
► "Occupy Skid Row" will be taking place according to the promoter Chuck D despite concerns of acquiring correct permits . The concert benefiting the homeless on Gladys Avenue between Fifth and Sixth streets will start at 1 P.M. with Public Enemy playing at 2 P.M. Other acts scheduled to play include Freestyle Fellowship, Nipsy Hustle and more. ► Talented songbird Eleni Mandell (of the Living Sisters ) [pictured above] headlines the Bootleg Theater. Songwriter and producer Aaron Embry will also be playing at set, followed by Daniel [...]

Indie rock, benefits and more: ► Two of the night's biggest shows are benefits — the Red Hot Chili Peppers' gig at Club Nokia (for the Silverlake Conservatory of Music) and Fiona Apple at Largo (for the Littlest Tumor Foundation, a neurofibromatosis charity). ► Meiko warms up for a big September tour with a date on her home turf, the Hotel Cafe. ► Brooklyn garage-rockers Obits (pictured) hit the Satellite behind their new album "Moody, Standard and Poor," and Chicago quartet Disappears (featuring [...]
Eleni Mandell's band, The Grabs, is offering a free, legal mp3 download via Bandcamp from their 2005 debut, Sex, Fashion & Money. Their sophomore album, Political Disco, will be available later this summer. Cold Enough To Snow by The Grabs Buy Mp3s @ Bandcamp Buy CD @ Amazon

Waarom zou je een album You Were a Dick noemen? Dat moet je toch echt iets dwars zitten. Maar het is wel de titel van de nieuwe plaat van Idaho . Het is overigens nog een wonder dat er nieuw materiaal van Idaho uitkomt. De band van Jeff Martin is al sinds 1992 bezig en behoorde lang tot een van de vaandeldragers van de 'slowcore'. Sinds 2000 zitten er steeds langere tussenpozen tussen de releases van Idaho. Op You Were A Dick hebben we zes jaar moeten wachten. De plaat is dromerig en naast de vaak slaperige [...]

[Happy weekend. Just a reminder that today is the day tickets go on sale for the Hollywood Bowl season . Yeah, including the National's show on the 10-year anniversary of 9/11.] I don't wanna say that if you aren't out tonight you aren't breathing, but it is the busiest Saturday night in recent memory: ► Their sophomore album "Helplessness Blues" now safely stashed in the repository of your choice, Fleet Foxes bring their lush harmonizing to [...]
Dengue Fever's fourth studio album, Cannibal Courtship was just released on April 19th. As I said when I first posted the "Cement Slippers" mp3 back in February: The followup to 20082s spectacular Venus on Earth again finds the Cambodian psych-rock band singing in English and Khmer. The album also features backing harmonies by Eleni Mandell's [...]
Havoc reigns in the video for the Living Sisters ' "How Are You Doing?" But the remarkable part about it is not how well the cutesy triptych works — it is, after all, the work of Michel Gondry — but how good our heroic trio of L.A. songstresses look while all hell is breaking loose. They're California gals after all, and who better to harmonize via cell phone than Becky Stark, real-life new mom Inara George and Eleni Mandell? The song is from last year's aptly titled album "Love to Live," a sentiment that, when [...]
www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9D0Kr 0yHng "How Are You Doing?" is the Living Sisters song I want to hear twice. Living Sisters can make me feel like my last name is von Trapp and I'm tumbling playfully down a green hill wearing a dress made from window curtains. Eleni Mandell, Becky Stark, and Inara George take turns playing Maria, my badass nanny from the convent. This is not the plot of Michel Gondry's music video for the song. He's got us watching these doh-eyed ladies stumble blissfully through a series of everyday disasters. It's like a mini chick [...]

Priscilla Ahn's new album, When You Grow Up , will be released by Blue Note Records on May 3rd. Featuring songwriting collaborations with Sia, Eleni Mandell and Inara George, When You Grow Up is a lovely little album full of romantic ballads and retro girl pop numbers. Lyrically, the album explores the theme of growth (hence the title) throughout the ups and downs of life and love. Musically, it's just very, very pretty. "Oo La La" has a similar retro-influenced girl pop sound as [...]

