Dustin Apodaca’s incomprehensible rock ‘n’ roll growling completes the soul revival. “Ballad of Jim Jones” strolls into to church hungover, preaching about getting clean through Jesus. As if the band must play its way through every relevant genre, we eat some fried chicken Americana (“Leaving Tennessee”) and country-style green beans (“Ballad of Graph”) before winding down on a vaudeville tip with “Highest Mountain.”

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New EP, Curved Space, is lots noisier and takes more climbing if you wanna get inside—some of this even slips toward mid-period Wipers, though singer Jason’s voice (and sub-rosa lyrical righteousness: “How much does the war cost now?”) is much closer to Robyn Hitchcock.

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Melt-Banana is the ultimate adrenaline band. This band from Tokyo sounds like what the aliens will be playing on the warship stereos when they come to eat us measly humans. They are currently touring with a show that splits Melt-Banana with their new incarnation, Melt-Banana Lite, which is still pretty fucking heavy even though they ditch their guitars. This interview by Scott Schultz.

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Download: The Hoof and the Heel “Fireworks” [Audio clip: view full post to listen] (from the And All The Tigers EP available from the band) The Hoof and the Heel is the new band from longtime L.A. RECORD illustrator Christine Hale—she does all our comics as well as many many illustrations!—and her friends from Montreal, [...]

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Pete Quirk and the Cave Singers are touring with Lightning Dust—whose Amber and Ashley Webber contributed to the Cave Singers’ new Welcome Joy—and recovering half-written songs from dim memories og singing into phones in 7-11 parking lots. Quirk speaks now about riding bikes into rivers and Kid Rock’s lackluster Myspace discipline. This interview by Rachel Rufrano.

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Back in 1973, Collie Ryan recorded three albumfuls of folk songs at once before retreating deep into the Texas desert. She’s squatted in an old bus along the Rio Grande ever since, spending her days painting mandalas on hubcaps. While she has no plans of dropping back into civilization, she will share her mystical observations about circles and sing us a song or two. This interview by Daiana Feuer.

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christine hale UPDATE: Nels Cline sends us this obituary for Sky Saxon, his “first rock idol.” UPDATE: Members of the Source Family remember Sky Sunlight Saxon, also known as Arelich. L.A. RECORD is deeply saddened to learn that Sky Saxon—mentioned only days ago in our interview with Isis Aquarian, historian of the Source Family—has passed [...]

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Alela Diane comes from a town that was famous first for a gold rush and is famous now for its music, which tends toward the kind of thing that would show up on a brand new anthology of American folk. She shares a song on her new album To Be Still with Michael Hurley and speaks now before a show at Hollywood Forever. This interview by Thomas McMahon.

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The Polyamorous Affair make bolshevik disco-pop in a mossy compound in Los Feliz and emerge only to teach kindergarten, play shows or get snowed on. They have an album due on Manimal and co-founder Eddie Chacon used to be in a band with Cliff Burton. This interview by Dan Collins.

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Christine Hale (a.k.a. Love, Christine!) is one of our favorite artists and the illustrator who does our review comics and also draws quite a few of our bands, too. Today she sent us this picture and this note: This is a picture of me that Michel Gondry drew today. I met him at a book [...]

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