Category: SHOWS

Nature World Night Out At The Regent: Building Bridges Between Hardcore and Hip Hop

Rob Shepyer March 3, 2018

Nature World Night Out is musical proof that there is more variation within the groups we separate ourselves into than between those groups. On the surface, Hardcore music and Hip Hop may seem on opposite poles of the musical spectrum but after a little bit of inspection, you realize they both have similar bounce, fashion, and both originated from the streets. Whether you’re black, brown, or white; male or female, there were artists in the Hardcore or Rap categories performing at this festival for you to project yourself onto. I remember my first Nature World Night Out, two years ago back when it was a one night event at Union Nightclub with Trash Talk and Soulja Boy co-headlining. The night was also my introduction to Antwon, Hip Hop’s ambassador to Hardcore and one of the festival organizers. Needless to say, that first NWNO was amazing and to this day, I still regret missing the second NWNO with Cam’ron… these guys booked Cam’ron to play on the same stage as Jesus Piece and No Warning for God’s sakes. related content: Trash Talk, Ratking, and Pangea: Slam Dance 101 At The Echoplex This year’s third annual installment migrated downtown to the Regent

Creep or Charmer?: Alex Cameron at The Lodge Room

Rob Shepyer February 28, 2018

The discovery of Alex Cameron‘s Forced Witness was a musical ray of hope for me last year. In a time where music is about the “vibe” or “feel“, Cameron reverted back to the basics and delivered an album that prioritized the wholeness of every song. Track after track, Forced Witness quenched my thirst for catchy, hook-laden songs and lyrics with a message and story. He employs irony, satire, bathroom humor, and dick jokes to make the most subtle yet thought provoking study of gender roles since Hall and Oats. The album’s narrative lets Cameron step into the skin of a protagonist I don’t think has been explored since the 80’s: the persona of the creep. Even the album title, Forced Witness, is more than a bit creepy if you let your imagination run wild with it. Our hero is a straight-white male that fumbles into precarious situations in the pursuit of love and though his intentions might be sincere, he comes off as strange, alienated, chauvinistic, homophobic, and a general nuisance. In short, the character was never properly socialized. Personally, I think any man worth their salt is a bit unsocialized when it comes to the opposite sex (that is to

When Words Fail To Describe A Band: Igorrr at the Echoplex

Rob Shepyer February 21, 2018

Intrigue is the best motivation to get your ass out and to a concert. Seeing a band you’ve been dying to see forever or being a super-fan and seeing your favorite band for the dozenth time are cool too, but never having listening to a band and only hearing a certain curious strain of hype around them, that’s the sweet-spot for a music blogger. Of all the bands I’ve ever seen, none have summoned up as many descriptors out of me as Igorrr and certainly “curiosity” is one of them. I first heard of the band from a podcast with Metal Blade Records owner Brian Slagel, the label notorious for introducing the world to a little band called Metallica. On that podcast, Slagel boasted that Igorrr was the newest band on his label that he was excited about and even he failed to describe the band with brevity. Hailing from France, a country that has only seen its biggest metal acts in the last two decades (Gojira and Alsace), what Igorrr does is combine almost every musical genre under the sun and pack it into an industrial-metal frame. As strange as that is to imagine (or maybe it isn’t these

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

No Such Thing As A Bad Pinback Song At The Glass House

Rob Shepyer January 29, 2018

Pinback has always held a special place in my heart. Something about those mathy lullabies always reminds me of my college days and so, to see them at Pomona’s Glass House, in a crowd of young men and women from Cal Poly, I couldn’t help but get nostalgic. On top of that, as a big dude with a big heart, I’ve always related to singer and guitarist Rob Crow who himself relates to Quasimodo. I know it’s a bold claim but I compare Pinback to The Beatles. Simply in the sense that they too never made a bad song. Some Beatles songs are better than others, maybe “Octopus’ Garden” isn’t as iconic as “She’s So Heavy” but they’re all still deeply enjoyable. That concept fits Pinback well as I can listen to every album from beginning to end without skipping a track. Partially what makes this possible is their unique approach to music. No one knows exactly how to categorize this band. It’s progy, it’s indie, it’s folky, it’s mathy, it’s alternative, it’s minimalist but it’s also not totally and completely enough of any of those to be boxed in. They can play sonically, jazzily, heavily and softly and sometimes all

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,

If Ever A Band Was My Home: Ceremony’s HOME SICK Festival At The Phoenix Theater

Rob Shepyer January 18, 2018

I have been waiting for so long to write about Ceremony that referencing their performances in completely unrelated articles just became a habit of mine. If I was writing about hardcore punk moshing and stage diving then I’d compare the peaks of that violence to the bar set by Ceremony when Anthony Anzaldo strums the first notes of “Kersed” or when Jake Casorotti starts the kick drum intro to their cover of Red C’s “Pressure’s On”. If I was talking about Joy Division’s many offspring, like in my Cloak and Dagger review, I’d talk about how Ceremony’s “L Shaped Man” is the only derivative of that style worth its weight. If I was talking about what I feel is the spirit of America as expressed in music, I would say it’s when Ceremony plays “Hysteria” and you can almost transport yourself back in time when Bill Haley & His Comets performed “Rock Around The Clock”, it’s that same desperate need to let loose, still in the air after half a century. “…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

