Sunday, December 31, 2006
After a brief flirtation with the Bay Area we're back to celebrate the annual toasting of the new year with our Los Angeles lovers. Lots of shows tonight are sold out so you'd best be Blackberrying your agents for comps right about now. Here's a highlight of tonight's events:
* The Flaming Lips, Gnarls Barkley, Cat Power @ the Galen Center, USC
* Giant Maximus with Sasha & Digweed, Jimmy Van M, Mark Tabberner, Ferry Corsten, Armin Van Buuren, Boris M.D., Kristina Sky, Sander Kleinenberg, Jason Bentley, Trent Cantrelle, others @ 831 Francisco (8th & Figueroa), Downtown Los Angeles (tickets here)
* Autolux, Dead Meadow, Bloodcat Love @ Little Radio
* 8-bit, Ninja Academy, The Mormons Bodies of Water, Sessions @ Mr. T's Bowl
* Together As One with Paul van Dyk, Deep Dish, Christopher Lawrence, Danny Howells, Dieselboy, others @ the Los Angeles Sports Arena
* The Killers @ Paramount Pictures Studio Lot (hosted by Carmen Electra)
* Blondie, Violent Femmes, Berlin, Thomas Dolby, The Knack, The English Beat, The Tubes, The Romantics, Tommy Tutone, Everclear, The Colour, The Randies, others @ the Orange County Fairgrounds
* Erykah Badu @ the House of Blues
* DJ Quik, 2nd II None, AMG @ Vault 350
* Ben Watt, Mark Farina, Marques Wyatt @ the Vanguard (tickets here)
* Chavez @ Spaceland
* Eddie Halliwell, Donald Glaude, Richard Vission, Faarsheed, David Garcia @ Avaland (tickets here)
* Very Be Careful @ Safari Sam's
* Breakestra @ Zanzibar
* Mickey Avalon @ the Roxy
* L.A. Symphony, Pigeon John, Red Cloud @ the Node, Norwalk (tickets here)
* Brother Reade, Evans & Eagles, Them Jeans, DJ Franchise @ downtown warehouse (RSVP here)
* Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Transmissions, Die Rockers Die, The Health Club, Murmur, Wake Up Incinerate, The F*cked Five @ All Star Bowling Lanes
* A For Attack, callsaftermidnight @ Mountain Bar
* Thomas, Lillyanne, Paul T, Hawkeye @ the Queen Mary, Long Beach
* Pop Levi, Benny Shambles, Michael Stock @ the Echo
* The Morlocks CD release, The Clamour @ The Bordello (formerly Little Pedro's)
* Clockwork Orange NYE @ the Knitting Factory
* Great Glass Elevator, TRS-80, DJ Ron Lee, DJ Concise @ 2233 E. El Segundo Blvd., El Segundo (RSVP here)
* LAX Flight 2007 @ LAX (tickets here)
* 6 Blocc, DJ Unit, Knife Dreams, Subcode, The Professionals @ Tokio
* Miss Kitty's NYE "Wicked Wonderland @ Club 7969 (tickets here)
* Transistor/Underground/Atomic NYE @ Grandstar
* B-Side Players @ the Temple Bar
* The Toledo Show @ Harvelle's
* DJ Lars Behrenroth @ Jer-Ne, Ritz Carlton
* Les Deux NYE hosted by the cast of "The Hills" @ Les Deux Cafe (tickets here)
* The Roosevelt NYE with The Sounds (DJ set) @ the Roosevelt Hotel
* Silver Reign New Year Bash @ Basque (tickets here)
* East Meets West NBA NYE hosted by Corey Maggette, Quentin Richardson, Eddy Curry, and Nate Robinson @ the Friars Club (tickets here)
* Final Farewell @ White Lotus (tickets here)
* The Red Elvises @ Rusty's Surf Ranch
Be safe and see you next year.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
In case you didn't get the hint last week that Lisa Papineau is back for her semi-annual reunion with Los Angeles, we're here to resend the memo. As far as we're concerned, her move to Paris was one of the greatest losses of the decade and so these brief revisits must be savored. This of course meant being stagefront for Big Sir's first show in three years at The Airliner. Despite approaching the stage with a walking cane and looking as beautifully fragile as ever, Papineau completely immersed herself into the performance while delivering that well-known voice that critics years from now will be referencing others as Papineau-esque. The last Big Sir show for maybe quite awhile is 12/28 at the Detroit Bar and then she goes out on brief solo tour up the coast.
