We were lucky to be among a few hundred people to catch Broken Bells’ first-ever live performance Friday night at the Bootleg Theater in Echo Park. Broken Bells — if you haven’t heard yet — is a collaboration between James Mercer (of The Shins) and Brian Burton (aka Danger Mouse).

Try to imagine what that might sound like and your expectations would be met and likely exceeded by the first single — “The High Road” — alone (video after the jump). Stack that on top of Burton’s track record as a multi-instrumentalist and producer over the past decade (The Grey Album, Gorillaz, Gnarls Barkley, MF Doom, Beck) plus the mystery of it being Broken Bells first live performance and the Bootleg was buzzing with anticipation.

The crowd was a good mix of industry, critics, serious music freaks, and fans (we scored tickets out of the lot that went up for sale after 10am Friday for $15 each – and were gone by 10:30am, according to the Fold’s website).

After a spirited set by the house DJ’s, Broken Bells took the stage as a 6-piece band (two guitars, two keyboards, bass, drums). The band seemed well-rehearsed and the onstage demeanor was rather serious for a “surprise” show — the only announced Broken Bells concerts to date are London and Paris and as part of a SXSW showcase next month. A couple people mentioned that it was Burton’s first time playing drums onstage (he played keys on one or two tracks with prerecorded supporting beats). On the record — much like with the Gnarls Barkley collabs with Cee-Lo — Burton handled all the instrumentation as well as production, James Mercer wrote the songs and played guitar.

Mercer’s voice was strong and rose above Burton’s shuffling timekeeping. Several songs had a lilting bass groove reminiscent of the Manchester sound of 20 years ago — Stone Roses, Happy Mondays. It was also apparent that these musicians were influenced by the likes of Damon Albarn and Beck — not necessarily a bad thing. Add four- and five-part harmonies and some ace songwriting by Mercer and the live experience had a wall of sound, Floydian feel, melodies grinding through spiral video projected on the stage.

After each song everybody seemed to turn and look at each other with eyebrows raised as if to say, “wow, that actually sounded really good.” After ten songs the band left the stage briefly and then returned with the two greatest surprises of the night. First, the duo of Mercer and Burton rattled off a beautiful version of Neutral Milk Hotel’s “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea” and then the rest of the band returned for a spot-on cover of Tommy James and the Shondells’ “Crimson and Clover.” Mercer led into it saying gingerly (to the crowd, the band or both?) “I don’t know if you’re ready for this but here it goes.”

Lights up. The house DJ cued The Turtles’ “Happy Together” and the crowd filed out, smiles all around.

Broken Bells drops March 9 on Sony / Columbia.

Originally posted at LAist.

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Over the years Twiistup has evolved from a blowout meet ‘n’ greet for startups, entrepreneurs, and investors to a can’t-miss, day-and-a-half of panel discussions, showcases, and mixers featuring the top tech and media innovators and venture capitalists from LA, Silicon Valley and beyond.

Billed “LA’s biggest technology EVENT,” the agenda and guest list is a stacked who’s-who of elite tech talent. But don’t let the mature, sit-down nature of Twiistup 7 fool you, as Hollywood’s penchant for partying is not forgotten with a 007-themed after party and a hosted pre-party included with each event pass.

twiistup.com
Registration: $397 before 3pm 1/27, $497 after.
Weds January 27th: 6-9 Korn Hall, UCLA; 9-midnight W Hotel Westwood. Thurs 1/28: 8-5:30 showoffs and panels at Skirball Center; 7:30-midnight Casino Royale party at Skirball.

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Late Thursday Radiohead announced that it would perform a charity show benefiting the survivors of the devastating January 12th earthquake in Haiti. The tickets were made available via a Ticketmaster auction which ended with a final minimum bid of $475 (meaning many secured their tickets for $450). Some went above and beyond as the proceeds were going 100% to Haiti via Oxfam America and the high bid was $2,000 per ticket (for either 2 or 4 tickets), according to the band.

