All hail the guitar band. You just don’t hear that enough lately (well, except maybe on this page). And that’s the way we feel every time Scotty Cantino and his crew in Francisco the Man send another song or batch of songs down the pike. Their latest, “In the Corners” (due Feb. 19 as a […]
If those guitar licks on LA Font’s forthcoming album “Diving Man” aren’t sharp enough to cut through corrugated metal, then Danny Bobbe’s lyrics and vocals are. They cut through a lot of hipster crap too, and that’s been the L.A. quartet’s big attraction since they unleashed “The American Leagues” in 2010 and followed it with […]
Matt Caughthran of the Bronx is the first to acknowledge he probably had 100 years of misadventures by the time he was 25. Now 10 years into his career as the vocal shredder in the L.A. hardcore punks, Caughthran lets his hindsight do the talking in the band’s new single “Youth Wasted.” “This song was […]
Is it me, or does this song barely sound like the Strokes? “One Way Trigger” was just posted on the band’s website, ostensibly a song from the New Yorkers’ forthcoming fifth album. Maybe they got in a wrestling match with a New Wave band and lost? Maybe they’re becoming a New Wave band? Maybe I’m […]
Even with a recorded output of only three songs, Wildcat! Wildcat! dominated a lot of indie playlists in 2012, the L.A. trio’s nostalgia-drenched electro feeding everybody’s appetite for pop ’n’ soul as filtered through those seemingly heartless devices known as synths. The trio of Jesse Taylor, Michael Wilson and Jesse Carmichael has unveiled a new […]
As many L.A. chillwave artists continue to seek inspiration from the same sea, sun and palm trees, the duo RotKraft has emerged with an outsider’s perspective. The duo of G. Chocolat and LBWSKY could very well be holed up in an Echo Park bungalow, soundtracking Los Angeles with their refreshing blend of chillwave, balearic, italo-disco […]
Rebecca Coleman and her band mates in Pageants have taken things slowly since they first emerged in 2011. The 21-year-old singer-guitarist and founding member of Avi Buffalo, along with guitarist Devin O’Brien and drummer Dylan Wood, has cultivated her strummy, laid-back West Coast pop in live show after live show, Pageants’ calling card – Coleman’s […]
As we found when he fronted the sorely missed quartet Foreign Born, Matt Popieluch has one of those voices that belongs in the jetstream. Or somewhere in the clouds, which is where you’ll find much of the solo material he makes as Big Search. The solo album from 2010, “Lay of the Land,” found Big […]
Black Rebel Motorcycle is back, not just with their characteristic roar but with some spacious, ambient moments as well. The trio of Peter Hayes, Robert Levon Been and Leah Shapiro recently announced that their seventh full-length (or sixth if you discount the 2008 instrumental album), “Specter at the Feast” would be out March 19 via […]
To hear the music of band that bears his name, it’s easy to imagine the mythological character Herbert Bail trudging down some dusty backroad, holes in his shoes and cactus needles in his pants, toting a wooden handcart bulging with a guitar, accordion, horns, viola, banjo and assorted tools of the trade. All Mr. Bail […]
