Molly Bergen

Photo by Scott Munn via Wintersleep's Myspace page. Supporting their third album, Welcome to the Night Sky, Nova Scotia's own dreamy, fuzzed out rockers Wintersleep will be playing the Echoplex tomorrow night. Wintersleep came together when drummer, Loel Campbell and Paul Murphy, guitarist, sat down at their 15th floor apartment in downtown Halifax and decided to produce some of Paul's quieter songs that didn't really fit into his current band's aggressive sound. The pair...

Photos by Andrew Hanson/LAist It's St. Patrick's Day and where am I? In a pub toasting a nation I technically have no kinship with or have ever had the pleasure of going? No. Out in the bushes pretending to "look for leprechauns" while I retch my guts out in a strong green stream? Nope. This year was spent at the Echoplex with Funeral Party and ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead...

Photos by Benjamin Hoste /LAist Let it never be said that Youth Group are sissies. After enduring a fourteen hour flight from Sydney to LA, through untold horrors otherwise known as "customs" and "baggage claim," the Australian band still managed to put up with my meeting them at the Custom Inn Suites in Hollywood for our interview. If our places were reversed, I would have been a howling, drooling grump, refusing to talk to...

Photos by Benjamin Hoste/LAist Racing through her apartment one day my friend Ashley yelled at me, "You have to hear this band! They're still in high school, but they're phenomenal." Dutifully I sat down and the most cheerfully elaborate pop about semen came out of the speakers. "I'm sorry. Are they singing about cum?" I asked. Ashley just grinned. I had to talk to this band. Over the next few weeks, I listened to...

Photos by Justine Warrington via The Pack A.D. MySpace If you enjoy the bluesy garage rock of the White Stripes, have I got a band for you. Their hard hitting lyrics, wild woman drumming, and savage guitar licks have been winning them praise up and down the west coast.Hailing from the wild frontier town that is Vancouver, The Pack A.D. are descending upon Los Angeles this Friday to play at the Redwood Bar. If...

Photos by Benjamin Hoste/LAist A lot of self-reflection and humility go into an anniversary tour. It takes a lot to look back at your career and say, "This album was our best album." or in other words "Let's just play the songs that people want to hear and forget about our new stuff, which isn't that great." I only wish more bands would do that (I'm looking at you, Brandon Flowers. Just stick to Hot...

Photos are by the very talented Leslie Kalohi for LAist If you find yourself on a street corner singing "Maybe God is God. Maybe the Devil is me!" like some crazed Hollywood and Highland street preacher, chances are good that Matthew Vasquez had something to do with it. Like the sensation of a raw nerve pulsing deep down in your ear, his voice reaches into your skull, takes command of your vocal chords, and orders...

Photos by Leslie Kalohi/LAist The talented soul man Raphael Saadiq headlined at the House of Blues on Monday night, and I arrived determined to dance until there were holes in my shoes. His latest The Way I See It had been on repeat in my car for most of 2008. Call it neo-Motown, retro boogie, soul revival, whatever, Saadiq had created one of the best albums of the year and I was thrilled to...

Photos by Jessi Duston /LAist The dress code for a punk show has not changed in about thirty years. It is also a very simple one to follow: when in doubt, wear black. Black pants, black shirt, black shoes, black hair, black eyeliner, and a black tongue ring and you're good to go. With the exception of a Dropkick Murphys show in which case green is the new black. The Hollywood Palladium was lit up...

Photos by Amber Meairs via Joe Pug's MySpace The story goes like this: When Joe Pug was a junior studying playwriting at the University of North Carolina he had an two sequential epiphanies. He decided that he was unhappy in his studies, and he wanted to pursue a career as a musician. So he picked up his things, packed up his car, and headed for Chicago. Three years later, Joe Pug has released his...