Thursday 01.05.12: SUMMER DARLING / BIRDS & BATTERIES / THE HUNTING ACCIDENT / BARON VON LUXXURY @ Echo

8:30pm / $7 / 18+

Summer Darling || Listen|| Watch
Summer Darling opens up a new chapter with their self-titled album on Origami Vinyl. The band battled alcoholism, divorce, interstate moves, and a number of family deaths to create an extremely personal record.

Ben Heywood, frontman for Summer Darling, grew up the son of pastors in suburban California. Upon graduating from college with a degree In English and Creative Writing, he started the band …as an outlet to come to grips with his dissolving faith and darkening worldview. His wife and band mate, Heather B. Heywood, who also fronts the Richard Swift produced band Kissing Cousins, was raised the daughter of Pentecostal ministers in Alabama and experienced a similar rebellion when she began playing in bands. They’ve shared the stage for the last seven years with guitarist Dan Rossiter. Todd Spitzer, who replaced their previous drummer three years ago, has added an aggressive yet musical element behind the drum kit.

Musically, the new record walks the line of pop music and aggressive experimentation. The band set out to write songs that would challenge the close listener with a myriad of time signatures, interlacing guitar parts, and bombastic drumming while simultaneously pleasing the casual listener with hook laden vocal melodies.

Lyrically the album explores Heywood’s decade long struggle with alcoholism and the place of faith in modern society. Heywood has been quoted as viewing his band as his church, which explains the allegorical nature of the lyrics, expressing thematic elements through story narrative rather than expository self-reflection.

Summer Darling has played extensively throughout the West Coast since 2003. In 2010 Summer Darling brings their new album and live show to the national stage.

Birds and Batteries || Listen|| Watch
Birds & Batteries’ “I’ll Never Sleep Again” is the part of the evening when those at the dinner party are gathering their coats from the bedroom, where they were tossed onto a bedspread hours earlier, and are lingering near the doorway, thinking that it must be time to get going only because everyone else is shuffling so. It’s also that part of the evening that feels as young as it ever could be, ripe with the flickering, rare magic that could turn it into a long one, one that would require a hearty sleeping off and nursing the following morning. The empty glasses are being clinked around in the kitchen and leftover food is starting to be wrapped up by the hostess. Michael Sempert is singing, with his Tom Petty-meets-Randy Newman-meets-Michael Stipe way, “I’m not tired/I’m alive/And I’m wonderin’/How to stay that way/Cause I was young once/I could be young again/I’ll cast out in a small boat with wooden fins/I’ll never sleep again/I’ll stay up all night, just to stay alive/And I could take a late walk to soak in the country sights/Past the old docks/Past the harbor lights/And under rusty fishing boats, rocked through the night/I’ll never sleep again,” giving us a frozen moment where a lot is coming up all at once and he’s staring into one of those ungodly long/ungodly short evenings and thinking to himself, “Let’s see what’s inside the ribcage of this thing. Hand me my knife, if you would.” He claims that the song is a “post-flood ballad about insomnia and loneliness,” and yet, it’s seems to be about so many more things, including mortality and maybe how immortality is kinda like insomnia. He doesn’t go directly to that line of thought, but it’s something that Sempert could easily connect the dots on and if he did, there would be all kinds of new worries and theories associated with it. Would that be something that anyone would want to be involved with or would you just abort in your 80s or 90s like the many others, feeling that you had gotten your money’s worth? One of the San Franciscan band’s new songs, “Strange Kind Of Mirror,” came as a reaction to watching a best friend at his wedding and taking a close look at how similar they were. Sempert sings, “We can only see ourselves and it’s a strange kind of feeling/…You remind me of how bad I can be/And it’s a strange kind of mirror/…You remind me of how good I can be/And it’s a strange kind of mirror.” It’s an ode to friendship and the peculiarities involved with what bring and keep people together through the years and Sempert, along with bandmates Christopher Walsh, Jill Heinke and Brian Michelson, take such great care with the presentation of these ideas. They sound as if they’ve been quietly waiting to speak, whenever they felt that the room was listening, that things had died down enough to be appreciated.Day Trotter

The Hunting Accident || Listen
“Every human being, even the youngest, is already old – that is, so close to death that he or she does not, in any case, have time to efface the accidental quality of the accidents of which his or her life is composed… We human beings are always more our accidents than our choice.” – Odo Marquard “In Defense Of The Accidental”

For some reason you are a person, or perhaps one of those very clever apes, who finds himself reading a band bio. You probably feel like you have some choice in the matter, but I assure you this is not the case.

If you’ve heard of Piebald (not completely unlikely) or Arlo (somewhat more unlikely), then you have heard Travis Shettel, Aaron Stuart, and Nate Greely in their spunk-filled youth (gross).

If you haven’t heard of either, don’t feel bad, I’ll fill you in. Arlo made a couple records for Sub Pop in 2001 and 2002, some people called them power pop, compared them to Sloan and The Posies. They toured their butts off across the U.S., Europe, and Japan, with folks like Foo Fighters, The Shins, The Walkmen, and Rilo Kiley. They got weirdly popular in Japan for a little while, got in some fights, and broke up in 2004.

Meanwhile, on the east coast, Aaron and Travis were in Piebald, being more hardcore, or post-hardcore, or some kind of -core. They stayed together a few years longer than Arlo due to better record sales and superior conflict resolution skills, put out five albums on various labels, and wandered the globe, playing shows with Jimmy Eat World, Jejeune, Saves The Day, Dinosaur Jr., and probably more stuff they can’t remember. By 2008 they called it quits as well.

Suddenly bandless and therefore jobless for the first time since high school, these strays were taken in and fed by other bands. Travis played with The Duke Spirit for a while, and started and ended a band called The Was. Nate toured with his Sub Pop labelmates The Elected, and then with the Seeds (yes, with Sky Saxon, it was trippy). They returned to Los Angeles around 2009 with improved chops and broader horizons, recruiting Pete Beeman (Burning Brides) on drums and Ryan Jebavy (Nighttime) on keys, and formed The Hunting Accident. Check out the songs on our music page, browse the photos, come to a show. Let’s be friends.

Baron Von Luxxury || Listen || Watch
San Francisco based artist/producer/DJ/blogger Baron von Luxxury made a name in the underground disco scene via remixes for Glass Candy, HEALTH, Little Boots and Hilary Duff, as well as through his blog DiscoWorkout.com. He is releasing two EPs, “The Lovely Theresa EP” and “Women of a Certain Age EP” through LA’s Manimal Vinyl this summer. Blending bits of ELO and Sparks’ Moroder period with more recent disco acolytes like Empire of the Sun, Cut Copy and Toro Y Moi, BvL makes hi-fi indie synthpop to warm lo-fi chillwaved hearts. The first single “The Lovely Theresa” (out now on Manimal) is a tribute to his friends who passed away in the summer of 2007 and is accompanied by a blog, http://lovelytheresa.tumblr.com. The second single, “Terry Richardson”, will be accompanied by a 3D video when it comes out in the Spring.SXSW

Friday 01.06.12: Natural History Museum First Fridays with MARIACHI EL BRONX / EL HARU KUROI @ Natural History Museum

Get Tickets Here

6PM / All AGES

Mariachi El Bronx||Listen|| Watch
Mariachi El Bronx is a perfect representation of Los Angeles – both the melding of cultures and the gutsy creativity. A few years ago, LA punk band The Bronx was asked to perform acoustically for a TV appearance. A punk band going acoustic is pretty ridiculous so they decided to have some fun with it – and perform as Mariachis. Mariachi El Bronx was born. And the band claims they rediscovered their passion for music in the process.

In some ways, it’s a send up of all the “unplugged” albums that were so ubiquitous in the ‘90s, but they genuinely love the music they are making. And they don’t skimp on the details — their Mariachi suits are custom made!
KCRW

El Haru Kuroi||Listen|| Watch
Since the Spring of 2004 East Los Angeles trio El- Haru Kuroi has developed a powerful, unique style as rooted in Mexican, South American and African melodies and rhythms, as it is influenced by Fugazi and Gang of Four. The rhythm section of Drummer/Percussionist Dominique Rodriguez and Upright Bassist Michael Ibarrra deliver with relentless urgency and swagger, while the Voice and Guitar of Eddika Organista enfold the music with labyrinthine grace and beauty. El-Haru Kuroi released their first album “Sabung” in May of 2007 at a huge party on a rooftop of a building in Downtown L.A.’s Toy District. Since then, the band has been actively playing clubs, parties, in the street-mariachi style, and many community fundraisers.

Friday 01.06.12: Echo, Origami & KXLU Present: NO / BLACK FLAMINGO / ELECTRIC FLOWER / CROOKED COWBOY / BATWINGS CATWINGS @ Echoplex

8pm / $8 / 18+

NO || LISTEN || WATCH
While his band Steriogram is on hiatus, Bradley Hanan Carter needed to get some things off his chest. Sean Daniel Stentz, Joseph Sumner, Reese Richardson, Mike Walker, and he have dropped a dark, brooding, exceptionally romantic first EP. Be sure and pop this in the car next time you’re out for a late night drive, watching the glittering lights fly by and wondering why things just didn’t work out. LA Weekly

Black Flamingo || Watch
Black Flamingo began as the musical love child of multi-instrumentalists/vocalists Kimi and Ammo.
After a chance encounter at a Halloween house party in San Francisco’s Mission District — where they bonded on all things black, Bauhaus and beaches — the two girls became obsessed with each other, packed up their things and headed for Southern California’s hot climate. Relocating to LA’s East Side, Black Flamingo began crafting their spell. Scalding late nights were spent writing enchantments and setting them to melody. Kimi’s booming voice and signature ballad songwriting paired naturally with Ammo’s dark melodies and climbing bass lines to create music that pushes the threshold of contemporary conventions. Their first, self-titled EP quickly garnered the attention of local music aficionadod, and the girls decided that it was time to play their first live show. With Kimi on guitar,and Ammo on bass, all they needed now was a few more members to round out the band. The girls turned to their best friends for help.

Christopher Vick, whose other-worldly guitar playing had been confined to his bedroom until that point, was recruited right away and filmmaker Mareesa Stertz was called upon to play keyboard. Still in need of a drummer, Recor summoned friend and former musiccollaborator, Alex Posell, who relocated from New York to join Black Flamingo. After the first show Poul Johansen was brought on as a second drummer, to expand on the dark wall of harmonic sound that had become signature to Black Flamingo.

As a six-piece, the band has achieved “gothereal Momma’s and the Poppas” style sound, with four piece harmonies, epic , washed out guitars and an undeniable rhythm section, that will echo through your ribcage, long after the band has played.

Electric Flower ||Listen
The first time they met, Josh Garza and Imaad Wasif were in an elevator in London. Garza was carrying his kick drum and Wasif had his guitar in hand. They were at the BBC Studios to film performances on “Top of the Pops,” Garza with his band Secret Machines and Wasif appearing as a guest musician with Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Eyeing one another suspiciously, the two maintained a curious silence, until the elevator came to a screeching halt, between floors. Wasif began frantically hitting all the buttons to get the metal box moving, but the lights just flickered on and off and the elevator remained eerily still and suspended. While waiting for the emergency operator to dispatch a technician, the two eventually set about jamming, Wasif, to ease his claustrophobia and Garza, ever-cool and stoic, to deal with the boredom, and, in his own words, to “just get this little freak to calm down.” Electric Flower had a most unlikely of beginnings.

Another three years pass before the two men randomly collide on a street corner in Los Angeles. After picking up the spilled tacos and samosas, they decided to head down to Wasif’s rehearsal space, where, in a blast of inspiration from the cosmic weirdness of it all, they wrote “Circles,” the epic track off of their debut EP. With the pounding of blood and the rumbling of thunder, with the indelicate sensations delicately rendered; its finesse lies in the grafting on such libidinous roots of the more visceral stems of Electric Flower.

Imaad Wasif has released three solo albums, including 2010’s highly acclaimed “The Voidist,” and has established himself as one of the L.A. underground’s most electrifying guitar players. Josh Garza, a Texas native and the drummer of Secret Machines, is widely recognized for his fearless sound, channeling the spirit of Bonham and the space between the beats. Together, their sound is part Motorik, part psychedelic, with strains of post-punk, Japanese Group Sounds and East Indian drone. It’s raw, yet richly detailed and atmospheric, with a booming beat and often obscure lyrical themes. Their live presence is already sending shockwaves of excitement through Los Angeles and other exotic locales, gaining a reputation for being “louder than My Bloody Valentine.”

Crooked Cowboy & The Freshwater Indians ||Listen || Watch
Crooked Cowboy are a little hard to define. You could say they play folk music, or country, or folk-rock, and you wouldn’t necessarily be wrong. But after seeing them live, these labels would be so limiting. When you look at them as whole, the best way to describe them would be ghost-cowboy rock on acid.

Batwings Catwings || Listen || Watch
Batwings Catwings is a Los Angeles band, but the members are from all over the U.S. It’s fronted by the fiesty, and beautiful, Dana Poblete, alongside guitarist Ray Santillan, Clay Johnson on drums, and Josh Crampton on bass. With a little bit of sarcasm included, they’re self-proclaimed as “modernist punk”. Noisy pop, maybe.

