Abandoned Pools – the musical vehicle of Tommy Walter (an original member of Eels) – return from a five-year hiatus to headline “A Night With Buzz Bands LA” on Tuesday, June 15, at Spaceland. Opening the evening will be up-and-coming indie-pop wizards Chasing Kings, followed by the tightly wound guitar rock of L.A. quintet Vanaprasta. […]
[Birthday: Pete Townshend, 65.] Can you dream under water? That’s the feeling the new Caribou album “Swim” gives me – ambient electro-pop that tugs you into its currents. Dan Snaith and his quartet play the El Rey Theatre tonight (Toro Y Moi opens) on an evening there are so many worthy shows that I feel […]
Los Angeles-based quintet Isis, one of the most adventurous and revered acts in heavy metal, is calling it quits. The band, founded in Boston in 1997 and authors of five albums including 2009’s critically embraced “Wavering Radiant,” announced today that it will disband after its current tour, which starts May 26 and includes a June […]
The languid, shimmering dream-pop on “Anything That Moves,” the third album from L.A. collective Snow & Voices, takes me back to the 1990s, when there was a special cubbyhole on my CD shelves for the likes of the Sundays, the Golden Palominos, the Innocence Mission and Mazzy Star. Singer Lauri Kranz isn’t in that league, […]
The weekly Buzz Bands LA show on Indie1031.com this morning at 11 previews the artists playing this weekend’s Silverlake Jubilee [see next post if you’re in the dark about that]. After the jump, the playlist:
The Silverlake Jubilee arrives with a bang this weekend, the first-year music and arts festival bringing some 50 bands to a three-stage neighborhood fair featuring cutting-edge DJs, comedy, spoken word, film, art and fashion – not to mention three dozen or so food trucks to satiate attendees’ appetites. Buzz Bands LA has joined with Jubilee […]
With its close crops, quick cuts and vivid imagery, the video for the title track to We Barbarians’ debut album “There’s This There’s That” brings the same emotional intensity that the Long Beach trio’s music does. The album, which is out on Cold War Kids bassist Matt Maust’s imprint, has the anthemic feel of early […]
Love the tagline on the MySpace page of trip-hop pioneers Massive Attack: “If a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing slowly.” “Heligoland,” the band’s fifth album and first in seven years, was worth the wait – the duo of Robert “3D” Del Naja, Grant “Daddy G” Marshall tapped contributors such as singer Horace Andy (a […]
The debut EP from Boyz Sküle and the Precious Medals sure does sound like the music’s architect, Brett Farkas, is having fun – maybe even as much fun as the Detroit native had (ahem) coming up with the obtuse band name. Farkas, who’s played with soul legend Solomon Burke, pop guys the 88 and highly […]
[Weekend items that have everybody talking:] ‣ Ronnie James Dio, the heavy metal singer who replaced Ozzy Osbourne in Black Sabbath and also fronted the bands Rainbow, Heaven & Hell and Dio, has died in Houston after a battle with stomach cancer. He was 67. The Associated Press obituary. ‣ Greyson Chance, the sixth-grader whose […]
