Big rock stars are a bit like aliens, you rarely see them, they travel inside big black vehicles, and you work very hard at getting close to them. But when you get there, it seems surreal. I had a summer of encounters with rock stars, whatever the level of the encounters (and they were all at least of the third kind) they left the biggest impression of the summer on me
‘I make enough to live on. I’m financially solvent. I focus on what I make now’, she also told the Times. And this is the same woman who insulted David Grohl for stealing and wasting Nirvana’s money… saying in one of her numerous stage rants, ‘The Foo Fighters are gay. I don’t care what you listen to at home, but if a guy takes off money off my kid’s table, f**k him.’
He was interacting with us in the most casual way, telling stories, scratching his head while asking us how we were doing, paying attention to every side of the stadium, giving us the impression to attend an almost intimate show despite the overwhelming size of the place
The beautiful Santa Monica Place kicked off their Summer Scene series on August 9th in the open-air courtyard of the mall, with three bands playing during the afternoon.
I could hear the improbable Adele and Fiona Apple side-by-side comparisons, as her power-house voice had so much range and nuances and translated lots of emotion, while their music was a breezy and catchy blend of pop, R&B, jazz
The second band performing at Summer Scene was Alexandra & The Starlight Band,… without the full band. I had seen them before with several musicians and they had totally rocked the
Too bad for those who expected something even remotely close to the Wilco sound, Jorgensen is an electronic guy — he was first Wilco’s tech-savvy and synth-wielding sound engineer and became a permanent member in 2002
‘That was one of the things we were quite worried about: would Paul even be interested in a sci-fi shooting game? But he seemed excited about it. He’s played Halo with his grandkids and was… I can’t speak for Paul, but I think he’s pretty excited’
Everything was very loud, resonating like a sort of thunderous semi-pop-rock, semi-electronic fuzzy mess played by three guys with a guitar, a bass and plenty of electronic equipment… It was first very cacophonic and the sort of loud and overwhelming music that fills up your head
So Willie cut his hair in 1983 to help Waylon who at the time was trying to get sober, and the braids ended up in a lot of 500 personal belongings, which are now listed in auction to help the Phoenix Children’s Hospital.Among other things in this auction, you will find Buddy Holly’s motorcycle, Muhammad Ali’s boxing gloves and robe, Hank Williams’ cowboy boots and a letter to Jennings from John Lennon,
I didn’t hear any earworm among the new ones but it was my first listening… and even though there would be no big hit – Spoon never really got one anyway – they have already sold out the Hollywood Forever Cemetery on August 8th and have filled up the large Amoeba store on Wednesday night like true rock stars.
The rapport is full of graphic allegations such as ‘putting his hand over Robson’s clothed penis’, ‘putting his hand inside Wade Robson’s underpants,” and even ‘penetration of Wade Robson’s anus with [Jackson’s] penis. Of course Jackson invited the family to stay at the ranch and according to Robson, ’employed an audible alarm system for his bedroom [and] hung ‘do not disturb’ signs on his bedroom door.’
He was quite talkative between the songs explaining that the project started in 2012 as someone representing himself as the producer of George’s upcoming record, asked him if I had any songs to submit. He wrote two songs and it turned out that this guy wasn’t really a producer, but when Jones died, the songs were still there, waiting… and he got the idea of this new tribute.
The very moody music seemed to explode in many directions, and was totally uncategorizable, leaning toward a reworked Americana fueled by stomping and violent rhythms and polyphonic vocals during a song like ‘Badlands’, then morphing into ethereal dream pop with expansive development
‘As being successful doesn’t mean just having a good voice, it takes much more than this,…’ he adds, saying this has to do a lot with the content of his lyrics. But how is this possible when the western audiences do not understand? I am not sure, but US audiences have been very good to him, they ‘have fulfilled his wish’, ‘Everybody dance and is happy’…
Okay, calm down, before calling Royals a good cow call, before concluding that Lorde would be number 1 in the cows’ top 40, we have to consider that may be (very probably) it is just the sound of the trombone that interests them. This guy should definitively repeat the experiment with another famous song and observe if he gets the same effect!
