Category: SHOWS

40 Years of Fire of Love: Sex Beat at Zebulon

Janky Smooth Central Command August 27, 2021

Words by: Juan Perez Photos by: Taylor Wong As we near closer & closer to the end of 2021 it is clear that Pretty But Wicked doesn’t plan to stop anytime soon. Already responsible for so many great shows this year, Wednesday night was no different. Many talented musicians gathered at Zebulon, celebrating the re-release of Fire Of Love. Going back to 40 years ago, it was the debut album from legendary post-punk band The Gun Club. The main act, Sex Beat, are a group with one time drummer, Terry Graham. On this night they performed songs from the aforementioned record in it’s honor. But, more on that later. A new band being showcased at a PBW show is to be expected. Setting the tone for the night for their first show ever, Rugburn will be a name to know. This is a band that definitely could have played at CBGB’s in the late 70’s, early 80’s. Perfect blend of that early punk sound and modern post-hardcore. From the beginning, the vocalist brought a charismatic presence to the stage. Take bands like Jefferson Airplane, The B-52’s, Cat Scan and Shopping, mix them in a blender, you get Rugburn. Check out their

PHOTO RECAP: Psycho Las Vegas Presents Broken Hope and Devourment at Catch One

Janky Smooth Central Command August 26, 2021

Lets steal an excerpt from the Psycho Las Vegas 2021 review to give you the gist of Broken Hope: “A good friend of mine has a tattoo of Broken Hope. Asking him about the tattoo led me to the music and after admiring all Broken Hope’s evil, gory imagery, I knew I had to see this band live. To me, they are the best of the gore death metal bands, surpassing icons like Cannibal Corpse. Their music is much more unapologetic, guttural and violent. A Broken Hope show leaves any venue a bloody mess, so after Down was finished and we were all nicely stoned, I needed to be snapped back awake with a sound that could very well get me killed if I took a wrong step in the pit. Each player knew how to put on a show with their instrument while the singer, Damian Leski is a completely power house, the perfect sort of monster to front a death metal band. The entire set I was headbanging and grooving, my body so happy to be under such an evil spell. With blood and guts raining down upon us with every growling lyric, I truly felt shook up

Hell or High Roller: Psycho Las Vegas 2021

Rob Shepyer August 26, 2021

There was a time when for me, going to Psycho Las Vegas meant budgeting only enough money to eat McDonalds for three days while I slept on a friend’s couch in some lawless Vegas neighborhood so far off the strip, Ubers wouldn’t dare travel to such unsavory corners. Now, in the post-pandemic world, I report on Psycho with new purpose. This year, I was staying in a Delano scenic suite high above the city and budgeted enough money to properly chase the American dream. Raoul Duke’s American dream in Hunter Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was a metaphor for the limits of human consciousness. With freedom as the central American covenant, what greater expression of patriotism is there than breaking free of reality’s chains by dosing yourself past every threshold? Now though, as I take that same trip as Duke in 2021, my search for the American Dream is a futile attempt to connect with a time long gone. You might assume I mean the world before the pandemic but I also mean that beautiful era in music history where rock and metal bands could draw crowds as far as the eye can see. How do we recover

Three One G Radiation: Deaf Club at the Echo

Rob Shepyer August 20, 2021

Three One G is a very special record label. With roots spreading across genres like DIY hardcore, anarcho politics and aesthetics, art rock, and noise, they’ve created a rich roster and a signature that ensures a few things out of their output–satirical high art extremity. With Three One G’s supergroup of underground West Coast heavyweights, Deaf Club, the label took over the Echo for a very special matinee. related content: Dominant Noise: Daughters at the Regent Secret Fan Club called this meeting to order with their bombastic rock assault. They sound was thick, jamming but also jeering, going in directions no one would expect but every body was somehow able to instinctively follow. Made up of only two members, Sal Gallegos on drums and John Rieder on bass, this demonic duo somehow achieves a maximal sound with a minimalist setup. There is no band made of just a drummer and bassist as raw and demented as this one. The music of Geronimo could not have been formulated in a sane mind. It’s the sonic interpretation of pure chemical imbalance. This chemical imbalance though, somehow perfectly balances musical pleasure and pain. I think it’s lovely. Almost like progressive noise rock, this

Photo Recap: Deicide at 1720

Janky Smooth Central Command August 18, 2021

If there was any doubt that concerts are back, these pictures are all the proof you’ll need. Deicide always brings it when they roll around to Los Angeles, in fact they were one of the last death metal shows of 2019. Although this night seemed to be even more insane given we’ve all been cooped up in our homes for so long. Joining them were Canadians, Kataklysm, a band that sounds like absolutely no other death metal group around. Photos by: Albert Licano Deicide Kataklysm Internal Bleeding Begat the Nephilim

King Crimson at the Greek: Prog Prophets of a Schizoid 21st Century

Rob Shepyer August 12, 2021

For an outsider looking in to Los Angeles’ music scene, psychedelic rock is of the utmost importance in this underground, cultural moment. Here and now, there are many bands that ought to come to mind as the root inspirations to artists like King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, OSEES or Kikagaku Moyo. You could think The Doors or Velvet Underground, and you’d be right but if you turn back the hand of time even further and cross the pond, you’d pay witness to the first true frontiersman of musical exploration, King Crimson. They stand out as the progenitors of the sonic and lyrical landscapes that pervade Los Angeles’ scene till this very day. Some fans and even musicians today might not be aware of the connection, they might just naively rock out to Fuzz’s cover of “21st Century Schizoid Man” thinking it’s an original, but those in the know not only recognize the debt they owe to King Crimson, they carry their awe with them on stage anytime they play guitar and try to breach the same headspace as Robert Fripp. There are a few tenants to the King Crimson musical philosophy, that act as bedrock for modern psychedelic music, the most

