime in the late ‘90s. I remember the headline was something to the effect of “Torn Jeans Do Not a Rock Star Make,” and Juliana mostly wore stuff like grey cardigans and simple black mini-skirts. There might have been a shot of her posing with her guitar, one leg bent in the air, ballerina-graceful but still somehow slightly awkward.

I’ve loved Juliana Hatfield forever partly because she’s glamorous in this quiet, slightly scrappy, a little bit tomboy-ish way that always felt very accessible to me. And because she plays the hell out of her guitar while at the same time making these perfect pop songs with self-effacing lyrics that can twist up your brain or break your heart or do both at the same time. Which is why Some Girls’ new release Crushing Love is one of my favorite albums so far this year (line I love most: “This song is a poor man’s ‘Love Me Do’/ And I am a poor man’s you”). Listen to a few tracks at their MySpace page, including the mean but undeniably awesome “Hooray for L.A.”

Soundtracks: Sonic Youth Rather Ripped

One of the best things about life is that Sonic Youth keeps making really good records. Excepting the occasional sidestep into the bore zone (NYC Ghosts and Flowers, those wanky SYR releases), they're generally so dependable that we end up taking them for granted. But then we stumble across articles like this Times Online piece about Kim Gordon's new role as a muse to Marc Jacobs, and we have to pause to reflect on how lame our formative years might have been if it weren't for all the time we spent dreaming of moving to Manhattan and becoming as cool and effortlessly stylish as Kim Gordon.

I had her picture taped to my locker my sophomore year of high school; she was doing some kind of more sophisticated, New York City version of grunge that I'd spend the next few years trying to emulate but hardly ever even coming close to getting right. In a way she's always sort of fucked with rock-and-roll glamour, skipping the spectacle and going with an urbane and understated look that hints at her past and present dwellings in the art world. As Kim herself puts it in the Times article: “The perfect rock chick is a contradiction in terms, because part of the appeal of being cool is that you make it look easy. The clothes have to look like you’ve worn them every day on tour for a month. I always want to do the opposite of what you’re meant to. There’s something about wearing a dress on stage that makes me vulnerable. It’s more interesting than wearing black leather and looking all hard — that’s not as risky, somehow.”

So Sonic Youth's 20th record Rather Ripped just came out, and it's the second- or third-best thing they've done in a decade (the other best being Sonic Nurse and Murray Street), and my favorite Kim-sung song so far is "What a Waste" (the chorus: "What a waste/ You're so chaste/ I can't wait/ To taste your face"). I'm now going to spend the next few weeks trying to scheme my way into the secret Sonic Youth show happening in an undisclosed location on July 8 in L.A. Then it'll be a guaranteed-beautiful summer.

The Getting-Ready Soundtrack: KXLU Fundrazor 2006, this Sunday in L.A.

THE LOOK: Twenty-plus mostly-noisy bands means you’re going to get very sweaty and messy in the June-gloomy afternoon. So anything goes, except maybe for easily perspiration-stained white t-shirts.

THE MUST-HAVE: A really big bag to hide your booze in, so you won’t have to cough up five bucks per beer. Kidding--how about some happy little canvas shoes for trotting back and forth between the two venues? These slip-ons by 80%20 remind me of every girly cartoon I ever loved growing up, especially My Little Pony, Rainbow Brite, and Jem.

THE SONGS:
Lavender Diamond “In Heaven, There Is No Heat”
Irving “Jen, Nothing Matters To Me”
Cass McCombs “Bobby, King of Boys Town”
Darker My Love “Summer Is Here”
No Age “Get Hurt”
Erebus Nyx and Styx “Dia Y Noche”
Silver Daggers “New High and Ord”
Mika Miko “Business Cats”
Wires on Fire “Sleeping Witches”
Die Princess Die “The Shakes”
Hello Fever “Variety”

Support the best radio station ever Sunday afternoon/evening at The Echo and Jensen's Rec Center in Echo Park. Doors open at 1:30 p.m.; tickets are $15. Check the full list of awesome local bands here.