Earlier in the year they released a free 5-track EP called “Peacock Collection“. And, just in October, they dropped their first 7″ record, “Radio“, out on Gravy Records. Watch the music video for their lead single below, starring Kid Static.Crayon Beats

Friday 01.06.12: BACKBEAT- Northern Soul Dance Night with DJ MARK MORALES @ Echo

9:30pm / FREE before 10pm; $5 after/ 18+

Saturday 01.07.12: BOOTIE LA @ Echoplex

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

BOOTIE LA
LA’s monthly mashup bootleg party

From New York City, Bootie NYC’s own:
DJ LOBSTERDUST

From San Francisco, resident DJs:
ADRIAN & MYSTERIOUS D

Go-go dance crew:
R.A.I.D. (Random Acts of Irreverent Dance)

Midnight Mashup Show:
PRINCESS KENNEDY vs. BLOSSOM BOTTOM

SceneSnaps.com Photo Booth

Hailing from New York City, DJ Lobsterdust has been mashing things up since 2006. As “one of the premiere mashup producers in North America” (Mashuptown.com) as well as a resident DJ at Bootie NYC, he mixes anything, from heavy metal to dub, and everything in-between, with a healthy dose of pop and electronic beats. Fatboy Slim called it “excellently eclectic stuff.” If you’ve ever wondered what the Pixies would sound like with The Pussycat Dolls, or what Bob Marley would sound like as the frontman for Iron Maiden, then you won’t want to miss this rare West Coast appearance.

Also spinning will be San Francisco-based resident DJs Adrian & Mysterious D, who have just released their annual “Best of Bootie 2011″ mix CD. Resident dance crew R.A.I.D. will provide the go-go eye candy on stage, while for the Midnight Mashup Show, Salt Lake City drag performers Princess Kennedy and Blossom Bottom channel Lady Gaga and Judas Priest in one show-stopping number.

Launched in 2003 by DJs Adrian & Mysterious D, Bootie was the first club night in the United States dedicated solely to the burgeoning artform of the bootleg mashup — and is now the biggest mashup event in the world, with regular parties in several cities on four continents. Mixing and matching every conceivable musical genre and era into one big dance party where everyone feels welcome, Bootie’s DJs keep your brain guessing and body dancing with creative song combinations, celebrating — and satirizing — the many different styles of music. Bootie provides the soundtrack for the A.D.D. generation, with free mashup CDs given away like candy!

FREE Bootie CDs to the first 100 people through the door!

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

Saturday 01.07.12: FUNKY SOLE @ Echo

10pm / FREE / 21+

with DJs:
Music Man Miles
Clifton AKA Soft Touch

FMI: Funky Sole on Myspace

Sunday 01.08.12: Echo, Grand Ole Echo & Art Fein Present: ELVIS PRESLEY BIRTHDAY PARTY @ Echoplex

4 pm / $20 Benefits the LA Mission / all ages

The Elvis Birthday Bash has been going on for more than 25 years. The past three years it has been at the Echoplex.

The Times reviewed it for more than 20 years when Bob Hilburn was running the music section, then it seemed to fade from view, perhaps because the venue which had gone from the Club Lingerie, Music Machine and Palomino — climaxing in the House of Blues (1996 – 2002) — was “adrift” in the mid 2000s, with City Councilman Tom Labonge helping us get locations. (Labonge as attended nearly every show, and sung at some of them!)

We have no Elvis impersonators. The musicians are all active on the LA roots scene and beyond. But no “oldies” acts. There are always unexpected guests, some famous.

This year’s showtime is unusual. It’s a Sunday, so it starts at 4 pm, ends at 10 so people can get to work the next day.

Money goes to charity. Last year it was the Union Rescue Mission. This year the LA Mission.

It’s 20 bucks. About 35 acts doing Elvis song in beautiful harmony – it’s a peaceful, happy event, going for 25 years.

- and surprise guests

ALIAS MEANS — Promised Land/Walk A Mile In My Shoes
BIG MANNY
BILLY VERA – My Baby Left Me
BRIAN HOGAN
CARLA OLSON
CHARLOTTE
CHURCH KEYS – Shake Rattle/Tryin’ To Get To You
COUNT SMOKULA-
DAVE STUCKEY
DONNA LAUREN
DUSK DEVILS
EDDIE NICHOLS
GROOVY REDNECKS – Don’t Talk Bad, Treat me Nice
JIMMY ANGEL – Blue Suede/Elvis & Marilyn
KAREN TOBIN – Unchained Melody/You Don’t Know Me
KARLING APPLEGATE – Blue Moon KY/Care Sun Don’t Shine
LISA FINNEY
LOS FABULOCOS
MAUREENA & THE MANIAC CADILLACS
MERLE JAGGER – Marie’s The Name
RAY CAMPI I Love You Because/Mystery Train
RIP MASTERS
RONNIE MACK
ROSIE FLORES
RUSSELL SCOTT
SKIP HELLER You Asked Me To/ All I needed was the rain
STEVE STANLEY
TODD & LAURA DEWITT
TOM KENNY
TROY WALKER
VAQUETONES

Sunday 01.08.12: PART TIME PUNKS Presents: DAVID BOWIE NITE with Guest DJ Jose Maldonado [Sweet & Tender Hooligans] @ Echo

10pm / $5 / 18+

Come celebrate David Bowie’s 65th birthday (!) in inimitable style at PTP!

resident dj Michael Stock spinning mutant disco * Postpunk * indiepop

FMI: Part Time Punks on Myspace

Monday 01.09.12: The Echo and Web in Front Present Monday Night Residency with: SEASONS / TENLONS FORT / JUDSON / KIND HEARTS & CORONETS @ Echo

8:30pm / Free / 21+

Seasons Performing “Winter” EP in it’s entirety.

Seasons || LISTEN || WATCH
The band: Seasons, an L.A. quintet.

The sound: On fresh material such as “Light, Lost” and “Of Our Discontent,” Seasons crafts airy, spacious guitar rock. With local producer Raymond Richards on the boards (Local Natives), the group’s latest EP is full of polished touches. This Highland Park based band plays a tender yet voluminous brand of indie rock, combining winding guitar riffs and Colin Meloy-esque vocals with a veritable forest of carefully arranged flourishes. The synthesizers, keyboards, percussion, and violin never overpower the basic emotional appeal that runs throughout the newest EP instead serving to create a sweetly melancholy atmosphere in which you can easily float away.

The random: For their “Of Our Discontent” video, the band nabbed actress Mahaley Manning, best known for mean-girling poor Emma Stone in “Easy A.”

The details: Seasons music is available now digitally on Bandcamp. The band will release their new EP “Autumn” on Overhead Records January 2nd at The Echo where they will also host a residency there for that month. Each week in January the band will be playing a different EP in its entirety along with transforming the venue each week to fit the climate and mood of each album. – LA TIMES

Tenlons Fort || Listen
The music of itinerant, enigmatic songwriter Jack Gibson is like buried treasure, waiting to be unearthed at some gallery or all-ages space. If Gibson played the game (and he doesn’t), he could be the toast of the Hotel Cafe. He made the “Shelters” album, donated half of the proceeds to charities for the homeless and summarily skipped town to work on a film project.-Buzzbands

Judson || Listen|| Watch
The music of South Carolina-bred folk singer Judson McKinney goes down easy, like sun-brewed iced tea in a world of canned caffeine drinks. McKinney, who for a while made music with his wife as Judson & Mary and now has gone the eponymous route, keeps it earnest with a touch of bittersweet on his ‘People Grow Up So Slow” single, and the DIY video for the song, with its quick cuts encompassing the Los Angeles diaspora, suggests that although people may grow up so slow, they grow.Buzz Bands LA

Canblaster || LISTEN
Canblaster is the prodigious child from Douai. Ultra active producer and confirmed Dj, Canblaster is the Wild Card of Club Cheval. Legendary artists such as Underground Resistance, Basement Jaxx or Yellow Magic Orchestra made him fall in love with Electronic Music. Obsessed with vintage Synthesizers, Canblaster is producing massive tracks, using Detroit pads, UK Broken rhythms, French chords and that Japanese mystical sense of melody. His tunes are quickly playlisted by Sinden, Diplo, Brodinski, Douster or Teki Latex. and his remixes for Style of Eye & Slagmasklubben, Crystal Fighters or Spoek Mathambo are here to confirm his great talent.

MYD || LISTEN
As a graduate in sound engineering at prestigious Parisian FEMIS film school, Quentin Lepoutre, aka Myd, offered his strong technical expertise to make his Club Cheval crew – him plus Canblaster, Panteros666 and Sam Tiba – become serious outsiders on the dance music map. A strawberry-blond version of Quincy Jones for the Facebook/Tumblr/post-empire generation, Myd’s a very versatile music-maker, both able to deliver purely functional, club-oriented tracky material, and poppier, regressive house fantaisies. His audio skills give his work a unique 3D coating, a singular, artificial patina. The sound of Myd is something wide and hyperactive, though displaying the compacted, throbbing textures that define the trademark Club Cheval sound.

Myd’s long-term ambition would be to build new standards for mainstream dance music. Traffic between underground scenes and mass-produced hits having never been so saturated, listeners need artists to act as musical scouts, to filter, sort out, and recompose this data overload, and instinctively conjuring its secret pathways and logic. And that’s pretty much what Myd’s here for. He aspires to become a proper pop producer, a true « music director », and can’t really be bothered with some niche-star status. Working with other artists always had him refine his own personal sound, and helped him use his production tools better and better. Myd’s sound lays on a rich, contrasted aural palette : it’s high-tech sounding, well-balanced, complex yet articulate. It blends Euro techno gusts with tropical siroccos, and an unmissable song-craft with a taste for baroque-ish sophistication.

Since his first track, « Train to Bamako », one the founding hits of the tropical house scene in 2009, Myd has produced many brilliant, smart remixes, for artists such as Yelle ou Two Door Cinema Club. Then last spring, he came back with the « Octodip » EP – that was less tropical and more focused on occult vocal cut-up work – for new French label Marble, created in early 2011 by former Institubes mainstays Para One, Surkin and Bobmo. As Club Cheval are currently working on their debut album, the future seems clear and vivid for our boy Myd, teeming with previously unheard musical ideas and aural stimuli. And meanwhile, go and check his productions, feel ecstatic, and just imagine what’s up next.

Panteros666 || LISTEN
Using his cyborg-drummer background and his experience within the band Sexual Earthquake in Kobe and The Teenagers (Kitsune/XL Recordings), the hypeactive Panteros is now producing some bulldozer club tunes. Panteros666 is the perfect combination between ancient Aztec rituals, trancy synths and crazy electro tribal beats. If you had to map Panteros, he would certainly be between Tenochtitlan and London. Panteros666 is some kind of Indiana Jones of electronic music. He is offering you his tracks on the danceflooor just like if you were discovering some antique treasures.

Sam Tiba || LISTEN
Born and raised in Roubaix, Northern France, 24 year-old Sam Tiba has been producing cubist grooves just for a couple of years, but got deep into music of all kinds more than a decade ago. Well before the early days of his Club Cheval crew, Sam was pretty much unaware of club sounds : his first loves, both as a DJ and as a listener, were French classic rap, roots and dancehall reggae, and then dubstep a little later. He had a very strict lifestyle, drug- and alcohol-free, and now describes his then-self as « kind of boring and self-righteous ». Anyway, he eventually switched on collective dancing and altered states of consciousness while on an Erasmus year in Stockholm. His DJ-ing too suddenly switched on some other shit, as he discovered the whole US ghetto music spectrum – Miami bass, juke and footwork, ghettotech, B-More Club, you name it –, making his mixes way more hectic than before, and more carnival-styled too – ie, unpredictable drops and breaks galore, eerie overlaps and sound crashes all over the place. Sam started working on tracks in 2009 as he and his mates Myd, Panteros666 and Canblaster were launching their Club Cheval unit. Barbie Weed was his first proper tune, then followed by quite a few remixes in 2010 ; since then Tiba’s been playing in clubs pretty much all over Europe, and has just released the mind-warping Black Eyed Weed EP on Marble, a French label set up by former Institubes artists Surkin, Bobmo and Para One.

As a former ancient history student, Sam Tiba has always been fascinated by forgotten languages, by those defunct ways of expression that seem so far away now they just exhale otherworldliness, like alien speeches. And that’s in some ways an aural equivalent of these old languages he is searching for through his music-making and DJ-ing. Like a Congolese kid hearing the sound of a 303 for the first time, he craves for enchantment, exhilaration, for the sheer newness in music, could it be awkward, hyper emotional or just plain disorienting. And that’s precisely why Tiba can get into white, fascistoid techno as much as wobbley, spliffed-out dusbtep, Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier or MTV pop hits. The attitude basically being : let’s accumulate all this data, let’s just stockpile all this shit and then let it melt together and degenerate – the sicker the better.

Currently working in Paris on Club Cheval’s debut album and his own second EP, Sam Tiba also plays almost everywhere and almost everytime – like, expect him in Tokyo and Seoul next month –, since he’s a wild, versatile, crowd-rocking DJ. Just book him if you want your club hotter.

For more info: checkyoponytail.com

Wednesday 01.11.12: DUB CLUB meets BLUEBEAT LOUNGE @ Echo & Echoplex

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

2 rooms of musical madness all night!

In The Echo : Bluebeat Lounge with live performances from
CHRIS MURRAY COMBO
BOSS 501
PENNY REEL
plus selectors Boss Harmony and Bigger Boss

In the Echoplex:
Dub Club DJs
Tom Chasteen,Dungeonmaster, and Roy Corduroy
plus Jah Faith , Ras Benjy, Woes , and special guests on the mic

See YOU there!

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

Thursday 01.12.12: LA SERA / COLD SHOWERS / DEAP VALLEY / ONLY YOU @ Echo

8:30pm / $8 / 18+
Tickets Here

La Sera || LISTEN|| Watch

Since joining all-female punk trio Vivian Girls during the spring of 2007 Katy Goodman’s DIY-style bass playing and drifty-faded vocals have sent waves of adoration rippling throughout Brooklyn’s pop punk circuit. Her newest band La Sera showcases her signature style, bringing her talent for creating dreamy pop songs even more to the forefront. La Sera just finished a west coast tour and had a smashing time at CMJ.

