BUZZ BANDS

Casting call

Film School forgoes popcorn for dreamy pop-rock, and hip-hop combo Lightheaded feels a little loopy

January 19, 2006

They ought to be in pictures

As the band name suggests, the music on San Francisco quintet Film School's debut album is keenly cinematic, its broad reach and faint restlessness owing to an affection for dreamy guitars and whirling keyboards. But not settling for merely reviving the sounds of My Bloody Valentine or Pink Floyd, Film School manages to sound like the American indie band it is — with songs that are lovingly fractured, vaguely droney yet impossibly urgent.

"People have trouble trying to summarize us quickly," singer-guitarist Krayg Burton says. "We have elements of a lot of things."

Credit the band's collaborators, especially Nyles Lannon, whose own solo albums put him on the map and in whom Burton found a kindred spirit. "We really had the same ideas for guitar playing and shared the same interests in bands as well," Burton says.

The lineup, which includes bassist Justin LaBo, drummer Donny Newenhouse and keyboardist Jason Ruck, saw its stock rise after a highly regarded EP in 2003 and a show at the 2005 South by Southwest Music Festival that caught the eye of Beggars Banquet, which will release "Film School" on Tuesday.

"It's taken time" to get attention and get an album out, says Burton, whose quintet plays Tuesday at Cinespace and Wednesday at the Troubadour. "But we always wanted to be a fan band and not a hype band."

Fast forward

Touts: Lightheaded, a Portland, Ore., hip-hop trio whose new album "Wrong Way" will be released Tuesday on L.A. imprint Tres Records, performs at the Little Temple on Friday night; the main men behind Tres, Giant Panda, are on the bill too.... Indie rockers Daphne Loves Derby sold out two shows Friday night at Anaheim's Chain Reaction; the Seattle quartet plays Sunday at the Knitting Factory.... Rising Phoenix hard-core outfit Greeley Estates plays at Chain Reaction on Saturday.... Kitschy synthpop outfit Nous Non Plus — formed from the ashes of Les Sans Culottes — play Friday night at El Cid (and Jan. 29 at Tangier).... Singer-songwriter Quincy Coleman plays the last of three January dates on Tuesday at the Hotel Café.

Shouts: To Editors, the British quartet that lived up to the hype as they swung through on their American debut.... To Daedelus, the Mae Shi and El Ten Eleven, who became blogger darlings by landing tracks on the first compilation released by web chatterboxes Music for Robots.... To Goldspot, whose song "Time Bomb" makes "The O.C." tonight.



Recommended downloads

Stream the song "On and On" and download "Pitfalls" from the album "Film School" at www.beggars.com/features/filmschool/player/.

Stream the song "Timeless" by Lightheaded at www.myspace.com/lightheaded.

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