Soundtracks: Metallic Falcons Desert Doughnuts

Because I’m so nerdy, I saved my first listen of the Metallic Falcons’ debut Desert Doughnuts for a ride home from the desert to L.A. last month. About five seconds in I figured out that the record (a “soft metal” collaboration between CocoRosie’s Sierra Casady and her friend Matteah Baim, with guest stars like Antony and Devendra Banhart) doesn’t make too much sense in the middle of the sunny afternoon while drinking a Hadley’s Fruit Orchards date milkshake and happily speeding along the 10 freeway in your air-conditioned rental Hyundai. It’s for nighttime, when you’re so far out into the desert that you can’t even see the freeway, and maybe you’ve just been kidnapped and drugged by a pair of freak-folk poet opera singers who, um, wear baseball hats over their creepy feather beard-mask-things. Desert Doughnuts is the darkest and weirdest shit I’ve heard in a long time but also some of the most scary-beautiful, all dusky guitars, haunted-house piano, and windswept vocals that start off sweet as a choir of stoned angels and then turn into Nico on downers. My favorite song is “Snakes and Tea,” which sounds like a slow dance at a 1957 prom, as directed by David Lynch. I’m going to make sure to put it on repeat next time I’m stranded in Death Valley on peyote at four in the morning, or whichever other most appropriate moment comes first.

The Getting-Ready Soundtrack: Young People, tonight at The Echo in L.A.

THE LOOK: We sort of wish this show were happening in a cemetery; it would be so neat to hear songs like “Reapers” and “Your Grave” and “Ghosts” while standing amongst the gravestones and wearing traditional funeral garb or something. But it’s not, so better to go for an oh-so-vaguely gothy-romantic kind of effect, maybe with a few pieces of skull jewelry.

THE MUST-HAVE: We’re not sure why designer Laura Dawson named this “monkey shirt”--other than the fact that it’s part of her spring 2006 Animal Collection--but we’re in love with the braided shoulder straps and the slinky drapiness of the cotton. Also, we very much covet this model’s hair and really wish we could get ours to do something even remotely like that for the show tonight, which so isn’t going to happen.

THE SONGS:
Young People “Forget”
Mika Miko “Tighty Liberace”
Erase Errata “French Canadia”
Electrelane “I’m On Fire”
Helium “Skeleton”
White Magic “One-Note”
Dirty Three “Great Waves”
Sonic Youth “Making the Nature Scene”
Pink and Brown “Messy Bessy, Get Undressy”
Young People “Hot Horse”

L.A. defectors Young People play tonight at The Echo with still-local Mika Miko (who you will be sure to catch, if you know what’s good for you) and Damion Romero. Tickets are $8; doors at 8:30.

Soundtracks: Asobi Seksu Citrus

At first we were going to prattle on about how Asobi Seksu singer/keyboardist Yuki Chikudate has really primo taste in coats, and about how ravishing she looks while posing meaningfully and/or mopingly in said coats:

But it’s almost summer and the coats have come off, so now we care more about how Asobi Seksu’s sophomore effort Citrus is the most shimmery-shiny shoegazer record we’ve discovered in forever. The Brooklyn band’s My Bloody Valentine-worshipping swirling-guitar stuff hardly ever gets droney and downerish, mostly due to Yuki’s sugary vocals and the consistently pogo-y bass lines and drumming. You should give it a first listen on some sunny, midmorning stroll around the neighborhood, just you and your headphones and maybe a breakfast bag of White Rabbit milk candies. It’s a super-refreshing departure from garden-variety shoegazer, which usually just makes us want to lie on our bedroom floor and stare dreamily askance (like Yuki’s doing here, only we probably wouldn’t look nearly so glamorous).

The Getting-Ready Soundtrack: Topanga Days Country Fair, Topanga Canyon

THE LOOK: Summery and just slightly hippie-reminiscent: Topanga Canyon hippies can maybe out-hippie most hippies anywhere ever, so going “in costume” with a tie-dye t-shirt and batik skirt is probably a little ill-advised.

THE MUST-HAVE: Even though it’s made from men’s dress shirt material, Zeto’s prairie-style sundress is classically girly with its ruffles, lace trimming, and “earthy feminine silhouette.”

THE SONGS:
Joni Mitchell “California”
The Doors “Roadhouse Blues”
Spirit “Topanga Windows”
Laura Nyro “Stoned Soul Picnic”
Fleetwood Mac “Second Hand News”
Love “Live and Let Live”
Jimi Hendrix “If 6 Was 9”
Neil Young “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere”

The 33rd annual Topanga Days Country Fair (“the biggest bohemian bash in Southern California”) goes all Memorial Day weekend in the heart of Topanga Park (10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday; 11 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. on Monday). Tickets are $15.
 