Technically, We’ve Always Been Sick: Sex Cells Returns to the Globe Theatre

Rob Shepyer August 5, 2021

There must be something wrong with us. To party so closely, so sweatily, without personal protective equipment in the middle of a pandemic? No face masks. No face shields. No papers needed to be shown to any bio-tech gestapos. We knew the risks. We knew the transmissibility. We saw all the latest science, conspiracies, government lip services and disaster porn. But still, we did the dubious and dangerous thing and decided it was worth the risk to reunite and see friends we missed for over a year. This next comparison might be a little extreme, maybe even tasteless but bear with me, the point is solid–at the height of the 80’s AIDs epidemic, when Anthony Fauci was as much a media personality as he is now, did gay men stop having sex altogether? Some probably did. Some definitely didn’t. Like it or not, the choice of love over fear is similar today. If anything, this experience should make people more empathetic to those who suffered the last epidemic. Celebration, fun, night-life, partying, socializing in general–to many people these things are as essential as actual love-making and no one is going to deny them their right to do so, not the

Morning Stars Over Lodge Room: King Woman’s “Celestial Blues” Release Party

Janky Smooth Central Command August 4, 2021

You’ve never heard an album more Chthonian than King Woman’s Celestial Blues What do I mean by that? I don’t mean this is the most raw, underground punk sounding album ever. What I’m saying is that with “Celestial Blues” King Woman has lent a voice and story to all the mysteries working beneath the surface layers of reality around us, be they the internal workings of the body, the mysterious processes of the Earth, the unfathomable cycles of birth and destruction in the cosmos, or the interplay of good and evil magic with everyday life. When King Woman closed out their Sunday night Celestial Blues album release party with a cover of the Stone Roses’ “I Wanna Be Adored”, I thought some kind of mind reading must’ve been at play because after seeing a full set of Kris Esfandiari’s doomy siren songs, my main takeaway was being genuinely impressed with how much she is utterly adored by her fans. They seemed to have her back unconditionally and after every song when the band let it all hang loose, the audience was there to catch them in rounds of applause, whistles and cheers. All that was missing from the evening was a

PHOTO RECAP: Mike Jones at Echo Flex

Janky Smooth Central Command July 23, 2021

The last concert before Los Angeles’ mask mandate was put into effect had to be LA’s premiere 90’s hip hop party, Echo Flex at the Echoplex where late into the evening fans got up close and personal to each other to romp and dance to hip from the greatest era of the genre’s history, only to top it off with a rare performance from one of the OG’s himself, Mike Jones. Photos by: Rodney Campos Mike Jones

PHOTO RECAP: The Fall of Troy at 1720

Janky Smooth Central Command July 23, 2021

Legendary Post-hardcore band The Fall of Troy played a highly anticipated show at 1720 to an audience filled of fans old and new there to rock out, mosh, and relive their high school years. One of those men was our photographer Taylor who captured an audience devoted to the band through thick and thin, as well as a three other bands who wear their passions on their sleeves. Photos by: Taylor Wong The Fall of Troy Duck Duck Goose Inthebackground The Littlest Viking

Sweat Therapy: Dumb Fucks and Niis at the Echo

Janky Smooth Central Command July 21, 2021

Words by Juan Perez Photos by Paula Jean On the night before the mask mandate went into effect, Pretty But Wicked put together a showcase for the ages, bringing together an eclectic crowd to witness some of the best acts Los Angeles has to offer. From young kids still in high school, to old heads who have been around, this last ditch effort to party before we’d be forced to wear masks showed how much power the love of music has. Playing their first live show ever, Smirk is a project formed by frontman Nick during the pandemic. What started off as something just for fun turned into one of the new best acts in the scene. Old school punk, with something a little bit more obscure added into the mix. The crowd responded very well to the set, stage diving and circle pitting. It was a nice, little warm-up for the madness to come. Just hearing the conversations afterwards tells me how much of an impression the band made for their first time. Next up was Downside. Gaining a huge reputation in the LA punk scene for rowdy shows, the crowd really brought it for these guys. The fans were so

Danger and Fun: Nature World Presents Made Before Sound at 1720

Rob Shepyer July 15, 2021

It’s never been more punk to attend a show. Sure, in the 80’s there was the threat of being stomped out by skinhead mobs or having beer spit in your face for wearing the wrong band shirt but today, a respiratory virus can actually reward your daring for going to a show by permanently mangling your organs. You don’t even need to be in the pit, you can hang back in the farthest corner from the action and still be just as much of a risk-taker as the next cat, crazy enough to test your luck and praying you don’t come out the venue with a strange, dry cough. If you’re going to die young because you went to a show, I could understand if it was a Nature World show. It’s been awhile since this amazing name brought us a show, their Nature World Night Out festivals were enough years ago that we all started to miss them. What distinguishes Nature World from every other promoter is that they have one foot in each underground, punk and rap. When the two come together, you have mohawks bouncing to trap and dreadlocks moshing to hardcore. It’s a beautiful thing to

Category: SHOWS

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