Here are three reasons to help KCRW with fundraising, including war and robots.

KCR-Dub-Ya Lynch

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZOjlKMF1A4

Ima Robot

www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNCf6yYeT3o

Cold War Kids

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVLSaQt68RM

Upcoming Live Performances on Morning Becomes Eclectic
KCRW PLEDGE DRIVE: JAN 27 – FEB 4
Friday, February 11 — The Decemberists
Monday, February 14 — Black Mountain
Wednesday, February 16 — Black Dub
Friday, February 18 — Local Natives

All live performances begin at 11:15am PST on KCRW. After airing, the full sets are archived at http://www.kcrw.com/morningbecomeseclectic

Peep this recent Iron & Wine in-studio featuring Sam Beam, Swell Season’s Marketa Irglova and Rosie Thomas, and a horny gang.

—Lynch lovin’ photoshopping by Daiana Feuer

Anne Litt has been involved with KCRW for fifteen years, and has earned critical acclaim not only for her on-air talents, but also her supervision of the Little Miss Sunshine soundtrack. She’s also the one responsible for the recent appearance of the Black Keys and Sean Hayes on Subaru commercials. Litt was a crucial player in the establishment of KCRW’s internet identity and on-line music channel, and you can hear her on Saturday and Sunday from 2 to 5 pm (or on demand) playing “progressive pop and new rhythms.” This interview by Kristina Benson.

What are your favorite five albums of 2010 from L.A.-based artists?

Anne Litt:

Flying Lotus – Cosmogramma – Flying Lotus is a genius, in my opinion. The beat culture that he has been instrumental in building truly defines an L.A. sound. Other artists like Nosaj Thing, Gaslamp Killer, Tokimonsta, Daedelus, Teebs, Take, and on and on are part of a scene that is hands down the most exciting one happening now. I want to hear more from all of them in 2011.

Darker My Love – Alive As You Are – I’ve written a lot about Darker My Love’s latest record because I keep going back to it over and over again. The sounds are from another era and feel distinctly West Coast. The psychedelic, trippy guitars and down in the dirt, organic sounds of this record have made it a favorite.

Local Natives – Gorilla Manor – They are so good live and I think this record is a great example of what bands are doing today, pulling in different influences and sounds from a global perspective.

Warpaint – The Fool – This record missed some Top Ten mentions because it’s such a new release, but I think it’s just amazing. This is their debut full length and their sound is easy and unforced. It’s hazy and organic and will seep into your brain. Their cover of “Ashes To Ashes” on Manimal Vinyl’s Bowie tribute record rivals the original.

Ozomatli – Fire Away – Ozo has been the standard bearer for L.A. culture for two decades. The responsibility they feel to the community and the fun they have making music is inspiring. This record is razor sharp. I was also proud of the remixes we KCRW DJ’s did of tracks from the record too.

What releases in 2011 are you most looking forward to?
Anne Litt: I hear that new records are coming from all of these artists in 2011, but I’m sure there are tons more amazing records that I don’t even know about yet!
* Other Lives
* Devotchka
* Iron and Wine
* The Shins
* Death Cab For Cutie
* DJ Shadow

Do you think it’s hard for an artist to keep the attention of listeners and music fans these days, given how much music is out there competing for our attention through internet-based blogs, radio stations, MTV, YouTube, etc?

Anne Litt: On the one hand, I think it’s much harder and more work to keep the attention of the listeners. But, on the other hand, since the playing field has been leveled, so many more artists have a voice. Honestly that’s what gets me most excited. I feel as though I stumble upon something new that I like almost every day.

The “noise” level is high though because of the sheer volume. And because there are not physically enough hours in the day to read every blog and watch every YouTube video, I have my trusty, secret sources who hip me to things that I might have missed. For example, just last week one of my secret agents turned me on to Danish singer songwriter, Agnes Obel. Her debut, Philharmonics, came out in a few European countries in October and has gotten a lovely review from the BBC. The world might have missed her spare and lovely compositions if this was 1991 when the world was ruled by major labels.

There are a couple artists that appear consistently on a lot of top tens. I’m thinking of Flying Lotus and Janelle Monae in particular. What do you think it is about these artists that resonated so broadly?

Anne Litt: I think that people today are looking for art—for sounds that remember our collective past but look forward with a new perspective. Also, because the globe has gotten smaller through technology, sounds from other eras and times have seeped into our consciousness and music in a really exciting way. Flylo and Janelle Monae are two great examples of that. Flying Lotus takes jazz, soul, and electronic music and has twisted into something else, while Janelle Monae’s songs are musical theater with messages and hooks.

