L.A. Times Music Blog
« October 2007 |
Main
| December 2007 »
Everyone's favorite fake queer band is back.  Tip of the hat to British gossip thread Popbitch for alerting us to the new Tatu video, "Beliy Plaschik" (White Robe). It features one half of the duo, Lena Katina, ordering the execution of her seven months pregnant cohort, Julia Volkova. Cuz you know, those pregnant chicks are just asking for it.
Is it a comment on the Iraq War? Life under Stalin? Population control? Who knows. Enjoy the weirdness.
--Elina Shatkin
 Sometime last week, relations between Stephen Paul Morrissey and NME devolved to John Kerry vs. the Swiftboaters levels of mud-slinging. The reason: A cover story titled "Bigmouth Strikes Again,"1 which pitches Moz as an aging, dangerously out-of-touch racist pining for the culturally homogeneous England of his youth.
"May we rock you gently?"
singer-songwriter Buddy asks on his MySpace page. Well, yes, since you asked so
nicely.
On his debut album, "Alterations and Repairs," Buddy -- Humberston is the
last name, "but that's kind of a mouthful," he allows -- delivers crisp,
date-movie pop in a tenor so gossamer you fear the next finger-picked note might
puncture it, though it never does. His on-the-beat vocals allude to life-changing
events, reflecting the period after he moved to Los Angeles from Portland, Ore., and
wrote much of the material.
"It was a time I was breaking free of a few things," he says.
And, as it turns out, attaching himself to others. When he played his first show at
the Hotel Cafe in 2004, he befriended the doorman and sound guy -- both of whom now play
in his band. He cites the venue's fraternal feel in helping build his confidence.
"When I did finally work up the courage to get out and do the solo thing, it was
amazing to be welcomed like I was," Buddy says. "It means a lot when people
you respect come up to you after a show. ... There are so many people, and so many
talented ones, it can be kind of overwhelming and intimidating."
Buddy, with band mates Will Golden, Percy Haverson, Al Sgro, Fil Krohnengold and
Michael Jerome, celebrates the release of "Alterations and Repairs" with a
show tonight at the Hotel Cafe. Also on the bill are Greg Laswell, Emily Wells and Brian Wright and the Waco
Tragedies.
◊ ◊ ◊
Speaking of the Hotel Cafe, Tom Morello (as the Nightwatchman) returned Thursday
night (with Perry Farrell and Jill Sobule among the guests). He'll also do the next two
Thursdays at the venue.
||| Download Buddy's "Westgate."
Photo of Buddy and band by Melissa Castro
 The western-shirt contingent was in full force downtown last night for the coming of Sam Beam of Nazareth, the honey-voiced and well-bearded leader of Iron & Wine. And while there may be no better setting for his seven-piece band's gilded and wistful roots-folk than the stately, lovingly restored Orpheum, the show certainly could've benefited for a little bit of the raw edge and ugliness found outside the theater.
While it's tough to really complain about a show for being "too pretty," such nitpicking is inevitable when an evening's worth of exquisitely crafted, often adventurous songwriting somehow winds up feeling not all that memorable. Maybe it's a problem of context -- how beautiful can one song sound when it is no more or less beautiful than the one before? The night's best moments were courtesy of the band's many dub-infused instrumental excursions, but something more was needed. Beam needs to recapture some of the frayed edges and venom that made last year's "Woman King" EP so fantastic, or even grab Calexico for another session or two given how the their past collaboration--particularly onstage--gave Beam's lovely sense of storytelling a jolt of cross-cultural rock 'n roll swagger.
Openers Califone offered an interesting contrast with their own skewed take on roots music, with clattering electronics and junkyard percussion giving each song an engaging and unpredictable sense of decay. Their set ended abruptly when the house lights came up between songs, but not before collaborating with an endearingly awkward Sam and Sarah Beam on a rustic and rusty cover of Elton John's "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road." Everything wasn't in its right place, but that's sometimes the point.
-- Chris Barton
-- Mel C. AKA Sporty Spice AKA the one without a baby is playing a solo show at... (wait for it) The Mint. Is that a comedown or an upgrade? For $20 you can find out.
[Late with a post today, sorry; here are some news bits:]
The band is no longer on an indie label, but Interpol today released a six-song live EP,
"Interpol Live," that's available only at independent music stores. You mean
there's some of those left? Yes, indeed. The retail outlets, listed at Think Indie, include North Hollywood's Miles of Music and Long Beach's Fingerprints, along with that cozy hole in the wall at Sunset and Ivar. The EP,
by the way, is heavily weighted toward new material -- four songs off this year's
"Our Love to Admire."
◊ ◊ ◊
 The Plug Independent Music Awards nominees include a
healthy number of major-label artists too, but who's counting? What's indie? I've
watched this
video five times and I'm still befuddled. The Plugs do appear to be an emo-free
zone, however, even though there's a lot of indie emo. L.A.'s very own No Age and Sea Wolf (that's Alex Church at left) are
among nominees for new artist of the year. Even if you don't vote, the Plug list offers
the chance to test your cool quotient -- how many discs on the album-of-the-year list
have you heard? Or how many do you own? And did you really make it all the way through
the Beirut album? And why can't this Beirut get any love? So many questions.
◊ ◊ ◊
Highlights for Tuesday, Nov. 27
If I were in the mood for some serious, thoughtful music tonight, I would see Johnette Napolitano at the Roxy.
