More than 220 shows later, my 2010 draws to a close. I was fortunate to have witnessed some exhilarating live performances the past 12 months. My top 10: 1. Fitz & the Tantrums and the Heavy, July 15 at the Hammer Museum Yes, some selfish interests were at work on this night, owing to the […]
Hope your holidays are going swimmingly. Enjoy this Phil Spector song from Slow Club: ||| Download: “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” [audio:http://www.mediafire.com/file/6v6f6c9pyh8cs21/Slow%20Club%20-%20Christmas%20%28Baby%20Please%20Come%20Home%29.mp3] Art: Reproduction of a watercolor by Thomas H. Bronson (1934-2009). After the jump, something a little special from the Futureheads:
[This will be my final downloads installment of the year. Judging from my backlog of e-mail and mp3s, I’m about 200 posts short of sharing with you all the new stuff that I’d like to. Sigh … Later this week, a year-end roundup.] The indelible synth-pop of Stephen Becker – d/b/a Le Concorde – was […]
Fast and furious and old-school and … NPR-approved? Yeah, that’s OFF! – the punk-rock supergroup of Keith Morris (Black Flag/Circle Jerks), Dimitri Coats (Burning Brides), Mario Rubalcaba (Earthless/Hot Snakes/Rocket From the Crypt) and Steven McDonald (Redd Kross). If anyone’s entitled to engage in some healthy revivalism, it’s these guys. The 55-year-old Morris, after all, has […]
Well, spike my eggnog. Here are three more holiday tunes – one sultry, one sarcastic and one spunky – from L.A. people getting into the spirit of the season. In a way: ‣ 8mm, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” One of our favorite L.A. husband-and-wife duos, Sean and Juliette Beavan (who released their “Love and the […]
There are enough revivalists around these days to fill a festival full of tents, but few that mind the heartbeat of soul like Stedapol C.C. Watt. This ain’t neo-, it’s real – and seemingly out of nowhere, the Los Angeles trio has self-released an EP (“Glassell Park Groove”) and album (“Glassell Park Grit”) that stacks […]
Tonight’s top 4 outings: ‣ Tonight’s “X-Mas with X” show at the House of Blues features the original members John Doe, Exene Cervenka, Billy Zoom and D.J. Bonebrake performing the album “Los Angeles” in its entirety. There’s also a screening of the 1986 documentary “X: The Unheard Music.” ‣ Badly Drawn Boy winds up a […]
If it’s December, my mailbox must be filling with holiday songs. Hopefully, you already grabbed that compilation of originals that I posted about a couple of weeks ago. Today, I have dueling versions of the same song. Which do you like better? ‣ Loch & Key, “Christmas Time Is Here.” The L.A. duo of Leyla […]
For most of five years, L.A. hard rockers Sabrosa Purr have roared uncomfortably (at least for those who like their genre lines nice and clean) between the post-punk/shoegaze and metal worlds. On their long-awaited full-length album “To the Crickets and the Ghosts” (quietly released digitally this year), the quartet creates its own little shriekdom – […]
Alpine Decline – the new project from ex-Mezzanine Owls Jonathan Zeitlin (guitar) and Pauline Mu (drums) – has released two vinyl albums in six months. The first displayed Zeitlin’s fondness for pedal effects, textures and noisy exploration, but the second, “Visualizations,” applies his joneses in a more traditional songwriting framework, and it’s beautiful. Oh, it’s […]