I trust you're all recovering/resting/relaxing today. Whether you welcomed 2012 with a quiet night at home alongside family and friends, or joined some raucous, drunken celebration at a house/club/bar, I'm sure it was a great time. If you must know about my night, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Considering New Years last year was probably the [...]
Upsilon Acrux - 9/12/11 Oakland (by KevinBrownsvideos ) One of my fave mathrock bands, the brutal prog masters Upsilon Acrux, live.
QUeUe (All photos by Chihiro Higaki) Sigh's Smell of Farewell, the Cocteau Twins tribute night at the Smell, was also a night of interesting musical collaborations, as every single performance was an amalgamation of musicians. First up was Life Group, a project featuring co-organizer Scott Cornish, and former member of Veer Right Young Pastor, members of Soft-Boiled Eggies, and current members of Devon Williams' band. They remained faithful to the original tracks instrumentally, but featured all-male vocals that lent a punkish bent to the tracks. Next was the premiere of QUeUe, a new project with members of [...]
YELLOWTHIEF, UPSILON ACRUX, ZEVIOUS, AND HIKING ON FRIDAY APR. 1ST AT THE SMELL, 247 SOUTH MAIN STREET, LOS ANGELES. 9:00PM/ $5/ ALL AGES
Nervous Cop - "Setting the Bushes on Fire" MP3 Whirlwind Heat - "No Gums" MP3/download This is a Nervous Cop review originally created for my magazine-that-never-was, The Gumshoe Revue (notice that John Dieterich and a pre-fame Joanna Newsom boasted membership in N. Cop; who would of thought after an abstract project like this she would [...]
It's a friendly dissection of an instrument that doesn't sound like a guitar so much as the thing viewed through the prism of the base psychotropics of fatigue and imagination. A gateway into the velvet-lined universe of an arcane musical mind. There aren't enough synonyms for "recommended" in the thesaurus to aptly describe this record.
Esoteric circles have long recognized that certain Adepts may transcend Death. Those who's mastery of the teachings enable them to break free of this mortal coil and ascend to something more. These circles know that there exists on other planes a collection, an organization if you will, of these Ascended Masters who watch over us and guide us. The Great White Brotherhood are those who who have risen from the Earth into immortality, but still maintain an active watch over the world. The Great White Brotherhood's will is carried out in our solar system by the Ashtar [...]
Nicci and I went to see the Bruno movie this evening. It was pretty alright. Nothing revelatory. There were a few laugh-out-loud funny scenes, but for the most part it was Borat -like and predictable. It's best parts were a result of pure shock value, but we got that with the first movie too. I'd say it's a good movie to see if you want to drop $15 on a movie ticket and you are in need a good laugh. Nicci's friend is in the film, he plays Bruno's pygmy boyfriend, Diesel. They share a ridiculous sex [...]
On this, their sixth album, this long-lived instrumental rock outfit begins to see history finally catch up. Onetime adornment of the San Diego maximalist movement of the late 1990s, UA represents guitarist (and sole ongoing member) Paul Lai's admirable and altogether successful attempt to be the one-man Henry Cow of his generation. UA's sound was already wrapped Booker T-tight on 2007's Galapagos Momentum , so this album represents Lai's mastery of an ever more capacious bag of tricks, like the start-and-stop headfakes on "Prelude to Foreshadow'n" and the gorgeously maintained 29:21 golem's march of "Transparent Seas (Radio Edit)".
I eventually did get out of the house by Thursday night, touring both floors of Amoeba Music prior to fading down Vine St. to 3 Clubs. Briefly fashionable after the 1997 movie Swingers, this venue I've long associated with dreadful music and gave the place up entirely after I quit martinis. Still, the Rumble's night of indie-squawk sounded promising enough outside muffled through the walls. Both light and prospects were considerable dimmer inside, as French Miami- a trio of Bay Area collegians beloved of NME -was onstage thrashing around inside a math rock that was obviously failing to carry its [...]
Ima Dancin' Wit Mice El-Elf: This past week was like the glory daze at CityBeat, what with sitting at the computer besieged as deadlines explode overhead like the Ninth Battle of the Marne. This phase of la vie litteraire imposes a hermitlike—if not actively cranky—solitude that seldom fails to make sallies out of Boyle Heights [...]
Queen was my first musical love and, re-listening to these tunes for this post, I remember why. Few dispute Freddie Mercury's position as one of the greatest frontmen of all time, but Brian May's absurd guitar playing and Roger Taylor's rock-solid drumming helped propel these tunes to another dimension. As a kid I never went beyond the greatest hits, and I never needed to. They're that good. So here are some of said hits, done different. Electric Six - Radio Ga Ga The Detroit six-piece behind [...]
I used to go bowling with my father a lot when I was younger. He is one of those forty-plus-year-olds who work a 9-5 job all week (most Saturdays, too) and then go bowling on Sunday mornings with friends. It's one of his few opportunities to do something human. When I was a youngster, a morning spent with my dad and his friends was a vacation. They talked dirty and smoked a lot of cigarettes. This was in the days when bowling alleys only allowed scoring by hand. As I sat and watched the old men bowl, playing with my [...]
Here's the last part, from now on new music!! Serbian Cocek 05 A Hawk and a Hacksaw and the Hun Hangár Ensemble - Self Titled ( Leaf ) : Together with the Bela Agostone lead Hun Hangar Ensemble , AHAAH has delivered a standardbearer neo-balkan-folk EP. Hope this collaboration results in more albums in the future. Past review on undomondo 04 High on Fire - Death Is This [...]
Until Ilya reminded me, I forgot that this weekend was Fuck Yeah Fest. For those of you who don't know what I am referring to, there's a music and comedy festival that happens right here in Echo Park. Of course, the fact that I completely failed to remember it was happening should clue you in to the quality of the performers scheduled to appear at any of the five neighborhood venues. I decided to walk over and join the festivities at 6:30 so I could buy my pass and catch the first band I wanted to see. [...]
So it's beginning to feel a lot like summer. Once again, that blanket of searing desert air returns to kiss us on our forehead for a few months and there is nothing we can do but seek shelter in the cool comfort of Los Angeles rock clubs... Upsilon Acrux celebrates the release of their stunning new album Galapagos Momentum at the Smell tonight as well as debuting yet another new lineup of band
As far as I can see we've been kind to you guys with deep & easy listening music for the last weeks, although me and golem would love to feature some extreme stuff like grindcore, I don't think most of our audience would be into it so that remains a highly improbable fantasia for now. California's Upsilon Acrux may not be as intense as grindcore bands in tempo and noise, but it's complex oddtimed riffage and polyrhythmic drumming (and silly album names?) is quite correctly labeled as " brutal prog ". Upsilon Acrux, the supposedly [...]
Swan Fungus
undomondo
L.A. RECORD
The Gumshoe Grove
The Cargo Culte
Cover Me
la-underground: los angeles loves you
the Weekender ::: New music from Catcall // the National // Summer Camp
Ado – Pressure
KNIFE PARTY – RAGE VALLEY EP
The Inner Flame: A Tribute To Rainer Ptacek
