“New” sounds pretty good this morning, doesn’t it? The Buzz Bands LA show on Moheak Radio will have all kinds of new — fresh tunes from forthcoming albums by Delta Spirit, Robert Francis, Chasing Kings, Soft Swells, Nite Jewel and the Breakups, along with some sonic previews of the next two Buzz Bands LA-presented live shows — Feb. 1 at Harvard & Stone and Feb. 7 at Lot 1 Cafe. I’ll also have music from recent EPs by Voxhaul Broadcast, Evan Voytas and Monte Mar. Plus: a couple songs from L.A. expatriates now living in New York City and making music under new monikers.
Join me at 11 a.m. for two hours of music. After the jump, the playlist: [click to continue…]
What happens when two of L.A. most adroit songwriters put their heads together? Something sweet, that’s for sure. Sweet Hearts is the result of about a year of on-and-off collaboration between Priscilla Ahn, the songstress who’s released two albums on Blue Note Records, and Charlie Wadhams, the indie rocker-turned-solo artist whose tunes were featured in the movie “Walk Hard” and has participated in myriad local projects. Ahn and Wadhams have completed a five-track EP of love songs that’ll be released in February — on Valentine’s Day, naturally. The duo’s boy/girl vocals work in a classic way, and the tune “I’m an Actor, Baby” is worth a smile or town, known that Ahn is married to actor Michael Weston.
► Lucinda Williams returns for a show at UCLA’s Royce Hall behind her acclaimed release “Blessed.” Blake Mills opens.
► Cambodian psych-rockers Dengue Fever join Secret Chiefs 3 for a concert at the El Rey Theatre.
► It’s one more local show for Wilco, this one at the Los Angeles Theatre
► Vicky Cryer, the latest project from Louis XIV’s Jason Hill [see our post from last July], headlines the Troubadour, with LP supporting.
► And a trio of SoCal’s best power-pop artists team up at the Bootleg Theater, with Mike Viola headlining behind his recent release “Electro de Perfecto,” and Bleu and Taylor Locke & the Roughs also joining in.
Races began as Wade Ryff’s attempt at putting his solo material out there, but as the group added members, changed band names (from Black Jesus) and picked up steam — leading to their signing with Frenchkiss Records — it’s hard to imagine their music was originally planned for a one-man band. Garth Herberg, Oliver Hild, Devon Lee, Breanna Wood and Lucas Ventura have stood behind the success for their first bold single “Big Broom” together, and their journey, whether celebratory or treacherous, is illustrated well by director Edward Chase Masterson in the song’s music video. Glitter, confetti, balloons all make for a pretty party, but it also makes a mess in the end and they’ll need something to sweep it up. Races’ debut “Year of the Witch” will be out March 27.
Can we all just agree now that Alabama Shakes are the genuine article? That they’re worth all the hype you’ve been hearing from little blogs, big websites and NPR? That so-called blues made my college-educated hipsters doesn’t quite measure up? That we’ve found a voice that really makes us want to drink whiskey and kill all the crooked haircut bands? Sure we can, c’mon now.
There were no dissenters Wednesday night at the Troubadour, where the quintet from Athens, Ala., (pop. 21,000, give or take) made its Los Angeles debut to a sold-out crowd thick with representatives of the record industry, publishing companies and radio stations. Alabama Shakes roared through an hour of tunes that made believers [click to continue…]
Aaron Embry’s solo material has often taken a back seat to his work with other artists — he’s been party to albums and tours for a host of A-listers, he produced Avi Buffalo’s debut album, and most recently he has played keyboards for Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros. And his 2008 album as Amnion remains an underground classic. With Edward Sharpe on a bit of break after two years of exhaustive touring, Embry has been holed up in Ojai. The early recordings that have emerged are chillingly beautiful, and although we don’t generally post demos, “No Go” stands up so well as a stripped-down ballad we are compelled to share.
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||| Live: Aaron Embry performs Feb. 2 at the Hotel Cafe.
||| Also: After the jump, check out the video for “Your Heart and Mine”: [click to continue…]
► Big Freedia brings the bounce to the Bootleg Barfor a party with Franki Chan and BLOK. That’s Big Freedia’s video for last year’s single “Y’all Get Back Now,” above. Do not try this at home.
