So this news is at least a couple of months old, but I would like to point out that Record Surplus, fine Westside purveyors of used CDs, vinyl and media miscellany, formerly over on Pico Blvd., is now over on Santa Monica Blvd., at Centinela Ave.

They’ve brought along with them one of the more curious assortments of dusty used vinyl stacks–particularly heavy on vocals and classical–and a wide range of hit and miss media detritus in formats spanning the decades: CDs, VHS tapes, laser discs, used books, old magazines, cassette tapes. You will be glad to know that “The Attic”–a subgroup of strictly $1 items; i.e., Loverboy LPs–survived the move, though it is now a little penned off area at the front, rather than the literal upstairs attic at the former Pico Blvd. spot. They maintain their innovative pricing strategy that results in sales totals of even dollars when tax is applied.

How this particular shop has stayed in business in the current climate with their yard sale hodgepodge while even managing to pull off a move to a large, clean, arguably higher profile new space, is baffling, though in many ways comforting and reassuring. Now, I’m not saying the shop is a front for some other, unsavory business going on in the back, but I’m not not saying it. Of course I could attempt to interview the proprietors, but it’s always more fun to speculate recklessly.

So be sure to visit Record Surplus while your car is being worked on at Santa Monica Volvo Saab right across Santa Monica Blvd.

Following up their well received debut “Dances” e.p. last summer, Warm Weather swing back with 4 new sweet slices of pop for some Wintertime easy listening.

They pretty much nail it again for about eleven perfect minutes. Best harmonies & arrangements in town maturing nicely, stretching the dynamics out a bit more this time out, with an always welcome bit of weirdness and rock electricity–think a more under-control Olivia Tremor Control–and maybe a touch more folk & country, to go with some 60′s psych & 70′s AOR flavor.

It’s out today on a name-your-own-price download on their Bandcamp.

They play Silverlake Lounge with Fawn Spots on 1/25.

PHOTO: Blurry pizza.

Obsessive foodies in general can be insufferable, with the best pizza snob subset maybe among the most annoying. (You know who you are–56 Yelp takes after just couple of weeks of being open.) I don’t mean the regionalists–Chicago vs. NYC vs. California argument–but the gourmand types who wax poetic about this or that particular pizza, about how transcendent this particular triangle of cheese and flour is over all other triangles of cheese and flour. It’s pizza, people. Apart from a public school lunch or a supermarket freezer box it’s usually fine even when it’s “bad”, as the saying goes. Enter 800 Degrees into the fray, toeing the lines between fast, affordable and quality ingredients with au courant Neapolitan-style pies in a new spot in the retail roulette wheel that is Westwood Village.

»continue reading 800 Degrees–Neapolitan Pizza in Westwood

It’s got to be weird to hit the city you live in in the middle of a tour. Speaking here of course of LA-based Anthony Gonzalez/M83. How long do you get to relax in your own pad? Do you water the plants? Check out the mail? Hit the TiVo? A bit of laundry? Or, do you want to stay away from home entirely to remain in the touring frame of mind, to stay sharp, knowing you still have two long weeks ahead on the road?

The video’s only a few weeks old, but since the single dropped in July, “Midnight City” already feels lived in, like it always existed, out of time. That stabbing synth riff no doubt has soundtracked innumerable hookups, breakups and makeups. Real nice use a couple weeks ago on How to Make it in America (best half-hour on TV right now). I read online that the setting of the video is meant to be the outskirts of Los Angeles. Not sure about that, but a memorable creepy, cinematic clip for sure.

M83 | iloveM83.com | Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming new double CD/LP/digital | Nice recent LA Weekly piece

Tour Dates

Nov. 9 – Los Angeles, CA – Music Box (Sold Out)
Nov. 10 – San Francisco, CA – Mezzanine (Sold Out)
Nov. 11 – Portland, OR – Wonder Ballroom (Sold Out)
»continue reading M83 Is Home For the Night–”Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming” Tour Stops at the Music Box Wednesday

Photo by Sung. Full set here.

I remember reading somewhere—years back, can’t remember where—Melody Maker, maybe?—a line that Portishead would suffer for creating their own genre. What exactly would constitute “suffering” in this context wasn’t clear, but the notion that they were creating their own sound (it didn’t quite evolve into a full blown genre, for that there would have to be other comparable artists in their class and there just aren’t any) was fairly prescient and has more or less played out, nearly 20 years on. Few bands exist so fiercely on their own terms. Three albums in 17 years? No big deal. Tour the States once a decade? No problem. The overall effect of a career like theirs can be to preempt the commentator, rendering them impervious to criticism. And if they really are their own animal and therefore peerless, how does one critique Portishead? For not being “Portishead” enough?

»continue reading Words: Portishead @ Shrine Expo Hall, October 19, 2011

That I didn’t know much about her or previous band, Gowns, an art rock/folk/lo-fi project with two ex-Mae Shi men, highly regarded by many, in particular for their live show, only enhanced the genuine surprise of Erika M. Anderson’s (a.k.a. EMA) record, Past Life Martyred Saints (Souterrain Transmissions), one of those increasingly rare occasions of coming into something completely fresh, no early expectations formed, and perhaps all the more reason for it to completely blow me away on first listen, on a recent random Spotify encounter.

