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11.20.09 | The Casbah | San Diego, CA In case you missed it, The xx have turned into something of a phenomenon. It’s almost as if these painfully young (20!) British kids are living out the indie rock dream on fast forward: drop a hit record in October, sell out shows across North America, lose your keyboardist to stress and the rigors of the road. Even more endearingly – they’re not even headlining the current tour – Friendly Fires are. These kids blew up after the tourdates were booked...
11.17.09 | Wiltern Theatre | Los Angeles, CA I don’t normally do pre-sale ticket orders on Ticketbastard but occasionally a band comes around that you know you have to see and you know everyone else will want to see also. And as I entered the Wiltern Theatre on Tuesday it was pretty obvious the show was a sell out and I had been correct in my assumptions. Yet another super group has formed but this one with a pretty high pedigree in the world of rock, compared to say ‘Tinted Windows’. Them Crooked Vultures...
11.6.09 | House of Blues | Los Angeles, CA Last Friday the House of Blues hosted the first night of the Pac Sun tour featuring Saosin as the headlining act. The venue was absolutely packed with kids who came out to support the rising stars of the Alternative Music genre. Of the few bands on the bill, the most memorable acts were Saosin, and opening newcomers Innerpartysystem...
10.29.09 | Velvet Jones | Santa Barbara, CA A Nico Vega show is a visceral experience, touching as much on the senses as that little piece deep inside all of us. It is this same piece that produces butterflies when we fall in love and is responsible for those tingles that run down your spine. Nico Vega is love...
10.28.09 | House of Blues | Chicago, IL A sold out crowd waited anxiously for Taking Back Sunday to take the stage Wednesday night in Chicago. Drunk frat boys and their girlfriends, young girls with Backstreet Boys style, those with intense love for lead singer Adam Lazzara, and people like me who simply grew up on Taking Back Sunday’s first album Tell All Your Friends were in attendance, expecting the high energy live show TBS is known to put on. Time passed. We all waited...
10.15.09 | Riviera Theatre | Chicago, IL Drive A opened up the show to a sold out, sleepy crowd in Chicago. It was nice to hear a straight up punk rock band start out the night, and they brought an in your face sound to the stage. Drive A had a little trouble waking up the crowd, who seemed to still be visiting Sleepy Town, but they had their own methods of attack on the audience...
10.12.09 | House of Blues | Chicago, IL Steel Train has a classic rock feel to them that I love. In a music world filled with so many genres, sometimes it’s nice to see a band with a simple, traditional rock n’ roll sound. Lead singer and guitarist Jack Antonoff, who was sporting a curly haired fro when I last saw Steel Train, now has a hairstyle to go with his fashion sense. He looked like a full on greaser from the 50s. Danny Zuko’s long-lost cousin, perhaps...
10.3.09 | Aragon Ballroom | Chicago, IL Soul-saving. That’s the phrase I heard continuously after seeing Brand New in Chicago. Amidst the usual comments of “great,” “awesome,” and “really amazing” that you typically hear after a good show, “soul saving” stands out immediately. I mean, really, can a band’s performance make you feel that intensely?...
9.25.09 | The Shore | Long Beach, CA All, right, this is a new one, even for me. I confess, I have seen plenty of concerts in a variety of different venues, but never a hotel. I have seen more basement shows in my time than I can count and have gone from crowded pubs in Boston, to an abandoned Elk’s lodge, a church basement, all the way to major stadium shows and amphitheaters… but a hotel is a first for me, let alone a FESTIVAL in a hotel...
9.24.09 | Schuba’s | Chicago, IL Fun, the new brainchild of Nate Ruess, formerly of The Format, were playing one of the last shows of their very first headlining tour in the small room tucked in the back of a bar that is Schuba’s in Chicago. Their debut album, Aim & Ignite, was released at the end of August. It is a quirky combination of indie rock and pop. A pop album without the cliché sugary sweetness and dumbed down lyrics and with more, let’s say, genuine qualities than traditional things that come to mind when one hears the word “pop.”...
9.18.09 | Downtown Brewing Company | San Luis Obispo, CA This review is not about The Dresden Dolls, but it is hard to mention The World/Inferno Friendship Society on their latest tour without at least acknowledging that Brian Viglione from The Dresden Dolls brought his world class drumming in support of World/Inferno for this tour, and hopefully many more in the future. I love The Dresden Dolls, but The World/Inferno Friendship Society stands firmly on their own crazy legs...
9.17.09 | Knitting Factory | Los Angeles, CA Stephan Groth is Apoptygma Berzerk. Keeping that in mind is essential when you consider the myriad changes to the band’s line-up over the past 20 years, and especially since the beginning of this summer. Having a chance to interview Groth a few hours before...
9.17.09 | House of Blues | Chicago, IL Having been to a few Family Force 5 shows, I had an idea of what to expect at the kickoff show of the Dance Rawr Dance 3 Tour in Chicago. What I expected was this: an over the top, crazy costumed, sweet dance move inducing party of a show. And like I expected, Family Force 5 delivered...
9.16.09 | Metro | Chicago, IL One of my favorite things about watching a band perform is getting a glimpse into exactly what they feel when they play a certain beat, strum a certain chord, sing a certain lyric. You can tell a lot about how genuine a band is by the way they perform their music. Canada’s own Billy Talent provide a deep look into just how much they feel the music they’re playing at their live shows...
