This weekend, we conducted an experiment on our child. But there's no reason to call Child Protective Services, unless you think noise rock is a toxic substance. We'd already had a kid's music outing planned to see our old fave Ralph's World at the Echoplex. When we found out that No Age would be playing on the Getty plaza the night before, we thought we'd see which band did a better job hitting a 4-year-old's joy button.
The Little Ones, who lost their U.S. record deal with EMI/Astralwerks early this year, have been signed to Chop Shop Records, the year-old imprint that was spun off Chop Shop Music, the music supervision company that has curated the soundtracks to television shows such as "The O.C.," "Grey's Anatomy," "Gossip Girl" and "Boston Public," among others. Look for the Little Ones' debut album, "Morning Tide," to finally be released in September -- more than two years after their "Sing Song" EP marked the L.A. outfit as a band to watch.
"They're growing and we're growing," singer-guitarist Ed Reyes says. "It's back to basics for us -- it's great to deal with a group of people who are enthusiastic about our music."
Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler now says that his recent stint in rehab was to help him through a developing addiction to pain and sleep medications he was taking following recent foot surgery.
"I just put the brakes on and checked into detox and just pulled the plug on all of it," Tyler told the Associated Press while promoting the new Guitar Hero 3: Aerosmith edition dedicated to his band's music.
So, how many dance music fans, exactly, descended upon downtown Los Angeles Saturday night for the Electric Daisy Carnival?
That all depends on whom you ask. Several local media reports estimated that the crowd of rave-happy teenagers was between 15,000 to 20,000 at L.A. Memorial Coliseum and the surrounding area, who were there to take in acts like Moby and Paul van Dyk.
But promoters for the event told Soundboard that the actual numbers were closer to 60,000. Take a look for yourself at this photo gallery.
Last night the Sunset Strip Music Festival started off with a bang as Everclear, L.A. Guns, Soul Asylum and several other bands including Camper Van Beethoven rocked the House of Blues and the Whisky.
Tribune Co. sister Metromix was the co-sponsor of the brand-new three-night fest that continues tonight with the likes of Juliette Lewis, Hot Hot Heat, Slash and others playing at historic West Hollywood venues like the Roxy and the Viper Room, to name a few.
Depending on which part of the country you grew up in, or what kind of cable system you had in the 1980s, you might remember a little counter-culture TV program called "Night Flight" that frequently showcased concert footage and early '80s music videos from the likes of Red Hot Chili Peppers, Duran Duran and Wendy O. Williams. The music was thematically packaged with the odd cartoon (early "Beavis and Butt-head" shorts) or full-length movies, such as France's animated "Fantastic Planet."
"Night Flight" aired on the fledgling USA Network from 1981 until 1988. Creator Stuart S. Shapiro and co-producer Stuart Samuels got their hands on archived tapes of the show just last year and are hoping to bring this iconic program back to its stoner glory.
Norfolk, Va. police sure picked a belated time to come to the realization that hip-hop artists occasionally use four-letter words. During his set with the funk band Galactic at the Bayou Boogaloo & Cajun Food Festival in Norfolk on June 21, the Bay Area-based rapper Boots Riley of the Coup came under fire for the obscure charge of "abusive language," under a law that the city hasn't invoked in 26 years, and never against a performer.
Nas' latest offering, "Sly Fox," off of his anticipated disc ("Untitled," dropping July 15), is making the rounds on ye olde internets in a big way today (following leaks of songs such as "Black President" in weeks past). The scathing, guitar-driven song takes direct aim at Fox News and the entire Rupert Murdoch empire, with lyrics including: "Only Fox that I loved was the red one/only black man that Fox loved is in jail or a dead one."
When it's the theme from "The Sopranos" used just coincidentally by the Washington state Democratic party in an ad against Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi. The ad is ostensibly a criticism of Foselli's close ties to a lobbying group, the Building Industry Assn. of Washington, and Rossi's own ads against Washington governor Chris Gregoire.
After Lil Wayne's lyrical firebombing of the FNMTV studios last week, Pete Wentz and Co. would have a hard time finding anything short of a reanimated James Brown performance to top it. Rihanna sashaying around with Adam Levine on "If I Never See Your Face Again" didn't get there during last night's two-hour taping of the Friday night new-music show, but this weird experiment in blending old-school MTV values (making music video debuts appointment-worthy) with a hyper-stylized teen pop gloss might actually work out. For those who don't watch MTV outside of "The Hills," FNMTV premieres three videos evert Friday at 8 p.m. and features two live performances. Here's a preview of what to expect from tomorrow's show.
