Tag: the roxy

The Hardest So-Cal Has to Offer, Strife Plays “In This Defiance” at The Roxy

Rob Shepyer August 27, 2018

Southern California has always been a hotbed for hardcore punk from Black Flag to The Circle Jerks but carrying on the torch into the 90’s was a band from Thousand Oaks, California called Strife. Exhibiting that classic straight edge, beat down character, Strife was a band that from the get go, had the feel like they belonged on a stage with a pit belonging right in front of them. Their second album, In This Defiance, with its many guest appearances by Dino Cazares, Chino Mareno, and Igor Cavalera, became the band’s definitive album. They were a band that could get hardcore kids to dog-pile and sing together songs so undeniably powerful and demanding of an audience, that they became essential to the Southern California hardcore canon. related content: For The Children 2017 At The Echoplex: Hardcore Is The Gift That Keeps On Giving Strife’s impact resonated beyond their sound though. Each band that would perform on this evening at The Roxy had a connection to the band. Beginning first with Fixation from Philadelphia, who even though are in the early stages of their career, played a set that was cohesive and powerful enough to make you envision a long and

How to Trip Off Volume: Elder at The Roxy

Rob Shepyer August 23, 2018

How do you get high? Flower? Shrooms? Synthetics? Running? There are many ways. Some of them led me to this style of stoner/doom metal in the first place but once I had first began frequenting those concerts and stood among other trippers before a stage where a high was induced through music, I realized not every method can be found on erowid.com. Volume can get you high. Walls of sound can break you through sobriety’s ceiling and beyond that threshold is an especially consciousness-shaking altered state. Few bands build walls of sound so high and holy as the ones featured at The Roxy at this show with progressive doom virtuosos Elder. related content: Earthless Liquified My Face At Teragram With Third Circle Visuals behind the projector’s eye, shooting liquid light on stage as if spitting venom like a Dilophosaurus on LSD, the stage was set for Los Angeles’ best kept stoner secret Yidhra to take the stage. Combining heavy, vibrating doom riffs with hallowed, commanding growls, and a theremin’s whirling alien essence, Yidhra’s sound is original and soul-stirring. Like if Sleep slept with Kenneth Anger’s Technicolor skull, this is dark-side of your trip black light metal to the bone. This

Anarchy’s Monarch: Scarlxrd at The Roxy

Rob Shepyer July 27, 2018

Arcing over the pond in a desperate fire bombing attack on American soil, the UK’s Scarlxrd landed at the Roxy Theatre to light Los Angeles up for his first American show. With only him and his DJ performing, it was almost like a showcase for us foreigners, to see what secret weapon the trap game had up its sleeves. Or, to use an even more ridiculous comparison, it was as if Goldenvoice used a cheat code to select the secret character on the menu screen and we were facing Noob Saibot for the evening. related content: Sleaford Mods Hit The Echoplex On Last Date Of First Ever U.S. Tour For those confused by my ramblings, Scarlxrd is a young, trap artist who’s sound and image have captured young people’s imagination and has garnered seals of approval from mainstream American taste-making institutions such as Noisy and Goldenvoice. What differentiates him from other artists in the game though, is the undisputed aggression and anger in his music which most trap artists only try to give the impression they can summon through their image. If trap and hardcore punk are on two opposite poles of a spectrum, Scarlxrd represents a point on that

It Ain’t a Cult, it’s a Trap: Tyla Yaweh and SAINt JHN at The Roxy

Rob Shepyer May 23, 2018

Hip hop shows in 2018 are the most purely fun concerts of any genre causing a ruckus in LA. With rowdy DJs, blunt smoke, wild dance, and beautiful women everywhere, anyone that talks down about this form of music surely hasn’t experienced it live. related content: Nature World Night Out At The Regent: Building Bridges Between Hardcore And Hip Hop The night’s artists, vocalizing under the Not A Cult tour’s banner, were Tyla Yaweh and SAINt JHN. Tyla, a new acquisition of London Entertainment, is an artist ready to make everyone his biggest fan in 2018. How on Earth can he do this? Well, he demonstrated every behavior he would need to capture your adoration and imagination at this Roxy performance. First: Charisma. Tyla’s charisma is perhaps his most noticeable attribute, with a big smile and the ability to use dance and body language to to tell the story. Tyla moves with the lucidity and confidence of someone that risked it all for a dream and succeeded. During one song that featured the lyrics “she told me she really good at dancin’ like Michael Jackson“, Tyla busted out moves that dazzled the audience, dance moves people rarely see from hip