The ex-Concrete Blonde singer-bassist's solo album “Scarred” is powerful stuff -- plus
she has a reputation for delivering the goods live. ... If I were in the mood to dance
my legs off and hear the Cure recycled, I'd hit Cinespace for its Tuesday party -- War Tapes is playing, along with local
rockers Policy. ... With only an EP on their
resume, there's a buzz surrounding the indie pop of Los Campesinos!, who are from Wales but
sound like they should be from Canada and are touring with another of our northern
neighbor's government-supported indie outfits, the Most Serene Republic. That
show is at the Echoplex. ... Maybe coolest of all, one of the Quannum Projects heroes,
Honeycut, is down from San Francisco
for a show at the Knitting Factory.
Some good stuff perking up the Will Call ticket corral this week and it's all over the place:
There's traditional country with Willie Nelson at the Nokia Theatre on Feb. 13 (on sale Monday), and faux country with Ryan Adams playing a bunch of venues (check the column for details).
There's hip-hop with Snoop Dogg at House of Blues on Dec. 15 (on sale Saturday) and trip-hop with DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist at the Anaheim House of Blues on Valentine's Day and the Wiltern on Feb. 15 (both on sale Saturday).
And there's rock from both far--Sweden's the Sounds on Dec. 9 at the Avalon (on sale Thursday) and France's Keren Ann on Feb. 19 at the El Rey (on sale Saturday )--and near with L.A.'s own the Deadly Syndrome on Jan. 7 at the Viper Room (on sale now).
But the winner? Clearly it's Celtic Woman at the Greek, May 17.
Okay seriously, it's American woman, Gwendolyn, who will play the Echoplex this Saturday, Dec. 1, with her backing band the Good Time Gang. Why? It's a children's show full of Christmukwanzukkah songs. What's not to love?
Their name has been mumbled, mangled and maybe even mocked — not that the four guys
in Voxhaul Broadcast can
blame anybody. “Every name we’d pick would be taken,” singer-guitarist David Dennis
says, “so we thought, ‘Let’s make up some words and hope it’s not taken.’ ”
In a way, the Orange County quartet set about making their music in similar fashion.
“If it sounds too reminiscent of anything, we kind of [rough] it up,” Dennis says. “It’s
really easy to be cliché; you have to be picky about what you do.”
Voxhaul Broadcast’s twitchy, soul-infused rock isn’t exactly new — but the work of
Dennis, guitarist-keyboardist Anthony Aguiar, bassist Phillip Munset II and drummer Kurt
Allen is distinctive, if only because it originated on an O.C. landscape populated by
harder-edged bands. “It used to be a band like us could not play a show without being
booked with a hard-core band,” Dennis says. “Now there is a lot of other music coming
out of Orange County.”
Indeed, the band’s “Rotten Apples” EP, out on Retone Records, recalls the Charlatans
UK or the Strokes more than any suburban thrashers. The quartet, now based in L.A., has
spent much of the fall on tour. “Right now, we’re just trying to get our name out
there,” Dennis says.
||| Voxhaul Broadcast plays the Indie 103.1 show tonight at the Viper Room with Last American Buffalo, Saint Motel and Le Switch.
||| Download: "Rotten Apples."
Other highlights for Monday, Nov. 26
The final
night of the Softlightes residency
has been moved from Spaceland to the Echoplex. The dreamy quartet spread some serious
feel-good pop over the first three weeks of its stand. ... The Airborne Toxic Event ends
its four-week stand at the Detroit Bar, with Orange County's Cavil at Rest. ... Restaurant winds up its residency at
the Echo. ... And I See Hawks in LA holds forth
at Bordello.
 Quiet Riot lead singer Kevin DuBrow, 52, was found dead at his Las Vegas home on Sunday. The news of the death was reported by several news sources as well as the personal website of the band's drummer, Frankie Banali.
The official cause of death has yet to be determined.
5 Things You Might Not Know About Kevin DuBrow
- He was a foodie.
- He spent his teen years growing up in Van Nuys.
- Metal Health made Quiet Riot the first metal band to reach #1 on their U.S. debut album.
- He was a big fan of Rod Stewart and Small Faces.
- Radio station KRNA in Cedar Rapids, IA has posted a 19-minute audio interview with DuBrow from May 2007 in which he explains how he keeps his vocal chords in shape. (Hint: clean living.)
--Elina Shatkin
[Correspondent Jeff Miller reports from the Sunday night festivities at the
Echoplex:]
Beck -- the Silver Lake icon whose recent tours have found him banging out drum parts
on a kitchen table and dancing along with a puppet version of himself -- isn't exactly
predictable. One thing for sure, though: Before embarking on a tour with a new band,
he'll give them a test run in front of a smallish sea of rabid fans at a local venue,
rather than testing their might in a packed arena.
Such was the impetus for his last-minute, back-to-basics show at the Echoplex on
Sunday night -- a warmup for a short international stadium stint opening for the Police.
Beck ditched his recent shtick for a guitar-based set that spanned his career, backed by
a band that may be the best he's found yet: on-again, off-again collaborators Justin Meldal-Johnsen and Joey Waronker on bass and drums,
respectively; singer-songwriter Jason
Falkner picking up guitar duties; and, on keys, producer/legend Nigel Godrich (Radiohead, Paul McCartney, Beck,
Travis, among others).
Beck claimed this show was Godrich's U.S. stage debut, and, per his repuation,
Godrich added electronic whooshes and keyboard fills to everything from the "Mellow
Gold"-era album cut "[Messin'] With My Head" to recent hits like
"Nausea." When the front man eschewed an encore, insisting the band had
played all the songs it knew, Meldal-Johnsen showed them the chords to
"Odelay's" "Lord Only Knows." Once they tore into it, the results
were shambolic and loose -- perhaps not quite stadium-ready, but certainly a ramshackle
fit for an audience rabidly hanging on every chord.
