“He doesn’t pick up the phone for two decimal points above our budget,” said August Brown, L.A. Times culture and music writer, Moby’s doppelganger and, now, budding local rock star. Brown was speaking about John Pina, the director responsible for some of Kanye and Common’s most masterful on-screen opuses. But on this day in December, he could add himself to Pina’s client list. Turns out the two are friends. And after seeing Death Kit, the synth-infused band Brown fronts along with Terry Case and fellow Times scribe Jessica Gelt, play at Spaceland last December, Pina offered to make their very first video.
Last week, the video for the song “I Can Make You Love Me” was screened during a mini film fest at Pina’s loft. Friends with beer and hummus in hand gathered around the massive, blank, two-story wall that served as the silver screen. Selections included the latest viral video from Kesha, which was directed by Pina’s roommate, as well as a beautiful short commissioned by Vogue Italia, for which Pina directed and composed the score.
Brown watched from the kitchen as “I Can Make You Love Me” earned laughter and soft cheers from the crowd. While a couple of girls from Nylon, in town for the magazine’s 11th Anniversary party the night before, asked partygoers if they were wearing Lova, the brand worn in the video. The video’s starring character, a sad monster, got his mask courtesy of the Walt Disney wardrobe room.
And though Brown says that music has always been his master plan, he won’t be leaving journalism anytime soon.
“I love critical thinking and will pursue [journalism] ’till my dying day,” he said on the set of his shoot in December. “But making music…there’s a charge like nothing else.”
On May 23, Death Kit will play at El Cid as part of the Silver Lake Jubilee.
And yeah, I totally had a cameo in this thing.
Few can pull off irony with as much aplomb as L.A. band 
Just how much is Joan Jett worth? Apparently one thousand big ones, which was the going rate for non-VIPs to see the iconic rocker and her Blackhearts band shred the stage at Harry O’s in Park City last night. A curbside melee went down as hundreds of fans, passersby and scenesters stood in frigid temps just toplead their case for admission to bouncers. We heard bribes, lies, fakery and begging. One pleasant movie-exec even accousted a member of our own party after pinning her against the steel barricades in a rush to the front.
Here’s a cool find from our friends at local radio station KCRW (which happens to be the home of
It isn’t everyday that you meet a musician who looks like Britney but plays like Beethoven.
Kevin Bronson, a fellow L.A. Times refugee, has the beat on all things cool on the LA. music scene on his indie blog, 
We’re not so big on celebrity sightings here at Style Section L.A. Yes, celebrities “are just like us,” as a popular tabloid posits. But we’re not yearning to see daily photographic evidence of this.