Category: SHOWS

GBH at Ventura Music Hall- Street Punks In Paradise

Rob Shepyer October 29, 2025

The scene was the Hi Hat. One of the most vibrant venues during its short life on York, a must attend space on Highland Park art-walk nights. I don’t remember who was playing, just that it was a punk show because Blaque Chris was DJ’ing between the bands that night. During his set, Blaque Chris spun a track that stood out to me as especially vibrant and danceable, but in that street punk way, like kicking up dirt in the discotheque. I didn’t know the song at the time and went on a long journey trying to find it. Before seeing GBH at Ventura Music Hall though, the planets aligned to tell me the song was Big Women by GBH off their “Leather, Bristles, Studs, and Acne” album. GBH is quintessential street punk- the exact sound and spirit of the punk genre and look. Songs like Big Women are exemplary of that vibe. Comical, crass, gritty, simple, rhythmic, and too much fun to stop your body from hopping up and down. It took me far too long to see them perform, but finally, I had my punk rock rite of passage on October 17, 2025 by seeing them with Slaughterhouse

Insane Clown Posse at House of Blues Anaheim by Chris Mounts

Juggalo Halloween Party: Insane Clown Posse at House Of Blues Anaheim

Danny Ryan October 28, 2025

Insane Clown Posse was not a band I ever expected to see in my lifetime, especially if you would have asked me in my younger years. Between their goofy carnival-sounding production, overly edgy lyrics and imagery, trailer trash fanbase, their beef with Eminem; the list of reasons not to like them upon first impression is endless. As time goes on and Juggalos get older however; the perception of Insane Clown Posse has changed drastically over the years with Vice’s documentary about their Gathering Of The Juggalos festival, their collaborations with Danny Brown and more recently Jelly Roll, and their song Miracles becoming a viral sensation upon its release. ICP are the black sheep of music as a whole, and the world has mostly decided that we were a bit too hard on them over the years. related: OC Did It All For The Nookie: Musink Tattoo Convention And Music Fest 2019 I decided I wasn’t doing my due diligence as a music journalist if I had never experienced them live, and being as they never visit Southern California; this was one of the few chances I had. House Of Blues Anaheim made the ridiculously insane decision to book them right

Sextile At The Novo: The Most Important Band In Los Angeles?

Danny Baraz October 22, 2025

A bold question. What elements create rank of importance in art? It’s easier in a music scene. Sextile played The Novo on October 11, 2025 and they left a lasting impression for anyone who was there to witness it. Walking into the venue that night felt like stepping into a vortex where underground club culture, raw post-punk perfection, and Los Angeles local band chaos fused into something futuristic. I’ve seen Sextile before, but this was different. This was a band leveling up in real time, playing like they were headlining a festival the world hasn’t invented yet. And Los Angeles showed up to The Novo, hard. The Novo was already buzzing the second I walked in, bodies packed shoulder-to-shoulder on the floor, the balcony filling fast with goths, punks, ravers, skaters, fashion kids, and aging industrial heads who looked like they’d been waiting 20 years for a band like this. Sextile draws tribes. And when a band pulls that many subcultures under one roof, you know something important is about to go down. related: Dark Entries- Bauhaus at The Palladium related: The Lost Coverage of Substance Fest 2022 – Los Angeles Theater The night kicked off with the kind of

French Outfit AIR Takes Us On A Moon Safari in San Diego

Grace Dunn October 15, 2025

San Diego, California was in for an ethereal experience transitioning from summer to fall with legendary French band Air on their stunning North American tour. Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel have been on the road for a significant stretch of time earlier this year enchanting crowds with their compositions flowing out of their iconic white cinemascope ratio spaceship. I have been in grand anticipation to catch their clean, nouvelle architectural stage design celebrating their 25th anniversary of “Moon Safari” since I missed their set last year at The Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles. related: Sensory Interference – Thom Yorke At The Orpheum Theatre Once the tour was announced, I originally sought out to photograph their set. To my delightful surprise, I was granted the sumptuous opportunity to capture Air in the written word; like lightning in a bottle. Venturing on a road trip midweek was a blissful escape from Los Angeles to San Diego in preparation for ascension into the cosmos by way of “Moon Safari”. Nestled in an intimate, open air venue, built 1941 into an existing canyon on Montezuma mesa, CalCoast Credit Union Amphitheater greeted patrons with a cozy and alluring aura on this brisk Autumn evening. Walking

