Reflecting the urban polyglot of its Los Angeles home, Ozomatli purveys a Latin dance party fueled by horns and covering a seamless expanse of hip-hop, jazz, rock, funk, and salsa. The vibrant sound is impressive live, and the band won a Grammy for its third album, 2004’s Street Signs. Like…
Bright Eyes’ latest effort, Cassadaga, takes its name from a psychic community. The first voice you hear as the orchestra makes like “Revolution 9” is a clairvoyant going on about centers of energy, and there are references to cleansing and communing with the dead. Although there’s nothing here as obviously…
The piñatas and Patrón will be poppin’ as the yearly case of Cinco de Mayo fever grips the Valley this weekend, with an eff-load of fetes and fiestas planned for Saturday, May 5 (peep our guide for proof). We’ve planned out our whole day, wey, and it gonna be muy…
Popularity, in a Yogi Berra-esque paradox, alienates some music fans. They either don’t want to be sheep or they simply want to avoid being trampled by the existing sheep in an eerie frenzy inspired by, let’s say, the bouncy sweatball of performing energy that is Treasure Mammal’s Abelardo Gil III…
A patchwork of film and TV samples, scratches, and elegant baroque instrumentation on Hope & Sorrow follows French turntablist/producer Wax Tailor’s 2005 debut, which isn’t entirely different from this latest effort. Two years ago, Tailor employed looped keyboard melodies and cello flourishes on his breakout Tales of Forgotten Melodies LP,…
At some point in rock ‘n’ roll, creativity got confused with originality — bands and singers were suspect if their songs weren’t self-penned. Performers recording others’ songs were often seen as less “genuine” by the terminally hip. That kind of thinking is responsible for tons of rock albums containing two…
Compulsion is one of those albums that makes you scratch your head with wonder at how it could ever have gone out of print in the first place. Maybe we can blame the overabundance of jazz albums in the stratosphere, or maybe it’s because the late pianist Andrew Hill didn’t…
Airily pretty, vicariously depressing, and just plain emotionally exhausting, the Velvet Underground & Nico tune “Sunday Morning” nailed comedown bummer rock with such precision that most later efforts in that direction have been left wanting. Some 30-plus years later, the Baltimore duo Beach House has recovered and lethargically twirled this…
Nick Cave hasn’t played electric guitar for years and his primitive, grinding approach to the instrument inspired the name of the band and the thrashing, primal, punky noise it spits out on its debut album. With Bad Seeds Warren Ellis (violin, keyboards, bouzouki, guitar), Martyn Casey (bass), and Jim Sclavunos…
Perhaps only The New York Times could have written this headline: “Bluegrass That Can Twang and Be Cool Too.” Excuse me? Somebody inform the Gray Lady that all bluegrass is cool. Nickel Creek, the subject of the above header, is just different. The twang’s there, but forget everything you think…
Although the men of Air have never been the most explosive Frenchmen on the planet, there are times on the album Pocket Symphony where they feel more like air with a lowercase “a” than Air, the brains behind the sad yet swanky space-pop classic Moon Safari. The title itself is…
At a Gwen Stefani show, you are not a citizen of the world, but the subject of a commanding cultural empress whose red-lipped orders are your new desires. That is because Gwen Stefani publicly exists in and presents as her aesthetic a hugely successful, colorful and fun Gwen Nation. Not…
Of all forms of music, you’re most likely to catch two complementary bands on the same bill at a jamband show. In this case, San Francisco four-piece Tea Leaf Green and rural New Jersey sextet Railroad Earth both take the indelible influence of the Band in divergent directions that, when…
Wanna rave on without having to worry about whether the abandoned warehouse you’re dancing at is about to get busted by the cops? Then throw on your club-kid duds and head for Tumbleweed Park, 2250 South McQueen Road in Chandler, where Nightowl Entertainment will present the “100 percent legal” event…
Of course, we love the club life, but after so many weeks of hitting bar after bar, we needed a change of scenery. We found it on Friday, April 13, at Brand X Store, where local artists Disposable Hero, Family Soda, Mad One, and Fixer showcased their goods, spun some…
My buddy B-Boy looks like he could kick some serious ass. At 6-foot-4 and 350 pounds, he strikes an imposing figure in his baggy Dickies pants and stained T-shirts. His shaved head and scraggly beard add to the intimidation factor, so it’s a good thing he’s not a bully. In…
This Japanese rock band is huge in its home country, and it’s starting to make waves here in the States, despite being way too cool for us. Dir En Grey is seriously the hippest hard metal band to hit the Western world in a long time. Originally part of Japan’s…
The Blood Brothers make “come down” music for people who never want to come down. Testing the edges of various sonic turf with their toes, this is an unconventional band that tears through a multitude of genres, including hardcore, punk rock, screamo, No Wave and disco, in their teeth-gnashing, fist-forming…
The unkempt Aussie barroom brawlers in Jet are probably best known for making grungy, high-octane, adrenaline-fueled, testosterone-laden garage rock. The band first hit stateside in 2003 with the rough-edged, riff-heavy “Are You Gonna Be My Girl?” and the lusty, drunken “Cold Hard Bitch,” both of which embraced the spirit of…
They have the glacial majesty of Sigur Rós, the swelling symphonic bluster of the Moody Blues, and a subtle metallic bent. Aereogramme are an intriguing Scottish quartet that combine an eclectic mesh of guitars and electronics with a variety of tempos and tones. At times, they will spiral off into…
Lots of artists get touted for being raw and uncompromising, but Texan hellraiser Scott H. Biram truly is. Put in perspective, Biram didn’t “compromise” when he was hit head-on by an 18-wheeler truck and took to the stage in a wheelchair a month later with two broken legs and an…
Bang! Bang! doesn’t waste any time living up to its name — exclamation points and all — on The Dirt That Makes You Drown. The opening track, “What We Need,” rocks the way you only wish the latest Stooges album would rock. It’s a sonic explosion touched off by a…
