Saturday 01.12.08: DESCARGA 5th Anniversary Party w/ B SIDE PLAYERS @ Echoplex

B-Side Players || Listen
The B-Side Players make music without borders or boundaries. The band most recently released their seventh album, Fire In The Youth, (their first major record deal on Concord Records’ legendary imprint “Concord Picante”), incorporating the sounds of Cuba, Jamaica, Mexico and Brazil with a seamless blend of funk, rock, jazz and hip-hop rhythms. The band has been laying down their own inimitable global funk since they came together in 1994 and their albums have showcased a band with a restless musical intelligence, effortlessly blending genres to fashion their own forward-thinking, Latin flavored, future-funk. Fire In The Youth was produced by the band, with Musical Direction from Quetzal Flores, Bandleader of the Los Angeles roots-rock group, Quetzal.

Mentiritas
Mentiritas is a funky, Latin infused project that features members of Ozomatli, Beastie Boys, CAVA and Yeska. We’re taking you back with this one ya’ll…get ready!

Plus Resident DJs

@ Echoplex
1154 Glendale Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90027

¡Descarga! is a monthly Afro-Latin music gathering for the people. This event is an alternative to the commercial salsa nights that have dominated the LA scene for years. Resident DJs Sloe Poke, Mando, Bobby Soul, Loslito, Azul and Mexican Dubwiser spin classic salsa and cumbia; plus merengue, punta and reggaeton. With live bands gracing the stage at midnight at nearly every show, it has become the taste-making New York to L.A. soiree, running over 5 years strong.

FMI:
www.descargaclub.com
Descarga on Myspace

9pm / $10 / 21+

Saturday 01.12.08: CHECK YO PONYTAIL w/ MEN

with:
Men (JD & Johanna of Le Tigre)
Anamanaguchi
Moonrats
Abe Vigoda

plus DJs:
Franki Chan
Paparazzi

9pm / $10 / 18+

Friday 01.11.08: CLUB UNDERGROUND

with:
The Gray Kid (with full band) || Listen
Happy Hollows || Listen

Plus resident DJs

Spinning the best in Brit / Indie / Soul / Twee / Madchester / Punk / Glam

FMI: ClubUnderground.net

8:30pm / $8 til 11:30pm, $5 if 21+, $7 under 21 after / 18+

Sunday 01.20.08: PART TIME PUNKS w/ JAIL WEDDINGS

with:
Jail Weddings
Man/Mission

Shoplifters and voidoids, tune in and turn on.
For fans of Richard Hell, Radio Birdman, The Saints and The Ponys.
For fans of The Walkmen, we say: fuck off.

Plus resident djs Michael Stock and Benny Shambles spinning mutant disco * Postpunk * indiepop

FMI:
Part Time Punks on Myspace

10pm / $5 / 21+

Sunday 01.13.08: PART TIME PUNKS w/ SPINDRIFT

with:
Spindrift || Listen
LSD & The Search for God
The Vandelles

Drop acid much? The rumour mill grists and grinds out facts daily like acid’s on the upswing, enjoying a rebirth, ripping the pants off repression and all that.
Well, even if you trainspotters just fancy a spot of shoegazing or rural psychedelia, we say: come out come out wherever you are!!!!
In short, soundtracks for monster movies and mushroom heads.

Plus resident djs Michael Stock and Benny Shambles spinning mutant disco * Postpunk * indiepop

FMI:
Part Time Punks on Myspace

10pm / $5 / 21+

Sunday 01.06.08: PART TIME PUNKS w/ TEMPORARY WAR & PEACE

with:
Temporary War & Peace – ex-SHARP EASE & LONGSTOCKING & FUCKIN’ A
Underground Railroad to Candyland – members of FYP+DIOS MALOS

Paloma and co. from The Sharp Ease brings her jittery agitpop and appropriately teenage riot back to Part Time Punks, with her new band. The racket starts here. PLUS riot grrls from FYP + Dios Malos unite to subvert and distort, churn and whirl.

Plus resident djs Michael Stock and Benny Shambles spinning mutant disco * Postpunk * indiepop

FMI:
Part Time Punks on Myspace

10pm / $5 / 21+

Friday 01.04.08: First Fridays w/ SEA WOLF @ Natural History Museum

First Fridays – Dinner, Discussion, Music & More

with:
Sea Wolf || Listen
Afternoons

@ Natural History Museum
900 Exposition Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90007

FMI: http://www.nhm.org/firstfridays/

5:30pm – Tour
6:30pm – Discussion
8:00pm – Music

5pm / Adult $9, students (w. ID) $6.50, Members FREE / All Ages

Saturday 12.29.07: MARS VOLTA @ Echoplex

The Mars Volta || Listen

SOLD OUT

8pm / $30 / all ages

Tuesday 01.01.08: CLOSED FOR HOLIDAY

Wednesday 01.30.08: DUB CLUB @ Echoplex

with Resident DJs:
Tom Chasteen
Roy Corderoy
The Dungeonmaster
Boss Harmony

Spinning the best in classic reggae, dub and dancehall

@ Echoplex
1154 Glendale Blvd
(Main Entrance is through Alley)
Los Angeles, CA 90026

FMI:
Dub Club on MySpace

9pm / $5 / 21+

Wednesday 01.23.08: DUB CLUB w/ Original Rockers CHINNA SMITH & KIDDUS I@ Echoplex

with:
Chinna Smith
Kiddus I

Plus Resident DJs:
Tom Chasteen
Roy Corderoy
The Dungeonmaster
Boss Harmony

Spinning the best in classic reggae, dub and dancehall

@ Echoplex
1154 Glendale Blvd
(Main Entrance is through Alley)
Los Angeles, CA 90026

FMI:
Dub Club on MySpace

9pm / $15 / 21+

Wednesday 01.16.08: DUB CLUB @ Echoplex

with Resident DJs:
Tom Chasteen
Roy Corderoy
The Dungeonmaster
Boss Harmony

Spinning the best in classic reggae, dub and dancehall

@ Echoplex
1154 Glendale Blvd
(Main Entrance is through Alley)
Los Angeles, CA 90026