Cannibal Corpse at the Majestic Ventura Theater: Butchered By The Beach

Rob Shepyer October 13, 2025

Cannibal Corpse at the Ventura Majestic Theater almost sounds like a sick joke the first time you say it out loud to a local. Why on Earth would the timid, even-keel Pleasantville of the Central Coast host the most violent, vulgar, visceral death metal band of all time? Perhaps it’s because Ventura locals are, somewhere inside, the most violent, vulgar, visceral metalheads in California. For the longest time, this sub-species of Californian, geographically isolated on the Central Coast, never felt represented by the events happening locally. So often, concerts in Ventura ranged from reggae to Grateful Dead covers, with their one outlet for heaviness being Nardcore. Now though, with new booking leadership at the Ventura Majestic Theater, a whole new range of heavy metal bookings is on the horizon; including this October 3, 2025 Cannibal Corpse show. related: Dark Angel Brings Us Back To Our Primal Basics at Majestic Ventura Theater Cannibal Corpse’s autumn tour in particular brought together one of the most insane lineups in modern metal and hardcore. Bridging death metal, grind, and thrash, bands like awe-inspiring fresh blood Fulci, the animalistic, demonically possessed Full of Hell, and toxified-to-the-teeth party speedsters Municipal Waste rounded out the cannibalistic carnage

L7 Celebrate 40 Years w/ Lunachicks and Friends at The Belasco

Danny Baraz October 7, 2025

The Belasco’s air was sticky, buzzing, electric- like static before a tornado on Friday Oct 3rd. L7 and Lunachicks had a gig in Downtown Los Angeles. Those bands shared the stage again, for the first time in decades, in what felt like a life event for everyone involved for L7’s Fast and Frightening 40 Years Anniversary show. As much as I love Riot grrrl scene, the L7 legacy always stood on it’s own and I never appreciated pundits who would lump every hardcore girl under the Riot grrrl label. L7 had their own brand of feminism which included the Rock For Choice festivals that spanned over a decade and I include the times I saw them perform on the lawn of the Federal building in Westwood for causes that varied from saving rainforests, to legalizing cannabis at a time when people were still doing long prison sentences for the plant. But what I appreciated most about L7 was that they fucking shred. Say everything and anything else you want about them, every single one of them, at the top of their craft amongst their peers. And that was still the case as of October 3rd. related: L7 Stop Pretending They’re Dead

Ruining Our Makeup with Samia at The Fonda Theater

Michelle Evans October 3, 2025

I love being uncomfortable. Uncomfortable movies. Uncomfortable books. Uncomfortable art. Uncomfortable conversations. I’ve become anxiously attached to the little wasps in my chest who buzz too loudly and flap around in awkward situations. But finding comfort in the uncomfortable comes at a cost: ugly doesn’t scare you anymore. You even start to seek it out. This is where Samia comes in. Samia steals all that discomfort, all that ugly, right out from your chest. As a songwriter she is an alchemist, spinning your insecurities into a quilt. The kind of quilt your grandmother wraps around you while you read comics at her house as your parents are downtown signing divorce papers. You know the kind. On the warm night of September 19, 2025 night in Hollywood, Samia steps coyly onto the stage of the Fonda Theatre. The crowd roars relentlessly as she seems taken aback – it’s clear how deeply she is needed tonight, right here in this moment. related: Photo Recap – Ethel Cain At The Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever She starts the set with “Triptych,” a song from her debut 2020 album, “The Baby,” with lyrics so abruptly intimate that listening would feel like a violation if

The Lost Coverage Of Substance Fest 2022- Los Angeles Theater

Janky Smooth Central Command October 1, 2025

With Substance Fest 2025 quickly approaching on November 7th/8th in it’s return to The Belasco, it has forced us to look back. Amidst the exponential increase in the volume of content this year, in the scramble to preview this year’s Substance, we uncovered the unpublished coverage from a special year of the festival- Substance 2022. Laying in the debris of the pandemic, in the smoldering ashes of this music blog were the photos of Albert Licano- mostly unseen by the outside world. As we all rise again to attend or cover Substance 2025, let us not forget the elation and gratitude of the after years in which we thought live music would never be the same again. This was one of those years. Between October 21-22, 2022, Los Angeles played host to Substance Fest 2022, aka “LA’s Dark Underground Festival,” a two-night celebration of post-punk, industrial, darkwave, goth, synth pop, and ebm, et al. Held at the majestic Los Angeles Theatre, the fest brought together a collective lineup of established underground legends, emerging acts, DJs, visual art, and immersive environments. In this look back, we’ll break down the experience: the venue, lineups, standout performances, production, crowd vibes, strengths, and areas

