You Ignorant Sluts California's election results brought out the fury and glee in L.A. Weekly readers — in particular, the defeat of Proposition 46, a plan to raise the medical malpractice cap ("Consumer Watchdog Gets Blown Out on Health Care Propositions 45 and 46," Nov. 5) and the Weekly's "California...
Known for his indie-infused electronic remixes, RAC (an acronym for the original name, Remix Artist Collective) focuses on making his music interesting and eclectic rather than danceable. Still, we can’t help but have a good time listening and swaying along to this guy’s silky beats. Very little of what RAC does is predictable, and his performance at the Fonda promises to be consistently surprising and full of feel-good vibes. With support from The Knocks and other guests, it will be a night of chill indie-pop with an electronic flair.More
The late Larry Sultan, whose LACMA retrospective just opened, photographed his father and mother with the same curious distance he employed when photographing porn stars in the valley, which says a lot about his work. It’s all about style, posture and personality, but it’s best when those personalities have some moral ambiguity to them, so that the humanity of a subject doesn’t distract you from Sultan’s fantastic eye for detail. Hours vary, closed Christmas and Thanksgiving.More
Respect Drum and Bass has been going on since 1999, and prides itself as L.A.’s longest running weekly drum 'n’ bass event. The pop-up club typically comes to Dragonfly in Hollywood on Thursday nights, but it has also showed up at Avalon and, soon, at Exchange LA. The crowd at Respect’s events is famously considerate; you don’t need to know anything about the genre itself in order to feel accepted by the scene. If you do need some liquid courage to dance, Dragonfly has the added bonus of offering $4 drink specials before 11 p.m.More
Death founder Chuck Schuldiner passed away in 2001 from brain cancer. The vocalist/guitarist is considered one of the most influential figures in underground metal. In the early ‘90s, Schuldiner was a pioneer in stretching the boundaries of musical technicality within the death metal genre. This tour features ex-members of the band paying tribute to his legacy — most notably, drummer Sean Reinert (now of Cynic) and bassist Steve DiGiorgio from the era most known for Schuldiner’s experimentation.More
When it comes to the life of Bruce Haack, separating truth from fiction is not easy. The groundbreaking electronic music composer and inventor is said to have taught himself to play piano by age 3. By 8, he apparently was escaping his abusive mother's wrath by sneaking off to Indian...
Visual allure often isn't a virtue we value when chasing obscure flavors in L.A.'s international neighborhoods. In fact, adventurous diners tend to appreciate the opposite: The grungier the location, the more accomplished we feel for having sought it out. Looks be damned — let the fireworks happen on the flavor...
The Los Angeles art world has been saying a collective "hallelujah" since the arrival in January of Philippe Vergne as MOCA's new director. Although some East Coast commentators condemned the appointment — citing in particular a budget crisis scandal in which Vergne resorted to selling off a number of works...
The late Larry Sultan, whose LACMA retrospective just opened, photographed his father and mother with the same curious distance he employed when photographing porn stars in the valley, which says a lot about his work. It’s all about style, posture and personality, but it’s best when those personalities have some moral ambiguity to them, so that the humanity of a subject doesn’t distract you from Sultan’s fantastic eye for detail. Hours vary, closed Christmas and Thanksgiving.More
Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays-Sundays. Continues through March 22
Thirty years ago, manga artist Akira Toriyama embarked upon a hero’s journey with his warrior-in-training Goku. The result, Dragon Ball, became a global phenomenon that launched multiple TV series and films. Decades later, the franchise remains one of the staples of anime conventions. Even the critically reviled, live-action flick Dragonball: Evolution couldn’t quell the fan’s love for Goku and company. Saturday night, QPop and friends presents a Dragon Ball 30th anniversary tribute in their new Q2 space. More than 80 artists are already scheduled to take part in the exhibition, which will cover Toriyama’s full body of work, with emphasis on Dragon Ball. Q2, 319 E. 2nd St., Suite 121, Little Tokyo; Nov. 15; 7-10 p.m.More
Tales of the Old West continue to make up a significant portion of our cultural narrative, mostly because we still like to comfort ourselves with stories showing that ours is a land of opportunity. Making the trek to the American frontier promised a new life or, at the very least,...