Rolling Loud SoCal 2017 Doses the Youth with the Latest Opiate of the Masses

Rob Shepyer December 23, 2017

Whether you follow and enjoy hip hop or not, you cannot live in 2017 without encountering the sounds of “Trap”, hip hop’s newest anarchist misfit offspring and perhaps its most polarizing subgenre. As a punk and metalhead my whole life, a year ago, I would’ve never predicted I would go to a festival like Rolling Loud SoCal 2017 but now, as a music critic, I don’t think I’d have a credible understanding of modern music without partaking in the spiked Trap kool-aid. Trap music began in the South, the word “Trap” referring to the physical location of a drug deal. Thus, rappers that had drug dealer alter egos became known as trap rappers. The sound’s origins are debatable but what is definite is that it came out of Atlanta, Georgia with ties to the Dungeon, a bare bones recording studio in a basement that has bred artists like Outkast and Future. T.I. claims he invented Trap, others can hear a definite link beginning with Gucci Mane. Then there’s other important proto-trap artists like Soulja Boy and Lil B. But it is perhaps Migos and Future that are the most stolen from artists, with Future creating what is now known as Mumble-rap with songs

Krautrock Nite With Malcolm Mooney of Can At Echoplex: To Outer Space And Down To Earth

Rob Shepyer December 15, 2017

On the tapestry of world genres, that hangs in heaven’s music hall, one square is not quite like the others. Krautrock, is an enigma and maverick genre, it was when it was created in Germany and it’s still a mystery till this day. After the war and iron curtain, German artists felt stifled and trapped and wanted to reinvent their reality. I’m sure many musicians living in East Berlin stared up at the sky and decided to make music inspired by the cosmos itself. Krautrock is futuristic and retro at the same time, in other words, it is timeless. Can was a band without hierarchy that brought together jazz, rock, and contemporary classical music together. The music was so new and unique it was almost a political statement. Can was one of Krautrock’s most essential bands, one of the singers of which, Malcolm Mooney, played a rare performance at the Echoplex for Part Time Punks’ annual Krautrock Nite and even though I had just been barraged by a hardcore music festival for two days, I couldn’t miss this show. related content: For The Children 2017 At The Echoplex: Hardcore Is The Gift That Keeps On Giving Opening for Malcolm Mooney was Savage

For The Children 2017 at The Echoplex: Hardcore is The Gift That Keeps on Giving

Rob Shepyer December 15, 2017

The holidays are supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year, when you can be among friends and family and give and receive gifts as a sign caring and sharing and loving one another. That’s what it’s supposed to be but for far too many, this is not the case. Who knows just how many thousands of people will be dying on the streets like dogs this christmas. Who knows how many alcoholic fathers will beat their wives in front of their kids. Or how many children will go without any presents at all. Our hopeless situation aside, what if I told you that through thousands of tiny deeds we can save Christmas for a few of those children? That something miraculous could happen, like a bunch of young men and women, strangers, getting together to donate hundreds of toys just because it’s the right thing to do… and because of hardcore. Pure beat down hardcore. Slamming, stage-diving, sing-alonging like your fucking life depended on it hardcore. Christmas saving hardcore. For The Children is an annual hardcore festival spanning two days, now hosted by the Echoplex. The festival was created by Xibalba singer Nate Rebolledo, who was inspired

Freak Style Booking and KXLU Throw Mexico Earthquake Relief Show At Top Space 2.0

Aria Silva-Espinosa December 8, 2017

Consistently delivering stacked lineups and solid venues, Freak Style Booking in cooperating with KXLU, organized a benefit show with all proceeds going to earthquake relief efforts in Mexico. At a minimum donation of $7 at the door, the show generated over $1000 for Topo Brigada de Rescate. According to the organization’s website, they are a volunteer organization founded with the purpose of responding to disasters created in response to the 1985 earthquake that registered an 8.1 on the Richter scale. The immense damage pictured next to the ‘Historia’ article bears striking resemblance to recently circulating photos of the damage in Mexico after a 7.1 magnitude hit just northeast of San Juan Roboso in the state of Puebla, Mexico in September of this year. The quake claimed over 200 lives and caused immense destruction and chaos yet went largely unreported by mainstream U.S. media which caused concerned citizens to put pressure on Trump to offer aid. He eventually did but the aid can’t come soon enough for the people of Mexico who have been affected by this natural disaster. Doing our part, we went to check out the show at Top Space 2.0, located in the bowels of South Central. A

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

Category: SHOWS

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