Posts Tagged ‘California’

CLUB NIGHT – ” Shear “

Posted: January 11, 2018 in MUSIC
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Club Night are less a supergroup and more a logical coming together; the band consist of members of various Oakland DIY-bands, who went to each other’s shows, supported one another’s project and then almost inevitably formed a band. Members of various musical backgrounds and styles, thrown together by band-leader Josh Bertram, Club Night quietly produced something cohesive and intriguing, their debut EP, Hell Ya.

The band have recently shared the video to their latest single, “Shear”. The track is a frenetic blast of angst and energy, combining the impassioned yell of Wolf Parade with the expansive ambition of Broken Social Scene. Add a claymation video with ominous nods to the illuminati and Shear becomes an exciting triumph and a fitting send off to what has been an excellent year for Club Night.

Band Members
Josh Bertram, Rebecca Lukens, Ian Tatum, Josiah Majetich, Devin Trainer

Hell Ya is out now via Tiny Engines.

JAY SOM – ” Pirouette “

Posted: January 11, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Two never-before-released songs recorded during the same sessions as Jay Som’s breakout debut “Everybody Works”, which landed on Best of 2017 lists from nearly everyone this year including Pitchfork, NPR, Stereogum, Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, Billboard, and a slew of others.

Musically, these tracks would have been equally at home on that record, as they highlight how Melina Duterte has “perfected that tricky balance between polished ambition and lo-fi charm.”

“Both of these tracks were made during the spring of 2016 – the first demo stages for Everybody Works. They were fun to write and record but felt out of place on the track​ ​list during the finalization of the album. These tracks remain close to my heart and I’m really grateful they’re finally out in the world.” – Melina Duterte

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PINKY PINKY – ” The Pinky Pinky EP “

Posted: January 9, 2018 in MUSIC
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A step beyond the cookie-cutter garage-rock or proto-punk bands populating the scene, the teenage trio of Isabelle Fields, Eva Chambers and Anastasia Sanchez released their four-song debut on Innovative Leisure in April. The have one hand in the past. The other they use to playfully thumb their nose at you. Sort of reminds me of Plumtree, another all-female indie rock band. I don’t know anything about Pinky Pinky, this EP appeared on my feed and now on my collections because it simply sounds great.

This sound pulls directly from the raw, nitty-gritty nature of 60’s psychedelic rock, a musical era that had its heyday nearly four decades before the girls were even born. However, this, along with their fully-realized aesthetic, may be precisely why Pinky Pinky could be the ones to put rock back at the forefront of cool.

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Debut EP from Pinky Pinky, a 3-piece Proto-Prog inspired rock band out of Los Angeles featuring teenagers Isabelle Fields (17, Guitar), Eva Chambers (17, Bass) and Anastasia Sanchez (19, Vocals/Drums).

The LOVE BIRDS – ” Filled With Hate ” EP

Posted: December 28, 2017 in MUSIC
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Introducing – for the very first time – The Love-Birds from San Francisco  on Empty Cellar Records!

I’m out to catch The Love-Birds, they being San Francisco’s best new guitar band. They have been performing in many a fine venues for about a year now and they always have the edge. They’re Of and Raised in SF and they’re youngish. All of them jam their instruments with technique and style, in accordance with the Old Ways. They have a budget Scott Gorham riff inside a jangly scorcher called “Filled With Hate,” which is about leaving Los Angeles for San Francisco.

You can go pretty far nowadays on the idea of a Band, but The Love-Birds don’t have time for that shit. Whether you wear denim, leather, or tie-dye it’s only worth about an El Rio drink ticket if you don’t know how to write the tunes and The Love-Birds wear a cloak of many colors. The guitars weave together beautifully, leads, hooks and riffs arranged like an American cheese platter. The rhythm section takes the cheese and deftly makes a deli sandwich, playing with smarts and panache. This is the kind of band that you can smoke weed with the drummer outside the bar and talk in-depth about the annexation of Hawaii and then walk inside, look the guitarist straight in the eye and say, “R.E.M is better than Teenage Fanclub” and he’ll still drive your fool ass home. They’ve even got a dude in the band who says funny shit on stage. You can take one look at them and know they learn things from books and write songs with instruments (no, seriously). 

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These songs have tons of moves and nobody puts moves in their songs anymore besides The Cacamen, and that was only one move, once. Moves are great, they’re like skate tricks you can put in your songs. The Love-Birds are punk, but in the classical sense, not the ebay sense. They dare to believe that R.E.M is better than Big Star. Just kidding, they’re not there yet. But this is an excellent start.