Tales of fame and its trappings — and the way they're never enough to build a life — are as old as show business itself. Maybe for that reason, almost any story about discovering the hollowness of fame is written off as a cliché. But what's the difference, really, between...
Erik Peter Carlson's The Toy Soldiers is a pitch-black spin on American Graffiti, set in a brightly colored place during what's remembered as a brightly colored decade.
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2014 has been a good year for redemption-through-music stories, with high points such as God Help the Girl and My Little Pony: Equestria Girls — Rainbow Rocks and lesser efforts such as Rudderless.
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The Occupy movement persists in fits and stutters around the globe, and though its inability (stateside at least) to resolve internal issues around race, class, and gender shouldn't be ignored, neither should its successes.
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It's one thing to watch sturdy, dexterously charming Jean Gabin as a working-class joe who doesn't mind dangerous manual labor, figuring that's his lot in life.
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Beneath the rom-com pacing and peppy underscoring of a Lifetime movie, Delusions of Guinevere is a surprisingly dark satire of modern celebrity.
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From the opening robbery in a hard-land gas station, Simon Hawkins and Zeke Hawkins' Bad Turn Worse floors it straight into the past -- it plays like one of the best of those chatty, reflexive, standoffs-and-monologues crime indies every young dude in L.A. whipped up after Tarantino hit.
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The reunited original lineup of Culture Club have been forced to cancel all of their upcoming U.K. and North American tour dates, after doctors discovered a polyp in singer Boy George's throat. The canceled dates include a scheduled stop at the Shrine Auditorium next Wednesday, November 19. Tickets refunds will be available at point of purchase.
The tour was to be the band's first with Boy George in 14 years.
Snoop Dogg is no longer an active gang member. In fact, renouncing his formerly violent life is what he's about these days, and his Snoop Lion and Snoopzilla personas have sought to showcase a more socially conscious, peace-and-love Dogg.
But mainstream America still sees him as rough and tumble, and trading on that image remains a fun and lucrative thing to do. Which is why Snoop's endorsement of a Swedish company called Happy Socks is not figuratively (and literally) soft, but in fact makes sense.
Slayer THE FORUM
Slayer remains the heaviest of the “Big Four” of thrash metal — out-shredding Metallica, Megadeth and Anthrax — more than 30 years into their career. Their seminal 1986 release Reign in Blood is 29 minutes of scorching thrash that still inspires some of the most violent headbanging anywhere. But fans would have understood if the SoCal metal greats called it quits after a tumultuous 2013. Weathering a storm that included the acrimonious departure of drummer Dave Lombardo and the tragic death of guitarist Jeff Hanneman, remaining band founders Tom Araya and Kerry King are moving forward with a new as-yet-untitled album in 2015, alongside returning ’90s Slayer drummer Paul Bostaph and Exodus guitarist Gary Holt. This show – shockingly, the band’s first-ever performance at the Forum — should be a good indicator of what the future holds for the veteran act. — Jason Roche
Daniel Lanois, the flesh half of Flesh and Machine
Ace steel guitar man, famed producer (U2, Bob Dylan, Peter Gabriel, Neil Young) and ambient music trailblazer Daniel Lanois’ latest solo album Flesh and Machine is just out on Anti- Records. It’s what you’d call one of those artistic rebirth sorts of things. Lanois is a bit fed up with the old ways of making music; he wanted to use new sounds to say something genuinely new and relevant about what is happening on our planet.
In conversation with L.A. Weekly, Lanois explained how Flesh and Machine is a soundtrack for "ferocious times."
Flesh and Machine dives into brave new worlds of sound with brash blends of beauty and boldness.
It began as more of a conventional song thing, but as I started building my sounds and garnishing the songs, all of that started sounding more interesting to me than the songs. [Laughs] So I abandoned the core of the matter and went with the toppings.
This was a process of deconstruction. While processes aren’t new to me — I’ve done this a lot on other people’s records and with [Brian] Eno over the years — I decided that this was possibly entering into new sonic territory.
Los Angeles is a city where the eclectic and surreal often mix freely. There are so many scenes to make: If you do it just right, you can see and experience a lot in a short time.
