Thursday 07.02.09: KROQ LOCALS ONLY presents “Kick Out The Clots” - Benefit for Jennifer Tefft with SHE WANTS REVENGE / LADIES CHOIR / GREAT NOTHERN AND MORE @ echoplex

with:
She Wants Revenge || Listen || Watch
Moving Units || Listen (DJ SET)
Dead Meadow || Listen
LA Ladies Choir (with Becky Stark, Eleni Mandell & more)
Great Northern || Listen
The Honorary Title (solo set)
Rocco DeLuca || Listen
Nico Stai
Useless Keys || Listen

DJ sets from Kevin Bronson, Dia and Sylvia

Enter at Echoplex
1154 Glendale Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026

7pm / $25 / 18+

Thursday 07.02.09: AMAZING BABY / BAND OF SKULLS / DAZZLER @ Hammer Museum

Amazing Baby || Listen
Band of Skulls || Listen
Dazzler || Listen

Hammer Museum
10899 Wilshire Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90024

8pm / FREE / all ages

Friday 07.03.09: Club Underground, Hang The DJs, Transistor & Cafe Bleu present COME TOGETHER @ echoplex & echo

4 of your favorite indie clubs come together for 1 massive event!

with all the original DJs from all the clubs:
Chris B
Dia
Larry G
Mark
Clifton
Dorian
Alex
Scarlett
Maurice De La Falaise

spinning Indie * UK Pop * 60s * Soul * Mod * Shoegaze

enter at Echo
1822 Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026

9pm / $10 before 10:30pm with flyer, $15 after / 18+

Saturday 07.04.09: BOOTIE LA @ echoplex

BOOTIE on the 4th OF JULY!
LA’s monthly mashup bootleg party

Mashup fireworks with DJs:
DJ PAUL V.
DJ SHYBOY

Bootie LA’s resident dance crew:
R.A.I.D. (Random Acts of Irreverent Dance)

Free Bootie mashup CDs for the first 75 people!

Bootie celebrates the 4th of July, bootleg-style! This month, resident DJ Paul V., along with special guest DJ Shyboy, bring the mashup fireworks to the dance floor. Bootie’s 15-person dance crew R.A.I.D. (Random Acts of Irreverent Dance) will hit the Echoplex stage around midnight in their trademark gold suits, ready to do a special Independence Day performance! Don’t miss it!

Launched in 2003, 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 monthly parties in eight cities on three continents. Mixing and matching every conceivable musical genre, era, and style into one big dance party where everyone feels welcome, Bootie provides the soundtrack for the A.D.D. generation — with free mashup CDs given away like candy!

Bootie’s resident DJs keep your brain guessing and body dancing with creative song combinations, celebrating — and satirizing — the many different forms of music. Resident dance crew R.A.I.D. (Random Acts of Irreverent Dance) performs a mashed-up dance number nearly every month. Bootie showcases the best in mashup productions from around the globe and delivers them on the dance floor … because one song at a time just isn’t enough!

@ Echoplex
enter at
1154 Glendale Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026

FMI: http://www.BootieLA.com

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

Saturday 07.04.09: FUNKY SOLE @ echo

with DJs:
Music Man Miles
Clifton AKA Soft Touch

FMI: Funky Sole on Myspace

10pm / FREE / 21+

Sunday 07.05.09: PART TIME PUNKS with TALL HANDS / TIJUANA PANTHERS @ echo

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

With:
Tall Hands || Listen
Tijuana Panthers

FMI:
Part Time Punks on Myspace

10pm / $5 / 18+

Monday 07.06.09: Monday night Residency - JAPANESE MOTORS / MY PET SADDLE / AUDACITY / GESTAPO KHAZI @ echo

Japanese Motors || Watch

Japanese Motors are the most exciting band to emerge from Orange County since the heyday of Social Distortion and TSOL. Hailing from Costa Mesa, the Japanese Motors are made up by main vocalist Alex Knost, guitarist Nolan Hall, bassist Daniel Michicoff, and drummer Andrew Atkinson, the band is known around Southern California for the insane, all-night blowouts they put on as much as for the driving, raucous garage pop they set the partying to.

