Sparks

THE BEVERLY CENTER IN LOS ANGELES is a mod-a-go-go kind of shopping mall, acres of parking, chock full of stores devoted to video equipment, "intelligent toys" and expensive shoes, and restaurants that aspire to French café ambience and New York chic. On the top floor is a dining area with various booths featuring sanitized American versions of various ethnic foods, and it is here the brothers Ron and Russell Mael, the mainstays of modern stone-age pop band Sparks, want to conduct their first interview before the release of their twelfth album, Sparks in Outer Space.