Dengue Fever will release their fourth studio album, Cannibal Courtship , on April 19th. The followup to 20082s spectacular Venus on Earth again finds the Cambodian psych-rock band singing in English and Khmer. The album also features backing harmonies by Eleni Mandell 's trio The Living Sisters . You can download a free, legal mp3 of "Cement Slippers" from Dengue Fever's new album by entering your email address into the widget below... [...]

christine hale The Living Sisters "Double Knots" (From Love to Live out now on Vanguard) "Charming" is a word the Living Sisters hear too often, but it would be needlessly pretentious to reach for another adjective. I had a smile on my face within about twenty seconds of opener "How Are You Doing?" and for the most part, it never left. Something of a Los Angeles vocal supergroup, the Living Sisters are composed of the Bird and the Bee's Inara George, Lavender Diamond's Becky [...]
[Birthday greetings to Rivers Cuomo, who hits the big Four-Oh on Sunday ...] My top 5 reasons to leave the house this weekend that don't involve Kustom culture or Bill Cosby : ☛ DeLorean , the hotly tipped synth-wielding kids from the coast of Spain, play the Echo tonight. Have a taste of "Stay Close." Oh, and Wait. Think. Fast open. ☛ The best anthemic rock band in these parts, Helen Stellar , headlines Spaceland tonight, supported by U.K. quartet [...]
![[FEATURE] The Living Sisters](http://cdn.elbo.ws/posts/2600499_lg.jpg)
WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME ABOUT THIS? Not to be denied, I 'm not updated on every great musician or artist that gets a record deal or has that undeniable charm that gets featured on Daytrotter like the common music blogger. But when I heard about The Living Sisters , I just flipped. I've been pretty vocal about my love for Becky Stark, but only recently did I know about this wonderful group. This sweet-voiced harmony trio is composed of Lavender Diamond frontwoman Becky Stark [...]

Why didn't anyone tell me about this? I wrote about my love of Becky Stark earlier this year, so I don't know why I'm just finding out about the Living Sisters, a group that combines the talents of Stark, Eleni Mandell, and the Bird and the Bee's Inara George. Each of these ladies is great in their own right, and like peanut butter and chocolate or Tim & Eric, they're also great together. On opener "How Are You Doing", the girls' three distinct voices twist and swirl around each other, meeting briefly every now and then [...]

Put together the three beautiful songstresses Inara George (of the bird and the bee , who I recently wrote about here ), Becky Stark (of Lavender Diamond ), and Eleni Mandell together, and you've got a trio made in heaven. The three ladies have taken a step away from their respective gigs to put together a ten track album, love to live , that combines the skills and beauty of all three, and which features songs written by each of them. The tracks weave together the voices of all three [...]
Luscious layers of vocal harmony spiced with doe-eyed friskiness mark the timeless songs of The Living Sisters, the exceptional trio of already individually accomplished LA singer-songwriters: Inara George (The Bird and The Bee), Eleni Mandell and Becky Stark (Lavender Diamond). Substantive yet refreshing, soulful yet light-hearted, The Living Sisters' songs lure irresistibly. Because they're sung for [...]

The Living Sisters are a new band composed of Eleni Mandell , The Bird & The Bee 's Inara George, and Lavender Diamond's Becky Stark . The group's debut album will be released March 30th and features the trio singing pretty vintage pop melodies. "How Are You Doing" blends Andrews Sisters harmonies with an AM radio light twang. The girls croon sweetly on the doo-wop tunes "Ferris Wheel" and "You Make Me Blue." "Cradle" puts a sultry spin on a gentle Patti Page [...]
Baby Tate - See What You Done Done (mp3) * To celebrate the release of their new Classic Appalachian Blues compilation, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings is offering a free, legal download of this Baby Tate song. Buy @ Amazon *mp3 hosted by & posted w/ permission of Smithsonian Folkways ************************** The Living Sisters - Love to Live (download page) Vanguard Records is giving away a free mp3 to anyone who signs up for The Living [...]
In trio form, the sweet-voiced ladies of The Living Sisters - LA-based songstresses Eleni Mandell , Inara George of The Bird and the Bee, and Lavender Diamond frontwoman Becky Stark - come off as something akin to a modern version of The Roches, with the production and harmony dynamics of a particularly delicate, indie-fied country girl group. In case you're new here, from our perspective, this combination is a very good thing indeed. Love to Live , the upcoming debut from the new femmepop [...]