Sweet and hard, like the candies that bear their name, Dum Dum Girls defy homological description. Cutesy goth? They own it. In their world, razor-fanged guitars prey upon bubbly pop in a battlefield of super-compressed beats, Robert Smith frolics hand in hand with Margo Guryan, and lollipops lick sugary people to death. And on the band’s new EP He Gets Me High, unabashed affinities for doo-wop and 60s sunshine pop collide with a devotion to British post-punk. The resulting concoction gets no frothier than on the final track, a supreme take on the Smiths’ “There is a Light That Never Goes Out.” Dee-Dee Penny flirts with irony as she slathers honey vocals all over Morrissey’s evocatively dark lyrics, making the words “To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die” disquietingly agreeable. The other three tracks, original compositions, nod to other influences. “Wrong Feels Right” smiles at Sub Pop label-mates the Vaselines, whose 1989 debut Dum-Dum reveals their place on the influence meter, right alongside Iggy Pop (remember “Dum Dum Boys”?). Add a booming kick drum and “Take Care of My Baby” would be right at home on a record by the Ronnettes, a band they often cover live. Richard Gottehrer, who helped pen “I Want Candy” and produced Blondie and the Go-Gos, returns as producer, but this time shares credits with the Raveonettes’ Sune Rose Wagner. Her penchant for pushing the limits of noise pop meshes with Gottehrer’s artful pop craft, making for a short but sweet EP, dreamy as it is ardent.

— Linda Rapka

An LSD trip encompasses transitional states between mind and body. The same can be said of Unking, the new record from Riverside natives Mothers of Gut with the effects of a smiley-faced unicorn tab. Starting off nice and slow, the ten-minute opening title track confuses, meanders, chugging forward with slow blowing horns and unintelligible lyrics sung from another dimension. It’s really starting to come on, and you settle into the steady groove of “Stalemate”: with string contributions from Tes Elations’ Isaac Takeuchi and Big Whup’s Morgan Gee, its unwavering downtempo beat and crisp guitars convincingly complement Aaron Freeman’s inexplicably earnest vocals. Then there’s a bubbling brook, chirping birds, a single set of footfalls rustling softly through a forest: soothing sounds comprise the entirety of “There is a Great Sadness to Your Wisdom,” and as those lonely footfalls become yours, you are aware of the sadness and grow a little uneasy, unsure of just how far along you are in this journey and what is yet to come. Things gets darker when “Smoke the Master” brings back the alien voice from before but clearer, more sinister, uneasily laden with boingy synths and fuzzed-out flanged guitars. It’s all Pink Floyd Meddle now. With a long ebb of fuzzy noise and a sudden flow of quiet, “Wizard Tree” brings us to an appropriate end. You arise from your peaceful resting place on the forest floor, brush the twigs and leaves from your hair and wander home wondering where your other shoe went, and is it Thursday or Saturday?

—Linda Rapka

The word epic is thrown around a lot these days, but there’s really no other way to duly describe the live performance as delivered by Blonde Redhead. The reaction from the audience at the El Rey July 2 confirms this summation.

Starting things off were two openers: Bass Drum of Death, who lived up to their name, and Luyas, who turned out to be a surprisingly fantastic gift from Canada. The youthful northerners were all smiles and high fives, leaping around the stage like sugar-high kids in a bouncy house, having tapped right in to the crowd’s electric buzz of anticipation for the headlining New York trio.

Blonde Redhead by Linda Rapka

At long last Blonde Redhead took to the stage. Wearing a white wisp of a dress matching her dainty demeanor, the arrestingly attractive Kazu Makino and equally stunning identical twin Italian brothers Simone and Amedeo Pace commanded immediate attention as they delved into the slow-burning “Black Guitar” off their latest effort, Penny Sparkle. Featuring vocal parts by both Amedeo and Kazu, the song took on a theatrical air backdropped by cool blue stage lights and dense fog-machine clouds as the two floated around each other during the vocal tradeoff. While the set focused mainly on the last album, including the beat-driven “Here Sometimes” and atmospheric “Everything is Wrong,” sprinkled in were favorites from the band’s seven-album discography. In a shining highlight of the evening, Amedeo took tandem lead on mic and guitar, artfully weaving his signature nasal tones atop wavy guitar lines over the dance-inducing “Spring and by Summer Fall” from their phenomenal 2007 album, 23.

