Pop & Hiss Exclusive: DJ Cam's 'Fall Forward Mix'

Times are changing for DJ Cam. The artist, who has recently relocated from Paris to Los Angeles, released his new record "Seven" on Oct. 24 via Inflammable/K7 Records. Add in the fall time change we're all adopting this Sunday at 2 a.m., and there's plenty of inspiration behind his latest "Fall Forward Mix."

Released exclusively to Pop & Hiss, the 15-track offering is a hand picked set of songs from his new album, as well as cobbling of exclusive remixes from friends and longtime collaborators like Massive Attack, Mount Kimbie and Julio Bashmore. 

The overall mood of the mix is an extension of the full-length "Seven" -- a wandering, atmospheric journey through smooth, beat-driven soundscapes with a few haunting jazz detours. The end result combines the contemplative candor of a headphone record with the nightlife pulse of the decadent, Parisian dance floor. It's a little hard to pin down. Kind of like the guy who made it.

Nilbog offers tribute to horror film scores at Cinefamily

As Halloween nears, the L.A. band gets set to perform the music from cult classics like ‘Deep Red’ and ‘Friday the 13th Part III.’

While vintage horror films are being dusted off for annual Halloween marathons, one band is combing through classic titles to solidify its set list.

The members of Nilbog love horror. But they appreciate the sinister, electro-rock orchestrations that anchor the slasher flicks even more. The Los Angeles-based, five-piece act covers the scores of horror, sci-fi and giallo films (an Italian genre of horror fiction such as Dario Argento’s “Sleepless”), and they are certain there’s no other outfit like them. With Halloween approaching, Nilbog is prepping a gig at the Cinefamily.

“It’s a challenge to replicate the music,” said bass player Bret Berg, also co-programmer for Cinefamily. “The music is really underrepresented in a live context. A lot of these pieces weren’t meant to be played live. I think we’re the first to do it.”

Berg said the band took its name from the film “Goblin” — Nilbog is “Goblin” backward — and inspiration from John Carpenter, Giorgio Moroder and Ennio Morricone. For Wednesday’s show it plans to tap into scores of cult classics, including “Deep Red,” “Escape From New York,” “Friday the 13th Part III,” and “Goodbye Uncle Tom,” which will screen after the performance.

Though the horror genre is booming, as torture porn directors continue to one-up one another with films like the “Saw” franchise, Berg said he wished the current crop of themes provided the same frightening thrills.

“[The newer composers] tend to be too reverential without exploring their own melodic ideas,” he said. “A lot of the music we celebrate is an intersection of progressive rock, jazz and electronic. Everybody in the band is a fan of the music and films, and it’s a fun intersection.”

Nilbog performs at the Cinefamily at 8 p.m. Wednesday. Tickets are $12, free for members.

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Photo: Nilbog Credit: Katie Falkenberg

Echo Park's Mono Records: Used vinyl sneaks onto Glendale Blvd.

Last week, Echo Park’s newest destination for used vinyl, Mono Records turned 1 month old. For any small storefront, it’s a tender age. But especially in the equally fragile record store business.

Driving by its location on the corner of Glendale Boulevard, just before the 2 Freeway onramp, don't blink or you might miss it. The shop owned and run by John Roller is about the size of a small family room, with most of the comforts of one. Bookended by warm lamp light and old record players (er, “listening stations”) homemade wooden shelves are stuffed with a catalogued trove of used jazz, punk, reggae, dub, psych rock, blues and various shards of aural odds and ends.

During the weekday hours of 3-8 p.m., you’ll likely find Roller, 27, behind the counter poring over a book, ordering inventory on his laptop or flipping the record of whatever is blaring in the shop from one side to the other. He sits on a stool in the last few minutes before he closes for the night.

Pop music review: FYF Festival works out the kinks

The daylong event shows a thriving punk spirit

 

This post has been updated. See below for details.

They were peppered throughout the 20,000-strong crowd at the exuberant FYF Festival in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday: first-generation punk band T-shirts worn by indie kids, twentysomethings and Gen X-ers alike. A chubby man wearing Minutemen; a pixie in a sleeveless Conflict jacket; the Big Boys on a sound guy; M.D.C/Stains shirt and knee-high black Doc Martens on a glum (and surprisingly young) skinhead. And of course many versions of the Black Flag bars. There was even a Slovenly shirt.

Most impressive were the couple who looked as if they'd just helicoptered in from Malibu: she in an elegant floor-length pattern skirt, perfect hair and nails, and a form-fitting Circle Jerks "Golden Shower of Hits" tee highlighting her Pilates physique; her man dressed casually sophisticated in a weathered Minor Threat shirt.

