Metronomy is Oscar Cash, Anna Prior, Gbenga Adelekan, and Joseph Mount
Metronomy make their return to Los Angeles this weekend, playing two dates (10/15, Troubadour and 10/16, Detroit Bar). On their last visit, they played to a sold out show at The Echoplex and were soon after KCRW canonized on Morning Becomes Eclectic with Jason Bentley; “She Wants” and “The Bay” from their latest album The English Riviera have since maintained regular play on 89.9 FM during morning commutes and late-night downtown drives.
The group has enjoyed escalating success and growing attention; they were recently nominated for the Barclaycard Mercury Prize. Mythologized as NME’s Nicest Guy in Music 2006, Metronomy’s originator Joseph Mount took a moment to answer a few questions before the quartet’s arrival in the City of Angels.
This will be your fourth time playing on the West Coast and to sold out shows. Is it safe to say that LA loves you?
Oh god I hope so! It is safe to say that we love L.A. that’s for sure.
Anything memorable about the city that lingers in your thoughts on trans-Atlantic trips home?
Everything. Last time we came we took a drive to Malibu, we went to that beach where the Statue of Liberty is going to be in the future. We also went to proper house party in the hills that got shutdown by helicopters. It’s just like the movies!
I think I would like to move to L.A for a year or so.
Has there been a venue in LA or anywhere else you enjoy playing over and over?
I don’t think we’ve ever played the same venue twice in L.A. We had a great time at the Echo last time though. There is a venue in Paris called La Cigalle which we always love returning to, but at the moment people keep trying to book us into bigger venues…which is obviously a good thing. I hope we will return to all our favourite venues on the way back down.
The concert going experience is a special one. It can define your teens, outline your twenties, and have you reminiscing into your late 30s. What was your first concert or the one that had the greatest impact on you?
The Do LaB returns for it’s fifth annual art and music festival, Lucent L’Amour 2010, this Saturday, February 13 at the Shrine Expo Hall. This year’s festival will include both indoor and outdoor areas of Shrine with two stages of live music, DJs, burlesque and vaudeville performances, as well as live art creations and installations.
The Do LaB has put its signature imaginative experience design stamp on festivals all over the world, including Coachella. This year’s festival will include:
Two Stages of Music featuring: Bassnectar, N.A.S.A., Stanton Warriors, Yard Dogs Road Show, Beats Antique, Ana Sia, Lazer Sword, Lynx & Janover and Patricio
Live performances by Lucent Dossier Experience, The Yard Dogs Roadshow, Suddenly Dapper, as well as numerous fire dancers, circus acts, and general mayhem instigators We have pairs tickets to giveaway for this sure-to-be fun night.
As important as the real thing is, and as well intentioned as the filmmakers definitely are, judging from this new preview, the Prop 8 trial video reenactment looks like it could be a snore-fest.
I know we can’t tweak the script and bring in a writer to polish the dialogue, but these actors just aren’t bringing anything to their roles. Can we spice it up a bit? Maybe bring in a new D.P. or something? Mix in some dramatic music cues? Something. Anything.
I want to watch this thing. But I also want to say awake. I’ll give them chance to hit their stride. Maybe Day 1 is like the Pilot episode and hopefully they’ll get better as it goes on.
While not currently available on the CBS.com website, video of “15 Step” performed by Thom and Jonny of Radiohead, backed by the USC Trojan Marching Band, February 8th at the 2009 Grammys at Staples Center, has surfaced online.
The clip, which is apparently unauthorized and likely violating one or more copyright laws, has yet to be removed and remains viewable below as of press time.
They most certainly puppet up, sometimes they puppet out, sometimes they pup themselves into hoopy, poopy pieces of no-fun. It’s a hybridization of Whose Line Is It Anyway? and The Muppet Show, and once the shock wears off, it goes to hell but it comes back.
Not discounting the probable fiddly-bits of improv theater, anything, and I mean anything, can come from a drunken crowd of grown-up REM fans. Once host and creative director Patrick Bristow welcomes us, it’s time to get things started on the most sensational inspirational celebrational Puppetupational Puppet Up. Eight of Henson Alternative’s (HA!) master manipulators hold the funny-looking little buggers above their heads and commence zig-zagging before a camera mounted at the headline. Simultaneously, the “Muppet Show Effect” projects onto four screens throughout the theater. My eyes roam between the magic and the magicians, preferring the magic.
