Category: unsorted

Feature: 12 L.A. Indie Labels You Should Know — from Sargent House to Anticon to Southern Lord to Dangerbird to IAMSOUND and more …

Dean Spunt on the skins, No Age drummer and PPM Records owner

It’s awesome time in L.A., people. Either get on the Good News train or get left behind. Music, frankly, is great — always has been, but when so much great music exists in one’s own backyard, when the people responsible for tending the flame all seem to gather within the same ten-mile stretch, when there’s no shortage of good ideas or good tunes, well, a person is likely to get real happy and start writing silly things like this.

Far less silly, and actually quite informative, is “Twelve Indie Labels You Should Know, a Primer” (I say “prymer,” please don’t say “primmer”) which is on the L.A. Times blog, Pop & Hiss, right now, as I type. This piece is the culmination of a three-parter. Read the Sunday print feature, “L.A.’s Indie Labels Succeed with a Jack-of-All-Trades Approach,” if you please. And find a supplemental piece (with a choice MP3) over yonder.

Spin Review: Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, ‘Up From Below’

Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, Up From Below (Vagrant)

Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros look "Up From Below"

“Moonlighting or not, the band hits upon some real magic, resulting in joyously orchestral clap-alongs like ’40 Day Dream’ and intimate Laurel Canyon fare like ‘Brother,’ a tribute to Heath Ledger.”

Read more via Spin.

Pickin’ Up the Pieces

Feature: All Hail King Skinny Shitster, Wavves’ Nathan Williams (Also: He May Be Leaving Fat Possum Records, Definitely Digs Lil Wayne)

Wavves and Snacks the cat -- which one looks more together?

A little while back I had the hazy, kinda strange pleasure of interviewing Wavves’ Nathan Williams in the Los Angeles apartment he shares with girlfriend and Best Coast singer, Bethany Cosentino. What I discovered was the living embodiment of all that on-album ennui — a dude who probably hasn’t sat up straight  since … well, ever. But that may very well be to his music’s advantage, as Wavves’ new album, King of the Beach, is mighty high on my list of the best albums of 2010 so far.

Read the feature, All Hail King Skinny Shitster, over at L.A. Weekly (also in print this week). As a supplement to that, you can check out a few choice scraps from the cutting room floor on West Coast Sound, in the blog post, “Wavves May Leave Fat Possum Records, Wants to Meet Lil Wayne, Plays FYF Fest on Saturday,” whose title is also quite self-explanatory. Also: go to FYF Fest this weekend. You won’t be sorry.

Continue reading →

News: Boyz Noize RMXs Chemical Brothers, MEDcal Marijuana, Snoop & Quazedelic, New Baths Video Channels Princess Mononoke

Boyz Noize remixes the Chemical Brothers' "Swoon"

Quick bloggy bits from around the L.A. underground (and up). Share ’em.

  1. FEATURED: Boyz Noize Remixes Chemical Brothers on ‘Swoon’*
  2. Oxnard Rapper MED Celebrates His Medical Pot Card in New Video
  3. MP3: Snoop Dogg & Quazedelic Shout Out the Güeros in New Song
  4. Baths Meets Mononoke in Samurai-Feat Vid for ‘Lovely Bloodflow’

* “The Chems have gotten noisier on their new album, but one of the smoother tracks is first single “Swoon.” Apologies, but this is not an electro megamix of the 2009 album by Silversun Pickups.”

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

INCHES Reviews Two Slabs of Stone-Cold ’80s Funk from Tony Cook, ft. Dâm-Funk

"What's on Your Mind," ft. Dâm-Funk and "Video Rock" by Tony Cook

“The thing you need to understand about The Funk, is that once one discovers the need for it, one’s gotta have The Funk pretty much at all times and in every form possible. Roofs of houses and clubs alike have burned as a result of this phenomenon, while onlookers either idly stand by in Funk-inspired negligence or actually chant, seemingly celebrating the loss of another property at the hands of The Funk.”

Photos and Mp3s and charts, oh my! Get over to INCHES!

Watch Big Search (Foreign Born Singer Matt Popieluch) Debut New Songs at Spaceland

Big Search, the new project from Foreign Born singer and Fool’s Gold guitarist Matt Popieluch, performs TONIGHT at the Downtown Independent along with a screening of The Scenesters film and a set from Sweaters. Tickets are available here, and for an extra $5 at the door, you can come back to tomorrow night’s show (the Franks + Lord Huron).

In honor of that, we’ve gotten our hands on some excellent clips of Big Search playing Spaceland last month. Check out “In the Morning Room, I Saw,” below, and a handful of others after the jump.

Continue reading →

Download an Album’s Worth of Songs Free: Baths, Franks, Pukes, Wallpaper, Papa, Lord Huron, Jeans Wilder, Big Search and more

2 Comments

In honor of the seven-night, 14-band spectacular going down at the Downtown Independent in honor of The Scenesters screening, we’ve got an album’s worth of songs for you — one from every artist on the bill.

Tickets here. Or, pay $15 at the venue to come back all week.

DOWNLOAD: The Scenesters Run L.A., the Album [zip file]
Or, here: via Mediafire.

Stream the entire thing after the jump.

Continue reading →