Halloween At The Roxy w/ The Evil Ones: Roky Ericksen & Death Valley Girls

Rob Shepyer November 2, 2017

Halloween shows at the Roxy have become a Janky Smooth tradition after last year’s showcase with Ho99o9 and The Shrine, Halloween 2017 Death Valley Girls support, a Roky Eriksen and Death Valley Girls collaborative evening was a mandatory spooking, especially with DVG lead guitarist Larry Schemel now playing guitar in Roky’s band. The last time I saw Roky Eriksen was also at the Roxy with him playing with his Hounds Of Baskerville band. Their set was filled with 13th Floor Elevators material but as a guy understanding Roky from a metalhead background, I wanted to hear his halloween staples off his solo album The Evil One. related content: House Of Ho99o9 Halloween At The Roxy Lots of artists claim to be evil but few actually live parallel to their projections. Roky, on the other hand, has been dabbling in the paranormal, the horrific, and the down right psychotic for a very long time. It’s a miracle he’s on stage playing psych rock and not chained to a rock in some psych ward. Roky hit so many bong loads and dropped so many tabs that he was thrown into institutions numerous times throughout his music career. Yet that never slowed him down once,

Wayne Kramer, Catherine Popper w Malin at The Roxy

Jesse Malin And All Star Rockers Raise Money For A Friend At The Roxy

Vanessa Burgundy February 8, 2017

It was raw and windy outside the world-famous Roxy Theatre in Los Angeles…a perfect night to be fed a big ol’ loving cup of Goats Head Soup from NYC rock n roller and D Generation lead singer, Jesse Malin and his seemingly endless array of optimally talented friends. Not only was this show serving as Jesse’s 50th birthday party, but also as a benefit for dear friend and road crew member Natty B who was diagnosed with Leukemia in 2006 and has since become paralyzed. What better way to raise money for a new wheelchair than to put together an all-star lineup and play some Stones songs. Genius. Due to a little shower snafu at home (we don’t need to get into that), I arrived a little later than expected, sadly missing the opening sets from both David Bason/Joe Sib and D-Generation guitarist Richard Bacchus. Apologies boy. I did, however, catch the closing portion of 20- something Wisconsin born songwriter, Trapper Schoep’s set, with a goodtime sing-a-long of Merle Haggard’s classic “Mama Tried”. Always a crowd pleaser. related content: Best Coast, HEALTH, No Age, Bleached, Ty Segall Play Show to Save The Smell The Roxy steadily began to fill up as it

2 Nights of The Julie Ruin at The Roxy: All Girls To… The Back Bar

Vanessa Burgundy October 18, 2016

The mood was light and the crowd was heavy on Friday night for the first of the two sold-out the Julie Ruin shows at the Roxy. Gender-bending, NYC comedian Murray Hill intro’d the band with his silly, old-school showbiz banter (as he has for Le Tigre, the Gossip, and the Beastie Boys…) and the band bounced out onto the stage. Kathleen Hanna was a showgrrrl after my own heart, dressed fully in sequins. Another sign that this band is more about fun, as their latest jolting dance-pop release Hit Reset will prove, albeit emotionally heavy. related content: The Julie Ruin at The Troubadour- Vagina’s and Surprises My 14 year old me can’t mask my disappointment about the lack of angst and anger that translates into raw power on stage- that the show was missing on Friday night. During the first song, the band got off on a false start and in between starting again, a man in the back yelled “Take it off!!!”. I looked at my girlfriend and we both were wondering where we were for a second. I mean, the Julie Ruin even have a song titled “Mr. So and So” about an asshole dude that loves girl bands. We

X At The Roxy: Support Billy Zoom

Danny Baraz December 8, 2015

Since 1977, the band, X has been an unmistakable part of Los Angeles lore and culture. The term punk rock is cast as a wide net but almost all of the bands in the late 70’s wave of west coast punk had their own, highly distinguishable sound and X was no exception. Their twangy, rockabilly brand of rebel music was and is one of the most dynamic of it’s time and the vocal duo of John Doe and Exene Cervenka are amongst the most melodic of the crop that sprouted from that period. It’s no wonder why their shows still sell out whenever they play in town but selling out 4 consecutive nights this past weekend at The Roxy is a testament of the high caliber of their contemporary performances. X got a heavy mortality check in the early summer of this year when it was announced that guitarist and co-founder of the band, Billy Zoom was diagnosed with bladder cancer. This past October, Zoom reported that he was cancer free and X moved to start playing these “Support Billy Zoom” shows immediately. I attended this past Friday’s show, which was night two of four and there was little evidence of

