[A hearty happy birthday to Beth Orton …] Tonight’s top 3 outings: ‣ Australian psych-rockers Tame Impala [who made a good impression on a June visit to L.A.] play to a sold-out Echoplex. ‣ Rain Phoenix of Papercranes, whose second album “Let’s Make Babies in the Woods” is due Jan. 24 on Manimal Vinyl, will […]
When I talked to Joe Purdy in 2006 at his rental home in Glendale*, I thought I’d never met a songwriter so at peace with being just a guy with a guitar. Purdy had spent some six years making his poignant, heartfelt folk songs and building a big following at Molly Malone’s and then in […]
The new video for Broken Social Scene’s “Texico Bitches” takes big oil to a very strange place. You’ve probably heard the song, an anti-oil company tome, on BSS’s “Forgiveness Rock Record.” Seeing director Thibaut Duverneix’s video to the end might put a whole new spin on the notion of forgiveness. ||| Download: “Texico Bitches (Star […]
It’s been a good year for folk music out of the U.K. – Mumford & Sons became headline attractions, and they along with Villagers and Laura Marling were nominated for the Mercury Prize. In their wake comes Oxford quartet Stornoway, whose debut album “Beachcomber’s Windowsill” was released earlier this year on 4AD. Among other twangy […]
John Carpenter is not a cinematic figure, although you could make a case for his arrestingly scuzzy blues-rock being the stuff of film noir. But because of his famous name (and because of the sudden preponderance of bands like Abe Vigoda, Philip Symour Hoffman and Nicole Kidman nicking names from A- and B-listers), you weren’t […]
Tonight’s top 4 shows that won’t dent your holiday shopping budget (because they’re free): ‣ Tonight’s installment of Sweaters is local collective Black Iris’ holiday party, featuring the Dead Trees (pictured; they just released a 7-inch on the collective’s White Iris imprint) and El Sportivo, the side project of Foreign Born/Fool’s Gold guitar god Lewis […]
Dead Snares, the solo adventure of Remy Zero’s Jeffrey Cain, won’t get many votes for feel-good album of the year for “Speak the Language,” but its dark, gauzy textures and layered guitars fashion a fitting backdrop for the songwriter’s musings on mortality. The gripping video for the language is the work of Tobias Stretch, who […]
The Get Up Kids get a lot of ink as an emo forebear, but back in the day the average music fan didn’t know emo from Nemo they were just a very good power-pop band, with incredible hooks and smart lyrics. The Kansas lads fractured in the middle part of last decade but returned this […]
[Today’s batch of downloads is brought to you some of our favorite Britpop legends … doing things other than what made them legendary:] ‣ Freebass, “Bury Me Standing.” Freebass is the three-bass guitar project of Peter Hook (Joy Division, New Order), Mani Mounfield (Stone Roses, Primal Scream) and Andy Rourke (the Smiths). Or was. Their […]
[Birthday greetings go out today to Portishead’s Geoff Barrow …] Tonight’s top 3 ways to get an earful: ‣ The Satellite (f/k/a Spaceland) will be decked out in black light and ready for an alien invasion to welcome the L.A. debut of Epic Ruins, the stoner rock project of L.A.-based drummer Jordan Richardson and his […]
