Buzz Bands, as the spiffy graphic would imply, is moving. It's now part of SOUNDBOARD, The Times' new group music blog that will feature a lot of people writing about a lot of things, some of them even bands that buzz. To the folks around Los Angeles (and occasionally elsewhere) who followed along with my scribblings the past 15 months, thank you.
Name yourself after rehab -- they said no, no, no ...
That's what Hazelden is finding. The L.A. rock quartet last week heard from a Minnesota-based law firm representing the prominent drug and alcohol treatment facility Hazelden. Would the band please change its name?
"I'm not sure what we're going to do yet," says front woman Mary Jane Snow, who says the band is named for Hedley Hazelden (1915-2001), a highly decorated World War II airman and test pilot [pictured above, with Hazelden]. Snow says her unsigned band can't afford legal representation. The foursome just released its initial EP.
Seems to me a lot of bands are having trouble with their names recently; it's obvious from the existence of RSI-inducing names like WFANFC and SSLYBY that all the good band names are taken. Afternoons -- the local outfit helmed by members of Irving -- might be looking for a new moniker because of the almost-forgotten Welsh band from a couple decades ago called the Afternoons. The L.A. band Muso recently renamed itslef Les Blanks because of trademark issues. And the Switch switched to Le Switch last year after finding that Switches were a dime a dozen.
We'll see about Hazelden -- for now, Snow says, her band is preparing for Sunday night's big show at the House of Blues Anaheim. The quartet is opening for the New York Dolls.
Other highlights for the weekend, March 7-9
Tonight:Delta Spirit, picking up steam on the strength of its great late-'07 release "Ode to Sunshine," headline the Troubadour, with the Virgins and Port O'Brien (nice album coming May 13) also on the bill. ... Youngsters the Jakes and Billy Boy on Poison head up a big bill at the Roxy. ... Division Day and the A-Sides are at Spaceland. ... Cool Kiwis Die! Die! Die! play the Echo. ... Why? and Yacht play at the Natural History Museum's First Fridays shindig. ... And Rademacher is squeezing into Pehrspace.
Saturday night:Liam Finn and the Heavenly States play at Spaceland, though Pela has had to drop off the bill because of a hand injury sustained by its guitarist. ... The Dodos play the Silverlake Lounge (it's a 4:30 p.m. early show). ... Whispertown 2000 plays El Cid, while LoveLikeFire comes back into town for a show at Bordello that includes Light FM. ... And there's a cool Air Don't Sleep show at Crash Mansion.
The Little Ones gained a little one in January -- and the Los Angeles quintet lost their record deals in the EMI corporate reorganization. "It was the highest of the highs and the lowest of the lows," says singer-guitarist Ed Reyes, who with wife Jenny became parents of a son, Nolan, on Jan. 31. Only a week earlier, the band was told it was being let go from its contracts with EMI imprints Heavenly (in the U.K.) and Astralwerks (in the U.S.).
They're regrouping. Later today, the band will announce a nationwide tour beginning in April with Syracuse, N.Y., sextet Ra Ra Riot -- a jaunt that will coincide with the debut of a new, self-released EP titled "Terry Tales & Fallen Gates."
"It's full circle for us -- we're back to where we were in April 2006 with 'Sing Song,'" Reyes says, referring to the debut EP that helped put the band's upbeat pop on the map.
"Whenever you're rejected by anything in life, it hurts. I'd be lying if I said we weren't disappointed. But it's a new day -- like anything, you have to roll with the punches," Reyes says. "The funny thing is, it never even felt to us like we were signed to a major [label], since both Heavenly and Astralwerks feel like indies."
As part of the separation, the Little Ones were given back the masters for their completed album, "Morning Tide," which originally was due to be released in April. The six songs on the new EP were recorded during the "Morning Tide" sessions but were not slated to be on the album. The band hopes to release it straight to iTunes, with physical copies available at shows.
||| Live: The Little Ones play a headlining date at the Troubadour on May 15, and are at the Glass House the next night with Ra Ra Riot.
||| Download: The intended first single from "Morning Tide," "Ordinary Song," as well as a remix of that song, at the band's MySpace site.