9.14.09 | Spaceland | Los Angeles, CA Weekly residencies at Spaceland always offer something unique in the way of live performance. Los Angeles based Saint Motel brought to its month long Monday night showcases a cinematic sensibility to the famed venue. I happened to attend the second night, with its erotic-themed stage dressing and film projections, unsure of what to expect...
9.1.09 | Spaceland | Los Angeles, CA To hear The 88 open their September Tuesdays Spaceland residency, I left behind the hippies of my Venice neighborhood and squeezed past the Beverly Hills/Brentwood MTV kids – leaving just enough time to line up with the Silverlake hipsters awaiting the band that Metromix calls “one of the best-liked big-city bands no one has ever heard of.”...
8.23.09 | Home Depot Center | Los Angeles, CA Going to Warped Tour takes weeks of preparation. With 100s of bands playing on multiple stages at times that are randomly selected each day, the task of covering Warped is daunting to say the least. I will be the first to admit that I was unprepared. Warped Tour has been around for 15 years now, and I have been to exactly zero of the previous events...
8.22.09 | Club Nokia | Los Angeles, CA When The Cult brought their Love Live tour to the newly-minted Club Nokia downtown on Saturday, I imagined that the 500 or so cougars crowding onto the venue’s laminate wood flooring had probably ignored me the last time I’d seen Ian Astbury’s mystic rock band when they played the Great Western Forum with Lenny Kravitz during the Ceremony tour in the early 1990s...
8.19.09 | Knitting Factory | Los Angeles, CA “Yeah, we’ll come to New York and we will stay with you.” Mid-way through their set at Hollywood’s Knitting Factory, arguably “too small” a venue for the larger-than-life Angus Khan, frontman Dirty D replies to a screaming fan’s lurid proposition with the equally salacious: “You better have a really small bed!”...
8.11.09 | The Mint | Los Angeles, CA He has gone by many names: Charles Michael Kittridge Thompson IV, Black Francis, Frank Black, and these days once again, Black Francis. But apparently, there is at least one more name he would like to add to the list: Curly Howard. It’s hard to tell if he is serious, but you know, he just might have a shot...
8.6.09 | The Troubadour | Los Angeles, CA “This is the very last show, of our very first tour," chirped Elizabeth Ziman, front woman for Elizabeth and the Catapult, “And we’re very excited to be going out at the Troubadour!” she exclaimed before launching into a dreamy version of "Rainiest Day of Summer" from their debut CD Taller Children...
Gig Life Tour w/ Grave Maker, The Swellers, Fireworks, Four Year Strong, Set Your Goals Peabody’s | 7.28.09 | Cleveland, OH Picture this: a small room that resembles a run down basement in which the only nice thing is the bar filled with a bunch of sweaty dudes, all climbing on top of each other, pointing with violent force at the band on stage. Some push through the mess to make their way onto the stage and with a running start, hurl themselves into the crowd with a look of pure insanity...
7.25.2009 | The Door – Deep Ellum | Dallas, TX It’s hot, it’s early, and I’m lost while frantically trying to find my way to The Door in Deep Ellum. My GPS is sending me in circles! Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye I spot a long line of people wrapping around both sides of a black building with a tiny white sign that reads, “The Door”...
7.18.09 | Knitting Factory | Los Angeles After focusing my recent musical pursuits on angry testosterone-fueled hardcore, the Knitting Factory offers a moment of respite on Saturday evening with Girl in a Coma and local lass lead bands, Miss Derringer and Killola. After barely surviving my first ever on-camera interview with Girl in a Coma a few hours prior, the energy from the packed venue brought me back to life in time for Killola to kick off the night..
6.16.09 | Glass House | Pomona, CA Before the makeup goes on and the blood spills, there is relative calm at The Glass House in Pomona. For a few hardcore Combichrist fans, this is where the night begins. On their latest North American tour, Combichrist have opened their tour lives to a few lucky fans to experience a full VIP package. The benefits include a meet and greet with the band, a special sound check performance, and backstage access to the after party, and maybe, if you ask nicely...
6.19.09 | El Rey Theatre | Los Angeles, CA Through the years of live music, certain artists have created a loyal army of fans who cherish their music and defend it with passion. Take Weezer for example, they have the kind of fans who, even though their latest offerings have been weak, the fans are still so thankful for The Blue Album and Pinkerton that they still worship and defend them against the harsh critiques the music press currently gives them...
6.12.09 | Masonic Lodge in Hollywood Forever Cemetery | Los Angeles Scottish wall of sound/surf rockers Glasvegas are all the rage in the UK and have even been getting a lot of buzz on this side of the Atlantic. Personally, I was excited to see them for the first time after the Troubadour show sold out at in January and then their Coachella appearance was canceled in April due to singer/guitarist James Allan’s heat exhaustion..
5.28.09 | Fox Theatre | Pomona, CA It's Thursday in Pomona and the Jägermeister Tour has slammed into town. This year's tour features Authority Zero, Big B, and co-headliners Pepper and Pennywise. The show kicked into high gear really fast, with Authority Zero in the opening slot and whipping fans into a sweaty frenzy...
5.22.09 | Santa Barbara Bowl Through the dense smoke and mirrors (in the form of disco ball codpieces), the Flight of the Conchords emerged onstage in full-on robot attire and launched into "Too Many Dicks on the Dance Floor," a track off of their soon to be released sophomore album...
5.21.09 | Belly Up | San Diego, CA I first heard M83 playing over the house speakers at Streetlight Records in Santa Cruz. I was eating a lot of pills in those days and naturally, I bought Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts on the spot. Since that time, the sparkling Gallic whatever-gazers...