FMI:
Dub Club on MySpace

9pm / $5 / 21+

Wednesday 01.09.08: DUB CLUB @ Echoplex

with:
David Hillyard
Jah Faith

Plus Resident DJs:
Tom Chasteen
Roy Corderoy
The Dungeonmaster
Boss Harmony

Spinning the best in classic reggae, dub and dancehall

@ Echoplex
1154 Glendale Blvd
(Main Entrance is through Alley)
Los Angeles, CA 90026

FMI:
Dub Club on MySpace

9pm / $10 / 21+

Wednesday 01.02.08: DUB CLUB w/ Ranking Joe @ Echoplex

with:

Ranking Joe
Joseph Jackson in Kingston on 1st June 1959, Joe got his start on record with the founding father of Jamaican music, producer Coxsone Dodd (Studio 1), cutting “Gun Court” in 1975 as Little Joe. He then recorded for a variety of producers including Bunny Lee, Watty Burnett and former African Brother Derrick Howard. By 1976 he was deejaying on the legendary sound system of Daddy U-Roy, Stur-Gav Hi-Fi, and recording for producer Prince Tony Robinson. His first album for that producer was released in 1977 and included hits like “John Saw Them Coming” and “Queen Majesty Chapter 3″. He continued to deejay with U-Roy’s set, building up a formidable reputation as a live deejay. He began recording hits for Sonia Pottinger (“Shine Eye Gal” 1978) and was the first deejay to record for Sly & Robbie’s Taxi label when he versioned Gregory Isaacs’ hit “Soon Forward” (“Stop Your Coming & Come” in 1978).

He recorded for Joe Gibbs (“Leave Fi Mi Girl Arleen”), and Dennis Brown (the excellent “Around The World” album) and moved to another sound system, the newly-reconstructed Ray Symbolic Hi-Fi with Jah Screw as selector. The combination proved unbeatable in the dance and the sound was Champion of 1980. The same year the set became the first to tour outside Jamaica, completing a sell-out tour of the UK.

Joe became one of the most influential pupils of the great U-Roy, introducing the so-called ‘fast style’ to rapturous dancehall audiences.

Come check out a master on the microphone!

with Resident DJs:
Tom Chasteen
Roy Corderoy
The Dungeonmaster
Boss Harmony

Spinning the best in classic reggae, dub and dancehall

@ Echoplex
1154 Glendale Blvd
(Main Entrance is through Alley)
Los Angeles, CA 90026

FMI:
Dub Club on MySpace

9pm / free before 10, $5 after / 21+

Friday 01.04.08: CLUB UNDERGROUND w/ SKY PARADE

with:
Sky Parade || Listen

plus Underground DJs

Spinning the best in Brit / Indie / Soul / Twee / Madchester / Punk / Glam

FMI: ClubUnderground.net

9pm / $5 if 21+, $7 under 21 / 18+

Monday 01.28.08: Monday Night Residency – RADAR BROS.

Radar Bros. || Listen

The DJ correctly calls the Radar Bros.’ style a throwback to early 1970s Pink Floyd – a “dreamy, folk sound.” Lake Life (not Pomona as NPR labeled the track) doesn’t stray far from that brand. Like most everything the Radar Bros. have done, Lake Life coasts gently on a hypnotizing guitar line and a swing-like slow-motion drum rhythm, following my belief that the best way to describe the band’s deliberate pacing is to imagine the tempo running underwater. – So Much Silence

with:
Brian Aubert
Everest || Listen
Adeline

8:30pm / FREE for 21+, $5 for under 21 / 18+

Monday 01.21.08: Monday Night Residency – RADAR BROS.

Radar Bros. || Listen

The DJ correctly calls the Radar Bros.’ style a throwback to early 1970s Pink Floyd – a “dreamy, folk sound.” Lake Life (not Pomona as NPR labeled the track) doesn’t stray far from that brand. Like most everything the Radar Bros. have done, Lake Life coasts gently on a hypnotizing guitar line and a swing-like slow-motion drum rhythm, following my belief that the best way to describe the band’s deliberate pacing is to imagine the tempo running underwater. – So Much Silence

with:
Holloys
Karin Tatoyan || Listen
Tigers Can Bite You || Listen

8:30pm / FREE / 21+

Monday 01.14.08: Monday Night Residency – RADAR BROS.

Radar Bros. || Listen

The DJ correctly calls the Radar Bros.’ style a throwback to early 1970s Pink Floyd – a “dreamy, folk sound.” Lake Life (not Pomona as NPR labeled the track) doesn’t stray far from that brand. Like most everything the Radar Bros. have done, Lake Life coasts gently on a hypnotizing guitar line and a swing-like slow-motion drum rhythm, following my belief that the best way to describe the band’s deliberate pacing is to imagine the tempo running underwater. – So Much Silence

with:
Tables & Chairs
Correatown || Listen

8:30pm / FREE / 21+

Monday 01.07.08: Monday Night Residency – RADAR BROS.

Radar Bros. || Listen

The DJ correctly calls the Radar Bros.’ style a throwback to early 1970s Pink Floyd – a “dreamy, folk sound.” Lake Life (not Pomona as NPR labeled the track) doesn’t stray far from that brand. Like most everything the Radar Bros. have done, Lake Life coasts gently on a hypnotizing guitar line and a swing-like slow-motion drum rhythm, following my belief that the best way to describe the band’s deliberate pacing is to imagine the tempo running underwater. – So Much Silence

with:
Le Switch || Listen
Twilight Sleep || Listen
Wrong Way Driver

8:30pm / FREE / 21+

Saturday 01.26.08: MGMT with YEASAYER @ Echoplex

MGMT || Watch

MGMT – commonly known as the Management — is Andrew Vanwyngarden and Ben Goldwasser, two self-described art provocateurs who met as undergraduates at Wesleyan University in 2002. … With enough groove to please the play-something-we-can-dance-to crowd and enough sardonic wit to satisfy even the hippest hipsters, MGMT immediately gained a hardcore cult following after the release of Time to Pretend. “Let’s make some music / Makes some money / Find some models for wives,” they sing on the EP’s title track, a dark take on the rock’n'roll fantasy life of excess and disillusionment. The infectious “Kids,” consisting purely of synth and drum machine, just might be destined to become one of the most ironic party anthems ever, sporting a chorus of “Control yourself” that begs to be sung along to with total reckless abandon. On their forthcoming debut LP, Oracular Spectacular, MGMT take things in a more psychedelic-pop, guitar-driven direction. The result? An even better cut of “Time to Pretend,” plus great new tracks like “Weekend Wars.” — Spin.com