How has the music scene in Los Angeles changes since you started at KCRW?

Anne Litt: My sense (I’ve been here since 1991) is that the scene and sounds are more cohesive. I don’t mean that all the bands sound alike, but that everyone is supporting each other. The independent records stores, club scene, internet radio stations like Dublab, KXLU, KCRW, and KPFK are supporting a giant variety of local music and it’s flourishing.

Local heroes Local Natives performed to a sold out crowd Saturday night (the second of two back to back sold out nights), September 18th at the Fonda following closely on the heels of a breathtaking and well received performance at FYF Fest earlier in the month. Ever since the band name change (from Cavil at Rest to Local natives) and move from Orange County to Los Angeles, they’re ascent seems unstoppable. With their recent shows at the Fonda Local Natives have departed on their first national headlining tour with The Love Language and Los Angeles locals The Union Line in tow as support. Definitely not a tour to be missed.

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Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival-goers trickled in throughout the day to check out the up-and-coming artists featured on Thursday. Pictured are: Here We Go Magic, Local Natives, Miike Snow, Neon Indian, The Temper Trap, and The XX.

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I’ve never seen the Troubadour so excited. Local Natives, about 4 months into the release of Gorilla Manor, are truly hometown heroes; the show was sold out well in advance. The crowd was alive with screams and yelling from the second soundcheck began until after the encore, where they were joined onstage by tour mates Suckers. The set was colorful and energetic, and they often turned the room into a fancy sing along jubilee.

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Coachella is the defining music event in Southern California every year — for fans and local artists alike. The festival has become a kingmaker for striving L.A. bands rounding the corner into national prominence. Recent performances by Silversun Pickups, the Airborne Toxic Event and No Age have been both goodbye kisses to the Echo Park club gantlet and an introduction to an eager mainstream audience.

Who will be the local breakout this year? We rate the chances of L.A. artists using the only hierarchy that matters at Coachella: colored wristbands. No under-the-table swapping allowed. [Read More]

Download: Local Natives “Sun Hands”

(from Gorilla Manor out now on Frenchkiss)

Anyone familiar with Local Natives is going to recognize most if not all the tracks on their full-length, which for this band (and their very commited local fans) is perfect. Now you can hear every single detail of every single song—like on signature “Sun Hands,” where each harmony, each guitar riff and each drum tap adds up to one pristine piece of music. Like an old classic rock album, each song blends into the next—a streamlined effect that doesn’t happen too often and enhances the overall effect. It’s calm enough to listen to when you need to relax but uplifting enough to get you out of your seat and dance like the rest of the world doesn’t matter. Each song feels like a new rejuvenating life lesson without excruciating therapy or a long-winded book: “Why does the soul hallucinate / I’ve got control / I shift my shape … ” Manor includes their cover of “Warning Sign” (originally by Talking Heads) which puts new passion in the song with soft harmonies and rousing shouting and guitar scratching. The album ends with beautiful violin riffs, light piano and an appropriate almost cinematic fade-out.
—Britt Witt

Chief and Voxhaul Broadcast kindly opened the show to a good-sized appreciative crowd.  Voxhaul Broadcast’s 8-song set created a perfect foundation for Local Natives.  Their underlying bass and drum lines beat their way into your body, giving it something similar to a caffeine kick.  Voxhaul Broadcast tied in some of their new songs, which show some maturity in the band’s writing and performing style, showing more development and intricacy.

Making it out to the Echo for this special performance was quite lucky considering this is Local Natives’ only show in Los Angeles until at least March 2010, after South By Southwest.  Yes, that means the U.S. release of their album in February will be absent of the boys themselves.   As usual, their performance was unique and energetic but did not sum up to their personal and intimate residency in August, which could simply be due to the band’s tendency to be more professional and acute at this point.  The stage was set up as expected, with Matt Frazier tapping on drums, Andy Hamm on bass, Kelcey Ayer on keyboards and rhythm drums and the occasional switch of instruments between Taylor Rice and Ryan Hahn depending on which specific talent a song required.  Local Natives began letting loose by their third song, the remarkable cover of “Warning Sign.”  These five boys have never been so sharp, very tightly knit and nearly flawless.  Each member has total command over his instrument—from the tambourine and cymbals to their guitars, drums and most importantly, their harmonious voices.