Los Angeles' Casxio has proven itself a
little bit more than just the latest band to jump into the dance-music pool. The quartet
creates its driving, funky electro-soul without using laptops -- an old-school approach
that seems downright ambitious in a time when computers trigger everything from backing
tracks to visual effects.
"After a show, I'll have people come up to me
and say, 'Wow, I didn't realize this was happening in L.A.,'" says Casxio front man
Lucas Guerin. "The influence of Daft Punk, and now people like Justice are amazing
and taking it a step further. But when I think about that, I think about how I can
create that energy with a live performance, with no prerecorded material or
samples."
Guerin, the singer-bassist who'd been working on Casxio's
songs for about four years in his bedroom, assembled a lineup that includes guitarist
Eric Saez, drummer Zach Schrock and keyboardist Andrea Choe about a year and a half ago.
Guerin's compositions spring from the sexed-up music of Sly & the Family Stone,
Prince and the Talking Heads. "That was the stuff that really moved me," he
says. "I'd go to parties and see the effect it had on people."
In
the Eastside clubs where Casxio has been playing its early shows, it's been a tougher
sell. Crowds dance more than they used to but still are largely hands-in-pockets.
"We're not the whole straight-up rock 'n' roll revival," Guerin says,
"but our shows have been great. It's leading to other things, but dancing is not
necessarily one of them."
||| Casxio finishes up its residency tonight
at the Silverlake Lounge. Also appearing (with laptop): electro-soul phenom Sam Sparro.
||| Download Casxio's
"Seventeen."
 Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney is blogging for NPR. Mike Watt of The Minutemen, Firehouse, Dos, etc. posts his Pic of the Week on LAist. Now big voiced Beth Ditto, lead signer of the riotous queer rock band The Gossip, has started a new gig as an advice columnist for British newspaper The Guardian.
In the first installment she offers a meditation on the challenges of being a fat woman in a culture where body shame is practically a religion. In case you think it's all talk and no walk, Beth is a size 22 woman who prances on stage in a body-hugging Lycra catsuit.
--Elina Shatkin
Buoyant as he feels these days, Myles Hendrik was no overnight sensation.
The Bloodcat Love front man moved to
L.A. from New Zealand five years ago — “to pursue the dream,” he says, making you feel
silly for asking why — only to take that long to find the right chemistry for his
quintet.
“Moving to a different country, you start completely over,” he says. Forming a band
“is like having four girlfriends. You don’t marry the first four girls you sleep with in
L.A. You have divorces, you have horrible breakups. Things happen.”
Most recently, guitarist Dion Lunadan, formerly of the Kiwi rock band the D4, moved
away. But Australian Mitch McIvor (cousin of the Cester brothers of Jet) came aboard, as
did drummer Marty Cornish, firming up a lineup that includes guitarist Joshua Mancuso
and bassist Nicholas Oja. Just in time. The band recently released its “Only Dreamers
Left Alive” EP and is back in L.A. after spreading some of its garage rock to the East
Coast in October.
Bloodcat Love’s muscular, beer-soaked primitivism stops mercifully short of the
clichéd theatrics that sabotage a lot of L.A. bands, and its danceability speaks to
Hendrik’s years spent as a DJ, promoter and man about clubs. “Subconsciously you get a
feel for what makes people move, and an understanding of what people emote to,” he says.
“We do make music you can kick your heels to.”
||| Bloodcat Love performs tonight at the Viper
Room and Saturday at Safari Sam's, opening
for Gram Rabbit (celebrating the release
of its new album "RadioAngel and the RobotBeat."
Elsewhere Wednesday, Nov. 21
It's a pre-Turkey Day feast: Nice U.K. double-bill at the Wiltern -- Travis and
Maximo Park. ... Merrick plays the
second of its two shows at Bordello (with the Pity Party and Correatown on the
bill). ... Spindrift headlines the Echo.
... Power poppers Scarlet Grey play the
Troubadour. ... Silver Needle plays
the Kiss or Kill night at El Cid. ... And Pop
Noir brings its Anglophile stylings to Club NME at Spaceland.
It's doubtful that eternally inscrutable musician -turned-messiah-turned-Cadillac-salesman Bob Dylan will seem any less Sphynx-like after repeat viewings of Don't Look Back, but it's great to see D.A. Pennebaker's seminal 1967 music doc make it to iTunes. Convenient how it arrives a week before the release of I'm Not There, Todd Haynes' Dylan biopic. (I'm using biopic in the loosest sense of the word here, which is a good thing).
From the cries of "Judas" as he takes the stage with an electric guitar to his subtle but cruel dismissal of lover Joan Baez, Dylan at the height of his youthful, epicene beauty is a joy to behold, especially in stunning, 16mm black-and-white. Don't Look Back offers an excellent glimpse of Dylan on the cusp of iconhood. And in many ways, it's no less subjective than a fictional film biography.
--Elina Shatkin
Tickets went on sale this morning (and as of this post, some remain) for the Troubadour's big 50th-anniversary shows Nov. 28,
29 and 30 featuring James Taylor, Carole King and original band members Danny Kortchmar,
Russ Kunkel and Lee Sklar.
There are two shows per night, and, yes, it's pricey (VIP tickets are $1,000 each;
general admission is $225). But why not? King and Taylor performed at the Troub in
November 1969 in a show that marked her debut as a solo artist. Taylor's solo debut came
at the venue four months earlier. For next week's performances, a hefty portion of the
proceeds go to charity.
Details here.
◊ ◊ ◊
Highlights for Tuesday, Nov. 20
Not sure any of these shows will be of historic proportions, but there is some nice
music to be heard tonight: Merrick,
the seemingly long-ago project of Inara
George (the Bird and the Bee) and Bryony Atkinson, reunites for the first of two
nights at Bordello -- with John Gold among
the openers. ... Locals Hearts of Palm
UK, Letting Up Despite Great Faults
and Marvelous Toy convene at
Boardner's for a free show being mounted by the Radio Free Silver Lake blog. ...