Yeasayer || Listen

Naysayers accuse indie rock of being cautious and precious, but something remarkably contrary yet idiomatic still emerges now and then. Such as Yeasayer, whose peculiar, positivity-powered debut creates order from a mess of chants, tambourines, freak folk, and spacey atmospherics. One minute it’s a worry-free TV on the Radio (“2080″); the next, a Crazy Horse guitar roar; and later, a touching campfire chorus praying, “In my short life, I have met so many people I deeply care for.” Near nonsense rarely feels this rich and unambiguous. – spin.com

plus:

Port O’Brien || Listen

@ Echoplex
1154 Glendale Blavd
Los Angeles, CA 90026

7:30pm / $8 adv, $10 dos / all ages

Thursday 01.24.08: HEY WILLPOWER (CANCELLED)

Hey Willpower || Listen

Justin Timberlake may have initially brought sexy back, but then he had to go and get all preoccupied with his so-called “love.” Luckily, Hey Willpower — the electronic dirty duo featuring Will Schwartz of Imperial Teen and Tomo Yasuda of Tussle — pick up the sleazy slack. Here on “Uh-Uh-Uh,” the beat rolls over a simple snare count and innocent-enough synthesized chimes, but at the first entrance of Schwartz’s evocative voice the song’s G-rating goes out the window. Chock full of double entendres and crass come-ons, all executed over a dance track in a J.T.-esque sex voice, “Uh-Uh-Uh” leaves little to the imagination, exuding confidence in its sexual sound effects. – Spin.com

with:
Rafter Roberts || Listen

CANCELLED

Wednesday 02.27.08: BRITISH SEA POWER

British Sea Power || Listen

Since their 2003 debut LP, these Brighton-based lads have developed their own eccentric rock curriculum, and here they touch on the topics of Nobel-winning physicist Niels Bohr, the great skua seabird, Kevlar, and the flooding of an island in the River Thames. But with guitars that ring and roar and percussion that gushes and thunders, they finally turn their lyrical peculiarities into a legitimate churn of ideas, rather than a posturing diversion. – Spin

with:
Colourmusic
Castledoor

8:30pm / $12 adv, $14 dos / 18+

Friday 02.15.08: ST. VINCENT @ Echoplex

St. Vincent || Listen

There’s a point where too much happiness turns into madness, and St. Vincent’s multi-instrumentalist Annie Clark knows this place well from her days spent backing The Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens. Clark’s debut, Marry Me, seduces with one hand and stabs with the other. The title track—with its torch-song piano (provided by David Bowie’s pianist, Mike Garson) and Clark’s rich mezzo-soprano urging “I’ll be so good to you”—borders on cloying until the line “You won’t realize I’m gone” slips out the back door. Clark is as adept with these sudden reveals as she is with arranging the many strings, choirs, and virtuosic guitar lines that make up Marry Me, from the childish melody of the Kate Bush-esque opener “Now Now” to the skuzzy, distorted throb of “Your Lips Are Red.” The album—like its thrillingly schizoid centerpiece, “Paris Is Burning”—is simultaneously playful and foreboding, leaving listeners perpetually on edge, waiting for that earsplitting grin to turn maniacal. – The Onion AV Club

with:
Foreign Born || Listen

@ Echoplex
1154 Glendale Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026

8pm / $13 /All Ages

Friday 02.29.08: Club Underground & Echo present – TILLY & THE WALL

Tilly & The Wall || Listen

Tilly and the Wall’s music is childlike in the sense that it celebrates the tactile and emotional world with the verve of unjaded perception; organs of pure sense probe the enticing recesses of the night. Their music is a prism that refracts the wonder of the human pageant from various angles, making familiar colors bend fantastically. It doesn’t deny harsh realties– Tilly’s world of teenage knife fights and drunken bra-clasp fumblings doesn’t elide homeless women walking the snow; a prostitute with “money spilling out of her hands;” “the newly born crying, realizing what life is” or a grandfather’s weathered eyes. Tilly blurs them all into a giddy compendium of humanity, at once acknowledging and renouncing the possibility of despair: “The world is big and it’s got a loose heart/ So you either start screaming or start singing.” – Pitchfork

with:
Capgun Coup
Buddy || Listen

8pm / $13adv, $15 dos / all ages

Thursday 01.10.07: SPACELAND ON ICE w/ THE CHAPIN SISTERS @ Pershing Square

Spaceland Productions Presents:

The Chapin Sisters || Listen

@ Pershing Square
532 South Olive St
Los Angeles, CA 90013

FMI: Downtown On Ice

8pm / FREE / all ages

Thursday 01.03.08: SPACELAND ON ICE – cancelled due to rain

CANCELLED DUE TO RAIN

Thursday 12.27.07: SPACELAND ON ICE @ Pershing Square

@ Pershing Square
532 South Olive St
Los Angeles, CA 90013

FMI: Downtown On Ice

8pm / FREE / all ages

Thursday 12.20.07: SPACELAND ON ICE w/ THE HENRY CLAY PEOPLE @ Pershing Square

Spaceland Productions Presents:

The Henry Clay People || Listen
Bollweevil

@ Pershing Square
532 South Olive St
Los Angeles, CA 90013

FMI: Downtown On Ice

8pm / FREE / all ages

Thursday 12.13.07: SPACELAND ON ICE w/ THE MOVIES @ Pershing Square

Spaceland Productions Presents:The Movies
Fool’s Gold

@ Pershing Square
532 South Olive St
Los Angeles, CA 90013

FMI: Downtown On Ice

8pm / FREE / all ages

Thursday 01.03.08: Real Rocknroll Productions presents – VERSA VICE

with:
Versa Vice
Light FM
On the Surface
Lightnin’ Woodcock Trio
The Sea of Cortez || Listen
Ashley Winters
Jeffery Davies

