Gutter Punk

Jesse Malin is the prototypical New Yorker. He looks the part -- disheveled, but downtown-hip. And he talks the part -- his rapid-fire speech is peppered with traces of a Noo Yawk accent. So why exactly did the singer-songwriter and former D Generation frontman go to Los Angeles to make his third solo album, Glitter in the Gutter? “I lost my apartment,” he says. “The label was in L.A., the producer was in L.A., and the musicians were in L.A. I thought it was a message to do it. But once I got there, it was very lonely and isolating.”

Still, the sound remains categorically N.Y.C. As its title implies, Glitter in the Gutter mixes sassy punk with musings on life and other big issues -- something Malin picked up from pal Ryan Adams, who guests on the album. “I wanted to make a tighter, tougher power-pop record,” he says. “I didn’t want another cry-in-your-beer, self-exploration record like my other two.” The album’s biggest score, however, is “Broken Radio,” which features Bruce Springsteen. Malin met the Boss a few years ago, when both performed at an Asbury Park benefit show. “He said, ‘If there’s a place for me on your new record, I’d like to do something,’” recalls Malin. “It’s a song about liberation and salvation in music. That’s Bruce.”
Sun., July 15, 9 p.m.