Besides what listed below, there are some other great shows going on this week, like; The Yardbirds at Knitting Factory and local sensations The Little Ones and Sea Wolf at The Troubadour, on Wednesday. Rockinsider continues to present some great shows, this week it is Man Man and Simon Dawes at The Roxy on Thursday. Also this week sees the monthly event, First Fridays, return to the Natural History Museum with Plaid and The Submarines performing.
Sunday, April 1st: 120 Days @ The Glasshouse
I haven’t really been able to get into 120 Days when listening to their recorded material, but live it is pretty cool. Also on Monday at The El Rey Theatre. w/Ratatat.
120 Days - Come Out (Come Down Fade Out Be Gone) (mp3)
Monday, April 2nd: Sabertooth Tiger @ Silverlake Lounge
Pedal-to-the-metal blast of pissed-off hardcore punk reminiscent of San Diego’s Head Hunter/Cargo Records days. w/Wires on Fire.
Sabertooth Tiger - Death Valley (mp3)
Tuesday, April 3rd: Son Volt @ The El Rey
Jay Farrar of Uncle Tupelo fame’s second release under the Son Volt name, has been getting all around positive reviews. I’ve never seen Son Volt or Jay Farrar live, but I’d image it would be good.
Son Volt - Underground Dream (mp3)
Wednesday, April 4th: The Human Value @ Silverlake Lounge
This is The Human Value’s last US performance for quite sometime as they will be heading back across the pond to their new home away from home.
The Human Value - Give Me (mp3)
Thursday, April 5th: Great Northern @ Detroit Bar
The more I listen to Great Northern’s upcoming debut, Trading Twilight For Daylight (out May 15th), the more I find myself liking it. Also at The Alley in Fullerton on Friday.
Great Northern - Home (mp3)
Friday, April 6th: The Thermals @ The Echo
This isn’t a dig (obviously ’cause I’m recommending the show), but everytime I listen The Thermals, I think I am listening to Piebald. Enter to win a pair of tickets from Los Anjealous.
The Thermals - No Culture Icon (mp3)
Saturday, April 7th: The Gossip @ Troubadour
I really like Beth Ditto of The Gossip, she has no problem voicing opinions and standing by her convictions. The Gossip recently signed to Columbia Records new Gay/Lesbian label, Music With a Twist. They were on Kill Rock Stars.
The Gossip - Listen Up (mp3)
OK, so I found out about this show (The Jesus and Mary Chain @ The Glasshouse on Thursday, April 26th) a week or so ago (met the guy who will be doing sound for the band when they are in the states) and up until today thought the show was going to be a secret show, similar to the one The Pixies played a couple years ago at The Glasshouse, the night prior to their first reunion show at Coachella. Apparently I was wrong because The Glasshouse has opened the show up to the public, with tickets going on sale this Saturday at 10am. Really I don’t know why I’m telling everyone. Ya’ll better save me a pair.
Having The Jesus and Mary Chain play at The Glasshouse is really making my day since they are the only act at Coachella that I would really like to see, and the thought of braving a 100,000 people in the desert heat, with only a one lane road in and out of the polo grounds, really just doesn’t appeal to me. Sorry, I guess I just ain’ that hip.
Performing with William and Jim Reid will be former Ride drummer, Laurence Colbert, and I can’t remember who else will be joining them, but I’m pretty sure it is someone important. See, I can’t remember because there was booze involved in my conversation with their sound guy. and Mark Crozer will be joining them on guitar.
Anyways, here is fitting download for this post, it is The Pixies covering The Jesus and Mary Chain’s song, Head On (mp3), at the Leysin Festival in Switzerland on November 7, 1991.
If you are unfamiliar with The Jesus and Mary Chain’s music, you better head over to Buddyhead’s Medication mp3 blog to pick up a couple of tracks.
Back in January of this year the good people at Trojan (of the record persuasion, not prophylactics) reissued Johnny Osbourne (and the Sensations) 1969 gem, “Come Back Darling”. The original album was produced and released by Winston Riley on his then newly formed Jamaican label, Technique Records. This new release includes 2 discs with a total of 61 tracks, and while I’m often skeptical about Trojan’s all-too-common practice of shoving dozens of relatively unknown songs on their reissues (many of which rightly deserve to remain in obscurity), these 49 ‘Bonus’ tracks well deserve to see the light of day again. The extra material, taken from Winston Riley’s sessions with a number of artists in the years surrounding the original release of “Come Back Darling”, creates a reminder of just how amazing music coming out of Jamaica at the time was. …continue reading »
There is a small controversy brewing in our neighbor to the south over the San Diego CityBeat’s music issue that spotlights local music in San Diego. Grumblings started a few days ago when it was announced that the two “local” bands who got the cover were, Grand Ole Party (huge fan!) and Delta Spirit (ehh, not so much…), with the controversy stemming over whether Delta Spirit are really a “local” band. And while this all may sound trivial, it is the nature of this arguement that really gives us outsiders a glimpse into how protective people in San Diego are of their scene, which has historically been and still is, dismissed or overlooked by the “industry”.