Lisa Papineau's new album NightMoves is our now on Lunatik Works and the new album from Big Sir Und Die Scheiße Ändert Sich Immer is out on GSL.
Lisa Papineau on MySpace.
Big Sir on MySpace.
Lisa Papineau - "Shucking. Jiving." (MP3)
Big Sir - "Get Off the B" (MP3)
Check out Big Sir's 12/10 performance on KCRW's "New Ground" with Chris Douridas here.
Friday, December 15, 2006
Don't know if clubs are getting in the gift-giving mood, but this week is absolutely loaded with shows. We'll try to keep to the basics...
Tonight at Spaceland is gigantic. Eskimohunter, Miss Derringer, LoveLikeFire, and Sky Parade. It's like a dream or something... Silversun Pickups headlines two sold-out shows at the Troubadour over the weekend. It took the band like five years to do it and they certainly deserve all this recent success but let's hope it doesn't get to their heads (like we're hearing it has) because we're itching to post videos from way back when... Also on Saturday, The Autumns perform at the Violaine finale of the year... On Thursday, the Campanellas' are having a Christmas show with The Chapin Sisters and Winter Flowers over at the Knitting Factory... Several monthly residencies are wrapping up this week so get out there and see some bands for free and buy their merch for stocking stuffers.
Also, thanks to those who came out to the shows last week. Photos are posted here and here.
Eskimohunter - "Surfing at 32°F" (MP3)
Miss Derringer - "He Hung on a Sunday" (MP3)
The Autumns - "Slumberdoll" (MP3)
The Chapin Sisters - "Shady River" (MP3)
Thursday, December 14, 2006
A few weeks back we were going to preview a show that we were actually going to (what a concept), but then we kind of got busy. So instead here's a recap...
When we happened to catch Summer Darling a few weeks back in Long Beach it had been so long that we almost forgot how good they are. But as far as we can tell, shows for the band have been considerably spaced out this past year. Perhaps because of side projects like Ms. Heywood's lovely Kissing Cousins and Mr. Heywood's equally lovely Death House Chaplain taking some of their time or maybe because of the focus needed to record their highly anticipated follow-up to 2004's I Know You - I Never Knew You. Whatever the case, we've dearly missed hearing the roar of the Heywoods from a few feet away.
Twilight Sleep has been climbing the scenester charts in recent months with notable appearances with some of our favorite bands so it was time to give them a thorough lookover since apparently members split time between San Francisco and Los Angeles and we need them to concentrate on the latter. The hooks lie in Lathigara's synth-drenched arrangements and Marcellino's coo, which evokes fairly obvious Emiliana Torrini, Bjork, and Siobhan de Mare tonality. This all comes through pretty wonderfully on record but being a newish band there is still room for improvement for live shows. Given that they're playing on all the right bills this will happen sooner than later.
Summer Darling performs regularly around town in front of large audiences. New album, Gnostic Gospels, is due next year on Lujo Records.
Twilight Sleep opens for Silversun Pickups at the Troubadour on 12/16.
Summer Darling - "Math Is Everywhere" (MP3)
Twilight Sleep - "Ice Capade" (MP3)
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Los Angeles is spoiled. Spoiled to the core. We must laugh to ourselves everytime we see MySpace comments on local band profiles that read "Please come to NY!!" or "You need to play in the UK" or our favorite "Los Angeles doesn't deserve you." While our spoiledness is 24/7, it peaks on Mondays where we're silverspooned with too many good shows...