Rather than fight the influence of their surroundings like so many of their So Cal contemporaries, Japanese Motors have channeled it into their music, making tunes every bit as sun-baked and laid-back as their coastal environs and rife with positive imagery. “Most bands from here are trying to sound like they’re from London or New York,” Nolan says. “We embrace where we’re from.”

With:
Audacity || Listen
My Pet Saddle
Gestapo Khazi

8:30pm / FREE / 21+

Tuesday 07.07.09: KITTY, DAISY, & LEWIS / LE SWITCH @ echo

Kitty, Daisy & Lewis || Watch

Multi-instrumentalists Kitty Daisy & Lewis play guitar, piano, banjo, lap steel guitar, harmonica, double bass, ukulele, trombone and accordion between them. Their debut album was recorded in glorious, utterly digital-free analogue by Lewis and his father Graeme in their home studio in Kentish Town. A stickler for living and breathing the music they play and talk so passionately about, Lewis DJs, collects and even cuts his own 78rpm records himself when he isn’t recording with his sisters. This obsessive passion for the vintage music that inspires their performances led to their compilation ‘A - Z of Kitty, Daisy & Lewis - The Roots Of Rock n Roll’ being named one of The Guardian’s 2007 ‘Albums Of The Year – 5/5′.

No dry exercise in musical luddism, their 2008 debut album swings with the passion, intensity and sheer exuberant joie de vivre that makes their live shows one of the UK gig circuit’s greatest and most innocent pleasures. The album is a mixture of the covers their dad used to sing to them when they were children, like ‘Going Up The Country’ - a perfectly rounded summer holiday feel-good jam, full of harmonica solos, handclaps and lyrics about leaving the city smog for fairer country hills - together with new material like the heart torn ‘Buggin’ Blues’, written by Lewis and inspired by the great late Otis Spann (Chess Records) and latest single ‘(Baby) Hold Me Tight’, written by Kitty and featuring Skatalites contemporary Eddy ‘Tan Tan’ Thornton. Kitty Daisy & Lewis’ second artist album is due in 2010. - Sunday Best

with:
Le Switch || Listen

8pm / $10adv; $12dos / all ages

Wednesday 07.08.09: Myspace Records presents ROOTBEER / U-N-I / BOOMBOX NINJAS @ echo

Rootbeer || Watch

The simple shortcut to that Rootbeer descriptive word puzzle could be something like “MGMT injected with some N.E.R.D and A Tribe Called Quest”. As clearly evident in their lyrics and style, Flynn Adam and Pigeon John are unapologetic purveyors of popular culture. Rather than making an escape attempt on this debut to something that was some subtle artistic departure from the Lost Angels-flavored West Coast underground laid back rap that raised them, the duo has grown more apt to fully open their arms and embrace a vast array of what is relative to their own contemporary culture consumption today.

With an even more upped-tempo vocal cadence dancing on top of beatscapes that awaken even the hippest of skeptics, the music will make you jump up like a chimpanzee. An unbelievably charismatic live show, mixed with the most infectious hooks you’ve wrapped your ears around in quite some time, Rootbeer slaps a smile on your face that you simply can’t contain. Like some of the lyrics remind you: “It feels so good, feels so great, feels so wonderful,” so tune in and dig it!

