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November 27, 2007
I feel at home at hip hop shows. I am in my element. I am around people who love the same kind of music I love. This past Wednesday night, however, for the first time in my show-going life I was at a hip hop show as an outsider.... [continue]
| November 26, 2007
Beck, looking oddly like David Spade, played a not-so-secret show last night at the Echoplex. (Or should I say Beck-o-plex?) The “only North American date of the tour” was to give his new band a chance to get their live feet wet before heading out for some bigger shows... [continue]
November 20, 2007
New Jersey singer-songwriter Jenny Owen Youngs (MySpace), whose song "Fuck Was I" was on Weeds, is arguably best known for her connection with the controversial and self-described "Queen of All Media" Perez Hilton, whose championing of her music led to visits on her MySpace page reportedly leaping from 2,000... [continue]
November 19, 2007
"It's so nice and quiet and beautiful in here... from here the lighting kinda looks like a Cylon from Battlestar Galactica." -- Neko Case, melting the heart of every geek in the house while taking in the mysterious angles and lighting inside the Frank Gehry-designed concert hall. Neko Case... [continue]
November 18, 2007
What could have been a humdrum Saturday afternoon turned out to be the most memorable I've had this entire year. No Age and a lucky crowd of about 75 broke history. Actually, I'm not even sure if we broke history. However, I am certain that no other band has... [continue]
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November 18, 2007
Its no wonder that Puffy AmiYumi are the huge international superstars that they are because even though they sing in a language you don't understand, they are irresistibly charming and their songs will be stuck in your head for days. I guess it was an all ages show. I... [continue]
November 15, 2007
As a teenager, the Misfits kind of passed me by. They were an East coast band, and I was listening to local SST bands and 70s glammy-junkie punk bands. Like ANGELIC UPSTARTS, it seemed like MISFITS was just another band to paint on your leather jacket. A few years... [continue]
November 14, 2007
Back in 2002 or so, a guy friend of mine introduced me to a band he had discovered, whose lyrics were all about two fictional characters in a sci-fi world, and whose artwork had no band photos, only a drawing of the fictional guy and girl. The music was... [continue]
KT Tunstall was supposed to play Leno and Carson Daly's shows this week while she was in town. But since the strike happened she figured "how about playing in front of NBC?" When a better location down the street in front of the Disney gates was suggested she took... [continue]
November 13, 2007
Friday night marked the final performance of Of Montreal's LA stint and it will never slip from my memory. I felt like I was tripping on acid. I had the worst cold I've contracted in years, surely that didn't help, and random imagery (Dave Navarro, grizzly bears, cartoon heads,... [continue]
November 12, 2007
There has been no one to hit the music scene in the past few years as original and refreshing as M.I.A. Her infectious blend or hip hop, dancehall, drum and bass and even a bit of electronic, has been getting crowds across the world shaking and moving to her... [continue]
Sunday was the book release party for Live at the Masque: Nightmare in Punk Alley. It was fully sold out, and even those who are in with the in crowd were embarassed to be left standing outside, waiting for a friend to get them in. The party went on... [continue]
November 10, 2007
Architecture In Helsinki harness a preternatural exuberance that no other band carries. Perhaps it's due, in large part, to the fact that they're headquartered in the land down under. I'd like to think so. Whichever the case may be, their band bio sums their presence up best: "Like a giant... [continue]
November 9, 2007
Thursday night was a busy one and I probably could've used more of a decompression stop between the Hotel Cafe and the Avalon to give my brain ample time to switch genres, but it was enjoyable nonetheless. It all began at 7 p.m. at the Hotel Cafe with Amy... [continue]
November 8, 2007
Last night garage-punk rockers the Hives got to show off their new stuff for the LA crowd at the Avalon. Armed with new material from their new CD The Black & White Album, the Hives broke down the walls and rocked the hell out of the crowd. Dressed in... [continue]
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November 7, 2007
Tunng visited The Echo last night for the second time this year. The band was enthused by the turnout this time, coming on the heels of their third full-length and first release for Thrill Jockey, Good Arrows. On the album, Tunng's music has an endearing balance of soft instrumentation... [continue]
Last month LAist was lucky enough to be invited to the Nissan Live studio on the Fox lot to see PJ Harvey perform one of her very few live appearances in support of her new cd, White Chalk. From what we heard, Polly Jean played once in NYC, once... [continue]
November 5, 2007
There are many different ways you could have heard of Tinariwen by now - even if you don't keep up with world music, you could have heard Henry Rollins play them on Indie 103.1, or read that they opened for The Rolling Stones, or heard that Thom Yorke was... [continue]
November 4, 2007
The day after Neil Young’s first show at the Nokia Theater, I was having trouble believing I hadn’t dreamed the whole thing. I got pictures, but they’re kind of blurry. My friends seem to remember the same things happening, but I could have dreamed them up too. It just... [continue]
When Low vs. Diamond's lead singer Lucas Field sauntered on the stage and meekly opened the show with "Life After Love," I knew immediately that despite the head bobbing and dancing from a few, LvD’s live act would neither expand upon its sound nor translate to the crowd what exactly they were trying to do.... [continue]
November 3, 2007
Last week, we headed over to a really cool club (whose name I will not disclose, because I don't want to get it shut down). We were saddened to discover that we had missed the band we had come to see. They were already over by 11pm; I had... [continue]
November 1, 2007
For a night largely dedicated to tales of Lucifer and his minions, it was bit strange to look around the El Rey on Sunday night at a sea of smiling faces. But Roky Erickson’s return to the LA stage for the first time in twenty-six years was cause for... [continue]
As a life long hip hop fan who's friends are mostly casual hip hop fans, at best, I am constantly being told that a live show that features an emcee rapping over the record is hardly entertaining. To some extent I would agree. On one hand I won't pass... [continue]
I have an interesting story involving Battles, New York's new experimental tech-rock sensations. It was March of this year, and I had traveled to Europe to film a project that I had been working on. My travel cohort and I made a stop in Amsterdam, where I decided that... [continue]