Tag: industrial

The Industrial Virus is Spreading: Das Bunker Presents Kanga at Resident

Rob Shepyer August 28, 2018

Das Bunker has returned, this time out of the post-apocalyptic brick humidifier that is Los Globos’ crumbling upstairs bomb shelter to the posh but mosh-approved Resident for a Kanga and Cyanotic duel-headlining show. The horror on the faces of those yuppies that were trying to peacefully go about their networking on the patio was a beautiful thing for us creeps to behold. We blackened the Resident like a flock of crows descending upon hipster carrion. related content: One Friday Night In Hell Part 2: Das Ich At Los Globos Coming from Toronto and exhibiting that same sappy Canadian authenticity that seems so easy to be cynical against, For All The Emptiness, began the show. His songs were desperate pleas for change out of a numb and uncaring world and though this translates well on his records, over his catchy industrial dance beats, live the combination of fast-paced music, overly-dramatic singing, forgettable stage antics, and lyric-videos plastered on the backdrop via projection, didn’t quite hit the mark. Digital music and lyric videos just scream karaoke no matter how good the performance. In his favor, I will say the his album art and music video for “Hearts Against Minds” have top notch aesthetics

Take This: Win 2 Tickets to Cold Waves LA

Janky Smooth Central Command August 15, 2018

Cold Waves is Chicago’s annual industrial festival that showcases the artists that are leading the way in the world of dark electronic music. For the second year in a row, Cold Waves is coming to Los Angeles for three days of dancing and black clothing. Headlining the festival which takes place at 1720 warehouse is OhGr, Nivek OhGr’s band (of Skinny Puppy fame); The Black Queen, Greg Puciato’s industrial group after The Dillinger Escape Plan, and Canadian industrial legends Front Line Assembly. Cold Waves LA takes place Thursday September 27th-29th at 1720 Warehouse with a kick-off show at the Echo with Ruby. YOU CAN BUY TICKETS HERE OR. ENTER TO WIN 2 TICKETS FOR COLD WAVES LA+KICK OFF SHOW SEPTEMBER 26th AT THE ECHO + SEPTEMBER 27th-29th AT 1720 WAREHOUSE Step 1- Join Our Newsletter (look for pop up everytime you arrive at jankysmooth.com) Step 2- Share or RT this or any Cold Waves LA Artist Spotlight post on FB or Twitter or Tag a Friend in the comment section of any of our INSTAGRAM Cold Waves LA Giveaway or Artist Spotlight Posts WINNER WILL BE WILL BE SELECTED ON WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 5th AT 11AM PST VIA EMAIL CONFIRMATION

Luna 13 G.O.A.T. Witch Record Release Party at the Viper Room

Janky Smooth Central Command August 11, 2018

Luna 13 had their G.O.A.T Witch record release party at the Viper Room last Sunday, Aug. 5, 2018. The album was put out by LA’s iconic post-punk label Cleopatra Records. The group consisted of Lilith Bathory and Dr. Luna, which together created a dark visual black-metal bass theatrical experience. Other bands playing as part of the record release party included; The Audio Virus, Artifact Corruption, and Midnight Nightmare. Words and Photos by: Abraham Preciado

One Friday Night in Hell Part 2: Das Ich at Los Globos

Rob Shepyer July 12, 2018

The second floor of Los Globos feels a bit like a bomb shelter. Claustrophobic, musty, crumbling. The perfect setting for industrial music. You want to dance among the urban decay. You’ll feel the music more. This hellish Friday night had taken us from a hardcore concert to Das Bunker at Los Globos where we saw all sorts of black clothed boys and girls dancing in a way too complicated to ever imitate. Mechanical yet fluid, industrial dancing can be meme’d and joked about but never replicated by an amateur. related content: One Friday Night In Hell Part 1: Show Me The Body, Twitching Tongues, And Vein At The Regent Inva//id was first to take the stage as the hungry dancers packed in toward the stage to get a good glimpse of the band shadows dancing under the strobe light. I had seen this group once before, last year at Das Bunker’s anniversary show, where Das Ich also played. They harken back the better days of Ministry’s Twitch era and early Skinny Puppy works back when it was still horror movie music you could dance to. Christopher Rivera’s grizzled vocal style gives every twist your body makes some kind of apocalyptic,

