Flying Lotus and Thom Yorke played surprise sets at Low End Theory on April 30, 2011. Gari Askew was in the building!

[View with PicLens]

You probably missed out on Radiohead’s Thom Yorke’s surprise DJ set at Low End Theory last week, so you’ll be happy to know that it was filmed!

“We have a very special guest tonight … act like he’s one of us. He is one of us,” said Daddy Kev, the Low End Theory co-founder. (via Pop & Hiss)

Rumors started that early that afternoon he might show up, but it wasn’t until Flying Lotus texted him photos of the crowd that he was convinced to come out. He spun an hour-and-twenty-minute a set of Kraftwerk, Burial, Modeselektor, Major Lazer, and Squarepusher, and danced adorably.

Filmed by: Theo Jemison, Grace Oh, Arthur Mor, Alter
Editing: Strangeloop

Via: L.A. Times

In October 2008, while Steven Ellison’s mother lay dying in a hospital bed, he was at her side recording her.

The young L.A.-based musician, who records abstract electronic music as Flying Lotus, hadn’t been especially close to his mother until her later years. But when finally faced with the weight of the impending loss, Ellison brought in a mobile recording rig and set microphones around her room to gather audio samples: the hypnotic wheeze of a respirator, the ambient pings of vital-sign monitors.

In the stillness and sadness of his mother’s last days, he found comfort in the rhythms of the machines.

“I know it was a weird thing to do,” Ellison said. “I’m not the type to go out recording things like that. But I didn’t want to forget that space.” [Read More]

Julian Casablancas’ distinctive voice makes it difficult to avoid comparisons between his solo project and that other band he’s in, The Strokes. A heavier emphasis on electronic instrumentation and a slightly wider stylistic range than The Strokes’ dance floor-ready garage rock saves the effort from being a placeholder between Strokes albums.

In the next tent over, sylph Charlotte Gainsbourg impressed with songs that alternated between lilting, Belle & Sebastian-esque romps and harder tracks with bowing guitar riffs and ominous-sounding samples as percussion. The influence of producer/mixer/co-writer Beck is heavily apparent to fans of his work, and one wonders how it would be appropriate to dole out credit for Gainsbourg’s sound.

Spoon took the Coachella stage just as Gainsbourg’s set was ending. The Austin darlings injected their sort of pretty fare with a little more grit in the live version, while Sly delivered his first disappointment of the night when it was announced to gathered fans that his set would be pushed back a full two hours, at least. The news was greeted with boos and mumbled expressions of dashed hope, “I knew it.”

Phoenix and Infected Mushroom were there to pick up the pieces, before Pavement took over with an enthusiastic, jangly tribute to their past. All the aural and visual assaults of the past two and a half days made the contrast between the spectacle and Pavement’s homey performance lit by ropes of bare lightbulbs all the more drastic, but the simplicity of their show was also its strength, even though, as LA Font frontman Danny Bobbe put it, they were “the worst-dressed band at Coachella.” It can be mildly disappointing when your idols turn out to be dorks.

Thom Yorke took the reins just as Pavement ended, and treated tired concertgoers to over an hour-long set. Alas, they were not to rest. Yorke’s solo effort cum all-star band, Atoms for Peace, interspersed slow jams and the occasional Radiohead nod (“Pyramid Song”) with beats so dance-worthy even Yorke couldn’t hold himself back from losing himself in an eyes closed, unabashed, Flashdance-style multi-song dance party, priming the dwindling crowd for Gorillaz merciless final onslaught of beats so good you can’t sit still.

They opened with the Snoop Dogg track from collaboration-heavy new album, Plastic Beach. Snoop spoke to us in one of his pimpalicious getups, projected across three giant screens behind the stage with the caption “GORILLAZ” on each, just in case you forgot. Little Dragon singer Yukimi Nagano, who performed Friday night with Dragon, was conveniently available for a cameo on the trippy “Empire Ants,” a track that sounds like ripples in the glassy water at a tropical robot beach at sunset.

Sly disappointed fans again by engaging in his now infamous shenanigans – basically involving different iterations of not being able or willing to perform because he is too incoherent due to the abuse of one substance or another. After staggering through a few songs, Sly stumbled off stage in the wrong direction and had to be led off by security.

