To mark the two-month anniversary of the new Buzz Bands, I’ve created a compilation CD from 18 of the songs this site has offered for download. Almost all of the tunes have been exclusive to this blog, and most of them are from SoCal artists. There’ll be more like this in the future [watch for […]
[Happy-hour nuggets as you head into your weekend …] ‣ “Chinese Democracy.” Sigh. You can compare the reviews by Chuck Klosterman and Ann Powers and draw your own conclusions. I will go listen for myself, maybe even record the stream, but I won’t set foot in a Best Buy. There’ll be a used copy at […]
[Happy birthday to Fabolous, who was born 31 years ago. He was John Jackson then.] The Hotel Cafe Tour hits town tonight at the Music Box @ Fonda, and although Rachael Yamagata’s name is boldfaced plenty of folks will be there to see Hotel Cafe waitress-makes-good Meiko and tuneful L.A. folkie Emily Wells. … Matisyahu […]
[Music from two up-and-comers who are playing residencies this month:] Not even two years old, SoCal collective Francisco the Man has set out for the general sonic space occupied by fellow Orange Countians Limbeck. Singer-guitarist Scotty Cantino’s orchestrated, twang’d-up take on surfside pop hits me somewhere between Wilco and the Pernice Brothers, maybe in a […]
The delicious intersection of tragedy and comedy in matters of heart hardly gets tastier than in the first single from L.A.’s Fascinoma. “I’m walking this road / Because you stole my car / I’m singing this song / ‘Cause you have all my CDs / You want me to believe / in your love / […]
[Happy birthday, Andy Partridge. Somebody send me a conflict resolution manager for tonight’s schedule.] Indie 103.1’s weekly showcases for local bands — now called “Check One Tuesdays” — restarts tonight. The offshoot of DJ Mark Sovel’s “Check One … Two” local program had called the Viper Room home before it was exiled by the Sunset […]
In a way, the Bronx lucked out. Five years with Island Def Jam gave the L.A. punkers a two-album running start and financing to build their own recording studio — but, ultimately, their walking papers. Now, after a year on their own island, the Bronx are giving us a home run of a punk-rock album. […]
Like a lot of guys, Bram Inscore has relationship issues, and to listen to the first album he has made as B.R.A.M., plenty of those woes stem from breakdowns in communications. But like a like of songwriters, Inscore, curiously, has little problem communicating those miscommunications. Written and recorded over a three-year period during which the […]
[Kevin Jonas — you know, one of the brothers — can have his first legal drink today. Not that he would, mind you.] Los Angeles ex-pat Paul Waclawsky is back; he skipped town for Austin, Texas, and assembled the lineup that would become the Boxing Lesson [pictured] whose Moog-woozy psych-pop gives you some pretty astral […]
On “Ten Readings of a Warning” (2007), his debut album as All Smiles, singer-guitarist Jim Fairchild came off as ruminative — a man likely still smarting over the breakup of Grandaddy, the band for which he toiled for more than a decade. Now Fairchild, who in the past few years has called Modesto, L.A., Portland […]
