BUZZ BANDS

The Bangkok Five give love back to MySpace, and please be gentle with the Boy Least Likely To.

Bangkok Five has plenty of friends

There have been mountains of media coverage given to the influence of social-networking sites such as MySpace.com — but the L.A. band the Bangkok Five has managed to start a career out of it. The band not only booked a recent tour of unusual locations like field parties and VFW halls via its MySpace friends, but also name-checks the site on the title track of its major-label debut, "Who's Gonna Take Us Alive?" It's a reflection, says guitarist Holcomb Ks., of an ongoing social trend.

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"There's a culture — a subculture — going on with the way people are relating, and the way relationships are happening," he says. "It's so transitory, and with MySpace it becomes so ego-driven and so celebrity-driven." It's the fodder, he says, for songs about a new kind of sexual revolution. "We're dealing with this war, we're dealing with all this economic tension, we're dealing with the issues of our natural resources. And yet, underneath all that there's this sexual frenzy and tension going on. When you live in a place like Los Angeles or New York, it's ground zero for it."

The band performs Monday at the Viper Room.

They're rockers, really they are

Among the tattooed, leather-clad and angular-coiffed rockers at the recent South by Southwest Music festival, the two chief members of the British group the Boy Least Likely To couldn't look more out of place. Pete Hobbs and Jof Owen, clad unsuspectingly in T-shirts and jeans, merely beam distinct happy-to-be-here smiles.

And no wonder. One of them used to take complaints about garden hoses to make a living, and the duo recorded its first single as a joke. "We just wanted to have a 7-inch and put it in the racks. That was it," Hobbs says. But "it sold out and people wanted another one. So we did another one."

The band's debut album, "The Best Party Ever," is a slightly twee, optimistic record — using mostly toy instruments — about breakups and far-away towns, charming with its melodies and rattling with unusual noises.

"We wanted to avoid rock clichés and rock traditions, so anytime we had a sound that sounded like we'd heard it before, we'd try to make it different," Hobbs says.

The duo — abetted by five friends on an odd assortment of instruments — visits Spaceland on Saturday. The tour also includes opening gigs for British hit-maker James Blunt, a pairing that'll bring wider exposure to their relatively odd music. Not that the Boy Least Likely To is looking any further ahead than their next tour date. Says Hobbs: "Right now, I just see Boston in front of me."

Fast forward

Ambient noisemeisters Tristeza, in support of their latest release "A Colores," play Spaceland on Friday, the same night that Nobody & Mystic Chords of Memory play the Echo. The latter act, a collaboration between DJ Nobody (Elvin Estela), Christopher Gunst (Beachwood Sparks) and Jen Cohen (the Aislers Set), is releasing an album, "Tree Colored See," later this month.... Army Navy has stepped in to take over this month's Monday residency at Spaceland after Bedroom Walls (who in May release their sophomore album "All Good Dreamers Pass This Way") backed out, thinking the harder-rocking bands with whom they were billed were simply not a good fit for their orchestral pop.... One of L.A.'s originals — the Last — is re-forming for a 30th anniversary show. The brothers Nolte (Joe and Mike) will be joined by Vitus Matare, John Frank, John Rosewall and Steve Andrews for the gig, Saturday at Mr. T's Bowl in Highland Park.



Recommended downloads

Hear the Bangkok Five's "Who's Gonna Take Us Alive?" at www.myspace.com/thebangkokfivemusic

Hear the Boy Least Likely To's "Be Gentle With Me" at www.myspace.com/theboyleastlikelytouk

Download Tristeza's "Stumble on Air" at www.betterlookingrecords.com

Hear Army Navy's "Snakes of Hawaii" at www.myspace.com/armynavy