As much as the heat and the gross bathrooms and trash and expensive food and constant hordes of moving people can irritate, Coachella is a jumping off point for all different kinds of acts. Bands of middling popularity in the U.S. or those that are completely unknown here come to announce themselves. Several years running have seen well-loved veterans kick off highly anticipated reunion tours or do one-off performances just because they can. Bands come here with balls out and hearts on their sleeves, and those willing to suffer through a little sweat and dirt and, I admit, a relatively heft price tag for one weekend of shows, invariably walk away excited and invigorated by all the incredible music that’s being made.

Concert Stage Path:
Coachella (Yo La Tengo)  Mojave (Julian Casablancas)  Gobi (Charlotte Gainsbourg)  Coachella (Spoon)  Gobi (Sly Stone)  Sahara (Infected Mushroom) - Outdoor (Phoenix)  Coachella (Pavement)  Outdoor (Thom Yorke)  Coachella (Gorillaz)

—Ayse Arf

Thom Yorke:

hey everyone

ok so in April the other band.. that i got together to do the eraser and other stuff u know .. Mauro, Flea, Me, Joey and Nigel is going back out to do some shows in the US.. ending with playing with Coachella. we had too much fun to just leave it there…

it has been decided that we call ourselves Atoms For Peace. hope you like the name.. it seemed bleedin’ obvious.

these are the shows + Flying Lotus is opening for us -
New York Roseland Ballroom 5th + 6th
Boston Citi Wang Theatre 8th
Chicago Aragon Ballroom 10th + 11th
Oakland Fox Theatre 14th + 15th
Santa Barbara Bowl 17th

all warmth

Thom

Portishead – Third: Obviously the greatest.  What’s your problem?  Go listen to it again.

Radiohead – Hail to the Thief: It has “Wolf At The Door” on it.  What more can we say?

Nine Inch Nails – Year Zero:   How dare you judge with only your eyes and your knowledge of genres!  This is a concept record about the war in Iraq, really dealing head on with all sorts of situations, like finding yourself in combat, having PTSD, criticism of George W.  And on top of that, it has the meanest industrial beats ever constructed.  Fuck all y’all, you white pussy indie rockers!

 The Strokes – Is This It? or MGMT – Oracular Spectacular
These are great records made by hunky, young things.  We love them in spite of their inherent boy-band-ism.  This is an instance where our tastes align with 13 year-old girls’ (that, and NIN).

Beck – Sea Change

Quasi – Hot Shit

Sondre Lerche - Faces Down  

Emily Haines & the Soft Skeleton – Knives Don’t Have Your Back or Broadcast – The Noise Made by People

Iron & Wine – Creek Drank the Cradle

Coldplay – A Rush of Blood to the Head

It was way harder than we even expected to put this list together.  Hard in some ways.  Easy in other ways.  As important as the result of the list are, equally important is the process of coming to the result.  The following stuff didn’t quite make it on to this list:

M.I.A. — Arular

Thom Yorke — The Eraser

Blur — Think Tank

Be assured that the titles here in have been heavily listened to repeatedly by The Pity Party, with fervor and grace. 

-The Pity Party

PJ Harvey – Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea

Radiohead –  everything

Arcade Fire – Funeral

Fischerspooner – #1

Thom Yorke – The Eraser

Brazilian Girls – Talk to La Bomb

The Kills – No Wow

The Knife – Silent Shout

Fiona Apple – Extraordinary Machine

Aphex Twin – drukqs

-VOICEsVOICEs

Thom Yorke performing at The Orpheum on October 4, 2009, to a sold-out crowd.

[View with PicLens]

Now everybody who has been silently trying to casually run into Thom Yorke during his stint in Los Angeles knows where they can find him. I can only imagine the line forming right now and wrapping down Glendale blvd all the way to the KFC/Taco Bell. Save a spot for me dawgs cause i’m snoozing a big longer!

Friday, Oct 02, 2009 8:00 PM PDT
at Echoplex (below the Echo)
in Los Angeles, CA

[Buy Tickets]

Via: Stereogum

Thom Yorke Confirms Echoplex Gig • “that band thats doesnt really have a name that im working with at the moment… have decided to do a warm-up show on Friday Oct 2nd around 9pm at the Echoplex in Los Angeles. Its not that big, it’ll be total chaos and its kind of a rehearsal but .. if you are near by.”

