Normally in Would-Be Hipster land, a single track really doesn't warrant an entire review. But today...today, my friends, I am feeling the spirit of Christmas. Surely it's not the weather. Surely it's not due to the one year birthday party America seems to be throwing for the economic crisis (although, upon further reflection, it could be the $1.89/gallon gas sparking my jovial state). Surely it's not the residual traffic from the Hollywood Christmas parade street closures. All I know is, this morning, regardless of all extenuating circumstances, I woke wanting to bake cookies and do off key-renditions of [...]
Contrary to the popular rumor that's going around (okay, the rumor that we've been working so hard to sustain), the Would-Be Hipsters did not invent the holiday charity album. This holiday season there's a plethora of tasty albums and good causes to check out/support. Get involved. (This imperative goes for any cause.) I fail to see the downside of giving money to a worthy cause and getting a little something back 1 . I'll Stay 'Til After Christmas (out December 2nd on iTunes) is a particularly cool charitable offering. First of all, and most importantly, [...]
Shameless plug #2 -- It's the day after Thanksgiving, Christmas shopping and music is now socially acceptable. What are you waiting for? 1. breaking up for christmas - the breakups 2. Holiday – I Make This Sound 3. Icicles (Plastic Snow Session) – Let's Go Sailing 4. Christmas Drill – Dreaming Ferns 5. I'll Be Home For Christmas – Earlimart 6. Shortest Day [...]
It's no secret I'm a fan of the Swedish music scene. Swedesplease and It's A Trap! are daily reading. I send my friends in the region long ranty e-mails about international releases (and America's general inability to import Swedish tea, candy, and cider). So when The Argument send us a flattering e-mail asking if we might say a few words about their new release...well boys, you had me at "Hej." So our two bits of the local currency (In Sweden called the Öre ...the more you know). [...]
As of late, I've been otherwised engaged , leaving a lot of releases over the last few months gathering dust on my desk (along with a tea cup, several post-it notes, and a half package of Clariton). Here are a few albums that have transcended my housecleaning skills and wormed their way to the top of the listening pile. elephants...teeth sinking into heart by rachael yamagata I got this album back in September, tossed it into my iTunes, labeled Rachel Yamagata [...]
There are three things that should be known about me: 1. I like a lot of unexpected music, and usually I like it quite fervently. 2. I do not read as many music blogs as I should, apparently. 3. I jump up and down when I get excited, usually in unfortunate situations. So Thursday morning, when a fellow Would-be Hipster emailed me at work to tell me that she had just read that the Get Up Kids played a show in Kansas City and that they're planning to tour in 2009, I got up from my chair and [...]
Oh Mr. Folds ...I just don't get it. How can you produce dreck like The Way to Normal , and still preform said dreck live in such a way that it makes me forget that I'm victoriously nodding my head along to what amounts as a laundry list of complaints against your ex-wife? Mr. Piano Man...I'm weak-willed, I really am. Thus ends my lyrics-slut gripe against his new material. If we've learned anything from his current misstep it is this: Live Ben will always trump Studio Ben. That, and if you're going to leak a fake [...]
Remember the Lusitania , er... Plastic Snow ! We're getting closer to the season when listening to Christmas music is social acceptable. It's Friday, pay day. Why not start the party a bit early? You've heard our hype . You've seen the photos . Maybe you're waiting for the reviews. After all, you're a hard worker, and ten dollars is ten dollars, even if it is going to a great cause . Maybe you're asking yourself, "What are the critics saying?" Well... Speaking of bad ass... [...]
I went into the Echo last night knowing a couple things about Dungen -- First: They are awesome. Their sweet sweet psychedelic rock has been haunting my apartment since I first got my grubby mitts on their latest album, "4" -- the review of which can be read here. Second: they are Swedish. They have come to America as emissaries of awesome and chose Los Angeles to wrap up their North American tour. Any band that comes half-ways around the world to play for me gets bonus points – especially when they can [...]
I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a VIP. So imagine my surprise when I discovered that, thanks to KCRW , my tickets to see Beck preform on the first night of the newly opened Club Nokia, weren't at will-call. No, they were waiting for me at the VIP entrance situated at the mouth of a very loud, very hip club. Life is weird. However, I am resonantly pro any weird that comes with free sushi and drinks. Kicking off the night with the honor of playing the [...]