Soundtracks: Vetiver To Find Me Gone

Listening to Vetiver feels like I should braid my hair and put on some flowy, gauzy skirt and stretch out in the green grass of a sun-dappled meadow, maybe while deciphering cloud formations and making wishes on dandelions. But instead I'm sitting around my apartment and waiting for the phone company to come over and hook up my landline on the most perfectly smogless L.A. spring day ever. Anyway, the San Francisco band’s beautiful new record To Find Me Gone is equal parts folky and trippy, a little bit Donovan and a little bit Wilco, full of whispery guitar melodies that are probably the best soundtrack to a late-afternoon nap in the middle of summertime. The songs make you want to live so much prettier. After the phone guy gets here I’m going to go pick flowers or something.

The Getting-Ready Soundtrack: Glass Candy & The Chromatics, Saturday at The Scene in Glendale, CA

THE LOOK: Disco casual. Glass Candy’s Ida No (right) makes us dream of Halston dresses and stilettos, but The Scene’s more about hoodies and Converse All Stars. Better to keep it toned-down just in case, I don’t know, you feel like playing pool between sets or something.

THE MUST-HAVE: Yuka’s black gold sequin-banded-bust halter top, paired with really good jeans. We’d also throw on some disco ball chandelier earrings. And maybe bleach and/or feather our hair for the night.

THE SONGS:
“Love on a Plate” by Glass Candy
“Cold Party” by Glass Candy
“Johnny, Are You Queer?” by Josie Cotton
“Sex (I’m a)” by Berlin
“Arcade Suicide” by Tracy + The Plastics
“I Wanna Hurt” by The Screamers
“No More Sex” by Theoretical Girls
“Beat the Clock” by Sparks
“Orphans” by Lydia Lunch
“Wordy Rappinghood” by Tom Tom Club

Glass Candy are also playing Sunday at The Smell, so you can still catch them if you want to head over to The Smell’s Watusi Zombie/Sharp Ease/Pope/Erebus Nyx and Styx tomorrow night. Which would be a very good idea.

Soundtracks: Radio 4 Enemies Like This

The first time I heard Radio 4 was when they opened for Luna at the Middle East in Boston, sometime in late 2001. Luna was so boring and lazy and made me want to take a nap, but Radio 4 totally knocked my socks off with their scratchy guitars and dancey bass lines and crazy double-percussion (one guy on a drum kit, the other on bongos). I’ve seen the Brooklyn five-piece about a million times since then, often in sweaty situations like the 2003 Siren Music Festival on Coney Island and last year’s Coachella. I’m betting the songs off the new record Enemies Like This will sound their most fantastic when played live in the unforgiving sun at some outdoor festival this summer, with the band admirably and copiously sweltering through their trademark black button-down long-sleeved shirts. More of the same supercatchy dance/post-punk stuff that always gets them pegged as Gang of Four sound-alikes, Radio 4’s fourth full-length peaks on the dub-groovy “Ascension Street,” and you can already see all the smelly, sweat-stained-t-shirt-clad hipsters dancing like no one’s watching.

The Getting-Ready Soundtrack: Mommie Dearest 25th anniversary bash, Mother�s Day Eve at The Echo in L.A.

THE LOOK: Party hosts Dragstrip 66 insist that each attendee comes dressed as her favorite Mommie Dearest “character”: Joan, Christina, Christopher, Carol Ann, or Barbara Bennett. If you go as Mommie herself, remember the big, big shoulders and don’t forget to accessorize—with wire hangers, facial masque, and/or hedge clippers (for maniacally hacking down any rose bushes that get in your way).

THE MUST-HAVE: The truly fanatical can snag an original Gilbert Adrian beaded cocktail dress. With silk taffeta bodice and crepe skirt, the 40s-era piece flaunts the signature broad-shouldered cut that Adrian custom-developed for Crawford so as to make her hips look slimmer.

THE SONGS:
“Mildred Pierce” by Sonic Youth
“Joan Crawford” by Blue Öyster Cult
“Virginia Plain” by Roxy Music
“Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” by Lena Horne
“Queen Bitch” by David Bowie
“Vicious” by Lou Reed
“Missed Me” by The Dresden Dolls
“Mother” by Babes in Toyland
“Best Sunday Dress” by Hole
“Little Miss Emperor” by Iggy Pop

Happy Birthday, Mommie Dearest (9 p.m. to 2 a.m., Saturday at The Echo) features a drag show at midnight, with all cross-dressers getting a discount on the $15 cover.