Punk rock long ago transcended class, age, gender and ethnicity to become a signifier not necessarily of outward rebellion but of the symbolic, crazy-on-the-inside variety. That sense of internal defiance continues to permeate the entire underground and has become a secret handshake that united not only the artists who made traditional-ish punk rock over the course of 10 hours of the FYF -- the Descendents, No Age, Off! among them -- but from a wildly divergent cast of in-yer-face artists including beat makers Nosaj Thing and Dan Deacon, the deeply sensual, self-referential house music of Portland's Chromatics and Glass Candy, and the catchy, arena-aspirant bands like Broken Social Scene.

"It's a punk rock festival. That means we're going to play ... in the wrong key," declared Guided by Voices singer Robert Pollard during his band's sturdy, hook-infused rock set featuring acrobatic kicks, monster choruses and a sexy girl delivering between-song lighted cigarettes to guitarist Mitch Mitchell.

Foster the People tackles Neil Young at Lollapalooza

Foster the People, L.A.'s fast-rising electro-pop act, hasn't been shy about its genre-hopping ambitions. Still, the the masses awaiting "Pumped Up Kicks" at Lollapalooza in Chicago this last weekend could be forgiven for being surprised when the band launched into Neil Young's "Heart of Gold."

Though the song has cropped up in Foster the People set lists in the past, the Lolla performance, which was broadcast on YouTube, gave the band perhaps its widest-audience yet. The video is embedded below, although Pop & Hiss has no guarantee it will stay on YouTube forever. 

Pop & Hiss wasn't in Chicago to cover Lollapalooza, but our friends at sister publication the Chicago Tribune took in the performance, and let's just say they weren't won over by the concert. The Trib said the band "wrecked" Young's classic, and wrote that Foster the People's take "disastrously" resembled Marcy Playground's "Sex and Candy." Ouch. 

Yet give frontman Mark Foster credit for taking chances. He's said that the model for his band is Brit-pop heroes Blur, and the Damon Albarn-fronted band never encountered a genre it wouldn't tackle. "There are no rules, and you can do what you want," Foster earlier told The Times of his approach. "That’s what I want this band to always be. My favorite artists have always done that. The Beatles did that. The Beach Boys did that. Bowie did that."

RX Bandits take a bow at final L.A. show at the Glass House

The Glasshouse in Pomona has long felt like a home base for the progressive ska sounds of the RX Bandits. Crowded in a thicket of floppy-haired, bearded twenty-somethings, the swelling chants of "RXB! RXB! RXB!" on Saturday night were loud enough to drown out the thought that this would in fact be the second to last show of the band's farewell tour, following 16 years, six studio albums and endless rounds of touring. This last L.A. County show came on the heels of a previous night at the Mayan Theater on Thursday.

Emerging from darkness and manning their respective battle stations with a hired horn section in toe, the sputtering drum line of "In Her Drawer" from their 2006 album "...And the Battle Begun" caused an irreversible seismic shift in the pit. Molten with excitement, testosterone and flailing dance moves, hordes of front row fans compressed into a cluster of whirling energy silhouetted by the glow of flashing stage lights. Off to the side, shards of brass from guest saxophonists added the kerosene, revitalizing the band's sound after the departure of saxophonist Steve Borth and trombonist Chris Sheets in recent years.

Following an introduction, the band delivered a comprehensive helping of its sound. Thick-bearded, guitar-wielding frontman Matt Embree kept a plastered grin on his face, standing alongside guitarist Steve Choi and bassist Joe Troy as drummer Chris Tsagakis backed them with back beats that propelled early material like "Consequential Apathy" and "Infection" from 2001's "Progress."

King Fantastic talks about the origins of electro-infused beach bum gangster rap

 

Those who think L.A.'s recent proliferation of Day-Glo T-shirts and skinny jeans signifies the death of West Coast gangsta rap might want to introduce themselves to King Fantastic's gritty squall of bass and attitude.

The partnership consists of rapper Killer Reese One of hip-hop group Bleu Collar and producer Troublemaker of electro outfit Rad Omen. Eclectic and menacing, the group's big beat vitriol was born in Venice Beach and Playa del Rey in 2010, perhaps a surprise to those used to name checking Compton, Oakland and Long Beach in their hip-hop history discussions. But if the tracks from their 2010 debut,  "Finger Snaps and Gun Claps," or their forthcoming EP, "Death of Summer," tell us anything, it's that King Fantastic proudly represents its ZIP Code.