At the Silverlake Lounge, it's Tall Hands
and the Soft Hands on the bill. Go
figure. ... The Front and Tsk Tsk bring the rock at the Scene, and
speaking of bringing the rock, Isis plays the
Troubadour.
Playing six shows over three days (Nov. 28-30) to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Troubadour and to benefit more charities than you knew existed, James Taylor and Carole King are the obvious Will Call column winners.
But forget them. The tickets are just too expensive (we're talking Babs prices here) and will probably be all gone by the time you read this...
Who else could take home the gold then in this yuletide season?
In hip-hop, RZA takes the cake (El Rey, Dec. 14 - on sale now), but he'll have to compete with a swarm of local bands (like the Deadly Syndrome and the Pity Party) playing the Fold's Christmas Sweater Festival at the new-ish venue Crash Mansion the same night (on sale now).
Lots of New Year's Eve stuff in the running: Brought to you by the letters "r" and "b," Chris Brown is playing the Gibson Amphitheatre (on sale now). In the boom-krack blikka-blikka thizwump genre, it's Tiesto, MSTRKRFT and company playing downtown L.A.'s Giant Maximus rave (on sale now). And for rock and/or roll-style resolutions, it's Eagles of Death Metal at the Roxy (on sale now).
So who's the winner? Deerhoof at the Avalon on Dec. 10 (on sale now). After all, [corny joke alert] where would Santa and the whole Christmas season be without the pitter-patter of Deerhoof?
--Liam Gowing
If shows without a hint of torment or possible onstage OD just don’t interest you, then you did well by skipping the B-52s at the Roxy on Friday. Yes, they looked older, and yes, they still channel the same ’50s Frankie-&-Annette steeze, but if you’ve found another band that can cause a room to erupt into the pogo with a song as stupid as “Private Idaho” – recorded in 1978, no less – then lay it on me, emo.
The band, featuring the return of the incredible drummer Sterling Campbell – who was gone for years as part of David Bowie’s band – squeezed these simple songs until they were as slick and fast as an electric eel. There were new songs but I didn’t catch the names because I was drinking. This is the kind of show that will test what you know about yourself: you think you’re too cool to jump up and down to “Love Shack,” but you know what? Right there, in that room, it would be wrong not to. You’d be seriously ill if you did not immediately do the swim. It’ll change your head around, Jackson. It’ll make you believe in fun you didn’t even know you wanted to have. People who know about music know this is true. Don Was of Was Not Was walked in ahead of me with his kids and they rocked to “Rock Lobster.” I guess that says it all, doesn’t it?
--Dean Kuipers
One of the most appealing holiday shows we've heard about so far is the Christmas
Sweater Festival, a party being thrown by the Fold on Dec. 14 at the new downtown venue Crash Mansion.
Not only is it a sweater party, a minimum $10 donation (it's for charity)
gets you music by five wildly entertaining local bands. And there is no headliner. In a
strange quirk of scheduling, the show will unfold like a fantasy football draft -- with
the bands performing sets in 1-2-3-4-5-5-4-3-2-1 order.
The Deadly Syndrome (drummer Jesse
Hoy, above, among the ghosts at the Detour Festival) will open and close the night. The
other slots feature the Mae-Shi, Happy Hollows, the Pity Party and Eskimohunter.
◊ ◊ ◊
Sam Sparro has canceled his set tonight at
the Viper Room because of illness. Orange County up-and-comers Pop Noir remains on the bill, along with On
Blast and Ari Shine.
◊ ◊ ◊
Mighty good fun, despite a modest turnout, at the Roxy last week for the Filter show
featuring Oliver Future and Sara Lov. The latter artist, playing an
acoustic guitar with a pianist and a cellist, was clearly annoyed that the yappy
back-of-the-room folks wouldn't stop talking while she performed. "We have some
chatty people here -- you wanna come up here and fight me? " she asked
good-naturedly. "I'm sure there are plenty of bars on this block where they're not
playing soft music."
Those who held their tongues for a half-hour were rewarded with a gorgeous set of
folk-pop. Lov is working on an album that'll be out early next year.
◊ ◊ ◊
Speaking of albums, if we strain our ears really really hard right now, we might be
able to hear the Little Ones debuting
their new material. Well, not really. But the L.A. quintet is playing the Social in
London today and doing songs off their long-awaited debut full-length, "Morning
Tide." In the meantime, there's a great take on their single "Lovers Who
Uncover" on their MySpace
page -- it's called "Dubbers Who Uncover" and it's downloadable.
Elsewhere Monday, Nov. 19
The Softlightes (Spaceland), Casxio (Silverlake Lounge) and Restaurant (Echo)
continue their residencies, and Castledoor joins the Airborne Toxic Event at its
residency at the Detroit Bar in Costa Mesa. ... Until June leads a bill of pop bands in
a free show at the Troubadour.
 It's safe to say No Age is the band of the moment. At Paper Magazine's 24 Hour Store a couple weeks ago, where Miranda July wandered with the slow gait of Victorian royalty visiting the TB hospital, No Age discs were for sale at nearly every booth. David K of Family Bookstore was wearing a No Age t-shirt last night at Trinie Dalton's book party. Also, Sasha Frere-Jones wrote some heady thing about them in the New Yorker. It's been decided.