The Band 

Charlie Ertola – Bass
Eli Groshelle – Drums
Thomas Rubenstein – Guitar & Vocals
Eli Wald – Guitar & Vocals

GRACIE and RACHEL – ” Only A Child “

Posted: December 18, 2017 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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On first hearing the Gracie And Rachel song “Only a Child,” I was struck by the tension and the mystery, both musically and lyrically: “I’m moving my mouth but I don’t say a word/My ears are open but nothing is heard/I’m only a child, only a child.”

Gracie Coates, the primary singer and keyboard player, wrote and told me, “It was this notion of going in circles, trying to move forward but constantly feeling like I was right back where I’d started.” Along with Rachel Ruggles on a violin processed through various pedals, the two Berkeley California high school friends – now New York loft-mates – have made one of my favorite albums of 2017. Together with percussionist Richard Watts, a huge bass drum, and electronic drum pads, the group mixes classical training with pop hooks, and curiosity with uncertainty.

Gracie and Rachel are two high school friends from Berkeley, Calif. now making music as roommates in New York City. There’s a mix of classical and pop in their music, with Rachel Ruggles on her sonically-treated violin and Gracie Coates doing much of the lead singing and pop-leaning melodies on keyboards. And it’s that tension between styles that makes the songs on this album stand out.

The complex tunes they beautifully reproduced in this thrilling Tiny Desk performance are from the group’s debut, self-titled album released back in June of this year.

Set List

  • “Only A Child”
  • “Go”
  • “Don’t Know”

Musicians

Gracie Coates; Rachel Ruggles; Ricky Watts,

PHOEBE BRIDGERS – ” Stranger in the Alps ” Best Albums Of 2017

Posted: December 18, 2017 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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On one hand, Phoebe Bridgers’ debut album features desperately downcast lyrics like “Jesus Christ, I’m so blue all the time / And that’s just how I feel / Always have and always will.” On the other, the singer-songwriter’s website resides at phoebefuckingbridgers.com, and the title of Stranger In The Alps is a nod to the ludicrously edited-for-TV version of The Big Lebowski. Maybe these glimpses of humor are just Bridges trying to let the world know that she’s actually okay. Because listening to this mortally sad, yet frequently magical debut, you might be led to believe she’s irretrievably despondent.

But Bridgers’ melancholy is her truest artistic friend, and she taps that deep well for some incredibly strong songs that are presented gracefully whether she’s keeping things austere or adding orchestral color. Stranger starts with an unstoppable pair of singles in the swirling “Smoke Signals” and the album’s most upbeat moment, “Motion Sickness.” The former indicates an album that could’ve gone a much different way: Two clicks slicker and a bit of a dance beat, and it might be a mainstream hit ballad for someone like Ellie Goulding. But Bridgers keeps it intimate, complete with references to dead heroes—Bowie, Lemmy—and songs about loneliness (specifically The Smiths’ “How Soon Is Now”). “Motion Sickness,” meanwhile, offers the album’s only real hopping pulse and singalong chorus.

After that, it’s on to a trio of songs that will receive inevitable, justified, and flattering comparisons to another sad L.A. troubadour, Elliott Smith. “Funeral,” “Demi Moore,” and “Scott Street” are all clearly indebted to Smith—particularly that last one, which begins with a line that’s almost a direct tribute: “Walking Scott Street feeling like a stranger / with an open heart, open container.” Even though it’s close, it’s not slavish, and Bridgers pulls off the rare trick of emulating someone so singular and delicate without losing the emotion. “Killer” might even be more brutally beautiful than some of Smith’s best; on it, Bridgers is joined by X frontman John Doe, whom she asks to “kiss my rotten head and pull the plug.”

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If this all sounds like a depressing slog, it’s actually quite the opposite: Like the best sad-bastard music, Stranger In The Alps alchemizes sorrow into redemptive beauty. It’s never about wallowing, but about slowly moving through it. That difference, played out over some incredible, wise-beyond-her-years songwriting, makes it one of the best albums of the year.

TY SEGALL – ” Freedom’s Goblin “

Posted: December 7, 2017 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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“Freedom’s Goblin” flies us around the soundworld of Ty Segall in nineteen tracks, allowing him to do a bit everything for the free and the goblins of Freedom alike! Deep impact rock of all shapes and sizes and some of the most violent, passionate, funny and free pop songs of 2018. Freedom’s Goblin is the new Ty Segall album: 19 tracks strong, filling four sides of vinyl nonstop, with an unrestricted sense of coming together to make an album

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releases January 26th, 2018

LINE & CIRCLE – ” Vicious Folly “

Posted: December 7, 2017 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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The R.E.M./Smiths-inspired band’s jangly pop returns today with the title track from their upcoming EP, Vicious Folly. The guitar break mid-way through the song sounds so much like “Dreams” by the Cranberries that I half-expected Dolores O’Riordan to have a feature.