Now and then, my schedule is such that I attend multiple events in a single week. I know for some people that’s just how they live. But it’s not always the case for me, so when there is a lot of nightlife on my itinerary, I marvel at Los Angeles and its incredible level of activity. It’s why you see all those low-cut vans with the driver pointing things out to the passengers. We live in a city that people come from all over the world to check out. It’s pretty cool.
Getting by with a little help: Friends of Friends founder Leeor Brown
For independent record labels, exposure leads to expansion. An originally tight-knit community gradually comes untethered. Artists leave for the promise of bigger budgets and bigger hits elsewhere. Risk is jettisoned for the safe bet.
L.A.-based electronic-music label Friends of Friends (FoF) isn't the exception to the narrative, but it's close. Five years removed from the label's inception, founder Leeor Brown hasn't altered his approach.
"I'm just trying to play the long game, to keep working on projects that I'm proud of, that I think are pushing boundaries," Brown says over lunch at La Tropicana, a Highland Park market that doubles as a deli, near his home.
Also nearby is the FoF office, an open, spacious, wood-floored room on a second floor that overlooks the neighborhood's tree-lined streets. Inside, Brown's small staff is relaxed but on task. Breaks are taken both to pet Brown's dog and to ensure it doesn't run out the door.
Born out of its founder's vision and careful curation, FoF was one of the earliest labels to emerge from the salad days of L.A.'s semi-legendary beat scene. Compared to the punishingly percussive, bass-heavy hip-hop/electronic hybrid most associated with the scene, FoF's music is softer, more melodic. It's built to help you weather a breakup, not splinter speakers.
Last week, Los Angeles rapper Kosha Dillz had his website hacked by ISIS. No, this is not some weird promotional stunt. This actually happened.
The affable Jewish rapper, signed to Murs’ 3:16 imprint, found his place in cyberspace vandalized, raising flags among his friends and the Department of Homeland Security. We spoke to Dillz about this most unlikely of hip-hop beefs.
How did you discover your website had been hacked by ISIS sympathizers?
A kid had messaged me on SoundCloud saying, “Hey, I checked out your website and someone hacked your stuff.” I checked it and that’s exactly what happened.
Had your website ever been hacked before?
No, never. We have to drop it, it’s directed to my Facebook page right now. I have to get on the phone with all these security companies and had to speak with people from the government. They had already knew that it happened, and that was the trippy part.
[Editor's note: Weekly scribe Jeff Weiss's column, "Bizarre Ride," appears on West Coast Sound every Wednesday. Follow him on twitter and also check out his archives.]
Before conquering Coachella, HARD and Lollapalooza, touring with The Weeknd and supplying runway anthems for Kanye West’s preferred haute couture brands, dance music DJ/producer Anna Lunoe toiled as a frustrated boutique clerk in Sydney.
Raised in a musical household, the Australian native started out making cassette mixes to impress her older brothers, before graduating to violin, piano and acoustic guitar. But after bailing on her journalism studies to work as a part-time selector on FBi Radio (Sydney’s KCRW equivalent), she paid her rent by convincing local rich people that the blouse they just tried on “looked killer.”
“One day at the shop, I randomly picked up the NME and saw a quote from Franz Ferdinand’s lead singer that changed my life,” Lunoe says, wryly grinning, wearing pink cat-eye sunglasses, a white T-shirt and a dangling silver pendant.
Backside Records in Burbank is still a record store, but just barely. You definitely wouldn't know it walking in — as rows of urban streetwear now torch your senses with a kaleidoscope of gaudy colors.
"Sale margins on vinyl are not the same as apparel," says the store's apparel buyer and partner, Eric Flores, who saw Backside almost go under back in 2009, when physical music sales couldn't pay the rent near Burbank's Media Center (the city's uncool version of Melrose). "Apparel seemed like the natural transition for us."
The evolution of Backside Records from local record store to Melrose-style boutique began in the mid-2000s, when most of America began downloading MP3s instead of buying CDs and vinyl. DJs began spinning with a mouse on Serato, and suddenly, Backside lost their most loyal consumer: the hip-hop DJ.
As anyone who's ever started a garage band knows, you can get away with only knowing three chords and two basslines — but if your drummer can't keep a beat, you're never making it out of that garage. Behind every great band lies an even greater drummer, and hidden away behind all those cymbals and high-hats, many of the greatest ones never get their due.
