Peas leader has ex-rated album ready

WILL.I.AM of the Black Eyed Peas heartily endorses the practice of safe sex. But what should one do to protect against the possible emotional damage from coupling up?

“I wish there were a kind of heart condom,” Will said. “Say I’m a skanky dude who gave my girlfriend herpes. Now, you can take a cream and make that disappear. But for the rest of their life, they’re going to be jaded.”

Will (who’s quick to add that he is in fact disease-free) has a more reliable tactic for fending off the ache of a breakup: Write an album about it. “Songs About Girls,” the third solo album from the Peas’ producer and rapper, due Sept. 25 from will.i.am Music Group/Interscope, walks the unlikely line between a Patron-soaked party record and a meta-concept album detailing the aftermath of a particularly vicious dumping.

“She broke up with me over the phone, man,” Will said of the end of a seven-year relationship that began around the time the Peas formed. “It happened right before an interview, so I had to sit there and be like, ‘Yep, Fergie’s great.’ But then I knew what record I wanted to make. It came from me knowing I [messed] that up.”

The record’s likely first single, “I Got It From My Mama,” suggests that Will has recovered nicely; its blunt-as-a-brick-wall chorus hook makes “My Humps” seem positively Churchillian. But like any love that ends unfortunately, the album has many stages of grief. “It’s Over” finds Will sulking over a crisp funk bass line, while “I’m a Heart Breaker” gives him an electro-soul outlet to cop to his bad habits in relationships.

There’s an accompanying video narrative to the whole affair where, after a fictional breakup, Will travels to Brazil to cast a girl to play his ex in a music video. Drowning your sorrows in fruity drinks and microscopic swimsuits in the tropics? It’s the oldest cure for heartache around, if being one of pop’s most in-demand producers isn’t enough.

“I was so broken up about it. Now I’m picking fruit,” Will said, ever ready with a chin-stroking metaphor. “I’ve got so many oranges, limes, grapes. I’m supplying Ralphs and Whole Foods.”

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Animal rights activists decide to band together

A peacenik animal rights activist probably shouldn’t score too high on any useful government terrorist watch list. But Kevin Kjonass, a Minneapolis-based member of the anti-vivisection industry group Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, became a test case in the government’s ability to prosecute animal-rights groups as terrorists.

Charged under the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act for listing the names and contact information of Huntingdon Life Sciences’ executives on his group’s website, he began serving a six-year prison sentence in 2006.

But before his conviction, he made a vocal friend in Goldfinger’s John Feldmann, who is bringing together his veteran Los Angeles pop-punk band for its only 2007 show, to raise awareness of Kjonass’ situation.

“What we do in the animal rights movement is say that you can’t punch puppies in the face over laundry detergent,” Feldmann said. “That has nothing to do with bombing a mall.”

Feldmann and his band have long championed a vegan lifestyle and participated in protests and direct action, and his own home was raided by the FBI two years ago, he said. The show Friday at the House of Blues is designed to put Kjonass’ case -- he’s appealing the conviction -- in the public eye.

“It’s so scary for me as an activist,” Feldmann said. “If I stand outside of Neiman Marcus and protest their fur, they can arrest me for hindering sales. This beautiful human was just trying to save puppies and he’s serving six years.”

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A guest appearance for Radiohead’s Yorke

WHILE Radiohead acolytes salivate over an impending new album, fans of singer Thom Yorke’s glitchy solo project “The Eraser” should track down the new full-length from German electronica duo Modeselektor, “Happy Birthday,” due out on Bpitch Control in September. Yorke’s airy mewling shows up on the track “The White Flash,” a dreamier and gentler cut than “The Eraser’s” dystopic house beats. Yorke’s choppy repetition of the line “You have all the time in the world” sounds alternately reassuring and devastating as synthesizers ping and swirl around him, proving that even if he’s a guest, “White Flash” becomes Yorke’s song in the end.

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august.brown@latimes.com