In between other musical activities, siblings Erica and Bruce Driscoll – dba Blondfire – have been working on a full-length to follow up their “Where the Kids Are” EP, which introduced the band’s catchy indie-pop with singles such as the title track and “Walking With Giants.” The duo co-wrote “Liar Liar” on Avicii’s new album […]
[Editor’s note: Full disclosure dictates that I cop to having worked at L.A.’s friendly neighborhood newspaper with this artist; in fact, we were given our walking papers the same day in 2008.] Liam Gowing is not the first music journalist to turn to actually making music, but he quite possibly could have the strangest record […]
Long before the current revival of hippy-dippy collectivism, the Parson Red Heads were breathing new life into the spirit of the 1960s. It was 2006, and a group of Oregon transplants and their new L.A. friends – typically dressed in all-white and sometimes packing as many as a dozen people onstage at places like Spaceland […]
Since their formation in 2009, Tic Tic Boom! has changed sound palettes and, most recently, members in their lineup (their newest member is drummer Joey Ponchetti). However, Leilani Francisco and Mike DeLay are certainly hitting their stride with the latest sonic shift to electro-pop. In fact, they’re preparing for the release of their new “It’s the Heart […]
If you’re in need of tunes that smoulder with the heaviness of PJ Harvey and Patti Smith and the playfulness of the White stripes, but have delicateness in the vein of Cat Power, Brooklyn’s blues-rock band She Keeps Bees may be your new favorite band. The duo came together when Jessica Larrabee met Andy LaPlant, […]
Maybe there are some new flavors left in the rainbow Sno-Cone that was the 1960s after all. At least, that’s what the early taste music from producers Aaron Shanahan and Benjamin Plant (both of Miami Horror) suggests. The Australian duo relocated to Los Angeles two years ago, and early this year started doing business under […]
The Melodic might be a very presumptively named band, but the moniker is not innacurate. The South London quintet, which started as a songwriting collaboration between Huw Williams and Rudi Schmidt and grew to include, John Naldrett, Lydia Samuels and James McCandless, make stripped-down folk interlaced with Afro and Caribbean rhythms. Their album “Effra Parade” […]
The star of the video for “Big Star” – the soaring single off Juliette Commagere’s dreamy third album “Human” – is the singer-songwriter’s niece, Hana Commagere-Hagen. It was filmed in part at Laguna Beach, and, Commagere says, “I made all the costumes, my father shot it, and it was edited by my dear friend Max Goldblatt.” […]
Sometimes you just want songs. Folk, rock, country, blues … doesn’t matter. It takes a while to sort through the 22 (!) on singer-songwriter Cass McCombs’ new album “Big Wheel and Others,” just out on Domino, but ultimately the double-LP doesn’t wear out its welcome. In fact, you barely notice McCombs’ stylistic shifts once you’re […]
Singer-guitarist Kristen Gundred – aka Dee Dee Penny of Dum Dum Girls – has proven that songwriting and innovation triumph over mere aping of garage-rock and girl-group stylings from the past. Both the full-length “Only In Dreams” and “End of Daze” EPÂ made our year-end lists for 2011 and 2012, respectively, and it sounds like the […]
