The Flytraps are an all-girl trashy surf-garage band who love hot tubs, the Mummies and Anton LaVey. The interview took place in Laura’s backyard which featured a large collection of disturbing statuary, including some cannibalistic french fries. More on that within. Other subjects covered include the perils of surfing, girl band geeks and Eurotrash pop. This interview by Janet Housden.

[Read more →]

The Smile sessions were NOT written, arranged, and recorded by a drug-addled, paranoid recluse whose bad LSD trips had clouded his judgment. Done right, Smile could have tossed Pet Sounds around like a tidal wave, and maybe even made the Beatles yearn for yesterday. Though we’ll never know the answer to the mystery of what might have been, this collection gives us our best guess, while at the same time shattering any myths about what was assumed never could be.

[Read more →]

Just when you think summer’s over, a heat wave comes to L.A. and Waved Out 2 comes to the Echoplex, to hose us down with the reverb-soaked sounds of teenage noise pop, chill wave, surf punk and psych-folk. I didn’t know what to expect.

[Read more →]

Tonight, the bands sought to be one with the Beach Boys. They became appendages of the Beach Boys, fingers, toes and instruments with minds of their own.

[Read more →]

Summer is for parties, bbqs, first loves, surfing, roadtrips and….THE BEACH BOYS! No music better captures that carefree Southern California summer spirit than our boys from Hawthorne. We paid tribute to them this past Saturday at HM-157 with a benefit concert in support of the Sweet Relief Musician’s Fund…and with this mixtape! In the spirit [...]

[Read more →]

Happy Mondays were the actual 24 hour party people and legendarily—but perhaps not really, says drummer Gaz here—helped bankrupt Factory Records. They have been banned from Disneyland and the BBC and speak now despite mea culpas about being boring. This interview by Dan Collins.

[Read more →]

As the songs progressed during the band’s set, thoughts transcend early Beach Boys, and visit Beachhouse sans echo trails, stare at the sea with the Cure, climb through a popping bass strolling Superfly, and suddenly a cowboy appears, faintly. I can only hope that Cryptacize’s move to L.A. this summer will entice that cowpoke apparition hiding behind the endless summer beach party to hang out for a clambake.

[Read more →]

First, a disclaimer: I’ve always been a sucker for harmonies. Can’t say where it’s originated from, but it’s built into these bones. Goes back to the Beach Boys to and Spector’s female vocal arrangements. That being, I swooned for Grizzly Bear, whose voices build into beautifully complicated contraptions. The four-part harmonies are their strong point, and each member somehow holds their own.

[Read more →]

I don’t know if Bobb Bruno realizes it, but he’s the Bizarro-World Kim Fowley—an unwitting svengali who’s produced girl bands and wrote or played songs on countless other bands’ albums, but whose utter lack of self-promotion almost hints that he secretly is horrified of his own project Making It Big.

[Read more →]

zach hill

[Read more →]