The second annual Reggae Rising Music Festival is giving away $100 gas cards, in hopes of luring reggae fans to the festival grounds in remote Piercy, Calif., a town about 200 miles north of San Francisco. Performers include Sizzla, Cham, Junior Reid, Julian Marley and UB40. "Let reggae pick up your gasoline," its website explains. What a brilliant idea! Now, if only rock could pay for my hotel and hip-hop for my food.
I first met The 88 more than five years ago. Picking my way through the post-show crowd outside Spaceland, keyboardist Adam Merrin was among three or four people fliering to promote their bands. Only Merrin was handing out sampler CDs with The 88's fliers.
"I used to hate passing out fliers, but the idea of handing out music made sense," Merrin says of the tack that helped build the band a strong L.A. following. "We did that a long time."
No overnight sensations, these guys. After two DIY albums and more than 40 song placements in films, television shows and commericals, the 88 signed with Island and are releasing their major-label debut in August, and kicking off the campaign with a show as part of the Sunset Strip Music Festival. When I talked to them last week, they were pretty much the same dudes I'd run into pounding the pavement outside local clubs.
You can tell a lot about a person from their heroes. There are those who cite great statesmen or politicians; others look up to athletes, scientists, philosophers or artists.
For British musician and humorist Neil Innes, it’s Brian Dunkleman, who quit his job co-hosting “American Idol” with Ryan Seacrest because he didn’t like the way contestants were being treated.
"60 Minutes" is fascinated with Denmark: The venerable CBS news magazine has aired this segment on the country at least twice over the last year (the piece explores why the Danes are at the top of the “world map of happiness”).
And while Morley Safer and company draw few conclusions as to why the Danes consistently top the annual survey that ranks countries by how happy they are (by Britain's University of Leicester), we’d like to offer up one reason why the kids in Copenhagen seem so sprightly: It’sthemusic. Exhibit A is Denmark’s hot-right-now Alphabeat.
Mick Hucknall, in his first post-Simply Red incarnation, takes on the repertoire of Bobby "Blue" Bland in "Tribute to Bobby," a new album of soul classics released last week.
We bid adieu to George Michael in our last installment of Afternoon Tea before his show tonight at the Forum. A few parting quotes from Ann Powers’ interview:
ON STAYING IN THE CLOSET FOR MANY YEARS
"It was very painful thing to have to keep quiet about, because my dignity really suffered for it. But I was living for my mother. I finally told her, because [former lover] Anselmo had died; it wasthe year I would have told her anyway, because combination therapy [the drug regime to combat AIDS] began then. I could have told her then, without her spending every day of her life worrying.
It’s about five blocks from the Egyptian Theatre to Cosmo Street, a proximity to keep in mind if you go to the Sunday night screening of “Love Story,” a documentary on the star-crossed Los Angeles band Love and its enigmatic leader, Arthur Lee (pictured above).
Cosmo was the site of Bido Lido’s, the small club where Love became a sensation on the L.A. scene in the mid-1960s, and if you stroll east on Hollywood Boulevard after the movie (part of the Mods & Rockers Film Festival), you might hear a lingering tambourine and catch a whiff of patchouli.
Barack Obama is not only the first black presidential candidate destined to earn a party nomination, but he's also the first truly cool candidate of the new millennium. Bruce Springsteen stumped for John Kerry on 2004's "Vote For Change" tour and Patti Smith sang with Ralph Nader at a Madison Square Garden rally for the independent candidate in 2000. But let's face it: Whatever you think of their politics, those greying patricians didn't have the secret weapon Obama is learning to deploy: the support of the people arguably most responsible for creating American style -- and inarguably behind American music -- since the dawn of our nation. As the late, immortal Curtis Mayfield might have said, Obama is fly. And that's going to help him this electoral season.
Well, now we all know better than to make our feelings about Kanye's lateness be known by expressing our feelings over multiple Port-O-Let walls! After Kanye West's Bonnaroo set last week started almost two hours late (partially attributable to Pearl Jam playing long), the Bonnaroo crowd began anti-Kanye chants and sprayed graffiti to the same effect around the festival grounds. Now, Kanye offers his take on events at his blog, and be forewarned: he's "Typing so ... hard I might break my Mac book Air!!!!!!!!"
How do you make a Stone Temple Pilot spitting mad? As your humble correspondent found out the hard way during an interview last month with the multiplatinum-selling '90s grunge group, one very effective way is to ask frontman Scott Weiland about going to jail.
