He seemed to strongly believe in it just a few weeks ago, but Kanye wouldn’t possibly be part of a failure, his ego wouldn’t possibly envision it…. I am so tempted to quote the old adage, rats always abandon a sinking ship? Did I just compare Kanye to a rat? Is that blasphemy?
if this name does not ring a bell for you, let’s just say he plays in the popular band Tame Impala! The psych-pop Aussie band was playing at Coachella and this can explain why Cameron was around, but he is more than a bassist in an ascending-to-fame young band
I am blasting ‘Sound & Color’, the new Alabama Shakes album at home, I could not get a ticket to see them in Jimmy Kimmel Live, I wasn’t invited to their intimate performance at Apogee Studios in Santa Monica arranged for the press, but I just got to see their signing at Amoeba on Tuesday night. Better than nothing
Contrarily to Young, Dolenz is not in the music business anymore and he is totally involved with the craft of his daughter Georgia: They are making beautiful wooden furniture together. It all started as a hobby, but since 2013 the two of them have a real business, making handmade furniture in his home woodshop west of Los Angeles
The joyful tune sounds like an instant country classic for sure, and who could have thought that the drug revolution would have come from two octogenarians? (Willie is 81, Merle 78)… We live in a weed culture, and for once, we got grandpas for leaders!
This is what happens when you have a hipster running the city hall… are Los Angelinos ready for more stuff like this? Mayor Eric Garcetti, who is always concerned by (bad) music, will give you, in collaboration with Dim Mak Records, ‘LAoki’, a free Steve Aoki downtown LA on Saturday May 16th.
if you believe in this new interpretation by Traczyk , the real soundtrack of the universe is not some Mozart-like requiem, not even like Strauss’ ‘Also Sprach Zarathustra’ as Kubrick thought, it is heavy, very heavy metal.
I could tell the audience was mixed, made of old timers punks, probably following Mike’s career since the good old days, and young lookers, part of the usual crowd at Space 15Twenty, the mini-mall which harbors stores like Free People and Urban Outfitters, selling the Bohemian-Coachella look to hipsters
there was an art party at Space 15Twenty as TV on the radio’s Tunde Adebimpe and Julian Gross (‘Seeds’ artist, who designed the cover of the band’s last album) had decided to draw caricatures of people shopping at Amoeba and Space 15Twenty… How cool of them
Noah Lennox was not even hiding this time, still standing behind what it looked like a very complex soundboard, connected to a million electric threads but gloriously playing in front of colorful video projections, bigger and more kaleidoscopic than ever… may be he has read all these critiques calling his music, precisely, a kaleidoscope of sounds,
Reify is a ‘collective of visual artists, musicians, designers & technologists who are driven by a shared curiosity in the interplay of form and meaning — a digital synesthesia’…what a cool way to make a living!
If Hadreas was the queen of the night, Interpol were the kings, bringing their powerful guitars in full action and having a triumphant night. The crowd was so enthusiastic, they had to come for a second encore, and, toward the end of the show, some puissant girls pushed people to get in the front, and even started a serious brawl just behind me
‘the two of us — me and Bob — don’t look like we belong together in the same band, which is something I’ve always loved. I’ll look at photos of us together sometimes and just be struck by what a strange-looking team we are. But that’s what makes us special.’
We wouldn’t have joined it anyway, even if they had asked. We don’t want to be tribal. I think smaller bands should get paid more for it, too. Bigger bands have other ways of making money, so I don’t think you can complain. A band of our size shouldn’t be complaining. And when they say it’s artist-owned, it’s owned by those rich, wealthy artists.’
‘My parents were many things, but homophobic they were not. In fact, they were blazing liberals. They were caught in a bewildering web of guilt, fear, and poor psychiatric care. Did they make a mistake in not challenging the doctor’s recommendation for ECT? Absolutely.
He jumped in the pit, making sure to shake everyone’s hands, signing vinyl, posing for selfies,… people were rushing at the front, I got crushed, and I wasn’t even really trying to fight, but when Tillman arrived at my level, I saw his blue eyes, his hand reaching mine for a frank handshake and I heard a ‘Thank you for coming’… wow, what was the myth he was trying to build?
The problem in the story is that we never know how much the labels get from streamed music of a specific artist, so we have no benchmarks. Why aren’t labels releasing the numbers? Because they are ashamed of them… If artists aren’t making money, Spotify isn’t still making any money, someone has to make a fortune
Artpop’ was conceived in direct connection with the Velvet Underground, Gaga’s ‘Dope’ was the VU’s ‘Heroin’, ‘G.U.Y.’ was ‘Walk on the Wild Side’… ‘MANICURE’ was ‘I’ll be your Mirror’… oh poor Nico!… ‘Applause’ with the opening verse ‘I stand here waiting for you to bang the gong’, is Reed’s ‘I’m Waiting for the Man’, although they are not exactly waiting for the same thing… So, demos were sent to Reed in November 2012, and Reed didn’t answer, but when he did, he replied ‘I have no interest in any further involvement.’