These songs have a lot going on—guitars, strummed acoustic grunge and electric powerchords, ambient rumbles and bleeps and textures, dense layers of noise as well as pindrop silence, a bit of piano and violin for good measure, stitched together with solid songwriting and arrangements, all done up with some fairly polished production. Her voice is present right up top in the mix, often in self-harmonizing layers and at times artfully fucked with and painfully naked. Genuine sparks of genius flecked throughout this record. Of course, doing the requisite Googling after the fact finds me late to the party; a Pitchfork 8.5 already in her backpocket months ago; raves from the likes of Rolling Stone and Spin, if those rags still mean anything. So the question then, now, as ever, becomes whether the record translates to the stage and at the Echoplex last Thursday, the answer was an emphatic yes. »continue reading Words: EMA @ Echoplex, October 13, 2011

Why aren’t the Arctic Monkeys bigger? Or are they just the right amount of big, as big as they could be and as big as they should be? Will this paper bag tear from the sheer weight of glass and alcohol in it before I get up to the Bowl? I’m thinking along the walk up Highland, cutting through the Iris premiere traffic milling around H&H, past still more Whitney ads, fucking loathsome Whitney ads–apparently still multiplying around town like carcinomas–these particular variants flyposters, all the more annoying for spitting those unfunny lines–i.e., WHOEVER INVENTED MORNING SEX FORGOT ABOUT MORNING BREATH–hilarious!–in 300-point sans serif right at eye level, onward past the Legion Hall, past the friendly scalping entrepreneurs, sidling past the sizzling sidewalk hot dogs, before, finally, reaching David Liebe Hart, the Bowl’s constant, their equivalent of the Walmart greeter, singing, unamplified, into a clenched fist, his puppet Doug the Dog, on his other fist.

Even though the eclectic five-act bill–Smith Westerns, Warpaint, Panda Bear, TV on the Radio, the aforementioned Arctics–feels like a mini-festival and something of a collective moment for Planet Indie (not to mention the Bowl programmers) and TVOTR will play last, the feel of the night, to me at least leans a bit toward an Arctic Monkeys show, the Bowl show they may never headline on their own, so I’ll ramble on a bit about them tonight.

Taking the stage some 70’s Hot Chocolate (“You Sexy Thing”–what else–as currently heard on that bizarre Swiffer commercial–YouTube it) the four clean cut lads admittedly look slight and not “rock” in that studied disheveled look like, say, the Strokes. Even with a leather jacket and new penchant for a slicked back Joe Strummer quaff, main Monkey Alex Turner really just comes across more sensible than menacing. Bands often feel the need to rise to the Bowl occasion by bringing in extras–strings, horns, additional players, whatever. The Arctics will go it tonight with just the classic guitar, bass and drums set up. Suck it and see, Bowl.

»continue reading Arctic Monkeys @ Hollywood Bowl, September 25, 2011

You can tell straight away that David Bowie: Starman, out today in a U.S. edition hardcover and digital from Little, Brown and Co., is the real deal. Author Paul Tyrka is a former editor of MOJO and it is clear his detailed, lucid prose was a guiding influence on that magazine’s late 90′s/early 00′s halcyon days. He weaves annotated reportage, first hand anecdotes, academic insight and plain old fashioned fandom, all while minimizing judgment–no mean feat when it comes to the life of David Bowie. This one’s a keeper for the rock bios shelf in the home library.

David Bowie: Starman | Skylight Books | Facebook

Ernest Greene brought his Washed Out project to a sold out Echoplex this past Friday. Unless everyone here are huge fans of Portlandia (his “Feel It All Around” is the show’s title theme) it’s a fairly impressive turnout for this early career stage, with only a handful of e.p.s and cassettes over the last couple years to his name. His debut full-length LP, Within and Without, is out tomorrow on Subpop.

It’s hard to peg down his sound to a single point of reference, so we’re stuck with dumb handles like “chillwave” (which he admits in interviews is hated). It’s synthy, mid-tempo danceable electronica with a early 80’s pop backbone. A couple of touchstones that float in and out for me are 10CC, Talk Talk, Ulrich Schnauss, maybe even a bit of Spandau Ballet or Thompson Twins. With his boyish looks, the phrase “borrowed nostalgia for the unremembered eighties” comes to mind. (I think he’s just under 30 years-old.)

»continue reading Washed Out @ Echoplex, July 8, 2011

Waffle Chix, Westwood.
Lunch, 6/20/11.
Waffle & Chicken Breast combo plate, $8.75.
Side of Mac & Cheese, $4.50.
Apple Crumble desert, $5.95.
Coffee, $2.50.
Subtotal, $21.70.
Total inc. tax & tip, $27.86.

Mac & Cheese and Apple Crumble shots below.

»continue reading Waffle Chix, Westwood

It probably says more about me than anything about the band that my immediate reaction to this fantastic free 5-song e.p. was suspicion. Something’s going on here… This is too good–too good to be unsigned, too good to be given away. These guys sing stunning harmony, their arrangements are clever, the production is brilliant. Others have cited Beach Boys, Grizzly Bear and Vampire Weekend and those references are in the ball park and will do for now. I think this e.p. could turn out to be a genuine local moment for 2011.
 
 
Warm Weather| Bandcamp | Facebook
 

Coming off the high of Macca’s show at MGM Grand—what can I say—just another 33-song epic tour through pop’s greatest songbook—he fucking opened with “Magical Mystery Tour”—I’ll just say that much—I figured a “W” was already in the night’s win column, so why not gamble on a quick jaunt over to The Cosmopolitan and catch Young The Giant’s second set at the Book & Stage bar. Maybe get an idea of what Morrissey sees in this O.C. 5-piece that so moved him to post a rare encomium over on his online mouthpiece. Also, I’ll maybe get to the bottom of this distressing trend of bands with names configured as [blank] the [blank]. Foster The People. Portugal. The Man. And… uh… Damn. Thought I had more. Moving on. Hell, it was either this or McLovin’s birthday party at Gallery.

»continue reading Young the Giant at the Book & Stage in The Cosmopolitan Las Vegas

»continue reading Fuck The Giants