Tag: featured
Neil Fallon of Clutch Interview: Dog Ears in the Book of Bad Decisions
Rob Shepyer
September 13, 2018
Having just released their 12th studio album with Book of Bad Decisions, Clutch is back on the road to bring their hard rock boogie to a city near you. I spoke to Neil Fallon from the band to get his take on the record and ask him a few questions about the current state of the union. Rob: The fifth track on the new album Book of Bad Decisions is “In Walks Barbarella”. Can you comment on what specifically about that movie inspired you to write a song about it? What other films have inspired your music in the past? Do you consider yourself a movie buff? Neil: I would consider myself a movie buff. That song I wrote as part 3 after “X-Ray Visions” and “Firebirds”. To me one of the most iconic female sci-fi figures is Barbarella. Yeah, it’s a campy movie but growing up in the 70’s and 80’s reading Heavy Metal magazine, that’s sort of a preoccupation of mine that I’ve carried on into later-life. Rob: You mention “Weaponized funk” in the song and I was wondering with George Clinton retiring from touring this year and because I’ve seen you wearing Parliament Funkadelic shirts, how has
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Featured Song: Luke Top “I May Never Leave”
Janky Smooth Central Command
September 11, 2018
Serving up the dreamiest surf maladies you’ve ever heard, Luke Top has a new track to serenade us with. Balancing sad lyrics and a cool-cat vocal cadence, “I May Never Leave” is perfect for crying in a dark bars, frolicing on the beach, or film scores. As a member of Fool’s Gold, Luke was able to meld styles such as pop, African, and Middle Eastern music to create a sound that was both cinematic and low key. He’s now taken this same approach to blend surf rock with a troubadour folk feel that harkens greats like Leonard Cohen or Nick Cave. “I May Never Leave” is the first single of Luke’s upcoming EP “The Dumb Show” set to be released October 19th.
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Take This: Win 2 Tickets to Parkway Drive at the Hollywood Palladium
Janky Smooth Central Command
September 11, 2018
Australia has had its fair share of incredible rock bands. AC/DC, INXS, Royal Headache, to name a few. Perhaps the most celebrated band to come from the isolated continent since AC/DC though, is Parkway Drive. Considered to be the kings of contemporary metalcore, few bands are able to deal such a heavy, clean sound with just as many brutal breakdowns as choruses you can sing to. Parkway Drive is playing the Hollywood Palladium on September 23rd for their Reverence North American tour and they are bringing a slew of great bands to play with them. August Burns Red and The Devil Wears Prada could draw decent numbers headlining the Palladium themselves, but with all three on one lineup, we feel lucky to be able to offer this giveaway. YOU CAN BUY TICKETS HERE OR. ENTER TO WIN 2 TICKETS TO PARKWAY DRIVE SEPTEMBER 23RD AT THE HOLLYWOOD PALLADIUM Step 1- Join Our Newsletter (look for pop up every time you arrive at jankysmooth.com) Step 2- Tag a Friend in the comment section of our Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook Parkway Drive Giveaway Posts WINNER WILL BE WILL BE SELECTED ON TUEDAY SEPTEMBER 18TH AT 11AM PST VIA EMAIL CONFIRMATION
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Sleepy Bangers/Hard Lullabies: The Book of Love at Teragram
Rob Shepyer
September 10, 2018
Over the last few years, The Book of Love has been playing shows to celebrate their three decades long career. Los Angeles, as a city that means so much to their career, was the one city that was missing from their tour schedule until Friday night’s show at the Teragram ballroom presented by Lethal Amounts. related content: We All Scored At Lethal Amounts’ Pure Trash With Sylvain Sylvain Philadelphia Synth-pop duo, The Book of Love is made up of nightingale siren Susan Ottaviano and Electro-maestro Ted Ottaviano. What’s amazing about the group is their musical formula of taking synth lullabies and turning them into hard, dance floor bangers. This was “dream pop” before pop knew how to dream. The destined-duo are unrelated but their families trace back to the same Italian village. From start to finish, the crowd of 80’s kids was bopping and dancing madly to the music. People were making out like mad during the set. The band even seemed to have their own gaggle of groupies. The audience was in step for the whole show, eating out of Susan’s palm as her heavenly, serene voice swept over them. Songs that resonated hardest with the audience were “Alice
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Take This: Win 2 Tickets to Music Tastes Good
Janky Smooth Central Command
September 10, 2018
Music Tastes Good has always been one of the most underrated festivals Southern California has to offer with its marriage of gourmet eats and diverse live music. This year though, the lineup is above and beyond every year prior with New Order, Janelle Monae, James Blake, Parquet Courts, The Black Angels and the Based God, Lil B. MTG has finally arrived and hopefully you’ll be there to take in all the tasty sound. Janky Smooth is giving away two tickets to the festival weekend. YOU CAN BUY TICKETS HERE OR. ENTER TO WIN 2 TICKETS TO MUSIC TASTES GOOD SEPTEMBER 29th-30th AT MARINA GREEN PARK Step 1- Join Our Newsletter (look for pop up every time you arrive at jankysmooth.com) Step 2- Tag a Friend in the comment section of our Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook Music Tastes Good Giveaway Posts WINNER WILL BE WILL BE SELECTED ON MONDAY SEPTEMBER 17TH AT 11AM PST VIA EMAIL CONFIRMATION