Blonde Redhead by Linda Rapka

The group didn’t address the audience too much, and save for a striking arrangement of incandescent light bulbs set up at each mic, no bells and whistles adorned the performance. It’s all about the music with Blonde Redhead, something much appreciated by the sold-out house. Mid-set, one audience member waited for the perfect moment of silence to cry out, “You guys know you’re legends, right!” Usually fan gushing leaves me queasy, but in this case I found myself in enthusiastic in agreement. Über-fan’s outburst was met with a slow-creeping sheepish grin from Kazu before the group continued to impress the house, closing out the set with fire-paced rocker “23.” They returned to quell the still-ravenous audience with a three-song encore. Simone shined with his penetrating drumming on the decade-old tune “Melody of Certain Three,” followed by one of the band’s most pleasantly poppy tunes, “Silently” from 23. Finally, slowing things down just as they started, the band took their final bow of the evening with “Penny Sparkle.”

—Linda Rapka

This year the band released its seventh studio album, Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will, and with it reclaims more of the positive critical reviews it had more readily received with earlier efforts. In support of the new record, Mogwai’s current tour of the western and southern parts of the U.S. included a stop at a full-capacity Mayan Theatre in Los Angeles, where its droney, pulsating electronic-synth set spanned the band’s many albums to the obvious delight of many Angeleno fans.

Kicking the night off with a new track, “White Noise,” Mogwai followed with the sublime “Friend of the Night,” off Mr. Beast, the stage lighting inducing flashbacks of the track’s insanely popular YouTube video with that spotlight which follows a never-ending path of eerie plaster carvings. Though definitely heavy on new tunes like “Rano Pano,” “How to Be a Werewolf” and “You’re Lionel Richie,” the setlist included a few surprises, like 1997 single “New Paths to Helicon, Pt. 1″ and “Batcat” from the 2008 EP of the same name, bringing out audience favorite “Mogwai Fear Satan” from 1997′s Young Team for the final encore. Mogwai returns Stateside in September but will only hit up the east coast. Road trip, anyone?

—Linda Rapka (words + photo)

[View with PicLens]

—Linda Rapka

The Grammy Museum’s evening with Yoko Ono marked the opening of her newly curated Grammy Museum exhibit, “John Lennon, Songwriter.” Celebrating the 70th anniversary of her late husband’s birth (Oct. 9), the exhibit spans John’s entire career and displays such artifacts as handwritten song lyrics, guitars, a pair of his signature wire-rimmed glasses, a typewriter, and rare historic film footage covering John Lennon’s early influences, his time with the Quarry Men and the Beatles, and his transition to solo artist.

—Linda Rapka

Club Nokia is a terrible place to get to early. The bar is expensive as hell and the shows always start late, but in order to ensure entrance to the pit area in front of the stage you have to be one of the first few hundred in to get a special wristband. Opt for the VIP pass so you can grab a seat on the balcony through the openers…or wear comfortable shoes.

The pre-Ratatat entertainment began with a DJ who was clearly a sadist, pumping techno dance beats and working such talents as his 15-minute Beastie Boys remix of “Sabotage” through the incredibly loud speakers for one very long hour. As the pit filled up, a claustrophobic panic attack loomed in my very near future, so I left my photographer sardined in the front for a comfortable bird’s-eye view seat in the “VIP” balcony, along with 500 other very important people. It was a wise decision; Ratatat didn’t go on until after 11pm. The first opener took to the stage at 9. A mix of surf, noise and pop crooning, Bobby Birdman was just plain terrible, but the film clips from blaxploitation films and funny animal pictures projecting behind him sufficed as good entertainment. Next, Massachusetts pop rock outfit DOM delivered a set full of long hair and long guitar solos. Their departure was met with rapacious howls of “RAT-A-TAT! RAT-A-TAT!” by the all-ages crowd, up past their bedtime, growing impatient and a little sleepy waiting for the headline performers.

Ratatat by Tim Drummond

When the moment finally arrived, girls and guys alike squealed in ecstatic glee. Forgoing sidemen this time around, the duo of guitarist Mike Stroud and bass/synth man Evan Mast performed by their lonesomes as writhing silhouetted twins against a backdrop of swirly screen projections and stage smoke. The full-throttle set was heavy on the new stuff from their fourth and latest record, LP4, including “Bob Gandhi,” “Neckbrace,” “Drugs” and “Grape Juice City.” But the biggest WHOOO!’s come from their older, more familiar tunes like “Wildcat” from Classics and “17 Years” and “Loud Pipes” from their 2004 self-titled debut. The house-bringing-down final encore had Stroud and Mast bombardiering with tom-toms and mallets through the percussion-driven “Bare Feast.”

