Short and sweet

By Steve Appleford

Nov. 17, 2004 12 AM PT

Special to The Times

“I wait for Christmas, I don’t wait to rock!”

Singer-guitarist Jesse Hughes of the Eagles of Death Metal stood anxiously offstage at the Avalon Hollywood on Monday, waiting for his band’s grand entrance at this year’s concert for the Shortlist Music Prize. Hughes was on a mission to rock.

But rock was just one flavor at the combined concert and award announcement, which also included short sets by finalists Dizzee Rascal, Nellie McKay and TV on the Radio, the Brooklyn band that took home this year’s award for its debut album, “Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes.”

It was the Brooklyn band’s free-form alt-rock blend that closed the night, with a dynamic, layered wall of sound, sometimes rocked up or brooding, soulful or aggressive. Singer Tunde Adebimpe was often caught up in the emotion of the moment, wailing or just whistling, tapping a wide range of influences (rock, jazz, soul, etc.) while pushing ever forward.

TV on the Radio is just the kind of band meant to be recognized by the Shortlist, now in its fourth year of honoring non-mainstream music. Other nominees this year -- picked by a panel of 20 peers, including Norah Jones and Jack Black -- included such critical favorites as Wilco, Air and Loretta Lynn. The concert was taped for future broadcast on MTV2.

Among the highlights at the Avalon was Londoner Dizzee Rascal, who was comfortable in that company.

“It shows music’s diversity in the bigger picture,” Rascal said backstage between sets. “It’s good to see how genres bounce off each other.”

The young hip-hop artist, already the winner of England’s coveted Mercury Music Prize, was nominated for his debut album, “Boy in Da Corner.” On stage, Rascal was confident enough to begin his set sitting down before erupting with rapid-fire Cockney patois, even if it was hard to build his usual live momentum in such a short set.

Nominees the Eagles of Death Metal performed only four songs, but shook the room with a sound and message both serious and ridiculous, an onslaught of ecstatic noise from the band’s two guitars and two drum kits.

Opening the night was young singer-songwriter Nellie McKay, sitting behind an electric piano in a pink dress and with big platinum hair. She sang of the strange and the everyday, with references to President Bush and Dr. Phil and Ethel Merman. Seemingly scattered and overloaded with irrelevant and amusing detail, she was like a young Tom Waits, but with a jazz siren’s girlish purr: “I like my coffee black / Hey look, we’re bombing Iraq.”

When she briefly stumbled during her song “Clones,” trying to remember the next part, she joked, “Oh, that’s why I never win anything.”