MERE MORTALS
Sat. February 2 @ Spaceland
Mere Mortals sound as if they’re angling for a spot in the Britpop pantheon, nurturing a jangly, neo-psychedelic sound that brings to mind early Primal Scream, Supergrass or maybe Oasis as fronted by a man who smiles at the world rather than sneers. The merry band of do-it yourselfers self-released the all-wheat, no-chaff “Rebel Radio” EP late last year, and several of the disc’s seven songs cracked the specialty charts (which track the amount of airplay on “specialty” shows where the DJs program their own music). German-born, London-reared Axel Steuerwald’s deft songwriting touch makes the Mortals slam-dunks to make Jonesy’s jukebox. Maybe they can make yours too.
LA Times Buzz Bands
SKY PARADE – Listen
“A joyride of dense, churning guitars that sounds like Primal Scream getting Spiritualized!”
XU XU FANG
“While the band are big, brash and swingin’ sonically, familiar tropes like boozy MCs, the crunch of soles against pavement, the intermittent patter of rain and the slosh of ocean tide (along with the juicy verbal exchanges) make Xu Xu Fang a near-cinematic experience.”
THE BLACK KITES
“Black Kites manage to combine a love of swirling and atmospheric shoegaze and an affinity towards feedback and delay with a driving sense of rhythm and gritty rock’n'roll pop hooked melodics.”
ELECTROCUTE
Sun. February 3 @ Spaceland
Electrocute is what they aim for, now that Nicole Morier has relocated her electro-punk duo from Germany to Los Angeles, joined by a new partner, Legs Le Brock. Yes, Electrocute are cute with their satiny superheroine-style costumes, but their songs are too catchy to be mere novelties. “Tales of Ordinary Sadness” is a driving pop-punk number that sounds like early Fuzzbox, juiced up with surging distorted guitars, serenely assertive vocals, and lyrics partially lifted from the Monkees’ “Stepping Stone.”
LA Weekly
PUNK BUNNY
“The sexual nature of their lyrics combined with the provocative onstage interaction between the band members brings a whole new level of unspoken sexuality.”
ARP
“Dreaming a sound that bridges the gap between Los Angeles and London, Arp’s E. Love and Amber Dawn have all the street credentials and la-la land sensibilities to make beautiful music together.”
FREE SHOW
THE PITY PARTY
Mon. February 4 @ Spaceland
Bust Magazine Presents
Heisenflei (Drums/Keyboards/Vocals) continues to entrance the audience with her multi tasking duties of instrumentation. Maurice-Richard (Guitars/Vocals) has expanded sonic arsenal at his feet ready to destroy the audience without warning. The Pity Party debuted a new song “The Natural Want” which surprisingly had a hip hop flavor to it that even surprised me. Is their any genre they can’t do? “Houses on The Sun” is another live favorite song of mine with its dark drunk synth bass line and slurring beats. I really hope this song makes it on their debut LP. “The War Between Eight and Four” has Maurice digging deep for squeals from his Fender Stratocaster. “Love Lies” does well to showcase Heisenflei’s vocals and is another track I hope to see in its recorded form. The Pity Party saved its ace in the hole for a new song “Yours, That Works” that pasted off kilter drumming from Heisenflei to Maurice’s dissonant guitars.
Amateur Chemist
THE HAPPY HOLLOWS
“Los Angeles continues to breed killer new bands like some sort of musical rabbit farm. This three-piece litter of sweet sonic babies is known as the Happy Hollows, appropriate as it’s hard not to smile like an idiot when they commander a club stage.”
LIGHT FM
“Light FM is a huff of cosmic dust from a planet far, far away. Lead by Josiah Mazzaschi, the crackpot mastermind behind the legendary Chicago unit Motorhome, this hypnotic array of perky zingers are fueled by maddening keyboards and gooey electro-pop that combines for a sizzling salvo like The Cars crashing a surprise party for Devo.”
RADEMACHER
“The next time you’re at work pretending to do your job when the computer somehow strangely drags you into the MySpace vortex for an hour or two, do yourself a favor and check out the profile of Fresno’s paragons of nonchalance as art, Rademacher. And while you’re there, head straight to “Not My Home” – its sweetly self-deprecating charms, buffered by an effortless Pavement-meets-Walkmen delivery, are deserving of your unequivocal surrender.”