Local miscellany: The cinematic quality to Dengue Fever's sound makes it a natural for music videos. Here's the latest from the band's third album, "Venus on Earth." The track is titled "Seeing Hands":
Elsewhere: That sold-out Hot Chip show that was postponed Feb. 4 (at the El Rey) has been rescheduled for April 28 -- and it's at the Mayan. No on-sale date has been announced for the additional tickets yet; tickets for the original show will be honored... Locally famous folkies and Jenny Lewis collaborators the Watson Twins are now aligned with Vanguard Records and have a debut album, "Fire Songs," coming June 24. ... Midnight Movies are back with a new EP, "Nights," out digitally on Tuesday (check out "Should Have Known" on MySpace.
Highlights for tonight, March 6
Local dream-rock quintet Twilight Sleep celebrates the release of its new EP, "Race to the Bottom of the Sea," with a show tonight at the Echo that also features Karin Tatoyan and Restaurant. ... Brooklyn psych-rock quartet My Best Fiend, whose album of tuneful neuroses reminds you of stuff like Pink Floyd and Clinic, plays the first of a two-night stand in L.A. at the Viper Room. (The band is at the Echo on Friday.) Also teeing it up on the good Viper Room bill tonight: Gran Ronde, Reeve Carney and the Daylights. ... Big goings-on at the Forum, where the Foo Fighters and Against Me! perform. ... The Junior Boys are doing a DJ set at Spaceland, where Troy This is playing. ... The Start kicks off a residency at Crash Mansion. ... And local quartet the Hanks mark the release of their sophomore album, "Distance," with a show at the Knitting Factory.
Liela Moss can talk the talk. Now her band, the Duke Spirit, has "The Step and the Walk," and the sky might be the limit.
That single, off the British quintet's new album "Neptune," capped a set that made you forget its occasional soft spots on Wednesday night at the Echo, which was more crowded than NME's thesaurus of platitudes. The shoulder-to-shoulder masses witnessed a band that's about one tick short of a 12 o'clock high, as Moss and bandmates dealt lean, foreboding garage rock that harks back to the '80s and '90s Britpop heydays.
It all hinges on Moss, the singer who's as much icy hot as hot-and-bothered. Her pipes have drawn comparison to Patti Smith and Nico and PJ Harvey; maybe there's some more-gutteral Chrissie Hynde in there too, in the phrasing; and somebody in the throng even suggested Christina Amphlett of Divinyls, which ... might not be too far off. Whatever. Moss delivers, even if you feel at times she's trapped between offering herself directly to the crowd and maintaining her veneer of detached cool.
There's a weather-beaten intelligence in Duke Spirit songs such as "Send a Little Love Token," "Into the Fold" and "Cuts Across the Land" (the latter from their 2006 debut) that lesser bands might suffocate in histrionics. On Wednesday, nobody was gasping for air, except maybe the bartenders.
||| Live: The Duke Spirit return to L.A. for a May 13 show at the Troubadour.
The guys in Rooney lost more than a videographer when Brandon Schantz died in December. They lost a friend, whose sensibility and skills helped the L.A.-based quintet's music shine on screen.
Schantz, who died at age 27 from a rare form of lymphoma, will be saluted at the Roxy on Thursday night, when Rooney is joined by Brett Dennen, Lisa Donnelly and others for a benefit performance. Proceeds from the evening will go toward establishing the Brandon Schantz Memorial Endowment in Broadcast Journalism at the University of Texas.
"Brendan was an incredible friend and a very talented producer," says Rooney's manager, Kevin Dobski. "He also had a passion for live music."
Schantz worked on the band's videos for the songs "I Should Have Been After You" and "Are You Afraid," as well as a behind-the-scenes promotional video. "Brandon and I shared office space, after he started doing some things for the band the guys really liked the way they turned out and just kind of took to him," Dobski says. "Even after he was diagnosed [in March 2007] and had surgery to remove a tumor [in October], he kept coming to work."
The show begins at 7 p.m., and tickets are $25.
