Lana Del Rey – Born To Die (AlunaGeorge Remix)
via Lana Del Rey – Born To Die (AlunaGeorge Remix).
It’s Madonna meets Gaga served up in a dish full of trance beats, danceable synths and a singable chorus.
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Posts Tagged ‘music
01
Dec
11
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They might as well be the German version of a certain French electronic duo called Daft Punk.
These guys offer a little more dance and a dose of surrealism to bring the sounds of virtual reality to your eardrums.
One listen to “Stratosphere”, the opening track on the group’s latest release, “I Love You Dude” and you’ll be saying “I’m in”, like Flynn in TRON.
The Vibe: Shock therapy
Pair with: Video games
During road trip: Sounds great in a DeLorian
Rx Bandits said goodbye in San Francisco on August 7, 2011 at the band's farewell show. The Seal Beach, CA group announced breakup plans earlier in the summer.
It happens to the best of us.
We get tired.
And that’s how it appears the road-weary RX Bandits are after a decade of constant touring.
The Seal Beach, California group is known for its transformation (see: evolution) from a late ’90s ska band to a four-headed beast of a band playing spacey, prog-rock with reggae and Latin influences.
At the height of the group’s career, RX Bandits played a trio of shows in New York and San Francisco, devoting each night to a full album performance of the band’s last three: The Resignation, …And The Battle Begun and Mandala.
Then, a few months ago, the band said they’d be calling it quits.
After 16 years and 7 studio albums, Rx Bandits announced on its website the following:
“Dear friends,
We would like to express our love and appreciation for all that you’ve done for us and how much a part of our growth you have been. We have all mutually decided that this summer will be our last tour. We love each other and love you all and hope to see you at the shows.Much love & respect,
Rx Bandits”
When I heard the news, I was shocked and saddened. I’ve been following these guys since I saw them open for Reel Big Fish at the Fillmore in San Francisco around 2004.
The political messages about peace, not war, call and response sing-a-longs, extended jam outs, frenetic guitar noodling and improvisational drum solos are just a few of the
———- that make the bands’ live show a true performance.
I made it out to two shows on the band’s farewell tour — The Catalyst in Santa Cruz on July 30, where Berkley’s Facing New York opened and the FINAL PERFORMANCE at the Regency Ballroom in San Francisco August 7.
The Regency Ballroom was a the perfect opportunity for the band to bring out the big guns — a two-piece horn section to beef up older tracks. Both shows were packed, but the energy and emotion in San Francisco was over the top. Each cord resonated just a little extra for both the band and the crowd.
There were no goodbyes, just “I’ll miss you”s and the four members hugged, held hands and bowed at the end of a high-energy, two-hour set.
With a group of such talented musicians — Matt Embree’s powerful croons and free-flowing guitar licks, Steve Choi’s flying fingers on guitar and keys (and sometimes drums), Chris Tasgakis’ tight rhythms, and Joe Troy’s bass grooves — its apparent that the great music these guys play together will not cease.
The four core members have been playing together so long (more than a decade), they’re basically brothers. Choi insists in interviews that this is not the end of RXB, just the end of touring.
Not to mention, members of the group are distinctly connected to rising independent record label Sargent House, which they helped form in 2006.
Embree already plays solo as Love You Moon, and has started a new project called ME & LP, which is sounding oh so sweet.
Check out ME & LP – Bonnie Says (No Shitty Ride) below:
Embree and Tsagakis also have a Sound of Animals Fighting-esque project called Biceratops, and Tasagakis plays in a group called Technology.
Other projects from band members include Apotheke and Coke vs. Bill. The group’s involvement with Sargent House will keep them fresh as they continue to collaborate with bands like current touring partners Zechs Marquise.
Here’s to the end of an era…can’t wait to see what comes next.
- (Editor’s note: It worked out pretty well for Gatsby’s American Dream, a popular Seattle indie band that broke up in 2006 and went on to form Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground, Wild Orchid Children, Search/Rescue, RedRedBlue, Keith Ledger, Zero Cool, Razia’s Shadow, Princess Dinosaur, Places and Numbers and TickTockMan)
VIDEOS FROM TWO OF RX BANDITS’ FINAL SHOWS:
RXB “Only For The Night” @ The Catalyst in Santa Cruz 7/30/11
RXB “Hidden Track” @ The Catalyst in Santa Cruz 7/30/11
RXB “Drum Solo” @ The Catalyst in Santa Cruz 7/30/11
Openers Facing New York play “Me and My Friendz” @ The Catalyst in Santa Cruz 7/30/11
Yet another news publication has bitten the dust.