FREE SHOW
UNGDOMSKULEN
Wed. February 6 @ Spaceland
Indie 103.1 presents Club NME
Ungdomskulen (Frode Flatland, Kristian Stockhaus, Øyvind Solheim) is a Norwegian rock band. Their sound is founded on bass, drums and guitar. Taken individually, the drum beats seem inspired by the city, the bass is syncopated and sonic, and the jazz-like guitar sounds as if it’s possessed by rock demons. And finally, there’s a light but authoritative male vocal on top.
LISTEN….WATCH
MINIPOP
“it was as good a 9 o’clock set as you’ll see at the Silver Lake club, the two-woman, two-man ensemble layering thick bass, driving guitars and keening synths as a foundation for Kanne’s celestial vocals. It was gorgeous stuff; U.K. dreampop bands from the ’90s and before, such as Lush, Heavenly and the Darling Buds come to mind”
DJs Dia and Neil (War Tapes)
BLOOD ON THE WALL
Thu. February 7 @ Spaceland
Unless you never heard the reedy sneer of the Violent Femmes’ Gordan Gano and The Pixies’ Black Francis, or you completely missed the affected phrasing of Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon, there’s no denying Brooklyn’s Blood on the Wall’s awkward caterwauls come with ingrained precedents. But with this rumpled revivalist trio the foundation is so strong there’s always a way to craft an accommodating floor plan and accessorize it with soused jangle and splayed arrangements. All the late ’80s college-rawk cast-offs coagulate into an atonal, unhinged, and altogether pleasing condensation of agitated splatter. A somewhat heavier third full-length, Blood on the Wall’s latest still manages to avoid being heavy-handed with its heritage.
XLR8R
AFTERNOONS
ANDERS AND WOODS
PURCHASE TICKETS
LILYS
Thu. February 7 @ Echo
Since their formation in 1989, Kurt Heasley has taken the Lilys for quite a ride. With each album comes a somewhat different but appealing album while the frontman oils what appears to be a continuous revolving door of musicians and supporting cast. Perhaps the best complement the group could be paid is that they, much like the Rolling Stones did in their early days, have basically taken a style of music from across the pond and made it their own. The group’s previous album was the closest thing to Britrock from a Yankee band I heard in a long time, and this new album on reinforces that notion. And while it clocks in at under 40 minutes, the listening party for you will be about 55 to 60 minutes after finally realizing you’ve replayed the opening “Black Carpet Magic”.
Popmatters
ANDRE WILLIAMS
Wed. February 13 @ Spaceland
Indie 103.1 presents CLUB NME
Since reawakening the world to his outsize talents with the raw and raunchy blast of 1998’s Silky, R&B legend and self-described “Mr. Rhythm” Andre Williams seems to have gone out of his way to prove just how freaky he can deaky on each subsequent album. But Williams pulls back the reigns a bit on 2006’s Aphrodisiac and the disc shows he can groove a bit easier and still keep the party going. Williams’ backing band for this set is Iowa City’s latter-day organ groove merchants the Diplomats of Solid Sound who, as expected, don’t generate the same sort of noisy attack as the garage rock upstarts he’s most frequently been teamed with in recent years. The result is a more laid-back and funky groove that’s soulful but potent at the same time, fusing ’70s blaxploitation sounds, Jimmy Smith-style jazz figures, and Booker T.-influenced R&B workouts into one solid package.
Billboard.com
THE FLASH EXPRESS
“Brian Waters possesses everything you could ever want from a rock n roll frontman: unshakeable self-belief bordering on arrogance, diverse taste (this LA trio cover Grandmaster Flashs The Message in a swampabilly style here, while Sneak Around is a Suicide co-write) and an on-stage habit of copping the moves of James Brown and Mick Jagger while hunched over his Telecaster peeling off dirty swamp wah-licks.”
