Call this project the Matrix Suzukied

Sammy JAMES JR., lead singer of the Mooney Suzuki, has an interesting perspective on his New York garage-rock quartet’s unlikely teaming with the Matrix, the hot production-writing trio best known for crafting Avril Lavigne’s hits.

“It’s an all-win situation,” James says. “It’s going to be something we couldn’t accomplish on our own and that the Matrix couldn’t [on its own], which is the goal. If it doesn’t succeed, it will be so bad that at least it will be a fabulous disaster.”

The two entities have just started recording the album in Los Angeles, and it’s a gamble for both -- more so for the band, which made its reputation and built a cult following with recordings made hastily in minimalist studios.

James says there already has been negative backlash from some fans, and he expects a lot more. But he also says that if the band simply wanted to play it safe and keep doing what it had been doing, it wouldn’t have signed with a major label.

“”People complain about what’s on the radio and ask why isn’t there something better,” he says. “That’s our mission. We want to make something the everyday radio programmer will put on the air but is also a quality piece of art. It’s infiltrating from the inside. Great art can have mass appeal, whether it’s the Beatles or Stanley Kubrick. That concept has been lost.”

Lauren Christy, one-third of the Matrix (with Graham Edwards and Scott Spock), doesn’t see the Mooney Suzuki as having to compromise much to reach that goal.

“These people are serious songwriters and they know everything about how to put a good song together,” she says. “Why are they coming to us? I think Sam is very savvy and wants to do a blend of what they do and the crazy pop-rock stuff we do. He’s game for this and not willing to sell out in any way.”

The Suzukis already proved game for one move the Matrix expected they’d resist. The producers enlisted the band to work with them on a track for Kelly Osbourne. The song, “No Apologies,” is planned for use in a film soundtrack. Speaking of soundtracks, the band co-wrote and played on the title song of the new Jack Black movie, “School of Rock.”

Meanwhile, the Matrix is working with hip-hop act Swollen Members and new English rock band Busted and has just returned from Spain, where it spent a hectic week doing seven songs with Shakira.

Next for the team: its own album. Christy calls it a “Fleetwood Mac for today,” with two newcomers to front the band. It will be recorded toward the end of the year, with plans to get a first single out in February.

Says Christy, “We don’t want to be pigeonholed.”

Charity begins with bootlegs

Bands measure album sales in millions, but Incubus is setting a goal of a million for its new charity effort. The group has started the Make Yourself Foundation with a target of raising $1 million in its first year.

This will be accomplished through proceeds from a new series of live recordings (a la Pearl Jam’s official bootleg releases), with plans for 10 or 12 albums a year. First is “Live at Lollapalooza,” with appearances by Jurassic 5 DJs Cut Chemist and Nu Mark, and a version of Lionel Ritchie’s “Hello” -- an Incubus concert favorite.

Future releases are likely to include a recording from the group’s appearance at Neil Young’s Oct. 25-26 benefit for the Bridge School. The album, and the future releases, will be sold only via a special Web site, www.IncubusBootlegs.com.

Manager Steve Rennie says the causes to be supported are being worked out, though he expects clean-water campaigns such as the Surf Rider Foundation will be among them. There’s talk of a fan-celebrity surf event to raise money for Make Yourself, and some portion of the band’s ticket sales from its 2004 tour also is likely go to the new effort.

Meanwhile, the band has just headed to Georgia to start work on its next album with producer Brendan O’Brien, with a Feb. 10 release date penciled in.

A truly atrocious musical idea

With the Go-Go’s Charlotte Caffey and That Dog’s Anna Waronker writing songs for a musical based on the life of “Deep Throat” star Linda Lovelace, other maturing rockers are turning to musical theater as well. Dukey Flyswatter, former leader of the L.A. shock-rock band Haunted Garage, and punk satirist/talk-radio host Johnny Angel are teaming on “Blood Feast: The Musical,” based on the 1963 gore film.

The original -- a cult classic that Angel calls a “cinematic atrocity” -- is pretty over the top already, but the duo is finding ways to go further in a musical setting. The gimmick is that all the songs will be risque parodies of songs from other musicals, such as “I Should Have Slashed All Night.” The two have a financial backer and are securing a location to produce the show, with Flyswatter possibly playing the lead.

“Haunted Garage was a certain thing along these lines,” Angel says, “I was never in a band like that, but our common bond is things like the Three Stooges, Mad Magazine, the Ramones -- over-the-top sick humor.”

Small faces

* Lou Reed’s June 24 concert at the Wiltern is being turned into a live album, due from Warner Bros. Records in February. It will follow the November publication of a book of Reed’s photography, which itself comes on the heels of a new book collecting the lyrics to his musical interpretation of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven.”

* L.A. electronic duo the Crystal Method returns with “Legion of Boom,” its first album since 2001. Due Jan. 13, the collection sees Ken Jordan and Scott Kirkland joined by guitarists Wes Borland (ex-Limp Bizkit) and Jon Brion, rapper Rahzel and Bell Rays singer Lisa Kekuala.

* It took 30 years for the Flatlanders -- the Texas folk supergroup of Butch Hancock, Joe Ely and Jimmie Dale Gilmore -- to follow up the 1972 recording of its debut. It took less than two years to follow the follow-up. “Wheels of Fortune” is due Jan. 27 from New West Records, with songs written by all three, including a couple written in the group’s first go-round but never recorded.

* Clint Eastwood’s musical interests are well known, including his exploration of the history of piano blues in the recent “Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues” series. But his new movie, “Mystic River,” is the first to feature a full score composed by the director himself. An album of the moody orchestral and solo piano pieces written by Eastwood for the film will be released Oct. 21 by his label, Malpaso Records.

* Hip-hop/R&B; singer Truth (formerly Truth Hurts, real name: Shari Watson), whose Dr. Dre-produced debut was released by Interscope last year, has signed to release her follow-up with Pookie Records, the label started by Tony! Toni! Tone!’s Raphael Saadiq. Meanwhile, Joi, another neo-soul singer, has also joined the Pookie roster after released her 2002 major-label debut on Universal Records.

* The focus of the soundtrack album for “The Matrix Revolutions” is on the orchestral score by Don Davis rather than the techno-rock orientation of the previous two “Matrix” albums. However, contributions by electronic artists Pale 3 and Juno Reactor are used. The album is due Nov. 4, a day before the movie premieres.