9pm / FREE for 21+, $5 for 18+ / 18+

Sunday 01.27.08: Echo & Part Time Punks present – WHITE WILLIAMS / MAGIC BULLETS

White Williams

Mostly, though, Williams is a groove-obssesser working through his influences, and doing it with enough restraint and creativity to work them into his songs, leaving the showiness to his cover models. Smoke’s signposts form a coherent musical worldview: “In the Club” is T. Rex’s “The Motivator” at 16 rpm, “Going Down” and “Route to Palm” work in the 1970s West African guitar colorations that Dirty Projectors, Vampire Weekend, and Islands have been exploring lately, “New Violence” hurtles forward with a motorik bassline, and opener “Headlines” plays like a bubblegum version of Brian Eno’s “Baby’s on Fire”. – Pitchfork

with:
Magic Bullets || Listen
The Blakes

Plus resident djs Michael Stock and Benny Shambles spinning mutant disco * Postpunk * indiepop

FMI:
Part Time Punks on Myspace

8:30pm / $10 / 18+

Tuesday 01.22.07: THE TEENAGERS

The Teenagers || Listen

Seeing the world through teen-tinted glasses The Teenagers (lead singer Quentin Delafon, guitarist / synth man Dorian Dumont and bassist Michael Szpiner) remind us what it’s like to be young. The lyrically ingenious Quentin interweaves snapshots of Johansson’s films as well as teen magazine style “factoids” over beautifully crunchy guitar and soaring synths. This track is like reading the secret teenage diary of ELO with Kim Wilde for company. – Insound

with:
Funeral Party
Mezzanine Owls || Listen
DJ Paul V.

8:30pm / $10 / 18+

Sunday 01.20.07: KXLU presents OM @ Echoplex

OM || Listen

While rhythm sections tend to play as if periods were the only punctuation mark, Om break space with commas, semicolons, and side clauses– their storytelling prowess and dramatic timing rival a glacier’s or a narcoleptic’s. But again, that’s not the point. Om is a pointless band, and that’s high praise. If Pilgrimage holds a discernable achievement, it’s that it forges a sense of intricacy– and a balance between the crushing and the meditative– that Om struggled with on Variations on a Theme and 2006’s Conference of the Birds. Most of “Bhima’s Theme” is bread and butter for head-nodders, but “Pilgrimage” (which opens and closes the record), is shiftier and less stable, accentuated by a bassline that seems to tack extra bars to a phrase if it feels good, not for the sake of metrics. It’s not metal and it’s not even drone; it’s like a heavy folk dance. – Pitchfork

with:
Lichens

@ Echoplex
1154 Glendale Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026

Tickets also available at Finger Prints Records in Long Beach

7pm / $12 adv, $14 dos / all ages

Thursday 01.10.07: SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE

Six Organs of Admittance

Watching Six Organs play live over the summer, it felt like one was intruding on a private musical conversation between Ben Chasny and his touring partner, Magik Markers mainstay Elisa Ambrogio. A tango-like dance was being played out on the stage with Chasny taking the role of a guitar-strumming matador whilst Ambrogio attacked her guitar in a bull in a china shop fashion. It was fun to watch in a perverse way. However, from this musical relationship Chasny has forged perhaps his most accessible and straight ahead track, ‘Strangled Road’, a duet with Ambrogio. A beautifully dark song, it evokes long lazy days in dusty Andalucian bars and is book-ended with a soaring J Mascis-like solo. Psychedelic Spaghetti Western folk, anyone? But yet again Shelter From the Ash pushes all the right buttons and is every bit the righteous successor to Chasny’s previous long-player and its precursor School Of The Flower; it moves from full-on and wigged-out psych overloads to mellow folk pickings in the blink of an eye. – Drowned in Sound

with:
Horsetheives
Harrasor

8:30pm / $10 / all ages

Friday 02.08.08: Echo & Underground & Bust present SUPER FURRY ANIMALS @ ECHOPLEX

Super Furry Animals || Listen

The Furries can’t only write beaming melodies, deck them out with sparkling instrumentation and harmonies, and not also have a little fun. Too many people seem to have wrongly assumed that because Love Kraft had gloomy cover art and slower songs it was dead serious. It wasn’t, and neither is Hey Venus!. “Suckers!” lives up to its punctuation (a Welsh trend?) with anthemic acoustic guitar strums and fuzzed-out lead guitar fills like on Radiator’s “Demons”, plus hammer dulcimer and lyrics that give the almost-guiltily decadent arrangement the band’s old Situationist bite: “Suckers playing stadiums, filling them to the rafters, singing power-ballad songs,” goes this stadium-ready power ballad, but there’s a sucker born every line. Guitarist Huw “Bunf” Bunford’s “Battersea Odyssey” takes a whimsical, horn-fronted trip to inner city London. His ambulance-siren vocals on “Baby Ate My Eight Ball” help make up a track weird enough for any SFA album since 1996 debut Fuzzy Logic. – Pitchfork

with:
Holy Fuck || Listen
Abe Vigoda

Plus Underground DJs spinning the best in Brit / Indie / Soul / Twee / Madchester / Punk / Glam

FMI: ClubUnderground.net

@ Echoplex
1154 Glendale Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026

8pm / $18 / 18+

Saturday 01.05.08: The Return of BOOTIE LA

BOOTIE LA
LA’s monthly mashup party returns to The Echo!

with:
DJ Paul V. – From Indie 103.1’s “The Smash Mix”
Adrian & the Mysterious D – From San Francisco, Bootie creators

Midnight mashup show with Foxy Cotton

FREE giveaways of the annual year-end ‘Best of Bootie 2007′ mix CD, featuring 20 of the best mashups from the past year!

FREE Bootie CDs to the first 50 people through the door!

