Image courtesy of Paul Graham Raven via flickr Just when you thought stoner doom metal was dead, Austin natives the Sword have stormed onto the scene with some of the darkest riffs and sickest solos since Sabbath. With their sophomore release entitled "Gods of the Earth" in their arsenal of show material, the Sword took the stage at the El Rey and just started destroying ear drums one song at a time.......

So if you didn't know, The Jam's Bruce Foxton and Rick Buckler formed a group last May called "From The Jam", with new members Dave Moore on keys and Russell Hastings singing, which means no Paul Weller. A concept that may seem just plain wrong to some. You can decide for yourself if you catch them at House of Blues Anaheim on January 25th or The El Rey on the 26th! From The Jam......

There is rarely an audience at an LA club show so fully and intensely captivated as the crowd at The El Rey was last night. Leave it to Dap Kings guitarist / emcee Binky Griptite who is a master at his craft: warming up the crowd and introducing the boogieing Miss Sharon Jones. Jones & the Dap Kings performed for solid two hours, no opening act necessary (although the 60's and 70's dusty and......

Today, December 5th, is the 4th annual International Day of the Ninja. While we don't recommend taking swords to work, come nightfall, you can let out your inner ninjutsu at the El Rey Theater on Wilshire. Kent Nichols and Douglas Sarine of Ask a Ninja will host. The Ninja awaits your questions, so don't be talkin' like a pirate. Get there early for special guest performances from funnyman Patton Oswalt and the hilarious audio-visual offerings......

"Steven" - Voxtrot VHS or Beta, Foreign Born, Afrobots @ The El Rey Voxtrot @ The Music Box @ Fonda Dia de Chango @ Temple Bar Soulsavers, Spain @ The Troubadour Tom Paxton, Dan Crow and JP Nightingale @ McCabe's Guitar Shop Cake @ The Grove of Anaheim Summer Darling, You Me and Iowa, Loverlee, Oso @ Spaceland Damon Dae & Burning Wagon @ Jerry's Flying Fox The Locust, Upsilon Acrux, Yip-Yip, Sleeping People......

Artist: Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings Album: 100 Days, 100 Nights Label: Daptone Records Release Date: 10/02/07 Promo Track "100 Days, 100 Nights": When I first listened to this CD I thought it was a reissue of some '60s soul supergroup but no, this gem came out just last month! This album made me nostalgic for my first car, a '79 Honda Civic 4-door hatchback with an AM radio and the only music station that......

When you have a huge music collection and you listen almost all the time, there tends to be a few artists that you come back to over and over. In our house, full of CD's, concert DVD's, and iPods a few artists reign supreme: The Beatles, Elvis Costello, and Loudon Wainwright III. Loudon's music can make you feel, make you smile, and make you think-- he is a master storyteller. Often listed with the......

From writing to recording and producing, Joe Henry knows how to keep himself busy. This year he released his CD "Civilians", wrote the music for "Knocked Up" with Loudon Wainwright III, and produced several tracks for Todd Hayne's Bob Dylan film "I'm Not There". In 2003 he won a Grammy for producing Solomon Burke's "Don't Give Up On Me". Burke has said about Joe Henry, "He's an exciting young man, a talented gentleman, he......

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 celebration. The audience - a family reunion of freaks, old punkers, and psychedelic survivors - received every devilish incantation as if it was a Christmas......

The Pogues @ The Wiltern - Tonight ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of The Dead, Dethklok @ UCLA - Tonight Redd Kross @ Echoplex - Tomorrow The Polyphonic Spree, Rooney @ Henry Fonda - Tomorrow Yo La Tengo @ The Ivar - Tomorrow Low Versus Diamond @ Viper Room - Tomorrow The Bronx, The Mercy Killers @ Safari Sam's - Tomorrow Rodrigo Y Gabriela @ Henry Fonda, 11/3 Yo La Tengo......