On stage, she looks like Elvis meets Elvira in full make-up, with sparkling black outfit and hot orange hair, a big name with big hair wanting to entertain with an outrageous attitude: ‘I have teens at home who don’t understand how famous I am!
Ex-boyfriends, ex husbands, may be I didn’t hear her correctly but she was talking a lot about men, and not in a tender way, so I totally take my Katy Perry comparison back, she was bold and aggressive with lyrics like ‘It’s always the right time to do the wrong thing’.
Win continued to spin some tunes till 3 am, and I appreciated the Bowie and Nirvana touch at the end of the night.. I almost forgot, there was also a piñata full of candies, so it was definitively a real party,… I left the theater with a handful of candies and sparkling confetti, hearing the security guard shouting ‘good night’ to the people talking and drinking, who were still not ready to leave…
Yesterday night, Arcade Fire was playing the 17,000-seat Forum and their music didn’t belong to me anymore, the show was big in all directions and dimensions, it made my head explode and I said good bye to Arcade Fire I used to know.
He is riding the EDM wave like an Arabic prince and his music totally works despite the language barrier, despite a static stage presence which could be summed up to him holding the mic, clapping his hands, moving his arms with ample gestures and sending kisses with his two palms at the end of a song
I had seen the next band De Lux before, but they played an impressive set as if they had increased their range and diversified their songs. I like their post-disco sound with a funky undertone, and I couldn’t get David Byrne out of my head as Sean Guerin’s vocals sounded really close to that of the Talking Heads’ frontman
Andy Grammer is a happy man who can quickly rebound. All his music involved a lot of this crowd’s cooperation, with lots of clapping and ooo-ooos sing-alongs… Was even there a song without any ooo-ooos somewhere in the chorus? I don’t think so.
It is simply called ‘Rapt’ and the tune reveals a real vulnerable side of the usually daring frontwoman, since she is singing it with a fragile, almost husky, voice over a totally stripped-down music arrangement
The most striking thing about seeing the Muffs live, is their laid-back attitude, as well as the casual chatting and deadpan humor between the songs, as if they were some stand-up comedians doing the Muffs routine before bursting into their short punk songs. Kim looked almost exactly as she did at Burgerama
they gave us a grandiose opening, and continued with the same exuberant energy till the end, attempting to take everybody’s breath away during each song. If each member of the band were actively participating into this over-the top celebration, the charismatic showman-frontman Nik Phoeniks worked very hard to push the show to a new level
The cool thing with these residencies is that the crowd is full of musicians enjoying the set of other bands (I recognized at least one of the Mystic Braves), and my Silver Lake-Echo Park neighborhood looks like a big family of musicians packed inside the Echo, right?
She is releasing an LP entitled ‘Inaudible Woman’ consisting of 11 tracks, all totally silent. The ‘songs’ that you can stream on CD Baby (is this a joke or what?) are named after executives in the digital music world, such as SiriusXM executive Patrick Donnelly, Clear Channel executive Robert Walls,… and are available for download at $0.99 each
People were jumping from electric poles, the crowd was pushing and the barricades were not holding up, it was scary! I have seen a guy passing out at a Shins in-store show at Amoeba, the poor kid had been waiting too long in the sun without water probably, but what else out of the ordinary could I remember?
According to the LA Times, a very ironic thing happened recently: Los Angeles Councilman Tom LaBonge told the LA Times over the weekend that the pine tree died as the result of an insect infestation… yeah, the beetles killed it! The tree was already 10 feet tall but according to the Times many trees in Griffith Park have been the victims of bark beetles and ladybug beetles
I still have to make a connection between what I saw and heard, but it was surely a high-concept project, as a lot of untold and unseen things seemed to be going on. Also, the fact that it was their first show ever, made the event even more interesting…
“I lied to myself and others, and believing those lies, I told myself consistently that whatever was going on with me … I could fix it on my own. I convinced myself that it was normal. I am a deeply flawed and mentally ill person who made some terrible choices, causing so much emotional and financial damage to others. But I believe I have much to offer my community.’
It is just probably a question of time, Lael’s quiet music sure managed to captivate the audience and the chatting stopped as soon as she started playing, which is not an easy thing to accomplish in a bar, but her apparition on stage had something from an angel’s and this can shut up a lot of conversations.
