It’s a full-up Friday: ‣ U2. The scrappy band from Ireland. Angel Stadium. ‣ The Wooden Birds, the latest project from American Analog Set’s Andrew Kenny, bring something of an all-star lineup to the Echo for a show in support of their new album “Two Matchsticks.” Kenny’s lineup is populated by three members of Matt […]
Multimedia gurus NewVillager will bring a whole new meaning to living their art in Los Angeles this week. Founders Ben Bromley and Ross Simonini will be taking over Chinatown’s Human Resources Gallery, building a “village” in the space where they will live, sleep and perform each night through Tuesday. The installation is called “Temporary Culture,” […]
It’s been almost a decade since And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead were anointed rock gods, their third album “Source Tags & Codes” earning a very-hard-to-argue 10 out of 10 from Pitchfork, whose review promised listeners “you will never, ever be the same.” It’s been that way for the band too […]
[Happy 30th birthday to Ben Kweller today … Even though he will always seem 16 to me.] Top shows for a Thursday: ‣ Booker T. Jones,the Stax legend and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer whose new whose new album “The Road From Memphis” is just out, headlines the Satellite. Word is that there will […]
Acoustic pop and soft electronica go hand-in-hand these days, and if there’s a new L.A. band who has embraced this concept, it’s Mind the Gap. The duo that formerly went by Cahn & Yang (and the Driving Force before that) expanded to a quartet once founders Greg Cahn and Alex Yang moved from the Midwest […]
Band bios are full of lore, much of which should be enjoyed for entertainment value only. But even if the story behind War Widow is only partially true, it’s one of my favorites: Jon Peloso and Eric Blackwell met in a bar fight in which they were both defending a drag queen, a brawl that […]
Sometimes it’s difficult for bands who do straight-ahead rock – even as competently as Nashville four-piece Mona does it – to get any attention at home without resorting to gimmickry. So it was for the quartet of Nick Brown, Jordan Young, Zach Lindsey and Vince Gard, who took their show on the road and found […]
Although songwriter Andy Cabic has been known to engage in some woozy psychedelia on Vetiver‘s earlier work (earning the band opening slots for Devendra Banhart and Vashti Bunyan), next week’s release of “The Errant Charm” via Sub Pop will present a new skin that has shed some of the folk for a brighter pop tone. […]
As with the video for “Throw Your Arms Around Me” [which we touted in April], Summer Fiction appropriates a French film for the imagery accompanying the new song “Kids in Catalina.” This time it’s David Hamilton’s dialogue-less “Un été Ã Saint-Tropez” (1983), as edited by Kevin Chia. The song is off Summer Fiction’s debut, and […]
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 […]