The Pogues - "If I Should Fall From Grace From God" The Pogues, Ted Leo @ The Wiltern Cypress Hill @ House of Blues Regina Spektor @ Grove of Anaheim Danzig @ The Greek CéU @ The El Rey Ghostface Killah @ Vault 350 Lucha VaVoom @ The Mayan The Binges, Sasquatch, Jessie Deluxe, HDR @ King King Tristeza, Aqueduct, Georgie James @ The Echo Bela, The Mythical Creatures @ The Viper Room The......

Six Degrees Records recording artist CéU is on her way back to LA for one last show before heading home to Brazil. LAist reviewed her excellent self-titled album a few months ago and we've had a chance to listen to the Remix EP of several of those songs. Three of the best tunes from her eponymous album are featured in delightful new versions on the Remix EP. Go there and check out samples. CéU will......

Hot Hot Heat @ Henry Fonda Roky Erickson, The 1990s @ The El Rey Josie Cotton @ Key Club Killola @ Safari Sam's Pinback @ The Wiltern Glassjaw @ Avalon The Spazmatics @ Dragonfly The One AM Radio @ Tangier Tribute to Herbie Hancock @ The Kodak Early risers: The Hollow Trees @ Kidspace Children's Museum - Pasadena (noon) photo by Joey Maloney......

And in case you haven’t heard, Roky walks among us this weekend. Tonight at 7:30 he's signing books and introducing a showing of his “all time favorite horror movie”, The Creature With The Atom Brain, at the Silent Movie Theater, and playing with his latest crew Evilhook Wildlife ET on Sunday night at the El Rey. Your Pre-Halloween weekend just got creepier, in person. We haven’t had a visit from this fellow since 1980, and the one before that was around 1966, so avoid him at your extreme peril....

Starbucks is currently in the midst of doing a free Song of the Day promotion (see the complete list of 37 songs here), and last night, Hear Music, located on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, hosted an in-store performance by the LA-based indie Bitter:Sweet (MySpace) since their song "Heaven (Nicola Conte Remix)" was yesterday's giveaway. I've admittedly been a fan of Bitter:Sweet since their performance a year and a half ago at a......

Two really good bands (that taste great together) have announced today that they are heading East. The Art Brut / Hold Steady concert that was originally planned to happen at the Wiltern will now go down at the Music Box at the Henry Fonda on November 7. Art Brut is the crazy British band whose tune "Moving to LA" can be heard on KROQ and Indie pretty much every day, and the Hold Steady......

Morrissey @ The Palladium The Weakerthans @ The El Rey The Mormons @ Mr. T's Bowl Supafloss, The Webee Boys @ The Gig Division Day, The Mae Shi, Eulogies @ The Echo Stephen Marley @ Hollywood Bowl Saosin, The Dear & Departed, Norma Jean, Alexisonfire @ Avalon......

10/2, 4-6, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13 - Morrissey @ The Palladium 10/2 - Nick Lowe, Ron Sexsmith @ Safari Sam's 10/3 - Datarock, Foreign Born, Honeycut @ The Echo 10/3 - Mark Ronson @ The El Rey 10/5 - Metric @ Henry Fonda 10/6 - Bloc Party, Justice, Satellite Party, Kinky, Autolux, Celebrity Skin @ Detour Festival 10/6 - Lukas Rossi @ Viper Room 10/6 - Steve Miller @ The Greek 10/7 -......

Josh Rouse is my secret boyfriend. So secret, in fact, that neither my actual boyfriend, or Josh himself knows this, but that's entirely beside the point. He's my secret boyfriend, and I am pie-eyed over him, and therefore Josh Rouse can do no wrong. Put me in a room with him--like let's say the El Rey Theatre on Friday September 28th--dim the lights, hand the man a guitar, and you've found the perfect recipe......

"Yeah, I do think this one sounds grittier, but the songwriting on both are kind of dark. On the first album, some of the songs are immediately catchy, where some of the people don’t realize it’s dark and on the second one, the music can be a bit darker, immediately."...