Head over to San Diego Dialed In and Cat Dirt Sez for their perspectives on the subject, as well as comments from the paper’s music editor, Troy Johnson.
I really just started reading these San Diego blogs as well as the others linked in the sidebar because I started to become interested in some San Diego bands that have yet to really break out of San Diego, see Grand Ole Party, The Prayers, The Muslims, and Fifty on Their Heels. And it has been through reading these blogs that my idea of whats going on in SD has changed. Before I thought Swami Records, John Reis, and Gar Wood were the island in a sea of shitty hardcore, pop punk, and Christian rock that dominated San Diego and it’s reputation. But now I have come to understand there is an extremely fierce diy scene going on down there that is spawning some really great new bands, many of which include former members of bands who struggled to break out in the late ’90’s early 2000’s and never seemed to get a fair shake at a national level.
Check out the articles, the blogs, and the bands mentioned above, odds are, you’ll find something you like.
Yes, I realize that today is only Wednesday, but damn if it doesn’t feel like Friday.
Cycle Sluts From Hell were a short lived crazy New York City late 80’s metal band that made one badass album, toured Europe with Motorhead, and then got dropped from Sony by Tommy Mottola.
Read the cliff notes to their career here.
Now pretend it is Friday, listen to the song below, go back and listen to old Motorcycle Boy, read The Dirt, and then make plans to go see RTX at Relax Bar when it really is Friday.
Download I Wish You Were A Beer (mp3) from Cycle Sluts From Hell’s self-titled out-of-print album released in 1991. More songs are available on Cycle Sluts From Hell MySpace page.
I don’t know about you, but it always bums me out when I am slow on the ball to check out a band that I end up liking later, only to realize that I slept on them the first time around. And bummed is exactly how I am feeling right now when I realized that Jax had pointed out a year ago that The Noisettes were a band to check out, and I probably just glossed right over it. Well I shouldn’t have, because now The Noisettes are back in Los Angeles opening TV on the Radio’s sold out back-to-back shows. And I don’t have a ticket. And now I give a shit, ’cause I just listened to their songs and am pretty into their Brit-garage-blues-rock that is getting lazy comparisons to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
There is one small ray of hope though for those of you in the same boat as I, both The Noisettes and Los Anjealous are giving away a pair of tickets to see the show this Friday in Los Angeles.
Download three tracks from The Noisettes debut full length, “What’s The Time Mr. Wolf”, out in the US on April 17th, and preorder it now from insound.
Don’t Give Up (mp3)
Skratch Your Name (mp3)
Mind The Gap (mp3)
OUT April 17th, 2007: buy it at insound! | download it from iTunes | download it from emusic
-
Blackstrap - Steal My Horses and Run
Initially released in Europe in October 2006, Blackstrap’s second full length, Steal My Horses and Run, is finally seeing it’s official release in the U.S. via New York’s Tee Pee Records.
At first pass it would be easy to write off Steal My Horses and Run as just another retread of the JAMC and My Bloody Valentine catalogs, that is if it weren’t so well executed and/or if you weren’t able to make to the last quarter of the album where the band really opens things up with some more diversified song writing. Coming across much the same as Black Rebel Motorcycle Club did on their first album, Blackstrap wear their influences (Velvet Underground, My Bloody Valentine, Neu!, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Stereolab and Suicide) on their sleeve, writing songs that would fit on any of the aforementioned bands’ albums, only with much better production.
...continue reading » -
Triclops! - Out Of Africa
Made up of former and current members of Bottles and Skulls, Fleshies, Lower Forty-Eight and a drummer who is in too many other bands to list, San Francisco’s Triclops! are a veritable hybrid of the Bay Area underground punk/hardcore scene.
Triclops!’s “trademark” are their vocals, which for about half of Out Of Africa are run through broken solid state amps with a phaser explosion - achieving a sound that I can only describe as how the Mars Volta’s Cedric Bixler-Zavala would sound singing underwater. While slightly off-putting on first listen, the phasered vocals effects - delievered by Fleshies’ Johnny - become pretty aurally addictive over the course of the album, so much so that when the effect is not being used, I found myself anxiously awaiting it’s return.
...continue reading » -
Princeton - Bloomsbury EP
Yes, basing songs upon classic literary works and-or their creators at first always seems pretentious, even ColinMeloyian, but hey, if it was good enough for the likes of Iron Maiden and David Axelrod who are we to disagree. Enter Bloomsbury, the new 4-song EP from Eagle Rock, CA’s own shaggy academes turned shaggy indie rockers, Princeton. All glib - borderline sarcastic introductions aside, Bloomsbury is well put together and accessible, surprisingly so when you consider the lyrical focus on early 20th century London intellectuals and the long list of instrumentation.