► Chelsea Wolfe, already at work on her third album and with a big European tour on the horizon this spread, plays the Echoplex.
► Washington, D.C., quartet Deleted Scenes put out one of the finest under-the-radar releases in 2011. Their sophomore album “Young People’s Church of the Air” is a crazy collision of art-pop, noise and funk. They visit the Echo tonight, performing with A Lull, Ravenna Woods and Local H’s Scott Lucas
||| Stream: Deleted Scenes, “The Days of Adderall”:
Jeff Tweedy on Tuesday night allowed as how he’d been watching Sammy Hagar perform recently and realized he’s never dropped the P-word onstage. So in front of a sold-out crowd at the Palladium, with hand-in-the-cookie-jar glee, the Wilco bandleader boyishly said it. Three times.
“Pussy.”
The band got a chuckle out of that one, and so did the overgrown kids in the audience, Wilco lifers who know that Tweedy isn’t the kind to cuss and swagger and vamp. He might front one of the planet’s best rock bands, but Jeff Tweedy is no rock frontman — he’s just the Midwestern boy next door whose music has grown and flourished in remarkable and sometimes serpentine ways. It seems implicit in his comportment that he hopes your life has too.
Tweedy’s mid-set mischief was the lightest of many buoyant moments during the Chicago-based sextet’s career-spanning performance. Over 2 hours and 15 minutes, [click to continue…]
L.A. fans know Lady Danville’s backstory: The trio of Michael Garner, Dan Chang and Matthew Frankel stormed out of UCLA’s Awaken A Cappella group in a moment of harmonic convergence, took up instruments and began carving out their own path. After a couple of under-the-radar releases and plenty of touring, the trio is now making a proper splash with its “Operating” EP, due Feb. 14. The title track features the threesome in characteristic form — melodic and polished and brimming with vocals that almost take flight. Destination (to cop an old Trashcan Sinatras song title): The Pop Place.
||| Stream: “Operating”
||| Live: Lady Danville celebrates its EP release with two shows — Feb. 6 at the Satellite with Youngblood Hawke and Useless Keys as part of a benefit for the Pablove Foundation, and Feb. 13 at It’s a School Night at Bardot.
Making one’s debut in Los Angeles can be an iffy proposition, especially if a band is saddled with a midnight set — on a Sunday night. However, Portland’s dream-pop darlings Blouse didn’t seem to have much to worry about when a massive crowd crammed itself into the Echo for a sold-out show.
Helmed by vocalist and guitarist Charlie Hilton, the trio-turned-quartet (a keyboardist was just added) managed to play with the sound space inside the venue to accommodate their heavily Cure-influenced palette. However, as much as their music swelled and soothed, Blouse seemed so bound by their own nostalgia, so wrapped up their own dream state, that their songs of time machines and shadows confined the show to detached, hazy state. [click to continue…]
NEW TIME STARTING JAN. 15, 2012: Join me at 7 p.m. every Sunday night for the L.A. Buzz Bands Show on all-music, listener-supported KCSN (88.5 FM). It's an hour of music by SoCal artists, and it's streamable at KCSN.org.
NEW TIME STARTING NOV. 4, 2011: Tune into the Buzz Bands LA Show every Friday at 11 a.m. Pacific Time on Moheak Radio. It's two hours of mostly local, always-fresh music.
"Much popular music is hollow professionalism – musicians and record producers recycling ideas and styles most likely to sell records. The memorable artists redefine the boundaries, either through blinding originality or by looking with unbending honesty at their deepest fears and grandest dreams."
“New” sounds pretty good this morning, doesn’t it? The Buzz Bands LA show on Moheak Radio will have all kinds of new — fresh tunes from forthcoming albums by Delta Spirit, Robert Francis, Chasing Kings, Soft Swells, Nite Jewel and the Breakups, along with some sonic previews of the next two Buzz Bands LA-presented live shows — Feb. 1 at Harvard & Stone and Feb. 7 at Lot 1 Cafe. I’ll also have music from recent EPs by Voxhaul Broadcast, Evan Voytas and Monte Mar. Plus: a couple songs from L.A. expatriates now living in New York City and making music under new monikers.
