Eli Pearl is the man behind the music of Eli & The Itches. A native on the Los Angeles music scene, Pearl grew up in Venice Beach and put in his time honing his chops in the city’s venues before he decided to focus on his own sound. Eli & The Itches is the result of that effort. Pearl assumes a gender-bending persona in the glamrock ballad “At Least Not Yet”. There is an air of drama on this track that Pearl really pulls off without sounding trite. And the music has a supercool swagger to it. Check out “At Least Not Yet” from Eli & The Itches below…
From the self-titled debut album by Eli & The Itches out now
THE ITCHES:
William Wesley II
Jay Rudolph
Isaac Tamburino
Dylan Rodrigue
Sam Kauffman-Skloff
Los Angeles based singer songwriter Jesse Jo Stark releases the new video for Deadly Doll. Combining vintage horror with rockabilly, the sensual crooner is turning heads. The latest track was produced by Jason Lytle (Grandaddy, Band of Horses) and co-written with Chris Garcia (Lana Del Rey, Demi Lovato). Moreover, she kicked off the new year opening for Jane’s Addiction at Belly Up in LA.
Vocals: Jesse Jo Stark Guitar: Thomas Hunter Guitar, Keys & Theremin: Kirk Hellie Bass Guitar: JulioTavarez Keys: Nick White & Kirk Hellie Drums & Percussion: Dan Gluszak Strings: Paul Cartwright, Artyom Manukyan, Marta Sofia Honer
Lord Huron’s new album Vide Noir will be out April 20th, but you can listen to two new tracks today – “Ancient Names Pt. 1” and “Ancient Names Pt. 2”. The gang will also be touring across the US this spring.
Lord Huron, the folk-adjacent rock band helmed by Michigan-born singer and guitarist Ben Schneider, will release their third LP Vide Noir on April 20th. With the announcement, “Ancient Names,” an eery, unresolved tale of a crystal ball vision that amplifies the band’s characteristic thematic darkness into distorted garage rock.
The new album was inspired by driving Los Angeles after dark, Schneider explained in a statement:
“My nighttime drives ranged all over the city—across the twinkling grid of the valley, into the creeping shadows of the foothills, through downtown’s neon canyons and way out to the darksome ocean. I started imagining Vide Noiras an epic odyssey through the city, across dimensions, and out into the cosmos. A journey along the spectrum of human experience. A search for meaning amidst the cold indifference of The Universe.”
Lord Huron’s previous album, the melodic and spooky Strange Trails, wasreleased in April 2015; they’ve spent much of the intervening three years on tour. Vide Noirarrives from Whispering Pines/Republic Records (a new arrangement for the band, whose previous two albums were released by indie label IAMSOUND).
Having made a name for themselves with squalling riffs, thundering beats and their incendiary live shows oozing Arrow de Wilde’s otherworldly magnetism, Starcrawler are truly captivating. Recorded by Ryan Adams on analog tape at his Pax-Am studio, the 10-song album proves that yes, this foursome are making rock and roll exciting again!
Formed in 2015 when 18-year-old lead vocalist de Wilde first met guitarist Henri Cash at their Echo Park high school. Cash has played guitar since his hands were big enough. Today, he could rival his idol Jack White. He’s often so lost in adrenaline he doesn’t know his fingers are bleeding. At the Echo last year, he broke his nose onstage and didn’t realize it until he saw his disfigured face at a photo shoot the next day.
Shortly thereafter they were joined by the rhythm section of Austin Smith (drums) and Tim Franco (bass). Smith, the eldest, carries the air of a Venice skater but grew up in Hollywood. His rhythmic partner, Franco, is the quiet one. “I thought Tim looked like a prick [at first],” Cash says. “But he’s the nicest guy.” If ever there were an attack on Starcrawler, de Wilde assures that the rhythm section would defend them. “They’ve got the guns,” she says.
Ryan Adams has been tweeting up a storm about them saying things like “This Starcrawler record is gonna peel the paint off your brain!” and “Starcrawler are so fucking insanely good. Soon they will rule this galaxy.” After signing to Rough Trade Records earlier this year, they quickly released their debut single Ants, which caught the ear of Elton John who played the track on his Beats 1 radio show. Soon after, they were on the cover of LA Weekly – their hometown paper. The headline was “With Fake Blood and Frenetic Songs, Starcrawler make rock feel dangerous again”. In the article, Arrow describes that “bands are boring nowadays” and that “there’s no mystery”. That helps explain a little bit of why their shows have become the stuff of legend.