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Magick Man: Killing Joke at the Regent
Rob Shepyer
September 7, 2018
Killing Joke is a band that cannot be pigeon-holed. The moment you call them a post-punk band, they put out an industrial album. But within either camp, they were always the misfits of the bunch. Their post-punk was more rhythmic and off-kilter than their peers and their industrial was more lyrical and poetic than the average black leather electro act. Then you have a lead singer like Jaz Coleman, a true enigma. Most singers paint pictures from their own personal experiences but often times with Killing Joke, their songs take on the perspective of eternity. And what I mean by that is, Jaz would step out of his shoes and trousers and into the shoes of time itself, watching human history and making connections we can’t see through his lyrics. related content: The Growlers Reclaim Castle Beach Goth And All Is Right With The World Again One of the rarest acts you could ever see play in America, these English gentleman of the dark arts came out with an album called Pylon in 2015, which they planned to tour in the US, playing the Regent. As fate would have it though, Illness befell the band and they cancelled all their American
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Take This: Win 2 Tickets to Lagwagon at El Rey
Janky Smooth Central Command
September 6, 2018
Lagwagon have been putting music in its place, playing punk the way it was meant to be played for nearly three decades. In that three decades, the album Lets Talk About Feelings has gone down as one of the band’s most beloved and celebrated recordings. As it’s singer, Joey Cape’s favorite album of the band’s, they will be performing it live in its entirety at El Rey theater on September 22nd. For those of you unfamiliar with the album, maybe you should pop Tony Hawk’s Pro-Skater 2 into your Playstation and listen to “May 16”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLySrcbbWjE Janky Smooth is honored to be giving you punks the chance to win two tickets to the show. YOU CAN BUY TICKETS HERE OR. ENTER TO WIN 2 TICKETS TO LAGWAGON SEPTEMBER 22ND AT EL REY THEATRE Step 1- Join Our Newsletter (look for pop up every time you arrive at jankysmooth.com) Step 2- Tag a Friend in the comment section of our Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook Lagwagon Giveaway Posts WINNER WILL BE WILL BE SELECTED ON THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 13TH AT 11AM PST VIA EMAIL CONFIRMATION
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Long Live The Funk: George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic at the Observatory
Jessica Moncrief
September 6, 2018
George Clinton has come a long way since forming The Parliaments as a teenager in a barbershop in Plainfield. Since the beginning of his career, the legendary godfather of funk has been making music and inspiring young creatives for more than 6 generations. In April of this year, he announced that he would be bidding farewell to the stage with a world wide tour in 2018. While the news is saddening, hanging up his hat in style with around 50 golden years of touring seems more than appropriate. While walking up to The Observatory I heard a group of teenage girls chatting when one exclaimed, “This is the best ever, my heart is so full right now!” I’m sure it was the molly talking, but I couldn’t help but reminisce about my own first time seeing Parliament in 1998. Some shows change the course of your history much like Parliament has for the modern face of music, seeing George Clinton had a huge impact on my personal passion for live music as well and happened to actually be my very first show to be guest-listed. related content: Summertime In The LBC: Love Letter To A City That Doesn’t Always
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Groveling Before the Gods of Grind: Napalm Death at Teragram
Rob Shepyer
September 5, 2018
Of all the epic metal shows Church of the 8th Day has ever put on, Napalm Death at the Teragram has got to be my favorite. The creators and gods of Grindcore, Napalm Death, changed music forever by goofing on certain elements that other genres wouldn’t dare experiment with at the time in 1981. Partially a farce, Grindcore didn’t care about what lyrics their growls were actually belting out and whether they actually matched-up with what was written. They would also do something as absurd as write songs under 10 seconds long. This was so groundbreaking at the time that the band generated mainstream attention by people that were just curious about how such a strange and shocking art form could exist. related content: Satyricon’s Final Los Angeles Show At The Regent: A Night Too Blackened To Forget Underneath this musical insanity and humor, Napalm Death has always carried the most serious political messaging behind their extreme sound. Their first album Scum opens up just the same way their Teragram set did, with “Multinational Corporations” going into “Instinct of Survival” which is a very confrontational, diagnosis of the world’s disease. Greedy, self-serving, corporations making money off of people’s plight and dying.