FMI: www.BootieLA.com

9pm / $5 before 10:30pm, $10 after / 21+

Monday 12.31.07: New Year’s Eve w/ DUB CLUB ALL STARS featuring SISTER NANCY @ Echoplex

Sister Nancy

Sister Nancy was one of 15 siblings; her brother Robert, known to her family as Dickie, found fame as Brigadier Jerry. The latter began chanting on Prince Norman’s sound system before settling with Jahlove Music. While the Brigadier’s reputation as the number one cultural DJ flourished, by her mid-teens, Nancy was occasionally performing on the sound system. Winston Riley was the first producer to take Nancy into the recording studio in 1980 for her debut, “Papa Dean”. The tune was a success and Nancy’s career began in earnest. She performed at Reggae Sunsplash, which was transmitted globally. A notable appearance on A Dee Jay Explosion saw Nancy performing “Chalice A Fe Burn” and “Boom Shacka Lacka”. continued appearing live in the dancehall where she often performed alongside her brother on the Jahlove Music Sound System. The sound toured internationally to rave reviews, including a celebrated session at Brixton Town Hall, London, where both Jerry and Nancy made their debut performances in the UK. – BigUpRadio.com

with:
Ranking Joe

Plus Resident DJs:
Tom Chasteen
Roy Corderoy
The Dungeonmaster
Boss Harmony

Spinning the best in classic reggae, dub and dancehall

@ Echoplex
1154 Glendale Blvd
(Main Entrance is through Alley)
Los Angeles, CA 90026

9pm / $17 adv, $20 dos / 21+

Sunday 12.30.07: PART TIME PUNKS

resident djs Michael Stock and Benny Shambles spinning mutant disco * Postpunk * indiepop

FMI:
Part Time Punks on Myspace

10pm / $5 / 21+

Sunday 12.23.07: PART TIME PUNKS

resident djs Michael Stock and Benny Shambles spinning mutant disco * Postpunk * indiepop

FMI:
Part Time Punks on Myspace

10pm / $5 / 21+

Saturday 12.22.07: RRIICCEE @ Rec Center Studio

RRIICCEE
Featuring Vincent Gallo & Erik Erlandsen

RRIICCEE is a spontaneous collective between the two musicians (with the potential of additional members) and exhibits the creation of composition within a live performance. For all appearances, the outfit does not perform pre-written music and is not limited to the boundaries of one specific musical genre. At the present time, RRIICCEE has no recorded music and has no plans on recording a commercial release.

Gallo offered, “Improvisation is not a good word for what we’re doing. It’s more a gesture of composing and performing at the same time, always hoping to avoid musical cliché or jamming. We’ve chosen not to go into a studio in a traditional way like other bands have done in the past: to make recordings, cut them up, dub on them, fine tune and mix them, and then release them as an album, then later, go on tour, pantomiming those recordings over and over each night as a form of cabaret. Instead, for a long time now, we’ve chosen to remain open, to grow and change more naturally, and when we play live, the music is often created during the performance. If we choose to record a performance, the recording itself is only evidence of that creative moment. The purpose of recording then, is to listen back for enjoyment.”

@ Rec Center Studio
1161 Logan
Los Angeles, CA 90026

7pm / $17 / all ages

Wednesday 12.19.07: FARAWAY PLACES

Faraway Places || Listen

“According to the band’s Website,principals Donna Coppola (keyboards,vocals) and Chris Colthart (guitar, vocals) met in Boston while watching a Sun Ra video, and their music—first put out under the moniker the Solar Saturday, and fleshed out by an ever-changing ensemble of players—evokes the experimental, jazzy and frequently downright wacky spirit of the Arkestra’s work. Except that the Faraway Places are a helluva lot more listenable: They combine jangly and fuzzy guitars, layers of electronic and orchestral flourishes and a pop sensibility that straddles 60’s England and 70’s California, with Ms. Coppola’s matted voice sounding like a cross between Nico and Kim Deal. Unfocus on It, their debut album, manages to be both cool and warm, especially on the wistful ‘Summertime’ with its melancholy string arrangements and back-up sighs, and the Beach Boys-meets-Bowie ‘City on the Ocean’.” – New York Observer

with:
Fool’s Gold
Sunset

8:30pm / $5 / 18+

Tuesday 12.18.07: THE KRIS SPECIAL

The Kris Special || Listen

The Kris Special (Anne – vocals, guitar, Nick – drums, Jeremy – bass) has an indie meets So-Cal desert rock… Kind of like Old 97s tempered w/ Silversun Pickups within a Cowboy Junkies framework. Fans of the Whiskeytown and Grandaddy both should enjoy their set… Pretty good stuff. The Kris Special’s long-awaited debut album “Alone Feels Like a Hotel Room” will be released on Tuesday, November 20, 2007 on No Exit Records. – Arizona Reporter

with:
Get Set Go || Listen
The Stevenson Ranch Davidians || Listen

8:30pm / $5 / 18+

Tuesday 12.11.07: MOSCOW

Moscow

MOSCOW is an all girl band that prides themselves in writing sophisticated music. The influences they put forth into each of their songs also contain the ingredients of their own individuality. Their music has primarily been compared to the sounds of both Bauhaus and Interpol – dark and moody like Bauhaus, melodic and danceable like Interpol. Vanessa’s voice ties it all together with her beautiful vibrato and bluesy tone. Some of their main musical influences include The Cure, Radiohead, Depeche Mode, Blur, Portishead, Bjork, and The Cranberries.

with:
The Voyage

9pm / FREE / 21+

Friday 12.28.07: CLUB UNDERGROUND

with:
Mere Mortals
Seasons

with Underground DJs

Spinning the best in Brit / Indie / Soul / Twee / Madchester / Punk / Glam

FMI: ClubUnderground.net

9pm / $5 if 21+, $7 under 21 / 18+

Thursday 12.27.07: CLOSED

Tuesday 12.25.07: CLOSED FOR THE HOLIDAY

Monday 12.24.07: CLOSED FOR THE HOLIDAY

Saturday 12.15.07: CHECK YO PONYTAIL w/ KLEVER & TITTSWORTH

with:
Klever & Tittsworth
Japanther || Listen
The Black Ghosts
Ima Gymnist

Plus resident DJs Franki Chan & Paparazzi

9pm / $12 / 18+

Thursday 12.13.07: PACIFIC DIVISION

Pacific Division || Listen

Surely, the booming bass of West Coast hip-hop is grounded in the car culture created when everyone lives in a never ending urban sprawl—but why does it have to be so angry? It’s beautiful outside! The girls outside are beautiful! Pacific Division—an LA County trio individually recognized as Like, Mibbs and B-Young—creates hip-hop as breezy and warm as the sunkissed legs displayed by one of those aforementioned beautiful girls. Their 2006 mixtape Sealed for Freshness is at once an uncompromised homage to the Golden Era when golden rays of sun permeated the music and a genuine understanding that in order to connect to the day’s youth, no one actually says “fresh” anymore. They understand the day’s vernacular, so it’s an update—and it’s definitely fresh. – Urb.com

with:
Basik MC
Diz Gibran
Kartweight

8:30pm / $8 / 18+

Sunday 12.09.07: ECHO ART PROJECT

with:
Nate Devner
Rich Ferguson
Bollweevil

Plus Films & Spoken Word

FMI: Echo Art Project Myspace

3pm / $10 / all ages

Wednesday12.26.07: DUB CLUB @ Echoplex

with Resident DJs:
Tom Chasteen
Roy Corderoy
The Dungeonmaster
Boss Harmony

Spinning the best in classic reggae, dub and dancehall

@ Echoplex
1154 Glendale Blvd
(Main Entrance is through Alley)
Los Angeles, CA 90026