...continue reading » -
Otis Blue: Otis Redding Sings Soul - Collectors Edition
Otis Blue: Otis Redding Sings Soul is arguably one of Redding’s best albums, if not one of soul music’s best. It presents a cohesion beyond the usual collection of singles and b-sides common of the time, and it also set the stage for what would become his most recognizable and influential yet ultimately tragic song, “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay”. In many ways Otis Blue is the last Otis Redding album, not technically as there’s his duet album with Carla Thomas and the posthumous Dock of The Bay, but in terms of an album that’s Otis through and through, not to mention proof of what could have been to come from the young Georgian, this is the one.
...continue reading » -
The Heavy - Great Vengeance Furious Fire
heav·y; Of great intensity, Having great power or force, Indulging to a great degree, Of great significance or profundity…
Not since the The Clash has a band’s name been as succinct and appropriate as The Heavy. These four guys and one gal hailing from the town of Bath (UK) have an arsenal of sweet baadasssss songs that transport you back to a time when blow was big, hair was bigger and Dracula was black. However you slice, dice, cut or sort it, their album Great Vengeance and Furious Fire, released in the UK last year and here in the states just a few weeks ago, is one goddamn heavy piece of work.
...continue reading » -
The Black Keys - Attack and Release
It can be an all-too-common occurrence for those whose musical tastes extend beyond, or completely avoid, commercial radio, that a band who one champions as underappreciated gets the recognition they deserve… but for the wrong album! And then subsequently tours ad nauseam until releasing another album to a fickle public who may or may not care anymore. Too many examples spring to mind, but my elitist and ultimately meaningless point is that while I was worried the same fate laid waiting for The Black Keys with 2006’s Magic Potion, I was thankfully wrong. It’s not that MP wasn’t a good album, it just wasn’t the album (see; Rubber Factory), but now with their latest release I can rest calmly with the assurance that The Black Keys’ (Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney) upward trajectory is analogous with the mastery that is Attack and Release.
...continue reading »
Upcoming Shows
IfAN on blip.fm
- Don’t You Know?
Music Download:
Artist:
Company: Luckyhorse Industries (2008-02-26) - L.A.
Music Download:
Artist:
Company: Buddyhead Records (2008-02-01) - Get It On
Music Download:
Artist:
Company: Cooking Vinyl USA (2007-10-23) - White Winter Hymnal
Music Download:
Artist:
Company: Sub Pop Records (2008-06-03) - Summers And Autumns
Music Download:
Artist:
Company: Drag City (2008-04-22)
Random Bytes
- WordPress for iPhone, now I’m a little more interested in getting one of these
- WordPress 2.6 released
- Acres of Books in Long Beach sale starts on Thursday (7/17)
- Bit.ly: URL shortener with built-in tracking
- Maria Taylor Latest To Have Tour Gear Stolen; tonight’s Echoplex show now a benefit
- The battle between Web. 2.0 and PR rages on
- Hi, are you in PR? Yes. Then read this before sending me or anyone else another email press release of pitch.
- Video Savant: Love’s Your Mind and We Belong Together
- Music Marketing Firm Topspin Media Raises Funds
- (RED) Creates Music Delivery System
IfAN Elsewhere
- TRUST AND LOVE | TIJUANA KNIFE …
Where in Long Beach is your band most likely to be found when you aren’t playing a show? Dan Cady (vocals): Alex’s Bar or the Pike—Alex was our original bass player so we just hang out there. It’s just kind of home base for us. And the Pike becau - Last Night: The Muslims, Crash …
This is cool: UCI student, Sam Farzin, has started to put on music shows at the UC Irvine’s The Phoenix Grille, one of the campus’ dining spots. Located in what one of the members of Wounded Lion described as “the anus” of UCI (you have to twist a - Last Night: The Henry Clay Peo …
My apologies to The Year Zero, whose set I missed due The Paper Planes getting a late start at The Puka Bar. I heard your performance was drenched in sonic goodness and that The Henry Clays are jealous of your harmonizing capabilities. I arrived just as L - Last Night: Soft Hands, The Yo …
While at The Prospector last night, some friends and I were discussing how the venue has really been on its game as of late, consistently hosting the best shows Long Beach has to offer. It is pretty much guaranteed that any night of the week you can walk - Last Night: Baroness and The R …
Ahh, the Showcase Theatre. I hadn't been there in almost seven years. The Showcase was the club that I started going to shows at when I was in high school, back then they had all the best punk rock acts that were coming through town, unlike today. These d
LA Blogs
LA Clubs
LBC Blogs
LBC Clubs
OC Blogs
OC Clubs
Archives
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
- July 2006
- June 2006
- May 2006
- April 2006
- March 2006
- February 2006
- January 2006