After touring the world with Vivian Girls, releasing a handful of well-received records, and starting record label Wild World with her band mates, Goodman started exploring other outlets. She played in the short-lived dream-pop band All Saints Day in the spring of 2010, and a self-titled limited-edition 7” of spectral tunes was released on indie label Art Fag earlier this year.

In February 2010 Goodman started working on some fresh material that inspired the formation of her brand new band, La Sera. Her inspiration sprung from an attraction to early pop hits from the 1950’s and ethereal choral vocals. Her new songs contain warm celestial-pop melodies that echo with the dreamlike effect of a church choir and effuse a softer, less aggressive sound than the Vivian Girls.

Recording with a tambourine, guitar, and layers upon layers of heavenly vocals, she started sending her songs to filmmaker/music producer Brady Hall (the director of Vivian Girls videos “Moped Girls” and “When I’m Gone”), who immediately wanted to collaborate and dove into re-recording her rough material himself. After hearing his finished work, Katy flew to Seattle and the two recorded all the vocals, mixed the songs and filmed two La Sera music videos at Brady’s home studio.

The eponymous La Sera is the result of these sessions. With a dozen fresh tracks, La Sera muses on death, love, and love lost within the span of two minute choiral pop blisters. The phantasmic quality of Goodman’s voice takes hold of the contradictorily upbeat “You’re Going to Cry,” while “Dove Into Love” seems to send time into drifting slow motion, enveloped by a wave of guitar strums. The lilting and delicate “Hold,” meanwhile, tells the story of two people hugging each other to death. Hardly Art will release the full-length in early 2011, preceded by the limited 7” for “Never Come Around” out today.

La Sera is: Katy Goodman (bass, vox), Jenn Prince (guitar, vox) and Jonathan Weinberg (drums, vox, keys). Force Field

Cold Showers
Confidence isn’t always born of experience, as seen by the forceful debut by Los Angeles band Cold Showers. Combining influences of late 1970s post-punk with a sonic exploration closer to something from Neu!, it is the carefully constructed spatiality of the music that gives the somewhat minimal lyrics their weight; distant and atmospheric, it lends the hazy vocals a detached, ghostly cast. Moments of aggression and transcendence transform the songs from mere sound to rich sonic narratives: within the rise of the language lies a vision under restraint, a pent up joy that is like nothing else. The resulting sound is unexpectedly tough, vital, and contemporary. Mexican Summer

Bambu || Listen||Watch
Bambu is a father, MC and community organizer. Raised in the Watts district of Los Angeles, as a young boy he experienced a life that other rappers have glorified, but rarely experienced. As he navigated through a turbulent youth, Bambu turned around the destructive energy that surrounded him and poured it into making music. Bambu has been lauded by his fans and contemporaries for his lyrical storytelling abilities. Whether fictional or autobiographical, his vividly-detailed narratives are characterized by an honesty that is equal parts brutal, thought-provoking and liberating. Bambu music is not for mere performance – he utilizes his music as a tool for a larger goal – to reach and support youth who face similar issues that he did, and move them to question what goes on in the world.

Bambu has reached audiences across the country and internationally with his explosive and engaging live performance, and has shared the stage with such acts as Common, X-Clan, Medusa, Dilated Peoples, Psycho Realm, Planet Asia, Zion-I, the Blue Scholars, Immortal Technique, the Visionaries, Pac Div and more.

Rocky Rivera || Listen||Watch
Rocky Rivera is a Hip-Hop journalist by day, MC by night, who found international acclaim by winning a Contributing Editor position on MTV’s docu-series “I’m From Rolling Stone” in 2007. After lacking inspiration in the literary world, she decided to finally pursue Hip-Hop as a participant, not only as an observer, and began to fill the void with thought-provoking music that you can dance to. (Think Lauryn Hill meets Public Enemy with West Coast beats) A dynamic perfomer who’s shared the stage with artists such as Zion-I, Blue Scholars, and Pacific Division, her all-lady crew consisting of DJ Roza and emcee Irie Eyez display a daringly different side of Hip Hop you see to experience to believe. Noted music critic Jeff Chang, author of Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip Hop Generation writes “My whole career has been about getting people to hear the stories that need to be heard, and I think her story really needs to be heard.”

Rhythm Natives || Listen||Watch
In the early ’00s, Chatsworth High School became the meeting grounds for the band that is known as the Rhythm Natives. They were founded on a common love for hip hop and live instrumentation, and the integration of the two. Fronted by two emcees – Jon Narboneta, and Glen Techico – they’ve expanded into a six man unit that also includes: bassist Matt Mora, drummer Robert Fabros, keyboardist Chez Guinto, and guitarist Martin Fabros.

Their sound is found between the cracks of genre divisions. The organic mix of hip hop, jazz, R&B, and soul has earned them the respect of various events and venues up and down the California coast. Their lyrics are in tune with everyday experiences and social trends – all resonating with their listeners, who are often found immersed in a Rhythm Natives melody and rhyme.

In 2007, they recorded their live show at the Temple Bar in Los Angeles. Since then, copies have been floating around Southern California and beyond. The musical energy heard on each track is so significant, that it has left fans wanting more. In October 2010, the Rhythm Natives answered with the release of their self titled debut album that is sold in both digital and physical forms. They have proven to be on the rise, bringing a breath of fresh air to the art they love so much.

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

Thursday 01.19.12: BLAZING 45s with RICH MEDINA / PEANUT BUTTER WOLF / RHETTMATIC / SHORTKUT hosted by DJ DANNY HOLLOWAY@ Echo

Get Tickets Here

8:30pm / $10 adv; $12 dos / 18+
Holloway and some of his fave djs tear up the turntables with vinyl 45s only

Rich Medina || Listen
There are few nightclub DJs that have accomplished as much on a global scale as Rich Medina. From his humble beginnings as a young b-boy-turned-DJ in Lakewood, NJ, to his current status manning the decks as one of the most popular DJs in Philadelphia NYC, Rich Medina has consistently taken multi-ethnic crowds on a sonic journey through hip-hop, house, Afrobeat, funk and soul, unearthing one musical gem after another, for almost 20 years.

Rich Medina cemented his name in the DJ world with his infamous 90’s partnership with Cosmo Baker at The Remedy in Philadelphia. In 1998, his Fun party with DJ Language was part of turning the Lower East Side of Manhattan into the new hot spot for club life. Then came the mother lode, Lil’ Ricky’s Rib Shack, a weekly dance function that started out as a 20-person party at APT in 2001, and evolved into an irreplaceable mid-week NYC institution for over 8 years. There, he connected with fan and hip-hop legend Q-Tip in 2005, eventually combining forces to create the Friday night weekly called Open at the Andrew W.K.-owned Santos Party House in 2007, and was soon considered the hottest Friday night party in NYC for the next 2 years.

Rich introduced a new generation of people to Afrobeat music in 2001, with Jump N’ Funk, the first and most consistent US dance party dedicated to the late African musical icon, Fela Anikulapo Kuti. Rich and the Jump N’ Funk brand recently traveled to San Francisco, LA, and Atlanta headlining Knitting Factory Records’ Felabrations!, a nationwide series of events promoting the re-release of The Fela Kuti EMI Catalog.

No less revered is Rich’s Happy Feet party—where he and another pioneer of the turntables, Nuyorican DJ Bobbito Garcia have traded off dance, salsa, and soul music at clubs all around the world. Next of his branded events in line would be Props, the continuation of Li’l Ricky’s since the closing of APT in March of 2010. In 2008, he also co-founded What The Funke, a James Brown/Fela Kuti tribute party with DJ Spinna.

In addition to his own events, Rich has performed in front of crowds of thousands, DJing shows with artists like Lauryn Hill, De La Soul, Erykah Badu, Seun Kuti, Tony Allen, Nathan Haines, Roy Ayers, Gil Scott-Heron, The Roots, Jill Scott, Antibalas, Zap Mama, and Femi Kuti, among many others. From NYC to LA to London to Tokyo, and everywhere in between, music lovers know not to miss a club night when Rich Medina is manning the decks.

Peanut Butter Wolf || Facebook || Watch
You can read more about Peanut Butter Wolf and Stones Throw Records in the History section of stonesthrow.com. But for PB Wolf the DJ/recording artist/producer, here’s a quick rundown.

As a young kid growing up in San Jose, Chris Manak soon realized he needed an escape from the realities of suburbian life in the Silicon Valley. The age of nine was his coming of age. This was the year he discovered sports (Pittsburgh Pirates), video games (Pac man), girls (Anita Balderama), and hip hop (“Rappers Delight”). Alongside partner Sweet Steve, young Chris fashioned primitive mix-tapes (using the pause button) and ran amok at the local roller rink.

He took on the name Peanut Butter Wolf in the late-80s when he realized that, in an odd turn of events, a girlfriend’s youngest brother feared the “peanut butter wolf monster” more than death itself. Wolf and his more conventionally-named counterpart, Charizma, began recording in 1989 when the two were still teenagers. Within three years, the duo signed a contract with Hollywood Basic (Disney) alongside label mates Organized Konfusion and DJ Shadow. Charizma and Peanut Butter Wolf were riding high, touring Europe, receiving press in magazines such as Billboard and (a then newspaper format) Urb, hanging with radio legends Sway & King Tech on Wake Up Show and performing live shows with groups like House of Pain, Nas and The Pharcyde. Then, in December of 1993, Charizma tragically lost his life. Stunned, Wolf temporarily gave up on music.

After releasing the song “Just Like A Test” with Charizma for David Paul’s Bomb Hip Hop Compilation early in 1994, Upstairs Records, a label known primarily for house music, approached Wolf to record an instrumental LP. Thus, the Peanut Butter Breaks was born; the record became the Wolf’s calling card, leading to meetings and collaborations with like-minded DJs like Q-bert, Cut Chemist and Rob Swift.

After the release of Peanut Butter Breaks, PB Wolf found himself in demand as a producer. His track for the all-scratching compilation Return of the DJ was labeled “incredible” by The Source magazine. He released a 6 song compilation for South Paw Records in 1995, featuring collaborations with up and coming San Jose MCs. He also produced Kool Keith’s first single as a solo artist “Wanna Be A Star.” These releases, amongst others, led to a picture disc EP for British label 2 Kool Records.

In 1996, Peanut Butter Wolf founded Stones Throw Records. Charizma’s posthumous “My World Premiere” was the single to launch the label. A few highlights in the beginning were the songs “Unassisted” by Rasco, Super Duck Breaks LP by DJ Babu, and hip hop 7” series.

Lately, PB Wolf has moved away from producing (save the odd remix or compilation track) to build the Stones Throw label and to travel as a DJ to Europe, Japan, Australia, Canada, and across the US. Through his willingness to experiment and provide Stones Throw’s artists with musical carte blanche, he has overseen the releases of Lootpack’s Soundpieces, Quasimoto’s The Unseen, Breakestra’s Live Mix, Yesterdays New Quintet’s Angles Without Edges, Madlib’s Shades of Blue, and Jaylib’s Champion Sound.Windish

Rhettmatic

Shortkut

Friday 01.20.12: THE GOOD NATURED / THE PRESENT MOMENT / CHURCHES @ Echo

Get Tickets Here

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

The Good Natured || Listen || Watch
The Good Natured consists of Sarah McIntosh; the songwriter and front-woman; George on drums and her brother Hamish McIntosh on bass. In the songs featured on the Skeleton EP Sarah displays her compellingly mature command of the nuances of serious pop music, combined with the darker, and often more sensual, emotional and lyrical content of the Gothic. Both ‘Skeleton’ and ‘Wolves’ are produced by Patrik Berger, known for his work with Robyn.

The Good Natured, just signed to Regal / Parlophone Records, offer a catchy Gothic twist on Electro-Pop with their new EP entitled ‘Skeleton’. It will be released on 20th June 2011.

The title track ‘Skeleton’ has an energetic blend of raw passion, synth-pop and a murky, driving rhythm section. The track describes being stripped of emotional and physical coverings, leaving you with nothing to hide; metaphorically stripped down to two skeletons standing alone.

‘Wolves’ is a fast-paced, intimate dance track where we find Sarah in the deep dark wood, “dancing ’round fires, lost in desire” and ready to surrender to the howling of the wolves. The clarity of the interplay between the instruments is a stark contrast to the cheerfully morbid metaphor for escapism – feral and sensual.

The band have already been making a name for themselves with their previous EPs ; ‘Be My Animal’, ‘Your Body Is A Machine’ and their cover of Sufjan Stevens ‘For The Widows In Paradise; For The Fatherless In Ypsilanti’. These have helped their popularity on music blogs so much that they were in the top 10 most searched acts on Hypemachine last December. The band have also received strong support from Nick Grimshaw, Huw Stephens and Jo Whiley on Radio One amongst others on Radio One, plus XFM and 6 Music.

With such catchy songs able to stay true to the Dark-Pop theme it’s no surprise that The Good Natured’s fans are so loyal, or that blogs and forums and all over the web are already clamouring for more music.

“A compelling new talent” The Sunday Times “A talented and passionate force to be reckoned with” The Fly “Swirling exciting Synth pop” The Times “An exciting prospect indeed” Artrocker “This is how pop should be done” Time Out.Windish

The Present Moment
Some albums really do need to come with a warning. In the case of The High Road by The Present Moment, it would read a little something like: This album may cause withdrawl symptoms from the slightly dizzying effects of strobe lights; the dusty, lung-filling scent produced by smoke machines and the general heart-palpitation-inducing atmosphere of night clubs. It’s true, I’m a few years past the socially acceptable age of clubbing, but I very nearly grabbed my last pair of these and hit the town after listening to this.