A Softly Harsh Friday The 13th W/The Soft Moon and Boy Harsher At Teragram

Rob Shepyer April 16, 2018

Friday the 13th should be celebrated with blood… with killing… with a haunting of your soul. That might not require a weapon unless of course, you mean music and in this case, The Soft Moon‘s post punk is the sharpest knife. Selling out show after show on his tour, Luis Vasquez’s trio from Oakland, CA, has created a new sound in an old form. Lethal Amounts brought together three musical acts, each dwelling in the same realm of dark music but from completely different approaches. Drenched in blue lights and dense shadows, Liebestod is a one man show that uses noise to disjoint and sever your connection to anything familiar in music. He’s a noise performer with an industrial edge that uses electronics to make every show a completely new and original thing. Improvising with every fidget of his wires, I’m not even sure if he knows what sonic monster, he’ll end up spawning even so, it was pleasurable to the eyes, the ears, and with the foundation shaking bass, to the skin and bones too. Based in L.A. but hailing from St. Louis, the rust belt, one can imagine what sort of industrial upbringing fueled his current line of

The Sound of Sex: Boy Harsher Seduces The Echoplex

Rob Shepyer January 29, 2018

If you were to cross Jae Matthews, vocalist of Boy Harsher, on the sidewalk you may not have any idea you were just in the presence of an industrial dance goddess. Hailing from Savannah Georgia, her and producer August Muller, don’t necessarily fit into your idea of what a goth should look like but then when you hear their combined force, you sense that this is the music that the world’s darkwave/industrial dance/EBM should crowd around. Part Time Punks did it again, lassoing a lineup that could sell out the Echoplex two times over with Boy Harsher getting support from Din and High-Functioning Flesh. Both bands feature producer Greg Vand, yet both bands sound completely different. Din was first, with female vocals and guitars to pair with Vand’s must-dance soundscapes. The filtered vocals gave the industrial sounds a bit of a shoe-gaze or post punk flare. Although sounding totally unique, Din offers a more straight forward and obvious dance triggering sound than High-Functioning Flesh. Using samples of voices to make musical medleys and punchy beats that marry Susan Subtract’s punchy crust vocals, High-Functioning Flesh sounds like revolution music for the cyber punk era. I’ve seen them numerous times now and

Millennial Matchmaking: Gary Numan & Ugly God At The Observatory

Rob Shepyer November 22, 2017

Two artists from very different times and scenes played two different shows on the same Observatory stage. Gary Numan and Ugly God- rarely do you get that much musical diversity out of a night and I was interested to see how my brain would react to absorbing the contrast. Anyone that knows me would think I was more interested in seeing Numan and though I’m a fan, I came to see what all this trap hype was about. For you see, music has become for me a divining rod which one can use to understand where society is going and if Trap’s popularity is any indication, I think we’ll all be celebrating ourselves stupid in times to come. The Gary Numan show was first with Me Not You as his only support on the bill. They’re a band from New York City that played an amazing and cathartic set with electronic post-punk vibes that kept building and building, pulling the tears out of your eyes while cramming the noise down your ears. They reminded me a bit of Health but with female vocals and a pinch of mellow, alternative vibes comparable to older bands like The Breeders or The Cranberries or

Cloak & Dagger Fest: The Heart Of Los Angeles Bled From Dusk Till Dawn

Rob Shepyer October 27, 2017

Good “dark” music should come from a damaged yet open heart because it’s those damages that make all the styles of dark music involved in Cloak And Dagger Festival beautiful to those that wear black late at night- or during the day, for that matter. Whether it was dark wave, new wave, post punk, goth/death rock, industrial, EBM, or shoegaze, every shade of black was represented on those two cold October nights. Right from the first lineup announcement, it was understood that this would be like no other festival. With three stages at the Globe and Tower theaters, an all black dress code, and local brand recognition, I was sure the siamese evenings would play out like a movie, think Eyes Wide Shut meets Gimme Shelter. The lineup hosted plenty of bands that are Janky Smooth favorites like Ho99o9, Health, Moon Duo, and Uniform. Iconic artists like KMFDM, OhGr, and The Jesus and Mary Chain were set to share the two stages with future headliners like Cold Cave, The Soft Moon, and Lust For Youth. So any goth kid, let alone this one, would be awestruck and elated at the chance to partake in the affair. Night 1: Black is the absence of