Circle Jerks Throw Birthday Party For Keith at The Hollywood Palladium

Danny Baraz September 29, 2025

On Friday, September 19, 2025, the Circle Jerks played a show at the Hollywood Palladium in honor of Keith Morris’ birthday and he invited some friends. The Circle Jerks, Ceremony, Negative Approach, and Rocket From The Crypt- a nice final touch for connoisseurs. It’s the kind of lineup that makes you shake your head and laugh at how good we have it when a night like this comes together. The story of the night was celebrating the birth of Keith Morris with all his friends and his band, the Circle Jerks. Somehow, at 70 years old, there is no noticeable decline. In fact, the eye test reveals that he’s thriving. It would be illogical to suggest he doesn’t suffer from some unseen ailment that comes with wear and tear on the human body. But… if his shoulder hurt, his hemorrhoid was flaring up, his arthritic pinkie knuckle burned, or he had to piss every 20 minutes at the age of 70- there was no hint of any of that. As far as I could see, his feet were planted firmly, his diaphragm engaged, and there was no pee-pee dance. But there was most definitely joy. related: Janky Smooth Interviews Keith Morris

Slowing The World Down with MJ Lenderman at The Shrine

Danny Ryan September 26, 2025

MJ Lenderman is one of the most prominent key players in the alternative country movement, and his September 11, 2025 performance at The Shrine Auditorium showed just how big of a name he is amongst younger people and country-folk enthusiasts alike. I don’t believe there’s even a debate on whether country music is currently one of the most dominating cultural forces in America. It goes even beyond the music, with Southern aesthetics like mullets, flannels, showy belt-buckles, and cowboy boots taking over hipster-infested areas like Highland Park and Silverlake. While the love for the genre is actually on its way to becoming more equal between urban and rural America at this point in time, the artists respected between these two demographics could not vary more. While mainstream country artists like Morgan Wallen aren’t really talked about with reverence amongst music fans in LA, there is a new wave of alternative country artists with more emotional and poetic folk influence that are considered superstars amongst aspiring artists looking for a singer-songwriter scene to be part of. featured image: Michelle Evans related: Courtney Barnett at The Roxy – How To Make A Rockstar MJ Lenderman is one of the biggest names of

Avant-Garde Headbanging with The Armed at The Roxy

Rob Shepyer September 24, 2025

Seeing The Armed at The Roxy on September 20, 2025 was not just a whim- for me it was a necessity. Whenever the Armed play in Los Angeles, I make it a point to attend. Their concerts feel like rare glimpses into a future world. With their latest tour stop supported by Prostitute, another heavy and unpredictable band, I wanted to break down not only the performance but also why The Armed matter so deeply and why their most recent album, THE FUTURE IS HERE AND EVERYTHING NEEDS TO BE DESTROYED, truly rules. related: One Friday Night In Hell- Show Me The Body and Twitching Tongues at The Regent The Armed have become my favorite modern band. I am not sure how it happened; I can’t always control what I gravitate toward. Perhaps they filled the vacuum left by The Dillinger Escape Plan, a band whose live shows once stood as the gold standard for ferocity and unpredictability. Perhaps they were the only group writing anthems with lyrics powerful enough to resonate like “Sport of Form” off Perfect Saviors, my favorite album of 2023. That track, which ends with a peaking sing-along verse of “Doesn’t Anyone Even Know You? Does

Dark Angel Brings Us To Our Primal Basics at Majestic Ventura Theater

Rob Shepyer September 19, 2025

Dark Angel at the Majestic Ventura Theater on September 6, 2025 might have been just another stop on a long national tour for the many iconic bands appearing on this monster show—from Sacred Reich to Hirax—but for the locals of California’s Central Coast, it was much more than that. For Ventura’s own hardcore and stoner metal scenes, it was a night to raise the speed, volume, and intensity of their jams alongside some of Los Angeles’s finest. It was an event that felt like a genuine summit of the underground, a night where the past and present of extreme music converged. If you’re a fan of extreme sounds—whether punk, death metal, hardcore, or black metal—you owe it to yourself to attend thrash metal shows from time to time. They act as a palate cleanser, a way to reset your taste and senses back to the primal basics. Thrash metal, at its core, is one of the most fundamental heavy metal art forms, a template that inspired so many of us to follow a path deeper into the underground. For every genre that has splintered off since, thrash remains the raw power source, the musical bedrock that feeds the rest. related:

Category: SHOWS

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