Standing Shadows want to be a big rock band. It’s apparent from every outsized melody and synth-drenched soundscape on the L.A. quartet’s debut album “Five Years of Darkness,” released earlier this year, if not from their live show, which is heavy on smoke, strobes and in-your-face volume. The brainchild of David Miltenberger and Dan Silver, […]
The latest video concoction from OK Go is a change-of-pace from their live-action clips, but then again so is the song, the acoustic “Last Leaf.” Directed by the band Serious Business Design founders Nadeem Mazen and Ali Mohammad, the video was shot with a Samsung NX100 camera (the behind-the-scenes is pretty cool) and animated by […]
My touts for the weekend (UPDATED): ‣ We all know about Dawes. (Don’t we?) “North Hills” came out way back in 2009, and the L.A. folkies recently holed up to record some new music, some of which you might hear tonight at the El Rey Theatre. It’s one of those arrive-early shows – the Moondoggies […]
Richie James Follin is a hard guy to follow. He rocketed out of Anaheim about seven years ago fronting the Willowz, who’ve made four pretty good albums and probably would be a booming concern had not the last two come out on Dim Mak Records. He made a slightly unwieldy but still worthy solo album […]
Active Child – the nom de tune of everybody’s favorite harp-wielding former choir boy, Pat Grossi – has one of the most anticipated early-2010 album releases on the horizon; his debut full-length will be out in February on Vagrant. Revisiting his “Curtis Lane” EP from this year only makes me more eager to hear it. […]
And you thought this year’s Darker My Love album was a delirious trip in the Wayback Machine. This second helping of White Fence – the solo project of DML’s Tim Presley – is a beautifully woozy excursion into the lo-fi cobwebs of the ’60s. White Fence’s debut came out earlier this year on San Francisco’s […]
Top 3 pre-Thanksgiving shows: ‣ Psych-rock feast at the El Rey Theatre, with Black Mountain and the Black Angels. ‣ Talib Kwel’s “Gutter Rainbows” album-release party at the Roxy is free with a donation of a blanket, scarf, gloves or socks. (Subject to capacity, of course.) ‣ And for something a little more chill: A […]
My musician friends who are ex-film school students are better qualified to weigh on the Toby Halbrooks/David Lowery video for “I L U,” but suffice to say that, for me, School of Seven Bells’ lilting vocals do just fine when it comes to ripping my heart out. The band, now absent half of its twin […]
The first EP from Kitten – the L.A. quartet fronted by teenage wunderkind Chloe Chaidez, still a tick short of her 16th birthday – is exactly what the foursome’s memorable live shows promised: five songs of breathy, dance-friendly, hormonally charged rock that makes you wonder if adolescence is obsolete. Chaidez, backed by a tight band […]
Their first single “Sky Mall” [see our July post] announced Sweaters as a band who could be just as fun on record as they are live (and they are that). Now the L.A. four-piece with a classic rock-on-a-bender aesthetic has followed that single up with “Can’t Stop Winning,” their first 7-inch for White Iris Records, […]
