Category: unsorted

Friday Night’s Set = Na$ty New Jack @ Top Tape (Hyperion Tavern, Silver Lake)

All cassingles. All New Jack Swing. All sex jams. (Photo by Matthewdavid)

“Why can’t we go all the way
to the top,the fullest extreme?
The sounds I hear when you’re with
me express the way that you feel.
And you say … uhh … ahh.”

Had the extreme pleasure of spooling (like “spinning,” but with cassettes) at Dublab’s Top Tape night at the Hyperion Tavern on Friday night. So did amazing folks like Walter Gross, Jonwayne, Speculator, Matthewdavid, Frosty and DJ Crazy Scotty Straight from Rehab. Me? Gil DeVoe? Eh?

These aren’t the exact vrsns, but a great (the best?) way to begin the week:

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Video Bonanza: OK Go <3′s Dogs, Music Stars Align for ‘ITW Pathway’, El Guincho’s Surrealist Short Film, Mayer Hawthorne and Mazda, Ima Robot vs. Spike Jonze vs. the Fireball

Spike Jonze and Edward Sharpe ride a skateboarde out of Helle.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so I’ll let these moving ones do speak for me. Dig in to the final Funny Ha Ha catch-up cache:

  1. FEATURED: OK Go’s New Video Goes to the Dogs*
  2. Moby, Questlove, Will Oldham unite for ITW Pathway
  3. Toe-Sucking and Teets in El Guincho’s Surrealist Flick
  4. Mayer Hawthorne Shills for Mazda, Debuts New Classixx MP3
  5. Ima Robot vs. Spike Jonze vs. Pro Skaters vs. the Fireball

* “This latest video goes straight for the heartstrings. We’ll give you a hint: the crew went through four pounds of dog treats each day that they were filming.”

(all stories via West Coast Sound, via L.A. Weekly)

Worlds Collide: Cool Kids, Travis Barker and 1500 Pairs of Sneakers Perform at the Music Box

The designer raps of Cool Kids Chuck Inglish and Mikey Rocks (Andrew Herrold)

But, “Sneakers can’t perform!” you exclaim in horror. Well, neither can Travis Barker it seems — at least for more than three minutes at a time. I jest though. Those three minutes when he was backing Chicago’s Cool Kids for the performance of their collabo song “Jump Down” were highly propulsive and nothing, ultimately, to scoff at. As for the acts that warmed up the stage before the Kid’s set down, well … scoff, scoff, scoff (via Spin).

Quote of the night: “We got confetti up in this bitch!”

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Stupid Internet Tricks: Danzig vs. Kitty Litter, Ashes to Vinyl, Snooki vs. Best Coast, Antoine Dodson and Autotune the News Hit iTunes

When memes collide: Danzig has a gift for Keyboard Cat.

As somebody sage and genius-like once said, “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of citizens of Teh Interwebs. LOL!” Well, here are some totally dumb things I wrote about for your entertainment.

  1. FEATURED: Danzig in a Danzig Shirt, Buying Cat Supplies*
  2. Dio Should’ve Done This: Convert Your Ashes to Vinyl (Really)
  3. Jersey Shore’s Snooki Tours w. Best Coast, Parties w. Wavves
  4. Antoine Dodson and Auto-Tune the News Sell ‘Bed Intruder’ Song

* “The Internet just rolled over and died. Cats, cult celebrity and narcissism all captured in a single itty bitty photograph.”

(all stories via West Coast Sound, via L.A. Weekly)

Beat (Scene) Beat: Aquacrunkgate 2010, Mars Volta Meets Low End Theory, Tokimonsta vs. TAKE, Asura vs. Ana Caravelle, Glitch Mob’s in ‘America’s Got Talent’ Semi-Finals

Teebs does not make aquacrunk music, but you should still buy his 'Ardour' LP.

