Tag: featured
King Khan and The Shrines Bring Fans to Their Knees at Echoplex
Janky Smooth Central Command
June 30, 2016
Have you ever seen an overweight Canadian/East Indian, with bleach blonde hair, screaming into a microphone about how he wants to be a girl and how he don’t regret a thing? I have, last night at The Echoplex. And it was good. The King…King Khan…King Khan & The Shrines. It was great to see the larger than life performance of Khan performing with The Shrines. Khan has been touring in support of King Khan and the BBQ Show and their record, Bad News Boys since the genius LP was released in 2015. And while the minimal nature of the Khan/Mark Sultan duo has captivated fans over the past year, the over the top gospel-funkiness of Khan being backed by the Shrines is it’s very own beast that needs to feed, every so often. I got to the show late and was able to catch a bit of the weirdest band, Giorgio Murderer, who absolutely killed it with their throbbing, melodic distortion blasting through the speakers like Man or Astro Man. I waited with my girlfriend in anticipation for the main event. King Khan did not disappoint. His ten-piece band, complete with sequins and capes, and all sorts of tomfoolery, were
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New Album Review: Sugar Candy Mountain- 666
Lauren McKnight
June 29, 2016
After Mama Cass was burned at the stake for witchcraft, she was reincarnated as Ash Reiter from Sugar Candy Mountain. The devil wears paisley in the new album “666” by this Joshua Tree duo (Mama) Ash, and her counterpart, Will Halsey. Grooving on an enigmatic theme of reality vs. perception, “666” is a Ouija board that only answers “MAYBE”, “YES”, and “SHIT IM HIGH”. 666 by Sugar Candy Mountain The album carries a 1960’s European style of mystery and class reminiscent of the original James Bond movies. “666” has you hitting the road in a classic Aston Martin on a journey to a magical time before smoking was bad for you and Chlamydia hadn’t been invented yet. Will Halsey has been found in such Bay Area bands as The Blank Tapes, and Fpodbpod. Ash Reiter is the friggin founder of a music festival called “Hickey Fest”, and with their powers combined they are Captain Holy-shit! Sugar Candy Mountain have been compared to bands such as Tame Impala and Jacco Gardener. Their simple yet resonant sound has a devilish day dream quality, and a stimulating vibrance. While I’ve found some of their previous work to be strongly reminiscent of The Beatles’
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Surfs Up: Twin Peaks And An Ocean of Crowd Surfers at The Echoplex
Janky Smooth Central Command
June 29, 2016
Last week, Chicago, Illinois’ own, Twin Peaks dove directly into an ocean of young, Los Angeles, crowd surfing music fans with an inspired performance at The Echoplex. The night began with the typical, slow and steady pace of early arrivers coming to either party or check out the opening band, Golden Daze. As the show progressed, Ne-Hi drove the early crowd into the highest of spirits with their engaging performance. When I say spirits, I mean alcoholic beverages. When I say high, I’m referring to the glasses containing the liquid infiltrating the livers of fans being raised above our heads in salute to the valiant performance of the openers. They don’t call alcoholic drinks spirits for nothing, The audience inched closer and tighter to the stage. The room was dark with only a small television turned on with white noise, static and the letters “TP” spray painted on the screen. With anticipation, fans screamed for the band and then, one by one Colin, Connor, Cadien, Jack and Clay glided onto the stage. Twin Peaks opened the show with “Butterfly” from their new album Down In Heaven, causing the first movement in the small sea of people. Hands went up, reaching out to the music, trying
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NOTHING Unhinge Echoplex Audience By Bending Sonic Waves
Rob Shepyer
June 25, 2016
My night began with loading up on free booze provided by a high end art show. After cruising through all the pretty pictures and people and pounding down as many Peroni’s as I could, I bounced out early, opting for more contact, a rush, an absorbing experience… like bathing in the shoegaze riffs of Philadelphia band, NOTHING who were playing a show at The Echoplex. Ubering out to Silverlake, trading Hollywood glitz for hipster art farts, while buzzing drunk with a dead phone, my driver turned onto Glendale blvd and crept beneath the bridge that loomed over the line of kids that stretched down the block. They stood there, marinating in the pain of missing out because they knew they weren’t getting in. Be quick or be dead. This is LA and Nothing is playing. Don’t you know Nothing sells out LA? I cruised into the Echoplex, mid set of Miami band Wrong with their heavy, alt rock sound. They put everything out on the table in this pounding communion, bouncing up and down, making the stage their bitch. The audience followed suit, jumping and jiving in a pure mess of rock. Their sound reminded me of the heavier 90’s grunge bands like
