Is there any better band to see on three hours’ sleep than the Morning Benders? That’s how my Saturday started. It got better too. Even got the chance to sneak up behind some homies (that’s Dawes, pictured). Highlights: ‣ Not sure that I can capture the magic of Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros’ set, […]
There’s a lot of the sun-splashed Sixties in the music of A B & the Sea, the Bay Area quintet that was founded in Wisconsin by guitarists Koley O’Brien and Joe Spargur. Two years after O’Brien and Spargur packed up the van and headed west, they’ve combined with Troy Lawton, Zak LaVigne and David Hunt […]
[Birthday: Pete Townshend, 65.] Can you dream under water? That’s the feeling the new Caribou album “Swim” gives me – ambient electro-pop that tugs you into its currents. Dan Snaith and his quartet play the El Rey Theatre tonight (Toro Y Moi opens) on an evening there are so many worthy shows that I feel […]
The Morning Benders’ anthem about fleeting youth and lost innocence, “Promises,” a song about fleeting youth, gets a video treatment courtesy of directors Aaron Brown and Ben Chappell. The SoCal-bred, Bay Area-based quartet is riding high on their widely praised sophomore album, “Big Echo” – they’ve scored upcoming tour dates with Grizzly Bear, Broken Bells […]
[Can’t remember a busier weekend for good stuff. Really. So wish Stefani Joanne Angelina Germotta – that’s Lady Gaga to you – a happy birthday, and I’ll see you at a show:] Tonight: Metric, who played a surprise set Thursday night at a charity gig at the Roxy, headline the Palladium. Codeine Velvet Club and […]
[Happy birthday, Elton John. Meanwhile, in L.A., my head’s going to explode from the overwhelming selection of good-to-great shows tonight:] First, two indie bands with new albums I highly recommend: The Morning Benders (with Miniature Tigers and We Barbarians supporting, play the Troubadour; and the Deadly Syndrome [Chris Richard, pictured] celebrating the release of “Nolens […]
I’m on assignment for SPIN.com this week at SXSW – as well as trying to squeeze in some coverage for the mothership Buzz Bands LA. I filed several bits Wednesday for SPIN, so fans of the Happy Hollows, the Morning Benders and Everybody Was in the French Resistance … Now [that’s Eddie Argos, above], should […]
To say that the Morning Benders’ “Big Echo” represents a creative leap is a bit of an understatement. The Bay Area-based quartet’s sophomore album – which comes out Tuesday on Rough Trade – sounds as if someone fast-forwarded Christopher Chu and company from puppy love straight into midlife crisis. The Benders’ 2008 debut, “Talking Through […]
The Morning Benders, the young Berkeley-based quartet with SoCal roots, sound downright grown up on the initial track they’ve released from their sophomore album “Big Echo.” The song “Promises,” released for free download today, finds the foursome’s sound not nearly as spindly, though every bit as nimble and engaging as it was on the band’s […]
[File under: Things I have seen, heard or read:] There is plenty of intriguing music in the cooker for 2010, but one release I’ll be particularly interested in hearing is the album made by a band called Admiral Radley. The foursome is a collaboration between Earlimart’s Aaron Espinoza and Ariana Murray and Grandaddy’s Jason Lytle […]
