Only last year, Gary Numan was driving “Cars” down memory lane, doing an album tour to mark the 30th anniversary of “The Pleasure Principle.” Now, at an apparently invigorated 53, the new wave innovator has announced plans for not one, but two, new albums. The first, “Dead Son Rising,” will be self-released Oct. 24 via […]
Excellent choices to kick off your holiday weekend: ‣ Veteran Aussie quartet You Am I, still going strong after two-plus decades, kick off a U.S. tour behind their new, self-titled album, their ninth. They play the Echo, with L.A. quintet Terraplane Sun opening. ‣ Long-running Club Underground moves from the Echo to the Grand Star […]
Christopher J. Ewing’s new video for Letting Up Despite Great Faults’ “Teenage Tide,” with its well-scrubbed cast of ostensible teenagers, represents a pretty deft update of John Hughes’ milieu. Which makes it perfect for the Los Angeles indie-poppers’ swoon-worthy single off the band’s “Paper Crush” EP (Old Flame Records). When the video premiered Wednesday on […]
More than two dozen Los Angeles bands (not to mention worker bees from all tentacles of the music industry) will converge on San Diego next weekend for the San Diego Music Thing, a mini-South by Southwest that offers two-plus days of club shows and workshops. Highlights include sets by Linda Perry’s Deep Dark Robot and […]
The indie blues of L.A. quintet Terraplane Sun are generations removed from the Delta, but on the quintet’s second album “Coyote” you can feel a little bit of the swamp, as filtered through five guys who’ve explored everything from classic rock to “Pet Sounds” to Motown and who call the beach their home. The band’s […]
Amy LaVere may look familiar if you’ve noticed her acting in films such as “Walk the Line” and “Hustle and Flow.” However, her most charming method of telling a story is through her Americana-pop. The singer-songwriter from Memphis, Tenn., follows up her album “Anchors & Anvil” (produced by the late Jim Dickinson) with “Stranger Me,” […]
Whether Dead Sara’s song “Weatherman” is an oblique reference to the long-ago radical left group the Weather Underground, the band will leave up to you. It is, says singer Emily Armstrong, about “having your own voice and being heard. Standing up for your rights, and taking back what is yours. Freedom!” Oh, that freedom could […]
Welcome to September: ‣ KCRW’s summer-long Twilight Dance series at the Santa Monica Pier is winding down; tongiht’s free show features Malibu-bred quartet Dawes headlining, supported by Sonny & the Sunsets and Olio. ‣ Janet Jackson brings her “Number Ones: Up Close and Personal Tour” to the Greek Theatre, where she will do material from […]
LA Weekly’s West Coast Sound has the details on how to get refunds for Sunset Junction – if you bought them at Neighborhood Alliance’s Farmers Market or at Origami Vinyl. Read all about it. And this just in: Kenneth Scalir, whom frequent concert-goers know as “KROQ Ken” and recognize as a regular railbird, got his […]
The latest scribbles in my notebook: ‣ Word on the smoking patios is that L.A. electro-soul newbies Electric Guest, the Danger Mouse-produced guys who’ve done audience-building gigs all over town this summer, are doing a deal with Downtown Records. The project, the brainchild of songwriter/composers Asa Taccone and Matthew Compton, has wrapped up an album […]