It was a tragic week at Will Call as Southern California audiences lost the opportunity to see not one but two of the world's most beloved transvestite singers: Boy George was forced to cancel his scheduled American tour after being denied a visa by the State Department, and Dead or Alive's Pete Burns pulled out of his own tour plans, citing health problems.But the show must and shall go on with lots of other big names, running the gamut of genres and tastes.
Everyday around 4:30 or 5 p.m., we'll be releasing a quote from Ann Powers' interview with George Michael in preparation for his performance Wednesday at the Forum.
ON WHY STRAIGHT MEN MIGHT HATE HIM
"Now that I am relatively confident as a sexual being, I kind of understand the jealousy and nastiness [directed at him in the 1980s, especially by journalists]. At the time, because I was not confident at all, I didn’t quite get that they would look at me and think I’d had just a little bit too much good luck.
I caught up with Chris Martin of Coldplay the day after he dropped $400 on vinyl at Amoeba Records. Naturally, I asked him what was in the stack. “I walked out with, let’s see, some live Paul Simon, some Rammstein, some Talking Heads and some John Williams, some Jay-Z, all of it on vinyl …” Wait, Chris, did you say Rammstein? “Yeah, I love Rammstein, are you kidding?” Sure, of course, my bad: The guy who sings "Yellow" adores German industrial metal. That makes total sense.
In a show of civic pride that may have some locals rolling their eyes with memories of riots, parking nightmares and noise violations, the Sunset Strip Business Assn., Sunset Strip club owners and West Hollywood have collaborated to honor the clubs of the Sunset Strip and its music history with a three-day festival. The Sunset Strip Music Festival will run Thursday through Saturday and promoters are expecting up to 9,000 attendees. The festivities will include performances at the House of Blues, the Key Club, the Roxy, the Whisky A Go Go, the Viper Room and the Cat Club.
Fans of righteous rockabilly music rejoice: Norton Records, America’s premier purveyor of obscure roots music, has just released a three-record collection of rare and previously unheard Charlie Feathers songs. Norton has been championing Feathers for more than a decade, releasing four other compilations of his work over the years, but this latest effort is the whipped cream atop the pie.
So, you're in a band that just plowed a few grand into retrofitting your tour van to run on vegetable oil, requested all-recycled paper plates on your rider and decided to telecommute to your appearance on Conan to avoid emissions-heavy plane rides. You can now ply your new double-vinyl LP masterpiece with environmental impunity, right? Fail! Vinyl LPs are made with PVC plastic, which is packed with dioxin, phthalates, lead and other fun ingredients that can cause cancer, birth defects and respiratory problems, among a whole host of ailments. They're also nigh impossible to recycle and, like all plastic, take centuries upon centuries to biodegrade.
Everyday around 4:30 or 5 p.m., we'll be releasing a quote from Ann Powers' interview with George Michael in preparation for his performance Wednesday at the Forum.
ON RADIOHEAD
"Thom Yorke has been nasty about me. "OK Computer” is a classic pop album, disguised and disguised and disguised, but there’s not ability to disguise those melodies.
The only thing stranger than Boy George's planned concert for the City of New York Department of Sanitation’s annual Family Day on Aug. 17 is the latest bit of info that he won't be coming to the States after all. Boy George, who wanted to perform for the department in gratitude for "the kindness shown to him during his community service with them in 2006," has been denied permission to enter the U.S. This means his U.S. tour is scrapped too. A representative from the U.S. State Department declined to comment, stating that it is against policy to talk about individual visa cases.
English magazine Total Guitar has released a list of the worst cover songs of all time. Readers of the magazine's top choice? Céline Dion's dreadful take on AC/DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long." The song was never officially released by Dion, but You Tube has given the version (performed in Las Vegas in 2002 for a VH-1 special) a second life online.
Trenton Guinta, left, of San Dimas, and Ian DeLucca of Long Beach work their exit strategy as the opening day of Warped Tour comes to an end.
||| See: After a show Saturday in San Francisco, the Warped Tour returns to the Southland on Sunday for a date at Seaside Park in Ventura. And the tour comes to a close Aug. 17 at the Home Depot Center in Carson.
There's not much to say about Say Anything's first Warped Tour set except: better luck next time.
Savaged by technical problems, the emo sextet was reduced to playing only a handful of songs -- the final two solo efforts by frontman Max Bemis, who handled the sticky situation with as much aplomb as could be expected. "This didn't happen to Angels & Airwaves," he said, referring to the band that preceded him onstage.
