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john lennon

BUY A PIECE OF PAPER TOUCHED BY JOHN LENNON

June 23rd, 2010 · 1 Comment

TOO LATE. It’s already been sold for $1.2 Million. $1,202,500 to be precise. The description from Sotheby’s must have turned someone on: Autograph manuscript of John Lennon’s lyrics for the “A Day in the Life,” the final track on the Beatles’ 1967 album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, 2 pages (10 1/2 x 7 [...]

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L.A. RECORD RECORD STORE DAY EXCLUSIVE VINYL GUIDE!

April 16th, 2010 · No Comments

Since I did pretty good on exclusives last year—Dengue Fever/Chicha Libre split, Sonic Youth/Beck split and This LP Crashes Hard Drives, among others—I thought I would post my shortlist of 2010 Record Store Day exclusives that I’ll be looking for early Saturday morning. The full list is here if you wanna look, and if I [...]

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THE CAVE SINGERS: HALF- ENGLISH, HALF- GIBBERISH

October 1st, 2009 · No Comments

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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MONOTONIX: HOW YOU CALL IT? CHUTZPAH!

September 16th, 2009 · 1 Comment

Israel’s Monotonix are known and respected and perhaps even secretly coveted here in L.A. because of their world-wrecking live set and super-charged rock ‘n’ roll. Singer Ami Shalev speaks now while presumably fully clothed. This interview by Rena Kosnett.

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STEVE WYNN: YOU CAN’T THROW A WHISKEY BOTTLE AT ME!

July 9th, 2009 · 2 Comments

The Dream Syndicate found whatever was in Sister Lovers and Tonight’s The Night still breathing in L.A. in 1984 and used it to make Medicine Show, still a nervous and wild local classic. Guitarist-singer Steve Wynn will perform the album in its entirety tonight with his band the Miracle 3. He speaks now from a quiet park in New York. This interview by Chris Ziegler.

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CHARLYNE YI: I WANT TO KISS IT BAD

June 26th, 2009 · 2 Comments

Charlyne Yi is a comedienne and musician who has opened for Akron/Family, has had members of Man Man and the Vandals cover her songs, and pees while being interviewed. She does not know who Spike Jones is, has never been high, and is not dating Michael Cera. This interview by Dan Collins.

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YA HO WHA 13: A SPACE AND TIME OUT OF THIS REALITY

June 22nd, 2009 · 2 Comments

Ya Ho Wha 13 were the band formed out of the pre-dawn practice sessions that served also as morning meditation for the Source Family, the L.A.-area religious sect that ran their own health food restaurant during the ‘70s. Drag City has collected nine unreleased songs for this month’s Magnificence in the Memory. This interview by Dan Collins.

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CHAIRLIFT: IT’S POSSIBLE THAT WE ARE CRIMINALS

June 16th, 2009 · 3 Comments

Chairlift are from a haunted hotel in Colorado but moved to Brooklyn to pursue music more intensely and to be intensely pursued by people who recognize them from an iPod commercial. They speak from Paris in between kissing graves and delivering DJ sets. Their album Does You Inspire You has been re-released on Columbia. This interview by Chris Ziegler.

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THE POLY AMOROUS AFFAIR: LIVING IN A STATE OF DECAY

May 14th, 2009 · 8 Comments

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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ZIG ZAG WANDERER: COACHELLA, CHEMICAL BROTHERS AND THE CUTE BEATLE

April 22nd, 2009 · 2 Comments

We flopped happily far up front at mainstage as lengthening shadows set the mood for My Bloody Valentine. Management was handing out earplugs at the gate and small wonder, since toward the end of “You Made Me Realise,” guitarists Kevin Shields and Bilinda Butcher (the latter impassive as a Xanax-bombed soccer mom) loosed a gorgeous fifteen-minute-plus feedback annihilation that was easily the loudest thing I’ve ever heard in decades of doting on amplified music. It was less a solo than a hideous (and hideously effective) evocation of nightmare; a compressed and aestheticized variation on the opening bombardment at the Somme, another historic din that produced few actual causalties.

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