Most of his songs are delivered in a slow pace, with a melancholic, solemn, almost severe tone, that was inspiring respect and a complete silence from the public who seemed to have been composed of the quietest people I had ever been with. He had more upbeat tunes, but, even there, the moaning and the mourning dominated the climate.
Pretty girls, sure, lot of skin and useless accessories, but are these people really attending a music festival or are they attending a fashion gig? Are they just here to show off their highly-researched bohemian look? Has Coachella become a fashion show?
‘I found his actual suicide letter, which was unexpected. I just opened up this heart shaped box and there it was. And I was like ‘Based on everything I’ve witnessed, this makes no sense.’ Kurt didn’t have a problem with quitting music; he talked about it openly. If he wanted to stop performing, he would just stop. Nothing was leading up to that suicide letter.’
Vocals are front row in her music, and her very pretty and piercing voice was harmonizing very high with another girl’s backup vocals, over romantic pop songs,… sure, what else? This is a love column after all! The songs were very poppy and upbeat
We still don’t know much about Tidal, but according to The Verge,Tidal reportedly offered millions of dollars and an equity stake to artists such as Coldplay, Rihanna, Daft Punk, Alicia Keys, Calvin Harris, Jack White, Madonna, Usher, Arcade Fire, Deadmau5,… in exchange of their exclusive conten
“The funny thing is that the Dead has always used money order to sell presale tickets, and they continued to do it. ‘In 2015 it’s beyond obsolete. And yet, $90 million flowed into the Stinson Beach post office for tickets to go to these shows. It’s nuts.’
Remember about The National’s performance at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 2013? They repeatedly played the same song (‘Sorrow’) over and over for six hours…. What. a. bore. No, this is not even close to what they think, since they want to release the damn thing!
Nick Cave can fill the 600 seats of the Grauman’s Egyptian theater, and just discuss his new book while not singing a single song? The evening was priced as high as a musical performance and the performance part was limited to him reciting a few of his incredible texts, but at this point many people (me included) would pay to see him just reading the phone book
Record Store Day is around the corner and horror! Some of the Record Store Day deals are already sold on eBay! According to many media outlets and Reddit threads, a few releases, that should only be available ton April 18th, are already showing up on the online store.
‘In response to recent articles regarding comments from Kurt’s daughter, Frances, I want to make it clear that Frances is an innocent victim here. The real questions is; What does Frances really KNOW as opposed to WHAT SHE’S BEEN TOLD?’ Exactly!
So in anticipation to Nick Cave’s discussion about ‘The Sick Bag Song’, here is the review I wrote following his show at the Fonda in February 2013… Tonight, someone in the audience reminded him how amazing this particular show was,… although Nick Cave said at one point he never remembers anything about his performances.
I like them, I have seen this band a few times live as I have been following them since their beginnings, and they seem to continue in this same direction, according a lot of attention to adventure and details and this video is no exception.
Lennon was not killed by Mark David Chapman as everyone thinks, but by bestseller author Stephen King, who was actually backed up by Nixon and Reagan. To be honest, it’s not the first time I hear about a government conspiracy related to Lennon’s murder, but what does King have to do with all this?
New week, new songs,…. it’s true, so many bands release songs at the beginning of a commencing week. Today we can listen to material from three bands that had temporarily disappeared from our radar, so here are one relaxing tune and two other songs that will shake you up.
As it is the case each year, there are bands I am familiar with and new ones I’ll discover. So far I would recommend a few bands I have already seen: How to dress Well, which is Tom Krell’s project and a very personal R&B re-interpretation,… be prepared for a strong Michael Jackson vibe, but the result is more intense and experimental than anything the king of pop has ever put out
Stabbing is a very painful way to kill yourself. Those who commit suicide by knife tend to have very deep personality disturbances. And it is more difficult to stab oneself through clothing, requires a lot of strength to do that to yourself (unless the clothing is a thin T-shirt). Being very depressed won’t make it any less painful. There WILL be hesitation marks.
The average age of death of this list is 56.6 without the last two, and 58.3 when they are included, and despite the fact that this quick survey is far from being an extensive study, this shows that, this year too, musicians died very young and the numbers verify the studies.
