Don’t expect to stand silently judging with folded arms when Dante Vs. Zombies take the stage.
Former Starlite Desperation frontman Dante White-Aliano heads a posse of musicians recruited from Jail Weddings, The Like, and The Detroit Cobras (among others) on a mission to “assassinate assumptions about music no longer being fun or universal.”
The group is embarking on a brief tour of California this week with Dirty Ghosts, stopping in at The Satellite on Friday to pay respects to their hometown. Other dates include San Diego on May 2, Pomona May 3, and San Francisco on May 5.
Of all the bands to climb the U.K. charts during the heyday of the “Britpop” phenomenon, Pulp may have aged the best.
Unlike some of their peers, they never got popular enough in the U.S. to be irritating. They went on hiatus in 2001, but their fan base grew larger in their absence. Packed with cultural satire and memorable hooks, albums like Different Class (1995) seemed only to resonate more over time.
Pulp reformed last year to play a series of live shows in Europe, then gradually began adding U.S. dates, including two appearances at Coachella – their first in California since 1996. It was hardly a surprise when tickets for last Thursday’s show at the Fox Theater in Pomona sold out within minutes. By 5p.m. Thursday, people were already lined up in front of the theater, anxious to see the group perform outside of a festival setting.
Los Angeles-based psychedelic cowboys Spindrift are taking a break from recording the follow-up to last year’s Classic Soundtracks Vol. 1., as they prepare to embark on a series of dates en route to the Austin Psych Fest. We spoke with bassist Henry Evans about the evolution of the band, their soundtrack work, and the story behind his mean double neck guitar.
Spindrift plays April 19 at Los Globos with Gram Rabbit and Sexywaterspiders.
Is the show this Thursday officially the beginning of the tour?
Yeah, that’s right. We built the tour around the Austin Psych Fest, which is put on by The Black Angels. They’re good friends of ours. We were on tour with them at the end of last year, and we said, “if you guys want us, we’d love to do it.”
We play the Psych Fest every other year it seems. That’s sort of how it works out. The first year we were there, and then skipped one, did one, skipped one, and now here we are again.
You just played in Ojai for the New Los Angeles Folk Festival.
Yes we did, and it was awesome. I think it was the first time any of us had been out there. It was so gorgeous. The show was a blast, everybody had a lot of fun. There were tons of people, and the bar (Deer Lodge) was really cool.
It’s not always easy to know what to expect from a Psychic TV concert. The band has been many things over the course of its 30-odd year career. There was the early video art/noise collage phase in the ’80s, then there was the acid house techno phase in the ’90s. Earlier in this decade, more was heard about frontperson Genesis Breyer P-Orridge’s interest in body modification than about the music of his longest-running band.
Therefore, it comes as a pleasant surprise to learn that the latest incarnation of Psychic TV is one of the best psychedelic rock bands currently active.
We caught a portion of their set at SXSW last year, and it was intriguing enough to warrant a closer look. Did they really play a reverent cover of Funkadelic chestnut “Maggotbrain,” or had the Texas heat simply messed with our heads?
David J. Haskins is primarily known to music fans as the former bassist for Bauhaus and Love and Rockets. In the past few years, he has made his mark in Los Angeles with a series of innovative cabaret-style theater productions. These have included such darkly glamorous subject matter as the Black Dahlia murders, and the life and tragic death of Warhol star Edie Sedgwick.
David’s new album Not Long for This World is a haunting collection of eulogies inspired in part by his recent theatrical work. The songs strike a perfect balance between humor and sadness, and include unique takes on compositions by Tom Waits, Bill Callahan, and Dennis Wilson. We spoke with David about the album and his upcoming revival of Silver for Gold: The Odyssey of Edie Sedgwick.
How long have you been working on the new album?
It goes back a few years. I didn’t go in, do one session, and focus on the record. Although I did do that towards the end when I realized I was making an album. The oldest track is this song for Elliot Smith, “Dagger in the Well,” which I wrote the day it was announced that he was dead. I recorded a basic version, with just acoustic guitar and vocal, the day after that. It just sat on the shelf. It was one of the last things that was finished for the album, because we added all the other instruments on top of that.
Cinefamily has been celebrating both Halloween and their four-year anniversary with a month-long festival of horror movies and events at their home base, the Silent Movie Theater on Fairfax. Last Wednesday featured a rare musical performance by horror movie soundtrack cover band Nilbog.
In a city clogged with hopeful young bands vying for the spotlight, Nilbog has found a unique niche to pursue. Their mutual love for horror films of the 70s and 80s is apparent in the meticulous attention to detail these musicians display when performing the works of Goblin, Ennio Morricone, John Carpenter, and Giorgio Moroder.
Since 2005, the Clean Air Clear Stars Global Cooling Festival has drawn music fans out to the dusty plains of Pioneertown to enjoy a weekend of entertainment and revelry under the expansive desert skyline.
The purpose of the festival is to raise money for ecological charities, with proceeds this year set aside to benefit the Arbor Day Foundation. Bands from all over the world (but mainly California, Portland and England) showed up to perform over two days last weekend. We were on hand to join in the festivities and attempt to document the experience.
Los Angeles psychedelic rockers Spindrift have never shied away from proclaiming their love of cinema, particularly spaghetti westerns, noir, exploitation, and other cult genres.
Their previous album The Legend of God’s Gun became the soundtrack to a movie after its initial release, thanks to the intervention of director Mike Bruce. For their next album, the band chose to work with several different filmmakers, creating soundtracks to a series of short films. The result was Classic Soundtracks Vol. 1.
Los Angeles resident Jeff Martin has been recording and performing music under the moniker Idaho for close to two decades. He originally formed the band with guitarist John Berry, releasing the cathartic “slowcore” album Year After Year in 1993. Subsequent releases found Idaho existing as both a solo project for Martin as well as a full-fledged band. In the second half of the 90s, Martin collaborated with guitarist Dan Seta to develop a more subtle version of the Idaho sound.
Since 2001, Martin has primarily worked alone in his Laurel Canyon studio, splitting his time between Idaho releases and soundtrack work. His latest album You Were A Dick is available in a variety of formats: Vinyl, CD, mp3, and even a bonus DVD of high resolution files via Martin’s label Idahomusic.
We spoke with Martin about his recording process, current film projects, and even got into some tech stuff for the audiophiles out there.
Last Friday at the Los Angeles Zoo and Botanical Gardens, the air echoed with the usual sounds of animals and children crying out in the night. Yet there was another sound, something less familiar to this setting: guitars and drums. It was all according to plan, as the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Association presented Music In the Zoo: Local Scene Night.
Eight bands performed Between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m., spread throughout the zoo on different stages: Abe Vigoda, Big Search, Hands, Pollyn, Allah Las, Kitten, Mini Mansions and HoneyHoney. While the animals were still the main attraction, the families strolling through the grounds seemed to welcome the addition of something new to the menu.
Don’t expect to stand silently judging with folded arms when Dante Vs. Zombies take the stage.