So we absolutely had to go when we heard about their secret show near the Sunnynook Bridge at the LA River at 3pm Saturday. The set-up lasted an hour, the music part clocked in at 19 minutes before two smirking park rangers shut it down, but it was a fairly splendid 19 minutes and the hour set-up wasn't bad either. About 100 in-the-know art-punk-bar dorks gathered on the granite river bed, shared beers and watched No Age's Dean Spunt and Randy Randall plug their gear into a vibrating red generator as the sun set behind a line of trees. Arthur publisher and show organizer Jay Babcock watched from the top of the hill like a proud papa. No Age's distorted nature-punk soaked into the atmosphere and vice versa.
And then the park rangers came. With absolutely no riot vibes, No Age packed it in and the audience slowly dispersed. The reason the rangers cut the show short? For one, you're not allowed to be so close to the river (No Age was only a few feet away). But way more ludicrous than that, we were all at risk because "two dams to the north could bust at any time and wipe away the whole crowd."
Yeah, right. L.A. is just so drenched these days.
--Margaret Wappler
 To all the kids who roll up to the Little Joy in beard-beads and rhapsodize about lost Karen Dalton tracks: come back when you refer to yourself as Father Yod, take on more than a dozen 'spiritual wives,' singlehandedly breed and recruit a commune, found a vegetarian cafe and an all-improv psych band before perishing in a hang-gliding accident. Then we can talk about hippie credibility.
A reunion of Ya Ho Wa 13, the house band of the Source Family commune founded by Yod in the early '70s, was more unlikely than getting DLR back in Van Halen. But the surviving members of the group reformed Friday night at the Echoplex and proudly revisited an era when belonging to the counter-culture took a bit more commitment than joining a Facebook group.
Ya Ho Wa 13's music is purposefully obtuse and hypnotic -- tribal drums, sawing violins and group chanting made up on the spot -- but it's nothing you can't get from Animal Collective or Soft Circle today. The difference is that Ya Ho Wa 13 really, really means it. When the band implored the crowd to extend their left palms and inhale exactly 108 times before listening to the next tune, there was no whiff of self-awareness. The berobed masses offstage did their best to play along, but there was something vampiric about kids in tunics drinking comped vodka and Red Bull and texting while a photo of many very pregnant Source Family members was projected above the band. Ya Ho Wa 13 wasn't kidding at the time and it wasn't kidding on Friday. In the pseudo-VIP area, guys rolled around on throw pillows in designer print gowns but a spy tells us they were actually operatives from Flaunt Magazine. L.A. is famous for eating its young, but now the cool kids are learning to eat L.A.'s old as well.
--August Brown
Bodies of Water, who first
caught my ear during their Echo residency back in May, have joined the roster of
indie label Secretly Canadian, which will
distribute the band's self-released album "Ears Will Pop & Eyes Will
Blink" on Dec. 4. The band plans to have another album ready for release on the
label by spring.
Secretly Canadian is home to the likes of Richard Swift, David Vandevelde, Antony
& the Johnsons, Magnolia Electric Co. and Jens Lekman.
||| Download Bodies of Water's "I Guess I'll Forget the
Sound, I Guess, I Guess."
Used to be you only heard local music on radio giant KROQ when a Los Angeles band broke big -- or on the
occasional one-off "Catch of the Day" or in the wee hours when DJ Rodney
Bingenheimer would spin one of his pop/Anglophile favorites.
 But this
decade's watershed of excellent local and indie music has gotten the station's notice,
if the grassroots efforts of smaller upstart Indie
103.1 (KDLD-FM, which turns 4 years old on Christmas) haven't. DJ Kat Corbett has an
hourlong slot from 9 to 10 p.m. Sundays for her Locals Only show, and now the station
has pressed Volume 1 of its Locals Only compilation.
The KROQ comp weighs in a bit heavier sonically than the three issued so far by Indie 103.1's Mark Sovel. But it's
a great snapshot of the L.A. scene, from the muscular stylings of After Midnight Project, A.I. and Big Stone City to the pop-rock of Metro Station, New Year's Day and Heartstop. You could do a lot worse than
spend an hour with the 20 tracks on this disc. [Can't find the track listing online
anywhere except the Big Stone City page, so here you go.]
KROQ is mounting
a Locals Only show at the Roxy on Saturday night, featuring Black Light Burns (fronted by ex-Limp
Bizkit guitarist Wes Borland) and Cage9,
among others.
Photo of After Midnight Project by Redd Room Studios
◊ ◊ ◊
Speaking of Indie 103, the station has scheduled its holiday show,
Bands in Toyland, for Dec. 5 at the Avalon, with Spoon, Pinback, Datarock and Sea Wolf
on board. It's a $30 ticket if you bring a non-wrapped toy ... And more on the holidays:
The final "Gimme Shelter" benefit is Dec.
11 Dec. 12 at the Roxy, with Pete Yorn, Matthew Sweet & Suzana
Hoffs, Phantom Planet, Peter Himmelman, Jesca Hoop and a bunch more.
Thanks to Olivia for pointing out my mistake.
◊ ◊ ◊
 Fresno's Rademacher, who are playing a bazillion
shows this month in preparation for the Dec. 4 release of their Aaron Espinoza-produced
debut "Stunts," are doing something called a "blog residency," with
four local blogs previewing the album two tracks at a time. Here's the Aquarium
Drunkard's entry, and he has links to two others. The band brings its
Pavement-influenced rock to Spaceland on Sunday night, with Espinoza's Earlimart (as a
duo) and the Karabal Nightlife also
performing.
Photo of Rademacher by Rachael Olmstead
Other club show highlights for Nov. 16-18
Amateurs and Nightfur play a great local show tonight at
Spaceland [Duke has more options, as
well as commentary on the economics of some of them]. ... On Saturday, it's the Warlocks and Darker My Love roaring at the Troubadour,
Castaneda and Under the Influence of Giants rocking the
Detroit Bar and the Parson Red Heads
playing the Echo. ... And on Sunday, No Age
returns to the Smell.
