Silversun Pickups wrapped up their national tour with tour mates Against Me and Los Angeles locals The Henry Clay People in August at the Greek Theatre. The enthusiastic crowd responded warmly to recent tunes off Silvserun Pickups’ lastest release Swoon as well as older songs.

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The Silversun Pickups, who first caught widespread attention with “Lazy Eye,” a sliver of woozy early Smashing Pumpkins-inspired rock from the band’s 2006 debut album, “Carnavas,” were nominated for a Grammy on Wednesday in the best new artist category.

Currently on tour in Europe with Placebo, the band’s frontman, Brian Aubert, was asleep when the news came in. He woke up to hundreds of voicemails and text messages. “To be honest,” he wrote in an e-mail from Rotterdam, Netherlands, “I didn’t quite understand it. . . . Finally, when my brain started working, I realized what it was and I’m simply stunned.” [Read More]

Dangerbird Records co-founder Jeff Castelaz’s five-year-old son Pablo has a rare form of cancer, which led him to create the very personal Pablove Foundation to raise awareness and money to fight the disease. What better way to get the word out than a benefit show involving one of L.A.’s hottest bands with an album that just dropped on his own label? Silversun Pickups is an embodiment of the can-do spirit of Dangerbird, and their success is proof that this team’s perserverance will overcome the insurmountable. Opening the night were the Eulogies, fronted by Dangerbird’s other co-founder Peter Walker. The Eulogies have a bigger-rock sound than Walker’s eponymous work. His somber-rock vocals remain strong and his lyric writing is as catchy as it is insightful. “Eyes on the Prize,” from their new album Here Anonymous, was a standout with its floor-stomping beat. Introducing SSPU for their homecoming/send-off show was Shirley Manson, who called attention to the evening’s main objective of finding a cure for this cancer. Swoon, SSPU’s second full-length, just hit the Billboard 200 at number 7, so it is safe to say that they are well on their way to building on the success of Carnavas. They’ve expanded their sound (and song-length) on this sophomore outing and critics and fans alike will have plenty to dig into. They are a great live band and seemed especially excited to be playing the Echoplex for the home-crowd and Pablo. They played the majority of Swoon with new radio hit “Panic Switch” and yes, “Lazy Eye” and “Well Thought Out Twinkles” also made the list. These songs from Carnavas display an extra seasoning and “Kissing Families” (from their EP) has also taken on new bite. SSPU has the quietloudquietloud formula down: Nikki Monninger’s melodious bass line churning through the distortion, the rapid-fire drumming of Christopher Guanlao, sonic structure from keyboardist Joe Lester and effects-laden guitar work and ragged vocals from frontman/guitarist Brian Aubert. SSPU has found their voice and on this night they put it out there for the Pablove Foundation. Please go to pablove.org to find more information on how you can help fight childhood cancer with love.

—Erik Ehlert

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Eminence Front and Hula Hoops: Having no choice, I’ll own being the guy who looks like Sting standing in the back of L.A. rock venues scribbling on fragments of actual paper. I don’t mind the work and only tourists take the actual cat before their faces as the for-reals-dawg Gordon Sumner of two decades ago. Thus does my faith in human intelligence dim a little every year at Coachella, the giant music and art festival held annually in remote and dusty Indio. It was my fourth time covering the event and first for L.A. RECORD, a publication I’m happy to report needs zero introduction among the rock cognoscenti swamped inside the variegated mass of bikers, geezers, ravekids, hucksters, b-boyz, flygirls, mainstream families and, yes, tourists; with every twentieth of the latter pointing a tentative digit at my face and mouthing “Aren’t you…” under the all-obliterating sonic uproar. Such hopeful gawkerati also spotted Paris Hilton in the crowd this year, along with Jared Leto, Alicia Silverstone, David Hasselhoff, Reese Witherspoon, Keenan Ivory Wayans and more sweating with the commonality at this Great American Rockshow. Bitsy, my driver and plus-one, has a pleasant form of celebrity as the bomb-ass chick whose hula-hoop workout on the roof of her building in the Hollywood flats draws hundreds of daily spectators, with necks craning from as far as the Roosevelt Hotel. Her hips and hoop carved us a path this past weekend through a mob made agreeable, even buttery, by some of the best music likely ever played in Riverside County.