FMI:
Dub Club on MySpace

9pm / $5 / 21+

Wednesday12.19.07: DUB CLUB @ Echoplex

with Resident DJs:
Tom Chasteen
Roy Corderoy
The Dungeonmaster
Boss Harmony

Spinning the best in classic reggae, dub and dancehall

@ Echoplex
1154 Glendale Blvd
(Main Entrance is through Alley)
Los Angeles, CA 90026

FMI:
Dub Club on MySpace

9pm / $5 / 21+

Wednesday 12.12.07: DUB CLUB w/ RAS MICHAEL @ Echoplex

Plus Resident DJs:
Tom Chasteen
Roy Corderoy
The Dungeonmaster
Boss Harmony

Spinning the best in classic reggae, dub and dancehall

@ Echoplex
1154 Glendale Blvd
(Main Entrance is through Alley)
Los Angeles, CA 90026

FMI:
Dub Club on MySpace

9pm / $12 / 21+

Wednesday 12.05.07: DUB CLUB @ Echoplex

with Resident DJs:
Tom Chasteen
Roy Corderoy
The Dungeonmaster
Boss Harmony

Spinning the best in classic reggae, dub and dancehall

@ Echoplex
1154 Glendale Blvd
(Main Entrance is through Alley)
Los Angeles, CA 90026

FMI:
Dub Club on MySpace

9pm / $5 / 21+

Friday 12.14.07: MODULAR RECORDS PARTY @ Echoplex

with:
LA RIOTS
PUBLICIST (Seb from TRANS AM–FIRST LA SHOW!!)
ROYAL RUMBLE
ANAVAN

AND MODULAR DJ DAISY O!!

MODULAR GIVEAWAYS ALL NIGHT!!

RSVP HERE

9pm / $10, $7 with RSVP / 18+

Thursday 12.06.07: SPACELAND ON ICE w/ CASTLEDOOR @ Pershing Square

Spaceland Productions Presents:

Castledoor
You Me & Iowa || Listen

@ Pershing Square
532 South Olive St
Los Angeles, CA 90013

FMI: Downtown On Ice

7pm / FREE / all ages

Monday 12.10.07: HELL YA! NIGHT with CHRIS GARNEAU

with:
Chris Garneau || Listen
Miniature Tigers
Goodbye Ian
The Rosewood Thieves || Listen

Plus The HELL YA! DJS

8:30pm / FREE for 21+, $5 under 21 / 18+

Wednesday 12.05.07: HELL YA! NIGHT with MAN LIKE ME

with:
Man Like Me
Hyper Crush vs. LMFAO
Villains
Lunar Fiction

Plus The HELL YA! DJS

8:30pm / FREE for 21+, $5 under 21 / 18+

Monday 12.31.07: Hang The DJs & Club Undergound Present – New Year’s Eve w/ GRAM RABBIT

Gram Rabbit || Listen

They’ve gone from strange to stranger, those Joshua Tree denizens known as Gram Rabbit. On their third album, RadioAngel and the RobotBeat, out November 17, they come out spitting, with lead singer and co-songwriter Jesika von Rabbit coming off like Grace Jones with a bunny fetish on the fed-up-with-technology electro-ditty “American Hookers.” Considering they go to sleep every night under a sky filled with more stars than the rest of us can only dream of, it’s not surprising their lyrics express a great deal of concern for “the world gone wrong.” They also come from a place with fewer teeth per capita than the rest of the state, hence references to priests smoking crystal meth and pit bulls. Even weirder is “The Rest of Us Sleep,” which sounds like video-game effects. My pick hit is “Fancy Dancy,” with what may be the best line of the summer: “Any way you slice it, it’s still bologna.” They even wrote a song about Landers, called “Landers,” which is some blips and plucks and pounds and maybe some voices. Bonus: Most of the new tunes are excellent for doing “The Robot.” – LA Weekly

complimentary champagne toast at midnight

10pm / $15 adv, $20 dos / 18+

Sunday 12.30.07: MELVINS @ Echoplex

Melvins || Listen

With a similar sardonic glee, Melvins (now swollen to a quartet with the addition of Coady Willis and Jared Warren of L.A.’s Big Business) add to their already-weird canon with this latest 10-song bounty. Willis and Warren are themselves known for prostration before the almighty riff, and the partnership seems to have inspired in Messrs. Crover and Osbourne a measured return from their recent, more experimental work to the rock and roll drawing board. No trifling from the lead-off “The Talking Horse,” which blasts off with a tenderizing fuzz bass grind and interlocking play from the dual drummers. Here and throughout the record, the band’s new double-kit approach steers clear of bash-happy exploitation, and Crover, for one, downplays his megaton-concussion capability. When not locked into unison, honest-to-gawd grooves, Crover and Willis squeeze off clackety, dueling cymbal and percussive patterns and superimposed fills. “Horse,” along with “The Blood Witch,” introduces the Melvins’ new three-throated vocal attack – nearly every stanza is delivered via a raucous gang harmony. – Dusted Magazine

with:
400 Blows || Listen
Tweak Bird

@ Echoplex
1154 Glendale Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026

9pm / $16 adv, $18 dos / 18+

Thursday 12.20.07: RUMSPRINGA

Rumspringa

As drummer Itaru de la Vega and guitarist/vocalist Joe Stevens take the stage where a million hopefuls have previously set foot, it’s as if I was in some sort of mystical ceremony. Fans were dancing in this sort of sacrificial trance-like state and it wasn’t a surprise. Something about this band’s music is hypnotizing. As the show progressed, Rumspringa include their fans in their music by handing out tambourines and maracas—this sort of union speaks to the down-to-earth quality of the band and proves that (more or less) they are one with their crowd, as well as humble people. The crowd definitely took full advantage and it was absolutely a beautiful sight to see. Looking around, it was inevitable that between the first song and the third or fourth, everyone in the room had succumbed and were dancing or—to say the least—bobbing their heads. – LA Record

with:
The Devil Makes 3 || Listen
Army Navy
Chief

8:30pm / $5 / 18+

Saturday 12.15.07: HANG THE DJS

with:
Hey Chica!
Dream Date
C-Town
Sin
Hyphy Crunk
Dia
Scarlett Casanova

spinning the best in: indie, international pop, britpop, electro, disco, post-punk, new wave, no wave, hiphop and more..