Drove by Spaceland to catch In Waves but heard that they weren't going on until midnight so we had some time. Headed over to The Echo to catch a bit of A For Attack who we hadn't seen since their debut awhile back at the SLL. No longer an iPod-backing track band, the music is full-throttle 80's modrock. Liked the tunes but they could use a good manager to help with their presentation. A text message during their set had us hightailing it over to Mr. T's Bowl for Crooked Cowboy, who we almost forgot has the residency this month at the club. This week had members of Big Sir joining forces with the usual supects from Totally Radd!! and Cameron from Spindrift doing projections for some downright hypnotic Morricone action. That my friends was an amazing show... Headed back to The Echo to catch part of TATE, which ended up being the whole part since they were sounding so good and we love it when an LA crowd dances (true, a rarity). Tried to hit In Waves back at Spaceland for the homestretch but we just missed them. However, frowns were turned upside down when we heard that the band will be doing Tuesdays at the Silverlake Lounge/El Cid in February.
Spoiled I tell you. Spoiled rotten.
* The Parson Red Heads' residency at The Echo ends 12/18. Shows are free (21+).
* Crooked Cowboy's residency at Mr. T's Bowl ends 12/18. Shows are $5 (and worth more than that).
* The Delta Spirit's residency at Spaceland ends 12/26. Shows are free (21+).
A For Attack - "You Got the Guns" (MP3)
In Waves - "Once the Heart" (MP3)
The Airborne Toxic Event - "Does This Mean You're Moving On" (MP3)
Saturday, December 09, 2006
'Tis the season for our last hurrah of 2006 with bands we saw more times this year than what is legally permitted. Even more so, these bands have been good friends this past year and that, along with egg nog and mistletoes, are what this time of year is all about. To get into the spirit of the season, we hear the bands might break out a holiday tune or two and for our part we'll try to pull together some swag for giveaways. Hope you can make it.
Los Angeles Loves...
CASTLEDOOR
THE EXFRIENDS
THE MONOLATORS
THE SWEET HURT
Tangier
2138 Hillhurst Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90027
18+ / $8 / 7:30pm
Google Maps
Castledoor - "Fall Apart" (MP3)
Castledoor - "Burn the Maps" (MP3)
The Exfriends - "Carrie's Freckles" (MP3)
The Exfriends - "Willow Tree" (MP3)
The Monolators - "Medium High" (MP3)
The Monolators - "Santy Anno" (MP3)
The Sweet Hurt - "Lost Again" (MP3)
The Sweet Hurt - "M. Misery" (MP3)
Friday, December 08, 2006
We are very pleased to present two of our favorites tonight: The Low Standards and Laura Burhenn. Please contain your excitement for a few more hours. Thank you...
Los Angeles Loves...
@ Tangier
2138 Hillhurst Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90027
18+ / $8 / 9:30pm
Google Maps
Los Angeles Loves... THE LOW STANDARDS
Take 3/4 of the amazing San Diego band The Exfriends, mix in one 1/1 of the angelic voice of Correatown, throw in some jazzy boo-boop-de-boo and what you have is the lovely new side project The Low Standards. "Girl For All Seasons" is the perfect holiday treat.
The Low Standards - "Girl For All Seasons" (MP3) Limited time download
Los Angeles Loves... LAURA BURHENN
The lovely and talented Laura Burhenn hails from D.C., which as far as Los Angeles is concerned is on the other side of the planet. So why have we gone out of our way to have this lady perform the last few years in town around this time? First, she's magnetic. Second, it's hard to say no to her. Third, she's also in this other band who some people might have seen recently on tour with Camera Obscura. With that said, welcome back Ms. Burhenn.
Laura Burhenn - "Just For the Night" (MP3)
Laura Burhenn - "Karma Police"