with:
U-N-I || Listen
Boombox Ninjas

8pm / FREE / all ages

Wednesday 07.08.09: DUB CLUB @ echoplex

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

Spinning the best in classic reggae, dub and dancehall

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

9pm / $5 / 21+

Thursday 07.09.09: STEVE WYNN & THE MIRACLE THREE / THE URINALS @ echo

Steve Wynn & The Miracle Three || Listen || Watch

For fans of the seminal LA post-punk band, Medicine Show is a pretty polarizing record. Coming off the overwhelming enthusiasm for the band’s debut album, Days of Wine & Roses, the follow-up was a departure, to say the least. Wynn’s voice was put way out front by Medicine Show producer Sandy Pearlman (best known for his work with Blue Oyster Cult, and ruining the Clash’s sophomore record, Give ‘Em Enough Rope). Gone was bassist/future Opal ingenue Kendra Smith. And unlike Chris D’s hands-off approach on Wine & Roses, Pearlman pushed Wynn further to the center — and baffled at least one adolescent Midwesterner eager to hear a follow-up to “Halloween” and “Too Little, Too Late” instead of a different, more in-your-face brand of guitar jamming.
Does Medicine Show hold up after a quarter-century? We don’t know; we admittedly haven’t listened to it in 24 years and 11 months. But West Coast Sound is nothing if not open-minded, and is very curious to find out. (It’s worth noting that Wynn performed The Days of Wine and Roses in its entirety in LA in 2001. This is a natural follow-up.)

“”Medicine Show’ is the weirdest, most idiosyncratic, nastiest, funniest and most revealing record the Dream Syndicate ever made,” wrote Wynn in the liner notes from Medicine Show’s 1991 reissue — and reprinted in the press release. “It’s also my favorite.”

Steve Wynn and the Miracle 3 perform Medicine Show at the Echo on July 9. - LA Weekly

With:
The Urinals

8pm / $10 / 18+

Thursday 07.09.09: DUSTY RHODES AND THE RIVER BAND / THESE UNITED STATES / OLIN AND THE MOON @ echoplex

Dusty Rhodes and The River Band || Listen || Watch

Difficult to classify, but easy to like, Dusty Rhodes and his merry clan are a refreshing antidote to the world of easy-to-label pop, rock and indie groups. This, their second full-length album, brings songs steeped in multiple influences from jazz and blues, to country and classic rock‘n’roll. Thanks to three distinct vocalists, a classically trained fiddler, and a hyperactive keyboard frontman, it really works. High-energy, experimental fun. - Daily Express

with:
These United States || Listen
Olin & The Moon

@ Echoplex
enter at 1154 Glendale Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026

8pm / $10 / 18+

Friday 07.10.09: Echo & Club Underground present THE RURAL ALBERTA ADVANTAGE @ echo

The Rural Alberta Advantage || Listen

The next band up, The Rural Alberta Advantage, were a complete surprise. I had never come across the name, and didn’t bother tracking down any songs beforehand; the eMusic honcho who introduced them said we were “in for a treat,” and it turns out he was right. The Canadian trio (“rural Alberta” isn’t just a clever name, apparently) makes a sort of rustic, scorched-earth Americana not unlike Centro-Matic, though far heavier on the percussion—and way livelier, thanks to the antics of Manic Pixie Indie Girl Amy Cole, who spent most of the set bouncing from place to place, banging on tambourines, whipping out the occasional glockenspiel solo, and adding the cooling undercurrents to singer Paul Banwatt’s ragged ruminations. Things started a bit slow with more run-of-the-mill country-ish numbers, but they won me over the minute Banwatt ended a song by beating on his acoustic guitar, then sheepishly pronouncing that it now had “a big SXSW crack in it.” (I feel like I’ve been on SXSW crack for a couple days now.) At set’s end, the three of them filed off stage into the middle of the aisle to play “Good Night” acoustically, which they said they’d always wanted to perform in a church. The sparse, mournful number was ridiculously quiet and intimate but still filled up the chapel—really, you could have heard a proverbial pin drop—and you could even see faces starting to mist; it was one of those “special” concert moments that are far too rare these days, and it’s safe to say RAA won quite a few new fans in that moment. - The Onion AV Club