Download: Gaslamp Killer’s “We Make It Good Vol. 5″ Mix

(from wemakeitgood.com)

The Gaslamp Killer is a maniac among maniacs of several different categories, but attains his highest highs as a producer, turntablist and hairstyle daredevil. His birthday was Wednesday and he speaks now while resting up from another night at Low End Theory. This interview by Chris Ziegler.

Is it fair to say you made over 1,200 trips to L.A. for parties before you finally moved here?
Shit!
Now the first word of this interview is ‘shit.’
I think that might be accurate. It’s well over a thousand. The most repetitive things I’ve done in my life are try to make a beat, try to learn new scratches, practicing music, playing my drum set and complaining about the weather or something retarded.
Ever think about complaining over a beat you sampled from your own drum set?
It’s almost there—I should try and bring it all together! One giant OCD freakfest!
Are you the George Carlin of the slam mix?
That would be such an honor! To be compared to such a genius! Depending on how drunk I am, a lot of things come out on the mic at night—like the word ‘motherfucker’ every other word!
Wasn’t ‘motherfucker’ once an official part of your name?
I was angry one day and angry at the world and society! But there is a story behind the name.
Did you wake up with blood on your hands?
I played in downtown San Diego, which is Naval Surf Academy meets the Laguna Beach MTV show—that’s what I grew up with. I didn’t have a nurturing community to DJ from. I’d be playing—from the age of 17—every weekend, escorted in and out of fancy Gaslamp District clubs to play for meatheads. Give me one Coca-Cola and escort me out—couldn’t sell CDs, couldn’t give away stickers. Usually I cleared the dance floor and made the meatheads mad—the girls wouldn’t dance. But the promoters liked it. So they kept bringing me back to educate these meatheads. I was always playing instrumental psych dirty beats. A friend of mine was like, ‘You’re the only one in the Gaslamp doing what you’re doing—the only one killing the Gaslamp!’ And we didn’t have a name for the mixtape, so we called it Gaslamp Killers.
Do you ever get nostalgic? Miss the meatheads?
Definitely. People take longer to evolve—no disrespect. But I see people from my high school now and they’re like, ‘Willie, we’re so proud! I never knew this music!’ I’m glad people are getting into it. Maybe there’s a little more education. But I still clear the dancefloor! It still fucking happens! I start with Little Weezy and I still kill! B+ dubbed me the Dancefloor Killer—lovingly. I clear it and fill it with nerds—people who just wanna break their necks and freak out. People who wanna be sexy—there’s enough of them in the world. They can all suffer.
Are you hated by the sexy?
Hated by people trying to get sexy. There aren’t any sexy moments—I can’t see people grinding to my music, and if they were, I’d tell them to stop! Nah, I dance. A lot of DJs say, ‘My job is for the people—I’m here to cater’—you gotta be an artist, too. You gotta have passion—be an artist, an educator, have more motivation than ‘I wanna make people dance around.’
How did you decide that was important?
I had really good friends letting me know. I was jocking their shit, and my good friend Michael Raymond Russell of MRR-ADM—dirtydrums.com, who just did a 10” on Now Again—told me, ‘Don’t ever cater! If there’s any advice you ever take for me in your entire life, don’t cater! It’s not gonna get you where you’re gonna go! Your job is to educate—to play the dirtiest rawest stuff! Push it to the next level!’ He inspired me. And it took them so long to get their music out the way they wanted. People like Mike Russell, Adam Manella, my friend DJ 10shun—they were playing the rawest shit and scratching the illest and were on the next shit, in my opinion. They were all killing it so hard. You gotta be as good or better than your friends. And now it’s people like Samiyam, Flying Lotus, Ras G, Dimlite, Nosaj Thing—they’re all pushing! Mr. Chop, Heliocentrics, Cherrystones—they’re making me wanna lose my mind and explode! Making me wanna be a DJ who just spins their music!
You seem like you have a lot of high highs and low lows.
I have no balance in my life right now. I’m searching for balance.
Is that why you have half an afro and half braids?
Exactly! Highs and lows—always intense! Not only am I a neurotic obsessive-compulsive Jew—I’m a Scorpio! Every Scorpio I know is a freak like me. We’re very intense people. We don’t really have a choice.
What your favorite souvenir from every continent you’ve been to recently?
