L.A. RECORD!

Live reviews

KARP: KILL ALL REDNECK PRICKS DOCUMENTARY @ CINEFAMILY

January 20th, 2012 · No Comments

I don’t buy into this concept of “music scenes” dying. There’s always gonna be young people and they’re always gonna be kids doing rock and roll and the only people thinking it’s dying are dying old farts. Call me a revisionist but I can’t help but notice all those people who say that “death of the scene” crap were the “first wave” of these rock and roll acts and they simply count their prime in audience attendance the real “height” of whatever was going on. It’s like punk rock senioritis or something where they snub younger acts that sprang up and just basically smack them in the face and ignore their achievements. It’s bullshit. Don’t trust old people. Fuck them.

[Read more →]

ZIG ZAG WANDERER: BLEAK END AT BERNIE’S, FMLY FEST, NYE FLOOD

January 9th, 2012 · No Comments

It was three in the morning, the music had long since stopped, but the night was deliciously warm and even the automatic weapons fire up in the Heights had dwindled to sporadic. Here and there, a thinly clad single or couple capered in the empty streets, dancing madly a few hours before the dawn of yet another apocalyptic year.

THE HAPPY HOLLOWS + EASTERN CONFERENCE CHAMPIONS + GOTHIC + TROPIC @ THE BOOTLEG

December 17th, 2011 · No Comments

The Happy Hollows’ guiding genius was as wound-up giddy as ever, leading the veteran art-rock trio through a set of mostly new songs that I’m glad to report are as warm and wobbly as their entire output from 2006’s Bunnies and Bombs EP to date. She’s turned into something of a guitar wizard in the past few months, fingertapping expertly and looking momentarily nonplussed when a string broke. “I think I’m handling this crisis well,” she giggled, while tuning up trusty guitar # 2 for its public debut.

MILAGRES @ PARK PLAZA

December 16th, 2011 · No Comments

What Milagres has done (which only occurred once, I bet, in the brilliantly warped Japanese movie Funky Forest: First Contact) is set to music the precise feeling of sinking into a mossy clearing in the woods at 4 a.m., on purpose.

JIMMY CLIFF @ TIM ARMSTRONG’S SECRET PRACTICE SPACE

December 9th, 2011 · 21 Comments

I pride myself on being able to capture the sound of music in words, but there really is no way to convey what came out of that man’s throat and into our hearts Friday night. The closest I can get is to say that he sounded effortless and full of love, like butter melting slowly over Mom’s pancakes. He sounded awake and alert, classy, not cluttered in Rastafarian claptrap but “transcendent” in as close to a literal meaning as an atheist like me can believe in.

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! @ R BAR

November 13th, 2011 · 1 Comment

Mike Burns, who was a little “meh” last time I saw him, was in top form this night, spurred on by a cooing couple at the bar three feet away from the stage who would NOT TURN AROUND AND ACKNOWLEDGE HIS PRESENCE, no matter how many times he LOUDLY insulted the man’s hipster manhood or the woman’s purity, and despite the fact that Mike was recovering from being stabbed just the week before. Stabbed!

KCRW MASQUERADE BALL @ PARK PLAZA HOTEL

November 10th, 2011 · No Comments

photos by lauren everett This year’s KCRW Ball may have come the closest one can get to the experience of William Randolf’s famed costume parties at the Hearst Castle during the decadent 1920’s. No matter which way you looked, there was no shortage of jaw dropping transformative wonder. Attendants pulled out all the stops, whether [...]

ADANOWSKY, JADE, GRACE WOODROOFE, DJ DEVENDRA BANHART @ HARVARD AND STONE

November 8th, 2011 · No Comments

In case you’re wondering, Jade solo is the same Jade you think you know, just as smiley and happy from two feet away as in every photo of her in Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros on a festival stage you’ve ever seen. As she tuned and tried to adjust to the crappy sound system by leaving her elevated stool and sitting cross-legged on the low stage, even her eyes smiled, and her eyebrows too. And if I’d had a magnifying glass, I would suspect that her dimples are smile-shaped.

THE DRUMS + SUPERHUMANOIDS + IO ECHO @ ECHOPLEX

October 26th, 2011 · No Comments

It was a full house at the Echoplex. A large ‘Drums’ banner hung on the stage. The excitement rose before the show even began, as loud new wave sounds bumped on the speakers. People had already set up shop at the front. I took my place and prepared for fast drum beats and sexy bass.

RAVI SHANKAR @ WALT DISNEY CONCERT HALL

October 13th, 2011 · No Comments

Though he doesn’t look much like a typical rock star, at 91, Ravi Shankar could have fooled anyone during his mesmerizing performance at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Uniquely worthy of the term “living legend”…