Time Waits For One Man: The weather on Friday was excellent, so Felix Da Housecat’s set at the Sahara was packed to overflow with ravers and my driver drew the first of many crowds with her hooping. At the big stage, the Airborne Toxic Event disappointed, seeming to wilt a bit in their dark clothes, but the Black Keys turned in a rousing gutbucket-rock set done in the grand manner, channeling the first-wave festival eminences like Deep Purple and the Who. Going next, Franz Ferdinand hit the mark completely, turning in a polished and ferocious performance that rocked many a skeptical veteran of the Glaswegians’ mainstage outings in previous years. The crowd at mainstage next came to grips with Morrissey, with the celebrated (if tubby) romantic opening for headliner Paul McCartney. Alas, we were far away at the Gobi (throwing down to heroic dancefloor sets by Bug and Peanut Butter Wolf) when Moz threw his celebrated bitchfit, storming offstage in the middle of his performance, his still-fetching nose sickened by the smell of frying burgers. Leaving a whirling Bitsy with our cool-as-fuck campmates, I met my friend Kirsten at the Do Lab’s rocking misting station, and we dallied at Silversun Pickups’ triumphant star turn on the Outdoor Stage. I’ve followed these local prodigies from their earliest appearences and they laid into the audience with new songs off Swoon, a long-awaited sophomore album fitting punky rhythms, sheets of decorative noise and an adroit four-fingered salute to Iron Butterfly into the band’s established sound. Guitarist Brian Auber bitched wittily about the Cute Beatle, as the rest of Friday night began shutting down and we drifted to the mainstage for the Act We’ve Known For All These Years.

Anon roared the profound nonsense of “Jet” and a spry and slender sexagenarian named Sir Paul McCartney went on a 33-song stomp though one of the premier music catalogs of the twentieth century. The set incorporated songs by John and George along with a few surprises and a long trawl through his 1970s and ‘80s Wings albums. From the square of way upfront where we stood, it looked like a big chunk of Macca’s present-day fanbase is composed of tender-looking indie-pop kids and these imps were as blown away as any of the hard-bitten journos who raved of Friday’s finale. Like the peachfuzztone young ‘uns prostrate before Roger Waters at last year’s festival, they’d come to see someone (correctly) regarded as one of the Immortals and a still-vibrant presence in their own rock ‘n’ roll lives. Sir Paul outlasted everything else on the lot, going on almost an hour past the 1 AM closing. Looking at beginnings of the second-highest take in festival history, organizers wisely decided the $1000-a-minute the city of Indio charges for after-curfew music was the merest bagatelle.

We Are the Night: The hour was well advanced by the time we made it out to the Polo Grounds on for Saturday’s bop-til-you-drop. Drive-By Truckers were shivering to a bravura conclusion with a cover of Jim Carroll’s “People Who Died” at the Outdoor as Michael Franti & Spearhead (who were playing late-night desert gatherings of Burners just a few years back) were vibing tribally from the big stage. Passing the Mojave stage on our way to dance to the Bloody Beetroots DJ set at the Sahara, I saw a tiny Henry Rollins deep within, belaboring a milling fringe of onlookers like the village atheist. As the sun went down, longtime Coachella vets Thievery Corporation did a rousing beat-heavy set on the mainstage, heavy with their patented thundering harmonics and bracing agitprop. I left the din with a lovely campmate named Kat to check out Booker T. & the DBTs, with members of Drive-By Truckers backing organist Booker T. Jones, venerable anchor of 1960s soul giant Stax Records, in a welter of raw Dixie funk. Our by-then swollen party skipped Turbonegro and passed on M.I.A. for the dance-dance immolation incinerating the Sahara for the rest of the night. I heard about the Killers’ less-than-adequate mainstage turn at soured secondhand and felt glad to have trusted my social instincts, as first mash-up kings Crookers then a DJ set by the Chemical Brothers then a balls-out performance by MSTRKRFT slammed beats into a writhing mob of friendlies, with Chem Bros. lifting an already bliss-dosed, e-sodden, candy-flipped-out mob into the stratosphere with a robot-chant of “Some chemicals are good/Some chemicals are bad.” True dat, but the bad were mainly rotten vibes emitted by a pushy wedge of aristos pitching random helots out of the way a few feet from my group. Online sources credit Paris Hilton and her entourage with the brief disturbance, but from what I saw, the culprits could’ve been any clutch of overdressed Hollywood Boulevard shitheels. It was just like a night in the L.A. underground, minus the sketchy nabes and a chance of being mugged.