DJs Dia & Neil (War Tapes) spinning all night
VERY BE CAREFUL
Thu. February 14 @ Echoplex
Echo Park Records Anniversary Party
Very Be Careful live vallenato, therefore they are vallenato. They are a group of men who reside in Los Angeles, each breathing and chasing the air of his heritage. They play folk music, but not the sort of blissed-out urbanite folk that reeks of CIA-controlled backwoods parties in upstate New York populated by California-bred social opportunists. No, this folk sounds like the truth, like revolution music reminding us that though many may die for social change, the common goal is a new life worth fighting for, one worth a serious party. And party is what VBC live and breathe.
Mp3.com
GRUPO FANTASMA
“This freight train of a Latin band could easily hold its own in a sweaty bandbox in the Bronx…they’ll knock you down with the grooves.”
PAUL DEVRO (Mad Decent)
DAM FUNK (Stones Throw)
WILLIE NELSON TRIBUTE
Sun. February 17 @ Echoplex
Echo & Grand Ole Echo presents
A Tribute To Willie Nelson
GRANT LANGSTON
“One of LA’s brightest Americana lights, Alabama born and raised Langston uses a witty mix of danceable old-school honky tonk and mournful traditional ballads. While the focus of the new record is squarely on country staples like drinking and lost love…what makes Koreatown unique is Langston’s songwriting voice – cynical, sad, self-deprecating and often very funny.”
MIKE STINSON
“His latter-day classic, Late Great Golden State, a wistfully elegiac appreciation of our now-ghostly C&W heritage, is a credible, corn-free backward glance with a rare quality that has earned him a rank as one of the potentially great modern Hollywood country cats.”
DAVID SERBY
“This unassuming Illinois-born neo-honky-tonk musician is currently writing songs as full of brilliantly observed detail as those penned by his obvious model, Dave Alvin. I shit you not. And at every live show, he seems to pull yet another magnificent new song out of his bag.”
PLUS SPECIAL GUESTS
TICKETS AVAILABLE AT THE DOOR
BRITISH SEA POWER
Wed. February 27 @ Echo
Could it just be a rhetorical question? “Waving Flags”, from British Sea Power’s forthcoming third LP Do You Like Rock Music?, doesn’t offer much doubt about the answer to the album’s title– the Brighton quartet likes rock, thank you, particularly dour, scruffy post-punk with surging U2 and Arcade Fire anthemics.
Pitchfork
COLOUR MUSIC
“Incorporating all the hey-la-las you can handle, this excellent Stillwater, Okla., band has a live show that lives up to its fluorescent music.”
SPECTRUM
Sun. March 2 @ Echo
Echo & Part Time Punks present
Sonic Boom could’ve retired a psych-rock legend after Spacemen 3’s acrimonious 1991 dissolution. Instead, he embarked on a career that expanded upon the fruitful ideas he explored in his first band. Over four albums and several EPs fronting Spectrum, Kember furthered his interest in astral-dust ballads, minimalist rock, and songs that toggle between celestial bliss and swarming menace. Along with Spectrum, he launched Experimental Audio Research aka E.A.R. – a loose conglomeration of musicians who at one time or another have included musical pioneer Delia Derbyshire, My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields, God’s Kevin Martin & AMM’s Eddie Prevost.
MIDNIGHT MOVIES
“Midnight Movies validate their nom de guerre by trafficking in a strain of the same type of late night eeriness that underlines classics like Eraserhead and The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”
GRIMBLE GRUMBLE
“This is a band to watch. Beautiful, dense, swirling guitar noise that brought slowdive, fsa and ‘meddle’-era pink floyd to mind, grounded by a solid rhythm section, and just the right combination of chaos and melody.”
THE DUKE SPIRIT
Wed. March 5 @ Echo
Something separates The Duke Spirit from the crop of great British indie bands doing the rounds at the moment. Maybe it’s the beautiful, Nico-esque singer, Leila Moss, who effortlessly looks like a bornrock temptress when, as far as she’s concerned, is just playing in a band with some of her best mates.Maybe it’s because they unfashionably buck the trend by sounding more like Exile-era Stones or a grimy Velvet Underground than a band from the early 80s. But what really separates them is that they consistently produce achingly hip music while their natural poise gives you the sneaking suspicion that they’re not even trying.