8:30pm / $8 Advance, $10 day of show / 18+

Friday 07.10.09: SPACE ISLAND @ echoplex

Space Island || Myspace || More Info

With:
VibeSquaD
Knowa Knowone
Henry Strange

Enter at:
@ Echoplex
1154 Glendale Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026

9pm / 21+

Saturday 07.11.09: SATURDAYS OFF THE 405 with MAS EXITOS / DOMINGO SIETE @ the getty center

Mas Exitos (DJ Collective)

Fridays Off the 405 are now Saturdays Off the 405! The free outdoor performance series is back on Saturday nights this summer with a lively mix of today’s most exciting emerging bands and DJ sets to open and close the night. And starting this summer, parking is free at the Getty Center on Saturdays after 5pm.

Mas Exitos, the legendary twice-a-month event held at the Verdugo Bar in Highland Park, comes to the Getty! The DJ collective—featuring Lengua, Hoseh, Ganas, and Enorbito—unfold their international music selections and transform the Museum Courtyard into a hot spot south of the border.

Think of it as a National Geographic documentary on sound that takes you from the Andes of Peru to the streets of Mexico City to the East Side of L.A.—cumbias, low-rider music, tropicalia, funky jazz oddities, y más. Listen as the crew plays their heritage on turntables.

With:
DJ Hoseh
DJ Lengua
DJ Exorbito
DJ Ganas
Domingo Siete || Listen

Getty Center Courtyard
1200 Getty Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90049

6pm / FREE / all ages

Saturday 07.11.09: DRAGSTRIP 66 @ echoplex

Drag is never required - but it’s gets you $5 Admission all night!
___________________________________________________

Dragstrip 66 is LA’s longest running, underground dance club.
January 2009 marked its 16th Anniversary, and the club now
happens on the 2nd Saturday of the month, quarterly at The Echoplex.

Each Dragstrip has a different theme as a touchstone to inspire
its patrons to dress in any form of drag, masquerade, or self-expression.
The crowd is a totally fun, friendly mix of gay, straight, bi, and in-between!

So come on - get your kicks, at Dragstrip 66!

@ Echoplex
enter at
1154 Glendale Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026

FMI:
http://www.dragstrip66.com/
Dragstrip 66 on Myspace
Dragstrip 66 on Facebook

9pm / $15 / 21+

Saturday 07.11.09: FUNKY SOLE @ echo

with DJs:
Music Man Miles
Clifton AKA Soft Touch

FMI: Funky Sole on Myspace

10pm / FREE / 21+

Sunday 07.12.09: ONEIDA / AMPS FOR CHRIST / CLIP’D BEAKS @ echo

Oneida || Listen || Watch

Oneida are sneaky. Without most people realizing it, they somehow crept into being one of the best bands out there around the time of 2004’s Secret Wars, an album so rich and eventful and simultaneously weird and rocking that even the band which made it sometimes feels recently like they’ve been playing catch-up. The Wedding and Happy New Year both took their eternally wandering muse in a more overtly psychedelic direction, and found the band in fine form. Now they’re going back. But to what? The flippant answer might be to the light light light light light light, at least if you’ve heard their exquisitely punishing 2002 album Each One Teach One and more specifically the opening fourteen-minute pummel, “Sheets of Easter” (the first song to really build on what Spacemen 3 did with “Suicide”). Preteen Weaponry is one 39-minute composition in three parts, not as unrelenting as “Sheets of Easter” or its companion “Antidotes” were, but certainly largely akin to them. The relative mellowness of the band’s last few albums appears to have rubbed off onto this one, although the howling feedback as part one of “Preteen Weaponry” opens might throw you off a bit. As the music toys around with Indian modalities and vaguely “tribal”-sounding drum thump, even as it remains almost fiercely repetitive, you might start thinking of Amon Duul II or Ash Ra Tempel, which is fair. Another good point of comparison might be the sui generis Australian trio The Necks.