So in the words of the immortal James Brown, let's give the drummer some! Here are L.A. Weekly's picks for the 20 greatest drummers of all time, in any genre.
Last week, Los Angeles rapper Kosha Dillz had his website hacked by ISIS. No, this is not some weird promotional stunt. This actually happened. The affable Jewish rapper, signed to Murs’ 3:16 imprint, found his place in cyberspace vandalized, raising flags among his friends and the Department of Homeland Security...
The show begins like a strange protest in an absurd country. Veiled women walk into the room carrying septagram-bedecked banners. Then comes a masked dude on an adult-sized tricycle, loaded up with speakers, followed by other masked men carrying more speakers on their backs. Each of these rigs is self-powered,...
Ace steel guitar man, famed producer (U2, Bob Dylan, Peter Gabriel, Neil Young) and ambient music trailblazer Daniel Lanois’ latest solo album Flesh and Machine is just out on Anti- Records. It’s what you’d call one of those artistic rebirth sorts of things. Lanois is a bit fed up with the...
Los Angeles is a city where the eclectic and surreal often mix freely. There are so many scenes to make: If you do it just right, you can see and experience a lot in a short time. Now and then, my schedule is such that I attend multiple events in...
Snoop Dogg is no longer an active gang member. In fact, renouncing his formerly violent life is what he's about these days, and his Snoop Lion and Snoopzilla personas have sought to showcase a more socially conscious, peace-and-love Dogg. But mainstream America still sees him as rough and tumble, and...
Be sure to check out our constantly updated concert calendar! Monday, November 10 Judas Priest, Steel Panther NOKIA THEATRE Two things you can still count on in heavy metal: One is that Judas Priest won’t waste any time on wimpy power ballads, and the other is that lead shrieker Rob...
Sometimes the juxtaposition of old and new can be utterly hilarious. Case in point? The recently popular Instagram account @elderlywhodab, which, at nearly 6,500 followers, is well on its way to becoming a cult favorite in the cannabis world. Almost every day, it features user-submitted photographs and videos of the...
Before conquering Coachella, HARD and Lollapalooza, touring with The Weeknd and supplying runway anthems for Kanye West’s preferred haute couture brands, dance music DJ/producer Anna Lunoe toiled as a frustrated boutique clerk in Sydney. Raised in a musical household, the Australian native started out making cassette mixes to impress her...
RADIO BROADCAST #29311–09–14 Fanatic! Hey, thanks for reading these notes. No matter how many times I say on the show that these notes exist, people still write and ask what song was playing at whatever time. It’s all here, Fanatic! As I write these notes, I am listening to the...
Be sure to check out our constantly updated concert calendar! Friday, November 14 Slayer THE FORUM Slayer remains the heaviest of the “Big Four” of thrash metal — out-shredding Metallica, Megadeth and Anthrax — more than 30 years into their career. Their seminal 1986 release Reign in Blood is 29...
America in the 21st century is one of the most economically polarized and heavily armed societies in history. As the top rises, it becomes harder to see the ground through the clouds. Disconnected, nihilistic subcultures have developed in areas abandoned and forgotten by mainstream society. Such aberrant cultures used to...
For independent record labels, exposure leads to expansion. An originally tight-knit community gradually comes untethered. Artists leave for the promise of bigger budgets and bigger hits elsewhere. Risk is jettisoned for the safe bet. L.A.-based electronic-music label Friends of Friends (FoF) isn't the exception to the narrative, but it's close...
One of Hollywood’s wildest art and event spaces is back! The corner of Cherokee and Hollywood Boulevard is a historic locale: It was the site of famous punk club The Masque, and The Go-Go’s — who played one of their first shows there — have a star on the Walk...
This week's Soundtrack guest: Weezer's Rivers Cuomo. Since forming Weezer in 1992, singer/guitarist Rivers Cuomo has churned out some of the hookiest rock hits ever, sold over 26 million albums, and arguably made thick-frame glasses and sweater vests cool. Weezer’s newest album, Everything Will Be Alright in the End, reunites...
The reunited original lineup of Culture Club have been forced to cancel all of their upcoming U.K. and North American tour dates, after doctors discovered a polyp in singer Boy George's throat. The canceled dates include a scheduled stop at the Shrine Auditorium next Wednesday, November 19. Tickets refunds will...