Photo by Autumn DeWilde
Highlights for Wednesday, March 5
The Duke Spirit, with a possible breakthrough album "Neptune" coming
out in the U.S. on April 8, plays the Echo tonight. ... Howlin Rain, joined
by the Moon Upstairs, performs at Spaceland. ... The Autumns show off
their new material at the Knitting Factory. ... And a great bill at the
Silverlake Lounge includes Hello Dragon, the Black Kites and the Hard
to Get (celebrating the release of "This Is the New Business Plan").
The Police, with Elvis Costello and the Imposters, have added a second show at the Hollywood Bowl. With the bill's May 27 date sold out, the added show will go off on May 28. Tickets ($304.50, $154.50, $99.50 and $54.50) go on sale at 10 a.m. Sunday.
It'll make for a busy week for veteran rock acts at the Bowl -- the Police/Costello on Tuesday and Wednesday, R.E.M. (which does not appear on th Bowl's calendar but is listed on the band's tour itinerary) on Thursday, May 29, and the Cure on Saturday, May 31.
Earlimart's announcement this morning on its MySpace website couldn't have come as more of a surprise -- the band has a new album finished and slated for release on July 1.
"It's done, in the can and delivered," front man Aaron Espinoza says of "Hymn & Her," which will be released on Majordomo (an imprint of Shout! Factory) less than a year after the group's first album for that imprint, last August's "Mentor Tormentor." "We just want to be relentless, keep making stuff."
"Mentor Tormentor" was more than two years in the making, but after touring behind that record Espinoza got together with principal collaborator Ariana Murray. "I told her, 'It's just you and me, we're going to get an engineer, reserve the studio and record 10 songs.' ... We didn't want to do the whole wait-three-years-to-make-another-record thing," he says.
The engineer was versatile multi-instrumentalist Andrew Lynch, who also plays keyboards and brass on the album, the band's sixth. "He's a talented dude," Espinoza says. "We're lucky to have him."
No new songs posted yet, but I'll let you know.
Photo of Earlimart's Aaron Espinoza and Ariana Murray by Darrin Noble
◊ ◊ ◊
Another local note: Silversun Pickups debuted their new, Joaquin Phoenix-directed video for "Little Lover's So Polite" on MTV2. You can check it out here.Update: Here it is:
[Apologies for the protracted silence, folks. Been away on a family matter, complicated by a run-in with Mother Nature, but thankfully people like Classical Geek Theatre can clue me in on what I missed. I now attempt to lurch back into action:]
An injury sustained by singer Alice Glass has forced the postponement of eight show by Crystal Castles, including Sunday's gig at the Roxy. The Toronto disco-noise duo hope to be back in time for their gigs at the South by Southwest Music Festival in Austin starting March 14. Glass suffered two cracked ribs in an auto accident, Pitchfork reported.
The Roxy will be silent on Sunday night. It was initially reported in Crystal Castles' press release that local noise specialists Health, their tourmates, would play as scheduled, but a spokesperson for the venue said the show will be postponed entirely and rescheduled later, possibly in June.
Highlights for Tuesday, March 4
Had I not been otherwise occupied, I would have found time to sing the praises of the new album, titled "Get Awkward," by Be Your Own Pet. Punky and delicious, I say. And the Nashville quartet is opening for the Raveonettes tonight at the El Rey. ... The Mountain Goats kick off a two-night stand at the Troubadour. ... Jim Bianco's release party for the very good "Sing" is tonight at the Hotel Cafe -- and as a bonus, Nyles Lannon, Daniel Ahearn and Everest (acoustic) are also playing. ... Working for a Nuclear Free City rocks Cinespace. ... And the Vacation are on the bill at the Silverlake Lounge.
Photo of Crystal Castles by Stuart Pillinger
About the Blogger
Kevin Bronson Kevin Bronson has covered emerging and indie music since 2002 in his weekly Buzz Bands column in the Calendar Weekend section of the L.A. Times. He adores caffeine, judicious use of falsetto and the 6-4-3 double play. He abhors exclamation points, modern country and any notion that New York City is the center of the cultural universe. He's older than any music blogger he knows but has been known to pogo. He'll try not to pretend.
Bronson's Buzz Bands show can be heard Wednesdays from 6 to 8 p.m. Pacific time on the Internet radio station LittleRadio.com.
Recent Comments