Blog: Buzz Bands: Kevin Bronson on the music scene in Los Angeles and beyond

"For years, everybody in Los Angeles has been rooting for this band." "They must be awfully tired."

As the sun set, things started to get topsy-turvy. The Shout Out Louds channeled the Cure, and too well. They're nice, they're Swedish, they figure to gain ground now that they are no longer on a major label (Capitol) and are aligned with a hip indie (Merge). But some of the tasty stuff in their set Saturday, and on their album "Our Ill Wills," veers awfully close to the bittersweet flavors dispensed by Robert Smith (although I'm not sure I ever saw him in red horizontal stripes) back in The Decade That Nobody at [...]

Even better, it's the wall of City Hall (by Kevin Bronson / LAT)

The Deadly Syndrome's music is sweet, then paranoid, then nervous, then chaotic. But there's something that holds it together, as the young quartet showed on the South stage. Overcoming a few first-festival hiccups, the Syndrome fared pretty well -- much better than the cardboard-cutout ghosts that the band stations onstage during their performances. Most of the ghosts succumbed to the breeze and blew over. The convulsive pop, with its tinkling keyboards and explosive guitars, held up. Only when guitarist Will Etling tried to join the set-ending drum circle (the quartet huddles around Jesse Hoy's kit [...]

[Follow along as I meander through an autumn Saturday in a four-block region conveniently located just across the street from The Times' offices ...] As festivals go, this promises to be a pretty good block party. And as Bloc Partys go ... well, we'll leave that for later. The LA Weekly Detour Festival in downtown Los Angeles is a good idea -- a "mini- Coachella " in an area of the Southland whose renaissance cannot be understated. Four stages of music, exhibitors and vendors, wacky art installations, hipsters lounging on [...]

Not into battling the crowd downtown? The Eagle Rock Music Festival offers a great neighborhoody vibe and a slew of music (and dance, and more) on 10 stages. It runs from 5 p.m. to midnight Saturday along Colorado Boulevard, and Dengue Fever (pictured) is among the 40-odd performers. Full lineup, after the jump: Emerging Main Stage (indie) 5 p.m. the Frimps (Eagle Rock High battle of the bands winner), 5:35 Teddy's Cheer club, 6:20 the Monolators, 7:05 Bodies of Water, 8:05 the Pity [...]

The consensus in my group of music mavens is that the lineup for the second annual LA Weekly Detour Festival on Saturday pales in comparison to last year's -- nothing against Bloc Party, Satellite Party, the Pity Party or any of the other parties involved. But they (we) might be underestimating the excitement the Banger crew will bring to the proceedings. Word-of-mouth is that the most anticipated set is Justice's . Los Angeles' representation is strong -- in particular I'm eager to see Autolux (new music, please?) and Moving Units (whose [...]

The Pity Party has a whirlwind weekend ahead. On Saturday afternoon the L.A. duo will bang out an afternoon set at the LA Weekly Detour Festival -- they won an online vote to fill a local band slot -- then high-tail it to play the Eagle Rock Music Festival . Flustered? Not the Pity Party's wisecracking female half, Heisenflei (born Julie Edwards). "We're going to have to figure out how to pace our drinking and when to take naps," she says. But why worry about pacing now -- the duo's [...]

[Random notes from recent club outings:] They've changed their color, and maybe even their stripe. We Barbarians , a trio featuring former members of the classic rock-leaning quintet the Colour , played just their second show Monday night at the Silverlake Lounge (opening for this month's residents, Aushua ). The Long Beach-based threesome of David Quon, Derek Huele and Nathan Warkentin laid out a half-hour set of tight, churning indie rock, impressing almost everybody in the room (including their buddies [...]

Morrissey's shows tonight and Thursday at the Hollywood Palladium -- the first two gigs in a 10-show stand before the venue closed for renovations -- have been canceled because of "a ruptured water pipe resulting in a safety issue," promoter Live Nation just announced. Tickets for the canceled shows will be honored at either the Oct. 8 or 9 performances, the promoter said. If patrons are unable to attend Monday or next Tuesday, they should seek refunds at point of purchase. "The Palladium apologizes to Morrissey and his fans for the inconvenience in disrupting [...]

Division Day and Dusty Rhodes and the River Band celebrate their album releases tonight. Division Day, which plays at the Echo, is something of the Little Band That could. The quartet initially self-released "Beartrap Island" last year, the hooked up with a start-up label that planned to re-release the album with wider distribution. That start-up never started up. Local imprint Eenie Meenie now has the album, remastered with a couple new songs. Dusty Rhodes and the River Band, a folk-rock six-piece from Anaheim, released "Today You Live" ( SideOneDummy [...]

