Make no mistake—these guys may have chosen hip hop as their genre, but hip hop is just a conduit for delivering pure, throbbing pop of the highest caliber. 

This show was a triumph. I have nothing but effusive things to say about Kid Infinity.

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Talcum rolled up to West Covina as part of the misnamed Huge Bicycle Tour, three older dudes touring together in a big maroon van. They reminded me of the guys in that John Travolta/Martin Lawrence flick Wild Hogs, except they had songs instead of motorcycles.

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On Monday, Sean hosted a birthday rager for Kyle Mabson, his roommate and the official party engine of Pehrspace. A double-sized crowd appeared to celebrate Kyle’s special day and check out a solid-from-top-to-bottom lineup of performers that was headlined by Abe Vigoda. Sure, there were still people in the parking lot—but that’s only because the venue was too sweaty and insane for their sensibilities.

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We Are the World started their set on Monday in flowing white burkas, complete with capes and little square hats like the Shriners wear. I was trying to figure out how to describe their look (KKK-esque? Like whirling dervishes?) when Manimal’s Paul Beahan whispered into my ear: “it’s like Chef Boyardee on acid!” …Of course! Everything Manimal Vinyl does is like something-or-other on acid. Beahan’s label is the bulwark of left-coast psychedelia for the early 21st century—a new psychedelia that seems to be more influenced by raves and millennial tension than by drum circles and love-ins. Accordingly, the byword on this night was “mesmerizing.”

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Girlhouse looks a lot like Women across town, and apparently the home was designed by the same architect, says inhabitant and L.A. Record writer Drew Denny. Go figure! Porch Fest II took place on Dec 5 with performances by Kevin Greenspon, Geoff Geis, Nicole Kidman, Brother Mitya, Voice On Tape, Whitman, Interlude in, Drew Denny, [...]

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Michael Nhat’s debut LP sounds more Angelino than Vietnamese, with humorous non-sequiturs, pent-up hostilities, portraits of hipster chicks, and admonitions about werewolves rapped and sung over tracks that sound like they were sampled right out of the air in Filipinotown or the less gentrified parts of Echo Park.

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Ports o’ Call Bedroom, run out of Jon Barba’s poolhouse-cum-bedroom at his parents’ house in West Covina, is my favorite venue in town and the friendliest and coziest of LA’s DIY house party dives. People were in a bad mood when we arrived, though, after an overly-long performance by David Liebe Hart—who left in a huff and talked racist shit because he wasn’t paid for the gig (an established pre-condition for the show because—duh—the fucking thing was happening in a dude’s bedroom).

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More blonde than the fans at a Prussian Blue show, Pearl Harbor definitely look like the coolest band in town. The girls are so cute that it’s painful, and the singer can sway. For all the attention the girls get, though, the bassist is probably the most gorgeous of the bunch. He dresses and grooms his hair like a kid in a Sunday School class, and I found myself fixated on his steely-eyed snarl for most of the performance.

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Vice started the show, despite an initial audience of four, with a totally sincere “What’s Up L.A.!?!” before launching into a hyperactive fit that would last for the rest of the set. He exploded into religious fervor as the crowd grew, fighting against our apathy for the first few songs (”North Hampton was louder. Do you know where that is?”) but eventually pulling everyone onto his wavelength, commanding us to come closer, sit down, stand up, and yelp.

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Fuck, this dude is a total hip-hop star! He was about to start the show when he realized that he’d left his beats outside, so there was this five minute stretch of time where everyone in the hallway was chanting “Michael Nhat! Michael Nhat!” Kyle from Narwhal Party hyped the crowd while we waited, asking us about our drug preferences (“Do you like shrooms?!” “YEAH!!!” “Do you like to shoot heroin?!” “YEAH!!!”), and eventually Nhat got there with his jams and started
bumping them.

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