I don’t buy ‘em—but I have mental and emotional and soul souvenirs! Tons of those! In the U.K., I was getting to hang with Cherrystones. The guy is a virtual—well, library! I go over there and he has books and movies I never heard of—not to mention the illest records! I could sit at his crib all day and educate myself. And spending time with new friends in Australia—my hosts were so cool! As soon as I got off the plane, they had a joint in my hand.
Did all those Unreleased Beat Invitationals make you pay extra attention to your own work?
Hell yeah! It’s because of Low End Theory—not only me, but everyone has actually stepped it up, you know? Low End Theory made Lotus freak out—every one of us. Nobody’s beats are so fucking hard lately. People are gonna be blown away! Low End Theory has affected all of our styles—‘Yeah, I can use samples, and sample psych and Ethiopian, but you still gotta have the 808 in there…’
You’re a Low End Theory resident—what do you think the club has brought to Los Angeles?
It’s given nerds like me a platform to be really—accepted? Accepted and appreciated and—Low End Theory provided a place for nerds and beatheads to be really nurtured. It’s a community outreach program! I shit you not! 18-year-old kids are coming in and all they hear is the same stuff on the radio and they can’t go to clubs so they just go to raves or house parties—everybody remembers being a kid, and there was never a time when you could go to a weekly to hear such ferociously progressive music at that age. Every week! We bring young people in and they’re getting made fun of in school—all the same stuff we were going through—and they get a place to be themselves! We get hundreds of bright-eyed bushy-tailed kids in our face—no beer in their hand and just an ‘X’! It’s a beautiful thing. I’m very very proud of Kev for his idea and the fact that it’s happening—super stoked.
You’ve mentioned education a lot—what are you trying to learn? Or teach?
I feel I’ve been given the ability to make people feel free—act like a freak, bang their heads, whatever it is I’m doing. It feeds me to hear their applause and roars! All I’m doing is looking for the next fucking crowd to turn out. It serves me and it serves them. It lets kids know they can be free—be whoever they wanna be—that nobody can tell them what they can or can’t do.
Who do you look to that’s doing that now?
Thom Yorke—Radiohead. They made it through whatever the fuck was going on. People dropped like flies around them! I can’t say Hendrix, Cobain or Marley—three of my favorite most inspiring dudes, and people might say they’re played out but they’re famous for a reason! John Lennon was famous for a reason—a god among men! Hendrix and Cobain may not have been as political, but their music said enough and traveled enough—the hardest dudes ever! Then you have Radiohead, who were maybe not epic in the beginning but who blossomed into one of the best bands in history in my opinion—the top ten of all time, possibly top five—and the fact that they’re still together! No ODs, no one died, they’re not too eccentric to not stay in the studio or drop off tour—so Thom forgot a song, big fucking deal! So would you—you’re not a machine! But the fact that they keep going and keep involving—the fact that Thom Yorke sat down with Lotus and talked shit and had a cup of tea! He knows about L.A.! He knows about me! I will shit right here if that motherfucker knows about me! That’s how hard I think Thom Yorke is! I’d love to just hide for a year and just make dope music, but it’s not meant to be right now. There’s so many elements to a musician’s life. It’s damn near impossible—but it’s a new age and it’s a new day and anything is fucking possible! I got my drums downstairs with a bass guitar and a Rhodes—I’m trying to evolve as a human being and a musician. And as much as I wanna focus on my relationships with my friends and getting out to the world and sharing and performing, I always want actually to have a record that will stand next to my heroes. I’m 25—I think I can make this happen! God willing—if I stay alive! I didn’t drop out of school for nothing!
What did you go to school for?
For my parents! So they wouldn’t think I was a loser! And when I dropped out, they were like, ‘You’re insane!’ But now I’m at P.F. Chang’s for their 44th wedding anniversary and the server says, ‘Hey—Gaslamp Killer! Rad!’ And my mom grabs my dad—‘Willie made it! HE MADE IT!’ They were so motherfucking happy!

THE GASLAMP KILLER WITH FLYING LOTUS, DAEDELUS, HUDSON MOHAWKE AND MANY MORE ON FRI., NOV. 7, AT THE BRAINFEEDER SHOWCASE AT THE ECHOPLEX, 1154 GLENDALE BLVD., ECHO PARK. 8:30 PM / $14-$16 / 18+. ATTHEECHO.COM. THE GASLAMP KILLER’S I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE MIX IS OUT NOW ON OBEY. VISIT THE GASLAMP KILLER AT THEGASLAMPKILLER.COM OR MYSPACE.COM/THEGASLAMPKILLER.