The All Star Workshop will be a forum for DJs, musicians and engineers to come together and share new techniques and ideas. Participants will be encouraged to showcase techniques, secrets, tweaks and collaborate whenever possible.
Read more at West Coast Sound. I’ll be covering the Saturday event as well.
A short list of recommended L.A.-area shows for the coming week (plus videos for instant gratification). Click “details” for descriptions.
At last! A brand new installment of INCHES, the L.A.-centric vinyl column that’s now numerous feet — no, yards — into its long-playing legacy. It’s a damn ripe time for independent music in Southern California, and this, friends, is your undeniable mainline. Inside, you’ll get your chillwave fix, your dose of droning doom, some spiraling psych and some fuzzy folktronica. Nothing to scoff at, and free MP3s from each. Plus words! And pictures!
Active Child, 'She Was A Vision'
Bum. Out. First Def Jux goes on hiatus, and now Sole leaves Anticon to go his own way. Make no mistake, the label soldiers on, but it’s a bit nail-in-the-coffin for the good old Oakland days — which, granted, took place a full decade ago — when the collective was truly that, a group of fresh-faced outsider artists building themselves a plywood castle to shoot arrows from. Here, I share Sole’s parting message, and talk to label manager Shaun Koplow about the fallout.
Deep Puddle Dynamics: Dose, Slug, Alias, Sole
On Friday night, the five-man, living, breathing musical mash-up that is Brooklyn band Yeasayer came to town, and instead of playing to an audience of fashion-forward hippiesters at, say, the Echoplex, the group played to a mixed crowd of massive taxidermied animals and fashion-forward hippiesters at the Natural History Museum. I braved the wild scene on behalf of Spin.
Ira Wolf Tuton sports a beastly box fade. (Andrew Herrold)
Two bits of exciting news from Los Angeles-area music-makers. The first pertains to Avi Buffalo, who I wrote about for the Weekly back in October (and whose first Sub Pop release made it into INCHES). The second comes from up-and-coming L.A. indie label IAMSOUND and involves a ton of great local artists including Nosaj Thing and Ryan Heffington’s We Are The World. Since I’m in a beastly mood, click the linx for the links.
Sub Pop Announces Details of Avi Buffalo LP
IAMSOUND Launches 7-inch Series Ft. Nosaj Thing, Fool's Gold, Edward Sharpe...
The topsy-turvy World of Teh Internets has at last collided with the far more sensible, yet still totally futuristic, Land of Legendary Krautrock. Damo Suzuki, singer of the seminal ’70s German band Can, has had his name sullied by the dirt-lovin’ “celebrities” who populate YouTube — or shall we call it, DamoTube. Read about the whole weird thing here.
Impishly evil? Maybe. Tech-savvy? Not a chance.
Quick bloggy bits* from around the L.A. underground (and up).
Mia Doi Todd in her new Gondry-directed video
(all stories via West Coast Sound, via LA Weekly)
*If you like it, then you better put a tweet on it.
Quick bloggy bits* from around the L.A. underground (and up).
Durlin Lurt's 'Him Jenson'
(all stories via West Coast Sound, via LA Weekly)
*If you like it, then you better put a tweet on it.
My dear friend and colleague Colin Stutz, a.k.a. Jean Dont, has a damn good East Side punk-rock band called The Franks, which is celebrating the pending release of its second EP, Duh (the first was called Un), on Sunday at the Echo. Le Face also plays, and Part Time Punks presents. Go there.
Here’s the flyer. Vids after the jump.
A short list of recommended L.A.-area shows for the coming week (plus videos for instant gratification). Click “details” for descriptions.
Chris Writes Things 