Feedback Apocalypse: We’d raged hard the night before and the sun was well along its path before Bitsy and I struck camp Sunday afternoon and loaded out for the festival. Staying since Thursday night at a campground by the Salton Sea with a group of sexy party-hardy Burners had the great advantage of dead calm at night, broken every few hours by the symphonic Doppler roar of a Union Pacific freight train high-balling by. Jointly feeling heat exhaustion and sleep deprivation while singly spacing out from individualized drug intake, we tootled the three-dozen miles to Indio on an overheated engine, arriving just in time to miss Perry Ferrell’s now-traditional Sunday DJ slot at the Sahara. We got our groove on briefly with Plump DJs, before gliding past hundreds of exhausted attendees for whom a hooping hottie and some mutant looking like Sting held no interest. We flopped happily far up front at mainstage as lengthening shadows set the mood for My Bloody Valentine. Management was handing out earplugs at the gate and small wonder, since toward the end of “You Made Me Realise,” guitarists Kevin Shields and Bilinda Butcher (the latter impassive as a Xanax-bombed soccer mom) loosed a gorgeous fifteen-minute-plus feedback annihilation that was easily the loudest thing I’ve ever heard in decades of doting on amplified music. I can’t imagine how the Horrors could hear even themselves going off at the Gobi many hundreds of yards away. It was less a solo than a hideous (and hideously effective) evocation of nightmare; a compressed and aestheticized variation on the opening bombardment at the Somme, another historic din that produced few actual causalties. The crowd, thus blitzed and shit-hammered, was easy mop-up for the Cure, since even the dirgiest of their album tracks sound like 1910 Fruitgum Company by comparison. Bitsy was limp with exhaustion, but these Byronic proto-goths are her favorite-ever band and she was soon slicing circles through the audience with her hoop. I let her decide when she’d had enough and escorted her out when she did, leaving the headliners to what observers described as a power-trawl through B-sides and obscurities that went on until approximately 1:30 a.m. when organizers pulled the plug and the band did two more numbers in the dark. About 70 minutes later, I was standing in front of my crib in Boyle Heights, watching Bitsy’s taillights fade up the street. On my desk was a notice that the cheerful folks at the Lugo Station post office had my ticket to Burning Man 2009. Bon temps roulez, motherfuckos.

—Ron Garmon

L.A. RECORD put photographer Lindsey Best through three dessicating days at the Coachella fun factory and she returned with this giant pile of beautiful photos and without any evidence whatsoever of sun damage to herself. Captured in full glory here are TV On The Radio, Leonard Cohen, M.I.A., No Age, Antony and the Johnsons, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Morrissey, Lykke Li, Public Enemy and many more! Check out albums for Friday, Saturday or Sunday.

Coachella 2009 - Friday

23 Photos

Coachella 2009 - Saturday

25 Photos

Coachella 2009 - Sunday

64 Photos

Download: A Place To Bury Strangers “To Fix The Gash In Your Head”

(from the self-titled album on Killer Pimp)

A Place To Bury Strangers believe in girl groups who ride motorcycles and custom-made guitar pedals that punch identical holes in ceiling and floor. They perform today at Coachella opposite Paul McCartney, who would probably like them. This interview rescued from the archives and conducted by Vanessa Gonzalez.

