Sound of the Police is the most mind-blowing live record I’ve heard in a while. Cut Chemist comes correct with one turntable, one mixer, one big old loop pedal (a Boss RC-50 for the gearheads), a lot of vinyl and an overwhelming amount of creativity. He weaves scratchy, generally unheard of LPs and 45s from South America and Africa into new fresh sounds.

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Tom Fitzgerald is a film programmer and a video artist who has spent twenty years digging for the next big thrill. He deals in found footage, creating feature-length video mashups like Bollyweird for Cinefamily while mixing psychedelic visual freakouts for Edan, Cut Chemist and B-Music. He swears all these films exist, even though he couldn’t find cover art for all of them and even though some of them are in genres he’s just coined himself. This interview by Lainna Fader.

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In the preface to The Order of Things, Foucault recalls Borges’ description of a ‘certain Chinese encylopedia’s’ taxonomy of fauna (a. belonging to the emperor, b. embalmed … ) as a magically humorous interpretation of reality. Such is the interpretation offered by the Museum of Jurassic Technology. Founded and directed by David Wilson since its nomadic inception in ‘84, the Museum of Jurassic Technology needs not distinguish history from fantasy. Wilson’s collection investigates the whimsical with as much ardor as the technical, the old wive’s tale with as much nuance as the astrophysicist’s process. A walk through his Museum leads one from micro-miniature to 3-D, stereoscopic to X-ray, model to map to taxiderm— instilling within visitors a sense of wonder that endures far beyond the Museum’s doors, turning Culver City into another Borgesian Labyrinth. This interview by Drew Denny.

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Bombón plays ’60s surf-inspired garage punk, and recorded their debut LP, Las Chicas del Bombón, on 1/2-inch tape at Cali Mucho in San Pedro. They just returned from their first tour of the South with Pine Hill Haints and Rise Up Howling Werewolf. They speak now from the Liquid Kitty in matching sailor dresses. They are patiently waiting for their phone call from Quentin Tarantino. This interview by Lainna Fader.

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Grinderman is Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds in a new and naked form, and you can see a great deal of that nakedness in their very potent new video ‘Heathen Child.’ We conducted two separate interviews with two of the Grinders. Here drummer Jim Sclavunos speaks about his plan to buy a tank and become the last musician in the U.S.A. This interview by Chris Ziegler

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And here is Grinderman’s Warren Ellis, who plays the most vicious violin on planet Earth and speaks now through both a beard and a cold. This interview by Chris Ziegler.

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Sweaters attempts to teach us how to live better in Can’t Stop Winning (Echo Park Books), a manifesto that reads something like The Secret as interpreted by Sparks. From the Hop Louie in Chinatown, the band talks about Can’t Stop Winning Theory, earthquake-detecting bees, and their formative years at the Brass King. This interview by Lainna Fader.

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Black Mountain’s Jeremy Schmidt gets interviewed every year by L.A. RECORD which is probably the best way to determine how much (or if too much) time is passing in your life. His new album has a shark exploding from an office building and he speaks now from a chilly place where sharks rarely go. This interview by Chris Ziegler.

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It was bright. It was bliss. The debut single from L.A. band Sweaters is a true pop artifact—never plastic, never dull, but rough around the edges, like gravel in the warm sun.

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The new Nite Jewel album is called Am I Real? It sounds very unreal or surreal, but perhaps it’s actually hyperreal, a new way of describing reality using knobs and dials and powerstrips in a way that’s dreamy and a little bit new age. This is how Ramona Gonzalez communes with technology. For her, it’s like being in nature, on a philosophical quest. This interview by Daiana Feuer.

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