The result goes all over the place as much as any ruthlessly focused track can; the second part is certainly much less busy, and the third movement with its odd tones and gnashing drums begins to sound a bit like Two Lone Swordsmen’s memorably gonzo remix of Spiritualized’s “Come Together,” but if you’re not paying attention, you’re almost certain not to notice when the track index changes. This is one long journey, but it’s a remarkably consistent one (it’s interesting to note they’re apparently playing the album live, as you wonder how strictly they follow the text when replicating it), for better and for worse. It makes Preteen Weaponry a very hate-it-or-love-it effort, although Krautrock/comische music/whatever exactly you want to try calling this thing is rare and outré enough that it shouldn’t be very hard to know if you’re going to like it. If you’re into this particular form of mind expansion, Oneida can be trusted; if not, it doesn’t really matter how good they are. - Popmatters

With:
Amps for Christ || Listen
Clip’d Beaks

2pm / $8adv; $10dos / all ages

Sunday 07.12.09: Grand Ole Echo with GINA VILLALOBOS (CD RELEASE PARTY) @ echo

Gina Villalobos || Listen

5:00pm / FREE / All Ages

Sunday 07.12.09: PART TIME PUNKS with THE SUMMER CATS / THE TARTANS @ echo

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

With:
The Summer Cats
The Tartans

FMI:
Part Time Punks on Myspace

10pm / $5 / 18+

Monday 07.13.09: Monday Night Residency - JAPANESE MOTORS / DIRT DRESS / UV LIGHTS / CORREATOWN @ echo

Japanese Motors || Watch

Japanese Motors are the most exciting band to emerge from Orange County since the heyday of Social Distortion and TSOL. Hailing from Costa Mesa, the Japanese Motors are made up by main vocalist Alex Knost, guitarist Nolan Hall, bassist Daniel Michicoff, and drummer Andrew Atkinson, the band is known around Southern California for the insane, all-night blowouts they put on as much as for the driving, raucous garage pop they set the partying to.

Rather than fight the influence of their surroundings like so many of their So Cal contemporaries, Japanese Motors have channeled it into their music, making tunes every bit as sun-baked and laid-back as their coastal environs and rife with positive imagery. “Most bands from here are trying to sound like they’re from London or New York,” Nolan says. “We embrace where we’re from.”

With:
Dirt Dress || Listen
UV Lights
Correatown || Listen

8:30pm / FREE / 21+

Tuesday 07.14.09: THE DATSUNS @ echo

The Datsuns || Listen || Watch

On the one hand, this is simply rock ‘n’ roll at its primal best: lots of loud guitars, tons of “whoa whoa” and “hey hey” choruses and new drummer Ben Cole bashing out a beat that’s all fury and speed. But there’s an underlying complexity here as well. “Your Bones” is epic, meshing the guitar lines of classic Zeppelin with the moody, psychedelic tinge of Jane’s Addiction. And the keyboard-slanted “Hey! Paranoid People” aligns itself closer to the post-punk goofiness of Devo. Nothing startlingly new here, but proof that using boisterous, three-chord rock as your foundation can still bring about some surprising results. - Metromix

8:30pm / $10adv; $12dos / 18+

Wednesday 07.15.09: FOL CHEN / 60 WATT KID @ pershing square

Fol Chen || Listen || Watch

“We are cryptic and joyful and we would like you to dance,” claim the enigmatic Fol Chen, likening themselves to the mysterious black monolith on the cover of Zep’s Presence – a complete red herring as regards the group’s musical approach, which favours synths and strings rather than rock and riffs.