This will be the bands Second limited 7″ on Rough Trade. Starcrawler taken from their newly released RyanAdams– produced debut album. Starcrawler hail from Los Angeles and were formed a year ago . Shortly thereafter, the streets of Hollywood brought them the rhythm section of Austin Smith (drums) and Tim Franco (bass). Starcrawler are the future of the rock n’ roll legacy of bands like Kiss, X, Sonic Youth and The Stooges.
When the band launch into their song “Pussy Tower.” (“It’s about giving head, whatever,” shrugged Starcrawler’s frontperson Arrow de Wilde, Once the song gets underway, de Wilde disappears from view, then re-emerges and spews blood over the audience. Some scream, others laugh. It’s some party trick.
Starcrawler have been gigging around L.A. for a year, often with fellow glam-punk revivalists The Lemon Twigs. Chances are you’ll hear about their fluid-secreting rock & roll before you see it.
When it comes to the music, Starcrawler are so conscientious that, in a bid to “look pro,” they recorded their first single, “Ants,” and its B-side, “Used to Know,” before even playing a gig. “Ants” is a literal anthem about the summer ant infestation that plagues Cash’s house annually. It’s fast, furious and was written as quickly as it plays out. “Ants” was played on Beats 1 radio by Elton John. “It’s funny ’cause people were like, ‘Elton John’s playing your song,'” .
Starcrawler have found a kindred guide in singer-songwriter producer Ryan Adams, who recorded their forthcoming debut LP on analog tape at his Pax-Am Studio in Hollywood. Adams discovered the band while following de Wilde’s mom Autumn on Instagram; like many rock musicians, Adams has been photographed by the elder de Wilde. When mom passed the message along to Arrow, her response was like someone hearing of a long-lost uncle: “Ryan Adams? I hadn’t heard that name in years.”
Starcrawler are definately the future of the rock n’ roll legacy of bands like Kiss, X, Sonic Youth and The Stooges.
Taken from the band’s debut album ‘Starcrawler’, out now on Rough Trade Records:
Having conquered a variety of genre albums in recent years, the genre this time around is that there isn’t a genre—just a dedication to the sanctity of the music and music alone.
Ty Segall has only tweeted once since 2014. He averages about one Facebook post per three months—and even then, it’s almost exclusively advertising a show. Every “Ty Segall” Instagram account is a fan-made page with a couple dozen photos or fewer. He’s not on Snapchat. His website is updated with only bare-bones contact info, a couple videos, and a simple discography. Even his current label, Drag City Records, doesn’t post its catalog to Spotify or Apple Music or Tidal, thereby making it impossible to hear the majority of Segall’s studio albums via any streaming service. TySegall indeed embraces an old-school rock and roll sensibility, from a firm belief in the sanctity of the full-length record to his fuzz-heavy analog aesthetic. But, more accurately put, he merely holds one specific thing in much higher regard than the influence of changing business models or technological advances: personal freedom.
Freedom’s Goblin is the latest among many Ty Segall albums: 19 tracks strong, filling four sides of vinyl nonstop, with an unrestricted sense of coming together to make an album. It wants you to get your head straight — but first, the process will make your head spin! Back in the Twins days, we talked about the schizophrenia of Ty’s outlook; today, it’s super-dual, with loads of realities all folding back on each other. On any given side, we’re tracking five or six full-blown personalities, unconcerned with convention or continuity.
This is Freedom’s Goblin — one track engendering, the next one oppressing, violence up in the mix — a look at everything around that Ty used to make the songs. The songs came in the flow of the year: days of vomit and days of ecstasy and escape too, and days between. The rulebook may have been tossed, but Freedom’s Goblin is thick with deep songwriting resources, be it stomper, weeper, ballad, screamer, banger or funker-upper, all diverted into new Tydentities — each one marking a different style. Freedom’s Goblin wears a twisted production coat: tracks were cut all around, from L.A. to Chicago to Memphis, whether chilling at home or touring with the Freedom Band. Five studios were required to get all the sounds down, engineered by Steve Albini, F. Bermudez, Lawrence “Boo” Mitchell and of course, Ty himself.
The goal was getting free, embracing any approach necessary to communicate new heights and depths, new places for the fuzz to land among octaving harmonies, dancefloor grooves, synths, saxes and horns, jams, post-Nicky-Hopkins r’n’b electric piano vibes, children-of-the-corn psycho-rebellions, old country waltzes and down-by-the-river shuffles. Basically, the free-est pop songs Ty’s ever put on tape. And one about his dog, too! .
