Summer Twins are not twins, but they are a pair of sisters who make vintage-sounding girl rock, and their ascent along the x-axis of fame could soon be more inspiring to a lot of young people than Al Gore’s hockey stick. They play this Friday at Desert Daze with Bleached, Audacity and more. This interview by D.M. Collins.

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Theirs is not “another stupid summer” in the parlance of 50 Foot Wave, but one of soft-serve, cartwheels and tranquil afternoons in a hammock. The production on their self-titled debut is refreshingly clean and the instrumentation minimal, in contrast to both current indie pop bands and the original Wall of Sound. They bring to mind 90s Brit acts like Helen Love or Talulah Gosh—you got it, twee!

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Deschryver’s insistent melee of beats gave the songs a feeling of urgency right out of the gate, as though they’d taken the crescendo at the end of a song by some lame Coldplay-type band and started there, building whole songs around something that felt explosive, hypnotic, and yet grimly final, like watching a tragedy played out over and over again on CNN as you stare, helpless.

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Sam Flax might have been the most impressive new band on the bill, a post-Hawkwind synthy Numan-wave band with two keyboards, a drum machine, and a couple guitars—and they looked as good as they sounded, with a poncho-clad bassist looking like Ariel Pink’s taller brother, and a blond male guitarist/singer wearing a multi-colored windbreaker and Kim Fowley’s cheek makeup. His female co-singer on keys looked pretty bad-assed too, with a futuristic funnel of hair on top of her head …

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Fullerton may have fallen off the map since those glory days, but it seems to be experiencing a full scale renaissance as of late, what with the opening of Burger Records and the trifecta of bands generating much hype: Audacity, Dirt Dress and the Cosmonauts. All these bands make lo-fi stoner garage punk of the highest caliber, overtly borrowing from others while still being undeniably unique (same could be said for Burger’s aesthetics). If Picasso’s quote, “good artists borrow, great artists steal,” is true, then the Fullerton scene is a gang of kleptomaniacal octopi.

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Paul Collins of the Nerves and the Beat plays tonight at Blue Star, so in honor of his writing some of the most killer power-pop anthems of all time, we asked contestents to submit their own picks for unbeatable summertime songs. Had a lot of very strong contenders—we even had to tie-break at the end! [...]

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You know Paul Collins even if you don’t know you know Paul Collins. He was the drummer for the Nerves–that foundational L.A. powerpop band responsible for such timeless tunes as “Hanging on the Telephone”–and frontperson for Paul Collins Beat (née the Beat). This Friday you can see him play at the Blue Star Bar in [...]

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There are so many highs and lows on this album, but as talented as all the members are, especially Rachman on guitar, Jones is the fulcrum upon which the rest of the band teeters. That’s why the simple acoustic ditty “Summertime Dear” will likely be your favorite tune off the album… like Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day,” all the sincere woo-pitching somehow feels like the naivete of the doomed. Only if you listen closely can you pick out the line about wanting to “keep on running, because we can sleep when we’re dead,” which feels straight out of a poem by Bonnie Parker to Clyde Barrow.

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PRESENTED WITH BURGER RECORDS AND VOLAR RECORDS. GET TICKETS HERE!

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