One of pop music’s most charmingly inscrutable figures, Mark Oliver Everett, gave one of his most charmingly eclectic performances on Tuesday night at the Music Box. The man known as E, as in Eels, performing at times solo and at others with a full band, mixed songs from his vast catalog with material from his […]
There’s no propriety in writing a serious review of a show that turned into my birthday celebration. Besides, after two decades and still at the top of their game, Scottish rockers Teenage Fanclub would almost have to try mount a show I considered lousy. On Monday at the El Rey, the Scotsmen played loud and […]
The best thing about Sunday’s Toyota-sponsored finale of the inaugural Culture Collide festival is what it wasn’t – it wasn’t a hassle, it wasn’t chaotic, it wasn’t a cluster … well, you know. With two stages outdoors (one at Reservoir and Alvarado streets and one in Taix’s parking lot) and another inside steamy Echo Park […]
[Buzz Bands contributors Addy Danti, David McKay and Meriah Doty check in with the visiting bands on Saturday night at Filter’s Culture Collide:] Who: Bambi Kino In three or fewer words: The Hamburg Sound What’s the big deal?: Four indie-rockers form a band to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ first shows in Hamburg, […]
[The weekend’s Culture Collide festival was all about sampling wares from all over the globe. You couldn’t get to everything, but your faithful Buzz Bands honcho, along with contributors David McKay and Addy Danti, submit these quick impressions from Friday night. Photo gallery from the Echo/Echoplex sets by Laurie Scavo.] Who: The Besnard Lakes In […]
The music of Angus & Julia Stone is all about undulations – of melody, of tone, of the tenor of the heart. On Tuesday night at the El Rey Theatre, the brother-sister team from Australia took a reverent crowd for a ride on those slopes, never quite thrilling but never spilling either, achieving the slow-motion […]
[Buzz Bands contributor David McKay sampled some of the wares at the first night of the Culture Collide festival — more coverage coming soon on a blog near you:] Who: Black Lips In three or fewer words: Keep keeping on … What’s the big deal? “Next time we come, we’re going to have a new […]
Arcade Fire was a conflagration of pratfalls, missteps and hiccups Thursday night at the Shrine Auditorium. And it was beautiful. Because, to bend an adage, rock ’n’ roll doesn’t have to be perfect to be transcendent. From early sound woes that muddled “Ready to Start” and “Month of May” to intermittent equipment problems that had […]
Review and gallery by Laurie Scavo The winsome, electric folk-rock of the Avett Brothers is generally not the stuff of Jumbotrons. But there it was Friday night, gleaming from the big, crystal clear HD screens that flank the stage at the glitzy Nokia Theatre in downtown L.A. If anything, the images of the banjo-toting North […]
Electro-soul sensation Jamie Lidell blew through L.A. last week, hitting KCRW for a show you can hear here and playing the Echoplex on Thursday. I caught him at Lollapalooza and thought his music is a different (read: better) beast when he performs it with a full band. And many of the fans at the Echoplex […]