One aspect they do share with the former rock gods is a careless attitude to personal responsibility, with the protagonist of “Cable TV” trying to lure the object of her affections to some dubious motel, while the singer of “You and Your Sister in Jericho” offers her temptations more bluntly: “Fuck your friends, they don’t care/ Smoke too much, and dye your hair,” she murmurs enticingly, while guitar, pedal steel and horns perform a slow, slurred waltz over an enervated drum-machine pulse, before it all dissolves into a blur of drums and thunderous distortion. It’s impossible to pin the sextet down to a specific area of the musical map: one moment they create a kind of quirky electro-pop, as on the funky “No Wedding Cake”, but elsewhere, disparate elements – lumbering, brusque drums; lap steel; prepared-piano; calliope-textured synth lines; various horns – are mingled in intriguing combinations that avoid definition. - The Independent UK

With:
60 Watt Kid || Listen

Pershing Square
532 South Olive Street
Los Angeles, CA 90013

7pm / FREE / All ages

Wednesday 07.15.09: DUB CLUB @ echoplex

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

Spinning the best in classic reggae, dub and dancehall

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

9pm / $5 / 21+

Thursday 07.16.09: Dub Frequency presents THE VERY BEST / RAINBOW ARABIA / BERSA DISCOS @ echoplex

The Very Best || Watch

It’s easy to be cynical about this process of easing Western listeners into Esau Mwamwaya’s music– RIYL Vampire Weekend, Ruby Suns, other English-language artists cribbing from African music– until you hear the music itself, and in particular the whole of he and Radioclit’s free mixtape, Are the Very Best. Once you get through the indie-guarded gates, Mwamwaya and Radioclit are open here to everything from South Africa’s marabi and kwaito music to Hans Zimmer scores to French and American hip-hop to Michael Jackson– and in most cases, it’s the tracks that lean furthest away from the familiar that work best. The regal “Sister Betina”, BLK JKS collaboration “Salota”, and Radioclit productions “Funa Funa” and “Kada Manja” are as immediately likable as the rest of the mix. And, frankly, much of the best-known source material here– “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa”, the AiH backdrop on “Kamphopo”, the True Romance via Badlands theme on “Chikandi”, the loathsome Beatles song “Birthday”– is either simply a blueprint or sketch for other ideas, or is vastly improved by Mwamwaya’s treatments.

Mwamwaya’s cultural cross-section is no accident. Although he sings in his native Chichewa, he met Radioclit’s Etienne Tron when he sold the producer a used bike in a London junkshop. Despite that, Mwamwaya and Radioclit’s talents lie far beyond cultural fusion and curatorial skills: In short, they’ve created just about the most listenable and flat-out enjoyable record of the year– and one that happens to dovetail nicely with the urgency for and overdue embrace of morally guided globalism. - Pitchfork

With:
Rainbow Arabia || Listen
Bersa Discos

@ Echoplex
enter at
1154 Glendale Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026

8:30pm / $13 Advance, $15 Day of Show / 18+

Thursday 07.16.09: LA (heart) SF with THE MONOLATORS / FRENCH MIAMI / THE FLYING TOURBILLON ORCHESTRA / KISSING COUSINS @ echo

The Monolators || Listen
French Miami
The Flying Tourbillon Orchestra || Listen
Kissing Cousins

Presented by Flavorpill / Radio Free Silver Lake / Indie Online Radio

8:30pm / $5 / 18+

Friday 07.17.09: THREE MILE PILOT @ echoplex

Three Mile Pilot || Listen

TMP was one of the most engaging and influential left-field bands in SD rock-roll; their progeny looks like Slint’s family tree, with the top branches occupied by international indie darlings Pinback and Black Heart Procession. Not bad for a bass, drum, and piano band. Of high school kids! Pall, Zack, and Tobias have grown up, and grown, and will share a stage for the first time in ten years. - San Diego Reader

@ Echoplex
enter at
1154 Glendale Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90291

Save Money when you order tickets by mobile phone
text pilot to 467467

8pm / $14 advance, $16 day of show / 18+

Friday 07.17.09: The Echo & Club Underground present THE HAPPY HOLLOWS

The Happy Hollows || Listen || Watch

“The Happy Hollows is, put simply, transformative. That is, the young Los Angeles trio’s infectious and amorphous sound is one that immediately sticks upon first listen, evoking hints of bands that listeners remember not for the scene that launched them nor the trends of the era, but for the moment at which they first heard its music. Vocalist/guitarist Sarah Negahdari wields ominous riffs and finger-tapped arpeggios with skill reminiscent of Mary Timony of Helium while simultaneously singing and wailing like a hyper hybrid of Debbie Harry, Kim Deal and Karen O. Meanwhile, the agile rhythm section of Charles Mahoney (bass/vocals) and Chris Hernandez (drums) vault and lunge with precision.