Hailing from LA, artist Scott Milton has produced an album that, in terms of musical scope, fairly well epitomises that night club scene, the kind where nary a braindead pop hit is heard and music doesn’t just add to the ambience, it is the ambience – and the people are thriving on it.

The primary forces of The High Road draw on some of the more subversive elements of that scene – namely dark wave, goth and industrial. Opening with the nicely ominous ARRIVAL, an intro glazed with drone, the tone is set for a slightly jaded, occasionally cynical eye to be cast from the observervational point of a dark corner of the room, while those being observed remain completely oblivious as the beat goes on.

Tracks such as No Pieces Fit and the title track itself, The High Road, lean more towards synth numbers with subdued melodies and energetic rhythms, though things do get a little more sinister and occasionally aggresive. From the murky, droning bass in EMILY, to the outright frustration displayed on THE DAMAGE IS LOVED, where the frantic industrial core drives it to the point vehement despair.

Churches || Listen
Churches is a bay area power-pop duo featuring Caleb Nichols (Grand Lake) and Pat Spurgeon (Rogue Wave). Based out of Oakland and Santa Cruz the pair play loud, melodic power-pop, rooted in teen angst nostalgia and heavily reflecting its influences – Nirvana, Dinosaur Jr., the Pixies. Churches is salvation through distortion for the disaffected small-town weirdo in everyone – a sonic cathedral of symbols and guitars for the modern outcast.

Friday 01.20.12: BEARRACUDA @ Echoplex

9pm-2am / Just $5 before 10pm, $10 after / 21+

Saturday 01.21.12: ROOTS JUBILEE: TRIPLE CHICKEN FOOT / DUSTBOWL REVIVAL / DRIFTWOOD SINGERS @ Echo

5pm / $7 / All Ages
Playing a square dance set with Susan Michaels calling.

Triple Chicken Foot|| Listen||Watch
Triple Chicken Foot is a Los Angeles based Old Time string band trio. Having played together for more than five years, The Foot has honed their chops and focused in on playing Old Time music rooted in tradition. Spending time with veteran players around Los Angeles and the country, they have soaked up knowledge and techniques handed down through the years. The Foot finds their voice through their repertoire of tunes and songs, be it gospel songs, archaic banjo tunes, or crooked fiddle tunes. They recently released their second full length CD titled Tar River, recorded in L.A. by Jason Hiller at Electrosound Studios and mixed and mastered in Eggleston, VA, by Joseph “joebass” DeJarnette. Triple Chicken Foot has been fomenting a Squarevolution around L.A.—throwing square dances in all kinds of places…”LA Folk Fest

The Dustbowl Revival || Listen||Watch
The Dustbowl Revival is a Venice, California-based roots+jazz collective that merges New Orleans second line swing, bluegrass, jug-band and jump blues.

Known for their wild, lose-your-troubles live sets, the Dustbowl Revival often features up to ten instruments ranging from fiddle, banjo and mandolin to accordion, tuba, trombone and clarinet and plenty of kazoo and washboard for good luck.

With upcoming shows reaching from San Francisco to Chicago to Alaska, the band has just finished a new EP + Vinyl that was recorded on analog with Raymond Richards (Local Natives, Dengue Fever).

The Driftwood Singers || Listen||Watch
“The Driftwood singers write songs. This in itself is not uncommon, there is a long history of people who write songs. What makes The Driftwood Singers stand out is that they have tapped into a history that pulses with vitality, despite its aesthetics having been formed upwards of 100 years ago. The Driftwood singers write old songs. They write, damn good, damn old, songs. Dedicated to their craft, their close harmonies and sublime arrangements have them compared often to the Carter Family. Inherent in their work is something darker though, that underlines familiar early American themes of transience, mortality and yes, damnation while brimming with contemporary discontent. Their gospel songs are conflicted, their murder ballads are not fraught with bloodlust, and their drinking songs beg for hope. Whether in duo or with the whole Driftwood ensemble they are not to be missed.” The Driftwood Singers

Saturday 01.21.12: DRAGSTRIP 66 – Diva Gangsta 19th Anniversary @ Echoplex

9pm-2am / $15; Cross dress and get in for $5 / 21+

DRAG STRIP 66

CLUB DRAGSTRIP 66 MAKES A TRIUMPHANT RETURN TO
CELEBRATE ITS 19th ANNIVERSARY with “DIVA GANGSTA” -

Just like Cher, taxes, the flu, and The Kardashians -
some things just NEVER go away! And Dragstrip 66
is clearly not ready to hang up its heels & wigs either!

After a year-long break, Dragstrip 66 invites all its long-time
regular revelers and fresh-faced newbies to celebrate the club’s
19th Anniversary with a “Diva Gangsta” theme.

Starring:
*JACKIE BEAT

Plus Guest Stars:
*KAY SEDIA
*DETOX
*KELLY MANTLE
*MOMMA

DJ Paul V. spins hot electropop, indie beats, & mashups, and hostess

Gina Lotriman hosts the stage show and 12:15am Promenade

Saturday 01.21.12: FUNKY SOLE @ Echo

10pm / FREE / 21+

with DJs:
Music Man Miles
Clifton AKA Soft Touch

FMI: Funky Sole on Myspace

Sunday 01.22.12: Part Time Punks Present: BLOUSE [Captured Tracks] / SOFT METALS [Captured Tracks] / Violet Tremors @ ECHO

10pm / $10adv; $12 day of show / 18+

Get Tickets Here

BLOUSE make their live Los Angeles debut at Part Time Punks to celebrate the relase of their debut LP on Captured Tracks (which ranks among the top records ALL year on PTP’s list!)

Blouse || Listen || Watch
B L O U S E is based out of a 6,000 square-foot warehouse in North Portland. The project started in the summer of 2010, after Los Angeles native Charlie Hilton met Patrick Adams in art school. They made a few home recordings and soon began spending nights at the warehouse recording with Jacob Portrait (Producer of Mint Chicks, Dandy Warhols, Starfucker). Having played music since their teens, the three found that there was something inexplicable in their coming together. After posting two demo tracks to Bandcamp’s website, the group was picked up by Captured Tracks out of Brooklyn, NY. A 7″ single of Into Black was released at the end of March ’11 by Captured Tracks. Sub Pop Records will be releasing the second single for Shadow on May 31st.Sub Pop

Soft Metals||Listen|| Watch
Soft Metals is a multi-disciplinary electronic duo from Portland, Oregon now residing in Los Angeles, California. Its members Ian Hicks and Patricia Hall were brought together through a common love of 1970s and 80s synthesizer music and began writing and recording songs together in the spring of 2009. Inspiration came to them by way of experimental electronic sounds, film soundtracks, early industrial music, minimal synth, house, techno, synth pop, krautrock, psychedelic rock, and shoegaze. Ian and Patricia share songwriting duties and compose the music together before writing lyrics and adding vocals. Their songs are built from moody, improvised sessions together using exclusively electronic instruments. The meaning of the raw music they make is explored and interpreted afterwards with lyrical themes ranging from life experience, films, literature, history, science, love, conflict, and death. Soft Metals prefer to express themselves freely rather than adhere to a particular genre. This freedom gives them a diverse sound somewhere between dance music, austere synthetic pop, and experimental electronic composition. Their two best known songs, “The Cold World Melts” and “Psychic Driving” are demonstrations of this varied sound. “The Cold World Melts” is driving, assertive, and passionate. “Psychic Driving” is delicate, introverted, and vulnerable. Some of their songs remain in their unpolished improvised form to pay homage to authenticity, spontaneity, the joy of sound, and experimentation while others are studio based exercises, fusing new and old production technologies.

Soft Metals is signed to Captured Tracks and released their first record, an 5 song EP titled “The Cold World Melts” in July 2010. Their debut self-titled album came out in July of 2011. FACT magazine called Soft Metals “one of the most accomplished and ambitious of the myriad new synth-pop acts coming out of the States.” The duo have played shows on both coasts of the US and in Mexico City. They have shared the stage with bands ranging from HEALTH and Nitzer Ebb to Glass Candy and Chromatics. Captured Tracks

Violet Tremors || Listen || Watch
Violet Tremors are an anomalous oscillation on the Seismometer. Jessica White and Lorene Simpson have been friends ever since they met as co-workers at Erotic Cabaret (Houston,Texas) selling sex-toys in the late 80s. Today they continue to create pleasurable vibrations of the musical variety. Both Jessica and Lorene currently work in multimedia art, photo, film, fashion and music. You can count on these two to bring their love of the visual arts to their live shows…

FMI: Part Time Punks on Myspace

Monday 01.23.12: The Echo and The 704 Blog Present Monday Night Residency with: SEASONS / THE HEALTH CLUB / DOWNTOWN UNION / MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY @ Echo

8:30pm / Free / 21+

Seasons Performing “Summer” EP in it’s entirety

Seasons || LISTEN || WATCH
The band: Seasons, an L.A. quintet.

The sound: On fresh material such as “Light, Lost” and “Of Our Discontent,” Seasons crafts airy, spacious guitar rock. With local producer Raymond Richards on the boards (Local Natives), the group’s latest EP is full of polished touches. This Highland Park based band plays a tender yet voluminous brand of indie rock, combining winding guitar riffs and Colin Meloy-esque vocals with a veritable forest of carefully arranged flourishes. The synthesizers, keyboards, percussion, and violin never overpower the basic emotional appeal that runs throughout the newest EP instead serving to create a sweetly melancholy atmosphere in which you can easily float away.

The random: For their “Of Our Discontent” video, the band nabbed actress Mahaley Manning, best known for mean-girling poor Emma Stone in “Easy A.”

The details: Seasons music is available now digitally on Bandcamp. The band will release their new EP “Autumn” on Overhead Records January 2nd at The Echo where they will also host a residency there for that month. Each week in January the band will be playing a different EP in its entirety along with transforming the venue each week to fit the climate and mood of each album. – LA TIMES

The Health Club
The Health Club was formed in Los Angeles in 2002 with Katya Arce[bass], Gabriel Montez[drums and vocals] and Gerard Fortich[formerly of SST recording artist the Muddle] on vocals and guitar. Their raw expression is garage punk, influenced by bands such as Television Personalities, The Cure, Duran-Duran, The Sex Pistols and The Fall [which they opened for in 200?]. Since then, they have released two full length albums “Rarities and Outtakes” [2004] and “The Good, The Bad, The Health Club” in 2011. They are still currently rocking out in the L.A. underground.CD Baby

Downtown/Union || Listen || Bandcamp

Manhattan Murder MysteryllListen
The band: Manhattan Murder Mystery, a live-wire trio driven by Virginian-turned-Angeleno Matthew Teardrop.

The sound: Perhaps some pathos is to be expected from a band that took its name from a Woody Allen movie, and Teardrop’s songwriting is a blast of raw, whiskey-soaked emotion, driving rock rhythms and post-punk riffs. Drawing from his experiences working bad jobs, living in a new city, Teardrop taps into the anger and longing found at the bottom of a bottle, but his riffing, along with the rest of the band, keeps tracks like “I Always Think About Dying” rolling along.LA Times

Tuesday 01.24.12: BEER AND BINGO TUESDAY WITH OLIN & THE MOON and MAXIM LUDWIG / CORY CHISEL / THE DAMN SONS / JEFF CROSBY (in between sets acoustic on patio) @ Echo

8:00pm / Free for 21+; $7 under 21 / 18+

Olin and the Moon||Listen|| Watch
Just because you’re not an overnight sensation doesn’t mean you can’t be sensational. So it is with Olin & the Moon, the quintet that has scrapped, scrambled and scraped by in the four years since brothers David and Travis LaBrel and Marshall Vore moved to Los Angeles from Idaho and hooked up with Brian McGinnis and Kyle Vicioso in search of the perfect folk song.

The band’s new album, “Footsteps” (out today), is the stuff of spilled emotions and swilled beer, and while that’s hardly a left turn from 2009′s “Terrible Town,” Olin & the Moon have proved again you don’t need to reinvent the wheel to keep things rolling. From the rambunctious churn of “Repeat” to the boy-girl charm of “Escape” to the simple chord progression of “Gonna Make You Mine,” “Footsteps” admittedly doesn’t take many chances. Then again, there aren’t many missteps.

The album, which features contributions from Kenneth Pattengale and Leslie Stevens of Leslie Stevens and the Badgers, was recorded in fits and starts and late-night sessions in the studio where frontman David LaBrel works. His aching tenor is again the centerpiece of the fivesome’s arrangements, honed after a year that included plenty of touring. The material itself? “There are a lot of songs about girls,” LaBrel says, smiling. “I seem to keep going back to that.”

