The Buzz Bands show on Little Radio is going on a short summer break – no program this week or next. I’ll be back on the Interwebs on Friday, July 17. Meanwhile, after the jump, last week’s playlist:
That rock cliché about smoky vocals took on a whole new meaning when Leslie Stevens and her band were recording their new album. It was 2008, and “the wildfires were raging,” Stevens says. “You could see on the hills, there were chunks of ash in the air, and you could smell it in the room.” […]
[A couple of noteworthy L.A. releases … with more on the way:] Foreign Born, “Person to Person” (Secretly Canadian) – About the 10th time through the L.A. quartet’s sophomore album – a grower if there ever was one – I had a vision that Foreign Born’s were the fingers plugging the dike that holds back […]
File this under feel-good local stories: Silver Lake favorites Division Day are signing to Dangerbird Records, the L.A.-based home to Silversun Pickups, Darker My Love, Sea Wolf, the Dears and Eulogies, among others. The band’s sophomore album, “Visitation,” is tentatively set for release in August. The formal announcement of the new alliance is expected later […]
Red Cortez and Glasser have been added to the benefit show for the fire-ravaged TacoZone truck, which I posted about earlier in the day. Kenan Bell and Robert Francis are the other principals for Friday’s shindig at Spaceland.
Graham Coxon, “The Spinning Top” (Transgressive Records) – In Blur, Graham Coxon provided the necessary counterpoint to Damon Albarn’s ambitious – and most often, fantastic – musical statements.” The tension between Albarn’s postmodern pop and Coxon’s post-punk/indie rock guitar playing became an intrinsic part of Blur’s aesthetic and provided just the right amount of musical […]
[More L.A. releases, and surprises …] Olin and the Moon, “Terrible Town” (self-released) – Not to sound too hayseed, but this album’s like beer. Sometimes you cry in it; sometime you raise your glass. The L.A. quintet with roots in Sun Valley, Idaho, have birthed a “No Depression”-worthy recording that, while hardly straying from country […]
[Catching up on some recent local releases …] Dusty Rhodes and the River Band, “Palace & Stage” (SideOneDummy) – Dustin Apodaca, Kyle Devine and bandmates show no signs of busting out of their 1970s time warp, and that’s a good and bad thing for the sextet’s muscular sophomore album. At its strongest – “Blind Lead […]
[News for short attention spans:] Two of L.A.’s biggest recent break-out bands, the Airborne Toxic Event and Iglu & Hartly, are teaming up to do a $30-per-ticket benefit June 17 at the Avalon Hollywood. The third annual Design for Humanity, the charitable arm of clothing company Billabong, will benefit Charity: Water, which funds water wells […]
[Thanks to Buzz Bands contributor Lawrence Gjurgevich, a man of pulp, for weighing in with his expert opinion on this new release:] Jarvis Cocker, “Further Complications” (Beggars, May 19) – Just the mere mention of Cocker’s name, among pop music fans and especially Anglophiles everywhere, sets off a storm of conversation about his band, Pulp […]