Eddie Van Halen still sorta is the greatest guitarist alive. And maybe you don't like your rock gods to be a little looney and close to death, but we do. And if we learned one thing about David Lee Roth it's that he aint no morning man, which is fine. What he is is the only front man that Van Halen should have ever had, and we're glad that all the nonsense was able......

Artist: Sunset Rubdown Album: Random Spirit Lover Label: Jagjaguwar Release Date: October 9th, 2007 Sunset Rubdown is the brainchild of Spencer Krug, member of major indie band Wolf Parade, and seemingly half a dozen other outfits. Instead of the pseudo-dance rock of Wolf Parade, we have a much more lyrically-driven product in Sunset Rubdown. Krug's curious copious screeds are lengthy and complex, and run the gamut of fable-telling ("The Mending of the Gown") to nearly......

Peter Case, Ron Franklin @ McCabe's Ice T @ Key Club John Doe @ Malibu Inn Hall & Oates @ Hollywood Bowl Joan as Police Woman, Princeton, Emily Wells @ Spaceland Kings of Leon, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club @ The Greek The Mother Hips, Broken West @ The Roxy Hawnay Troof, The Octopus Project @ The El Rey Common @ The Wiltern Ben Kweller @ The Echo Jon Brion @ Largo James Intveld, Red......

Common - "The People" "The People" was one of our most-played summer jamz. It was on Kanye's "Can't Tell Me Nothin" sampler because Kanye produced it and listen to how sweet it is. It's the sort of non-thug, uplifting, positive hip-hop that people once talked about, but now people are buying. This is the direction BEP could have gone if they hadn't chosen the path of the lowest common denominator aka the Gwen Stefani......

The Blood Arm - "Suspicious Character" Fuck Yeah Fest: Deerhunter, Foreign Born, The Nice Boys, Indian Jewelry, Midnight Movies, The Blood Arm, Great Northern, Darker My Love, Bad Dudes, others @ The Echo Macy Gray @ Hollywood Bowl UB40, The English Beat, Elan @ The Greek The Brand New Heavies @ House of Blues The Real McKenzies, Crosstops, Dynamite 8 @ The El Rey Strunz & Farah @ Catalina Bar & Grill House of......

The Magic Numbers, "Crazy in Love" The Magic Numbers are in town which is always a good thing. This morning they visit Nic Harcourt at KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic where they will perform songs from their two records, and hopefully bust with that Beyoncé tune that they did for this year's KCRW's Sounds Eclectic - The Covers Project. The fact that that tune is our favorite cut from the album, which you might have......

Artist: The Shout Out Louds Album: Tonight I Have To Leave It (EP) Release Date: July 2007 Label: Merge Records If you missed the Shout Out Louds at the El Rey during their whirlwind pass through LA in mid-July you should definitely check out the EP they were touring to support. Basically the release is a glorified CD single with 3 versions of 'Tonight I Have To Leave It' (including a Russian Futurists remix,......

So, Friday night I’m in my car headed towards the El Rey to see legendary punks The Slits. I’m excited. For my money, The Slits are one of the truly essential bands to emerge from the London “Class of ‘77”. I’m almost there, when my cell phone rings. “I have two free tickets – Row AA in the Orchestra Pit - for Rick Springfield at the Universal Amphitheatre.” (Actually, he said Gibson Amphitheatre, but......

Since seeing Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova back in November, opening up for Damien Rice, I have been, and this is fairly rare these days, mesmerized by their music. You know, when I first started listening to Damien Rice, a friend asked what kind of music I would label it and I replied, sad rock. Sad though it is, I think you could put Glen and Marketa's music in the same category, though I believe......

You may have noticed a new button on our left-hand column with the title We See The Best Concerts. It dawned on us the other day that we really do go to the best concerts and we usually write about them the next day or a few days later. So here's a wrap up of all 37 shows we reviewed this month, with links to the posts just in case you missed it. Chris......