MAXIM LUDWIG and the SANTA FE SEVEN || Listen || Watch
In California, Maxim Ludwig lives surrounded by the ghosts of the “Gone West” migration. Though barely broken into his 20s, Ludwig embraces folk music of eras past, and his songs seem drunk-honest in their depiction of an uncertain life in a temporary town. He was born in New York, but spent time in Germany frequently where he first started playing blues harmonica live in beer tents at age 9. In h…is teenage years, Ludwig began writing and playing in bands in Los Angeles until he spent a year in college in New York, working on his songwriting. After leaving the Hudson Valley, Ludwig settled in Silver Lake where he finished his self-produced debut album.
When asked about the name of the band, he says, “None of them are from Santa Fe and there aren’t seven of them, which is why they’re called the Santa Fe Seven”. After playing with a cast of revolving characters, Ludwig set out to find what he refers to as “a balance between the Stray Gators and Booker T. & the MGs”. He then teamed up with Los Angeles country music veteran and bassist Ben Reddell from Texas, a staple of the mid-west music scene, pedal steel player and guitarist Chris Vos from Wisconsin, and LA drummer Travis Popichak. Together they make a hard, reckless, dust-laden sound.
His deeply personal and wild live shows that mix his influence of early rock and roll, classic soul, and songwriting craftsmanship have earned him comparisons to Bob Dylan, The Band, Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Presley and caused the Los Angeles Times to label him as a “brash maverick” who “views rules as something to be broken, not followed”. An intense showman, Ludwig’s narratives follow the tradition of Leonard Cohen, Lou Reed, and Kris Kristofferson.
Whether he is crooning over lap steel, piano, or violin, the young musician’s lyrics channel the feelings of rambling desperation that inspired such greats as Hank Williams and Tom Waits. Hard living and rock n’ roll tradition aren’t the only places he finds his inspiration. Ludwig is a voracious reader and disciplined scholar who admires the works of Robert Creeley, Walt Whitman, and John Cassavetes. Confessing, “I became heavily obsessed with words,” Ludwig’s songs unveil themselves like good literature, and string the listener along with equal parts suspense and intrigue. Buzz Bands LA

Cory Chisel || Listen || Watch
Like notable musicians before him, singer-songwriter Cory Chisel forged his first connection to the power of song through the music he heard – and made – in church. His father was a Baptist minister, his mother played piano during services, and an upbringing surrounded by sermons and spirituals instilled in Cory the passion and portent of language and melody, and a fluency in the gospel’s rich vernacular of loss and redemption.

Based in Appleton, WI with his band, The Wandering Sons, Chisel’s upcoming six song EP, “Cabin Ghosts” reflects the inspiration of his upbringing with a spare Americana-saturated sound that is its own exquisite blend of folk-country and Delta blues. With his voice full of soul and longing, Chisel’s expressive vocals and the Sons’ loosely orchestrated, impeccable playing emerge fully formed yet somehow familiar and as confident in its sonics as in its lyrical echoes of existential grace and mystery.

Recorded mostly live at Robinwood, his family’s cabin in the wilds of Elco, WI and at a live concert in his hometown, a collection of stark and haunted melodies grew from the beautiful woods of his home state into the songs now captured on the “Cabin Ghosts” EP.

The Damn Sons|| Listen

Tuesday 01.24.12: IHEARTCOMIX, Media Contender, The Echo & LA Record Present: CHECK YO PONYTAIL 2 * FOOL’S GOLD TAKE OVER * with DANNY BROWN / KID SISTER / MAIN ATTRAKIONZ / PARTY SUPPLIES / THEE MIKE B @ Echoplex

Get Tickets Here

8:30pm / $15 / 18+

Danny Brown || Listen||Watch

In an era of industry-obsessed MCs, interchangeable hashtag raps, and “viral” everything, it has become increasingly difficult to find a true original in the rap game, an artist able to ignite a buzz without calculatedly chasing it down. Yet ask anyone who’s been paying attention and they’ll tell you: Danny Brown is that dude.

Recording since his teens, 2010 was Danny’s breakout year, with his self-released The Hybrid showcasing a hypnotic, unique flow that Pitchfork called “the most peculiarly infectious voice since Dizzee Rascal,” while the LA Times praised it for “punch lines like Conan O’Brien if he’d come up selling crack.” He built a rabid online fanbase, stole the show on collaborations with everyone from Tony Yayo to Das Racist to the late J Dilla, and covered the Metro Times as the most acclaimed underground Detroit MC since a certain blonde fellow named Marshall. When it came time for Danny to take the next step and find a real home for his new music, it was only right that he would find a perfect fit with Fool’s Gold.

“When we first met, we really didn’t talk about doing business; we talked about music the whole time,” says Danny of what endeared him to Fool’s Gold. “That was the illest thing to me, because I sat down with a lot of labels and all we were talking about was, ‘How can we make this project work?’ and this and that. Fool’s Gold was all about being fans of music, and ‘How can we make Danny Brown better?’ I didn’t know they were such huge hip-hop nerds. A-Trak and Nick Catchdubs, you think of dance music, but they’re real knowledgeable with everything.”

“Fool’s Gold is thrilled to bring Danny Brown into our family,” says A-Trak. “We’ve been supporting his music on our blog for a long time, so we’re fans of his before anything else. Danny Brown represents a return to raw, gritty rap. His skills can’t be questioned. He sounds and looks like no one out there, and that’s something that appeals to us. We share the same grassroots values, and we can’t wait to get behind his new album!”

Main Attrakionz || Listen||Watch
Main Attrakionz is a “cloud rap” duo from Oakland, California consisting of rapper/producer Squadda Bambino and rapper Mondre Man.

Party Supplies || Listen
Party Supplies is the stage name of Justin Nealis, a Queens-born producer and literal one man band whose handmade MPC symphonies and heartfelt stage presence blend hip-hop energy with anthemic indie hooks. His homegrown remixes for Arcade Fire and Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros turn festival favorites into cut and paste epics, and are just a taste of the original material he has in store. “Party Supplies gives me Madchester vibes, and makes me think of all the 80s and 90s alternative stuff I really love,” says Nick Catchdubs. “He can turn a breakbeat into a love song like nobody else. Plus he’s really a rap guy? And our actual neighbor? I knew we had to sign him immediately.” Party Supplies will be hitting the studio to record his first album this summer.

Thee Mike B || Listen
(thee) Mike B, born and raised in Los Angeles, got his DJ start in late 90′s New York City while working for the legendary Stretch Armstrong at his label Spit Inc. Mike’s early residencies included fabled NY venues like Twilo, Limelight, Cheetah, NV, Butter and more. He returned to LA in 2003 to make a run at his own home town. It all really came together in… 2006 with Banana Split, a weekly Sunday night at club LAX, with local favorites DJ AM and Steve Aoki. The party lasted 3 years and changed the face of music and parties in Los Angeles, some might even say worldwide, playing host to DJs like Diplo, Justice, MSTRKRFT, Zombie Nation and many more. Over the last few years, Mike has been traveling, playing world class venues such as Fabric (London), Social Club (Paris), Villa (Berlin) and even doing sets at large festivals like Landstreff (Stavanger, Norway) and Audiotistic (Los Angeles). Mostly known for his ability to change up the vibe constantly, Mike is a regular at LA’s best parties such as The Do-Over, Dance Right, and Dim Mak Studios and still travels to NY often to play at spots like Le Bain or SubMercer; and of course holds residencies in LA at Cheap Pop and Dim Mak’s weekly Sunday night pool party, Cannonball at Drai’s.

He is currently in the studio working on original tracks and remixes with his many collaborative projects including: Camo UFOs with Nate Day, Graveleaf with Omar Doom, Fifteenth with Sammy Bananas and Pools with DJ Morse Code. All with an already impressive discography of releases and remixes on labels like Mad Decent, Fool’s Gold, Spills, Bigfoot and more.

Wednesday 01.25.12: IHEARTCOMIX, Media Contender, The Echo & LA Record Present: CHECK YO PONYTAIL 2 with SKRILLEX vs. 12th PLANET / DIPLO / FRANKI CHAN @ Echoplex

Get Tickets Here

9pm / $30 / 18+

Enter at:
1154 Glendale Blvd
(Main Entrance is through Alley)

Skrillex || Listen || Watch

“I’ve been deep into electronic music my entire life. The first records I ever owned were ‘Fat of Land’ by the Prodigy and ‘Come To Daddy’ by Aphex Twin,” raves Sonny Moore, better known as emerging electronic visionary SKRILLEX. “Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails were also early influences. I’ve been dabbling in making electronic tracks on programs like Fruity Loops since I was 14 years old.”

SKRILLEX is part of a new generation of artists that refuse to be restricted by preconceived notions or outside expectations. “Genre has never been important to me,” he insists. “I’ve never thought about music that way.”

Describing his current sound as “a mix of dubstep, electro and glitch all thrown together,” new SKRILLEX release “SCARY MONSTERS AND NICE SPRITES” reflects all of the above and beyond. The uplifting post-trance synth melodies of “ALL I ASK OF YOU” (featuring the soaring vocals of Penny) stands in stark contrast to the face-melting electro bass blasts of the massive electro-dubstep hybrid “ROCK N’ ROLL (WILL TAKE YOU TO THE MOUNTAIN).”

“I’ve listened to so much music for so long, it’s more about instinct than influence,” Moore explains about his sonic inspirations. “Coming up, I was into a lot of artists on the Warp record label like Autechre, Squarepusher, and Aphex Twin, so SKRILLEX tracks are inclined to have more changes than most dance tracks normally have. I can draw influences from almost anything. I just like to mess around and create cool new sounds and noises. I just go where the music takes me.”

After just one hugely successful independent release, “SCARY MONSTERS AND NICE SPRITES” is the first SKRILLEX release on Big Beat Records, in conjunction with fellow electronic revolutionary Deadmau5’s freshly minted Mau5trap record label.

“For years, the artists needed the record labels. I don’t feel that way at all,” Moore stresses. “SKRILLEX has been 100% independent until now. I think it’s so important to be self-sufficient as an artist. Working with Atlantic / Big Beat, and cooperating with Mau5trap, allows us all to work as a team and expand on what’s already been built.”

Following its release on Beatport, the 9-song EP dominated the charts on the site, with the title track claiming the site’s #1 slot (the first time a dubstep track has ever done so), 8 songs breaking into the top 10, and multiple tracks claiming the #1 slots on several of the site’s subgenre charts, including Dubstep, Electro House, Progressive House.

Aside from the immediate success of “SCARY MONSTERS AND NICE SPRITES,” SKRILLEX has also made a name for himself as a highly sought-after remixer. He’s already produced officially commissioned remixes for such A-list artists as the Black Eyed Peas (“Rock That Body”), Lady Gaga (“Bad Romance” and “Alejandro”), and La Roux (“In For The Kill”).

SKRILLEX stands not only at the vanguard of electronic dance music, but the perpetually evolving new music industry as a whole.

“For me, it’s important to believe in and love the music you’re making. I gave away my first EP on my manager’s website, just so people could hear the music,” he enthuses. “It was downloaded by the thousands in just a couple of months, and it hasn’t let up since. That’s all the inspiration I need to keep making music.

“SKRILLEX can be anything I want it to be,” he continues hopefully. “There are so many different avenues for music now. Video games, movie scores — the possibilities are endless, and I’m excited to be a part of it.”

12th Planet || Listen || Watch
It’s impossible to identify the first DJ to spin dubstep in Southern California, but for all practical purposes, it might as well have been 12th Planet. After being galvanized by the sounds gurgling out of London nightclub FWD and captured by Mary Anne Hobbs’ seminal “Dubstep Warz” special, the artist born John Dadzie became an apostle for the nascent sub-genre in early 2006.

Eschewing the drum-&-bass scene that had supported his touring lifestlye for the previous several years, Dadzie embraced the blistering wobble. One of the founders and the most prominent face of venerable bass-music promoters/record label SMOG, the L.A.-raised Dadzie is one of the city’s biggest dance-music success stories. He’s rocked festivals all over the world, toured with everyone from Daedelus to Skrillex and has officially remixed M.I.A. and John Legend (both will see forthcoming release). His own tunes have been remixed by fellow dubstep star Doctor P, and 12th has seen his videos played on MTV2. Moreover, he’s done it all independently.LA Times

Diplo || Listen || Watch
Known internationally as a curator amongst the worldʼs most cutting edge DJs, producers, and musical movements Wesley Pentz (better known as DIPLO) has experienced a variety of successes. The last few years have been spent running through the club circuit and having chart-topping hits with refreshing irreverence. Born in Tupelo, Mississippi, in 1978, Pentz spent most his childhood in Florida working in his father’s bait shop and being turned onto music through then-new mediums like MTV. Drifting North through the state came Miami Bass, and from the West came the sounds of Southern Hip-Hop artists. The musical influence and variety coalesced, and at 18, Pentz moved to Philadelphia for college at Temple University to study Film and Music. While a student he took a job in the South Philadephia community as a social worker and created the influential Hollertronix club night, which was the beginning of his fledgling career as DIPLO.

In 2004, Pentz realesed his debut album as Diplo called, “Florida.” It received praise and accolades in the underground community. The music embodied on this album led to an introduction via an A&R man at XL Records to M.I.A. In 2004, he partnered with M.I.A. for the mixtape “Piracy Funds Terrorism.” Pentzʼs cultural impact had started to snowball. Together they worked on her first album “Arular” and much of her second “Kala,” including the 2008 mega-hit “Paper Planes,” which reached No. 3 in the U.S. Charts and earned him a Grammy nomination for Record of the Year. His production credits have evolved since to include Santigold, Lilʼ Jon and Missy Elliot, while remixing works by Beck, Radiohead, Britney Spears and countless others. In 2009 Pentz teamed with frequent collaborator Dave Taylor (aka Switch) to release the futuristic dancehall album “Guns Donʼt Kill People… Lazers Do,” under the guise of Major Laze — a Jamaican militant at war with an evil army of zombies, mummies, and vampires.

Meanwhile, his record label Mad Decent has helped to introduce Brazilian baile funk, Angolan Kuduro, and other marginalized music to clubs around the world, developing as a trendsetting force with which to be reckoned. With the same mission in mind, some of the varied acts Pentz has signed or produced include Rye Rye, Bonde do Role, Crookers, Blaqstarr, Boy 8-Bit, Buraka Som Systema, and Rusko, allowing Mad Decent to act as a launching pad or home base for many others while spreading its influence across the globe. Through the label, Pentz has founded a charity called Heaps Decent as a social relief program to help children in Australia as well as with additional efforts internationally. In early 2009, Pentz debuted his film “Favela on Blast,” a five-years-in-the-making documentary exploring the Brazilian slum favelas of Rio de Janeiro and the thriving baile funk music scene that exists within. He is currently developing a TV show to air in 2010.

