News bits: Afternoons, Vivian Girls, Holychild, bands changing names and more

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File under Things That Have Piled Up in My Notebook:

‣ Tonight’s “comeback” show by Afternoons at the Satellite is something of a curiosity.

The L.A. sextet of Aaron Burrows, Brent Turner, Brian Canning, Claire McKeown, Sam Johnson and Steven Scott – down one member from when they posed for photographer Sterling Andrews’ whimsical “Gooseberries” project [above] – was doing exuberant, choral, orchestrated indie-pop long before your flaccid current radio favorites. They packed residencies, played Goldenvoice’s short-lived Detour Festival (2008) in downtown L.A., did a special gig at SXSW and enjoyed support from groundbreaking FM outlet Indie 103.1, especially for the single “Say Yes” (which inspired Shepard Fairey to create a poster).

Afternoons got a well-respected manager, who advised them to change their name (they became Shadow Shadow Shade) and recalibrate musically. By the time they released an album as Shadow Shadow Shade in the fall of 2010, the old spark was not quite there, and some of the early Afternoons songs had been shelved. Now? Canning explains: “We all missed each other, we all missed playing music together and we all missed the songs that we abandoned, so we are going back to all the songs we loved and going by our original name.” They have been in the studio with Earlimart’s Aaron Espinoza and a release is forthcoming on the L.A. label Eenie Meenie.

‣ Chirpy indie-pop duo Holychild have signed to Glassnote Records (Phoenix, Mumford & Sons, Two Door Cinema Club, Robert DeLong, among others); an EP is on the way March 4.

‣ NYC trio Vivian Girls, a lo-fi flavor of the month that somehow lasted for three full-length three albums, have announced they are splitting up. Their L.A. farewell show is Feb. 14 at the Church on York.

Name Game: Raheem Cohen have changed their name to Decorator. … The duo We Are/She Is has acronym’d is name; WASI will be doing a Wednesday residency at the Silverlake Lounge. … Psych-rock quartet the Hallucinations are now going by No Silver Bird. … First he was Maxim Ludwig and the Santa Fe Seven, then fronted Drive He Said for a fine EP, and now he’s back to Maxim Ludwig.

‣ And that cool album by Youth Code, out of print for a while, has been re-pressed and re-issued by Dais Records.