Author name: Alyson Camus

News, Slideshow, Video Review

Rihanna Premieres Her New Video In An Epic Manner In Los Angeles

Of course the story of the video, if you can say that it has a coherent story, is about Rihanna and her gang kidnapping the wife of a rich accountant, so the fans’ kidnapping story was totally making sense in this context, but isn’t it a lot of effort for a short movie? According to the participants, the whole deal, including the wait to get in the bus, lasted 4 hours, 4 hours of their life to see a 7-minute clip!…Still they got to see and meet Rihanna, which has to be priceless if you are a fan. Plus she poured dollar bills on the crowd, so it was not too shabby.

Live, Slideshow

Failure At Amoeba, Tuesday June 30th 2015

They played a set of six songs, a few new ones and some old stuff, as they said, for the crowd’s greatest pleasure. Their heavy rock sound was guitar-driven with discordance and morose vocals… may be Interpol and all these new bands embracing the detached-mournful vocals have been schooled by Failure

News, Slideshow

Titus Andronicus Releases ‘The Magic Morning’, A Short Film Featuring Six Songs!

‘WATCH “Our Hero” awake to a world of wonder! GASP at the shocking secret of “The Lookalike!” MARVEL at the mysterious transformative powers of the Vernal Equinox! DANCE to those which are already being called Titus Andronicus’s Greatest Hits Yet!” UNDERSTAND the underlying themes and motifs that elevate TMLT far beyond the petty constraints of a mere “rock album” and into the realm of that which the German philosopher K. F. E. Trahndorff first called, in 1827, Gesamtkunstwerk (“total art”—look it up)!!!’

Live, Slideshow

Nathaniel Rateliff, Teenage Wrist, Phoebe Bridgers, Tennis System, Repeater At The Echo, Monday June 29th 2015 Review

They were a great surprise with a formidable energy and a lot of soul. I am not using the term soul lightly, despite the cowboy hat on the head of one of the guitarists, they undoubtedly had an old-school rhythm & blues sound, and one of their songs even had a true Sam & Dave vibe. The sax, the horns and the wobbling Hammond were part of their audacious and lively R&B, with an explosive sound and a powerhouse that may have channeled some Springsteen or Joe Cocker gig.

Live, Slideshow

Lolipalooza II Part 2, Saturday June 27th 2015 Review

He was holding his guitar very high and tight, pointing it like a gun toward the amp, he has recently collaborated with Ty Segall and his sound couldn’t have been more punk-psychedelic with a heavy layer coming straight from the 70’s.
Which makes me think, I have probably use the terms psychedelic/psychedelia way too many times in this review, but try to see 24 bands in 10 hours!

News, Slideshow

A Few More Things About Kanye West’s Gig At Glastonbury

‘We were told we only had one guest each this time,’ said The Maccabees guitarist Felix White. ‘I’ve not got that many other friends who want to come, but I’m just making a point!’ And The Maccabees were not even performing on the same stage than Kanye. ‘We were told that this viewing platform’s been set up just for Kanye so he’s got hundreds and hundreds of guests apparently,’ added White.

News, Slideshow

Devendra Banhart At LACMA, Sunday June 28th 2015: Art As Practice, Review

‘The guy from INXS has just died, I drew a monument, a scaffolding as a proof of my sorrow and at the top I put INXS. It was a way to express my sadness about losing this great pop star’. If there’s a devotional aspect to Devendra’s art, his function stays in the perpetual practice: ‘There’s no goal, it is a practice’ he repeated several times, ‘even if it is a homage’.

Live, Slideshow

Lolipalooza II At The Echo & Echoplex, Saturday June 27th 2015 Review

I wanted to call this post the small label which could because this is a real phenomenon here in Los Angeles, two minuscule labels are revolutionizing music festivals, Burger Records has its Burgerama now in its 4th year and taking some mini-Coachella proportions, then Lolipop Records has just put its second Lolipalooza – great name by the way – at the Echo/Echoplex and the festival is simply here to stay and grow every year.

News, Slideshow

Joy Division Launches New Website and Album Re-Issues

The website also includes a listen section where you can stream the iconic ‘Closer’, set to ‘photographs by Charlie Meecham, the Lancashire-based artist whose work was used on the cover of Atmosphere’. They also promise us to add more ‘specially-commissioned videos, inspired by the band, in the future’.