Through a widespread assortment of releases and artistsʼ works – from cumbia
to dubstep to punk and beyond – Diplo has shown dynamic range with interests that span far beyond any singular culture or musical realm, standing as a working model for the truly 21st Century artist.

Franki Chan || Listen
Over the last seven years, Franki Chan has made a name for himself with a dizzying variety of successful creative endeavors. His IHEARTCOMIX empire includes comic book publishing, a record label, and well, partying. The company is perhaps most famous for throwing groundbreaking and innovative parties all around the world, many of which feature Franki serving as DJ, revving up the dance floor crowds in his signature fedora and glasses.Spinner

Wednesday 01.25.12: Dub Club Presents: I-WAYNE and CHUCK FENDA backed by IKRONIK BAND @ Echo

Get Tickets Here

9pm / $10adv; $15 day of show / 21+

*Show has moved to Echo*
*Entrance through the alley at Glendale Blvd*

I-Wayne || Listen||Watch
As one of Jamaica’s foremost Rastafarian reggae artists committed to delivering consciousness raising, uncompromising convictions through his music, I Wayne has fittingly named his third album for VP Records “Life Teachings”. “We are sharing life’s joys and messages, so that’s why we call the album “Life Teachings”, I Wayne explained. “Its an unlimited thing because I am working for life and will continue doing life works, that is what I Wayne is all about.”

I Wayne built his reputation burning lyrical fire on a litany of societal ills from prostitution to child molestation to skin bleaching, although his dulcet, high-pitched vocals belie such thunderous denunciations. In 2005 I Wayne’s “Can’t Satisfy Her”, a gritty, cleverly told tale of a troubled young woman who began “strip dancing before she reached eleven,” was added into rotation on New York City’s influential hip-hop station Hot 97; the song reached no. 31 on Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.

I Wayne is poised for similar success with this collection of blazing, contemporary reggae anthems due for an October release. I Wayne utilizes his penchant for detailed story telling and his haunting, exquisitely nuanced sing-jay vocals to impart various lessons throughout “Life Teachings”: he exalts Rastafari’s holy herb (“Herb Fi Legalize”), rejects materialism (“Wise and Fearless”), predicts the imminent downfall of Babylon (“Burn Down Soddom”), references the teachings of Marcus Garvey and Rastafarian deity Haile Selassie (“Change Them Ways”), rails against the violence associated with “Drug and Rum Vibes” and vociferously champions teaching the youths the truth on the title track.

Understanding the significance of creating a balance in life as well as in music, several songs on “Life Teachings” display a romantic sensitivity that offsets I Wayne’s otherwise blistering condemnations. “The Nile”, “Empress Divine”, “I Care For You” and “Life Service” each extol women who uphold natural livity (lifestyle). “Life Joy”, produced by Marcus “Icus” Deacon, is a hit bound, sultry R&B flavored duet featuring popular Jamaican songstress Etana. “I knew Etana could deal with the song in the way I would like, but she deal with it even irier than I thought,” I Wayne acknowledged. “I had to balance the masculine to feminine, to really make it sound irie and it’s more than just a joy, it’s a “Life Joy”.

Preserving the relevance of roots reggae’s proud musical traditions and lyrical integrity among a younger generation of fans is a primary objective within I Wayne’s work overall and on “Life Teachings” in particular. Twelve of “Life Teachings” fourteen tracks were produced by Patrick Z. Henry, who, along with Ronald “Sonny Spoon” Wright comprise Loyal Soldiers, I Wayne’s management team; intricately crafted, organic rhythms dominate, rife with rugged basslines and one-drop drumbeats punctuated by snappy horns and chiming keyboards, ingredients that have made roots reggae unparalleled in its influence throughout the world. “We decided we needed to make the music more rootical this time and produce our own thing,” explained I Wayne. “We went in the studio, the musicians made the riddim tracks and set the thing proper with a roots rock vibe for higher heights.” Some of Kingston’s finest players are featured here including percussionist Bongo Herman, drum and bass duo Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare, keyboardist Ansel Collins, I Wayne’s uncle, who topped the UK Charts in 1971 with his (mostly) instrumental “Double Barrel”. The inspired interactions between guitarists Lamont Savory, Mitchum “Khan” Chin and Winston “Bopee” Bowen on “Do The Good” frame I Wayne’s simply stated sentiment to do all the good you can today.

Born Cliffroy Taylor, 32 years ago, I Wayne was raised by his aunt and her husband, Ansell Collins, in Portmore, a Kingston suburb. As a student at Greater Portmore High School, I Wayne joined a local singing/deejaying group called Vibes Machine and they performed at various nightclubs. When the other group members failed to show up for a gig one night, I Wayne performed alone; encouraged by the audience’s positive response, he decided to pursue a solo career.

I Wayne’s ethereal vocalizing, as calming as a gentle breeze that can suddenly accelerate to hurricane strength gusts, was perfected through repeated appearances with local sound systems including Diamond Cruise and The Legend. It was at an early-morning sound system session when Ronald “Sonny Spoon” Wright first heard I Wayne sing; he was so impressed with the young artist he returned to the music business to manage him after a taking a career hiatus that lasted several years. “From the first word he said on the mike — lightning — it was like I was struck by lightning then,” recalls Wright, producer of “Wise and Fearless” on “Life Teachings”. “I thought even if he has no lyrics besides this lightning, with his unique voice, I could work with him. But he went on for about three hours, and I heard so many great lyrics I was actually embarrassed about the thought that I had.”

VP Records released I Wayne’s debut album “Lava Ground” in 2005 and its trilogy of hits, “Can’t Satisfy Her”, produced by Loyal Soldiers, “Living In Love” and the brilliant title track played a significant role in redirecting contemporary Jamaican music away from violent and X rated lyrics and towards positive themes, at least for a time. His 2007 sophomore album “Book of Life”, with its love songs, spiritual reasoning, and a refreshing female perspective on troubled relationships, “Jealousy and Abuse” featuring veteran deejay Lady G, topped the Billboard Reggae Chart.

Despite contradictory prevailing trends, adhering to culturally enriching, empowering topics is an ongoing mission for I Wayne. “You see, they try to mash up reggae that’s why they get rid of Bob Marley and some other irie youths,” I Wayne reasons. “I encourage others to do positive music; some gwaan with lewd, nasty lyrics, but I still gwaan blaze through the fire because it is a longevity thing.”

Early responses to the first two singles released from “Life Teachings”, both currently in heavy rotation on Jamaican radio, augur well for I Wayne’s longevity. The resplendent roots reggae gem, “Real and Clean” is I Wayne’s sweetly seductive declaration of love set to an irresistible one-drop beat. Successfully venturing into dancehall terrain “The Fire Song”, driven by a throbbing bass line and produced by (Assassin’s Brother) Gareth Campbell for Boardhouse Records, unites the reedy vocalist with the gravel-toned deejay Assassin (a.k.a. Agent Sasco). This outwardly curious pairing could actually win duo of the year honors: their complementary approaches propel each other to greatness in this survival of the fittest tale that’s applicable to every aspect of life but specifically resonates with the challenges within the music business.

“There’s a lot of fight, a lot of politics and sometimes it gets overwhelming,” I Wayne offers, “and because there is a preference for nastiness, positive artists don’t get their fair attention. But mi stay calm and remember nature; nature was going on before any business start so it is better I keep my focus and keep writing these songs, y’know? Music is life, Life Teachings, so you just have to live on, simple as that.”

Chuck Fenda || Listen
Roots reggae artist Chuck Fenda has the living fire. His voice and music are on fire with passion from the heartbeat of Jamaica. His songs present reality, hope and love for the people. Fenda’s upcoming album, “Fulfillment” brings him full circle; showcasing his lyrical wisdom on a variety of one drop and roots riddims produced by Kemar ‘Flava’ McGregor, including the new ‘Ghetto Riddim’ and identifiably the most spiritual album from the artist to date.

Characterised by collaborations with like‐minded artistes such as I‐Wayne on the track “Thin Line”, “Bad Boys” with Sammy Dread and “Time Rough” featuring Bush Man. Heavy airwave rotation of tracks contained on the album include “Herbalist Farmer” and “Cold Fi Di Money”. Through his conscious songs and high‐energy performances, Chuck Fenda has cemented himself as one of the few that will play a great role in the revolution of Jamaica’s music across theglobe.

Thursday 01.26.12: FYF & VACATION VINYL Present WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM / CHELSEA WOLFE Plus Very Special Guest @ Echoplex

Get Tickets Here

8PM / $12 advance, $14 day of show; $15 at the door / All Ages

Wolves in the Throne Room || Listen
During the Summer of 2002 at an Earth First rendezvous in the Cascade mountains of Washington State, guitarist Nathan Weaver was inspired to create a band that merged a Cascadian eco-spiritual awareness with the misanthropic Norwegian eruptions of the 90′s. Themes of ancientness, apocalypse, connection to place and the struggle to find meaning and spirituality in a mechanical and materialistic world would be woven together in a singular alchemy.

In the spring of 2004, Nathan and his brother, drummer Aaron Weaver, moved to a dilapidated farmstead on the outskirts of Olympia, WA. The creation of their farm-stronghold, called Calliope, would be intrinsically linked to the development of Wolves in the Throne Room. It was during the first long, dark winter living in the collapsed farmhouse at Calliope that the band developed their trance-inducing sound and solidified the burning intent that would animate the band’s music.

Since that time Wolves in the Throne Room have become one of the most important and highly regarded bands in extreme music. Their three studio records, Diadem of 12 Stars, Two Hunters and Black Cascade have been widely praised by everyone from underground zine writers to the New York Times.

Chelsea Wolfe || Listen||Watch
Chelsea Wolfe – where do I find the words to describe how mesmerizing her voice is. These are the songs mystics sing in lands least traveled – through cold mornings just before dawn in the wilderness through deep snow. Chelsea Wolfe’s music allows the listener to paint their own gothic scene with always a glimmer of light at the end. This kind of artistry is in short supply these days.Rock Insider

@ the Echoplex
1154 Glendale Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90026

Thursday 01.26.12: A LULL / DELETED SCENES / RAVENNA WOODS / SCOTT LUCAS (LOCAL H) @ Echo

Get Tickets Here

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

A Lull || Listen || Watch

A Lull are hitting the western part of the US from mid-January through early February with the band Deleted Scenes. If you have not already seen A Lull live, this is a must see tour. Their wall-of-sound sets have garnered universal praise and steadily built their fan base in every city they have played.

As an added THANK YOU for the support A Lull’s fans have shown in 2011, their new single “Some Love” – which includes remixes by Brothertiger, City Light, and Sun Glitters – will be available FREE from from December 27th through the end of the tour.

Visit the Mush Records Facebook page to grab your free download

Chicago’s A Lull is nearly impossible to describe without qualifiers. Equal parts mystical and primal, the music crafted by these five multi-instrumentalists gathers the recognizable traits of a half dozen indie micro-genres, tosses out all but the stem cells, then adds the calculated, percussive verve of a half dozen rhythm sections on top of beautifully crafted songwriting to result in a sound that is as unique as it is memorable. A Lull blurs the lines between the synthesized and organic. The evocative lyrics and vocals of Nigel Evan Dennis are engulfed with music elements that live on the barriers between guitars, electronics, and effects, then (with each member of the band having at one point banged on a drum) covered with endless layers of percussion. Recording the music themselves, the band is not confined to traditional studio techniques or time constraints, and the obsessive attention to detail shows. Employing anything available to create beats, melodies, textures and layers of sound, A Lull’s sonic landscape is experimental in the ways that it takes form, yet at the same time inherently musical.Mush Records

Deleted Scenes || Listen || Watch
Deleted Scenes, a four-piece band from DC, released its first self-entitled EP in 2007, twelve years after meeting in grade school. In 2009, the band released a full-length, Birdseed Shirt, which was recorded mostly in group houses across the east coast over the course of a year with producer L. Skell (the Rude Staircase). It was met with critical acclaim from Pitchfork, which praised its “thoughtful existentialism and strange, drowsy downers” (8.0 score), and NPR, which called it “playfully unpredictable and totally infectious.”

Deleted Scenes is based in Washington, DC. They are Daniel Scheuerman (guitar, vocals), Matt Dowling (bass, keyboards), Dominic Campanaro (guitar, keyboards, samples), and Brian Hospital (drums), with guitar playing by Chris Scheffey on tracks 1, 6, and 11. They have shared the stage with Cursive, Wild Nothing, Abe Vigoda, Black Kids, The Antlers, Medications, Matt and Kim, and others. They have played SXSW, CMJ, and Pop Montreal. Sockets Records

Ravenna Woods || Listen || Watch
Sounds like: The Dodos, the Cave Singers, Jose Gonzales.

Why they matter: Ravenna Woods provides a crucial reminder to Seattle’s current scene: Just because it’s folky and acoustic doesn’t mean it must be pastoral and warm. The three-man band plays haunting urban folk, full of eerie vocal harmonies, spiraling fingerpicked guitar, minimalist percussion, and the occasional toy piano.

You should know: Named after a Seattle city park, Ravenna Woods recently toured for their self-released second album, Valley of the Headless Men, playing cramped living room shows as often as conventional concert venues. Spin

Scott Lucas || Watch
“In addition to his ability to craft indelible melodies, even when they’re delivered amid a wall of fuzz and thundering drums, one of Lucas’ strengths as a songwriter always has been a razor-sharp wit as a lyricist, coupled with a novelist’s eye for telling details. The Married Men showcase the latter in a different setting, amid sawing violins, sweeping piano lines, wheezing accordion and organ, and seductive acoustic guitar that welcome comparisons to the likes of American Music Club and Tindersticks.” — Jim DeRogatis, Pop N Stuff

Friday 01.27.12: DIEGO’S UMBRELLA / NOAH LIT & THE MEGAFAUNA / THE BLASTING COMPANY @ Echoplex

Get Tickets Here

8:30pm / $10 / 18+

Diego’s Umbrella|| Listen || Watch
As San Francisco’s ambassadors of gypsy rock, Diego’s Umbrella captures California’s cultural multiplicity with enthusiasm, humor and decadence.

