No Bubblegum Punk

“Temecula Sunrise,” eh? Listeners to this gorgeous track on Bitte Orca, the acclaimed month-old fifth album from Brooklyn art-rock band Dirty Projectors — headlining at the Casbah tonight — may wonder what it’s all about.

First of all, what it’s not: anything to do with the song of the same name by Orange County bubblegum-punk act New Years Day, appearing on NYD’s 2007 debut My Dear. Sung by Ashley Costello, that “Temecula Sunrise” dates back to when composer/NYD bassist Adam Lohrbach sang it while fronting Home Grown, early pop-punk contemporaries of blink-182.

“I’m aware of their song now, yeah, but wasn’t when I wrote mine,” confirmed Dirty Projectors mastermind Dave Longstreth in Pennsylvania last month.

Amber Coffman, the former member of San Diego’s Sleeping People who moved to New York to play guitar and sing in Dirty Projectors, explained to the Seattle Times last week: “The song is kind of about those Southern California subdivisions… being abandoned and foreclosed, turning into these thriving, artsy, bohemian communities.… The idea is just a bunch of kids take over a house and paint it and do all these crazy things in the neighborhood.” A fantasy.

“I first became aware of Temecula, the town, when we were on tour in 2006 on the West Coast,” said Longstreth. “As we were going by Temecula, we could see all these hills full of housing. Gross.”