[Happy new year, everybody. Buzz Bands was away on some vocab rehab for a couple of weeks, but now we return to help you lurch – did I say lurch? I meant ease – into a new decade. I hope to have some changes in the coming weeks; for now, get your year off to […]
Leave it to experimental duo the Pity Party to make one of the coolest videos I’ve seen in a while. Directed by Joaquin Poblete, “Wanting Want” is a collision of subversive images that support an equally subversive song, which features M (Marc Smollin) and Heisenflei (Julie Edwards) at their best. By the way, the pair […]
Members of Foreign Born go on a little Catalina Island adventure in the Matthew Lessner-directed video for “Early Warnings.” The song, with Lewis Pesacov’s frolicsome guitar line, is the one track on Foreign Born’s fine sophomore album “Person to Person” that could have crossed over to the equally fine album by Fool’s Gold, the Afro-pop […]
Busy night in town – the Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zero gig at the Mayan is sold out, but not Mew’s show at the Fonda Theatre. The Danish rockers’ latest album “No More Stories” came out in August and features “Repeaterbeater” – the video for which is liable to make you … very … […]
Saint Motel’s video for “To My Enemies” is splendidly designed and shot, but it has me befuddled. Or should I say “delddufeb?” The L.A. quartet likes to keep things theatrical and playful, and the video, directed by Carlos Lopez Estrada and conceived by former film student/frontman AJ Jackson, plays like something of a whodunit that […]
[Corrected] This will warm your cackles – it’s a video of women in the northern Ugandan village of Gulu singing “Home” as a way of thanking Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros. The women were the beneficiaries of proceeds from the L.A. group’s album-release show July 14 for “Up from Below.” Through the Gulu Widows […]
One of our favorite husband-and-wife teams, the Submarines, made this whimsical video for “Submarines Symphonika” – yeah, it’s the song from the iPhone 3GS television commercials. In this Josh Forbes-directed piece, Blake Hazard and John Dragonetti (and drummer Jason Stare) frolic through a shapeshifting land filled with Russian dolls, a costumed kids’ orchestra and bright […]
This remarkable video for Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros’ “Kisses Over Babylon,” which features heavy hitters such as David Strathairn and Dermot Mulroney, is the second segment in a project called “SALVO!” – a 12-part feature-length movie musical. Go here for background on Part 2. After the jump, revisit the first installment, “Desert Song”:
Here’s a little late-afternoon smile for you – the Adam Sacks-directed video for Brooklyn singer-songwriter Peter Squires ditty “I Would Hate to Be You.” You know the moral … don’t be that guy. But that bit with the Scrabble tiles? Genius. ||| Download: “I Would Hate to Be You” ||| Live: Peter Squires performs at […]
[Buzz Bands LA today welcomes a contribution from Richard Cromelin, former pop music writer for the Los Angeles Times, who weighs in on the new “All Tomorrow’s Parties” documentary:] By Richard Cromelin Los Angeles fringe-rock followers might be forgiven if they have mixed feelings about “All Tomorrow’s Parties,” a documentary DVD marking the 10th anniversary […]