Maybe next time. After arriving on the national scene in 2012, Line & Circleʼs “Roman Ruins” and “Mine Is Mine” singles, and eponymous EP,received wide acclaim, appearing on a range of year-end lists on both sides of the Atlantic. The band’s debut full length “Split Figure” arrived in 2015 . The Ohio-born, Los Angeles-based Line & Circle will follow up their acclaimed singles and debut LP with their new EP Vicious Folly, due December 1st via Grand Gallop Records.

At a moment when societal divisions seem increasingly tense and tribalistic, Vicious Folly explores a belief the Romans held centuries ago: homo homini lupus — man is a wolf to man. Whether the conflicts here are romantic (“Man Uncouth”), ideological (“Vicious Folly”), or familial (“Who Runs Wild”), the songs contemplate the disquieting idea that man himself is his own greatest threat.

Vicious Folly brings the resulting emotional complexity to life by expanding on the band’s characteristically moody but vibrant color palette. Interweaving bass clarinet pulses and distorted tape loops move underneath minimalist patterns of chiming guitar and bass melody counterpoint. Singer/guitarist Brian J. Cohen‘s dramatic tenor pulls across the songs’ brisk rhythmic foundations, which are more unhinged here than in previous releases.

The bulk of the record was tracked live to tape in one day at Los Angeles’ Vox Studios with Michael Harris (Angel Olsen’s My Woman), with additional sessions in various warehouses, bedrooms, and backhouse studios around the band’s Echo Park neighbourhood.
The project was mixed with frequent collaborator Jonathan Low (The National, The War On Drugs) at Aaron Dessner of The National‘s Long Pond studio in Hudson Valley, New York.
Vicious Folly‘s cover features Peter Flötner‘s 16th century hand-painted playing cards from post-Reformation Germany. Flötner used his cards to depict and denounce the perceived greed, gluttony, and folly of his time. That the imagery strikes a chord today — as it surely did then is either deeply comforting, or incredibly disconcerting, depending on your information filter.

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Line & Circle:
Brian J. Cohen (voice, rhythm guitar)
Eric Neujahr (guitar)
Jon Engelhard (bass guitar)
Garrett Ray (drums)
Bass Clarinet: arranged by Lewis Pesacov, performed by Brian Walsh

SHANNON LAY – ” Living Water “

Posted: December 6, 2017 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Shannon Lay has the voice of an angel. When the fiery, orange-haired guitarist isn’t shredding for Feels, she strips down to an acoustic guitar and melts your mind away. Lay’s debut solo album, All This Life Going Down, dropped in February on Do Not Disturb Records, Check out her video for “JHR”, directed by Castle Face Records co-founder Brian Lee Hughes and Sandy Kim.

Kevin Morby started a record label just to put this album out, that’s how much I love and believe in it. Incredible timeless music. Please do yourself the favor and not only listen to this album, but if you get the chance and feel like fully transcending into the heavens, go see her live. “Debut release on Kevin Morby’s new imprint with Woodsist Records. 

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“When I first heard Shannon Lay play me “JHR” it was like taking some sort of hypnotic pill and I wanted to make a film for it that matched it’s trance,” said Hughes of the video. Lay recently finished touring with CFM and the Cairo Gang, but the local LA musician plays more shows than I can count. Check out the band Feels.

FEELS are psych punk grunge post future rock + roll whatever band born and raised in Los Angeles, CA and taking the world by storm with the wild energy of their live shows and with their Ty Segall produced, self-titled debut LP, released in Spring 2016 on Castle Face Records (LP/CD) and Burger Records (cassette). Sophomore album due out Spring 2018!!!

TY SEGALL – ” The Main Pretender “

Posted: November 27, 2017 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Bang, bang, blammo! Ty Segall can’t stop pumping out the songs – and if your problem is that he’s got too many songs for you to hear, lucky you with your cute little problem! As Ty switches gears from rock to punk to pop music and then elsewhere, a wealth of great songs and singing and music is coming down fast; later we’ll have time to think about it. For now, ponder this new one: “The Main Pretender” aims to cull the herd by focusing its sights on a greatest common multiple of our society – people who just can’t get see the forest for the head up their ass! Driven by an acidulous alto sax lick and a roiling bass line, “The Main Pretender” bounces like rubber and sticks like glue, exploding into a middle-eight-chorus progression that there’s no coming back from – and so there’s no need to even try. Mikal Cronin’s saxophone, so urbane and sophisticated on the previous “My Lady’s On Fire”, here reaches for notes that were never wrote (perhaps a suggestion to pretenders everywhere to get free and reach for something outside of themselves instead!), setting the stage for a burning guitars-and-saxes-and-vocs climax. The production, with rough edges not only intact but deployed for maximum positive impact, is a marvel, forcing “The Main Pretender” into our frontal lobes, where it just won’t quit. They never do!
released November 27th, 2017
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