Tag: featured

We take a fanboy/girl approach to music journalism in that most of us will gush over the artists we love and speak with a jaded cynicism about everyone else.  That isn’t what this list of Top 25 Bands & Artists to Check Out in 2017 is about, though. (see disclaimer below) Luckily, there are more bands and little pockets of diverse music, art collectives and scenes all throughout the city right now than there ever has been.  That’s not the weird part.  The weird part is that, love ’em or hate them; SO MANY of these bands, DJ’s, sound designers and MC’s are in it for authentic and genuine artistic motives.  Once, for all intents and purposes the music industry died, all the head shot, MI, blow dried Ken and Barbies that occupied a significant percentage of the “forever chasing the corporate art dollar” population in Los Angeles re-evaluated their lives, they scattered into television, movies and production and then… … the kids in the garages and practice spaces began their rule. Without the old worldwide distribution network and formulaic spreadsheets in place, the amount of time it takes for good bands to go from touring the west coast to touring

We don’t care what people say about you, 2016; Janky Smooth loves you.  Sure, you skull fucked the country with a culturally divisive presidential election that scrambled our brains, pitted us against each other and made propaganda the norm. Yes, we were able to normalize the images of police gunning down unarmed civilians in the street and forced us to redefine the word “justified”.   Granted, almost half of our country believes that global warming is either a hoax or overstated as the polar ice caps and ancient sea shelf melts and breaks off into the ocean at a rate more rapid than anyone could’ve dreamed or climate scientists had calculated.  Sure, you took a massive amount of musicians, actors, artists, leaders and athletes that basically everyone on the planet loves the most. But you know what?  At least you gave us some of the best independent hip hop, metal, electronic, punk and straight forward rock songs than any of your younger brother and sister centuries have sounded in quite some time.  So we forgive you but now, We The People of Janky Smooth have to make some decisions on our favorites from the best songs of 2016.  We’re up for

What the fuck is up with publications that post their best of, year end lists of favorite records, songs and shows at the beginning of December?  What’s more important- getting it out first or getting it “right”?   RTJ3 dropped on Xmas Day, hardly enough time to absorb an entire album, much less rank it toward the top for top records of the year.  But I would be pulling my own hair out if I missed acknowledging El-P as one of the best producers of this era, (sans the ghost writers that have become customary at his level).  El-P is one of the most underrated rappers in hip hop, maybe because of the un-equaled political and social rhyme and flow of Killer Mike, who probably SHOULD crush Kanye in the 2020 Democratic Primary for president, not to mention the vocal booth but would bet most pure hip hop publications would favor Life of Pablo over the 3rd album by two middle aged guys who were probably pretty close to looking for a day job before their self titled debut album dropped in 2013.   Day For Night Fest: Futurists of Audio & Visual Converge in Houston In my research to