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New Album Review: Broncho- Double Vanity
Lauren McKnight
June 24, 2016
With a feeling of reckless security I can only associate with driving to buy a Plan B pill the morning after prom night, the third and latest Broncho album has me captivated like Stockholm Syndrome. If John Hughes made a goth movie, Double Vanity released on June 10th via Dine Alone Records would be the soundtrack. The hauntingly lackadaisical droning of Ryan Lindsey’s vocals intertwined with heavy instrumentals and reverb have an almost acid-like effect on the listener’s brain. You may be left with an overwhelming urge to let yourself drop to the bottom of a kaleidoscopic ocean filled with cartoon fish; do you ever think Mr. Limpet was just on shrooms? While the band is referred to as “garage rock” (which is a genre more accurately describing their previous albums), I can’t help but be reminded of a similar resonance as The Black Angels; maybe because I prefer to listen to both bands naked, in a dark room, or maybe because I’ve taken enough psychedelics in my life that everything I enjoy feels like a “far out trip man”. If someone stuck a stick in the spokes of The Warlocks’ circle jerk it’d probably sound like this album. I was
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Memoirs of a Bernie Bro
Danny Baraz
June 23, 2016
After every prolonged and pointless online battle, I knew I wasn’t handling this correctly or even, well and I promised to just let it go the next time someone posted the photo of Bernie Sanders in a Lamborghini or when the average voter proclaimed Hillary Clinton to be a progressive; not for any other reason but hanging onto my own sanity. But there I was, wasting all day the next day having the same arguments with different people (and sometimes the same people), unable to let even one opportunity pass to deliver my most money comment, (“incremental change is the new trickle down economics”). All those “likes” I experienced on my Sanders posts in December of 2015 turned into proverbial “crickets” in May of 2016. Those who condescendingly used to say they “liked Bernie but…” were starting to turn, calling him an ego maniac and claiming he was actually hurting his supporters by staying in this race. I started to soothe myself by reminding me that they just hadn’t been unplugged from the Matrix, yet and they were just suckling at the cable news teat. I wasn’t a #neverhillary but the DNC and the #voteblue demo pushed me, a life long Democrat close
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New Album Review: CCR Headcleaner- Tear Down the Wall
Brent Smith
June 20, 2016
Tear Down the Wall is something else. That’s not an empty idiom. The San Francisco mind-ravaging outfit CCR Headcleaner gives us its strangest trip yet, and in today’s saturation of garage racket, it’s not easy to make such a conspicuous deviation. In only 8 tracks, the hardcore psych noise of Tear Down the Wall is heavy enough to leave you with a biting LSD hangover, but still terse enough to be hungry for more. Taking more hits is a given. Tear Down the Wall is out via In The Red Records June 17th, though I figured at first it was something coming out of the Sacred Bones camp, which would’ve been just as well, as CCR has toured with Fuzz, Human Eye, and Destruction Unit alike. I was reminded a bit of Metz, just more unhinged (if you can buy it), or the heady savagery of the Butthole Surfers, just more revved up on the thrash. All the songs are inhabited by ominous melodies and minor vocals that could score a Jim Jarmusch film set in decrepit Detroit. Though chaos is the name of the game, the songs are nonetheless stitched together with keen methodology; short bursts of crunchy insanity, and long,
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Take This: 2 Tickets & Record Label Swag For Dirty Penni Fest at The Echo
Janky Smooth Central Command
June 16, 2016
On July 23rd, Dirty Laundry TV and local Los Angeles independent record label, Penniback Records are taking over the Echo and Echoplex to showcase both the bands on their label and other, prominent L.A. up and comers; Dirty Penni Fest is born. As the epidemic of DIY music biz entrepreneurs spreads across Southern California, legions of young punks and prodigies hustle hard to expose the world to their neighborhood bands. Featuring artists such as Wild Wing, Jurassic Shark, Super Lunch and Tongues, Penniback Records is drawing attention for their contributions to the ever expanding universe of bands in L.A. Some of the headliners include No Parents, Guantanamo Baywatch, The legendary Mike Watt, Death Hymn Number 9, Lovely Bad Things. A couple other bands we’re excited about are French Vanilla, one of the best bands you’ve never heard of and the almighty Meat Market. There is also a SUPER SECRET GUEST that they are unable to announce yet so expect a nice surprise at the top of this festival. You Can Buy Tickets Here or Janky Smooth and Penniback Records are giving away 2 tickets to Dirty Penni Fest and label swag that includes 2 cassettes, 3 CD’s and a T-shirt to one winner that will