I often realized I didn’t remember half of the songs! But obviously the more I advanced in time, the more songs were very familiar. What was successful in 1976? ‘Silly Love Songs’, Wings, ‘Don’t Go Breaking My Heart’, Elton John & Kiki Dee, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, Queen, ‘Golden Years’, David Bowie and so many others
On Friday night, she really, really tried, like a little soldier, trying to fulfill her mission, ‘let’s just do it’ she said after another shot of spray right in her throat, but I don’t think she was able to finish her second song, she completely lost her voice and it was over
I feel special and a bit wily… There was a guy who was hiding envelopes full of cash all over the place in the same area a few weeks ago, and I have never found one, but a CD? I have no problem finding it, go figure.
The four Joyce Manor guys took the Amoeba stage in the most casual way, and right away started playing their punk anthems in front of an ecstatic crowd; it’s simple, the bunch of dark-haired girls behind me instantaneously morphed themselves into a choir of chanting-screaming females as soon as the band played the first note
a mix of old and new songs and this acoustic setting was perfectly suited for these new ones, whose quiet music could evoke still wilderness, forests covered by untouched snow or calm lakes,… I mean any kind of similar imagery would match Church’s nostalgic soundscape
You know how it works, only people who disagree protest, but if Facebook comments can be any indication of the success of a festival, well, this Made in America thing
If you don’t appreciate modern art, you obviously will have a hard time to appreciate anything over there, and I was quite confused about a lot of things (if not everything) presented in the exhibit. Beck’s brother makes hand-knitted constructions, stretched on wood frames, like the one you can admire above, and he builds them from scratch
I spotted a few people who were already at Corners’ first week residency, and even talked to two of them,… this wasn’t a surprise, I was certain people would come back to experience Corners’ awesome sound. This time, I didn’t dropped my camera, but the Echo was as crowded and as rowdy as ever
the event will take place on September 5th at the brand newly renovated (and superb) Theater at Ace Hotel Downtown LA, secondly, the emerging artists will be picked by a totally awesome list of curators,… they seem to be a dream team I would have personally chosen to be honest: Spike Jonze, Karen O, Alex Ebert, Beck Cat Power, Shepard Fairey, Santigold and Jakob Dylan
Four years is a long time, and the band also explained that Cuomo wrote the new songs at a pace slower than usual, ‘giving the songs … time to gradually grow into their final forms’, organizing them ‘thematically around three groups of songs’ and utilizing the ‘sound from the band’s earliest days to tell new stories in 2014.’
She was bringing something fresh to the game, and managed to captivate the audience with her adorable personality, her uplifting and ascending tunes and her high-pitched voice dolling up over the pedal steel and layered guitars.
O’ Neill says she was expecting to be working and available 24/7, ‘handling Gaga’s luggage, administering her ‘medicine’, waking her up, and even ‘ensuring the promptness of a towel following a shower’. It sounds like the usual demand from a diva, but at the top of this, she was required to sleep in Gaga’s bed because the fame monster does not like to sleep alone
When Ngaujah removed his vest, then removed his shirt toward the end of the show, he almost got back into Fela’s skin, and soon more and more women stood up and shook their bodies with more or less success… it was difficult to compete with the three queens though
The story goes something like this: When director Hayley Young was thinking of how to make a video for the song, she wanted dancers from Nashville to be part of the act. A search online brought her to a routine by the Nashville Dance Center set to music from the musical Rock of Ages
Weird Al still has fun like a kid, making the same juvenile mocking face when posing with each if his fan. He actually looked like the nicest guy around, taking the time to talk with each person reaching the signing table, even arriving in advance for the signing! How many stars do that really?
I don’t know what is worse the lyrics (‘Oh! You all say/ It’s okay to be gay/ Because practically fag marriage will stay /Well this calls for some truth/You’re all insane, fags are profane’) or the terrible awful singing? It’s so bad you are gonna want to strangle the singer after just a few lines
Hip hop, R&B but also electronic dance music and beyond so what’s the problem exactly? Well it’s no mystery that the format ‘Urban’ has been associated with black music and 1Xtra is even described on its website as a ‘black music network’. Let’s be honest, urban is just a politically correct term for black music, and in this case the outrage sadly came from a racial point of view.