The Happy Hollows’ raucous and irreverent noisy-pop sound is influenced by genres as disparate as 90’s college rock, Broadway show-tunes, garage punk, and 80’s pop. The band combines innovative song structures, surreal lyrics, and fiercely adept instrumentation to recreate reality into a jagged panorama of vibrant, kaleidoscopic collage. Listening to their music, one cannot help but see visions of a place oddly askew from the world we experience everyday, a parallel universe that is at once whimsical, demented, and ferocious. Among other things, the subjects of their tunes include labyrinths, counterfactual history, palindromes, the colors of the rainbow, time travel, mythical animals, and Tarot cards. On the group’s 2008 EP, Imaginary, Negahdari’s cherubic propensity for quizzical, playful lyrics and signature finger-tapping/finger picking guitar technique are readily apparent as the band quirkily straddles the fence between dissonant rock and art-pop. - Radio Exile

8:30pm / 18+

Saturday 07.18.09: TILY & Binary present MEN / HEY WILLPOWER / DANCES WITH WHITE GIRLS

MEN

MEN is a Brooklyn-based band and art/performance collective that focuses on the energy of live performance and radical potential of dance music. MEN speaks to issues such as wartime economies, sexual compromise, and demanding liberties through lyrical content and an exciting stage show. The group began in 2007 as the DJ/production/remix team of LE TIGRE members JD Samson and Johanna Fateman. When the duo began to write new songs, it made sense to merge their efforts with JD’s other new project HIRSUTE. JD and Hirsute members Michael O’Neill (Princess, Ladybug Transistor) and Ginger Brooks Takahashi (LTTR, The Ballet) now comprise the core of MEN, with Johanna and artist Emily Roysdon contributing as writers, consultants, and producers.

with:
Dances with White Girls
Lexicondon
Hey Willpower
Flashmen
Killed By Synth
Short Circuit

9pm / $10 / 18+

Sunday 07.19.09: Grand Ole Echo with MIKE STINSON / RICH MAHAN / THE UNLAWFUL KINGS @ echo

Mike Stinson || Listen
Rich Mahan
The Unlawful Kings

5:00pm / FREE / All Ages

Sunday 07.19.09: PART TIME PUNKS with PSYCHIC ILLS / INDIAN JEWELRY @ echo

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

With:
Psychic Ills || Listen
Indian Jewelry

FMI:
Part Time Punks on Myspace

10pm / $5 / 18+

Monday 07.20.09: THE PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART @ echo

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart || Listen || MP3

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart are irrepressibly light, a band at ease with melody and softness. On its excellent self-titled debut album, which was released last month on Slumberland, the band — which includes Mr. Berman, Mr. Feldman, the singer and keyboardist Peggy Wang and the bass player Alex Naidus — neatly processes a whole range of styles. There’s a mild hauteur drawn from new wave, a thickness derived from shoegaze-pop and a pulse passed down from dance-punk. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart might paint within the lines, but they do so with panache. - The NY Times

8:30pm / $12adv, $14 dos / All Ages

Monday 07.20.09: Monday Night Residency - JAPANESE MOTORS / THE GROWLERS / SWEATERS / GRAND ELEGANCE @ echoplex

Japanese Motors || Watch

Japanese Motors are the most exciting band to emerge from Orange County since the heyday of Social Distortion and TSOL. Hailing from Costa Mesa, the Japanese Motors are made up by main vocalist Alex Knost, guitarist Nolan Hall, bassist Daniel Michicoff, and drummer Andrew Atkinson, the band is known around Southern California for the insane, all-night blowouts they put on as much as for the driving, raucous garage pop they set the partying to.