I can’t tell you how excited and surprised I was to see the Crystals listed as the first influence on your Myspace page.
Oliver Ackerman (guitar/vocals): The Crystals are AMAZING!
Who do you think would win in a fight between the Crystals and the Shangri-Las?
Oh, are you kidding? The Shangri-Las would kick the Crystals’ ass so easy. They were like the bad girls of all that stuff. They would take their motorbikes and run-over the Crystals—back and forth over their head most definitely! Drive them all up and down the street!
But musically you prefer the Crystals?
Do I PREFER the Crystals? Ahhhhh…I dunno know? I really like the Shangri-Las as well. That’s kind of a hard call. I guess it depends on your mood, ya know? Sometimes the Shangri-Las are what you want to hear. But ya know, the Crystals—some of the songs are just sung so well, and they’re such good songs. It’s hard to beat that, too.
Sometimes you get hit, and it feels like a kiss?
Yeah, totally. Especially if you’re kinda drunk. That’s so bad.
Has Phil Spector’s ‘wall of sound’ influenced your production values?
Definitely. That stuff is amazing, and that is stuff I grew up on. And as an aesthetic, and even I think song structure and writing style, I like that kind of stuff—the old pop classic sort of thing. I don’t have all these orchestras and instruments but we definitely try and make as many different sounds and have things come together and make it interesting. I definitely make a lot of pedals to achieve a certain sound, or some specific idea, as well as sometimes you’ll discover some cool idea within some sound that you’ve created. There are songs that have nothing to do with the pedals, but that definitely helps us get the sound that we want—to manipulate that anytime. It just works from what’s appropriate.
I heard you guys record in your RV?
Sometimes we get to places where we can do a little bit of work, but not really that much. There’s sorta some room to do some things, but not really as much as you would like.
How was the first album recorded?
Most of that album was just demo songs that I recorded myself with all sorts of different mediums—drum machines and stuff. All sorts of stuff thrown together—experimenting with 8 tracks, and the computer. It’s like almost everything was just kind of an idea for a song—songs that I wanted to listen to and hear myself, whether anyone else was going to or not.
So they were not intended for release?
Exactly. We were just kinda demoing things out, and then we released these EP CD-Rs that we would sell at shows or give away so that people would hear the music. And then we played a show in Austin, and the guy that runs the label that released our record wrote on a napkin that he’d like to release a bunch of the EPs as a CD and that he’d give us all the profits or something like that, and we were really reluctant to do it actually. It sounded kinda good, but it also sounded like not a good idea—I don’t know why. But I’m glad that we did it because it seems to have worked out pretty good.
Why the reluctance?
I guess I felt like everything wasn’t ready, or that it wasn’t really quite like a whole album or anything like that. Definitely all the songs were recorded to sound the way that I like to hear things. But I guess I had heard some things from different people—‘Your music’s got to be really slick…’ and all this bull crap that I don’t really believe ‘…to be listened to and appreciated by people.’ But I know that kind of stuff is just shit. And I’m really glad that people like the album the way it is because it means that we can kind of continue to work and create things that we think sound good, whether it’s commercially viable or not. I think that we can focus on just kind of making everything sound really good rather than sound commercial.
Like Times New Viking? They’re ultra lo-fi, but it sounds amazing and they write good songs and…
Times New Viking is an excellent example.
What was it like going on tour with Nine Inch Nails?
It was RIDICULOUSLY high tech! MY GOODNESS. It was AMAZING! It was really fun. It was also like, completely silly—you just feel like ‘What are you doing there?’ They had this huge crew of 85 people or something like that with all these really cool nicknames like ‘RADAR’ and ‘LAZER’ and ‘FOXTROT’ or something. It was so amazing. I guess they sorta look the part. It’s just a bunch of dudes all dressed in black with headsets and walkie-talkies. They weren’t menacing or anything like that. But they all had really cool names. I don’t know where they got em’ from. They put on just a ridiculously good show. They had these walls of light that were moving around and going in front of them and behind them and all this—just so intensely planned. But they were playing all the instruments live, and it was really cool. It wasn’t cheap, like you could easily imagine a lot of people would do. There were video cameras across stage and then maybe some sensors on their hands and they would wave their hands across the lights and stuff and the lights would shoot out of their hand—really crazy ridiculous things.