“Touring has made us tighter,” Kelcey explained; their past week consisted of four shows and four radio appearances, totaling eight gigs in seven days.  Their sixth and seventh songs, “Wide Eyes” and “Shape Shifter,” new additions that will be on their album, turned out to be quite the showstoppers.  They perfectly exemplify exactly what sets Local Natives apart from the rest: magical rhythms, cadence and breathtaking harmonies.  The songs also demonstrate their individual talent as well as their talent as a whole—they were born to be musicians.  The set dipped back into the familiar “Airplanes,” which had great crowd involvement and of course included their ‘Christmas’ song, “Stranger Things.”  For “Who Knows Who Cares,” they invited the talent of Stewart Cole (Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros) to play trumpet and create a live experience more homogeneous with their recordings.  Naturally the show closer was “Sun Hands,” Local Natives’ uplifting and rejuvenating single. As usual, more new and old band friends from past tours were invited to join the guys on stage including Johnny from The Union Line, Voxhaul Broadcast members and others, totaling to over 10 people on the wide Echo stage.  Their finale resembled the Local Natives performance that fans are used to, complete with the last wind of energy, yelling, stomping, drum smashing and an overall exciting time for the people on and off stage.

—Britt Witt

(from Gorilla Manor out in February on Frenchkiss)

L.A. darlings Local Natives have had a big year—a UK tour, a record deal, and a road trip with Fool’s Gold and Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros. Bassist Andy Hamm stepped outside on a chilly afternoon in Seattle to share with us some of the highlights. This interview by Amber Hollingsworth.