Its not quite the headline-breaker like Rupert Murdoch‘s recent folding of the News of the World, the 168-year-old British tabloid that has received allegations for hacking into the cellphone of a murdered schoolgirl.
But, the free, LA Times-owned, weekly arts, entertainment and culture magazine known as Brand X has been a staple in the Los Angeles youth scene for a few years.
And by youth, I mean the twentysomething hipster population that has taken over spots like Silver Lake, Echo Park, Eagle Rock and West Hollywood.
Its strongpoints, at least to me, were extensive reporting on the rising Los Angeles craft beer movement and its coverage of the indie music scene.
There is, however, a silver lining. The Los Angeles Times Media Group also announced in a memo that it will be expanding its roster of community newspapers.
I interned at Brand X (formerly thisisbrandx.com, the site was taken down July 8th) when it was still Metromix Los Angeles (formerly la.metromix.com, folded into the Times, then morphed into Brand X). This was back in 2009 and was my first of three journalism internships after college.
I was really going to miss the weekly tabloid, as I’m moving (back) to the Bay Area in a few days.
But now, everyone will miss this fun and edgy guide to what’s what, who’s who and what’s happening in LA.
I’m sure it was only a matter of time.
Best of luck to Deb Vankin, Alexandra Le Tellier and the rest of the staff with their new roles at the Times.
More information check out LA Observed‘s coverage.
One of my first non school-related publications was on Metromix.com in 2009. The short blog contribution is below:
Published on Metromix.com in 2009.
From left to right, Let's Drive to Alaska is Marisa Kirtland, Chris Garcia, Cris Holguin and Patrick Haag.
Orange County indie up and comers Let’s Drive to Alaska are an experiment.
An experiment that explores the art of sound creation and manipulation.
Moody synths meld with glitchy beats and melodic strings to create an introspective and atmospheric arrangement. Throw in a dash of post-rock sensibilities and you’ve got Let’s Drive to Alaska.
Think From Monument to Masses meets The Notwist and the softer side of Explosions In The Sky. Music you can think to, write to, sleep to and even wake up to.
The Whittier-based instrumental outfit Let’s Drive to Alaska has become an OC mainstay throughout the last six months, making an impact on the local scene with well-honed live shows that draw a good crowd even on a Monday night.
The band’s May 23rd performance at Fullerton’s Commonwealth Lounge, where I caught them live, was no exception. This is a tight group — band member Cris Holguin says they practice three times a week, upwards of five hours at a time.
Yet no one is talking about them. You can find LTDA on Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Soundcloud, but a quick Google news or blog search leads to links mostly related to, of course, Sarah Palin.
LDTA is a distinct breed of band, where the music stems from one person’s creation.
It’s like Nine Inch Nails, Trent Reznor’s industrial rock collective. Reznor writes and records most of the music but brings a full band on tour. Conor Oberst, frontman of Bright Eyes, and Zach Condon of Beirut have similar strategies.
In this case, it’s 23-year-old Chris Garcia…at least for now.
LTDA has seen a few different lineups, and the current four-piece is just Garcia’s latest efforts to realize his musical visions.
Garcia, who started making music on his laptop in 2005, has held many monikers for his eclectic musical projects. He has The Coherent Mammals, an ambient group not too dissimilar from LTDA and the more guitar-driven The Golden Tongues, to name a few.
With the latest incarnation, Garcia has brought on solid talent for a more permanent arrangement: drummer Pat Haag (ex-Mississippi Man), sampling and effects artist Cris Holguin and violinist/celloist Marisa Kirtland.
But the still-fresh group has yet to face it’s biggest challenge — winning over the toughest crowd to date: LA hipsters.
The band knows that pull in Orange County means nothing in Los Angeles and that it’s not unusual to play to an empty audience the first few shows.
They’ll find out soon enough as their first LA show is at The Airliner Monday night.
Right now, the group is putting finishing touches on a new EP, “Floating Mammoths.” This will be the first recording to feature the current lineup.
And while the album is almost in the bag, Holguin says he is working on a groundbreaking visual set to sync up to the music during live performances.
And if you’re curious about seeing Holguin on stage hooking up his effects board to a 20″ white iMac instead of a laptop, you’ll have to ask him about the first Let’s Drive to Alaska show for that story.
Check out a track from Let’s Drive to Alaska:
Pictures from the Commonwealth Lounge show HERE.
You can watch an interview with LTDA frontman Chris Garcia here:
Genre: Electronic/Experimental/Postrock/Electronic
The lights are dim, the anxious crowd screaming and applauding, the curtains closed.
The TVs around the venue lit up with breathtaking imagery of glaciers and snowy mountains.