Momentum can be a grand thing. When singer-songwriter Peter Walker co-founded
Dangerbird Records with his
manager, Jeff Castelaz, the indie label was seen as an outlet for his Rhett Miller-ish
folk-pop. But as Dangerbird gained traction behind the likes of Silversun Pickups and now Sea Wolf, Walker’s music took on a new edge —
and he a took a new name.
“In the back of my mind, I wanted it to sound like a band,” Walker says of the
metamorphosis that birthed the trio Eulogies, his project with bassist Tim Hutton and
drummer Chris Reynolds. “It was apparent when we were touring behind the last Peter
Walker record [2006’s ‘“Young Gravity”’] that we were leaning toward a more collective,
collaborative effort.”
Their debut, “Eulogies” (released in September and produced by Dangerbird labelmate
Hrishikesh Hirway of the One AM
Radio), introduces a cast of characters touched by death and less inevitable trials
of the human spirit, framing their stories in tones both wistful and resolute. It
reflects the growing confidence of a songwriter who doubles as label chief.
“It’s very comforting for me to put on my artist’s hat these days,” Walker says,
“because there are no questions about the people we work with.”
||| See Eulogies perform tonight with Division Day and Film School at the Echoplex.
||| Stream Eulogies' "One Man" here.
Photo by Marina Chavez
Other highlights for Thursday, Nov. 15
Atlanta's Manchester Orchestra
and North Carolina's Annuals make a nice
1-2 punch tonight at the Troubadour. ... The Bombshell Alliance Benefit, a charity gig
for the Sojourn Battered Women's Shelter, goes off tonight at the Hotel Cafe, with a deep lineup featuring Abby Travis, Quincy Coleman, Correatown and Charlotte Martin, among others. ...
Elsewhere, local punkers the Binges are
among the openers at the Viper Room for NYC glamsters Semi Precious Weapons. Perez
Hilton likes SPW, so they must be good. ... And San Francisco's Citay is in town for a gig at
the 1269 Gallery (1269 6th St.) that includes locals the Moon Upstairs. ... As always, a man named
Duke has more selections here.
||| Download: Citay's "First Fantasy."
 By the fifth and final day of Rock Camp, I was burnt out, exhausted from blogging when I should have been sleeping and the underlying stress of even Rock Camp’s most exhilarating moments. My hands were sore from playing the drums. My lips were chapped from the desert air. And it took a lot of energy to hold back the tears that were constantly threatening to well up in my eyes.
I had tried pretty successfully to keep the issue of Chris’ waning life-force at arm’s length in order to keep things upbeat. But as the excitement of having played with Roger Daltrey, Jack Bruce and the other big stars receded, it was all I could think about, and for good reason. Despite foregoing his prescribed dose of morphine during the daylight hours—inviting what must have been excruciating pain so he could remain lucid for practice and performances—Chris had been slipping in and out of consciousness between songs with what seemed like increasing frequency. Having seen the same behavior in my mother in the days before she passed away from pancreatic cancer, I had to acknowledge that this really would be Chris’ last Rock Camp. And here it was coming to an end.
This was the context in which Sunday unfolded.
The camper bands were scheduled to record one song in the afternoon and to perform two or three that evening at the House of Blues. Arriving at an unfamiliar practice room with just 45 minutes to perfect our counselor-band composition, “You Could Be My Fantasy,” for the first part of this scenario, I was horrified to find only one drum kit in the room and Chris nowhere in sight.
He appeared some minutes later—wheelchaired in as usual by his sister Leighanne—looking so spent that our counselor, Mark Slaughter, asked me to take the kit first. As the band ran through the original and “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” I was miles away from playing well, missing obvious beats and no longer feeling comfortable with the arrangements. With time running out, I traded places with Chris so that he could rehearse each song once. He played a little better than me but was obviously hanging by a thread.
Out of rehearsal time, we made our way to another MGM Grand rehearsal room, which had been outfitted for multi-track recording. With each band given just one live take and a short space of time in which to do it, we set up quickly and began to play. Unbelievably, Chris perked up and played extremely well, as did I. But just as the song was coming to an end, the band came unglued—my fault for not cueing off Chris, as was our custom.
And that was it. Here’s your record. Thank you very little. Or so we thought.
Stepping up as a really caring advocate for the group, Slaughter demanded we get another take. And then the strangest thing happened. We performed the song great from start to finish, with Chris putting in such a stellar performance you would never have guessed his true condition. I was totally in awe of his professionalism.
After a nice long break, we rendezvoused at the House of Blues and played the waiting game as friends and relatives of the campers entered along with total strangers who just wanted to see this curious-sounding show, billed as the 10th Annual Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy Camp’s “Campalooza.”
Scheduled second, we assembled off stage-right and the whole group—Chris, singer Amanda, bassist Stephen, guitarists Yayo, Sheldon and Rich—was relaxed. That wasn’t exactly a good thing for Chris, of course. He was drifting so deeply that for a few minutes I thought I might end up having to play the drums alone.
But as soon as the initial group of counselors began sound-checking, he rallied and began warming up with gentle shakes and stretches. Then, after taking stock of his gear, he hooked me up, as usual, with a pair of Vic Firth “Extreme” drumsticks, plus a backup stick in case I had another “Born Under a Bad Sign” moment.
As the seconds ticked off, I conferred with Chris and his sister about the best way for him to get to the far side of the stage in order to maintain our usual configuration with him on my left. When I suggested that we just wheel him behind the back curtain and around to his kit, he got a little testy with me.