Rather than fight the influence of their surroundings like so many of their So Cal contemporaries, Japanese Motors have channeled it into their music, making tunes every bit as sun-baked and laid-back as their coastal environs and rife with positive imagery. “Most bands from here are trying to sound like they’re from London or New York,” Nolan says. “We embrace where we’re from.”

With:
The Growlers || Listen
Sweaters
Grand Elegance

@ Echoplex
enter at
1154 Glendale Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026

8:30pm / FREE / 21+

Tuesday 07.21.09: MICACHU & THE SHAPES / TUNE YARDS @ echo

Micachu & The Shapes || Listen || Watch

Micachu and the Shapes can rest easy for now, however, since Jewellery turns out to be a thrilling pick ‘n’ mix of puckish pop nonsense that will absolutely charm your kecks off, hoovers and all. Winking broadly at myriad styles from grime to playground skiffle and corrosive noise with nary a bum note bared, in some ways it’s capricious and not exactly fully-formed, but you can’t help but admire how much of this record flat-out works. ‘Golden Phone’’s a blinding tune showcasing Levi’s gruff cockney diction, pleasingly pitched midway between a leer and a rictus grin. And ‘Curly Teeth’’s a moderately deranging racket that recalls Damon Albarn at his most stridently experimental.

Performed on a specially tuned guitar with a host of electronic glitches and gloops and seemingly held together with elastic bands and spit, Jewellery’s wonky pop architecture finds joy in sheer surrealist musical abstraction, as with ‘Golden Phone’’s lip-smacking lines: “love’s all around, yeah, but I don’t want none / time’s everywhere, yeah, but I don’t want none / gold in my hair, yeah, but I don’t want none / give me that nonsense sound and I’ll be back”.

Call that punk or even Dada if you like, it matters not. Micachu’s a rare talent seemingly heaven-sent to snatch bedroom pop from the ‘pit-sniffing dullards once more, and for that we have only to be thankful. - The Quietus

With:
Tune Yards || Listen

8pm / $10adv; $12dos / all ages

Wednesday 07.22.09: VOXHAUL BROADCAST / UNION LINE @ pershing square

Voxhaul Broadcast || Watch

Outta the OC, Voxhaul Broadcast, flavored a whole lot like Cold War Kids and Kings of Leon, already moves with the poise of a well-embraced band, apparently settled comfortably in a working groove and enjoying their gig of life as successful rockers. Maybe they’ve had a look in a crystal ball. Let’s hope that forecast is accurate. The band’s general sound is psychedelic haze, heavy on sedative properties of dope or Robitussin, pavement inside your shoes when the wind’s gusting, or suspension in a vat of sticky warm molasses with your very special someone. I personally vote for the last of the three…an interesting dilemma that would take time to navigate. But I digress. Voxhaul Broadcast comes across wavy. Listening is satisfying at all levels of effort. From a nonchalant low-scale effort, the vibe is fuzzy with enough variation and effects to maintain the awareness of an interesting flow of appeasing music in the background. At a more engaged level, the song construction is far from lazy - each tune is spackled with hooks from great to small and doused with memorable, effective repetition. Lyrically, Voxhaul Broadcast’s songs call for an active stretch of the imagination: rather than feeding you the story, they ask you to make the story your own by connecting the dots and coloring in the background. - Luxury Wafers

With:
Union Line

Pershing Square
532 South Olive Street
Los Angeles, CA 90013

7pm / FREE / All ages

Wednesday 07.22.09: DUB CLUB @ echoplex

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

Spinning the best in classic reggae, dub and dancehall

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

9pm / $5 / 21+