[Random news items from my inbox …] Friends are rallying en masse in support of Peter Case, the L.A. icon who underwent emergency open-heart surgery on Jan. 15. A fund, Hidden Love, has been set up to help defray the medical expenses of the former Plimsouls frontman, 55, who had no health insurance and is […]
After three weeks off (one for SXSW, another due to illness and a third for a road trip), the Buzz Bands show returns to Little Radio this morning. I’ll share some of my SXSW favorites, such as Harlem Shakes and Thao With the Get Down Stay Down, and play new music from Metric, the Features, […]
This had better be an April Fool’s Day joke.
What do you get when you combine rock ‘n’ roll musicians, a love for trompe l’oeil and a fascination with 18th- and 19th-century portraiture? “Gooseberries,” apparently. Which is not the same as goosebumps, although L.A. photographer Sterling Andrews might have gotten some of those too in creating the images in her “album,” which will be […]
[News & notes from a weekend of catching up …] ‣ I recently revisited “Sleepwalking Through the Mekong,” the 75-minute film by John Pirozzi that documents Los Angeles sextet Dengue Fever’s 2005 visit to singer Chhom Nimol’s native Cambodia. It’s just as striking now as it seemed when I saw one of the initial screenings […]
Jonneine Zapata casts herself as something of a mystery woman, and it’s not just the icy, inhabited-by-the-music glare she projects onstage. The L.A.-singer will have you believe that with little more music training than the exposure to Mom’s record collection (heavy on the Motown) and childhood sing-alongs she has arrived where she is today, fronting […]
[Birthday cheers to Steve Tyler, even if Blender magazine won’t be celebrating any more …] I’ll start with a couple of fun-sounding under-the-radar things: Canadian genre-hoppers Hot Panda [pictured] plays the early set at the Silverlake Lounge. Then there is the electro-cool Alaska in Winter at Bordello. [Sample both below]. … Rosemary’s Garden, the new […]
South by Southwest is over? Say it ain’t so. I was impressed, and I didn’t even make it into the food line at Rachael Ray’s party [above]. By the numbers 1,000: Number of times, give or take, I heard the word “amazing.” 100: Number of times during the week I wished I had a bicycle. […]
[Heard, or overheard, on the streets of Austin:] ‣ U.K. shoegazers Amusement Parks on Fire are working with producer Michael Patterson (Beck, BRMC, She Wants Revenge) and has an EP due in June. Silversun Pickups frontman Brian Aubert sings on one of the tracks, “Flashlight Planetarium.” ‣ L.A.’s Buddy has a new album en route” […]
Jane’s Addiction played in an old supermarket. Metallica was going to play a secret show. The Hold Steady are the Official Band of Everyone. Those were the big topics on a busy Friday at South by Southwest while I angled in and out of the shade on the Cheers patio and then darted off to […]