“I am walking onto that stage,” he declared, a man still able to will things into being.
And so, Chris Gailfoil’s band, Roadside Prophets, all walked onto stage at the appointed hour and prepared to play our little dirt-road ditty, a kind of Aerosmith-Tom Petty construct with sassy, straightforward lyrics that Amanda penned under Mark Slaughter’s tutelage. It wasn’t the greatest thing ever written but considering what we’d gone through to get it together, it may as well have been the “1812 Overture.”
And just as we had in the recording studio, we nailed it. Most of the time, it seemed to kind of play itself. Looking over at Chris I saw molars in his smile for the very first time. And as the cymbals faded out, and Slaughter acknowledged the grim reality of Chris’ long struggle with cancer to the crowd, we got nothing but love back.
Then we did “Sweet Child o’ Mine.” For all Yayo’s excellent guitar licks and Slaughter’s well-intentioned tambourine-conducting, it was something far less than the miraculous ending I had hoped for, with the drums in and out of sync and lost opportunities in every measure. I was all smiles walking off the stage, yet I couldn’t help beating myself up about it internally: If only I’d been a better drummer, I could have carried Chris through it and kept the band tight.
Bypassing the camera crew shooting the camp’s publicity reel, I walked out the stage door and headed straight for the bar. As I waited to get the bartender’s attention, I noticed a young guy—a Marine, 22, just back from Iraq, it turned out—staring at me, absolutely transfixed by my presence.
“Were you in the last band?” he said.
“Uh, yeah,” I replied cautiously.
“You did ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’?” he asked, eyes wide.
“Yeah,” I said.
“You guys were great!”
And instantly, I knew he was right.
Having regained my composure, I went back to visit Chris, who was parked in his wheelchair like “the Godfather,” ready to dole out a benediction to the next band.
“Well, what did you think?” I asked him.
“It was fantastic,” he said. “The original more so than ‘Sweet Child,’ I think.”
We talked a bit more about things musical, both of us knowing that it would probably be our last face-to-face conversation. And then I remembered that I still had his drumsticks.
“Where’s your stick-bag?” I asked him.
“What?”
“Where’s your stick-bag?” I repeated holding up the three Vic Firths he’d given me earlier. “I want to put these back before I forget.”
“Those are yours now,” he said, putting his hand on my arm. “Keep practicing.”
The rest of the evening played out just as it was meant to.
Bandmates and fellow campers dropped the last vestiges of their guard and opened up to me about all the things they didn’t like about camp: Counselors who were arrogant or unapproachable; campers who’d let their egos sprint well past their abilities or just hogged the mic at the late-night camp jams; the occasional scheduling mix-ups and communication breakdowns.
I was thrilled with the chance to see legendary Yes drummer Alan White lead his campers into a rousing “Owner of a Lonely Heart,” then burst out laughing, charming fellow that he is, when they very nearly train-wrecked the song going into the solo. There were other amazing moments, especially Jack Bruce popping up again to play “White Room.” I felt privileged to soak it all in.
I was lucky from the start, of course, to have been placed with a constantly available and totally down-to-earth counselor. And I was equally lucky to find myself playing with six really nice people: Stephen Horn, a “pocket” bassist with great timing and a passion for dynamics; Rich Seidel, a quick learner who never let his six months’ experience on the guitar hamstring the band; Amanda Marsh, an aspiring country singer who let the rest of us take her into entirely uncharted territory and was never too proud to ask me for help with an unknown melody; Sheldon Cohn, whose warmth outshined even his ability to perfect a windmill-strum for Roger Daltrey; Yayo Sanchez, our 14-year-old guitar hero who turned every mistake into a reason for non-judgmental laughter; and of course, Chris Gailfoil, who doled out towering lessons in percussion, persistence and positivity every single day.
I saw him later that night, during the last song, the finale of the five-day experience—a glorious rendition of Queen’s “We Are the Champions.” The counselors’ all-star band had taken over the stage by this point, but dozens of campers had invaded their show-boating turf to sing along. Playing journalist again, I wasn’t one of them, opting instead to watch the spectacle from the floor.
And there was Chris, marshaling his strength for one final performance, standing—a feat in and of itself—at the microphone with Slaughter and one of the other campers. I looked up at him and our eyes locked as he added his voice to the refrain:
We are the champions, my friend.
And we’ll keep on fighting till the end.
We are the champions.
We are the champions.
No longer able to restrain the tears, I held my new drumsticks aloft and sang it with him.
--Liam Gowing
The Sunset Strip still holds plenty of cachet
for a lot of folks, but it's hard to spend much time there without getting the suspicion
that Every Single Person Alive can't wait until the day returns when the likes of Guns
'N Roses and Janes Addiction rule the roost. With the preponderance of good indie acts
-- and bookers at Eastside clubs and the Troubadour doing an excellent job of curating
them -- the Strip is often left with bands still playing to the imaginary A&R men of
1988, or nights run by pay-to-play promoters, or indie bands who have already serviced
their fanbase on the other side of town.
The past couple of months, Filter, the music marketing machine/magazine that
does some pretty good curating of its own, has attempted to bring the Eastside crowds
west with its weekly Revenge of the
Sunset Strip nights at the Roxy. After all, if you hang out in the Eastside venues,
you occasionally wonder whether the hands-in-pockets masses are there because they love
the music or because the back room at Spaceland is good for your hipster quotient.
"Are you just there for the scene, or do you really care about the
music?" Filter's Samantha Feld says.
