Songwriter Mark Lane doesn’t mean to imply he’s re-inventing the wheel with the title of his forthcoming album, “Something New.” Instead, it’s all about perspective. “The title track is about looking at all stuff you have in your life, the things you might take for granted or think are mundane, and fabricating something new from […]
Down to every candy-coated collision of chord and chorus, Army Navy’s “The Last Place” is one of the finest guitar-pop albums you will hear this year, the kind of record – along with, for example, Apex Manor’s “The Year of Magical Drinking” – makes power-pop sound as if it were just conceived. We previewed the […]
Buzz Bands LA’s monthly SecondTuesday songwriter series continues this Tuesday with a diverse trio of artists performing in the relaxed vibe of Lot 1 Cafe. . Luz Elena, lead singer of the Portland, Ore., indie-folk ensemble Y La Bamba, will perform a solo acoustic set. She’ll be joined by singer-composer Chris Accardo, whose piano-driven pop […]
[Missive from Buzz Bands LA’s Dept. of Twang: Something to go with our whiskey, please.] Old Californio, “A Cool Place in the Light” – “Sundrunk Angels,” the forthcoming new album from the L.A. quintet, encompasses classic rock and pop, psychedelia and folk/country – overall, kind of a soberer Flying Burrito Brothers. Rich Dembowski’s vocals are […]
“Heavy You,” the new EP from Los Angeles’ Bowery Beasts, is like having a 19-minute flashback lunch. Frontman Marion Belle roars through five tracks as if he can’t wait get out of his tight jeans, or commune with the ghosts of L.A. rock gods past. The Beasts’ beastly but sharp garage-glam sound was cultivated by […]
The bio says Andrew Verner is the son of a record label manager, reared around guitars, keyboards and assorted musical gear. But synths and sequencers are his playthings now as Short Circuit, a purveyor of insistent, vocoder-addled disco that posits Los Angeles as a technicolor dreamland populated by robots. Which might not be far from […]
Dead Sara fashions a strain of primal rock that’s loud enough to awaken the ghosts in both the indie and metal underworlds, and maybe even get them to dance a bit. The quartet’s sound is the brainchild of childhood pals Emily Armstrong and Siouxsie Medley, shredders both, singer Armstrong with her rocker-girl wailing and guitarist […]
“These days my friends don’t seem to know me without my suitcase in my hand.” As Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes sings these opening lines of “Nothing Is Wrong” (out this week via ATO Records), the reflection of the band’s growth in just two short years can be heard in his tone. Transformed into seasoned musicians […]
The list of past band affiliations for the guys in Handshakes reads like the Buzz Bands CD drawer in my old office – Controlling the Famous, Wintergreen, Sputnik Monroe. But that was then and this is now: Singer-guitarist Drew Mottinger and bandmates Patrick Doyle, Max Hellman, Todd Ramsey and Mark Balane display a deft touch […]
Alex Ebert’s video for “Let’s Win,” off his Alexander solo album from earlier this year, serves as a nice rallying cry for the people behind Peaceful Uprising. The piece was filming in February in Utah at the trial of environmental activist Tim DeChristopher, aka “Bidder 70,” who eventually was convicted of disrupting a federal land […]