Red Hot Love

Sometime in the summer of our youth—aka the early 90s—Details ran a fashion spread starring Anthony Kiedis and his then-girlfriend Sofia Coppola. Details followed the couple all over New York City: shopping for vintage jackets, drinking beers with Debbie Harry, slamming around at a Sonic Youth show, generally embodying the kind of rock-and-roll glamour that my high-school-confined heart so badly ached for. Sofia was still years away from directing movies and hadn’t even started up the Milk Fed line yet, but despite her lack of cred she did some weird, ineffable magic on those pages: She made the head Chili Pepper look really, really cool.

Although I have long loved Red Hot Chili Peppers more than almost anything else in the world, I am very much aware that coolness is a quality that most often eludes the band. They’ve spent a lot of their 23-year career making funny faces, wearing bad clothes, saying boneheaded things, writing cringe-worthy lyrics—stuff that I tend to overlook because their crazy exuberance and increasingly awesome music make me superexcited to be alive. One thing the band members have consistently gotten right, though, is their taste in ladies. In addition to Sofia, Anthony’s gone steady with Ione Skye and Sinead O’Connor, while John Frusciante’s past sweethearts include Stella Schnabel and Milla Jovovich. And Flea’s recently gotten hitched to model Frankie Rayder, whom we spotted in a vegan café in Santa Monica last fall when she was still hugely and cutely pregnant with their new daughter, Sunny Bebop.

Of course you should go out right now and get the Chili Peppers’ new 28-track double album Stadium Arcadium, which has lots of songs about girls, as well as some of the most gorgeous guitar work and prettiest melodies the band has ever come up with.

(Sofia with old flame, 2002)

The Getting-Ready Soundtrack: Coachella

THE LOOK: Prance, scamper, and frolic about in the almost-summertime with a flouncy little skirt, candy-bright tank, big-ass sunglasses, and supercute and comfy sandals or trainers.

THE MUST-HAVE: A roomy, adorable bag to carry your hoodie or whatever warm clothes you’ll throw on when the sun drops and you go from sweaty to shivery in about ten minutes’ time. With its screen-printed organic cotton canvas, Blissen’s darling Undersea Tote features recycled-material lining and handles, plus interior pockets to store your keys, wallet, cell phone, and other necessities.

THE SONGS:
“Everybody” by Madonna
“Strangelove” by Depeche Mode
“Destroy Everything You Touch” by Ladytron
“What’s Mine is Yours” by Sleater-Kinney
“Slayer” by Giant Drag
“Free” by Cat Power
“Turn Into Something” by Animal Collective
“Huddle Formation” by The Go! Team
“We Built Another World” by Wolf Parade
“Black Tongue” by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
“The Corner” by Common
“Lion Rip” by The Duke Spirit
“China” by Celebration

The temp’s forecasted to be in the mid-90s all weekend, so try to work it so that you can see all your favorite bands but still spend as much time as possible in the shade (preferably at the food area, where you can drink coconut milk from actual coconuts). And tell Madonna we love her.

Secret Machines: Ten Silver Drops

For anyone who likes to walk around pretending her life is a movie, the new Secret Machines record Ten Silver Drops (out today) makes really perfect montage music. It’s all sprawling melodies, high-drama drums and guitar solos, a little bit of thunderstorm sound effects—the kind of showy, over-the-top stuff that makes every moment feel all big and intense and urgent. Nothing here’s as amazing as their last record’s “Nowhere Again,” which would be the best soundtrack ever to some hot vehicular makeout scene, but for some reason we can’t resist bands that can pull off being so stoner-cool and spacey without (for the most part) ever turning wanky and boring.

The Getting-Ready Soundtrack: Chelsea Art Gallery Hopping, Saturday Afternoon

THE LOOK: The art world is either scrubbed-out arty falling-apart with one piece of posh (the artists) or polished, slightly severe conceptual designer with a bit of scrub (the gallerists).

