Juliette Commagere

Late last year, Joachim Cooder began feeling that life as a sideman wasn't enough. Cooder is the son of one of the most lauded names in L.A. rock - singer-guitarist Ry Cooder. For years he played drums for his father, Mavis Staples,Dr. John and the Cuban collective Buena Vista Social Club while composing for indie films like "Lars and the Real Girl. " His life was the archetype of a successful behind-the-scenes musical mercenary . But late last year during a hobbyist's stint as an apprentice chef at the downtown L.A. pop-up restaurant Le Comptoir, he began to suspect that new challenges might be good for him musically as well.

Late last year, Joachim Cooder began feeling that life as a sideman wasn't enough. Cooder is the son of one of the most lauded names in L.A. rock - singer-guitarist Ry Cooder. For years he played drums for his father, Mavis Staples,Dr. John and the Cuban collective Buena Vista Social Club while composing for indie films like "Lars and the Real Girl. " His life was the archetype of a successful behind-the-scenes musical mercenary . But late last year during a hobbyist's stint as an apprentice chef at the downtown L.A. pop-up restaurant Le Comptoir, he began to suspect that new challenges might be good for him musically as well.

Juliette Commagere's voice ranges from dusky to sharply silver, slicing through the intimate, sometimes alien orchestration of her debut solo record, "Queens Die Proudly," released late last year. An art-pop suite of 13 songs, the album was written over the course of a year as a way to fight off depression. Her energetic indie-rock outfit, Hello Stranger, formed with high school sweetheart Joachim Cooder on drums, wasn't gaining momentum -- despite Commagere's inspired keytar rips -- and the L.

Juliette Commagere's voice ranges from dusky to sharply silver, slicing through the intimate, sometimes alien orchestration of her debut solo record, "Queens Die Proudly," released late last year. An art-pop suite of 13 songs, the album was written over the course of a year as a way to fight off depression. Her energetic indie-rock outfit, Hello Stranger, formed with high school sweetheart Joachim Cooder on drums, wasn't gaining momentum -- despite Commagere's inspired keytar rips -- and the L.

Ry Cooder "My Name Is Buddy" (Nonesuch/Perro Verde) * * 1/2 Ry Cooder has played with some pretty cool cats. But the coolest may have been a singular tabby -- Buddy Red Cat (?-2005, per the liner notes). Here, Cooder imagines the frisky feline in a delightful tale of hoboing across a composite bygone America. Along with pal Lefty Mouse, he takes part in union organizing, encounters J. Edgar Hoover (an indiscriminately voracious pig), the Rev.

So serene and meticulous is the indie folk on Robert Francis' debut album, "One by One," that it's hard to picture the clutter in which it was birthed. "I kind of took over my dad's workroom, and he's a bit eccentric," Francis (pictured) says of the space in his family's Brentwood home that holds 30,000 vinyl records and stacks of sundry magazines belonging to his father, Robert Commagere, a pianist-composer. "There's no space to walk, but there is a lot to draw inspiration from."

COMEDY Cartoon Dump A twisted parody of old-school kiddie programs, this monthly comedy show finds costumed misfits such as Moodsy the Clinically Depressed Owl and Compost Brite digging up and presenting admittedly shoddy vintage toons. Each show also features a special guest. Steve Allen Theater, 4773 Hollywood Blvd., L.A. 8 p.m. $10. (323) 666-4268. http://www.steveallentheater.com. Swanktown Live Actor, singer and ivory tickler Geoffrey Leigh Tozer celebrates the second anniversary of his award-winning SiriusXM radio show "Sly Crooner of SwankTown" with an hour of humorous stories and songs drawn from his impressive repertoire.

In two tenures as a nightclub owner, Sam Lanni has been at the center of a lot of things -- counterculture, controversy, maybe even contretemps. On a recent Tuesday night, Lanni, 51, stood in the middle of a throng of youthful scenesters on the patio of his Safari Sam's, a 4-month-old restaurant-nightclub precariously situated at the midpoint between two Los Angeles worlds, Hollywood and Silver Lake, and somewhere between harsh financial reality and its namesake's dreams.

The instant Whitestarr swarms the Viper Room stage, it's a party. Girls are crushed up against the stage; lots of drinks are going down. Maybe it's just that they're playing up every classic rock stereotype to the point where you don't know if this is serious or a genius parody. Maybe it's just the way frontman Cisco Adler comes on for the group's Tuesday night "Rock Show" residency like Jim Dandy to the rescue in his low-cut flares, long curly hair, whippet-like torso and dirty little mustache.

It's one of those grim afternoons when the whole of L.A. seems to have simply up and vanished; disappeared behind a dirty, gray scrim of smog and haze. You could have sworn you saw it just a moment ago. So where did it all get to so fast? On days like this, Ry Cooder would just as soon tuck himself away anyway, conjure up something else to fit in the absence. His hideaway-cum-laboratory is an old relic of a studio -- Sound City -- slipped into a nondescript cul-de-sac in Panorama City.