News, Slideshow

The Taylor Swift-Apple Conspiracy Theory

But this is beside the point, there’s more to the story, some people are becoming more and more suspicious that the whole deal was just a stunt, and that Swift was secretly cooperating with Apple from the beginning. Who are these people, some new conspiracy theorists? They are random faces on Twitter expressing doubt, but also Tom Conrad, Pandora’s co-founder, who tweeted a series of interesting sentences:

News, Slideshow

Listen To Sun Drug’s Debut EP And Attend Their Release Show On Saturday

Sun Drug’s debut EP has an expansive sound, which seems to have the ambition of arena bands such as the Strokes caught on a dark day (‘Easy in Your Attitude’) or U2 snapped on a triumphant moment (‘Wildman’). The 5 tracks have a big, epic sound built around guitars and synths, moving move from sinister dance-floors (‘Soaked’) to dreamy-psychedelic balladery (’John Fante’), with a gloomy mood floating around giant hooks and bold vocals, aggressively dominating the inventive soundscapes.

News, Slideshow

Did Michael Bublé Steal Rhett Miller’s Song?

“You know, in a restaurant you can’t really hear what’s happening. I thought, “Yeah, that’s my song. That sounds like ‘Perfume.’” Which was the single off the 97’s Grand Theatre Vol. 2 in 2011. And as the song went on I realized, wait, there’s a pre-chorus section; that’s not in the song. And then it hit the chorus, and the chorus was different from my song, but weirdly, the lyrics in the chorus were the lyrics in my song. And so I Shazam-ed it, of course, and I figured out it was the Michael Bublé song called “It’s A Beautiful Day.”

News, Slideshow

Knitting With Your Brainwaves On Music… Is This the Future Of Clothing?

‘We have plotted brainwave activity into a knitted pattern. Using a wearable, non-invasive EEG headset, we recorded users’ affective states while listening to Bach’s ‘Goldberg Variations’, concretely the aria and its first seven variations. The audio was about 10 minutes long and we downsampled each second of the signal coming from the 14 channels of the EEG device. Three main features were measured: relaxation, excitement, and cognitive load.

Recorded, Slideshow, Track Review, Upcoming Releases

Just In Time For The Season, Listen to Lael Neale’s New Song ‘Born In The Summer’

‘Born in the Summer’ is inspired by those early adolescent years of feeling awkward in your own skin and painfully self-conscious, yet knowing that someday those growing pains will recede, explains the press release.
The song is also the 8th track of Lael’s forthcoming album, ‘I’ll Be Your Man’, set to be released on July 10th

News, Slideshow

The Taylor-Swift-Is-A-Hypocrite Saga Continues

‘This contract is particularly egregious in that it not only contains an all out rights grab on the photographers’ work,’ said Goodman to Factmag, ‘whilst limiting their editorial control and ability to earn from that work — and does so without compensation — but because it does so under threat of criminal damage or destruction of property.’

News, Slideshow

The Loudness War Is Winning

As a result of the so-called loudness wars, mainstream pop releases are being pushed onto CD and into mp3 files at such high levels they’re technically much ‘hotter’ than some of the loudest acts in history, in an attempt to make them stand out from the competition

News, Slideshow

A Photographer Accuses Taylor Swift Of Hypocrisy

‘How are you any different to Apple? If you don’t like being exploited, that’s great.. make a huge statement about it, and you’ll have my support. But how about making sure you’re not guilty of the very same tactic before you have a pop at someone else?’ writes Sheldon. ‘Photographers need to earn a living as well. Like Apple, you can afford to pay for photographs so please stop forcing us to hand them over to you while you prevent us from publishing them more than once, ever.’

Elliott Smith, Slideshow

Sign A Petition To Resuscitate The Investigation Into Elliott Smith’s Death

Elliott Smith died in 2003 and the case has since been left open by the police, the investigation is in limbo and the homicide detectives who have successively been in charge of the case, have basically been waiting for new information to come to them, without actively investigating.
At worst, this petition will be an outlet for our collective frustration, at best, who knows, it may reach a good number of signatures and attract the media’s attention on a case that has been forgotten for too long.

Live, Slideshow

Motopony At The Troubadour, Thursday June 18th 2015 Review

Their music was a bit all over the place, but certainly led by a sort of psychedelic pop-folk with a modern R&B-synth twist, very dance-y, and bringing this old hippies-with-tambourines feeling into a more modern setting. But it was for the most part epic and psychic, with song titles such as ‘Gypsy Woman’ – during which Daniel Blue invited a few girls on stage to dance their heart out – and the upbeat ‘1971’ which had a screaming poppy chorus with an almost Sgt. Pepper’s catchiness

controversy, News

A New Change.Org Petition About Kurt Cobain’s Investigation Misbehaving

After noting the strange grading on ‘Soaked in Bleach’ IMDb page (probably demonstrating a manipulation of the data), after knowing about Courtney Love’s direct threats to the theaters screening SIB, I would not be surprised if people were also messing up with these petitions. However, since the previous ones have never lead anywhere, I wonder what they are afraid about?

