A Few of Our Favorite Things, 2011: Black Lips, Stephen Colbert, Sensitive Bros, Ambient Beats…

The good people over at Friends of Friends Music, in keeping with their founding each-one-teach-one ethos, asked their friends, and friends of friends, to contribute some sort of top ten (ish) music-related list of favorites from the past year. My contribution is below, but visit the FoF site to read entries by folks like Shlohmo, Ernest Gonzales (Mexicans With Guns), Lushlife, Clive Tanaka, Low Limit, TAKE, Garth Trinidad, Shaun Koplow and Jeff Weiss.

Like most folks that’ll contribute to this project, I could do this all day. To limit a “best of” list to ten entries is the cruelest of tortures to a real music geek, but the tradition exists for a reason: namely, to ensure we all get back to work. This isn’t definitive. These are the first ten wonderful music-related things that popped into my head, but considering the breakneck evolutionary pace and exponential expansion of our chosen medium, it seems fitting to shoot from the hip.

1) Destroyer goes Kaputt: There’s absolutely nothing I don’t love immensely about this album. Am I the only one who had an unrealized, unrecognized need to meet the lovechild of Steely Dan and Sade? Aside from Destroyer’s Dan Bejar, perhaps, but at least I know I’m not totally alone.

2) The Black Lips destroy a ballroom: Mere hours after watching Jared Swilley pinwheel a guitar body into the forehead of a grateful fan at Lollapalooza, I found myself thrashing in a chic hotel ballroom to “Bad Kids” while being pelted with TP rolls and complimentary vodka drinks. \\m//  

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News: New Abe Vigoda Song, We Are the World Video, Plus Baths, What Laura Says, Big Search

Abe Vigoda, not throwing shade

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

  1. FEATURED: Abe Vigoda Goes All ’80s On New ‘Crush’ LP*
  2. Baths Guest for Fol Chen Record Release at The Echo
  3. We Are the World channel Manson in New Video
  4. ‘Lambhair McDaniel,’ by Devendra Banhart Favorite
  5. Popieluch of Foreign Born and Fool’s Gold as Big Search

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

* The press release for Crush promises “glassy shards of ‘cold wave’ pop, with synthesisers, sequencers and altogether broodier beats.”

News Roundup: Ryan Adams Sells Out, Tortoise Goes Gangsta, Lorn and Boys Like Us

Oh, indeed.

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

  1. FEATURED: MP3: Black Beat Music from FlyLo Signee Lorn*
  2. Ryan Adams’ Sci-Fi Metal Concept Album Sells Out in a Day
  3. MP3: Tortoise Goes Gangsta with ‘Drums,’ Feat. Guilty Simpson
  4. V-Wknd Keyboardist to Debut New  Project in Highland Park
  5. (all stories via West Coast Sound, via LA Weekly)

* “Lorn is a beast on the beat machine — a former scratch DJ who clearly spent some time listening to the fathomless rap noir of D-Styles’ classic turntablist docuement, Phantazmagorea.”

Q&A: Foreign Born leaves “no spot un-percussed”

You may have read about Foreign Born’s intimate record release show a few weeks back, or about singer Matt Popieluch’s role in the fantastic Glasser project, but in this new interview, Popieluch covers it all: past, present, future, collaborations with outfits like Cass McCombs’ and Fool’s Gold, and the genesis of FB’s fantastic ode to summers in Los Angeles, Person To Person. Read up.

“Winter Games,” from Person To Person.