Killola

A band’s gotta know how to promote itself these days, because no one else is going to do it for them. L.A.’s Killola is on MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter. They’ve got a blog, a YouTube channel, a nicely designed website, and they’ve appeared on or lent their music to online video series such as Lonelygirl15. They have buttons, T-shirts, a DVD, and two albums. Two of the band members host a pirate radio show. They network like crazy with other bands. They promise free admission to their shows for fans who are tattooed with the band’s logo. And when Killola self-released their second album, I Am the Messer, they released it on USB flash-drive wristbands as well as CD. Still not impressed with their ingenuity? How about this: There’s also a free downloadable version of the album that is sponsored by Skullcandy headphones. That means every track on the free version begins with one or more of the band members doing a brief commercial.

Why stop there, Killola? Why not put product placement into your songs, for a fee? Take your song “All of My Idols Are Dead,” and slip in a few kind words about, say, Dress Barn. But I digress.

Killola’s songs are really quite good. They’re somewhere between power pop, pop-punk, pop-metal, and new wave — like a mix of Cheap Trick, Blondie, and Fall Out Boy. Singer Lisa Rieffel has a girlish but strong voice that she doesn’t mind using to sound ridiculous when a song calls for it. Onstage, she’s a wild front woman, climbing the amps and play-attacking her bandmates. Good songs, good records, and an exciting live show: that used to be enough.

Girl in a Coma and Ms. Derringer also perform.

KILLOLA: The Casbah, Tuesday, July 21, 8:30 p.m. 619-232-4355. $8.