Revenge nights have featured many
indie bands, both local and touring, that have filled rooms elsewhere. Results have been
mixed. J Davey filled the place (as he would
almost any room on the Strip on any given night); it was mysteriously empty one night I
was there for Foreign Born, one of the
best bands in the city. Random people I have asked about the night have given me the
usual reasons for budgeting their trips to the Strip carefully -- parking and drink
prices being at the top of the list. But the $5 lot across the street from the Roxy is
reasonable. And drink prices are what they are; you just need to moderate.
Tonight, with Norwegian pop singer Magnet
having canceled his tour because of an illness in his family, smart-rockin' locals Oliver Future (who just had last month's
residency at Spaceland) headline, supported by the serene-sounding Sara Lov and Australian psych-poppers the Panda Band. It's the final Revenge
night of the year.
No word yet on whether Filter will pick up the
promotion in 2008.
Update:
"We're still trying to figure that out," Filter's Alan Sartirana says of
whether Revenge will start up again after the new year. "We're looking for other
partners, and we're looking for a way to make it a free night."
◊ ◊
◊
Funeral services for Lance "Romance" Faulk of the Orange County band the Attraction are Thursday. Faulk, 36, died
Saturday of a heart-related illness. The Register has his obituary here.
◊ ◊ ◊
Inara
George is in the studio working with the legendary Van Dyke Parks and producer Michael Andrews on her next solo album.
◊ ◊ ◊
And Astra
Heights' delayed debut album finally came out this week -- digitally, at least. The
power-pop quintet has had "Good Problems" done for quite some time. Now it is
out (at a very low price) on iTunes.
||| Download: "The March" by Astra
Heights.
Photo of Oliver Future by Marcus Brooks
Elsewhere tonight, Nov. 14
Two very nice English
bands hit town. Athlete's new album
"Beyond the Neighbourhood" is full of glistening pop, rich in imagery; the
band plays the Troubadour. ... And Manchester newcomers Polytechnic plays Club NME at
Spaceland.
 Punk singer, poet, confrontationalist, Lydia Lunch was teaching at the San Francisco Art Institute in the early '90s and invited me to the final performances. Halfway through, the female students were howling with rage and this deranged, sexy art-punk named Bart had another kid in a vicious headlock and had a screwdriver at his neck, threatening to kill him. Lydia dug her nails into my leg, freaked and pleased by what she had wrought -- all the petty rivalries in the room had exploded in tears and violence. This is her psychotic oeuvre: wringing the madness out, draining people like rotten pumpkins and making art with the stains.
It's been 28 years since her band Teenage Jesus & the Jerks released its ridiculous single "Orphans" ("orphans running through the blood-DY snow!"), but Lydia hasn't backed off a bit. Her new book, "Paradoxia: A Predator's Diary," chronicles what seems to be a lifetime of insane survival sex -- psychic survival, that is, as much as economic. It is a memoir, but did this horrifying stuff really happen? Lydia's not saying. Check out the coke-freak-sex scene that begins on page 59 and see why she's always been a punk icon.
Get a taste on Nov. 14, 7 p.m. at Hammer Readings at the Hammer Museum in Westwood, with Arthur Nersesian; and Nov. 15, 8:30 p.m. in a solo performance called "Hangover Hotel" at Largo.
-- Dean Kuipers
Rock radio giant KROQ-FM on Monday announced the
roster for the first night (Dec. 8) of its Almost Acoustic Christmas, and the lineup
contained a bunch of the usual suspects -- Linkin Park, Angels & Airwaves, Avenged
Sevenfold and Bad Religion, along with Paramore, Rise Against and System of a Down Serj
Tankian.
This morning KROQ will announce a decidedly more indie lineup for the second night
(Dec. 9), including four of the acts that played in 2004 -- Modest Mouse, the Shins,
Muse and Jimmy Eat World. They will be joined by Spoon, local quartet Silversun Pickups
and Canadian songstress Feist (guesting on the station's morning show today).
Bad Religion will be playing the event for the fourth time in 17 years (Beck has
played five times, by the way). Do the Christmas show lineups tell you anything about
the state of music? I don't know, but it sure is fun looking at the old KROQ lineups (thanks
Wikipedia) and thinking how bummed I am that I missed the Trash Can Sinatras at that
very first holiday show.
Both of this year's shows are at the Gibson Amphitheatre.
Photo of Britt Daniel of Spoon performing earlier this year at Internet outlet Little
Radio's warehouse by Timothy Norris. Photo of Brian Aubert of Silversun Pickups
performing at Coachella by Kevin Bronson / LAT.
 If while a band's setting up you notice the drummer in his socks sitting on the stage, stretching his hamstrings while dressed in strictly-business black, chances are you're in for a punishing evening from a percussion standpoint. And Brooklyn's Parts & Labor delivered just that at Spaceland last week, conjuring a glorious, unholy racket from a thrift store's-worth of table-mounted electronics, fuzzed-out bass and the manic drumming of newest member Joe Wong (formerly of Mary Timony). The guy was all over his kit throughout the band's set, which was mostly pulled from their excellent third album Mapmaker. But the evening's secret weapon, apart from the billboard-sized melodies cutting through the noise and street-repair beats? The fact that less than 45 minutes after they started Parts & Labor were offstage and back working the merch table -- no encores, no fuss. Sometimes there's a lot to be said for being left wanting.
Seriously, how many times have you been at a show and listened to your lower back grumble through sloppy set-closing covers and a drawn-out encore break when you got all you needed eight or nine songs in? Sure, once you're in the rarified air of Ticketmastered theater gigs you want some return on your investment, but in a crowded club shouldn't most acts who don't list Phil Lesh as an influence be able to get their point across in less time than it takes to wrap up the average CSI episode?
-- Chris Barton
[I'll call this "This Just In ..." -- not a full-on review, but quick
impressions of something that just landed on my desk or in my e-mail ...]
|
