Since the time I have started covering music festivals, I have realized what a tough job it is: you have to go from one stage to another, try to see as many bands as possible, take pictures, shoot videos, take notes of course, and eventually remember about the sound of this specific band after having seen ten other ones afterward…. It’s very different from covering one show,
No rain or mud for me at the Jubilee Music and Arts Festival – as Iman had to endure at the Governor’s Ball – just nice temperatures and a noticeable cool down at night, but that’s the reason why California is the best place for outdoor festivals. This year, the Jubilee had moved in the Arts District Downtown Los Angeles, and the urban setting changed the feeling of the Fest a bit.
Obliterations were next on the main stage of the Jubilee, and as expected, they became some furious and angry long-haired animals. Their set was all about loudness and aggression anchored into distortion, Sam James Velde’s raucous screams and guitar riffs going from metal to punk hardcore.
As many others probably did, I discovered Big Star’s music trough other artists, since Beck, Wilco and Elliott Smith have covered their songs, Elliott Smith, in particularly was fond of them, live, he covered ‘Thirteen’, ‘Nightime’, ‘Stroke it Noel’, and his cover of ‘Thirteen’ was featured in Mike Mills’ movie ‘Thumbsucker’, as well as in Jem Cohen’s short film ‘Lucky Three’.
Sure the Stones don’t need any publicity, or may be they do? These $600 seats were not selling that fast after all. Anyway, they did it because they could, they are rock’ n‘ roll royalties and everyone who would refuse to sing with Jagger would be a fool
Actually, Beck is ready to release not one but two albums this year, first an acoustic album (and his first one since 2008’s ‘Modern Guilt’) set for this fall, and a second one which may be a proper follow-up to ‘Modern Guilt’. He has also left his label and the two albums will be released independently this yea
Nine Inch Nails are back and they came back haunted, at least this is the
There was a sort of ghost floating over many tracks, especially because of all these angelic humming back up voices, and the ghost become visible as Coco announced a song which was entitled ‘Neverland’,… Michael Jackson was obviously a big influence for her and that’s why my first Diana Ross impression was not that far away from Quadron’s reality.
Paris was recently bullied at school, and if we don’t know the exact nature of the bullying, I can imagine that the question of his father’s behavior with children has probably come up.
Finalist for the UCLA Jazz Reggae Festival in 2012, he looked comfortable while performing but couldn’t hide his anxiety between the songs, … ‘I have been doing this for two years and it doesn’t stop being scary’ he said at one point while he had visibly already made a huge impression on the crowd
Their voices were complementing themselves extremely well, their layered and complex harmonies were very precise, almost flexible in the way they were done, and the music was heartwarming, fluid and loose with some jazzy flavors. I have totally distanced myself from the current R&B trend
I mean, at the end of their set, she looked as fresh as before in her black and white outfit. Her bold presence on stage was attracting everyone’s attention, and she was not totally singing, rather talking-singing during ‘Paradise Engineering’ which immediately reminded me David Byrne’s style in ‘Once in a Lifetime’… wow good sign!
Although, I don’t think Mumford & Sons really care to be compared to one of the world’s largest professional accounting firm since it’s working all right for them! But their folk-bluegrass-country mix played by guys in Oliver Twist costumes couldn’t passed for authenticity for someone like Smit
f there was weirdness and electronic dissonance or some occasional high-frequency screes, the vocals were always in the front, and there was also enough of that Death Cab for Cutie vibe (or even Beck?) to satisfy any pop lover. The lyrics were clear, direct and repetitive like ‘Be not afraid it’s just a game’ or ’did I make you fucking dance’ while he was sculpting his sound with laptops
Music is free on the internet, there is almost no value to a MP3, a total paradox for people which value music. And this may be a reason why we don’t hesitate to spend a fortune on concert tickets. Furthermore, we are social animals and we crave for these social interactions that the digital age has erased, and the dematerialization of music has brought us back to the pre-historic start when we were listening to a singer around a fire, technology has brought us back to live performances.
