Remember those long, stereo-blaring overnight drives when your vehicle felt propelled not by an internal combustion engines but by the Cure’s bass lines? SoCal duo the Open Feel nail that vibe on their new single “Pushing Back.” Singer-guitarist Katie Harris and bassist-drummer Tom Brayton displayed on their late-2011 EP a deep affection for the roaring, […]
Join me at 11 a.m. for this week’s Buzz Bands LA Show on The Independent FM (formerly known as Moheak Radio) – I’ll have new music from Tennis System, Army Navy, George Glass, Song Preservation Society, Yellow Marbles and more. Oh, and maybe some remixes of Soft Swells and Eagles of Death Metal tunes, because […]
Nothing Los Angeles quartet George Glass does is quite predictable, even when they are sonically raising a glass to their heroes. And they have plenty of those. In an era so many upstart bands can be described “doing the (insert decade and genre) thing,” Nicholas Ceglio, Nathan Kondor and Peter DiBiasio (abetted by Todd McLaughlin) […]
Full speed on a Friday night: ‣ It’s another Friday night of free music at the FIGat7th Downtown Festival, where Brooklyn’s Red Baraat brings the melting-pot music on its latest album “Big Talk” and L.A.’s La Chamba supports. ‣ Passenger, the nom de tune of U.K.-bred folk-pop troubadour Mike Rosenberg, headlines the El Rey Theatre, […]
Chris Karman is a self-proclaimed music geek. If you go to the Facebook page for his band, Historian, every post is prefaced by a random musical fact. The moniker is appropriate considering his nature as a walking music encyclopedia, but Karman’s music is also carefully layered with each piece of info he’s indulged in. There […]
There’s no doubt that Montreal-based Young Galaxy has been experimenting with their synth-heavy dream-pop over the course of the last three albums, and their latest record, “Ultramarine,” definitely takes on various different shades and rhythms. Some tracks are perfectly accessible and sun-kissed (“Pretty Boy”), others are Ibiza contenders (“Fall For You”) and some are even […]
There are shades of dark, and the minimal music of L.A. trio VUM pulses in the shadowy space where mostly outlines are available. The Topanga Canyon-based threesome of Jennifer Pearl, Christopher Badger and Scott Spaulding earned well-deserved praise for their “Laura Palmer” single released last October, and they’re readying their sophomore full-length for release later […]
Brooklyn’s El-P and Atlanta’s Killer Mike have collaborated with each other before – Mike guested on a track from El-P’s 2012 album “Cure 4 Cancer,” and EL-P produced the entirety of Mike’s 2012 album “R.A.P. Music” (as well as rapping on a track). They also toured the country together last summer with Mr. Muthaf*ckin’ eXquire […]
Your monstrous Thursday show lineup: ‣ The Under the Influence of Music Tour wafts its way to the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater featuring a lineup of Wiz Khalifa, A$AP Rocky, Smoke DZA, Chevy Woods, Joey Bada$$ and Berner. ‣ It’s the second week of the Twilight Concert Series, which brings free live music to the Santa […]
Sadie Dupuis started out in the NYC scene but took off to pursue a master’s in poetry in Northampton, Mass., and in doing so she found her musical calling there. Recording herself under the moniker Speedy Ortiz, Dupuis’ solo lo-fi bedroom project spawned the 5-song EP titled “Sports,” but it didn’t take long for her […]