Video of the Day: Indie Rockers Who Knit
Who knew that some of LA's popular local bands are also addicted to knitting? Gathered at the Little Knittery in Atwater Village, members of The Pity Party, Space MTN, Film School, Eskimohunter and solo artist Kelly De Martino describe knitting as a creative process for comeup with lyrics and more. - LAist
When onetime folky Matt Gangi hit Manimal Vinyl’s showcase at the Cake Shop Tuesday with his band, aptly called Gangi, the fluttery shirts, shoestring headband, and acoustic strums I expected were nowhere to be found. Framed by shimmery curtains and Christmas lights, Matt and his mallet-wielding drummer Lyle Nesse occupied the stage with self-assurance and opened each song with a sound sample that segued into pre-recorded dance floor beats, synth, and rhythm guitar to form a backdrop for Gangi’s reedy vocals. At times the band’s sound recalled the Brian Jonestown Massacre’s psych-pop, and at others — particularly during “Animals” — Massachusetts duo the Books. But when Gangi ventured into the crowd, hand raised fervently above his head, comparisons seemed petty next to the charming enthusiasm of a musician putting aside freak folk archetypes and finding his own voice. - Spin.com
with:
BlackBlack || Listen
Laco$te || Listen
Voices Voices
8:30pm / FREE / 21+
Veronica Loretta “Roni” Stoneman is the youngest daughter and probably the best-known member of the Stoneman Family, the pioneering country music family headed by her father, Ernest “Pop” Stoneman, one of the first recorded country artists. The Stoneman Family won the Country Music Academy’s “Vocal Group of the Year Award” in 1967. After Pop’s death a year later, Roni Stoneman, known as a virtuoso banjo player in both country music and bluegrass, pursued a musical career on her own. Roni earned the distinction of being the first female banjo player to record a bluegrass tune when she appeared on the 1956 album “American Banjo Scruggs Style” and she achieved national fame in the 1970s as a cast member of “Hee Haw,” one of the most successful variety shows in television history. Last year, the University of Illinois Press published Stoneman’s memoir, Pressing On: The Roni Stoneman Story. The story, told through a series of interviews with Northwestern University writing professor Ellen Wright, includes tales from a lifetime in country music, chronicles Stoneman’s problems with abusive husbands and examines her relationships with her children. Roni celebrated her 70th birthday this year and shows no signs of slowing with regard to her performing schedule or her lightning-fast three-finger picking. - Echoplex
Audio engineer Leon Kagarise left behind more than just music: throughout the '60s, he documented outdoor country-music performances on over 600 slides and 4,000 hours of reel-to-reel tapes. Process presents 140 of the colorful images in Pure Country: The Leon Kagarise Archives, 1961-1971, where pictures of both noted and anonymous performers appear in all their hazy, saturated, slide-transferred glory. Tonight's celebration and book signing features projections of the slides (narrated by book collaborator Eddie Dean), and a performance by one of Kagarise's favorite subjects, banjo virtuoso Roni Stoneman.
with:
Mike Stinson || Listen
David Serby || Listen
Dave Gleason || Listen
West of Texas || Listen
@ Echoplex
enter at
1154 Glendale Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026
THE MOVIES / NICO STAI / DEMO TEAM
THE SAVAGES / DJ JIMMY TAMBORELLO
Spaceland
…the Movies were, more than anything celebrating being the Movies—a ferociously talented live act bathed in a synthy haze of weary sleaze and winking, knowing lyrics, while simultaneously echoing the Bunnymen and remaining firmly, wildly original… Their set was an impassioned, alternately subdued and unhinged performance, as James whirled around the stage in a wild-eyed fever between bassist Jessica Gelt’s sinewy, rhythmic sway and the ambient wash of keyboardist Brian Cleary, demanding that audience members kiss to win copies of the new LP, furiously running in place, and riding the mic stand—once again proving that he is one of the funniest and most dynamic singers in the L.A. music scene (the man can croon, too). The Movies’ show spun between two poles: songs like the melodic, synth-stung “Get Your Macho Out” and the slow-motion whirlpool of “Creation Lake” were a down-tempo counterpoint to the warped snarl of “Autograph” and the glistening stutter-cool of “If I Had the Cash,” with the reeling keyboard intro and propulsive, howled choruses of “Missed Opportunities” unifying both ends of the band’s spectrum before falling into “When I Was in Nam”’s sleep-drawled slow groove of Caucasoid funk. - Web In Front
with:
Nico Stai
Demo Team || Listen
The Savages || Listen
DJ Jimmy Tamborello
8:30pm / FREE SHOW / 21+
¡¡¡ MARK YOUR CALENDARS !!!
