Your Thursday show picks: ‣ Big day at the beach – Grouplove, White Arrows and Hindu Pirates perform at the U.S. Open of Surfing in Huntington Beach. The music starts at 4 p.m. ‣ Tunes al fresco? Plenty of free, outdoor shows on this summer night: Kasey Chambers [pictured] and Matt Ellis head up “Australia […]
Azure Ray emerged more than a decade ago seemingly out of the ether, the marriage of two angelic vocalists trading in hazy atmospherics. Their third album, 2003’s “Hold On Love,” which brought them into the Saddle Creek stable of artists, remains one of dream-pop’s stellar cloud formations. Collaborators Orenda Fink and Maria Taylor went on […]
[Longtime Buzz Bands LA supporter Ashton Lunceford shares her Fiona Apple experience:] By Ashton Lunceford Fiona Apple made me cry. Three times. And don’t for a moment think that I was alone on Sunday night at the Hollywood Palladium. It has been seven years since Fiona Apple released an album. Her latest work “The Idler […]
The Black Apples arrived in L.A. from Colorado in 2010 with a bang – the psychedelic garage-rock on their self-titled debut album sounded like a soul train being driven full-bore into a drunken re-creation of “Beach Blanket Bingo.” Native New Yorkers Andrew and Campbell Scarborough rein things in a little bit on their breezy new […]
The Little Tokyo-adjacent setting for the Play MOCA series proved perfect on Friday night for L.A. rockers IO Echo. The brainchild of Ioanna Gika and Leopold Ross, the quintet brought their dark, dreamy, Far East-influenced sound to a stage erected in the plaza of the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA. It was the first of three […]
“I want something with a feeling,” Torches frontman Azad Cheikosman proclaims in the trio’s single “I Want Something,” but as the Mike James-directed video for the song suggests, maybe he just wants something with more blood. Bandmates Eric Fabbro and Bridgette Moody get the short end of Cheikosman’s morbid fantasies in the clip. There’s bloodletting […]
Talk about whiplash: Fans at the Sunset Strip Music Festival’s outdoor party on Saturday, Aug. 18, will be yoyo-ing between musical worlds if they alternate main stages that evening. For instance, there’s the pop-punk of the Offspring at 7:30, party electro from DJ Steve Aoki at 8:15 and Marilyn Manson’s rawk at 9:30. General admission […]
Happy first day of August: ‣ The U.S. Open of Surfing in Huntington Beach kicks off three consecutive days of music with a late afternoon/early evening beach bash featuring Best Coast and Walk the Moon. ‣ It’s music New Orleans-style at the Hollywood Bowl, where the Neville Brothers bring their farewell tour, and Trombone Shorty […]
To correctly write the name of this band in type, you need to press “alt” key on your computer and type “j.” ∆, otherwise known as Alt-J, may hail from Leeds, U.K., but their inventive blend of pop, trip-hop and rock has gotten their debut album “An Awesome Wave” (out Sept. 18 on Canvasback) much […]
The title track of L.A. trio Lady Danville’s “Operating” EP [premiered way back when] is an old-school pop gem – gooey-in-a-good-way melody and florid harmonies on a simple backdrop of instrumentation. In the hands of San Francisco producer/DJ Branded James (aka Brandon Whittaker), it becomes a sparkling electro track. Remixes hardly ever accomplish this, but […]