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Take This: Win 2 Tickets to Helloween: Pumpkins United at the Palladium
Janky Smooth Central Command
September 5, 2018
Of all the giveaways we do and shows we cover, I’m probably most excited for this one. Helloween: Pumpkins United at the Hollywood Palladium. The creators of power metal, straight from Germany and with all the seminal members of the band, from every era, sharing the stage at once to celebrate the music that they all took part in making famous the world-round. Kai Hansen and Michael Kiske are back, playing the songs that metalheads listened to to get through high school with fantasies of worlds far beyond this one. Finally, we get to hear the players that created the classic albums, Keeper of the Seven Keys 1&2. YOU CAN BUY TICKETS HERE OR. ENTER TO WIN 2 TICKETS TO HELLOWEEN: PUMPKINS UNITED SEPTEMBER 8TH AT THE HOLLYWOOD PALLADIUM Step 1- Join Our Newsletter (look for pop up every time you arrive at jankysmooth.com) Step 2- Tag a Friend in the comment section of our Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook Helloween Giveaway Posts WINNER WILL BE WILL BE SELECTED ON THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 6TH AT 11AM PST VIA EMAIL CONFIRMATION
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The Daytona Experience: Pusha T at the Observatory
Rob Shepyer
September 4, 2018
2018 has been an amazing year for rap. We’ve seen the return of Slim Shady, five Kanye West produced albums, and one of the most volatile rap beefs to ever occur in the game with Pusha T completely destroying Drake. Along with making a star fall, Pusha T created my favorite album of the year, the first of the five Kanye produced albums of 2018, Daytona. related content: Summertime In The LBC: This Is Your Dad’s Hip Hop From the very beginning, when the album cover was released and we saw Whitney Houston’s addiction exploited for art with a photograph of her drug strewn bathroom as the cover, Daytona garnered controversy and hype. Then with “Infared”, the last track on the short, seven song album taking shots at Drake, nucleur heat was generated between the two rap Gods. For the first time in a long while, traditional rap stabbed through trap’s control of hip hop media. Finally, there was a ray of hope that hip hop could rekindle its golden years when the metric of quality was lyricism and beef elevated everyone in the game. So Pusha took shots at Drake with “Infared” then Drake came back with “Duppy Freestyle” and Pusha
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The Olive Branch Extends to Irvine: The Scorpions at FivePoint Amphitheatre
Rob Shepyer
September 4, 2018
The Scorpions play everywhere, from Israel to Beirut, to Siberia to their Irvine show at FivePoint Amphitheatre for the Crazy World tour. And what an aptly named tour it is, having seen so much of the world’s diversity and political strife, what is unique to The Scorpions is that they are loved and respected as the hard rock ambassadors of world peace. This band represents the chance that we could all get along some day. related content: Slayer’s Final So-Cal Show At Five Point Amphitheater: The Most Insane Review I’ll Ever Write This string of North American dates were makeup shows from a tour the band had to cancel last year while touring with support from Megadeth. On this tour, they brought along classic prog-metal kings Queensryche to open. The band played every song you’d expect but “I Don’t Believe In Love” off their seminal concept album and sonic-action experience Operation: Mindcrime. Instrumentally, they had incredible precision and a soaring epic quality. Todd La Torre sings with a powerful, booming voice that makes the 80’s fucking cool again and honestly sounds just like original singer, Geoffe Tate. Original guitarist Michael Wilton is a powerhouse and you can hear that power in
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