Tuesday, April 1, finds the music gods (or is it prank-happy concert promoters?) pulling an Ashton Kutcher and punking the L.A. music scene by booking two dynamic duos, Digitalism and the Black Keys, on the same night. At first glance, the two acts might seem too disparate to compare. But in this post-Coachella world of panoramic playlists—and given L.A.’s deluge of obsessive music nerds—the double booking could present something of a problem. Here’s a head-to-head primer to keep you from making a 'foolish' choice.

THE BLACK KEYS

Hometown: Akron, Ohio

Sounds like: Psychedelic blues-rock. Think of a mid-fi White Stripes, minus the Zeppelin fixation.

Looks like: The cool Midwestern dudes hanging out in the back of the Short Stop with Greg Dulli and getting shamelessly hit on by the cutest girls in the joint.

Big songs: “Set You Free,” from their 2003 album “Thickfreakness,” rocks like the Allman Brothers on crystal meth. But it’s “10 a.m. Automatic,” from 2004 release “Rubber Factory,” that never fails to get bodies moving with its stoned, ’70s Foghat vibe.

Cool points: Currently sky-high, as production mastermind Danger Mouse twiddled knobs on their new album, “Attack and Release,” scheduled to drop (surprise!) April 1. Songs such as “Psychotic Girl” find the mighty Mouse’s touch as golden as ever, flipping a banjo melody and swing beat into a dark, ominous blast of new-millennium blues. The raucous “Strange Times” rides a quirky chorus straight from the Gnarls Barkley songbook. Altogether, “Attack and Release” has the potential to elevate the Black Keys to an even higher state of public consciousness.

Who’ll be there? There’s something about raw, visceral, blues-soaked rock that brings out hotties of all ages. Expect lots of sexy mod and hippie chicks next to long-haired beardos in dirty jeans and plaid shirts. Shows like this one should provide birth control at the door.

X-factor: A lot of “Attack and Release” came out of sessions the band recorded with the late Ike Turner on his comeback album, which was being produced by Danger Mouse. “I wanted to do something contemporary with [Ike] for a long time, but I didn’t want to do a hip-hop record,” DM told Harp magazine recently. “I almost knew they [the Black Keys] would say yes—they had to! So we started doing some stuff with that, but another record started to happen. It started to veer more towards something with them.”

DIGITALISM

Hometown: Hamburg, Germany

Sounds like: Bleepy, big-beat dance tracks with rock guitar samples and stream-of-consciousness lyricism. Imagine an electro Underworld without the art-school pretensions.

Looks like: The cool European clubbers hanging out in the back of Cinespace with DJ Dan Oh and getting shamelessly hit on by the cutest girls in the joint.

Big songs: While these relative newbies first lit up the global dance floor with singles like “Zdarlight” and “Jupiter Room,” it’s the pulsating nightlife anthem “Pogo” (from their debut album, “Idealism”) that scores as their premier party-starting track.

Cool points: Lots, as Digitalism spent most of 2007 locked in heated battle with Justice for the title of hottest dance act of the year. While the French cross-bearers elicited more hype and hyperbole, the Germans scored as the choice for more discriminating dance fans. Plus, they get bonus points for the melodic “Apollo,” which plays like Steely Dan covering Kraftwerk.

Who’ll be there? The electro buzz and after-hours vibe pretty much guarantees that this gig will glow like a year’s worth of American Apparel ads and/or Shadowscene photos come to life. Young, sexy and high, the party people at this show will be all about gratuitous dancing and looking good doing it.

X-factor: Digitalism has long been blowing up the blogosphere with rock-hard remixes, most famously a rework of the Cure’s classic nugget “Fire in Cairo,” an updated version of which shows up as “Digitalism in Cairo” on their debut album. “We were listening to the Cure’s ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ LP again, [and] rediscovered ‘Fire in Cairo,’” they told Home, a Depeche Mode fansite. “To make it playable for us during DJ sets, we sampled it and built some music around it. It turned out to be quite huge and fun…[The Cure] were OK with it and cleared it, so this is how it landed on our album.”

Scott T. Sterling is Music editor for Metromix Los Angeles.

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