Remember how Sick Boy in Trainspotting quit heroin at the same time as Renton, just to show how easily he could do it? The Cthulhus bully Nathan Williams in the same way; they’re clearly mining Wavves territory, and yet they do it so effortlessly.

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Justin Maurer has been the leader of Clorox Girls for about a decade, has narrowly escaped organ theft in Turkey on at least one occasion, and has a book of fiction coming out this spring. Dan Collins and Daniel Clodfelter catch up with him in Long Beach at the Pike.

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On the way from his old band, Verbena, to playing solo under his birth name, A.A. Bondy watched a lot of movies and a few meteor showers in between watching movies, and finally in 2007 he recorded his first album in a barn near his house. His newest, When the Devil’s Loose, is out now on Fat Possum. This interview by Dan Collins.

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Kronos Quartet connect the severe to the serene with four sets of strings and a preternatural sense for ceremony and resonance. They will be performing several shows this month including work by Harry Partch, Frank Zappa and a commissioned piece by film composer Tom Newman called “It Got Dark.” This interview by Dan Collins.

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The world is now a DEVO song, and so Warner has just reissued two vital early DEVO albums barely containing some of the most annihilating reality ever twined into vinyl. And so L.A. RECORD’s Dan Collins reissues this vintage interview with Mark Mothersbaugh from the archives of the defunct Ostrich Ink. DEVO will perform Freedom Of Choice at the Fonda tonight.

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If you’ve never heard 60 Watt Kid, We Come From the Bright Side will make you immediately fall in love with them. If you have heard them, We Come From the Bright Side will let you enjoy 60 Watt Kid on a new level, allowing bright sonic tendrils to clutch your inner eardrums tightly, like a slumbering bear clinging to a sappy pine cone.

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Al Cisneros revived Om with Grails drummer Emil Amos and release the megalithic God Is Good this week on Drag City. Chess-playing sunrise-watching Cisneros discusses everything but how his drummer’s name is an anagram for ‘SOMA LIME.’ This interview by Dan Collins.

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Emeralds are extraterrestrial metal shredders from Seattle who see nothing but optimistic omens in the exploded body of a Texas buzzard. They speak now between lightning and thunder. This interview by Dan Collins and Tessa Goldston.

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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.

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If you just rolled out of a bus and wanted to immerse yourself in the newest funnest music playing at artsy dives like Pehrspace and the Vermont House, you’d do well to start by dipping your toes into these tunes, curated by the kids at Cal Arts (way cheerier than those dicks at Otis) and full of mirth and humor and wonderment and lo-fi gung-ho do-it-yourselfitude. Not all of these songs seem to be world premieres, and only a few of these groups actually attend Cal Arts, but with small-band dynamite like Pizza! and Voice on Tape, you just can’t go wrong.

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