Tag: The Regent Theater

Dusk At Midnight: Converge At The Regent Theater

Rob Shepyer January 27, 2018

Converge is not just a band to me, Converge is a concept. Fresh off the heels of one of 2017’s best releases in extreme music, the band embarked on a stacked tour with metal heavyweights Cult Leader and Sumac as openers. All three bands are worthy of headlining the Regent and the length of their sets reflected that reality. Converge is known for having some of the most violent shows of any band still playing. And to me, in regards to concerts, violence might as well be synonymous with excitement and greatness. Among the others to top the list of most violent audiences were that of Trash Talk and The Dillinger Escape Plan, each of those bands has something about their sound and presence that triggers a primal instinct within the listener. Converge’s sound encapsulates many harsh realities that their fans relate to. The crunchy guitars, bombastic machine-gun drums, and Jacob Bannon’s rabid doberman vocals all brew together to sound like emotional dysfunction, that hard knock street life, nihilism, betrayal, death, decay, and devastation. related content: Trash Talk, Ratking and Pangea: Slam Dance 101 At The Echoplex What people now know as metalcore, bands like Suicide Silence or Parkway Drive,

The New American Storytellers: Nikki Lane & JD McPheerson At The Regent

Rob Shepyer October 18, 2017

JD McPheerson is a rising star, blazing with acclaim from artists, critics, and fans alike that see his music as the revival of classic rock and roll. And by rock, I’m talking about old timers like Chuck Berry (RIP), Little Richard, and Jerry Lee Lewis. The moment I heard “North Side Gal” was the moment I heard the potential for a real phenomenon and moment in music to occur. I can best describe the moment that I’m looking for by comparing it to the kind of fan reaction that Bill Haley and The Comets had when they performed “Rock Around The Clock“. People just went totally ape-shit, it was a total spiritual breakthrough of youth releasing all the suppressed energy that comes with wasted American dreaming. And this comparison isn’t necessarily limited to straight forward rock and roll, in fact the only young band I’ve seen come close was Ceremony performing “Kersed” at Sound and Fury 2016, when the entire audience erupted when the opening notes of the song were strummed and there was one distinct sound that shot up into the air and that was the sound of everyone’s feet stamping on the Regent’s floor in a furious, collective

Andrew WK Preaches The Party Philosophy At The Regent Theater

Rob Shepyer October 10, 2017

How can anyone not like Andrew WK? No matter what kind of music you’re into, if you go to his show, you will be moved to move, dance, shout, jump, and of course, party. That’s what AWK is a master of, getting everyone in a room on his side no matter who they are, why they’re there, or where they come from. If you’re not a fan, just give Andrew 5 minutes of your time and I’m sure you’ll see the light. related content: Front 242 And Severed Heads Bring Classic Industrial To The Regent Theater Like most people my age, I discovered Andrew WK from his collaboration with the Jackass crew, where the single “We Want Fun” was debuted with the original Jackass movie all the way back in 2002. Fifteen years later, the lasting power and stamina of Andrew WK’s chops and career are truly uncanny. His nose has been bleeding for twenty years and still, he shows no signs of aging or slowing down. How can he do this you might ask? Mind over matter and music of mind, that is the answer. He practices the “party philosophy” in order to reach “party consciousness”. Andrew WK takes

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

Before ANTIFA, There Was Crust: Doom Celebrates Dirty 30 At The Regent

Rob Shepyer August 26, 2017

Anarchism and Anti-Fascism seem to have found a new seat, front and far-left-of-center, in the public forum. That seat is occupied by the political movement that has adopted those principals in the fight against Donald Trump known as ANTIFA. Their highly publicized clashes with the far-right might be what’s making news these days but if you know their ideology, one has to see its parallels with Crust Punk. The value system professed by many of ANTIFA’s members are rooted in the deconstruction of the “male dominator system” that is the basis of civilization as we know it. Monogamy, capitalism, binary gender, racial hierarchy, monotheism (especially in the Christ variety), and more, traditions most baby anarchists are born into, are all part of the “male dominator system”. Breaking away from the values you are born into is often a violent experience and what’s left of you after the fact, might just be a person damaged enough to become a crust punk. If you accept your crusthood, the proper thing to do is drop out (of life), never shower, and hop on the next train going nowhere. So what’s the difference between ANTIFA and crust punk culture? On the surface, it’s really