[A Buzz Bands correspondent describes the scene at the second annual Neighborhood Festival at Exposition Park on Saturday:] It was as if I awoke from a coma to find that the style of Los Angeles hipsters had gone from tight jeans, hats, faded shirts and black-and-gray sneakers to, well, tight jeans, hats, faded shirts and sneakers -- but done in Day-Glo. Any doubts that "nu-rave" has arrived were erased at the Neighborhood Festival , Dim Mak's dance-music gathering that featured the likes of the Faint, Mickey Avalon, Chromeo and DJ sets from AM, Blake [...]

You can spend a lot of money and see Morrissey tonight. Or you can forgo cover charges and see some up-and-coming Southland bands kick off their October residencies. All of this month's free Monday nights offer a peek at some rising stars. At the top of the heap is Castledoor , a six-piece that has taken L.A. by storm this year with their earnest, feel-good pop. Castledoor kicks off a string on Mondays at the Echo, while Oliver Future holds forth at Spaceland, Aushua plays the Silverlake Lounge and [...]

There were so many choices for music this weekend my head hurt -- old-school raves , new-school raves , vendor-clogged neighborhood shindigs and even boy geniuses grown up and backed by orchestras . My highlights: The National makes music not for sold-out concert halls but for long walks back to your car down deserted streets, if you can remember where you parked. Somehow, the Brooklyn-via-Cincinnati quintet made it work Friday night at the Wiltern, punctuating its bookish musings with epic freakouts [...]

Radiohead will release its seventh album, "In Rainbows," next week via digital download, with a special-edition boxed set to follow in December. The band is taking orders for both on its website. Fans who order the boxed set (which includes double-vinyl and CD versions of the album and an enhanced CD with more songs, artwork and photographs) automatically get the DRM-free MP3 download. Or the digital bundle, available Oct. 10, can be purchased separately. The website says the boxed sets will be shipped by Dec. 3. Most distinctive is that Radiohead is allowing fans to pay whatever [...]

Samples from four tracks of the new Spank Rock EP are streaming at the duo's MySpace page . You can get a a taste of that -- the Philadelphia duo's [Naeem Juwan, pictured] "Bangers & Cash" EP is due out this fall on Downtown, with a new album planned for early next year -- to warm up for the electro-party-dudes' set Saturday at the Neighborhood Festival . Or you can just load Nocturnal's website and trance out. They're a couple of the bazillion music [...]

Tucked away near the bottom of the bill for Saturday's Neighborhood Festival -- the indie dance party at Exposition Park mounted by DJ Steve Aoki and his Dim Mak label -- is Brother Reade, an L.A. duo that makes old-school hip-hop which, at a glance, might seem out of place at an event featuring such electro hotshots as the Faint, Spank Rock and Chromeo. "We're thrilled that we're attached to the L.A. club scene," says rapper Jamz (born James Joliff), who, with DJ Bobby Evans (born Erin Garcia), released [...]

L.A.'s Dangerbird Records , its thumbs in its suspenders after being nominated for alternative label of the year by trade 'zine Radio and Records, is offering a slew of free downloads. Click here to download Darker My Love's 2006 debut album in its entirety, as well as four tracks from Dappled Cities (a three-song EP and a Loving Hands remix of "Fire Fire Fire.") Speaking of Darker My Love , the psych-rock quartet is in the studio with producer Dave Cooley working on a follow-up (targeted for release next summer) to that 2006 [...]

The Mint is marking is 70th year with a special series of shows over the next couple of months. The mid-city venue has had an up-and-down history, with its fortunes (and music bookings) looking brighter since it re-opened in 2005 after a facelift orchestrated by new owner Todd Christensen. It has especially been a haven for the L.A. alt-country scene. The shows include tonight's performance by Beausoleil featuring Michael Doucet; an Oct. 4 appearance by Country Music Hall of Famer Charlie Louvin; the Hacienda Brothers on Oct. 12; Tim Reynolds on on Nov. 9, Pancho Sanchez [...]

Sam Sparro is a child of the '80s who's lived on three continents, who's partied hearty on each of them and who, musically, had never made it out of his bedroom. Until now. Last month, the 24-year-old native of Australia released his debut EP, "Black & Gold," and proceeded to wow a crowd at the downtown club Bordello with vintage crooning -- you didn't doubt for a second that he used to do Curtis Mayfield covers -- over sexed-up electro-beats that couldn't hide the fact that, as he says, "Yeah, I grew up as a club [...]