News, Slideshow

Trump Launches His Presidential Campaign Rockin’ Neil Young

He announced his bid for the presidency with Neil Young’s ‘Rockin’ in the Free World’. What. a. joke. Except it is not one! How could a climate-change-denier pro-war billionaire think a second he could be associated with Young, the most liberal hippie of all our rock stars, who has constantly written anti-war, anti-establishment, pro-earth and pro-peace songs?

Live, Slideshow

Pretty Little Demons, Queen Kwong, Pins At The Echo, Monday June 15th 2015 Review

With their blend of retro and modern punk, they managed to open for Sleater-Kinney during their last tour, which is probably not an easy task to accomplish. An all-girl band opening for an all girl-band, just imagine the competition! But Pins doesn’t even want to look or sound like the cool trio from Olympia, they want to have fun, delivering harmonies over pop melodies, speeding up at time without going overboard, bringing head banging with a real noise punk inspiration, while letting the power chords have the best part.

News, Slideshow

Here Is A Weird (And New) Song By Refused: ‘Dawkins Christ’

And we as humans have an urge to fit in in order to make sense of this world. And really, atheism has just replaced ‘Christianity as another doctrine of how you can fit in. The song is a very complex song because it’s not only about religion or non-religion, it’s also about our own self-worth. It’s interesting to me because I’m not a religious person, but I also don’t blindly accept atheism as a doctrine. I don’t think that’s healthy, either.’

Elliott Smith, News, Not With The Band, Slideshow

Not With The Band: More About These Murder-Suicide Conspiracy Theories

In the Smith case like in the Cobain case (both cases have been heavily put in parallel lately because of these two recent movies), suicide is the easy way out for most people, suicide is more convenient, it is the lazy way of thinking since you could not have come up with an easier reasoning than this one: a depressed junky committed suicide, wow why would you believe anything else? And that’s the problem, at the end people pick what they believe, and believes work hand to hand with emotions, feelings, impressions and presumptions.

Movies, News, Slideshow

‘Soaked In Bleach’ Review

‘Soaked in Bleach’ is the culmination of the fight of his career, and the movie makes the information available for everyone, in chronological order, killing the myth and exposing the facts. I don’t know if it will make the case to be reopened, but I bet that this time it is totally Buzz-Osborne-approved.

Live, Slideshow

Holychild At Amoeba, Thursday June 11th 2015 Review

Their sound is pop explosive, bouncy and hard hitting, yes all these drums are not just there to look pretty, but at the end, everyone will only look at frontgirl Liz Nistico who sings with these sweet child-like vocals while doing her restless sexy dance. Dressed in black and glittering gold, which seem to be the official Holychild colors, she was undulating her body, jumping in the crowd, interacting with people with a large smile, looking like a new Katy Perry bouncing on joyous electro-pop or rather like an optimistic Lykke Li on ecstasy.

News, Slideshow

Ed Sheeran Wants You To Embrace Your Weirdness

‘I was a very, very weird child. I had a port-wine stain birthmark on my face that I got lasered off when I was very young; one day, they forgot to put the anesthetic on, and ever since then, I had a stutter. I also had very big, blue NHS glasses — NHS is the National Health Service, one day I hope you’ll have the same! And I lacked an eardrum on one side of my ear, so stuttering was actually the least of my problems!’

Live, Slideshow

Miami Horror At Amoeba, Tuesday June 9th 2015 Review

We wanted to move to LA for inspiration and influence more than anything. It helped us to experiment and find our own sound. If you look at a lot of the alternative electronica and dance music coming out of LA, it definitely has a feel – we love the weirdness and sunshine. It has been a strong influence on many of our favorite records from the ’60s-’80s’

controversy, News, Slideshow

The Melvins’ Buzz Osborne: ‘90% Of Montage Of Heck Is Total Bullshit’

I had told him this before and I basically reiterated, “I think that what you should do is give her everything, and run as if your very life depends on it. Sign everything over to her from this moment and just be gone. And if you need money, just go out and do a fucking solo tour, play acoustic guitar, you’ll be fine.” He felt like he was trapped. He was embarrassed by her. He wanted to divorce her. He wanted to get out of it. But he was too much of a mess to get out of it.’

Live, Slideshow

Avid Dancer At Make Music Pasadena, Saturday June 6th 2015 Review

Yeah, they were really hard to pigeonhole, and they get all sort of comparisons, but they probably don’t want to be pigeonhole as Summers is famous for saying he draws his influences from all over the place, and quite unintentionally, since he was raised in a strict Christian household and was forbidden to listen to any secular music until his late teens!

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