These urban gringo mariachis have performed more than a thousand live shows, cloaked in elaborate homemade outfits. The band’s unforgettable performances have visually and aurally captivated diverse audiences around the globe.

Influenced heavily by flamenco, klezmer, and Latin music, Diego’s Umbrella has introduced the world to a new kind of popular music, with sounds reminiscent of Gogol Bordello, Flogging Molly and The Clash.

Shortly after migrating to Northern California from rural Wisconsin, DU front man Vaughn Lindstrom (acoustic guitar, vocals, lead songwriter) teamed up with California native Tyson Maulhardt (electric guitar, vocals) to create a musical ensemble that they dubbed Diego’s Umbrella. The namesake: their friend’s arm tattoo.

Diego’s Umbrella debuted in 2001 with its first album, Songs for the Farmers. With the addition of Marcus Schmidt (bass), Jason Kleinberg (violin, vocals, accordion), Jake Wood (drums, percussion) and Benjamin Leon (lead vocals, electric guitar, percussion), Diego’s Umbrella has been packing venues throughout the Western U.S. and Europe with its heavy-hitting live shows and filling airwaves in the U.S. and Europe with lively tunes.

The band released Kung Fu Palace in 2006 and Viva la Juerga in 2007. Within a few months Juerga ranked #129 on the CMJ Top 200 Chart. This spring Diego’s Umbrella will release the much-anticipated record, Double Panther.

Several DU songs were also featured in the X-Dance-award-winning documentary Sofia, the Quiksilver/Roxy surf DVD Shimmer, as well as CBS’ Elimination Station. Diego’s Umbrella also performs three songs in the Lionsgate comedy Still Waiting (2009).

“With guitars straight out of a Tarantino movie, the group seamlessly blends mariachi, gypsy, flamenco and ska into one beer-soaked fiesta, with song topics varying from heartache to revolution.” -NewsReview.com

Noah Lit & The Megafauna || Listen
When Noah Lit’s former indie rock band Oliver Future went the way of the mastodon, he did the only logical next step… gave up electric guitar and dove head first into the world of acoustic Gypsy Jazz guitar. Practicing the dizzying scales, arpeggios, and antiquated chords and patterns opened a song writing treasure trove and thus… Noah and the MegaFauna was born. Digging into the world of Gypsy Jazz guitar reminded Noah that while rock and roll is a large part of his record collection, it is only a part. Django Reinhardt, Charles Mingus, Duke Ellington, and Louis Armstrong, not to mention Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, Jacques Brel, and Leonard Cohen all loom as large as The Beatles, Radiohead or The Kinks. As Noah puts it, “Anthems for a Stateless Nation is a humble attempt at making a record that sounds like my record collection.” It is a new vision of old world aesthetics. It aims to bridge Noah’s love for Django Reinhardt Gypsy Jazz’s guitar chops and violin solo’s, the orchestrating colors of Ellington and Mingus, the passionate story telling of Waits or Dylan, and the harmonic hookiness of The Beatles or The Kinks. Thematically, it is a pre, and post-apocalyptic tale of displacement, wandering, panic, and ultimately redemption. To accomplish this admittedly ambitious vision, Noah was clearly going to need help. He contacted his friend and longtime producer Adam Lasus (Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Yo La Tengo, Clem Snide) and began scheming. His brother Joshua Lit (Oliver Future) was added on Piano and Accordion. His brother Gabriel Lit on clarinet and Bass Clarinet and was assigned to help arrange the horns and string parts. Gabriel’s girlfriend Naomi Wen supplied the virtuosic violin licks and played the Erhu, a 2-string traditional Chinese fiddle. Shiben Battacharaya and Chris Lovejoy supplied upright bass and symphonic drumming, respectively. Noah’s cousin Travis Knight added to the family affair by playing percussion. An eight piece horn section was recorded in The Bronx, New York with the help of Joe Rogers (Back to Blonde, Moby). World renowned Gypsy guitarist Gonzalo Bergara was added on bandoneon and lead guitar on “Never Go Home”. Finally, guest drumming was Noah’s boxing buddy Steve Ferrone (Tom Petty and the Heart Breakers, George Harrison).

To accentuate the cinematic feel of the record, Noah arranged several duets with amazing singers and jazz vocalists. Kat Edmonson, Marianne Dissard, Emily St. Amand-Poliakoff, Mindy Gaspar, and Joshua Lit all make appearances. The record also allowed Noah to collaborate with several of his favorite writers. Josh Lit, and Noah’s friends Josh Seidenfeld (Boy in the Bubble) and William Chancellor (author: A Brave Man 7 Stories Tall), helped craft lyrics and imagery for several songs. The final stage was the visual art work created by artist Michael Garza (A Scanner Darkly, Oliver Future). Anthems for a Stateless Nation was conceived, recorded to tape, and mastered in six months and will be released July 2011. The majority of what the listener hears was recorded live and often in one take to capture the energy and uniqueness of each performance. While it is technically Noah Lit’s first solo project, all of the names mentioned above reveal it as a vision brought together by collaboration, trust, and friendship. It is Nightmare Pop, a modern day allegory of Noah’s Arc, a zombie apocalypse, Global Warming: the musical, indie folk run through music school, a big band swinging, a small gypsy ensemble moaning, a convergence of influence and orchestration that represents the ever shrinking world we live in, a wanderer’s diary played on instruments that can be carried on your back, a singer/songwriter/ indie-jazz record that dares it’s player’s to growl, squawk, squeak, and squeal, and it’s listeners to climb aboard for an eclectic but concise vision.

The Blasting Company|| Listen
In 1989, in the encroaching mountains of Serbia or Tennessee, an idea occurred between two brothers; or rather, a quixotic dream: to build a bridge from Turkey to Europe. This bridge would be lined with tapestries and populated by a thousand great white birds. Soaring over the Mediterranean sea, as it were, commuters would be flanked by low growing patches of colorful flora. The bridge would be a swath of color and light, a paintbrush stroke between continents, between cultures, between civilizations. On each independence day of each independent country, elaborate displays of fireworks would erupt from the bridge and the Christmas lights would crawl across the bridge like festive veins of ivy on the eves of all the world’s favorite holidays.

The brothers were pleased by their idea, and so they set off to play music in the streets, that they may raise the funds (approximately $85 billion would do) by the generosity (monetarily speaking) of the persons whose lives they one day hope to improve.
-Max Benkelman

Friday 01.27.12: Fuzz presents: DAEDELUS / STRANGERS FAMILY BAND / DJ EXPO / SOULMARCOSA / DJ DANNY HOLLOWAY @ Echo

9pm / Free / 18+

Daedelus

Strangers Family Band||Listen|| Watch
Formed in Orlando, FL in the summer of 2007, Strangers Family Band—a five-piece consisting of members in their early twenties—gained recognition and a following from their intense live shows and unique take on psychedelia. The experience transports the listener from ominous vaudevillian progressions (‘Beware The Autumn People’) to ukulele strummed pop a’la Sgt. Pepper (‘No One Sees Her’) to North Indian raga-influenced drone (‘Strange Transmission’) like an uninterrupted stream of consciousness. A full sensory experience is characteristic of their live performances, which include cascading oil and water projections and the frequent accompaniment of a horn section. The influence of Ashbury-Haight’s acid rock, NYC’s Factory heyday, and the British psych explosion are evident in their sound. These comparisons do not hold the band down to the limitations of throw-back ‘retrodelia’ however; instead, the band expounds upon the influence of its predecessors, establishing themselves as new, modern innovators rather than mere revisionists. Comparisons to Syd Barrett, West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, The Doors, and the Beatles have been made as reference points. They have also been compared to The Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Black Angels, and The Entrance Band. MusicFloss

DJ Expo||Listen
DJ Expo got his start at the ripe old age of 13, when he was blessed with his first set of turntables. He immediately jumped in with both feet, devoting countless hours to practicing his craft. Once his mixing and scratching skills were sufficiently sharp, he started busting out homemade mixtapes and picking up mobile DJ gigs all over Los Angeles. He first stepped into the club scene by organizing and promoting several events of his own. Being only 18 himself, Expo focused on throwing all-ages club events, which attracted luminaries like J-Rocc and Melo D, Music Man Miles, Time Machine, and, in what would prove to be a major link-up, the late, great DJ Dusk.

Dusk, the man behind the nationally renowned Root Down Soundsystem, took Expo under his wing, becoming a major mentor to the young DJ and encouraging him to expand his musical taste into many genres. Under Dusk’s tutelage, Expo became a strong-arm crate digger and has amassed a collection of more than 10,000 records; his diverse stockpile of wax ensures that no matter what kind of crowd he’s playing for, he has the party covered with selections of hip-hop, funk, reggae, Latin, rock, or anything else to get ‘em on the floor and keep ‘em there.

Beyond the records, Dusk also brought Expo into the Root Down crew as the youngest member. Throughout all of 2005 through the first few months of 2006, Dusk had Expo spinning at a series of roaming after-hours parties that happened at various lofts and warehouses around Los Angeles. The parties took on a serious rep, and the last one Dusk planned before his tragic death was called Old School Rules, which featured Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, and Jazzy Jay, and went to New York and San Francisco as well as LA.

Expo also has been a resident at the legendary Root Down weekly party in LA since 2005 and has had the pleasure of sharing the stage with such luminaries as Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, Grandmaster Flash, Big Daddy Kane, Z-Trip, the Beat Junkies, Cut Chemist, The Breakestra, 45 King, DJ Nu-Mark, Madlib, and many more. Expo has rocked across the country from Hawaii, to Los Angeles, the Bay Area, Phoenix, Las Vegas, St Louis, New York, and more. Be sure not to miss Expo igniting the dance floor in a town near you! To find out more about him and where he’s spinning at, visit: www.myspace.com/djexpo_bhs

Soulmarcosa

DJ Danny Holloway|| Listen

Saturday 01.28.12: FUNKY SOLE @ Echo

10pm / FREE / 21+

with DJs:
Music Man Miles
Clifton AKA Soft Touch

FMI: Funky Sole on Myspace

Sunday 01.29.12: FYF Presents: H2O w/ ROTTING OUT and JOYCE MANOR @ Echo

Get Tickets Here

6pm / $12 adv; $14 day of show / ALL AGES

H2O || Listen||Watch
H2O is a band that had beginnings like any other band. No one could have guessed that a few guys from New York, who started as a one-song side project with former-Sick Of It All roadie Toby Morse and a few friends, would turn into a world-touring powerhouse. They took humble roots and worked their way to add their chapter to the long history of New York Hardcore and they would define the term “melodic hardcore” that would become so common years later. H2O from 1996 to 2003 was unavoidab…read morele- four albums on Blackout!, Epitaph, and MCA records with over 300,000 copies sold, constant world touring with the likes of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Rancid, AFI, Pennywise, & the Used, Sick Of It All, the Misfits, 7 Seconds, and Madball, as well as runs on the Warped Tour-they established themselves as a household name and inspired countless others in their wake. In the pre-internet world of hardcore and punk, H2O was the band that bridged the heavily-tattooed, unbridled rage of New York bands like the Cro-Mags and Agnostic Front, with the punk melodies of bands like the Descendents and Token Entry that would change the face of independent music forever as bands a decade. It’s now 2008 and H20 is still here, but Nothing To Prove is not a comeback – that’s way too simple. Nothing to Prove is a statement of everything the band is and a taste of what the band will be in the future – and it’s nothing short of incredible. Frontman Toby Morse said it best, “This time feels urgent. I feel everything on this album has been building up over the last seven years. That’s why this album is titled Nothing To Prove – because it’s all out on the table.” This is H2O’s most personal, most angry, most positive, hardest, yet catchiest album to date, and it comes into a scene not unlike the scene that H2O originally entered. Hardcore and punk as concepts have been diluted, confused and hyphenated to the point where it’s a marketing term. Nothing To Prove is a ten-song breath of fresh air and honesty that is poised to revive an otherwise stagnant “scene”. The re-emergence of H2O hits with the first notes of the opening track, “1995.” Only a few solitary chords before the crashing of a fast, raw and melodic song, complete with classic sing-alongs and a perfect breakdown. The title track is next and while it’s only a minute and a half blast, “Nothing To Prove” sums up H2O’s manifesto for this release: the band is back and while their history speaks for itself, they’re not resting on any laurels. Featuring Agnostic Front’s Roger Miret and the one and only Danny Diablo, the band shows they haven’t forgotten where they came from. As the album progresses, H2O reminds the listener that their penchant for infectious anthems and choruses has not dissipated one bit. Lyrically, we see Toby Morse as up front and honest as he’s ever been. Anthems about being straight edge in his 30’s (“Still Here”), to being a responsible adult with tattoos (“Heart On My Sleeve”), and the personal sacrifices and vulnerabilities we all feel (“Unconditional”) are all present on Nothing to Prove. With “Sunday,” listeners get a stunning display of Morse’s personal story – the passing of his father when he and his brother, H2O guitarist, Todd Morse, were young children, and the subsequent birth of his own child on the same day of the week. Toby bares it all in one of the most personal songs H20 has written. Ending with the anthem, and first single, “What Happened?” we are presented with a testament to the power of H2O. The song is an anthem about questioning the ethics and motives of bands and music in general today, but the subject is addressed in a positive way. And all the while, no other band could take an already infectious anthem and up the ante with appearances by Lou Koller of Sick Of It All and Matt Skiba from Alkaline Trio both showing what they do best. It’s a formidable closer and it’s the last statement in an album that is the most forthright in their career thus far – their hearts are on their sleeves and you only have roughly twenty-six minutes to appreciate it.. Bassist Adam Blake commented, “This is the first time I’ve ever seen Toby NEEDING to write lyrics. He just kept writing and writing and writing and it came so easy to him once he got started.” What makes Nothing To Prove such a monumental album is that it is a collaboration of many long-time H2O fans, only now, instead of stage-diving and singing along, they’re behind the boards of the recording studio, designing the artwork and releasing the albums. Produced by longtime fan and friend of the band, Chad Gilbert (New Found Glory), a new perspective was brought in. Toby said, “Chad really knew how to make us take good songs and make them sound great.” Gilbert stated, “I wanted to see H2O make the album that H2O fans wanted to hear. They needed to make this record and I’m really proud to be a part of it.” Bridge Nine Records’ owner Chris Wrenn and label manager Karl Hensel both have their own histories with H2O running over a decade as well. “This entire project has been amazing,” Wrenn stated. “Everyone involved is passionate about the album and it’s been a great experience watching this album get created start to finish and to see the band’s reaction and excitement about the finished product. They’ve never had this kind of control or say in every last aspect of the process. It’s an honor that H2O is a part of our legacy and it’s an honor that Bridge Nine is apart of H2O’s legacy.” Nothing To Prove is in stores May 27th, and H2O, much like you’d expect, is hitting every corner of the globe spreading the word that H2O is undeniably back.

