Saturday night’s all right for frightening: ‣ KCRW’s Masquerade ball returns to the Park Plaza, featuring performances by Mariachi El Bronx, Dengue Fever (pictured) and Milagres along with DJ sets by Moby and Andre Allen Anjos, the frolicking of the circus troupe Lucent Dossier, live art and more. ‣ Night 2 of the HARD Haunted […]
Think of today’s Buzz Bands LA show on Moheak Radio as sort of a bicoastal exchange. Matt Dyson of the Boston-based blog Dysonsound joins me at the Wavaflow Studios at 3 p.m., and we’ll trade off playing music things we like. I’ll be debuting a bunch of new music that arrived while I was on […]
Gorgeous and gentle atmospheric pop music is always a guarantee from L.A. artist Michael Orendy, aka Frankel. He’s intoxicated us with sweetly swelling orchestrations on his two previous albums “Lullabys for the Passersby” and “Anonymity Is the New Fame,” and he’s preparing to offer his latest collection of gems in form of “Sugar Twists Like […]
It’s been too long since we’ve heard from Nico Stai, who has teased with talk of a full-length album since his last EP a couple of years ago. Stai will preview material from that forthcoming record on Nov. 8 when he heads up the lineup for Buzz Bands LA’s SecondTuesday songwriter night at Lot 1 […]
Leonard Jackson last crossed our radar in 2008 as singer-guitarist for the Ethan Allen-produced, Mark Needham-mixed, Killers-influenced rock quartet the Forward. Directions changed, and Jackson eventually found himself plying his songwriting skills composing for film and TV. Now Imperial Mammoth – his new project with singer-harpist-keyboardist (and his bride-to-be) Laura Jane Scott – has arrived […]
As “holidays” go, Halloween has gotten completely out of hand. But the start of dress-up-and-get-stupid weekend is making for some good shows: ‣ HARD Haunted Mansion kicks off a two-night stand at the Shrine, with the opener headlines by Fatboy Slim and many other DJs,, including Laidback Luke, Tiga, SBTRKT and the Gaslamp Killer, on […]
Mahsa Zargaran can be all sticks and fury when she’s banging the skins for L.A. rockers Sabrosa Purr and Big Black Delta, but the Iranian-born multi-instrumentalist is not just a little drummer girl. Zargaran is classically trained pianist – and, in her solo project Omniflux, a sculptor of brooding art-rock that fans of PJ Harvey […]
The Black Keys are getting ready for their “Back to Black” campaign in support of their forthcoming album “El Camino.” The rock duo follows up their Grammy-winning album “Brothers” by reuniting with Danger Mouse for production, and “El Camino” will arrive Dec. 6 on Nonesuch Records. Although December may seem a long time from now, […]
Those who’ve witnessed Sarah Negahdari perform outside her role as frontwoman / pixie shredder of the L.A. indie-rock trio the Happy Hollows know that her imagination can run wild, and rope listeners into accompanying her to a far-off place. “Negahdariland,” it’s been called, and it seems to be the birthplace of her solo work, which […]
Thursday’s things: ‣ Can I have a those-were-the-days moment? Check out this video for “It’s a Shame About Ray” (which, of course, the record company has not seen fit to make embeddable but is still worth the extra click). It’s the title track from the Lemonheads’ fifth album, released in one of my favorite musical […]
