Posts Tagged ‘Los Angeles’

If you’re struggling to get motivated this morning, then Philadelphia-born, Los Angeles-based musician Joshua Ostrander aka Mondo Cozmo has the perfect song for you. Starting out as a soulful acoustic reverie before transforming into full arrangement complete with a mass choir, his latest single “Shine” is an uplifting, lighter-in-the-air instant rock classic that’s sure to leave you feeling like you can achieve anything in life today.

Music video by Mondo Cozmo performing Shine. © 2016 Republic Records a division of UMG Recordings Inc.

These guys opened for Dilly Dally a while ago and they definitely caught everyone’s  attention. This is a kickass collection of Alternative/Grunge  out of Los Angeles that sounds as if it teleported straight from the early 90’s. It’s unique while sounding so familiar at the same time, and catchy in all the right places. I love this EP. Can’t wait to hear more from Goon! , Everything written, performed, recorded, mixed, kinda-mastered and painted by Kenny Becker. Dusk of Punk, the sludgy, twangy, grunge-addled debut EP by his band Goon. Except for Gay Rage and Merchant Hall in which Caleb Wicker played that br00tal lead guitar and heavily aided in the recording process. Also Teddy Bresson sings (beautifully) on Merchant Hall.

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The six-song output, which drops September 16th, marks a sincere exploration of their sound’s malleable boundaries, from drop tunings to drum machines—not just for listeners, but for Becker as well, due to a medical condition that periodically impairs half of his senses—a bit of an undertaking for someone who has played music his whole life.

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Scuzzy pop-punk outfit Cherry Glazerr , soon to jet off on a tour with Sky Ferreira, are streaming their new single “Had Ten Dollaz “ online. You can buy it now through Suicide Squad Records – it’s backed with a B-side brilliantly titled “Nurse Ratched”. Fusing Lana Del Rey-y pop vox with the jagged grit of Post Punk Pixes axes and Hole-esque hurricanes, Cherry Glazerr neatly proffer a stunning slab of rock. There’s a lo-fi air to it, but the youthful troupe still sound like they have a fully-formed chemistry.

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Old Blood

This Southern California-based doom-psych quintet has been garnering major raves from the metal blogosphere thanks to their newly released self-titled debut. The primal punch and serpentine swirl of the band’s guitar-bass-organ-drum attack mesh beautifully with the commanding clean vocals of vocalist Feathers, whose jazz- and blues-influenced stylings soar above the crunch. And this is all before you attend their theatrical live show that includes smoke machines, psychedelic projections and a pair of corpse-painted dancers – the Rigormortettes – who perform ribbon and hula-hoop routines before ritually “killing” Feathers at the end of it.

They Say: “People have said our live shows are like being on a drug trip without any drugs actually being involved,” laughs bassist and co-founder Octopus. “Audiences don’t know what to expect, but they love it; we often leave them with their mouths hanging open. But it’s been kind of interesting trying to book the band, because we’re so different.

“We wanted to have that sense of a fourth wall, that sense of theater and mystery. There’s no mystery with so many doom and stoner bands; it’s like, ‘That dude looks like the guy who works on your car!’ Which is cool, and we respect that; but at the same time, we feel like some of the genre has become derivative, and we wanted to stake out some new territory. We absolutely are part of the stoner/doom world – but when you’re stoned, sometimes you see things differently!”

Hear for Yourself: A fuzzed-out journey to the center of the psyche, “Glowplug” – from the band’s self-titled debut – impressively showcases Old Blood’s power.

OLD BLOOD is:
Feathers – Vocals
Diesel – Drums
Gunner – Guitar
Octopus – Bass
Stone – Keyboards

And The Rigomortettes: Cutter and Hoops

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Previously unreleased 1976 Radio broadcast. Broadcast live in early 1976 from L.A.’s legendary Roxy Theatre by that city’s KMET FM Radio, this dynamic set captures the former Velvet Underground front-man, Lou Reed, working through an eight song selection of some of his finest work he had released up to that juncture. Featuring a sublime ‘I’m Waiting For The Man’ dating back to the first VU album, ‘Lisa Says’, a song written at a similar time and indeed demoed by the Velvets but not released until it’s inclusion on Lou’s first, eponymous solo LP in 1972, and two cuts apiece from October ’75’s ‘Coney Island Baby’ (‘Kicks’ and the title track) and his then yet to be released ‘Rock and Roll Heart’ (I Believe In Love and You Wear It So Well) – a record not issued until October ’76. He was never going to get out alive however without performing …‘Wild Side’, thus a 10 minute rendition of this classic tune provides the penultimate number of this energetic performance.

Last January, Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter Miranda Lee Richards released a new album “Echoes Of The Dreamtime” on Invisible Hands Music.

The collection of eight psychedelic folk songs was recorded in her home and brings together eight pastoral, atmospheric epics into a work that is her most impressive yet.

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Los Angeles’s band Valley Queen are releasing the “In My Place” b/w “High Expectations” single this Friday (8/12) via Canvas club Records. Singer Natalie Carol has a real powerful voice, and the band’s folk pop has gained comparisons to Fleetwood Mac, Florence Welch, and others. If you like those, you may dig Valley Queen too. “In My Place” hit the web recently, and we’re also premiering the track “High Expectations” in this post. Listen to both, and checkout the band’s NPR Tiny Desk Concert, in a earlier post. Their debut album is on the way too.

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Warpaint

Warpaint have announced a follow-up to their very good 2014 sophomore self-titled album. It’s called Heads Up, and apparently sees the LA rockers going in a more dance-oriented direction. “We’ve always had this really jammy, high-energy live show compared to some of our records,” the band’s Emily Kokal said in a statement.

The lead single is the inventively-titled “New Song” it’s certainly more driving and immediate than almost anything they’ve put out before.

This track, taken from Warpaint’s 2016 album, Heads Up, sounds nothing like Santana, though. Soulwax got their disco-fevered paws on the original and bongo-ed the shit out of it. The result is like a tropical island getaway for the ears. Into it.

Really pretty and trippy new song from the Cosmonauts. I really love that ascending guitar part that repeats in the beginning and then the spacey effects laden, what I’m assuming is a guitar, part adding atmospheric textures to the song. Feels like a song you play when you’re the passenger in a car going down a desolate desert road while staring out the window watching the landscape pass you by. Have a listen below.

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Snowball II is a shoegaze band from Los Angeles. Sophomore album “Doughnut Holes” out 9/16.

Snowball II is pretty new band, actually—at least the name is. Jackson Wargo has been putting out music written under other monikers for a few years now. There were no set band members or anything, usually just people I could round up to play on a recording or at a particular show. Nothing was really catching on, and it all started to feel pretty stale, so I wanted to re-brand everything. I’d already recorded the album we’re about to put out when I decided to do that, but I felt like this record would open up a cool new chapter for my “band,” so I got the name and called everyone I knew within 50 miles until I found some people who knew what shoegaze was and were open to rehearsing more than once a week.

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