Friday Night Shows in Los Angeles- Suck it Brooklyn

Danny Baraz June 15, 2015

I jumped in my car and just started driving west. It was a weird week of muggy, rainy weather. The type of weather that simultaneously collects rain drops and sweat beads on the forehead. I drove by a man in a clown suit as I made a right onto the 10 freeway west off of La Cienega. Was I in L.A. or Florida? No matter how many bad neighborhoods they turn into good neighborhoods, Los Angeles will always let it’s freak flag fly on a Friday night. “I’m going to go for a quick skate in Venice then head over to Touch Vinyl. What time you going to be there?” “I’m getting there around 7pm and we go on at 9:15. Come check out French Vanilla, they’re rad.” “Cool dude, I’ll try and make it for that but I’m stoked that I’m finally going to get to see you guys live. Don’t suck, ok?” “Hahaha. We’ll try our best” I got off the phone with Travis, pulled my deck out of my trunk and skated over to the park. When my skate was over, I headed over to Touch Vinyl for their “June Untouched Music Series” presented by Dirty Laundry

Courtney Barnett at The Roxy: How to Make a Rockstar

Danny Baraz June 1, 2015

By Danny Baraz Walking from Doheny on Sunset on my way to The Roxy, it felt like Beverly Hills had finally swallowed West Hollywood whole. The once filthy and foul smelling Sunset Strip now sparkles like a well placed rescue dog. Once the epicenter of club rock in Los Angeles, only the Roxy and The Rainbow remain relevant to Rock and Roll on the Strip. Most independent artists are playing their shows East of La Brea Blvd these days. Thanks to Goldenvoice, The Roxy just nearly escaped the pay to play fate shared by The Whiskey and The Viper Room and on this night, it was hosting the first of two nights with the rocket ship named Courtney Barnett. The first time I heard Courtney Barnett’s music was covering her gig at El Rey in November as part of Red Bull’s, 30 Days in L.A. At another Goldenvoice venue, organized by a corporate lifestyle brand, it was the first of two times I’ve seen Barnett playing to a 21+ audience. Courtney Barnett’s music seems better suited to play venues in the eastern part of Los Angeles to all ages crowds but I have yet to see her in that setting.

The Dickies Dry Hump The Roxy

JustinThomas February 23, 2015

“There is no better place to be on a Saturday night than Hollywood.” These were the words mumbled by my Uber driver. All while the lunatic stranger from our Uberpool ride-share aggressively barked lyrics from Sublime’s 40 oz of Freedom to an audience of one. My Saturday night was already headed in the right direction. I arrived at the historic Roxy Theatre around 8 PM. The curtains were drawn, mo hawks were groomed, and “The Dickies” back patches were imperfectly sewn onto sleeveless denim jackets. Each of the times I’ve been to the Roxy, every artist has acknowledged the history of this venue, and any number of google searches will result an overwhelming number of articles about the mystique of the Roxy. This all lead me to believe there is no better venue to see The Dickies, one of LA’s most historic punk bands. As the curtains raised for the first time, my eyes were met with pure bewilderment as the stage was set with two white dudes in freshly pressed Mormon door-knocking uniforms, slicked back hair, and a Wall-E-eque computer holding a MacBook. It all took a second to process and what followed was one of the best shticks in

Babes in Toyland Still Inspire and Terrify at The Roxy

Vanessa Burgundy February 14, 2015

Kat Bjelland once described Babes in Toyland as “full frontal assault” and after last night, mommy mommy I need an adult. The Roxy was packed to its crusty edges with riot grrrls and boys, riot moms (thanks for the term, Tom Morello), and celebrities alike. Hell, the first person we ran into was legendary front woman, Exene Cervenka. The excitement was infectious and the room was pulsing with what felt like good, old-fashioned high school angst. No one really knew what to expect from the band that played it’s last show 18 years ago, warm-up show at Pappy and Harriet’s aside. Tom Morello came out to introduce the “matriarchs of metal” and any doubt was kicked to the floor when Lori, Kat, and Maureen took to the stage and tore their way through a 13 song set- No banter needed. Kat’s voice hasn’t lost a drop of power and by the time they broke into their third song, “Bluebell”, every sweaty person in the room was screaming “you’re dead meat motherfucker/you don’t try to rape a goddess”. Lori hit the drums like it was Lollapalooza ’93 and you’d never know any time had passed, save for the few times she sweetly