BUZZ BANDS
Big-city beats from the beach
Orange County is a long way from house music’s roots in Chicago, New York and New Jersey, but the area is home to a burgeoning scene buoyed by dance labels Seasons Recordings and Life Music as well as Huntington Beach’s Higher Source DJ shop. One of the rising stars of the scene is Natural Rhythm, a twosome who started making beats in 1995 “with just a keyboard, a drum machine and a feeling,” says Pete Williams, 30, half of the duo. Today that feeling is laid-back, tech-flavored soul, as featured on their latest, “Set Me Free EP.” The pair pumps samples and keyboard lines into a PC, where the music ends up “getting tweaked and bent to my liking,” says other half Thomas White, 29. On the “Set Me Free EP” Williams and White tweak Culture Club, bend diva vocals and explore subtle organ keys -- all atop chugging, tribal rhythms. Gaining notice hasn’t been easy in a scene dominated by big-city superstar DJs. “Commonly I am met with the ‘You live in O.C. -- my God!’ attitude from L.A. peeps,” White says. More and more in this file-sharing culture, however, “it doesn’t matter where you’re from,” Williams says. “Whether you’re from O.C. or L.A., it’s really all about the music.”*
Serious studio session
The making of Mark Lane’s debut album, “Golden State of Mind,” came with an intermission. The first portion was recorded in friend Jason Falkner’s L.A. home studio. But Falkner’s other commitments, including a gig as a touring member of Air, removed him from the project, so Lane went to work in the basement of his Echo Park house. “For the better part of six or seven months, it was hammers, nails, drywall and tool belts,” Lane says. “I bought gear and decided to try to finish it myself.” Turns out, the handyman can. Lane’s tunes range from folk- and bluegrass-flavored ballads to classic pop ditties -- his “Taste of Champagne,” for instance, would fit neatly into Randy Newman’s songbook. “I got very into the idea of creating lush orchestral settings; I wanted to sound like a band,” says Lane, whose work features guest turns by X’s D.J. Bonebrake, among other L.A. musicians. “It was kind of a liberating experience.” Of course, building and equipping a studio meant another kind of liberation. “It was a pretty substantial investment,” says Lane, who has been playing bass in Falkner’s band and has a solo outing scheduled Jan. 25 at the Hotel Cafe in Hollywood. “It certainly set my finances free.”
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Fast forward
Open Hand has two gigs to mark the release Tuesday of its album “The Dream” on Trustkill Records. The L.A. hard-core outfit plays Wednesday at Chain Reaction in Anaheim; on Jan. 18, Justin Isham and crew headline the Troubadour.... Chicago’s Tommie Sunshine is the guest for Saturday’s monthly electronic show at the Echo.... Popband Alice has been honing its bouncy indie-pop (think Imperial Teen) with several Southland shows. Next up: Saturday at the Coconut Teaszer.
-- Dennis Romero and Kevin Bronson
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