Their effervescent electro-pop was marvelously working on the crowd as the sextet had visibly a lot of fun in their hometown, and they managed to brighten the atmosphere already extremely sunny, with a set of 10 uplifting songs. Youngblood Hawke on stage is a really enjoyable spectacle, they constantly deploy a non-stop energy
Officially, she died from an heroin overdose and her friend Paul Erickson found her dead, on June 16th 1994, locked in her bathroom with some drug paraphernalia on the floor. The last person who saw her alive was Hole guitarist and boyfriend Eric Erlandson, who visited her the evening before
Despite the numerous influences, which seemed to be all over the music map, their sound had a real uniformity and their compositions were silky, introducing just enough experimentation to keep you interested without forgetting about the melodies and the poppy hooks. I see so many bands, I had a little forgotten about United Ghosts’s music
‘Well I’m just over here to do a few shows and really say hello to England, then I’m going back to Seattle on Tuesday and then I’m going on a tour in America with this kid called Elliott Smith who sings with a sort of punk band called Heatmiser and he’s got a seven inch out on Kill Rock Stars and we’re going to do like a two month tour of the States…’
Last time I saw them they were a trio, but this time there were five musicians behind José Gonzalez, who was finger picking his guitar, standing in the middle of the stage. Around him, Tobias Winkerton on moog synth, Elias Araya on drums, as well as three other persons on tropical percussion, more synth and bass,
According to Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Steve Whithmore, Johnson wanted to confront Bieber about his reckless driving, as he got scared for his 3-year-old daughter, who was outside playing in the driveway, when Bieber was speeding
‘I put an ad on Craigslist that said, ‘Band in the style of Hole looking for bassist in the style of Melissa Auf der Maur
they have moved away from this light melody-driven sound. Their last album, ‘The Terror’, is nothing like ‘Your Face Can tell The Future’ which is featured on ‘True Blood: Music From The HBO Original Series Volume 4’ just released on May 28th via ATO Records
I couldn’t be more wrong, this uniformity, this total lack of individuality and originality is so depressing that I am about to lose any little faith in humanity I still had!
Flaming Lips had asked their fans to create the craziest-weirdest t-shirt ever to celebrate their last album ‘The Terror’, quite appropriately entitled considering what these people from Oklahoma have just endured. With the help of Threadless – the website selling the t-shirts – they now have announced that $10 for every t-shirt sold will go to the American Red Cross to benefit the Oklahoma tornado victims.
The real deal if you like an aggressive sound built in distortion, velocity, noisy guitars and screamed vocals, the kind of sound that installs terror, chaos and destruction in your mind, with the kind of nihilistic lyrics that would scare the Jesus out of any good Christian,
The crowd chanting ‘Kanye’ or ‘Yeezus’ didn’t change anything. So what went on exactly? Did the police order to shut down the projections because they were too controversial for Texas? Was Kayne West’s video a threat? Were they expecting a riot?
So no more fireworks in the butt from Hank, but Sylvester was completely at ease in the middle of this mix of homosexual aesthetics, sex and anal references, and overall falsely macho attitude, that was making some guys in the crowd super excited. The band’s music has been described as a mix of hard rock, punk hardcore, and glam rock
you know that 46% of Americans still believe that God created humans in their present form during the last 10,000 years, even when they are presented 2 million-year-old hominid fossils? I know it too well as, when I teach evolution, I come to the sad realization that many people are still creationists and aren’t open to scientific ideas.
I understand that most of these associations were made on the basis of shared initials (when it was possible) because the first letter is a big part of a logo design, but some are very awkward, like Darwin as Danzig… so much to bring Darwin closer to satanic science!
The band is accusing their ex-frontman of ‘hijacking its name and songs to promote his solo career’. They even claim that Weiland’s lawyer called Los Angeles popular radio KROQ to tell them that they would infringe Scott Weiland’s rights if they ever play the band’s new single ‘Out of Time’.
The music was flooding the space and the monster sound was the kind of thing my iPhone couldn’t handle – I tried to film a little bit when the guard wasn’t watching but it sounds like crap.
I don’t care about the helmets, it’s just a gimmick, but they make 80s disco music that I have heard a million times before. Nevertheless, according to NME, they ‘are on course for the fastest selling album of 2013 with Random Acess memories’
he dark and tiny nightclub – I have been inside several times and it’s quite small, especially the toilets! – was originally opened by Johnny Depp, and has been the place to be on a Saturday night since the 90s, the place where some celebrities like Mick Jagger, Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Billy Idol, or Iggy Pop would occasionally make a surprise apparition late at night
What I get from this short one-minute-and-half tease, is a feeling of togetherness expressed by all these people, who are all united under the same unconditional love for the boss. Think what you want about Springsteen, but there’s obviously something special about him to command such a huge crowd.
