Gestapo Khazi play adrenalized surf-punk served straight up. If Dick Dale and the Wipers formed a band and put a three-minute limit on songs, it’d sound like this. I have no idea what the lyrics are about (surf conditions? Master Race? Cars? ObamaCare?) but who cares: it’s surf punk, so just stop thinking and go with it.

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This is supposed to be the record that bounces the Henry Clay into something big and it could really do it—it’s a worthy follow-up to last year’s local classic For Cheap or for Free and just the step they needed to take next.

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Beijing’s music may be mostly unrecognized on these shores, but the best bands from China can definitely hold their own with L.A.’s finest. Los Angeles is awesome for recognizing this and welcom

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I wore out their debut EP months ago, and these songs were good enough for me to play double-time until their Manimal EP released. This duo clearly has not even come close to hitting the wall artistically.

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VOICEsVOICEs might be like the middle of every great Led Zeppelin song, or maybe like Yoko Ono played backwards while in a warm cave. Their new EP—produced by Prefuse 73—is out now on Manimal Vinyl. This interview by Scott Schultz.

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Don’t be mistaken by the band’s “Lite” side project, which is Melt-Banana substituting Agata’s guitar for synth programs and samplers and the revolving door drummers replaced by beats. Everything else is pure Banana. The end result is the kind of music teenage Terminators would mosh to.

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Melt-Banana is the ultimate adrenaline band. This band from Tokyo sounds like what the aliens will be playing on the warship stereos when they come to eat us measly humans. They are currently touring with a show that splits Melt-Banana with their new incarnation, Melt-Banana Lite, which is still pretty fucking heavy even though they ditch their guitars. This interview by Scott Schultz.

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Shiloe is the scariest shoegaze band in Los Angeles and also one of the noisiest. They recently released a single, ‘Daggers In Your Eyes’ that suddenly got them airplay in a dozen cities. When they’re not playing gigs around town, they’re seeking out the paranormal. This interview by Scott Schultz.

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I wound up at the Echoplex instead, getting the joy of seeing one of L.A.’s wondrous little surprises, He’s My Brother, She’s My Sister. Cali country is something I love with the fervor of a late convert, since even Buck Owens was little more than some jackass on TV until I moved my Dixie-fried ears out here for an accidental steeping in the Bakersfield Sound and its many variants. Robert Kolar and Felipe Ceballos from tough indie wide-boys Lemon Sun contribute heavily to Brother/Sister, with the whole, shifting, multi-piece concatenation in the great line of Gram Rabbit and the Parson Red Heads in the insistence on coupling the High with the Lonesome.

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Steve Fox is the Director of State Campaigns for Marijuana Policy Project—also known as the MPP, the nation’s largest marijuana reform organization—and is co-author of a new book called Marijuana is Safer, which argues that marijuana is less harmful than alcohol. He speaks now via phone to L.A. RECORD‘s Scott Schultz.

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