Last month’s YouTube phenomenon — Alanis Morrisette’s parody of “My Humps” — revealed what we all suspected, that Fergie’s ode to her lady lumps just doesn’t stand up to lyrical scrutiny. The marvelous thing about last year’s YouTube phenomenon, Obadiah Parker’s acoustic revisiting of Outkast’s “Hey Ya” superimposed over the…
Thursday 17 Axis/Radius: Ladies’ Night (hip-hop, rock, dance) AZ 88: Mr. P-Body (synth pop, electro) Big Fish Pub: DJ Seduce (jazz, funk) Bunkhouse: DJ Doom (dance) Cherry Lounge: DJs Tranzl8tr, & Earth (rock, ’80s, old school, hip-hop) Chilly Bombers: DJ Statik (rock, hip-hop, dance, Top 40) Club Central: DJ Luis…
I don’t ordinarily go in for romantic movies, but I made an exception last night to see Once, the Irish film starring the Frames’ frontman Glen Hansard. The film, which is a musical of sorts, with Hansard writing and performing songs with Czech pianist Marketa Irglova, won the World Cinema…
I never went to the Real Bar a whole lot because, well, the service sucked and the setup for their all ages shows left the drinkers (i.e. the ones spending real money) at a sight line disadvantage when the bands were playing. It’s nice to still have venues around that…
Fun Bobby and his wife Lisa with Tammy Faye Bakker A little more than a year ago, I wrote here about Hollywood Alley-based promoter Fun Bobby Birmingham leaving town with his family for the greener pastures of rural Oregon where he’s been working at the infamous Dante’s bar/venue up there…
About a year ago, a former girlfriend asked me why this town seemed so culture-less. She’s from Los Angeles and is the sort of girl who likes to dress up and go to the ballet. “In L.A., people our age get dressed up and go to the symphony; you’ll see…
The music opens with flowery acoustic guitars double-tracked for a 12-string feel and shimmying with opulent drama, reminiscent of records made in the ’60s by acid-hungry British rockers prowling green country lanes in faux-druidic rituals. After a drawn-out introduction, drum hits recorded backward make way for a chorus of singers…
“I haven’t seen a band with that much intensity in a long time.” That’s what Korn frontman Jonathan Davis had to say last summer about his Family Values tourmates Dir en grey, a versatile quasi-metal Japanese band that has met with baffling success in Europe and, more recently, the United…
Some bands wear their influences on their sleeves. Phoenix trio Emperors of Japan are no exception, but the quirky group has altered its attire. The Emperors wear many clothes. For example, “Reptile,” the opening track to the band’s first album, opens like an old Cure song, with spacy, dreamy keyboards…
The late alto saxophonist Jackie McLean was infamous for a rich and powerful tone, a heroin addiction, and being the dude who nearly stabbed iconoclast Charles Mingus after the big bully bassist punched him. But one thing overlooked during McLean’s career — due to the relatively restrained modal jazz compositional…
Jim Fairchild explores modest arrangements on his debut as All Smiles, finding mostly memorable hooks in airy, acoustic guitar-driven folk pop. Ten Readings of a Warning is Fairchild’s solo outing; his former gig as a guitarist for West Coast psych-pop troupe Grandaddy ended last year. Although he’s a strong singer,…
If you believe in reincarnation as torture, then imagine all the A&R people who, in past lives, signed nothing but copycat bands and reality show winners, returning to this world only to be demoted to the publicity department, being handed a headscratcher of an album like Priestbird’s debut In Your…
The Los Angeles coeds in Silver Daggers bring the apocalyptic no-wave party ruckus, and then some: They’re a viciously exuberant counterpoint to like-minded labelmates Coughs. On the quintet’s latest adrenalized outing — New High and Ord, on Load — frontwoman Jenna Thornhill unleashes incoherent, bloodied-throat cries from the crazed center…
RJD2’s The Third Hand is the kind of alternative hip-hop record that raises the question: When does a particular artist stop being alternative anything and start to step outside the confines of a single genre? What’s even more impressive is that RJD2 did it all himself — the producing, the…
It’s been a whirlwind couple of years for Franklin, Tennessee, punk-pop quintet Paramore. Signed to Fueled By Ramen in 2005, their debut All We Know Is Falling came out in the summer of that year, and they’ve been on the road pretty much ever since. Led by fetching red-haired teenage…
Both of these acts offer a fresh feminine perspective in genres with an overabundance of “masculine” posturing and one-dimensional angst while also refusing to draw attention to their “femaleness” for its own sake. Indeed, Morgan Lander and Candace Kucsulain, frontwomen for Kittie and Walls Of Jericho, respectively, strike a fine…
John “JB” Bigham, the mastermind behind power trio The Soul Of John Black, has a remarkable résumé. For almost a decade, he played guitar and keyboards with Fishbone, contributing to three of the band’s best albums. He’s written songs for Miles Davis and played on the jazz legend’s last studio…
May is shaping up to be a pretty killer month for Valley drum ‘n’ bass fanatics. In addition to the brand new weekly event SEEN! Wednesdays blasting out plenty of supertempo beats and jungle jams every hump day over at Coach & Willie’s, a superstar-studded slate of d’n’b deities will…
Thursday 10 Axis/Radius: Ladies’ Night (hip-hop, rock, dance) AZ 88: Mr. P-Body (synth pop, electro) Bikini Lounge: Scratchy Rekkid Night with DJ Shane Kennedy (various) Blue Note: DJ Soloman, & Fredj (acid jazz, trip-hop, house) Bobby Cs: Willie B (old-school R&B) Bunkhouse: DJ Doom (dance) Cherry Lounge: DJs Tranzl8tr, &…
In the suburbs outside Detroit during 1994 and 1995 — the years I followed horror-rap duo Insane Clown Posse’s rise to local infamy — there was, I now realize, nothing more uncool than an ICP fan. In any parking lot, in any neighborhood that wasn’t actually in Detroit, you could…
After two weeks without partying, we decided to ease back into the club circuit by taking it slow. Club Candids skipped out on total Cinco de Mayo craziness and hit up a local favorite, the Hidden House, on Saturday, May 5. (Click here for more photos.) The super-casual atmosphere was…
Yesterday was yours truly’s birthday, so it almost seems like a late present that one of my favorite bands, Bright Eyes, is playing tonight at the Marquee. I’ll be there to rock; meanwhile, this is one of their dopest videos (and birthday related)…..