Is that a level that you are trying to attain?
Not quite. I thought what they were doing was cool. It wasn’t exactly something I would have done per se. But what would you do with millions and millions of dollars to put on some show? It was kind of ridiculous. I don’t think I would do that. I think maybe just keep things simple and just give the money to someone less fortunate—hand out cars to all the audience members.
Was being the opening act for a band with such an intense fan base uncomfortable?
Everyone was really cool actually. People were cheering and going nuts and it was really good. We were definitely well received. But talking to a bunch of these kids when you go out into the crowds—some of the fans, it’s almost like their lives revolve around Nine Inch Nails. Nine Inch Nails patches and hats and they have screen names for the fan club and stickers all over their car. I definitely had a lot of people ask me, ‘What’s Trent like? Gee, I wish I had a demo tape of my band with me so that you could give it to him.’ Almost all the shows were at these basketball stadiums, so we’d be in a locker rooms for a whole basketball team—rows and rows of showers, and all these closets and huge screens TVs, and the catering was unbelievable. Baked salmon with lemon-pepper and wine sauce drizzled over it—crazy, amazingly good food. Everyone was really nice. It was super cool.
How did you get into making pedals?
Just trying to create sounds that I couldn’t get in other places. I failed miserably for years and then kindda figured out how to make things work. And then I started the company because I wanted to go to Europe for a month as a vacation, but I didn’t really have any money, and I had this idea for a pedal that no one else had ever come out with before, and I just kind of marketed that real quick and I made enough money to go. Total Sonic Annihilation. The flagship of Death by Audio. At that time I was pretty much on my own. I was living in Fredericksberg, Virginia, with about two to three people at most that you’d want around you at any given time, and we had this really huge warehouse that we rented for nothing. A couple bands practiced there. They all paid the rent, so I was living for free in this huge warehouse. And I was the only one who lived there because everyone else was afraid. I don’t know—some people like home life or something! So I was just in there, doing that stuff, and you could be up all night experimenting. I was playing in that band Skywave at the time, and our last album Synthstatic, we recorded—it took maybe two and a half years to record and mix. I was doing that every single day—recording and mixing that album. I left Virginia because it felt like Skywave wasn’t going anywhere. Like the last Skywaves tour—one of the guys didn’t even want to go on the tour, so we had someone else come as a replacement. And then the other guy in the band was married and had two kids and couldn’t really do too much. So I was just kind of like, ‘Well, I guess I’m going to move to New York.’ Then shortly after I was there I met two guys who were interested in doing something.
Can we do the rest of the interview as Two Truths and a Lie? I’ll give you a category, and then you tell me two truths and a lie about it. Lets begin with A Place to Bury Strangers: The Early Days. And I’ll start us off as an example. 1. I was so excited the first time I heard Oceans on the radio, that I pulled over to write your band name down. 2. The first time I visited your Myspace, I listened to your 4 songs for 3 hours straight. 3. I wrote you guys a fan letter after I bought your album, but I was too embarrassed to ever mail it. Which is the lie?
Number 2.
No, the last one. I haven’t written a fan letter since New Kids on the Block in Elementary school. But I really did listen to your songs for 3 hours straight.
That’s amazing. Someone must have drugged you.
Your songs did. Okay, your turn.
Alright. 1. Our drummer got hit by a car, and then plays a show…right after getting hit by a car. Alright…what’s another truth?
Oh no, don’t tell me which are true—I have to guess!
