The L.A. band the Rambles is barely known even within the city's club scene, but the group just got a whole lot more interesting to a lot more people. In fact, Yahoo! searches on the band's name, in combination with the name of singer/guitarist Isaiah Silva, surged 543% over the weekend.
There's a reason for that: Word has gotten out that Silva is apparently engaged to Frances Bean Cobain — the most obsessed-about daughter of rock royalty since Lisa Marie Presley.
But while Lisa Marie married a singer arguably as legendary as her pa when she wed Michael Jackson, the 19-year-old daughter of Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love has hooked up with a musician whose band has only a few thousand YouTube views to its name.
That could change, as the reported betrothal thrusts Silva, 26, much more into the spotlight — not least of all because of a much remarked-upon resemblance to Kurt Cobain, at least from a certain floppy-banged angle.
The engagement hasn't been officially announced or confirmed by the couple, who've been photographed together at least as far back as the Coachella Festival of April 2010.
But the OC Weekly gleaned the information from the couple's own loose lips, as found on their respective social-media accounts. (At least, the newspaper is pretty sure that the Facebook pseudonym "Frances Rachel Leigh Cook" belongs to Cobain, and the intimate photos posted on that account's page seemed to prove it. Likewise for "Isaiah David Berkowitz-Cusack," believed to be Silva's account. Neither nom de plume shows up in Facebook search results now, though.) Celebrity weeklies People and In Touch Weekly both chimed in with anonymous sources confirming the engagement.
"Getting to spend the rest of my life loving my best friend makes me the luckiest woman in the world," the Facebooker believed to be Frances Bean posted back in September.
This month, Silva (or "Berkowitz-Cusack,") was more explicit, referring to his "fiance." When a commenter called the rocker "dreamy," he responded, "Haha I do what I can. And by do what I can, I mean not shower and steal cloths (sic) from my fiance and the good will."
Silva won't have to steal from Good Will collection boxes indefinitely, if a wedding comes to pass. Frances Bean inherited a multi-million-dollar trust when she turned 18 last year. Just this month, real estate columnists revealed that she'd spent $1,825,000 buying a home in L.A.'s Runyon Canyon designed in 1930 by architect Carls Jules Weyl.Naturally, the words "love nest" were not far behind, now that In Touch claims Silva has moved into the vintage house with Cobain.
The falling bangs — and Silva's penchant for changing his hair color to purple and back — have had Nirvana fans rumbling and grumbling about whether Frances Bean gravitated toward a look-alike of her dad, who committed suicide when she was 20 months old. (Yes, that's a factoid guaranteed to make even young people feel old.)
There's certainly not much musical resemblance. The Rambles' YouTube videos and MySpace sound recordings suggest a band that's in touch with its power-pop roots or folk-rock leanings but hasn't spent an inordinate amount of time absorbing the lessons of Nevermind.
Check out their most recently released video, for the song "I Just Wanna Sleep With You." No one will mistake it for a homage to "Smells Like Teen Spirit." If anything, it harks back to the earliest, goofiest MTV videos of the '80s, with the trio dressed in caveman costumes and interacting with a claymation dinosaur as well as some comely cavegirls. It's more Tommy Tutone than Incesticide. And let's hope that "I don't really want to fall in love, 'cause I just want to sleep with you" chorus isn't anything personal:
Meanwhile, don't be surprised if you see the Rambles show up eventually on The Late Show. The Rambles' MySpace page lists their label as C.E. Music, an imprint started up by Worldwide Pants, David Letterman's production company.
The unpretentiousness of the Rambles' sound extends to their genre self-description on their Facebook page: "party rock." They also list humble Placentia, California as their hometown, and, as "influences," such decidedly not-ready-for-Sub-Pop groups as Counting Crows and Phantom Planet. A status update on their page this week noted that Silva was "gonna be Scott Bakula again for Halloween."
What does Frances Bean's notoriously persnickety and indie-conscious mom think of her daughter's choice? It's anyone's guess. Courtney Love has been uncharacteristically reticent on the subject on her Twitter account — in stark contrast to last year, when Love was addressing dozens of anguished tweets to her estranged daughter. As you may remember, not only was Frances Bean not talking to her mother following her emancipation, but a restraining order was in place.
On Saturday, Love did extol Frances Bean in a tweet addressed to... Oprah. Answering a Twitter query Winfrey had thrown out asking "What would you like to frame as 'beautiful' in your life?," Courtney answered, "My incredibly gorgeous, talented, brilliant n impelling (sic) daughter, god how I love you so much Bean."
In August, a series of grungy/glam photo shoots Frances Bean did were publicly revealed, with the rock scion showing off her tattoos and letting a cigarette dangle out of her deeply painted lips in luscious black-and-white images.
Reached for comment at the time by the New York Observer, Love said, "I didn't know she had that many tattoos! We don't talk but we email, so I didn't know about the new ones she'd gotten. When she first got that Jeff Buckley thing" — Frances Bean has Grace lyrics tattooed on her forearm — "I was, like, she knows I went out on a date with him, right?... And I didn't know about the smoking — wonder where she gets that from!"
Unless a lot has changed since August, it seems unlikely that Courtney has been offered a chance to meet her possible future son-in-law. But if Frances Bean can work up whatever it would take to introduce her new guy to Mom, this is a feel-good remake of the J.Lo/Jane Fonda vehicle Monster-in-Law just waiting to happen.
Death Cab For Cutie
My Morning Jacket
Kate Bush
Dave Matthews Band
Primal Scream
The Vaccines
David Byrne
Flogging Molly
But she had also already met another man. Christina was seeing Matt Rutler, whom she met on the set of "Burlesque," her first movie. "I could depend on him for everything," she said about the 25-year-old musician and production assistant. "Matt was working on the movie, and he was so supportive. And he still is."
A week later, Christina stumbled on stage at the Grammys during the Aretha Franklin tribute. "Note to self: Never wear a train onstage," she said. "My heel got caught in my train, and if it wasn't for Jennifer Hudson, who picked me up as I went down, I would have fallen to the floor."
Christina is living proof of such sound advice. Perseverance is absolutely key in the success stories of this week's other newsmakers. People laughed at Lady Gaga last year when she showed up at MTV's Video Music Awards in a dress made of meat. But the edible couture has found a home at the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. Gaga "Edge Of Glory" collaborator and Bruce Springsteen saxophonist Clarence Clemons died Saturday from complications from a stroke. Congratulations are in order for Stevie Wonder, who was inducted into the Apollo's Hall Of Fame. And Justin Timberlake finally admitted what many of his music fans have been dreading. He has no immediate plans to record music. He is focusing on his acting. This feels like good news for Joe Jonas, who is embarking on a pop-dance solo career, and horrible news for Justin's N'SYNC bandmates, who may have been hoping for a reunion similar to that of New Kids On The Block and the Backstreet Boys.