Despite all this darkness and bleakness, the trio was very jovial, Elena Tonra was giggling all the time, and she thanked many times the crowd for ‘being so nice’. They have just released their first LP ‘If You Leave’, were signing copies after the show, and all these people in line had certainly perceived the emotional and painful beauty of Daughter’s songs
So what do you think, is it inventive and classy or pretentious and self-centered? People are saying it has to be a girl because of the girlie nature of the invite, but who knows with these two?
Can you believe it? People have barely emerged from the torpor of last month festival and hipsters still have their 2013 Coachella bands around their wrists, that we are thinking about next year! And all this without a lineup in view before almost a year!
Remember, this is the 25-member group that regularly gives us a capella covers of famous songs, coming from all over the indie spectrum in beyond, with choral arrangements and layered vocals. They can go from Beck to Muse, from Regina Spektor to Phoenix with the same conviction and have been described as the hipster answer to Glee,
Live, Laura is very serious, meticulous, concentrated on her playing, emerged in her art, only cracking a smile when her guitar is out of tune, ‘I should get another guitar’,
Of course, some avid fan did a recording of some of the new ones and you can watch ‘Sorry’ and ‘Heaven’s Ladder’ below, filmed by someone who must have been just below Beck’s nose. ‘Sorry’ is rather upbeat with a catchy chorus ‘Used to be happy/ Used to be laughing’ and a very-Beck bridge, but nothing really memorable lyrics-wise
Curiously, we have a tendency to think that uplifting music or some other upbeat stimulus would cheer us up in this case, effectively wouldn’t you think to console a friend who is going through a bad break-up by bringing him to some cheerful event for example? But hell no, this research totally contradicts the common opinion
he band has effectively done a certain number of cover songs, and this is not an easy art. If everybody can learn somebody else’s song, not everyone can appropriate it, transform it without torture it, and QOSTA does exactly this: they manage to make the songs their owns by injecting in them their unique sound, while always remaining loyal to the originals.
People had heard about the news and a nice crowd had gathered in front of the club where the Rolling Stones played just a few weeks ago. Err, no they didn’t cover the Stones, but they did cover The Who by the way, and I think it was ‘A Quick One While He’s Away’.
Now I am certainly no fan of these bands, but apparently, it was a real surprise beside the already established fact that Scott Weiland has really been fired from the band. Guitarist Dean DeLeo had this to say: ‘Chester has a one-of-a-kind voice that we’ve admired for a long time. We know Linkin Park will always be his priority, but we thought it would be cool to try something together.
New York (or New Jersey should I say?) has intellectual punk Titus Andronicus making all these references to Albert Camus and Shakespeare. Los Angeles has riotous punk FIDLAR making references to coke, weed, skates and cheap beers… Both bands are young and bring tons of punk energy to their shows but don’t seem to come from the same place… existentialism versus teenage boredom,
You can count on Kayne West to stick to humbleness and lo-fi self-presentation,… nah the rapper who has recently introduced himself as ‘God’, has just decided to project a video of his face singing his new single on 66 different buildings around the globe.
Sometimes I wish I could wake up/And see you lying there like it is 1999’ he sings in the hooky chorus’, 1999 is not that long ago but Simon seems either to have a secret love for everything vintage or retro, or to remember 1999 as something coming from a remote past. Who still uses a toy slide-viewer? Who still uses an old-fashioned camera to take pictures?
The almost 55-year-old has always wanted to feel good and look young, and that’s why he has surrounded himself with a new band of 20 something people, however, and that’s a huge contradiction for me, ‘he dodged questions about the state’s new marriage-equality law’
So many indie bands sound alike, but Infantree was showing a real uniqueness which was certainly borrowing from the 70s and way beyond, ‘Fibber’ had a little bit of this Jefferson-Airplane-Grateful-Dead-CSN-hippie generation smoking through the cracks of the song