I know, I know! I’m just messing with you. Alright, this is the lie right here. These are just all going to be about drummers. 2. Our drummer threw a stick into the crowd, it hit someone in the face, and then BAM—they fell to the ground. 3. One time our drummer dropped his sticks and then played the rest of the set with his hands.
Playing the drums like the congas is the lie.
Nope, that’s true. Couldn’t even tell!
Closed fist or open handed? How did he do that?
I don’t know; he was an animal!
So the lie must be the second one.
How’d you know?
The way you called him an animal I figured he must have played a show immediately after getting hit by a car!
Yeah, that’s true.
How badly was he hit by the car?
Not that bad. He was okay.
Alright, next category. Geography. Tell me two truths and a lie about cities you’ve been to.
1.There is a place in Canada named Regina, and the sign, when you drive in, says ‘The Place that Rhymes with Fun.’ 2. There is a place in Portland where you can get drinks for 50 cents. It’s called the Lionshead. Next time you’re in Portland you have to go.
50 cent drinks! For like, a full pint of beer? Any drink?
Yeah, totally! I mean, it all comes in plastic glasses, but it’s totally worth it! TOOOOTTTALLLY bottom shelf booze. But still worth it!
Tell me something about Seattle.
Of all the places I’ve been in Seattle, at least fifty percent have something to do with space, like the Space Needle, or the Cosomonaut or the Apollo. I even ate a sandwich that was called the Space Blaster or something.
Which is the lie? What was the first one? I don’t even remember. Oh yeah. The town in Canada. I hope that one’s true. I’m going to say the last one is false.
No, it was the place with the fifty cent drinks. Doesn’t that suck? Didn’t you want that to be true?
So what was Regina like?
It was like New Jersey or something like that. It was kind of industrial and really desolate. But the place really did rhyme with fun. Those wacky Canadians.
Next category: guilty pleasures.
Alright, let’s see… 1. Jameson Whiskey. 2. I really love to shoot guns. 3. I love scrambled eggs and Cool Ranch Doritos.
That’s like trailer park chilaquiles. I’m going to go with the last one. I can see you wondering around your empty warehouse shooting guns off all night while you’re playing with your Sonic Annihilator pedal.
Actually, I don’t like shooting guns. I’ve done it a few times, but I don’t think it’s that cool.
Too bad. But that was a good lie. And the fact that you eat scrambled eggs with Cool Ranch Doritos is an awesome truth.
Shooting guns isn’t even that bad. It can be fun now that I think about it. But alright, what else you got?
Childhood.
Alright. 1. Me and some friends were trying to figure out what drugs were, so we rolled up herbal tea and cigarettes, and smoked it together. 2. When I was young, I used to drive like a maniac, and I’ve taken a car to 160 mph—a Chevy Caprice. 3. I am a—well I’m not so much anymore, but I used to be a juggling MASTER. I used to be able to juggle knives and swords and stuff.
Knives AND swords?
Oh no, just knives. I didn’t say swords.
I’m going to have to say the last is false.
How’d you know?
What kind of tea were you mixing into your cigarettes?
We tried all sorts of stuff—all different flavors, and none of it worked. We must’ve smoked like a pound. We used to do all sorts of stupid things.
Last category. Touring.
1. We had an RV and I’m the only person’ s who ever got it slightly wrecked by scraping the whole side of the RV on some cement, and then we tried to lie to the rental place about it. 2. One time, at the end of a tour, and this is a tour with a car, and you couldn’t start it except push start it because it was about to die, and the last date was a 24-hour drive back home and we push started the car and drove the entire 24-hours without stopping it once, and filling up gas while it was running. 3. One time while playing a show I was jumping around and got totally knocked out, and when I came to I didn’t know what the hell was going on. It was so insane, like the earth was ending, but the show never ended.
Taking after your warrior drummer, the show must go on.
Most people I don’t think even noticed it because there was all this feedback, and they just thought it was part of the show. Things were kind of crazy anyways.
The lie is the last one.
Dang it. Yeah, it is.

A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS WITH PAUL McCARTNEY, SILVERSUN PICKUPS, PEANUT BUTTER WOLF, MORRISSEY, THE BLACK KEYS AND MORE ON FRI., APR. 17, AT COACHELLA AT THE EMPIRE POLO FIELD, 81-800 AVENUE 51, INDIO. 11 AM / $269 / ALL AGES. COACHELLA.COM. VISIT A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS AT APLACETOBURYSTRANGERS.COM OR MYSPACE.COM/APLACETOBURYSTRANGERS.