Rotting Out || Listen||Watch
“one of the most talked about hardcore bands coming out of Southern California at the moment.” But Seriously Folks

Joyce Manor || Listen||Watch
One of the most promising bands coming from the South Bay/West L.A. area (the forgotten side of the city), the band’s signature–honest, abrasive pop punk–has been packing houses, venues, backyards, and basements across the country. LA Weekly

Sunday 01.29.12: PART TIME PUNKS Presents: THE CURE NITE with Guest DJ Alex Transistor @ Echo

10pm / $5 / 18+

Guest DJ Alex Transistor
resident dj Michael Stock spinning mutant disco * Postpunk * indiepop

FMI: Part Time Punks on Myspace

Monday 01.30.12: The Echo and Feed Your Head Present Monday Night Residency with: SEASONS / ROBOTANISTS / LITTLE RED LUNG / PAULIE PESH @ Echo

8:30pm / Free / 21+

Seasons performing as a “12 piece band” with String Sections and Horn Sections.

Seasons || LISTEN || WATCH
The band: Seasons, an L.A. quintet.

The sound: On fresh material such as “Light, Lost” and “Of Our Discontent,” Seasons crafts airy, spacious guitar rock. With local producer Raymond Richards on the boards (Local Natives), the group’s latest EP is full of polished touches. This Highland Park based band plays a tender yet voluminous brand of indie rock, combining winding guitar riffs and Colin Meloy-esque vocals with a veritable forest of carefully arranged flourishes. The synthesizers, keyboards, percussion, and violin never overpower the basic emotional appeal that runs throughout the newest EP instead serving to create a sweetly melancholy atmosphere in which you can easily float away.

The random: For their “Of Our Discontent” video, the band nabbed actress Mahaley Manning, best known for mean-girling poor Emma Stone in “Easy A.”

The details: Seasons music is available now digitally on Bandcamp. The band will release their new EP “Autumn” on Overhead Records January 2nd at The Echo where they will also host a residency there for that month. Each week in January the band will be playing a different EP in its entirety along with transforming the venue each week to fit the climate and mood of each album. – LA TIMES

Robotanists || Listen || Watch
The soaring melodic sounds of indie-pop quartet Robatanists are both fun and meaningful, danceable but headphone material as well. Riding the wave of the electro trend, they manage not to overdo it like a lot of these types do. Their third album, Plans In Progress, has an overall light and pretty feel, with cascading beats, airy guitars, and heart-heavy vocals. The dreamy and nostalgic track “The Ghost You’re Haunting” has a similar feel to Yeah Yeah Yeah’s “Cheated Hearts”, with fading chants in the background, fluttering guitar reverbs, and an impressive showcase of Ellquist’s vocals during the bridge. Their single “On/Off The Ledge” is a bit darker and progressive, and the music video is a visual mind blow. Set atop a Los Angeles rooftop, the elements of the video are Warhol-esque, as some bright pops of color and art are thrown in with the party scene captured. Robotanists set themselves apart from most bands, keeping an upbeat and interesting style at the same time as being deep and sensual. The Deli Magazine

Little Red Lung || LISTEN || WATCH
In 2007, Los Angeles’ Little Red Lung was seeded as a dramatic, dynamic and genre-defying musical exhibition, performing in small avant-garde venues across the city of Los Angeles, as well as assembling an extended arsenal of recorded material. In 2009, the band began a two year transplant to the foothills of East Tennessee, stirring the production pot that would eventually emerge as their upcoming debut full-length album “Get on the Boat.” After an extensive Eastern US tour in the Fall of 2010, they permanently transplanted back to their home stomping ground to form a new lineup(Zoe-Ruth Erwin, Ali Nikou, Rob Hume, Nathan Kondor and Charlene Huang), put the finishing touches on their debut record, and to nose dive into the live music scene.
Currently, Little Red Lung is rapidly filling up their calendar with live performances in and around the Los Angeles area including being featured on the Ship Stage at the 13th Annual Eagle Rock Music Festival, and venues such as The Hotel Cafe, The Satellite, The Bootleg Theater, Pehrspace, The Echo, and The Central SAPC, as well as hatching production on their second full length album.

Paulie Pesh || LISTEN || WATCH
If Paulie Pesh’s orchestral pop songs don’t make you smile, maybe your face is broken. The L.A. singer-songwriter, whose “Shining Stars” EP displayed the classic pop sensibilities of a guy who wears his heart on his sleeve, returns this week with the “Post Mortem” EP, produced by Chris Schlarb. The new tracks orbit in the galaxy of stars such as Paul Simon and Randy Newman, and the title song sways amid horns, keys and plucked strings. All rather mushy and romantic, and completely likable.Buzz Bands

Tuesday 01.31.12: DALE EARNHARDT JR. JR. / NO / THE ONE AM RADIO @ Echoplex

Get Tickets Here

8:30pm / $15.00 adv; $18.00 day of show; $19.00 walk up day of show / 18+

Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. || Listen||Watch
Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr aren’t very Motor City, even if they have named themselves after a stock car racer and wear NASCAR jumpsuits and caps. They profess to have been reared on Motown but you’d never know it from their music, which doesn’t bear much influence of the Stooges or MC5, Alice Cooper or Kiss either, nor techno or any other music from Michigan’s capital city, unless you can think of a musician from there who specialises in summery rhythms, airy harmonies and light, breezy melodies. Ted Nugent? Don’t be silly.

Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr have probably never killed a wild boar with their bare hands but they have released an EP called Horse Power. If ever there was a disconnect between imagery and music, it is this. Lovely stuff, to be sure, but it’s never going to soundtrack a stock car pile-up. It’s not totally wimpy and winsome. Nothing But Our Love is semi-acoustic but the beat is tough and the electronics swirling, with some of the dreamy psychedelicacy of Flaming Lips or Freelance Whales. Simple Girl begins with whistling and has the freewheeling melodicism of early McCartney or Steve Stills – the refrain is pure Marrakesh Express, only the song is given a psych-ish sheen to indicate that this is indie or alt-rock not Guilty Pleasures ironic. Vocal Chords opens with a solemn Beach Boys chorale before giving way to hi-life guitar, a bouncy rhythm and ecstatic chorus that wouldn’t be out of place on a Vampire Weekend album.

They make explicit their affection for Brian Wilson – and brother Carl, who sang it – on their faithful cover of God Only Knows, the fourth track on the EP, which they recorded in a basement, just like Alex Winston did (the rent in Detroit must be cheaper the lower you go), using drum machines and samplers. Now all they’ve got to do is wrap up their other bands – Zott’s group the Great Fiction have just finished an album while Epstein’s Silent Years released an EP last year – and start assembling an album’s worth of this sweet psych pop. They might also want to be prepared for the brickbats that are coming their way because of the NASCAR outfits and their name, which at least one critic described as the worst in rock history (he’s obviously not familiar with Toad the Wet Sprocket). As for the uniforms, we like them, although we’d be concerned about sweating onstage. Maybe they should do a Nugent and keep a couple of loincloths handy.Guardian UK

NO || LISTEN || WATCH
The un-Googleable group released their first EP “Don’t Worry You’ll Be Here Forever” for free on their website a couple of months ago and it’s an excellent start. The gorgeous baritone Carter summons is impressive, reminding me of soulful crooner Richard Hawley and Matt Berninger from The National at times…KCRW

The One AM Radio || Listen||Watch
The One AM Radio is a project based in Los Angeles, where the sun hasn’t completely thawed its New England roots. Songwriter and producer Hrishikesh Hirway makes music about the feeling you get while driving home, fast, late at night, through half-empty streets.

The project began in New England, where Hrishikesh was studying design and photography at Yale. With a borrowed guitar, a 4-track, and a drum machine, he made cassettes for his friends and his sister to fall asleep to—instrumental lullabies mixed with staticky murmurs of talk radio.

Hirway started writing lyrics and singing over his music, and began performing, using what he’d written on the label on the first cassette — “The One AM Radio” — as a moniker.

Ted Leo gave Hrishikesh his real start and his first release, after the two played a show together, inviting him to come record in Boston at Radium City, Ted’s home recording studio. Those recordings were released as a split 7-inch with Ted Leo and the Pharmacists.

Because of Hrishikesh’s musical roots, The One AM Radio became an unlikely part of the DIY hardcore scene, playing and touring alongside screamy punk bands in sweaty basements. The homemade recordings were released in the form of EPs and 7”s on a variety of hardcore labels, as well as Hirway’s own DIY imprint, Translucence.

By the time 2004’s A Name Writ In Water was released, people outside of the hardcore community had started to take notice. Pitchfork reviewed the album glowingly, giving it an 8.1 rating, noting “Hirway’s prose is peppered with imagistic bits of landscape. His compositions simply feel colossal…the maps he draws are beautiful.” Time Out New York deemed it one of the top ten albums of the year, and called the “dream mix of vocals, guitars, synths, violins, and ambient beats…both lush and thoughtful.”

That year, between touring and working odd jobs and freelancing as a designer, Hirway began a nomadic lifestyle, criss-crossing the country in his car, with his belongings limited to what could fit in his trunk. He eventually left the US to spend time in his parents’ home country of India, and began writing and recording what would become the album This Too Will Pass while living in Mumbai.

Hirway found himself back in Los Angeles, where he had once lived briefly, but long enough to fall in and collaborate with the likes of Daedelus and the dublab crew, the online radio collective at the heart of the LA experimental electronic scene. This time, shedding the wanderlust that had guided him for so long, he decided to try and make the city his home.

There, he made the acquaintance of the folks at Dangerbird Records, who signed him to release This Too Will Pass.

Los Angeles proved to be a fertile and fortuitous home base for Hirway, as a place where he could continue his unique aesthetic among a collection of luminaries who were like-minded if not exactly like-sounding. He remixed tracks for Jimmy Tamborello (of Dntel and the Postal Service) and LA beat-scene breakout star Baths, who had been a longtime fan of The One AM Radio. (The three acts later toured together, nationally, in August 2011, under the name The Soft Alarm Tour.)

Hrishikesh started making Heaven Is Attached by a Slender Thread during sleepless nights. Tony Hoffer, who has produced albums for Beck, Phoenix, Belle and Sebastian, and Air, ended up hearing demos of some of the early songs and reached out to get involved with the recording. Hoffer took an the role of an advisor, and Hirway would send him his hand-crafted organic electronic songs. Hoffer eventually became the executive producer and mixer for the record.

For Hirway, the new LP is about living on the fumes of dreams and hopes, which also happen to be what the plastic city of Los Angeles is built on, and what it is constantly confirming—and betraying. At one point, Hrishikesh’s idea was to make a dance record, and now, he admits, that’s not really how it turned out. But the album does make you want to move, to run, to get in the car and drive fast through the empty city in the middle of the night — to remember how tenuous the hold is on all the things you have, and want, and long for.

Tuesday 01.31.12: K.FLAY @ Echo

Get Tickets Here

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

KFlay || Listen || Watch
San Francisco’s K. Flay is the next big thing in hip hop. She’s shared a stage with Snoop Dogg, Ludacris, and 3OH!3, but this May she’ll be setting off to the UK for a trio of her own special appearances (at Proud Galleries, KOKO and The Great Escape Festival).
To spread her unique form of music – which involves creating her own beats, mixes, songwriting and production – she’s been giving away a three-part mixtape for free over at kflay.com.NME

Fat Tony || Listen || Watch
This Houston Native brings a fresh take on the genre of rap. His debut album, RABDARGAB, contains a unique message which pleasantly surprised the underground music scene. Fat Tony has collaborated with artists such as Das Racist, Tecla, Smash Bro, and more.Rolling Out

Random Citizens || Listen || Watch
What started out as a solo project called The Hitchhikers Guide to Insanity, eventually turned into Random Citizens. This group merges hip hop, electronic, and experimental genres and creates something completely original. Add that with their powerful stage presence and you’ve got yourself an amazing live show.
hello interview

Doc P || Listen
Doc P is a member of Random Citizens. When he’s not performing with them, he has his solo career as a DJ. His music will have you up on the dance floor. Get ready to party!