He thanked the audience profusely for its patience. And his solo renditions of "Baby Girl, I'm a Blur" and "Walk Through Hell"? Pretty darned memorable.
If you were 14, female and near the rail for Katy Perry's set, you probably thought the fresh-faced 23-year-old had a pretty killer debut on the Warped tour. You could see the pink eyeliner ("I'm bringing pink to the Warped Tour," she declared), the "Jesus" tattoo on her wrist (she's the daughter of pastors from Santa Barbara); and you might have caught one of the strawberry balloons her minions threw to the crowd.
The L.A. contingent at this year's Warped Tour isn't quite as deep as in past years, but it's always interesting to see bands outside of the Southland club environment, where they are taking aim at new fans.
Two of those local heroes, the Aggrolites and the Briggs, pushed themselves to the limit.
Warped Tour producer and founder Kevin Lyman put attendance for Friday's opening date at 16,000.
That's fewer than the 20,000 that packed the grounds last year (for a bill a bit heavier on veteran, big-name punk bands) but more than the 14,000 from two years ago. Lyman reasons that having the tour start a week earlier, along with the general economic doldrums, kept attendance down.
If you walked briskly Friday afternoon in the 102-degree heat (and dodged the kids with squirt guns), you departed the northern main stage at the Pomona Fairplex just as Gym Class Heroes were finishing their catchy but kitschy low-brow anthem "Clothes Off!" and arrived at the southern main stage in time to hear Against Me! break into its strident anthem "Stop!"
Nigerian singer Fela Kuti is most known for ushering Afrobeat rhythms and socially conscious messages onto the world stage. Tonight and tomorrow, his son Seun (pronounced shi-oon) embarks on his first ever tour to promote his album "Many Things," which features his father's 15-piece funk and jazz orchestra, Egypt 80.
Everyday around 4:30 or 5 p.m., we'll be releasing a quote from Ann Powers' interview with George Michael in preparation for his performance Wednesday at the Forum.
ON 'ELI STONE'
"The ‘Eli Stone’ thing for me is very confusing. Initially it was just this 13-week period and I found it almost impossible to say no to it, just because it was so complimentary to place that much music of mine in it.
As anyone knows, Lil Wayne owned the record charts this week. He won over most critics, but more important, he got his fan base to shell out enough dough to drive his album sales past the "Milli" mark. What now remains to be seen is whether he can triple that.
Whether it's the Grammys, Oscars or Bravo's new entree into handing out coveted paperweights, awards culture is typically a slow-moving, conservative beast. Too often, the least controversial choice wins. Why do we keep watching? Well, there are all those pretty dresses and occasionally there's a Dickensian twist or flitter of progressive thinking.
Nothing against Story of the Year, but the excitement generated by the St. Louis quintet -- and several like it every year on the Warped Tour -- makes me think it doesn't pay for artists to stay true to much of anything in the way of influences or roots. The commercial formula seems to be: Throw all kinds of stylistic variations against the wall; produce it so it sounds really, really big; and perform it as if the world's angst were on your shoulders.
Welcome to the 2008 Vans Warped Tour, where peace (but precious few other things you can't get in a mall) is in fashion.
It's the first of 46 dates on the annual punk rock traveling show, and, about 10 minutes through the gate, you wished maybe you would've waited until Sunday's date at Seaside Park in Ventura, where cooler breezes are likely to prevail.
On “Black Covers,” one of the sylvan gems on L.A. quintet Everest’s debut album, “Ghost Notes,” frontman Russell Pollard sings, “Sometimes you’ve gotta step out of line to be seen.” Ain’t it the truth.
Everyday around 4:30 or 5 p.m., we'll be releasing a quote from Ann Powers' interview with George Michael in preparation for his performance Wednesday at the Forum. This first one ain't for wallflowers:
ON SEX
"But I honestly believe that orgasm is the closest we come to God, whether there’s love or not. It’s a glimpse of the divine. And we content ourselves with that happening every once in a while. If that thirty or forty seconds of absolute oblivion were something we could tap into any time we wanted, what would life be? In some ways, is that not what drugs are about? Is that quite often not why drugs and sex become synonymous?
This weekend, we conducted an experiment on our child. But there's no reason to call Child Protective Services, unless you think noise rock is a toxic substance. We'd already had a kid's music outing planned to see our old fave Ralph's World at the Echoplex. When we found out that No Age would be playing on the Getty plaza the night before, we thought we'd see which band did a better job hitting a 4-year-old's joy button.