I make no attempts to hide my reverence for the L.A. beat scene. Just when I think I’ve got it pinned down, someone like Teebs will come along and flip the script by making something as rich and subtle as Ardour, or Flying Lotus will go ahead and release a new EP, like Pattern+Grid World, that sounds nothing like the incredible album he released a couple months previously. That’s why most of the links below are to MP3 debuts — shit happens so fast, the best you can do is channel it. Oh, and then there’s …

  1. FEATURED: Aquacrunkgate: L.A. Artists (Flying Lotus and Others) Take to Twitter to Protest Latest Blog-Made Microgenre*
  2. Omar Rodriguez Lopez Records a Electronic Album w. Nobody
  3. Beat Scene Babe Tokimonsta Remixes TAKE
  4. Asura Remixes Ana Caravelle (Think Lotus Meets Newsom)
  5. Glitch Mob Makes Semi-Finals on ‘America’s Got Talent’
  6. Sumsun Channels Four Tet and Neon Indian on ‘Call It Home’

* “Early in Drowned in Sound’s screed, the author identifies the late J Dilla, an extremely hallowed name in L.A. and in hip-hop production overall, as the father of aquacrunk.“

(all stories via West Coast Sound, via L.A. Weekly)

Review: Trip-Hop Tricky Tries Out New Flavors, Settles on Vanilla for ‘Mixed Race’

Tricky Mixed Race

Tricky, you’ve split the critics on this one. The Brits seem to put up with Mixed Race‘s bland attempts at co-opting a few more danceable genres, not to mention specific songs by Daft Punk and unsung Jamaicans like Echo Minott. Me (Spin) and Pitchfork can’t go for that. No-oh, no can do:

“It’s odd that Tricky’s self-professed ‘gangster album’ may go down as the polyglot producer’s most bland offering yet.”

Read the entire review over here, or in the September print issue of Spin.

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Review: Glasser Gets All the Druids Dancing with Her Debut LP, ‘Ring’

Glass(er) art freaking rules. Did she buy this in Cambria?

I’ve been enamored with the music of … wait, that sounds familiar, though I guess that proves the point. It really has been a minute since Glasser first pricked up the ears of various music-loving sheep and wolves in the  L.A. area. It was over a year ago that we drank tea at the Casbah and chatted about her pops being in Blue Man Group. Now she’s on Matador and has a brand new, really ____ album. Sorry, not giving away the cow. Because these Spin reviews are so brief, here’s a quote that doesn’t say much at all:

“Somewhere, druids are dancing around a circle of stones.”

But it painted a picture for you right? Flesh it out with some words.

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The Rap Sheet: Busdriver’s New Superduo, Fashawn Shills for Weed, Cool Kids + Freddie Gibbs + Black Keys + Bun B, M.I.A. Leaks Diplo Track, Sizzurp = the New Absinthe

Rappers wanna talk to Samson. He's got the good shhhh ...

I’m not going to pretend to have coined “The Rap Sheet” as a blog header. But I am going to claim exclusive first rights to all of these rap-related stories, every single one of which has become a total Internet sensation. Yep, every single one of them … except maybe all of them.

  1. FEATURED: They Wanna Talk to Samson: Fashawn and Strong Arm Steady Shill for Their Favorite Medical Pot Dispensaries*

  2. Busdriver and Nocando Form Superduo, Flash Bang Grenada
  3. M.I.A. Leaks New Diplo-Produced Song on Twitter
  4. T.I. Gets Arrested, You Get 10 Sizzurp-Inspired Video Clips
  5. Bun B + Cool Kids + Freddie Gibbs + Black Keys = P.O.C.

* “It seems like something out of Dave Chappelle’s 1998 stoner classic, Half Baked, but could allegiances to specific medical marijuana dispensaries be rap’s next big territory war?“

(all stories via West Coast Sound, via L.A. Weekly)

Review: Violens Debut ‘Amoral’ Not as Hipster-Friendly as Predicted, Oh Well

An erstwhile Lansing-Dreiden member wants to get down with the new wave.

I wanted to like this. I did. I’m not a hater by nature. (And if I was, I’d hate the game, not the player.) But despite it’s superfreaky cover art and reliance upon chillwavey textures (I do love those), Violens’ Amoral also contains odd bits of nü-metal flair, which will never do. Did I dismiss it out of hand for a couple of ill-conceived buttrock chords? You betcha!

“Violens mastermind Jorge Elbrecht wants listeners to imagine his band’s art-pop debut as a Lynchian dream …”

Just kidding. I wouldn’t do that. Or would I? Find out at Spin.

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