THE MUST-HAVE: With all the mordant imagery rife in contemporary art, either side you straddle in the art world would appreciate jewelry with wry, ironic takes on skulls, bombs, weapons and the like. (This is a milieu, after all, that waved around the Alexander McQueen skull print scarf like a national flag.) Snap up the Tom Binns 'Minnie Bomb' pendant, which artfully conflates a girlhood icon with the subtextual impulses of violence, available at aloharag.com.

THE SONGS: 'Deconstructed' pop song collages with stripped-down, jagged pieces of melody or 'deconstructing' songs through the sieve of genre and approach

"Teach Me Sweetheart" by the Fiery Furnaces
"Liz Taylor" by Young People
"Fuck Treasure Island" by Scout Niblett
"Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley
"Redhead" by the Fever
"Hollywood (Electro Grunge Shit Version)" by Cansei De Ser Sexy
"Like A Prayer" by the Rondelles
"Heart and Soul Dub" by Jah Division
"Je T'aime Moi Non Plus" by Cat Power and Karen Elson
"Art Star" by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Catch the last day of Nan Goldin's exhibit "Chasing A Ghost" at Matthew Marks Gallery, 522 W. 22nd Street, New York, NY, ending April 22.

The Getting-Ready Soundtrack: The Most Beautiful Show That Ever Lived, L.A.

Lavender Diamond lead singer/enchanted creature Becky Stark hosts “a night of musical comedy and love” this Saturday at The Steve Allen Theater (8 p.m., $10).

THE LOOK: Fawning imitation of Becky’s onstage costume of folky, fairy-tale-princessy vintage gowns.

THE MUST-HAVE: Chan Luu’s crinkled-silk, cap-sleeved, empire-waist frock, perfect for twirling, swooning, and/or casting spells.

THE SONGS:
“You Broke My Heart” by Lavender Diamond
“R and R” by Young People
“Park The Car By The Side Of The Road” by The Swirlies
“The Vague Angels of Vaguary” by The Vague Angels
“Come All Ye” by Fairport Convention
“Hot” by Tender Forever
“Ventricle” by Ponies in the Surf
“Superstar” by The Carpenters
“Top of the World” by Shonen Knife
“All I Want” by Lily and the Ladies
“I Saw Her Again” by The Mamas and the Papas
“Better Off” by Let’s Go Sailing

We’re waiting with bated breath for Lavender Diamond’s first full-length record, the follow-up to last year’s Cavalry of Light (just four songs, yet magically epic).

Death By Sexy

Usually we don’t crush on dudes with greased-back hair, Burt Reynolds mustaches, and black-rimmed glasses, but Eagles of Death Metal frontman Jesse “The Devil” Hughes (aka Boots Electric) rules our hearts harder than any other rock-and-roll boys of the moment. We love J. Devil for his shameless overuse of falsetto, his unironic fondness for rayon capes and motorcycle boots, and—maybe most of all—his propensity for onstage primping by way of a plastic comb kept in the back pocket of his Jagger-tight jeans. Commendably dedicated to looking good, the band promises they’ll soon start hawking Eagles of Death Metal handheld mirrors at their merch tables (good news, since we seem to have misplaced our Locust compact mirrors a while back). In the meantime, get your hottness fix with the band’s stompy-sludgy sophomore album Death By Sexy, released today and complete with asstastic send-up of the Sticky Fingers cover art.

The Getting-Ready Soundtrack: Morrissey Night At Sway, NYC

Half the fun of getting dressed is listening to great music as you do it. Hence, our new semi-regular (i.e., when we remember) feature, where we get to recommend cool things to wear and cool songs to listen to as you wear them.

THE LOOK: You wear black on the outside because black is how you feel on the inside.

THE MUST-HAVE: Because lace-up ankle boots are both rock, pop and glam, and because you can dance more easily to "Sweet and Tender Hooligan" in them than stilettos.

THE SONGS: "How Soon Is Now?" by the Smiths (duh)
"Daughters of the Soho Riots" by the National
"You Are the Light" by Jens Lekman
"Happy Hour" by the Housemartins
"I Am the Resurrection" by the Stone Roses
"In Particular" by Blonde Redhead
"Flesh of My Flesh" by Orange Juice
"Trash" by New York Dolls
"Contort Yourself" by James Chance and the Contortions
"Let's Build A Car" by Swell Maps
"I Have Forgiven Jesus" by Morrissey

Morrissey has a new record out: Ringleader of the Tormentors. And it's really good.