In celebration of Plastic Snow ('cause as far as we're concerned it's already Christmas at WBH headquarters), we've decided to post some exclusive (ooh!) behind-the-scenes photos of our recording session. What? Don't have your copy yet? Slip into your favorite holiday sweater and download it here . All photos courtesy of our favorite photographer David Studarus . Fearless Producer, Darius Fong Let's Go Sailing [...]
Tomorrow, November 10th, Confessions of a Would-Be Hipster will be guesting on KUCI show Scene and Heard (2pm-4pm PST). Plastic Snow artist Pierre de Reeder will be preforming a live set sometime in the second hour. Catch his lovely music and our stuttering here .
I went into Monday's show at the Echoplex knowing that the Spinto Band was a cute band that played kazoo on "Brown Boxes" which came out a few years ago, and that Frightened Rabbit has owned the last several months of my life, and Midnight Organ Fight left my car's CD player only because the stereo began to overheat in the Santa Ana Winds of Death that plague Los Angeles every autumn. I left Monday's show very much blown away. Delaware's Spinto Band was billed as the headliner, but it was fairly [...]
Here are four shows I attended this year that did not get reviewed due to the fact that I am a slacker. Hooray! wolf parade @ the henry fonda (july 19) I learned a very valuable lesson at this show. And that lesson is that clinging to the rail in the front row of the pit is not only advantageous to the purpose of close-range admiration of musicianship -- it can, in fact, save your life should the crowd around you collectively lose its mind [...]
A Monolators review: innocent fan-girl ravings, or method of drawing subtle attention to a other projects ? Trick question -- it's both. I don't invite people I don't like to my "parties," and the Monolators' new offering Don't Dance provides plenty of reasons to refill the chip bowl and turn the stereo up to eleven. Due to the influx of Halloween leftovers (Does anyone actually trick-or-treat anymore? Do I really need three dozen Reese's Peanut Butter Cups? Do I need medical attention to make my heart stop racing?), I am still in a [...]
Confessions of a Would-Be Hipster is proud to present Plastic Snow , a Los Angeles-based holiday and winter compilation. Featuring seventeen of our favorite local artists, it's an eclectic mix (much like us) of the best the local LA scene has to offer...at least we think so. What's better than home-grown music? Using what we love to make the world a better place. 100% of the profits from Plastic Snow go to benefit Los Angeles' longest running homeless shelter, Midnight Mission . Their stats [...]
November 1st -- because Christmas can't come early enough. $10 only at wouldbehipster.com
They said it could never work... She was a sentimental girl band, singing about a love that came so close to working; warm, sincere and influenced by folk. He was a cool and subdued synthesizer, driving beats and modulating sine-waves were his specialty; dreaming of bands like I Am Robot & Proud and Freescha, he would never go lyrical... Until he met her... until now. Hearts of Palm UK's new album, "For Life," has wed the the sad, longing bride to the synth-drum kit groom and created a beautiful baby of soft-spoken, heartfelt and wonderfully awesome synth-pop; and it sounds [...]
For a twenty-three year old girl who subsists on microwavable cuisine and still has no idea what she wants to be when she grows up, listening to Amanda Palmer 's (of the famed Dresden Dolls ) solo album Who Killed Amanda Palmer on an overcast day after drinking the very last Twinings single in the cabinet was, in retrospect, not the healthiest thing I could have done for my own - at times dubious - state of mental health. Then again, someone who subsists on microwavable cuisine obviously thinks other things are far more [...]
The bad news...Annika Norlin's (a.k.a. Hello Saferide ) sugar-filled debut album Introducing Hello Saferide still doesn't have a proper American release. The good news? Not only is her sophomore release, More Modern Stories from Hello Saferide , for sale at iTunes, Razzia Records has got it at a discounted rate! Yea for international thinking! More Modern Stores finds Hello Saferide playing the role of the confused twenty-something - torn somewhere between figuratively reentering the womb (pretty much every song), and literally moving back into her parents' house ("Parenting Never [...]
Confessions of a Would-Be Hipster
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Album Review: alt-J – An Awesome Wave
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