So here’s the thinking. Mr. Bristow gives the audience a scenario to fill in like a Madlib. “I need a person doing something.” A dentist! A guy licking his balls! A genie sitting in a bathtub! “Okay, and now I need a place where this happens.” Kuwait! Denny’s! My dick! “So, are you ready to watch a lost episode of 21 Jump Street featuring a guy licking his balls that takes place on my dick?” Yeah! Wooo! “Okay, Puppet Up!” And so begins an advance, stage-left, upon a massive, rectangular armoire filled with beautiful creatures. Sometimes they go two at a time, sometimes all eight of them suit up, or “Puppet Up”, for their improv routine. Once the lights dim, the troupe puppet-trates.
Tuesday night’s first filmic performance by the band ADULT. (for there were two back-to-back performances) was full of familiar faces as well as just plain full. Local electronic intelligentsia, from theremin players (Kevin Li of Seksu Roba) to three-year-old impressers (DJ Lance Rock from Yo! Gabba! Gabba!) sat captivated as the Brian Eno prelude faded away, the Silent Movie Theater went dark, and images of a woman’s legs and pant suit skirt stood starkly on the screen, motionless, even as ricocheted sounds of electronic knocks and phlangers bubbled up from either side of the stage. Nicola Kuperus’s horror film “DECAMPMENT” had begun.
Forty years ago, Jack Nicholson and a bunch of dudes who would go on to do Easy Rider and Five Easy Pieces co-wrote their first avant-garde, marijuana-laced cinematic masterpiece. It’s purpose: to bring a pre-fab boy band called the Monkees out of the teenie bopper magazines and into the hearts of hippies. It succeeded at the former, but not so much at the latter–no amount of fourth-wall breaking could shatter their image as an artificial construct to the crowd of rockers now keepin’ it real with fourteen minute guitar solos at the Monterey Pop Festival.
In hindsight, however, the Monkees’ movie Head (the idea was that the next film’s ad could say “From the People Who Gave You Head!“) is a lot less goofy than it seemed at the time. Appearances by Dennis Hopper, Sonny Liston, Frank Zappa, and Toni Basil, shocking visual references to violence both real and cartoonish, and satires of the sappy pop cultural milieu of the time, themselves included, make this feel like a movie that’s saying something, even if nobody quite knows what that something is. »continue reading Head: Monkees Movie Comes Home Again
You may have spied it while stumbling drunkenly to your car after that last, unwise shot of Patron at La Cita. Peering over the roll-down bars, you’d spy a cavernous, basement-like structure, quiet in the late night hours that envelops Downtown Los Angeles. But visit during the day, and you’ll find a bustling market full of food stalls selling a wide variety of yummy ethnic fast-food, cheaper than the dirt they were grown in produce stands, and a variety of random vendors selling everything from mole by the pound to necklace charms depicting Jesus on a cross (with your sweetie’s name engraved underneath, natch).
Grand Central Market has been around since 1917. Across the street from the also historic, now out of commission Angel’s Flight, Angelenos would take a penny-ride to the open-air market which met the needs of newly immigrated families from all over the world. It’s been remodeled many times throughout the years, but it still has that old-world feel to it, which is a nice contrast to the high rise buildings and power-suited yuppies just a few blocks away in the Financial District. »continue reading Under $10: Sarita’s Pupuseria
This Thursday night, the Don’t Knock The Rock ’08 film festival continues with a double feature at the Silent Movie Theater, this time featuring punk rock from the Windy City. When we think of early punk rock, we tend to think of New York, London, and Los Angeles, and even the more obsessive among us probably then tend to follow our fandom in cities such as San Francisco, D.C., even Akron and Detroit.
But Chicago also had a scene that included some pioneers in punk, both in the form of arguably the first punk-only club, La Mere Vipere, as well as “the producer who made grunge,” Steve Albini, whose pivotal industrial punk band Big Black appears here in early archival footage in tomorrow night’s feature documentary, You Weren’t There: A History of Chicago Punk 1977-84.
Following the film will be a DJ set by Terry “Dadbag” Graham (Gun Club, The Bags), and then the second half of the night’s entertainment will be brought by DFW Punk, a film all about, you guessed it, punk rock in Dallas and Ft. Worth (title says it all, really). There’ll be director Q & A stuff, and probably giveaways, and likely you’ll see Hadrian Belove floating around with drinks and keys and stuff. For the obscurantist who wants to be able to brag about early scenes in every city, this is your night.
Did you watch Rock of Love 2 this year? Of course you did. Pathetic. I did, too. The show is over, and there’ll probably be a third season. So did you pull for Ambre? Daisy? Destiney? A different contestant? It matters not. What matters is the cat fight that took place during Sunday’s reunion show (Heather assaulted Daisy), and while we unfortunately have neither the time nor patience to work up a good Venn diagram to better categorize our contestants for your educated wager, we do still wish to open the books and place our bets on who would’ve won that fight, had it run its course. We’re talking real Jerry Springer stripper fisticuff action here. You can read all about the bout here if you missed the program, but really, you probably need only turn on VH1 at any given time in the next couple of weeks in order to catch a rebroadcast (hint: it’s on right now). Incidentally, the VH1 blog links beneath this poll are priceless if you watched any portion of the show whatsoever. Do give them a look.
