Inflight At Night

There was this great quote in The District Weekly’s article on Ikey Owens from a couple weeks back about Dusty Rhodes and the River Band, who’s latest album he produced.

On his coffee table is a little pile of unmastered studio CDRs; on the ride home, [Owens] picks out the probable Dusty Rhodes single, an adorable country-rock sing-along. “This record was like pulling teeth!” he says. “They thought they were making a Dylan record—I was like, ‘Yeah, I was 22 once—we’re making an Aerosmith record!’”

Said album, First You Live, turned out great and is available now from the band at their shows, of which they have many of coming up, and on their MySpace page. Speaking of shows, they are playing The Roxy this Saturday with Jackie Greene, and then will do some shows with Shooter Jennings followed by a string of dates with Los Lobos.

The music of Dusty Rhodes and the River Band has been a welcome relief from just about everything else that has crossed my path in the past couple days.

Download “The Ballad of Graff” (mp3)

and “Oh Icicle” (mp3) from their new album, First You Live, and check out the video for the song here.

Dusty Rhodes and the River Band’s old ep, Cut Open Like a Fish is available on iTunes.

So it’s Saturday afternoon, I’m obvisously not at Coachella just like I said I wouldn’t be, though I did check in with the various people covering the festival to see if Scarlett Jo appeared with the JAMC. Which she indeed did. Which also means Buddyhead was right (though I guess no one wants to credit those guys anymore) and Cat Dirt was a little wrong, though he racked quite a bit of traffic. Reports are that Johansson kind of sucked, check out some pics here.

Some artists from this year’s Coachella will be sticking around and hitting local Los Angeles clubs this week, including the Arctic Monkeys playing a small show at the Troubadour Sunday night, Justice will be performing as the “special guest” at the Ed Banger/Dimmak night at the EchoPlex on Monday, and Spank Rock will be helping the Check Yo’ Ponytail crew ring in their 1 year anniversary and final night at Safari Sams (they’re moving the party to the EchoPlex) on Tuesday.

Also in a local Long Beach note, The Secret Affair, a Northern Soul, Boogaloo, Freakbeat, and 60’s Garage club night, start their first night at Alex’s Bar on Friday. They grew out of their past location at The Pike Bar and Grill, a testament to how good their night is.

Sunday, April 29th: Part Time Punks @ The Echo
Part Time Punks continue to book awsome bands, I know it’s hard to get out on Sundays, but The Old Haunts from Olympia, WA are worth sucking it up and getting off the couch. w/Codpiece from Long Beach

The Old Haunts - Poison Control (mp3)

Monday, April 30th: Deep Sea Diver @ Detroit Bar
This is the last night of Deep Sea Diver’s (Jessica Dobson) residency at the Detroit Bar. She’s on a major, but don’t hold that against her, take a listen to her songs on MySpace, she’s a great song writer. Also performing is Matt Death and the New Intellectuals

Deep Sea Diver - Stream tracks on MySpace

Tuesday, May 1st: Holy Fuck! @ The Prospector
See Holy Fuck in a tiny room on a one off show, they’re touring the West Coast with Cornelius and then with !!! on the East Coast. Also at The El Rey on Monday.

Holy Fuck - The Pulse (mp3)

Wednesday, May 3rd: The Youngs @ Scene Bar
Grab a seat at the bar for this great night of local music featuring recent Seattle to Los Angeles transplants- The Youngs, guitar/drums duo- Muso, and soon to be renamed- The Switch.

The Youngs - America (mp3)

Thursday, May 3rd: Autolux @ The Glasshouse
This is a make up show for the one they had to cancel last month. Autolux will also be playing at the Natural History museum next month as well. w/Midnight Movies and The Pity Party

Autolux - Capital Kind of Strain (mp3)

Friday, May 4th: Music Fest @ EchoPlex
Featuring The Little Ones, Sea Wolf, The Bird and the Bee, and Dengue Fever. Only open to people with a Silverlake Film Festival pass or badge or possibly a ticket stub(???). Lots of great movies playing so you should consider getting one.

Sea Wolf - You’re A Wolf (mp3)

Saturday, May 5th: Minus the Bear @ EchoPlex
You’ll have to wait a few months for Minus The Bear’s new album, Planet of Ice but you won’t have to wait to hear the new songs on this spring tour.

Minus The Bear - Dr. L’Ling (mp3)

Not at Coachella? Need something to do tonight? Are you a fan of the Hot Snakes, Seaweed, Pinback, The Life and Times? If you answered yes to all three of those questions, I recommend getting out to The Prospector in Long Beach tonight to see San Diego’s The Jade Shader.

Download “Cha Cha Choo Choo” (mp3)

and “Eraser” (mp3) from The Jade Shader’s 2005 ep, Curse of the Tuatara.

Curse of the Tuatara is OUT NOW: buy it at insound! | download it from iTunes | download it from emusic

OK, The Jesus and Mary Chain at the Glasshouse in Pomona. Yes, I went. No, I didn’t take any pictures. No, I didn’t take any video. But thankfully for you, some other good little bloggers did. My overall impression. Good but not great, but then again I wasn’t really expecting magic. Oh, and Scarlett Jo did not appear, Annie from Giant Drag sang on “Just Like Honey”.

Amateur Chemist has got some photos and the set list.

Los Anjealous has got video of “Just Like Honey” and a review.

LAist has got a review and video I can’t get to play.

Buzz Bands has got a review.

Just yesterday I was asking Scott (sometimes contributor to IAF) if he had a chance to listen to the Great Northern album yet (he writes reviews mainly), he said he had, but it didn’t do anything for him right off the bat and kept moving on. I told him to go back, put the CD in an actual stereo, give it a good listen 2 or 3 more times all the way through, and then tell me what he thought then. I am awaiting his response and hopefully a proper review.

See I had similar reaction to Great Northern’s new album Trading Twilight For Daylight when I first listened to it. The first couple tracks didn’t immediately pique my interest either and I set the album aside for almost a month, that is until a couple weekends ago when I decided to put it in CD player and listen to it in the background while I worked on the computer.

After the first time through the disc, I had that “wow this pretty good” moment and hit the repeat button to give it a more solid listen. After two more listens, I came to the realization that Great Northern have made a “real” album, there isn’t any filler here, each song is as equally important as the next, as is their placement. Evoking many moods, the album has 2 archs (imagine 2 bell shaped curves side by side with the song titles on the x axis) that take the listener on an interesting journey, and if your dealing with any difficult stuff in your life, an emotional journey.

Trading Twilight For Daylight comes out May 15th on Eenie Meenie Records and the band’s next local Los Angeles show will be that same night at The Echo. They will also be playing at the Troubadour on May 30th and in Long Beach at The Prospector on May 31st.

Download “Home” (mp3)

and “The Middle” (mp3) from Trading Twilight For Daylight

Trading Twilight For Daylight comes out May 15th: buy it at insound!

Photo: Melody Shell

I meant to get something up on Silver Daggers before their record release show at the Echo on Sunday, but mixed up what day the show was going on and missed it completely. Still this couldn’t hurt as the band is heading off on a US tour in support of their new album, New High & Ord which coincidently comes out today.

These veterans of The Smell and Il Coral make intense hyperkinetic spastic rock and are often refered to as “no wave” and the description of Jazz is also thrown around, though that is definitely debatable and probably is only used because of the saxophone in the band.

Download “Joy” (mp3) from Silver Daggers new album, New High & Ord

New High & Ord is OUT NOW: buy it at insound!