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Sound and Fury Hardcore Festival Comes of Age All Across Los Angeles
Rob Shepyer
June 16, 2016
I am not a hardcore kid. I do love plenty of hardcore bands but I’m a metal kid that found his way to punk. So by virtue of that, what I really seek out in music is extremes and as soon as I discovered Sound and Fury, I could tell it was the most extreme 2 day fest Los Angeles offers. Sound and Fury is a home for the hardcore kids, the truest of which as Nails front man Todd Jones pointed out, come from broken homes. The west coast and east coast have constantly been trading influences since the dawning of punk and as the east coast created hardcore and nurtured it with festivals like Philadelphia’s This is Hardcore, Sound and Fury Fest became the West Coast’s rebuttal. Sound and Fury’s history was all about showcasing rising bands and staying in low key venues around Ventura County for a DIY, homely feel that would foster brutal moments of pure letting go. Now having moved to the Regent Theater as its home base, the festival is bigger than ever with a lineup that crossed every flavor of hardcore punk. I bought my ticket the moment I saw Ceremony and Nails
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New Album Review: GOGGS is Damn Good Gravy on The Ty Segall Catalog
Danny Baraz
June 13, 2016
Ty Segall’s new project GØGGS doesn’t feel like a side project. GOGGS is being touted as “Ty’s new Punk Album” by many publicists and suits and probably just relayed simply that way by frontman, Chris Shaw in a non ambiguous and lyrical manner. And it’s punk. Not like Bad Brains or Black Flag punk but it’s punk rock like Fugazi and Parquet Courts; It dares you to put a label on what they do. When you attach the punk moniker to your music, authenticity is the single biggest pre requisite and that comes from the purity of your intentions with your music. GOGGS innovate in the increasingly nebulous punk rock genre by experimenting with and finding a unique and original guitar and production tone and organizing the bands thoughts into an appropriately confrontational demeanor. Charles Moothart went vintage effect pedal shopping and created something special. Sharp guitar tones with jagged, distorted edges and high mid range. It has an “early catalog Ty Segall” tonal vibe ala Melted and Twins but it’s more abrasive and percussive. It is the most prominent feature on this album and I say that in a good way. The bulbous bottom end bass guitar by committee, (Segall, Moothart,
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Punk Rock Bowling 2016: 18 Years of Limping Las Vegas
Janky Smooth Central Command
June 9, 2016
Don’t’ let the fights fool you; Punk Rock Bowling is a pure, unabashed, hippie love fest. Anthropologists should study the dynamics of a slam pit to understand a punk in his natural habitat because there is so much love in that stew that a few fists flying could never dampen the warm feelings we have for each other. That’s what terrified parents watching expose’s on the terrors of the punk scene in the late 70’s and early 80’s never understood. A jumper on the roof of The Golden Nugget? Doesn’t matter. Sporadic loneliness and bad acid aside, It’s one of the few times a year when MOST attendees feel like they are a part of something bigger. Because under the spikes, tattoos and snarls are a group of individuals who are overflowing with sensitivity and love. They party hard. They fight hard. They dress hard and they look hard, despite the whiskey dick. For the past 18 years, Punk Rock Bowling has served the punk community during both boom and busts of the scene. When NuMetal was hammering the last nail in the coffin of the music industry, Punk Rock Bowling was being born and punks kept sticking to their
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Ty Segall And The Secret Show: A New Tradition in Los Angeles
Brent Smith
June 1, 2016
I caught wind of the secret—and free—Ty Segall and the Muggers show at the Griffin from a Mikal Cronin tweet around 10pm. It turned out being a hushed triumph for the community, the local scene—now largely represented in the hip enclave of working class L.A. artists that arches across Los Feliz, Atwater Village, Eagle Rock, Highland Park, and Mt. Washington. Luckily I don’t live too far, otherwise I would’ve just as easily succumbed to the old Angeleno proverb of “I’m staying in tonight.” I’m glad I decided to go, it provided some much needed reenergizing, and highlighted our special moment of L.A. music history. Even L.A. Weekly (that old, tired whore of a culture rag) was sage enough (however contrived) to dub Segall “L.A.’s most prolific and enigmatic rock star”—which would put him in the running for such a tag worldwide—and he doesn’t need ticket sales to prove it. I showed up to the Griffin maybe 5 or 10 minutes late, tops, sauntering to the back of a line that was definitely sizeable for a Wednesday night, and the Muggers were already wellinto their set. This was my view for a good portion of it. As it turned out, never
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