So Much Strange At Das Bunker 21st Anniversary At Union

Rob Shepyer October 15, 2017

I’ve always been iffy about going to Das Bunker. Industrial music has held a special place in my heart since high school when I used to smoke myself stupid and put on headphones to let Skinny Puppy pervert my vulnerable mind. Later, when it came to light that Skinny Puppy’s music was used to torture inmates in Guantanamo Bay, I had to reassess what damage I had done to my senses. I’ve always loved the music but the industrial scene itself, turned me off. Those industrial pants are fucking ridiculous and the dancing is down right goofy, especially when the only one on the floor is a 50-year-old gamer, sucking in his gut. So, I had my reservations, but with my need to never miss out, I still feel like shit that I couldn’t go to the Das Bunker 20th anniversary show, last year. Now I would kill to see The Legendary Pink Dots. related content: Front 242 And Severed Heads Bring Classic Industrial To The Regent Theater To make up for last year’s absence and check out some insanely hot goth chicks, I committed myself to make it to at least one of the two nights of the 21st anniversary. I

Chelsea Wolfe: She-God of Luciferian Witches And Other Soul Harvesters At The Regent

Rob Shepyer October 1, 2017

Chelsea Wolfe dresses in black. The color simply knows how to fall correctly upon her body. She feels comfortable in black and black feels comfortable on her. With her pale skin and thousand mile cold-detached stare, I don’t ever think I’ve seen a closer resemblance to a mythical siren grace a stage. And I certainly never figured sirens could play a mean doom guitar. Chelsea’s latest album, Hiss Spun is a beautifully grueling venture into the darkness of down tuned metal guitar and noisy wall of sound electronics to make what is best described as doom blues, as opposed to doom metal. I’ve never heard doom sound as rhythmical or groovy as I did beholding Chelsea and her band at the Regent. Her drums and guitars can thrash at intense speeds and make you dance while never departing out of the doom realm. It requires some kind of forbidden alchemy and golden arithmetic to achieve that balance. I see a lot of artists trying to create a similar image to hers, trying to introduce a certain level of “evil” into a mainstream bluesy sound. I don’t think anyone pulls it off quite as well though, the others seem like caricatures,

Front 242 And Severed Heads Bring Classic Industrial To The Regent Theater

Rob Shepyer September 29, 2017

Cold Waves and Das Bunker joined forces to create one hell of a concert bill for a Wednesday night. Belgian innovators of EBM, Front 242 and Australian industrial icons, Severed Heads shared a stage for this incredible evening of dark, electronic music. Both groups are legends in the world of industrial but their performing styles couldn’t be any more different. related content: Psychic TV Experiment With Auditory Alchemy At The Echoplex The Regent was filled with goth kids, Skinny Puppy shirts abound. I eavesdropped on a few conversations and they were all talking about careers in game development. Das Bunker DJs were spinning some tracks as we waited for the opening act which I parked right in front of the stage for. The first thing I noticed about the stage set-up was the red roses strewn all over the electronic decks. I imagined with a name like Romy, they’d be an act with some kind of romance or romeo reference but came to learn she was no male heartthrob or heartbreaker. She was in fact an extraordinarily talented artist and might just be a female Trent Reznor in utero. Utilizing synths and drum machines, Romy makes incredibly catchy, hard-hitting and dark,

Perturbator, Author & Punisher: Using Devices To Debase Regent Theater

Rob Shepyer September 19, 2017

Electronic music allows a single artist to take on all the working parts of a band because those parts become synthesized in their machines. The electronic revolution has opened up new opportunities and avenues for artists who might not have ever been interested in picking up a guitar- and that’s no slight against EDM artists (up until this night I was under the impression that EDM was the Pop style of electronic music, at large). The point of music isn’t just to wow you and me with virtuosic and technical playing- it’s to express ones soul and if electronics help an artist do that more purely and directly then it’s a good thing. In this sense, Jim Morrison was right when he predicted the future of music would consist largely of one person and an arsenal of components. So if in Morrison’s mind’s eye he had an image of what that future would actually LOOK like, I doubt it would’ve differed too much from what I saw at The Regent Theater when Perturbator, Author & Punisher and Whiteqube were booked to showcase a different kind of electronic music than what you might imagine when you see the letters E D