Since blasting its way onto the underground hip-hop circuit last year, King Fantastic has specialized in  sweat-soaked performances and remixes using a myriad of artists -- Bassnectar, the Bird and the Bee and Linkin Park among them. Last weekend, the duo rolled into San Bernardino for this year's electro-inspired Audiotistic festival in San Bernardino. Pop & Hiss caught up with the group prior to Audiotistic to talk about the origin of the music it succinctly describes as "Westcoastsynthesizerbeachbumgangstermusic."

Before King Fantastic, one of you was known primarily for underground rap (Reese), the other for electro-based music (Troublemaker). Even though it incorporates both genres, your music has a distinct gangsta rap feel to it. Was that something you both wanted from the beginning?

Troublemaker: When I heard Reese rap for the first time, I knew he would sound good over the music that I was making. There’s rappers that I entertained the thought of working with, but they could never see where I was coming from. The scene I came out of was more drum and bass and underground hip-hop, which Reese was also a part of with Bleu Collar. We’re also influenced by Ice-T and DJ Quik, who have synth music in their tracks. We had an understanding of where each other came from and saw that our ideas could work together.

Killer Reese One: At the time we started the group, I wasn’t even gonna do music anymore, because it had gotten so boring, and you start to get trapped in the same old scene. Then I listened to Troublemaker’s stuff, and it sounds like gangsta rap. You might call it drum and bass or whatever, but it sounds like Ice-T to me. I’m not a real bluesy type of rapper; my beats have to come a lot harder. Troublemaker’s beats are super bass-heavy and gangster without even a word recorded on it.

This yard sale is all vinyl records, all weekend long

Vinyl records are record collector Tom Justice’s only wares at his weekly yard sale in L.A. He passes along his love and knowledge of music whenever he can.

On weekend mornings, just off the corner of El Paso Drive and Cleland Avenue near Highland Park, 67-year-old former organizational consultant Tom Justice wakes up to make a cup of coffee and schlep cardboard frozen-food boxes holding about 8,000 vinyl records out of his garage and onto the concrete driveway along the side of his house. It's a relaxed, kind of messy shop he has set up — some of the LP jackets are dusty and warped from years of use and some overnights outside, him in a worn Grambling State University sweat shirt, beanie hat and blue jeans with a scruffy white-stubbled face and crooked smile — that holds the promise of treasures.

For the last seven months, this is how Justice spends his weekends, selling albums for good prices, usually just $2 to $10 a pop, from 11 in the morning to 7 on Saturdays and noon to 4:30 on Sundays. A day or two in advance, he sends out a weekly open email to a list of a couple hundred “Vinyl Aficionados,” as he calls them, or “Vinyl Brethren” or sometimes “Exclusive members of the Mt. Washington Vinyl Country Club,” mentioning deals and new finds for the upcoming weekend. Usually this notice will have a few people casually waiting around before the sale starts Saturday mornings, looking to “get some of the good stuff,” said Justice. That might include anything from “two ultra clean” copies of Michael Jackson's “Thriller” to “the super rare oldies LP ‘The Crystals Sing the Greatest Hits,’” as it did last weekend. In an average weekend he'll sell a few hundred albums, he said.

Red Hot Chili Peppers to play Club Nokia on Aug. 24 in benefit

 
The Red Hot Chili Peppers will play a rare small-venue show on Aug. 24 at Club Nokia in Los Angeles as a benefit for the Silverlake Conservatory of Music, the nonprofit institution that Chili Peppers bassist Flea helped create to offer music lessons to youths in the region and scholarships for those who could not otherwise afford to pay.

Tickets go on sale Saturday, but an online auction for premium seating is already underway and will continue until 3 p.m. on Friday, with minimum bids set at $250 and $400. General seating tickets for the 2,300-capacity club go on sale Saturday and will cost $125.

Proceeds will go toward the conservatory’s operating costs and to support its scholarship program. Flea started the Silverlake Conservatory with Keith Barry in 2001, and RHCP singer Anthony Kiedis is a member of the board of directors. The group's new album, "I'm With You," is due to be released Aug. 30.

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Photo: Bassist Flea, left, and singer Anthony Kiedis during a 2006 Red Hot Chili Peppers performance at the Inglewood Forum. Credit: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times.

L.A.'s Levitt Pavilions booker Eddie Cota brings edgy sets to outdoor stages

 

Friday's Nightlife page in The Times' Calendar section features a profile of Eddie Cota, the 28-year-old booker given the task of revamping the Levitt Pavilions in Pasadena and MacArthur Park into essential summertime music destinations. With lineups including No Age, Ximena Sarinana, Ana Tijoux, Belle Brigade and a Brainfeeder showcase with Daedelus, it seems he's done his job this summer. Read the full profile here.

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Photo: Mike Chavez / Los Angeles Times