Top 3 local shows on a good night for them: ‣ If you liked their album “Terrible Town” [and we did], you’re going to like Olin and the Moon’s follow-up “Footsteps” even more. The Idaho-bred, L.A.-based purveyors of sweet Americana have a new album coming in the new year, and the quintet will be playing […]
Top 3 shows to improve your possibly flagging midweek disposition: ‣ NYC indie-pop quartet Bear Hands [pictured] are pals of MGMT whose debut album “Burning Bush Supper Club” is full of downright infectious tunes. They headline Spaceland with Cantora Records labelmates Rumspringa. ‣ Fitz & the Tantrums wind down an amazing year by playing to […]
Whatever shape her solo music ended up taking, Morgan Kibby was determined not to play to expectations. “I’m a woman who plays keyboards, and there’s the whole Tori Amos sensibility,” says Kibby, the singer-keyboardist who joined French popgazers M83 for their last album “Saturdays = Youth.” “I know I could have written the girl-at-a-piano record, […]
[Disclosure: This trio is made up of longtime FOBB (Friends of Buzz Bands). Drummer Dave McKay is a contributor to this blog.] The members of Non Ultra Joy come from such disparate backgrounds you’d hardly expect their work to cling to one aesthetic. Chris McRitchie made saw-toothed hard rock in Flupejac and Big Stone City; […]
Top 7 choices from the embarrassment of show riches tonight in Los Angeles (and a handful of recommended downloads to boot): ‣ Greg Dulli and Carina Round at the sold-out Troubadour. The Afghan Whigs/Twilight Singers main man is doing his first-ever solo tour, and reviews have been great. “Dynamite Steps,” the first Twilight Singers album […]
Four albums into his songwriting career and six years into a tour of duty as a Los Angeles resident, Chris Zerby never feels at a loss for source material. “L.A. surprises me with something every day,” the principal architect behind the L.A. quintet Hello Dragon says. “It’s a vast, crazy world that never ceases to […]
Top show that’s probably worth the road trip: ‣ Blonde Redhead (with Olof Arnalds opening) plays the Glass House in Pomona. The trio’s new album”Penny Sparkle” is more ambient than “23” (the Buzz Bands album of the year in ’07) – easy stuff in which to lose yourself, as the five songs they perform in […]
Sharon Van Etten won a slew of admirers with her sparse, intimate tales of heartbreak and loss on debut album “Because I Was In Love.” Among those new fans was feted songwriter Justin Vernon, aka Bon Iver, who recently covered the Brooklyn-based singer’s track “Love More,” which is the heart-wrenching closer on her sophomore release […]
The fact that Geographer frontman Michael Deni upped sticks from his native New Jersey and relocated to San Francisco is not remarkable in itself. Some of the music the young songwriter has crafted since swapping coasts following a tragic series of deaths in his family just might be. Deni, having enlisted the help of cellist […]
Brandon Flowers’ flamboyant show at the Wiltern Theatre on Wednesday night was all about his voice, that big, booming instrument that’s hardly ever dialed back on the material on his solo album, “Flamingo,” an homage to his home Las Vegas. The highlight for me was when guitarist Andy Summers of the Police joined the Killers’ […]