Portugal. The Man’s latest single “Got It All (This Can’t be Living Now)” begins to blare through the speakers, but it’s not them playing the music.
A 10-minute theatrical HD music video debuts before the band plays a note.
The video featured lead singer and guitarist John Gourley on some sort of “Into The Wild” adventure in Alaska.
Gourley, wrapped in a fur-hooded parka, is pulled through arctic tundra by a pack of sled dogs. And, without giving away the ending, finds himself on the ground, mouthing words to the song.
After the extended introduction, the four-piece started into a re-envisioned version of an old track from debut album “Waiter, You Vultures!”. Lights flashed as Gourley’s frenetic guitar noodling danced to distorted bass lines.
I’ve watched Portugal. The Man ascent to fame over the years, collecting each album and watching them live a handful of times.
Each performance is different than the last and Saturday was no different.
The Portland, Oregon by way of Wasilla, Alaska indie quartet group releases its sixth studio album “In The Mountain, In The Cloud” July 17 and used its sold-out House of Blues Anaheim audience as ears for many of the new tracks.
The group sprinkled a number of the new songs throughout the hour-and-a-half long performance that include a single song, but 10+ minute encore.
It was clear Portugal was on tour to generate steam for the upcoming release of “In The Mountain”.
Fans sang along to favorites from the popular (and more pop-sounding) album “The Satanic Satanist”, which helped but the band on the map and in 2010, secure a deal with Atlantic Records after two, two-record stints with Fearless and Equal Vision Records, respectively.
The band has progressed a lot since the falsetto vocals matched to drum machine beats and introspective guitar riffs. The sound has opened, Gourley’s voice has progressed — along with the backup singing — and the new stuff sounds wide open, soaring and even a bit grandiose. Somewhere between “Censored Colors” and “Satanist”.
You’ll have to listen to hear what I’m talking about:
Below, videos from the performance!
Nic Offer of !!! likes to dance
Marcel Rodriguez Lopez and Marfred Rodriguez Lopez of Zechs Marquise chop it up at Detroit Bar
The two bands playing Costs Mesa’s intimate, chic-grunge Detroit Bar Thursday night were big. Too big.
Too big for the stage they took, in sheer size, sound and force. Big enough to play Coachella too, to thousands of screaming fans. But on the Thursday night before Coachella weekend, I caught these two astounding bands up close…and for a lot less money.
The night started with instrumental mind-melting jams from Zechs Marquise, the buzzworthy El Paso, Texas prog-rock outfit that not only sounds like The Mars Volta’s little brother, but actually includes three of them. Marfred, Marcel and Rikardo Rodriguez-Lopez play bass, drums and keys respectively, and happen to be the younger siblings of infamous Mars Volta guitarists Omar Rodriguez Lopez. (Drummer Marcel Rodriguez Lopez plays in the Omar Rodriguez Lopez Group).
I discovered these guys when they opened for friends and Sargent House labelmates RX Bandits at The Glasshouse in Pomona a few months back. And while I was blown away then, Thursday’s set was insane. Grooving basslines meshed with frenetic guitar riffs, while Marcel was astoundingly able to keep up to constantly changing rhythms. No singing, but a great prog-rock fix when you’ve already mastered the entire Volta collection.
Next up was veteran psychedelic dance-funk !!! (pronounced Chk Chk Chk). The Sacramento-based band has been starting parties since 1996 and continues to put on an extremely energetic and fun live show. Lead singer Nic Offer handles most of the entertainment with his sexual dance moves that look a little like humping. By the second song, Offer was in the crowd singing face to face with all the fans. It was nuts.
!!! released a new album recently, entitled “Strange Weather, Isn’t It?” Standout tracks are “AM/FM”, “Jamie, My Intentions Are Bass”, and “Hollow”.
Zechs Marquise, formed in 2009, has been touring on their first full-length, “Our Delicate Stranded Nightmare.” A new record on the way. Expect your mind to be blown.
LIVE VIDEOS from both performances below:
GIRL TALK aka Gregg Gillis brought his larger-than-life dance party persona to the Pomona Fox Theater Saturday night.
And I was there for the all-night rager.
Mixing the likes of hip-hop legends like Notorious B.I.G. to teen pop melodies from Miley Cyrus and Britney Spears, Gregg Gillis and his plastic-wrapped Panasonic Toughbook can really move a crowd.
The Pittsburg native, whose hometown mayor named an official day after him, is every bit rockstar and just as much geek.
He spends hours carefully crafting his now infamous mashups, only to come on stage in a sweatshirt and headband with a laptop as his only instrument.