FYF Presents: The Marked Men & Royal Headache Tearing Regent To Shreds

Rob Shepyer July 31, 2017

The Marked Men are a band of Texan punks from the early 2000’s that FYF managed to lasso into a show at the Regent Theater. To some, the news of this show was of the same magnitude as Jawbreaker‘s upcoming reunion for Riot Fest. The Marked Men’s sound is traditional power punk with an unrelenting 3-chord assault reminiscent of bands like The Spits. It’s the perfect soundtrack to youthful debauchery and even though the ages of the crowd were mixed from teenagers to geezers, the energy of everyone in the audience was young and crazy when the Marked Men took the stage. It trips me out to think that the 00’s were so long ago that bands from that era are considered icons and veterans now. Perhaps I’m getting too old for this shit. related content: The Spits at Union- Trash and Glamor United in Los Angeles Flat Worms were the first band to open up this can of worms. They were a speedy and fun power punk trio but as their set progressed their performance started feeling droll- not because of the small early turnout, but because the vocals lacked dynamism and they didn’t move with as much spirit

Black Lips Vandalize L.A. w/ Satan’s Graffiti at The Regent Theater

Danny Baraz July 6, 2017

Yes, your favorite garage rockin’, junked out beatniks, the Black Lips have a new album and are currently on tour. And just like the many indie anti-hero demi-gods that have gone before them, they have their eyes on the prize of scaling their operations onto the tape and record players and bluetooth audio speakers of music civilians that don’t take this shit as seriously as some of us do. You know, the ones that send you into the largely undefined, next level of this nebulous blob forming in the place where the music industry used to be. So, because of my deep affection for the bad kid rockers and the fact that I don’t hate their latest album, Satan’s Graffiti or God’s Art? like I’ve heard from a handful of Black Lips purists upon it’s release, the most important task for determining it’s value to my music portfolio was to see them do it live… besides, maybe Yoko Ono would show up at The Regent Theater as a guest to perform on the song she’s featured on the new album her son Sean produced, “Occidental Front”… related content: Snapshot Of A New Music Industry- White Fang, No Parents & The

Weedeater and The Obsessed at The Regent: Blaze It Up, Fool

Rob Shepyer May 6, 2017

Doom metal is on such a comeback that I might have to become a pothead again. Until a few months ago, I had the hunch that thrash was going to have a second coming and be the biggest rage in underground metal, but at a time when Saint Vitus and The Obsessed are simultaneously touring, when Pallbearer comes out with a game-changing album, and Sleep returns to the studio, it is clear to me that Doom dancing is back in fashion. related content: Ascending the Holy Mountain- Sleep at The Fonda Theater Doom and stoner metal are siamese genres. Doom originated the slow, heavy, down-tuned sound that stoner metal altered with more distortion and fuzz in the guitars, a faster tempo and lyrics either about weed or things you’d ponder while high on weed. The month of May has huge doom shows booked by Spaceland for the Echoplex and Regent. To crack open the month, The Obsessed and Weedeater shared a stage to mesmerize Los Angeles. If you ask most people, they’d say that Weedeater is a bigger draw than the Obsessed. I suppose that’s partly due to the popularity of weed and thus stoner rock over doom but still,

The Orwells And L.A.’s Rocker Red Carpet At Regent Tour Stop

Paige Vreede April 10, 2017

Mario Cuomo, frontman for The Orwells does not give a fuck what song you want to hear – he just wants to play good music and good music is exactly what him and his compatriots delivered last Thursday at The Regent alongside No Parents and The Walters. Despite all three bands delivering a slightly different sound, the one thing they all shared in common was their rousing ability to cut loose and cavort on the rising star friendly stage at The Regent. One thing we love is the red carpet that is rolled out for every rock and roller by this global community in independent music- which is particularly defined for and fighting the stigma of phoniness in Los Angeles with every hospitable act and selfless key bump. Arriving to the venue at 9:30pm, I was greeted by angsty teens pushing and shoving while howling the words “You got snaked” under the elegant arches of The Regent. With most of their songs coming in as a two minute blow to the face, I could have easily missed No Parents entire set seeing as they opened the show at the early hour of 9pm- at least I didn’t miss it all. related

Arthur Brown at The Regent- Memories In My Mind’s Eye That Never Happened

Rob Shepyer March 31, 2017

Today’s musical landscape lacks heroes. No artist seems to be able to stick to the summit of success and often when they do, they’re not even that great. Fans seem to rather see old megastars than new, low key talent. There are plenty of reasons for this. The same trend seems to be happening in other forms of entertainment, but the upside is that fresh talent is hatching under every rock you look. The Crazy World of Arthur Brown is old low key talent that inspired megastars and that’s why I HAD to go see him kick off his tour at The Regent Theater. For the sake of curiosity, let’s book an imaginary Desert Trip 2036. Using the talent from last year’s festival a model for the slots we have to fill, I’ll begin by making the case that in 20 years Radiohead will have the same prog-god status as Roger Waters. That’s the easiest comparison to make. If I need to book two troubadours, one to take Neil Young’s slot and another for Bob Dylan’s, I might have to go with Ed Sheeran and Bon Iver…. related: Why We’re Still Trippin’ on Desert Trip Did reading that make you