[Some Very Bad Person made off with Morgan Kibby's digital camera at the recent Los Angeles show. So instead of her behind-the-scenes photographs, the shot below is one of our indefatigable M83 tour diarist during the show. Meanwhile, if you have any information about that camera ...] Dear Friends and Family, Just a small note to let you know that I am writing a tour blog for the next three months while I am traveling and playing with M83 throughout Europe and the US. The blog will be hosted by Kevin Bronson who was a senior music writer and editor for the LA Times. I am thrilled and honored that he asked me to do this. Should you have the time and the inclination to check it out, the link is as follows:
BUZZ BANDS
I hope this email finds you all healthy and happy, and hopefully i will see you while I'm on the road.
Lots of love,
Morgan
Does MOCA Need New Leadership?
MOCA's Geffen Contemporary is leased from the City for $1 a year | Photo by pink_fish13 via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr
MOCA's grim financial outlook is no secret, and although there has been public mobilization to help raise the profile of the museum's plight and show whoever will pay attention that Angelenos want their art, some see the changes that need to come as being more fundamental.
This weekend's LA Times featured an opinion piece by Tim Rutten, calling for officials from the City of Los Angeles to step in and for MOCA's board and top execs to be replaced. Calling the museum "one of the essential windows on the restless, searching, cosmopolitan creativity of this city's 21st century spirit," Rutten says that because MOCA's Geffen Contemporary sits on land leased from the City ("for $1 a year" no less) and that the City brokered the deal for their Grand Avenue facility, Los Angeles proper "has played a crucial role in MOCA since its inception 30 years ago." - LAisth (more after the image jump)
M. Ward announces tour and pre-sale tickets
Singer-songwriter and modern-day troubadour M. Ward announces plans to hit the road this winter and bring audiences on both sides of the Atlantic tracks from his highly-anticipated release, Hold Time (February 17th, Merge Records). Amidst producing and arranging Zooey Deschanel's indie pop gems and being the "Him" of She & Him'scritically-acclaimed Volu
Fans will have the opportunity to purchase tickets in advance. Pre-sale for the US shows begins Tuesday, December 9 and ends Thursday, December 11. Tickets for all shows in the US, UK, and EU will go on-sale to the public beginning Friday, December 12.
Password for pre-sale: holdtime
For more information and to purchase tickets, please visit www.mwardmusic.com
M. Ward tour dates in full:
Wednesday, February 18 Boston, MA @ Somerville Theater
Thursday, February 19 New York, NY @ The Apollo Theatre
Friday, February 20 Philadelphia, PA @ Trocadero Theatre
Saturday, February 21 Washington, DC @ Sixth and I Synagogue
Wednesday February 25 London, UK @ Borderline
Thursday February 26 Paris, FR @ Café de la Danse
Friday, February 27 Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso
Wednesday March 4 Los Angeles, CA @ Music Box at Fonda
Thursday, March 5 San Francisco, CA @ Palace of Fine Arts
Friday, March 6 Seattle, WA @ Showbox At The Market
Saturday, March 7 Portland, OR @ Aladdin Theater
December is list-making season. And for us music journalists, it is a time to look back on scores of albums, reflect upon the music and recapitulate our favorites. But this year, just like the last, we took this opportunity to flip that tradition upside down, asking the artists that influenced us what influenced them. The prompt was not limited to albums that came out in 2008. Black Keys - Attack And Release The Western States Motel - "Oh World" -- Robert Francis might write the songs of an old soul, but he is still just 21 — and maybe feeling it, when it comes to his next step musically. “Thing are kinda moving slower than I want them to,” he says. It was back in August 2007 when his critically lauded debut, “One by One,” was released on local imprint Aeronaut Records, earning comparisons to the likes of Jeff Buckley, M. Ward and Conor Oberst. After assembling a live band and touring behind the album, he got to work on another. “I started a second record with the idea it would come out on Aeronaut too,” he says. “Then all these [bigger] labels got interested.” It’s premature to talk about a signing, his management says, but while the business [click to continue... This spirit is less palpable in the imagery, however, than in the materials themselves, which look as though they could have been gathered by the very characters Reid is assembling. Old photographs, discarded bits of linoleum and cardboard, toothpicks, strips of satin, velvet, corduroy and upholstery — all are fragments drawn from the world at large, once the fabric of another picture, another story. Every surface exudes a sense of history. Collage is a widely practiced and seldom dazzling genre, but Reid approaches it with a rare degree of concentration and sensitivity, assembling and manipulating her materials with the same care that she shows in choosing them. The works range from letter-size to poster-size, and Reid is equally adept at either end of the scale. The smaller compositions are tight, intimate and jewel-like; the larger, assuredly expansive and monumental. No inch of surface area is squandered or overlooked. The fastidiousness with which Reid treats these once discarded materials invests them with a kind of opulence that seems an extension of her reverence for her subjects. Whether by choice or necessity, her vagabonds have set about living life by their own systems of value. In Friday's paper, look for reviews of David McDonald, Annie Wharton and Jason David at Jail Gallery; Lillian Bassman at Peter Fetterman; and Peter Sudar at Mihai Nicodim. -- Holly Myers
The Western States Motel's Top Ten of 2008
Picture via the Western States Motel's Myspace
MGMT - Oracular Spectacular
Blitzen Trapper - Furr
TV On The Radio - Dear Science
Ratatat - LP3
Creedence Clearwater Revival - Self Titled Reissue
Brightblack Morning Light - Motion To Rejoin
Happy Hollows - Imaginary EP
Dr. Dog - Fate
Tobacco - Fucked Up Friends
This last year LAist's Molly Bergen not only saw the band perform, but interviewed them as well.