She called Indiana governor Mike Pence an asshole on Instagram, because he passed a controversial bill on March 26th, prohibiting state and local governments from hindering a person’s right to practice their religion… Although the bill doesn’t specifically mention sexual orientation, many worry it will also make it possible for employers to discriminate against gay candidates
In other Coachella-related news, say goodbye to porta-potties, and there are pictures to prove it! Curbed LA has posted a few pictures, and these have real and permanent bathrooms!! They will be located in the “terrace” section of the venue, and the concrete block building will hold 324 stalls
There is a very simple test you can do on Tidal, it allows you to play five songs (you don’t pick the songs, and I got the Killers, James Blake, Daft Punk, the Eagles and the Dixie Chicks) using two sound sources A and B. You can switch back and forth between A and B during the short music sample, then determine which of the two is the high fidelity sound source. I was using my Macbook connected to a Logitech speaker system. I paid around $40 for them and they sound okay for me, but I did very badly at the test, I guessed 2 out of 5 correctly!! Not bad? Are they kidding?
Taylor Swift was spotted in Los Angeles at a Haim concert at the Troubadour on Thursday…. And she was holding hands with Calvin Harris… the world’s highest paid DJ with the world’s highest paid pop star, what a power couple! And both highly overrated! But we already know it won’t last for very long.
And this is what Jarvis had to add:’ Generally speaking, the more money a band has, the worse their records get …’ Well, this is true’ agrees Iggy. Nothing truer has ever been spoken.
We shall breast the tape at Barcelona and Murcia (Spain) in April and May, and then we square up for four nights at the Sydney Opera House in Australia. Good times for a change. Is it illegal to be this happy? Thank you, also, to everyone who has managed to download “Kiss me a lot” from iTunes. We value your interest and encouragement beyond measure.
the Beach Boys’ iconic catalog was brushed (in not the right order) by Norah Jones and Gingger Shankar, Heart’s Ann Wilson, The Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne and Steve Drozd, Devendra Banhart, Monters of Folk’s M. Ward, Al Jardine, Blondie Chaplin, Boz Scaggs, Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino, Local Natives, Capital Cities’ Sebu Simonian, Wilson Philips, Karen Elson, ex Magnetic Zeros’ Jade Castrinos, Adam Busch and Danny Masterson, Lucius’ Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig, Doyle Bramhall II, Punch Brothers, Civil Wars’ Joy Williams, Kesha….
In 2010 I had the pleasure to interview Darryl Jennifer of the legendary punk band Bad Brains, just before his performance at the Sunset Junction Fair. I met him in his Hotel room in the middle of the afternoon, and I had this great conservation with Darryl – AC
Let’s hope Moby’s enterprise will not be among these failures, I just wonder whether he has more of a Jay Z-Bono-Timberlake business sense than a Spears-Lopez-Hynde’s. One thing is sure I would die rather than trying Keith or Queen Latifah’s greasy meat, but I may check out Moby’s vegan place this summer.
For the second day at Burgerama, I adopted a slightly different strategy, instead of trying to see as many bands as possible, I tried to see less of them but
The nice people at Burgerama gave me a photo pass so I had access to the photo pit, which is certainly a delight but also a terrible temptation to take as many pictures as possible… This is just what I did, and I ended up with hundreds of photos to sort out today! The pictures reflect the best moments of these two days
Jay Z recently purchased the streaming service for some $56 million and he wants to make it as a competitor to Spotify, or Rdio. Alicia called it the ‘beginning of a whole new era’,… but for whom exactly? A new era for Jay Z and Madonna to make even more money? What’s new exactly? A new sound? a better listening experience?
I thought for a minute I knew all the songs of Weezer, but I realized it was because the band may have played all its greatest hits… From ‘My Name is Jonas’ to ‘Hash Pipe’, ‘El Scorcho’, ‘Go Away’, ‘Island in the Sun’, ‘Beverly Hills’, ‘Say it Ain’t so’, ‘Pork and Beans’, ‘Undone’, ‘Buddy Holly’, yes it was a real crowd pleaser
The access between both stages was really a pain, I had a photo access but not an all-access pass, and I got lost a few times backstage trying to find a shortcut to avoid the dense crowd, but was stopped several times by security guards. Getting inside the Observatory through a narrow corridor was more and more ridiculous, and I heard a few photographers complain about it. And by 5 pm, I was getting tired of this maze
Shaw read a few excerpt of his book, spoken word style, accompanied by some music by Gregg Foreman of Cat Power, and Brandon Burkart of The Saint James Society. The funny thing is that he was reading most of it from his phone (he wrote his whole book on his phone as he is allergic to computers)
