Category: unsorted

Besto 2010: Gorillaz are Spin’s Live Act of the Year (Plus, Damon and Jamie on their Circus)

Damon Albarn FTW. A lifer makes a masterwork.

Had the pleasure of witnessing the Gorillaz circus when it came to town back in October and among what must be close to a thousand concerts witnessed, this one is now permanently lodged in my personal top five. No joke. Damon Albarn has done something magical with music (and a huge effing budget). I had the added pleasure of speaking with him and his Gorillaz cohort Jamie Hewlett for Spin’s year-end cov’g. Here’s an excerpt:

“It’s like a juggernaut once it starts,” says Damon Albarn. The peculiar pop project he and illustrator Jamie Hewlett founded 12 years ago in a shared London flat has grown from a virtual band of comic-book characters to a traveling spectacle of Barnumesque proportions. “There’s no stopping it,” says Albarn. “The magic is in the way it mesmerizes, brings you into its world.

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Live in LA: Florence, Pumpkins, Black Keys, V-Weekend and More Rock KROQ Xmas

Florence wails from the heart of the Machine. (Graeme Flegenheimer)

Just before the Christmas holiday, shutterbug Graeme Flegenheimer and I ventured into the life-size kaleidoscope that is Universal Citywalk in order to reach the Gibson Amphitheater, stuffed to the brim, as it was, with copious amounts of both rock and roll. The occasion was KROQ’s annual Almost Acoustic Christmas two-night fete, and many wise men did perform. Social Distortion, Bad Religion, Cake, Smashing Pumpkins, Jimmy Eat World. There were younger faces too. My Chemical Romance, Brandon Flowers, Vampire Weekend, Florence and the Machine.

I wrote about most of ’em here, via Spin. Teaser below.

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Besto 2010: Wallpaper Drops #STUPiDFACEDD

Give us one more button, Ricky. Let's see that chest mane, mane.

Party jam of the year, bar none, even if it hasn’t had the opportunity to soundtrack many parties yet. (The free song dropped earlier this month, and Four Loko references aren’t really the stuff of holiday galas.) That didn’t stop me from spilling some ink on it though, via my ballot for The A.V. Club’s year-end music coverage. You can click here and scroll down to “My Effing Jam,” or just listen, read and download below:

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Besto 2010: Glasser, Ted Leo and Crystal Castles Make the Cut for Spin’s Top 40

They posed for this: Ted Leo (33), Glasser (27) and Crystal Castles (21).

It’s that time of year, folks. Bestolium 2010. Fill in the holes in yr collection before stuff yr mama buys you for the holidaze duz. You can read Spin’s entire top 40 best albums of the year, and you can also jump straight to my pieces if you’re so inclined: Ted Leo, Glasser, and Crystal Castles.

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Walter Gross: Death Music and Devilish Videos (Plus, Dude Remixes Bessie Smith)

Nightmare in sepiatone (Walter Gross)

Watch for Walter Gross in 2011. Dude collages death in audio format. Listen to his SoundCloud tracks and that’ll make sense. He’s also a crack video editor as well, and has been devoting his efforts of late to lacing his blacker than black tracks with fittingly dark and wistful imagery.

Don’t take my word for it. Read the man’s own musings and watch several of his videos over at LA Weekly, in a feature called: Dragging You to Hell. Also, you need to listen to this. Who you know that remixes Bessie Smith?

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Review: Fuck Black Eyed Peas. [Period.]

1 Comment

Just stop. Seriously. Stop. No really. Stop. For real. Stop.

Will.i.am has talent. He shows it all the time on others’ songs. But when it comes to his own shit … god, it just … sucks. You can read my less profane take on The Beginning via the A.V. Club, or skip it, because you already hate them and who cares, right? Then again, one Twitter denizen said this:

“There’s nothing quite like a well-written pan. I read this one twice.  http://bit.ly/fvxkpC (Nicely done, @CLMartwits.)”

Then again — again — he works for the A.V. Club too. Hmm. Read it. Read the comment section too. It’s better written, probably.

Besto 2010: The L.A. Beat Scene for Dummies (Starring Teebs, Asura, Lorn, Shlohmo, Take)

That's a double helix by Teebs. Get yr DNA right.

Los Angeles. So much reason for so much pride right now. This city had an unbelievable year in music, and nothing’s slowing for 2011. Mark my words. Just as the noise scene grew up this year with more “mature” releases from No Age, Wavves, Abe Vigoda and others, the next two will be marked by increasingly sophisticated and beautiful releases from the local beat fam. But you don’t want to wait for Rolling fucking Stone or Paste to tell you that, do you? Nah. Get on the train now, and check out five future classics that came out this year, but which didn’t make it onto the A.V. Club’s year-end list (which is why Baths and Lotus are excluded).

Click here, then scroll down ’til you see:
THE L.A. BEAT SCENE, FOR DUMMIES (ya dummy!)

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