—Linda Rapka

After the departure of wonderfully dreamy openers Grizzly Bear, upon the first footfalls of Phoenix to the stage, the entire audience merged as one oddly shaped amoeba and leaped to its feet. Groups of friends oscillated arm in arm, hollering along to their favorite tunes, and not an ass landed back down on the bench from whence it sprung for the entire hour-and-a-half set.

Turning the audience frenzy up full force right out of the gate, Phoenix kicked off the set with the energetic “Lisztomania.” The spectacular lighting was just as impressive as the band’s performance, and they power-housed through a set full of goodies like “Long Distance Call,” “Rome,” “Girlfriend,” and “Everything is Everything.” And while it may be hard to imagine the boyfriend of Sofia Coppola pulling the humility card, Mars seemed genuinely humbled by the adoration oozing from the audience, ranging from 20- and 30-somethings and sprinkled with a good number of pre-teens accompanied by mom and dad, themselves singing along to the band’s accessible jangly electro-pop.

I was delighted to substantiate that Mars’ shimmering vocals are not the result of studio magic; his silvery timbre is all his own, and it sounded downright gorgeous booming through the Bowl’s massive speakers. When one could manage to avert their eyes from the lead singer’s adorable boyish visage, they were glued to phenomenal drummer Thomas Hedlund, an apogee of rock might. The rest of the Gallic sextet—bassist Deck D’Arcy, keyboardist Robin Coudert, and guitarists Christian Mazzalai and Laurent Brancowitz—weren’t too shabby, either.

The final encore can only be described as epic, if not a tad absurd: The stage fell dark, and slowly the house lights flooded the front rows, revealing the band smack in the middle of a sea of stunned fans. Phoenix of course rolled out what everyone had long been waiting for: You guessed it, that one from the car commercial. Meanwhile, the awestruck fans who found themselves within reach of their beloved demigods timidly outstretched their arms to brush against a bit of glory. The band hamming up their newfound fame may be construed by some as tacky…but not by me. I’d do it, too.

—Linda Rapka

In a rare L.A. appearance on the eve before their annual campout in Pioneertown, Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker stopped by the Echoplex on Sept. 9. The two strikingly different bands, both fronted by David Lowery, played to an atypically hipsterless crowd with their respective obscure psychedelic-folk rock favorites and 1990s alternative hits.

For the uninitiated, CVB formed in the reefer clouds of 1980s Santa Cruz, gaining a sizable cult following with their violin-infused psychedelic and Celtic folk-punk style. After the band split in 1990, Lowery founded Cracker with Johnny Hickman, a childhood friend from his desert hometown of Redlands. This band’s more traditional and harder alt-country rock leanings gave Cracker major-label success on Virgin, scoring them a couple radio and MTV hits before the inevitable head-on collision of label versus band. Camper Van Beethoven didn’t see the light of day again for almost a decade, but after testing the waters in 1999 with an experimental reunion in the studio, the band decided they could finally get along with each other. CVB started playing live again in 2002, becoming a staple co-headliner with Cracker, and in 2005 the bands began their annual tradition of co-headlining a three-night campout music fest at Pappy and Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace. Throughout the years the members of both groups have sometimes overlapped (Frank Funaro currently drums in both bands), and on tour members often hop on stage joining one another’s band.

Camper Van Beethoven by Linda Rapka

Nebulous crossovers aside, both bands are, in their own right, wicked (they say that out in the desert, right?)—but man, are their fans scary. Spotted in the Echoplex swell: Hawaiian shirts, black socks and white sneakers; pseudo biker chicks with small leather skirts and big ’80s hair; overgrown men thrusting metal devil horns stageward un-ironically. I was able to avoid being trampled by overly excited 40somethings and had a great time rocking out to CVB’s insanely righteous Status Quo cover of “Pictures of Matchstick Men” and “Take the Skinheads Bowling,” a taste from their ska-influenced days. Toward the end of Camper’s set Jonathan Segel swapped his trademark fiddle for a theremin, for which Lowery explained, “Over the years Jonathan’s violin playing has actually been getting more and more in tune. So we had to bring out the theremin; to get some of that weirdness back.” After the hour and a half long set, Cracker took the stage for just as long, cranking out rollicking fan favorites like country bromance ballad “Friends,” the chorus-chanting anthem “Euro-Trash Girl,” and my all-time favorite, “Low,” the pinnacle of Gen-X pessimistic love songs. Members from both CVB and Cracker joined on stage for the final encore, a playful cover of Bob Dylan’s “The Man in Me,” solidifying their awesomeness in both performance and cover song selection.

—Linda Rapka

—Linda Rapka