FMI:
Hang The DJs on Myspace

10pm / $8 / 18+

Saturday 12.15.07: MELLOWDRONE

Mellowdrone || Listen

If there’s ever an award to be given to an unsigned act that’s opened for some of the coolest bands, it’s hands down – Mellowdrone. Aside from touring with The Smiths’ iconic Johnny Marr and his group The Healers (both in Europe and America) this Jonathan Bates- led project has also logged stage time with The Killers, Secret Machines, Elbow and Fire Theft. Along the way, the enigmatic entity also inked a major label deal and readied the official national debut disc Box by recording at various Los Angeles studios with producer Tony Berg (Beck, X). The results are a hodgepodge of all the aforementioned road mates, plus a lot of laptop derived electronics that move from melancholy to dreaminess to downright pulsating in one instance. – Concertlivewire.com

5pm / $10 / All Ages

Saturday 12.08.07: THE 8 with BALKAN BEAT BOX @ Echoplex

A Crazy Worldwide Hannukah Party

with:
Balkan Beat Box || Listen
Dengue Fever
Soulico

and
Festival of Rights

@ Echoplex
1154 Glendale Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026

9pm / $15 / 18+

Saturday 12.01.07: SMOG SESSIONS w/ PLASTICIAN

with:

PLASTICIAN
(Rephlex, Terrorhythm, Rinse FM, BBC Radio1, London UK) Plastician came into the spotlight with a nod from the ‘Grime’
compilation on Aphex Twin’s Rephlex label. Riding the line between dubstep and grime, Plastcian is both – yet neither. This year he gained control of the BBC airwaves by hosting a regular show on Radio 1’s ‘In New DJ’s We Trust’.

BREAKAGE
(Digital Soundboy, Pure Filth, London UK) While well respected in the world of drum n bass for his dubbed out musical masterpieces, Breakage has been working hard at producing dubstep worthy of his name. This year he’s put out genre breaking tunes like ‘Clarendon’ that have turned heads across the world.
Currently he is working on a new album which has been highly anticipated.

EMCEE CHILD
(Narco.Hz, Grime City, B.I.G. Crew, SF)

DLX
(Smog, Steps In Time Records, LA)

KNIFE DREAMS
(Smog, Sub FM, Pure Filth, LA)

SOUND REINFORCEMENT BY:
PURE FILTH

ART INSTALLATIONS BY:
SPECTR

Buy Tickets at Groovetickets.com

FMI: www.smogla.com

9pm / $8 Presale, $10 before 11pm, $15 after / 21+

Thursday 12.13.07: MOVING UNITS @ Echoplex

Moving Units || Listen

Moving Units’ latest has the swagger and sneer of the most iconic rock, combined with catchy, sexy, melancholic dance riffs recalling classics from New Order to the Cure. Opener “Pink Thoughts” is dramatic yet focused, with guitars that remind me of favorite Chameleons songs of yore. Miraculously, even with all these 80’s references, Moving Units never sound dated. Instead, they’ve got enough going on in their novel electronics and within the music’s subtext to come off as fresh and modern. – Sentimentalist Magazine

with:
Scissors for Lefty || Listen
Tigercity

Plus special guest DJ Le Castle Vania

@ Echoplex
1154 Glendale Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026

RSVP to get in for FREE

8pm / FREE / 18+

Saturday 12.01.07: THE NEW CHECK YO PONYTAIL w/ SURKIN

with:
Surkin
Dre Skull
DJ Hyphy Crunk

Plus resident DJs:
Franki Chan
Paparazzi

@ Echoplex
1154 Glendale Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026

9pm / $10 / 18+

Saturday 12.01.07: GWENDOLYN & THE GOOD TIME GANG @ Echoplex

Gwendolyn & The Good Time Gang

It is very much to Gwendolyn’s credit that her second album for kids, Get Up and Dance!, released late last month, is entirely irony-free. Somehow, though, the songs are eager without turning off the parents. For example, kids will enjoy her exhortation to “bounce and bounce and bounce” (ad nauseam) “around” on the leadoff title track, while parents will smile wanly at the recognition of the fact that this, yes, is exactly how their child moves. But somewhere in the course of the song, the music opens up, adding handclaps and becoming sonically interesting (without losing the kids). The rest of the album is like that, too — the super funky “Eensy Weensy Spider,” the disco freeze-dance of “Red Means Stop,” and the best song never recorded for Grammar Rock!, “I Can Read.” The listing of vegetables “Out in My Garden” is reminiscent — in a good way — of their debut album’s “My Anatomy.” I also appreciate the fact that the album doesn’t end with a typical kids-album-closer slow song, but instead with the peppy “Sunny Day.” It fits perfectly here. – ZooGlobble.com

with:
DJ Lance Rock from Yo Gabba Gabba

@ Echoplex
1154 Glendale Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026

10:30am / $12, Family of four for $44 / all ages

Friday 12.07.07: THE THERMALS @ Echoplex

The Thermals || Listen

Portland, Oregon natives the Thermals have been hovering on the periphery since their 2003 debut, delivering solid records to undersized acclaim. The band’s third album, The Body, The Blood, The Machine, conjures an America piloted by some sort of Christian-fascist regime (“They’ll pound you with the love of Jesus…They’ll own your days/ They’re only God’s babies/ They follow, they know”), and traces the frantic, fiery flight of an ex-pat and his girl (“I can see she’s afraid/ That’s why we’re escaping/ So we won’t have to die, we won’t have to deny/ Our dirty God, our dirty bodies”). The Body’s story is just vague and gruesome enough to be weirdly terrifying, totally Orwellian, and grander, louder, and more electrifying than anything the Thermals have spit out before. – Pitchfork

with:
The Big Sleep || Listen
Scandells

@ The Echoplex
1154 Glendale Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026