All in all more than $572,000 was raised and it was an unforgettable, intimate gig for all at the 1,300-capacity theater. Here’s the setlist:

Edit this setlist | More Radiohead setlists

Video from the show…

Radiohead “Everything In Its Right Place” live at Fonda (Haiti relief)

Radiohead – “Morning Bell” (1.24.10 Haiti Benefit in LA)

Radiohead “Weird Fishes” live 1.24.10 Henry Fonda Music Box

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I immediately fell in love with Avon Street when I first ventured to check out the house that I would eventually move into four years ago. The gradual ascent up Echo Park Avenue excited me — I knew I was heading deeper into an urban canyon, 3 miles from downtown, but surrounded by wildlife and Elysian Park. But once I took the right turn onto Ewing and inevitably downshifted to make it around the broken-up corner to Avon, where it keeps going up on a steep angle before arriving at my house, I knew I had found my shangri-la. You know, for a broke grad school student this was clearly paradise.

The surroundings reminded me of lush hillside villages I had visited in the foothills of the Andes Mountains of Peru and Ecuador. Houses and guesthouses were impossibly built into hillsides that — without a car, or at least a horse — seem more or less uninhabitable for any non-self-sustaining non-hermit.

Even the streets — not only are they broken up here, but these are exactly the kind of two-way roads you see in the third world. These are arguably two-lane roads WITHOUT one side being filled with parked cars, which it always is. And you just have to assume that everyone follows the unwritten rule of travelling South to North on the 2000 block of Avon because come hill or corkscrew turn at Baxter, you’re not going to see an oncoming car until it’s in your lap.

So is this hillside coming down? Compare the photo above to this one taken the morning after some rocks came down. Small trees are sticking out into the road mid-tumble. To compare, check out the Google Streetview image of this spot:

View Larger Map

Will the city need to shut down this block of Avon completely in order to do any construction or repairs should things get worse? And what of these rumors of a new landowner of the impossible strip of property on the steep hill wanting to build directly on top of this unstable mess? And a pool too?!?

Always keeping it interesting up here…

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Road still navigable… For now.

Please click here for updated photos and more on the failing hillside around the bend…

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I like it!

Tickets on sale Friday. More info in my LAist post.

Posted via email from Andy Sternberg’s posterous

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If you follow me on столовеTwitter, you know that I do have opinions. When appropriate I’ll post long-form rants on LAist. My latest is about how pathetic it is that I can’t make a wireless voice call from my house no matter what the carrier is. And it’s been that way since I moved here four years ago!

Oh yeah, the data coverage is fine. I’ve been spoiled by AT&T’s 3g data coverage since 2006 and never turned back. Did it bother me to only have nine keys and #0* on my LG CU500 and a small screen? No. It was 3g. Did I at least use T9 predictive text or would I actually make 10 entries on the keypad just to spell “s-h-i-t?” Hell no, I became the fastest texter in town. Why? Because no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t hear more than scratchy sounds and broken words coming from the other end of the handset. Didn’t matter where or how I stood in the house or on the block. I was in a black hole. AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile. You can’t NOT lose. It’s 2010, and I still find myself going to the mall just so I can have a coherent phone conversation with Mom.

Read the full article at LAist.

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Really wish D Rose followed this up with a dunk in Pau’s face. Was not the case. Great seeing the ‘09-’10 Bulls hang tough against the Lakers last night. The Bulls offense was pretty off the entire game — Rose started 2 for 12 or something — great, explosive drives to the basket but nothing falling. He couldn’t miss in the second half. Nice to see Taj Gibson putting in serious minutes — also looks like James Johnson will be a solid contributor. Joakim Noah is really coming into his own. But the Lakers are the champs and Pau Gasol — who missed the first 10 games with a hamstring injury — completes them. A long and fast team, only injury would keep them from repeating this year. As for the Bulls, I look forward to watching more — exciting team with lots of energy and very aggressive D.

Thanks to @es for taking us to the game in his amazing seats!

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