I saw you guys open at the El Rey last month and I thought you just stole the show. I’m so excited to hear you’re touring with Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros—how did that come together?
Andy Hamm: We hung out with a couple of guys from Fool’s Gold, who are also on the tour, and they asked us to jump on. We were like, “God, Fool’s Gold already has anywhere from 7 to 11 members, and Edward Sharpe has anywhere from 12 to 15,” but it’s cool because it’s like an L.A. representation. I think it’s hard to find three bands that get along and all are doing their own thing—nobody’s really stepping on each other’s toes stylewise or musically.
What’s it like hanging out with a huge troupe of hippies? I just imagine so many hugs on this tour.
Andy Hamm: One big happy hippy family? Yeah, everybody’s really cool. There are so many of them, you hang out with a new person every night. And on stage, we play during the Edward Sharpe set, sometimes a bunch of their guys jump up on one of our songs, and same thing for Fool’s Gold. Edward Sharpe lets us use a bunch of their equipment too, and the guys who do sound for our shows actually played in Fool’s Gold. So yeah, the more I think about it, it is this big commune of L.A. people who play music together and share everything, and it works out to everybody’s benefit.
I wanted to congratulate you on getting signed to Frenchkiss Records. How did that happen?
Andy Hamm: Yeah, thanks! It was important for us to find someone who’s on the same page, and we’d been talking to them for awhile. They saw us I think the first time we played in New York 6 to 8 months ago, and we just kept in touch. We met with a few others, but with Frenchkiss, they just thought what we thought. That’s what was most important to us when partnering up with a label—finding people we get along with and who let us do our thing.
Your album is due out in the U.S. in February. There’s been so much buzz about your live performances—what can we expect from the Local Natives studio album?
Andy Hamm: What I love about it is they’re two totally different things: if you listen to the album and like it, then hopefully you’ll love the live show. The feedback that we get is that the live show is more energetic and a bit more in-your-face. The album shows off the separate orchestrated parts, and the melodies come out a lot more. If people see us and expect to hear exactly what the record sounds like—you’re not going to get that, but you’ll definitely get a new experience.
I like the band name Local Natives, it’s subtly funny. Who came up with it?
Andy Hamm: I actually came up with it. We were in the middle of recording the album when we decided we needed a name, and we were going through lists and lists. But I liked Local Natives; it rolls off the tongue and it’s redundant in sort of a quirky way. We thought it was a good representation of us too because, as a group, everybody writes and everybody contributes—it’s very much a family effort within the band.
Is everyone actually from L.A.?
Andy Hamm: I grew up in Golden, Colorado. Ryan, Taylor, and Kelsey all grew up in Orange County, and Matt grew up in Chino Hills.
You guys have been living in a house together in Silverlake. Give me some secrets—who has the most annoying habit?
Andy Hamm: Ugh, there are a lot of annoying habits. Taylor’s probably the worst with the dishes and leaving lights on. Ryan’ll sleep all day long if you let him, so we’ll be in the van ready to go on tour or head to the practice studio and he’s always the last one out. We also own a rat named Burpy Christ that lives upstairs with Matt, I don’t even want to get into that.
Haha fair enough. So quick story: I was walking back from your show and I ran into my friend and I said “Oh man I just saw this band Local Natives, they blew me away!” and he gets this look on his face and says, “Yeah, I know them. My ex-girlfriend broke up with me to go out with one of them.” My question is, have you ever stolen anything from someone?
Andy Hamm: Wow! Well, I used to be quite a Dennis the Menace. I was troublesome but I always got away with it. I knew how to talk to people and be sweet. As far as stealing, I was pretty young, must’ve been 5th grade, but I had a friend who lived across the street from me (he’s one of my best friends to this day), and I remember I was at his house and I was looking for a toy or something in his room, and I saw a $5 bill just chilling there and something just clicked. I grabbed it and put it in my pocket and then I went in to him, and I could feel the guilt weighing in, so I just said “Uhh my mom’s calling me, I gotta go home.” I ran across the street and got home and 5 minutes later the doorbell rings and it’s him. He’s like, “Hey man, there was $5 in my room, did you take it?” And it’s that moment of truth, and the guilt’s weighing on me and I’m like, “Yeah… I got it right here,” and I gave it back. I remember I couldn’t hang out with him for what was probably only a week but what felt like a year.
So your bad behavior was pretty innocent at the heart of it.
Andy Hamm: I probably did a lot of stuff that I shouldn’t have done when I was little, but I was never that kid that would walk into a Radio Shack and grab a CD player. It was more like water guns and snowballs, stuff that a young boy living in Golden, Colorado would do.
I read on your blog about the fan in Vermont who hosted you in her home when you toured through there. Is that a typical Local Natives approach to touring, just get there and hope to find a place to sleep?
Andy Hamm: We do that in almost every town. It works. It’s a combination of us not having a lot of money and you know, our music just seems to attract very good-natured people. So we’ll usually just announce it in the set. We’ll say, “Hey, we have sleeping bags, we don’t smell that bad, so if you have room on your floor…” and I’d say 90% of the time there’s at least one person that says, “I’ve got a tiny one-bedroom but if you don’t mind sleeping on the tile floor in the kitchen, you can do it.” Luckily no one in the band is a prima donna, so it works.
So the other 10% of the time, do you end up sleeping in very sketchy places?
Andy Hamm: I’d be lying if I said it’s always been hunky dory. There was one time, I think it was our first time we had toured outside of the West Coast, and we stayed in Philadelphia. It was approaching last call, around 2:30 a.m., everybody had been drinking, and it was one of those nights where partying came above being responsible and finding a place to crash, so none of us had really met anybody with a place we could crash at, and there wasn’t a hotel in sight. We met this guy who was just sitting by himself at the bar, and he was like, “I loved you guys.” And he was older, like mid-40s I would guess—he just sort of had a weird vibe about him. But it was 3:00 in the morning, the bar was closing, and so we followed the guy to his apartment. Well first he took us to this bar that was still open, and he just sat there and drank I think three PBRs and two shots of whiskey, and we literally just sat there in the bar with him. Then he took us to his apartment, and he put on… this is really weird the more I think about it… he put on a murder mystery on a record player. It was like someone reading a murder mystery, a book on tape, but it was on record. And we all laid down and he just let it play. So the story’s playing while I’m trying to sleep, about this guy who’s murdering women. And then I woke up and the dude was just sitting by himself in the room we crashed in by an open window with a 6-pack of PBR and chain smoking cigarettes. This was at like 5:00 in the morning. So, I didn’t go to sleep past that—I don’t think any of us went to sleep. I remember leaning over and looking at Kelsey and his eye was open, giving me that look like, “Do we run now and save our lives or do we just pretend we’re asleep?”
Did you bail as soon as the sun came up?
Andy Hamm: Yeah I mean everything turned out fine. Who knows, that guy was very nice to us on the surface, maybe he was just a character, I don’t know. Hopefully he doesn’t read this and come seek us out or something…

LOCAL NATIVES WITH VOXHAUL BROADCAST AND CHIEF ON TUE., DEC. 22, AT THE ECHO, 1822 W. SUNSET BLVD, LOS ANGELES. 8:30PM / $5 ADVANCE / $10 AT DOOR / AND A CAN OF FOOD / ALL AGES. ATTHEECHO.COM LOCAL NATIVES’ GORILLA MANOR IS DUE OUT IN THE U.S. ON FRENCHKISS RECORDS FEBRUARY 16, 2010.