We all want our Freedom. The freedom to love or to be alone; to be pretty or pretty ugly; the freedom to turn the other cheek or to turn up the volume. And of course, the freedom to make just about any kind of song you think will free people when they hear it. But there’s that goblin of freedom too — and once you let it out of the bottle, it can fuck with you, so . . . take it or leave it. Go away or go all the way in. Live free and die! BUT be careful what you wish for . .
1 Fanny Dog
2 Rain
3 Every 1’s A Winner
4 Despoiler Of Cadaver
5 When Mommy Kills You
6 My Lady’s On Fire
7 Alta
8 Meaning
9 Cry Cry Cry
10 Shoot You Up
11 You Say All The Nice Things
12 The Last Waltz
13 She
14 Prison
15 Talkin’ 3
16 The Main Pretender
17 I’m Free
18 5 Ft. Tall
19 And, Goodnight
Los Angeles based singer songwriter Jesse Jo Stark releases the new video for Deadly Doll. Combining vintage horror with rockabilly, the sensual crooner is turning heads. The latest track was produced by Jason Lytle (Grandaddy, Band of Horses) and co-written with Chris Garcia (Lana Del Rey, Demi Lovato). Moreover, she kicked off the new year opening for Jane’s Addiction at Belly Up in LA.
Pretty much all you need to know about Death Valley Girls can be summed up by the line from the 1975 sexploitation film Switchblade Sisters that became the band’s unofficial slogan: “Everybody’s gotta be in a gang.” All those images of leather-clad, grime-covered, rebellious fun that such a phrase evokes are just what the Los Angeles quartet personifies. It’s slightly crazy, completely sexy, and just frightening enough that you want nothing more than to be inducted into the club.
Luckily, Death Valley Girls are sending an open invitation with their sophomore record, Glow in the Dark. On Burger Records, the follow-up to 2014’s Street Venomplays like a beacon from space sent to incite a cultural mutiny. Tracks like “Love Spell” and “Disco” beckon the listener to shed the chains of repressive modesty in favor of letting loose in the neon light of the night. “Horror Movie” and “I’m a Man Too” strike out at the definitions laid down by a society enslaved to consumerism and clearly delineated classifications. All of it bursts out in surfy proto-punk layered with sugary shrill harmonies that cut through the garage door like so many steel studs.
If the message of the album isn’t clear enough, this band delivers “Join the experience that will cosmically unite the living and turn on the dead. The battle is now, Be part of the revolution. Glow in the dark.
A Los Angeles /Santiago, Chile-based quartet lead by two sweet-singing girls who manage to combine the noisy darkness ofshoegaze with “scream-in-your-face” punk rock and ethereal-sounding pop – in a very original way.
We are Slowkiss – a 4-piece band – 2 girls and 2 dudes. We make alternative punk rock music, and we do our best to ‘bring it’ for our audience at every show we play and on every song we record. ULTRAVIOLET is our brand new EP – five explosive songs that will surprise you in the best of ways. Big drums, a wall of guitars, growling bass and aggressive-yet-sweet vocals that will melt your ears. The EP artwork was done on canvas by the great Chilean painter Juan Vade, and it turned out so beautiful and eye-catching that we feel it was meant to be printed.
Slowkiss has a series of tour dates in Southern California throughout October 2017!
Using guitars, vocals and sparse electronic elements, Prism Tats pulls from various visual and musical inspirations to create waking dream sub-realities that devastate and elate. Prism Tats is the musical moniker of Garett van derSpek, who’s originally from South Africa but now based in LA. He released his self-titled debut album in 2016, followed by last year’s 11:11 EP, and he’s notably opened shows for such indie vets as Guided by Voices and Nada Surf. He’s now set to release a new full-length, Mamba, on March 2 via ANTI-Records, which was produced by Chris Woodhouse, who’s worked with Thee Oh Sees, Ty Segall, The Intelligence, and others.
Like the other bands Woodhouse works with, Prism Tats channels classic garage rock with a knack for pop hooks and a bit of psychedelia. You can hear that for yourself on Mamba‘s lead single “Daggers,”
The new album ‘Mamba’ comes out 03.02.18 via ANTI- Records.
Moaning is a band defined by its duality. The abrasive post-punk trio comprised of LA DIY veterans, Sean Solomon, Pascal Stevenson, and Andrew MacKelvie, began nearly a decade after the three started playing music together. Their impassioned debut album comes born out of the member’s experiences with love and distress, creating a sound uniquely dark and sincere. Although the band is just breaking out of their infancy, Moaning’s sleek and cavernous tone emphasizes the turmoil of the era they were born into. One where the endless possibility for art and creation is met with the fear and doubt of an uncertain future.
The Fat Angel Sings 