Maeghan Reid
Chung King Project
Maeghan Reid’s solo debut at Chung King Project — one of the strongest in recent memory — revolves around the figure of the drifter, the gypsy, the nomad or the outsider. Solitary silhouettes roam her collages with walking sticks in hand and bags slung over their shoulders. Small groups gather in makeshift camps; buildings loom in vast isolation, on the peaks of hills or surrounded by plains. There is a prevailing sense of both alienation and freedom, exclusion and liberation.
new SMASHING PUMPKINS video
Produced by our good friend Miss Megan Duffy!
G.L.O.W.
KCRW Music Director Jason Bentley's Top 10 Albums of '08
1. M83 - Saturday's = Youth (Mute)
2. Santogold - Santogold (Downtown)
3. Jamie Lidell - Jim (Warp Records)
4. Adele - 19 (XL Recordings/Colombia)
5. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend (XL Recordings)
6. Juana Molina - Un Dia (Domino)
7. Little Dragon - Little Dragon (Peacefrog)
8. The Black Ghosts - The Black Ghosts (IAMSOUND Records)
9. Portishead - Third (Mercury Records)
10. Jazzanova - Of All the Things (Verve)
Barragan's mixes it up for Echo Park hipsters
It's Wednesday night at Barragan's and, as usual, packs of twentysomethings jam into the shoebox-sized bar, the dark-paneled restaurant booths, the upstairs banquet room and rooftop patio. They shout to be heard over the throbbing sounds coming from a D.J. spinning records as weary waitresses and bus boys bring free nachos. But the big draw at this Echo Park Mexican restaurant on Wednesday is not the music or the food. It's the $2.50 margaritas. On a good "Margarita Wednesday" the restaurant pours about 1,500 drinks... (read more after the jump).
Help the Fire Victims
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is encouraging residents and businesses to help support the hundreds of displaced families due to the Sayre Fire by donating to the Red Cross of Greater Los Angeles, the organizations that is acting as the lead agency on shelter management and the current relief effort.
"Overnight, hundreds of families have found themselves homeless and relying on the care of their community," Villaraigosa said. "Just ten days before Thanksgiving, I encourage all Angelenos and businesses to come to their neighbor's aid and pitch in what they can." They are accepting cash donations and in-kind gifts.
Looking to do more? Help the community-at-large in other ways: check out the latest PhiLAnthropist column.
Here's some video I shot of Soko the other night
Industry Insiders: Alexis Rivera, Pied Piper
How did you got your start in Los Angeles, and how did you became such a heavy in Echo Park?
Read the BlackBook article
Echo Park Named One of Top 10 Great Neighborhoods
And when you hear that, you might find yourself asking which Realtor came up with that ranking. Luckily, this time there is some creditability behind the designation: the American Planning Association. They "singled out Echo Park because of its breathtaking topography set in the hills above downtown, historic architecture, pedestrian-oriented streets and stairways, and engaged residents who, over the years, have gone to great lengths to protect and preserve their community," according to an APA release (add: their website has more info and history on why EP was chosen) .... more after you click on the image!
SUBMIT YOUR PICTURES!!!
THE MAE-SHI @ Spaceland
THE MOVIES @ Spaceland
DENGUE FEVER @ Viper Room
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