2010 was the first year of the new decade, and as the rest of the world speeds up for the impending future, we decided to take one last dip in the warm, settling waters of the last decade, and seal its lips with a salty kiss. Here, Luke Top from Fool’s Gold indulges his favorite [...]

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Mere Mortals are a classic L.A convergence of musicians from all across the world. When taken in high doses, their autobahn guitar pop may unsettle a stomach full of exotic sushi. Steve Jones told someone to sign them and in Japan someone listened, and they are in residency at Spaceland every monday this month. This interview by Erik Ehlert.

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Indie rock doesn’t produce much in the way of anthems, but, then again, Glasvegas is ‘indie’ only by D.I.Y. courtesy, started as it was by four Glaswegians with more confessed ambition than self-admitted skill. Crowd and feedback noise from Oasis’ rattletrap set punctuated a conversation already fraught with slippage. This interview by Ron Garmon.

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shooting bruce la bruce from paul rodriguez on vimeo L.A. RECORD photographer Paul Rodriguez sends this behind-the-scenes video documenting the Bruce LaBruce photo shoot for our July 2009 issue. Read the interview here.

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Bruce LaBruce is ready to leave the blood behind but not without one final splatter. A self-described “reluctant pornographer,” Bruce’s films feature as many romantic moments as they do scenes of explicit sex. For every gut- or stump-fuck, there is a glance or line so heartfelt I can’t help but think Bruce LaBruce’s sincerity is his most dangerous weapon. Interview by Drew Denny and video by Paul Rodriguez here.

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This time around, they sounded kinda pissed, aggressive even (?), on a lot of the new songs from the ex-Pixies, Frank-Black-produced album, Art Brut Vs. Satan. If we took their first two albums and pitted them against the king of the underworld, I’d wager Art Brut might have had to run off to their bedrooms, lock the doors, and write more teenage break-up songs or cleverly reference Brian Eno.

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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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Watching X and My Bloody Valentine put into perspective all these kids making noisy pop music by recalling the rich and fabled genealogy of this newfangled uprising and putting a sincere (albeit wrinkled) face on sounds that were once something controversial and that today’s babies take for granted… it must be oddly pleasant to play a show you never would’ve been asked to play in your own heyday, knowing that tropes you helped invent are propelling smooth-skinned foals into stardom from what middle-aged critics are carelessly referring to as the “outside” or the “fringes” while you wonder where the hell that leaves you?

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L.A. RECORD put photographer Lindsey Best through three dessicating days at the Coachella fun factory and she returned with this giant pile of beautiful photos and without any evidence whatsoever of sun damage to herself. Captured in full glory here are TV On The Radio, Leonard Cohen, M.I.A., No Age, Antony and the Johnsons, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Morrissey, Lykke Li, Public Enemy and many more!

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