We would not have seen this coming in a million – scratch that! bajillion – years, but the Pipettes – you remember them, right? Three young girls… polka dots… the color pink… cheeky, British, 60s schtick… bad Greased Lightning acid flashback… Any of this ringing a bell? … No?… – The Pipettes have announced a major change in lineup on their myspace blog and official site. (Note: Announcement is rickroll-inclusive.) Apparently, two out of the three Pipettes are now gone and have already been replaced! RiotBecki and Rosay are out; Ani and Anna are in. (Again: RiotBecki and Rosay are out; Ani and Anna are in.) Pipettes! Alas! It seems only yesterday we saw them at South by Southwest 2007, mere moments before Pete Townshend took to the stage. It seems only yesterday I wailed, “Dammit Victor I can’t believe you actually wanted to see this bullshit.” It seems only yesterday agent Steve Ferguson was advising the world of the group’s potential longevity:
Love, hate or have no feelings whatsoever about something you’ve seen on Operacion Repo? Believe it or not, you’re not alone. Take your concerns straight to the comment section on this page where Sonia herself (aka DEMON AZAZEL) will respond to your love, hatred or general ambivalence in record time.
This not a full recap like our Season 3 finale piece, but just some collected moments from the episode, unedited and jotted down in real time. –Ed.
–Hurley makes it off the island, into the flash-forward reality, and is living (where else) in Los Angeles. He has not lost much, if any, weight since returning from the island.
–Hurley has a vision of Charlie while in a police interrogation room. Without going into all the details, Charlie’s hand has written on it, “They Need You.” This is a particularly problematic vision as it contains imagery that Hurley did not personally witness and (I think) marks the first vision where the action is pure fantasy and physically impossible to stage. (As opposed to merely planting a horse on the island or the appearance of someone resembling a dead loved one.) More on this below.
–Jack is drinking, but, hey, who doesn’t start the day off with a screwdriver or two? On the plus side, he has upgraded from Dharma brand vodka though. He does not have the bushman beard of the Season 3 finale yet, so that suggests this flash-forward predates the season 3 flash-forward. So this flash-forward would in fact be a flash-back if we were in the previous flash-forward timeline. Got that? »continue reading Lost Season 4 Premiere Bulletpoints
The Do LaB has put its signature imaginative experience design stamp on festivals all over the world, including Coachella. This year’s festival will include:
They most certainly puppet up, sometimes they puppet out, sometimes they pup themselves into hoopy, poopy pieces of no-fun. It’s a hybridization of Whose Line Is It Anyway? and The Muppet Show, and once the shock wears off, it goes to hell but it comes back. 
Forty years ago, Jack Nicholson and a bunch of dudes who would go on to do Easy Rider and Five Easy Pieces co-wrote their first avant-garde, marijuana-laced cinematic masterpiece. It’s purpose: to bring a pre-fab boy band called the Monkees out of the teenie bopper magazines and into the hearts of hippies. It succeeded at the former, but not so much at the latter–no amount of fourth-wall breaking could shatter their image as an artificial construct to the crowd of rockers now keepin’ it real with fourteen minute guitar solos at the Monterey Pop Festival.
This Thursday night, the 
Did you watch Rock of Love 2 this year? Of course you did. Pathetic. I did, too. The show is over, and there’ll probably be a third season. So did you pull for Ambre? Daisy? Destiney? A different contestant? It matters not. What matters is the cat fight that took place during Sunday’s reunion show (Heather assaulted Daisy), and while we unfortunately have neither the time nor patience to work up a good Venn diagram to better categorize our contestants for your educated wager, we do still wish to open the books and place our bets on who would’ve won that fight, had it run its course. We’re talking real Jerry Springer stripper fisticuff action here. You can read all about the bout 
We would not have seen this coming in a million – scratch that! bajillion – years, but the Pipettes – you remember them, right? Three young girls… polka dots… the color pink… cheeky, British, 60s schtick… bad Greased Lightning acid flashback… Any of this ringing a bell? … No?… – The Pipettes have announced a 
Gary Busey may have had no role to support at the Kodak Theatre last night, but he had no problem securing an inordinate amount of press this morning thanks in no small part to an awkward, yet Buseyly sincere, double-kiss to Jennifer Garner’s (admittedly kiss-fetching) neck on the red carpet. Did you miss the clip? It’s 
