Bobzilla

It’s not exactly shocking to hear that Elvis Costello’s latest album, Secret, Profane and Sugarcane, is a collaboration with bluegrass musicians. Costello’s taken so many leaps into alternate musical universes, it wouldn’t be shocking to hear he was working with anybody. Li’l Wayne, Herb Alpert, Placido Domingo, Michael Jackson, Ornette Coleman, the Broadway company of Rent - you name it, you can imagine it happening. But this particular diversion, as witnessed at Amoeba on...

In the middle of a busy year for British singer-composer Rachel Fuller, what with two original musicals being prepped for world premieres, one of her pet projects from years past is finally getting its wide-scale US release. In The Attic, a program of loose, informal collaborations between Fuller, her partner Pete Townshend, and a series of musical guests ranging from the world-renowned (Lou Reed, Flaming Lips, Raconteurs) to the near-totally unknown, has evolved from...

Tonight at 9:30pm The Egyptian Theater will be home for the world premiere of The Secret Policeman's Ball Film Festival, beginning a four-week run covering three decades of comedic and musical performances. British-born, now local impresario and Mods And Rockers Film Fest curator Martin Lewis likes to present a unique event and give his audience something they haven't seen before. Any man who can get all four members of the Rutles in one place...

At some point during the last twenty years, as Neil Young’s Archives set was pushed back another nine months on the official Warner Brother release schedule for the umpteenth time in a row, I became convinced that the whole thing was an elaborate hoax. Not the archive of unreleased songs itself, but the plans to release it. The songs were surely there; many of the rare tracks that have surfaced on bootlegs rate among...

Watching the LA Opera’s production of La Traviata on its opening night, it was easy to see why this is one of the most-performed pieces of music in the classical repertoire. Its themes are writ large: sex, death, decadence, betrayal, and all-conquering love, set to a rapturous score, one that consistently rewards the most heroic of singers. While it may seem like LA’s been getting too much of a good thing lately (it’s been...

Photo By Bobzilla for LAist.com. Cris Kirkwood is having trouble. It’s the middle of his band the Meat Puppets’ record release party, and the big spazz can’t seem to control himself sufficiently to keep his bass plugged in. This time, he’s yanked two cords at once, and struggles to get it happening again while his brother Curt continues spewing out clouds of acid-damaged noise on the other side of the stage. Noticing something wrong,...

Whether the Beach Boys were singing about showing off their cars, surfing, falling in love or eating hamburgers, they made it sound like the most wonderful thing, like you wanted to be doing that right now. Kids in Omaha might not be able to relate to songs about surfing, but anybody could get what songs like “I Get Around” and “Fun Fun Fun” were about. Much like Eddie Cochran’s “Somethin’ Else”, they were about nothing...

In his “business casual” getup, Michael McKean, the writer and actor who portrays the character Derek St. Hubbins in the film This Is Spinal Tap, looks like he could have stepped out of a regional managers convention, until he opens his mouth. He’s onstage with his legs spread wide, his head tilted to the sky, strumming an acoustic guitar and intoning about “the majesty of rock and the pageantry of roll, the crowing of the...

It’s been twenty-eight years since Throbbing Gristle last scraped the paint off of LA’s walls. In 1981, they were the height of an extremism in a pretty extreme scene, and the passing of thirty-odd years has only enhanced that reputation. They represented the next logical step in popular music, which was to completely remove the necessity for chords, beats and melodies, for notes themselves, for any kind of organization. Though often named as the pioneers...

Photo by Elise Thompson for Laist The notion of the three guys in Spinal Tap embarking on an acoustic tour designed to showcase the group's musical aspects and downplay their history as an over-the top metal band has a certain, how would you say... Spinal Tap quality about it. "This is our chance to do all those things...like that rock opera about Jack The Ripper... acoustically!" But that's what they're doing - a costume...