And while that keeps costs low on that front, Gillis reportedly goes through three computers a year. I’ve had one computer for more than three years.
By the end of the night, Gillis has stripped down from sweatsuit to nothing but pants, with a head of long brown hair drenched in sweat due to excessive rocking out behind his computer screen (thus the plastic wrap). Well, that and the 20 fans he brings on stage to dance with him for the full hour-and-a-half long set.
But the glorified “DJ” knows how to put on a show. And if you’re one man and a laptop playing to a sold-out crowd of at least a couple thousand, you damn well should.
There were toilet paper shooters, giant balloons and blow ups, a stellar neon LED light show, plus lots and lots of confetti.
The music rarely stopped, beats thumping behind blends of the Beastie Boys to Outkast, Journey and Rhianna; changing fast enough to give your parents a seizure.
Surprisingly, for an “artist” who makes his living mixing other people’s music to make his own, he has yet to be sued.
And Gillis has used more than 300 different samples on his last two albums, “All Day” and “Feed The Animals”.
This from a former biomedical engineer who quit his day job to sell-out dance parties across the country.
Girl Talk was featured in a New York Times Magazine cover story a few months back and has been featured as one of the Times’ Nifty 50. Read more about him here and check out an interview here.
You can download Girl Talk’s latest album free HERE and see a list of all the samples used HERE.
Videos below from the performance. Enjoy!
WILD ORCHID CHILDREN spawned from the dust of the unofficial, no longer indefinite hiatus taken by early ’00s alternative/progressive rock/pop band Gatsbys American Dream.
They are one of many side projects started by Gastby members that has blossomed into far more than just a project. Or a side. The supergroup features Kirk Huffman (vocals), Kyle O’Quin (keys) and Ryan Van Wieringen (baritone guitar & percussion) from Gatsby’s American Dream, alongside three other guys rocking guitars, percussion and effects. (Wild Orchid Children doesn’t even have its own Wikipedia entry yet – it’s embedded under Side Projects within the page on Gatsby).
But let’s get to the point.
This bombastic album sounds like nothing you’ve heard before, while at the same bringing enough familiar noises and jams that associations to any modern indie/prog group are safe to make. Think Mars Volta-style mind-bending beats, with Rage Against The Machine’s Zack de La Rocha-esque vocals and Portugal. the Man instrumentation.
It’s BIG. And adventurous.
The second track, “Black Shiny FBI Shoes” clocks in a little over 18 minutes long, and a good portion of that comprises of an extended percussion jam. It’s no “Moby Dick” (Led Zeppelin) but it is damn good — changing tribal beats dance to the sound of noodling electric guitar, keeping your ears perked with curiosity about what comes next.
Kirk Huffman takes vocal duties here, but sings nothing like his normal self. He has got a very talented and unique singing style, but he throws any sense of melody out the window with Wild Orchid Children. He’s more screaming than singing, and the closest thing you could compare would be de La Rocha – if he were performing through a megaphone, that is.
Now this is no concept album like Volta’s “Frances The Mute” or Coheed and Cambria’s last four albums. It doesn’t always flow from one song to the next, like one big acid trip.
But you don’t have to be high to appreciate the talent going on here.
The sixpiece named its album after Christopher McCandless, the character played by Emile Hirsch in “Into the Wild”, who infamously begins to call himself Alexander Supertramp while living in the wilderness.
Rich with cultural references, the group takes its title very seriously…as you can see by the wilderness motif, intact with real wild animals on the album cover, according to the liner notes.
Now I must note here: this is the first album I have purchased in a really long time.
My appetite for music consumption continues to grow and I have a list of nearly 50 bands I’m slowly getting around to checking out. Normally I look for a T-shirt/CD combo deal or make my contribution to the band by paying for concert tickets.
But this was a worthwhile cost, even if I payed twice as much at Rhino Records in Claremont as I would have at Best Buy.
Take a listen at the madness that is Alexander Supertramp. I’ve embedded “Peyote Coyote”, which has apparent influence from Zeppelin to the Beach Boys, Black Keys, White Stripes and even some cowbell that reminds me of the Cypress Hill/Tom Morello song from the new Green Hornet movie, “Rise Up.” Oh and don’t forget the creep vocal effect that transforms Huffman’s voice into something from a Mars Volta song about a minute in.
Like what you hear? Gatsbys American Dream is making a comeback this year. While you wait for the new tunes, listen to Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground (featuring Huffman and O’Quin, amongst others), Search/Rescue, RedRedBlue, Keith Ledger, Zero Cool, Razia’s Shadow, Princess Dinosaur, Places and Numbers, TickTockMan, or any solo work from any of these madly prolific musical dudes.
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