8pm / $13adv, $15dos / all ages

Friday 12.21.07: CLUB UNDERGROUND w/ RADEMACHER

with:
Rademacher || Listen
Wait Think Fast

Plus Underground DJs

Spinning the best in Brit / Indie / Soul / Twee / Madchester / Punk / Glam

FMI: ClubUnderground.net

9pm / $5 if 21+, $7 under 21 / 18+

Friday 12.14.07: CLUB UNDERGROUND w/ THE MORNING BENDERS

with:
The Morning Benders || Listen

Plus Underground DJs

Spinning the best in Brit / Indie / Soul / Twee / Madchester / Punk / Glam

FMI: ClubUnderground.net

9pm / $5 if 21+, $7 under 21 / 18+

Friday 12.07.07: CLUB UNDERGROUND

with Underground DJs

Spinning the best in Brit / Indie / Soul / Twee / Madchester / Punk / Glam

FMI: ClubUnderground.net

9pm / $5 if 21+, $7 under 21 / 18+

Thursday 12.06.07: Grand Ole Echo and Echo Present – COUNTRY CHRISTMAS

A Hee Haw Styled Country Variety Show with:

5 O’clock Somewhere
Kingsizemaybe
Mike Stinson
David Serby || Listen
Leslie and The Badgers
The Psychedelic Cowboys || Listen

8:30pm / $10 / 18+

Tuesday 12.04.07: PORT O’BRIEN

Port O’Brien || Listen

But Port O’Brien has earned the right to the salt-crusted imagery adorning its first full-length, The Wind and the Swell, as well as to the numerous mentions of seas and oceans and fishing boats and puffins in these jagged, intelligent indie-folk songs. Port O’Brien mainstay Van Pierszalowski, a California native and son of a commercial fisherman, spends his summers aboard an Alaskan salmon schooner, either fighting the seas or bored in port if the weather’s bad. He named the band after an Alaskan port, uses photos of his father’s crew as album art, and keeps a detailed ship’s blog on the group’s web site. But The Wind and the Swell, which collects the group’s first two out-of-print releases on one disc, sounds like a much better journal of days at sea. Like most tracks, opener “I Woke Up Today” could be a sea-legs lament: “Yes I understand I cannot live on this land,” Pierszalowski sings, “but does that truly mean I have seen all that can be seen?” The song is all windworn surfaces: the guitars sound rough and creaky, the voices cracked but resolute. These same lyrics repeat on the sparse closer “Simple Way”, which slows the tempo and pares down the music: instead of a stormy passage, the song fades gradually, like land disappearing on the horizon. – Pitchfork

with:
The Cave Singers || Listen
Whispertown 2000 || Listen

8:30pm / $8adv, $10dos / 18+

Sunday 12.09.07: PART TIME PUNKS w/ MEDIUM MEDIUM

Medium Medium || Listen
Yes. That MEDIUM MEDIUM. The ones who were produced by Adrian Sherwood. The ones who toured with Gang Of Four, PiL and The Pop Group. Better than Glaxo Babies or Minimal Compact. And as underrated as APB and, more recently, The New Bloods. DO NOT MISS THIS SHOW!

with:
Abe Vigoda
Guest DJ Paul V || Listen

plus resident djs Michael Stock and Benny Shambles spinning mutant disco * Postpunk * indiepop

FMI:
Part Time Punks on Myspace

10pm / $10 / 18+

Sunday 12.16.07: PART TIME PUNKS w/ SAVAGE REPUBLIC

with:
Savage Republic || Listen
Solid Eye

Along with NERVOUS GENDER [see above], SAVAGE REPUBLIC
were LA’s other most important offering to Post-Punk. Think Joy Division, Cabaret Voltaire, Fela Kuti and his Afrika 70 crammed onto a stage with stacks of analog electronics and massive oil drums. On fire. Contemporary name-dropping might also include Indian Jewelry (and we’re working on that pairing for next time). Meanwhile Rick Potts’s SOLID EYE enemble, like Savage Republic, were originary members of LA’s LAFMS noise/artcore scene of the late 1970s/early 80s. And if you don’t know more . . . well . . . you should.

plus resident djs Michael Stock and Benny Shambles spinning mutant disco * Postpunk * indiepop

FMI:
Part Time Punks on Myspace

10pm / $10 / 18+

Sunday 12.02.07: PART TIME PUNKS

resident djs Michael Stock and Benny Shambles spinning mutant disco * Postpunk * indiepop

FMI:
Part Time Punks on Myspace

10pm / $5 / 21+

Monday 12.03.07: VAMPIRE WEEKEND

Vampire Weekend || Listen

Fans describing Vampire Weekend often mention “Graceland” — the album, not the estate. It’s an inexact reference point, but an effective one, evoking 1980s nostalgia (it’s getting harder to find people who pretend to dislike that Paul Simon masterpiece) and an unfussy approach to Afro-pop. On Saturday the band members laid down a series of playful indie-rock grooves: plinky keyboards and spidery guitar lines, rattling drums and nudging bass. One of the band’s best-loved songs, “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa,” seems to evoke the pleasant confusion of making out, or not making out:

Can you stay up to see the dawn,
in the colors of Benetton?
Is your bed made? Is your sweater off?
Do you want to? Like you know I do?

The title makes reference to Congolese soukous music, and so does Mr. Koenig’s guitar figure. But if fans can’t tell exactly what has been borrowed from where, that’s part of the point. And in the refrain Mr. Koenig name-checks the guy who helped make so-called world music a genre unto itself, singing, “This feels so unnatural/Peter Gabriel too.” The band members all attended Columbia (online they claim to be specialists in “Upper West Side Soweto,” among other styles), and something about their preppie, polyrhythmic sound feels fresh and funny and, weirdly, inevitable. Instead of borrowing from early Talking Heads albums (the way Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and many other bands have done), they’re borrowing from Afro-pop, just as Talking Heads did on later albums. In retrospect it’s a brilliantly well-timed approach.

with:
Grand Ole’ Party
Princeton || Listen

8:30pm / $10 / 18+