Archive for July, 2008
White Arrows this week
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
White Arrows is playing two shows this week: tonight at the Key Club on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood, and Friday night at Spaceland in Silverlake, which is mere minutes from my house and the location of my infamous confrontation with Wolf Eyes. I could imagine White Arrows opening up for the Walkmen or the Strokes, though I also see them as being a vial of acid and some Devendra beards away from morphing into something entirely different, more akin to a psych-cult operating out of Laurel Canyon. So go see them in their formative stages so years from now you can tell your shitty friends you were there from the beginning. You can be like James Murphy and reference them in a song next decade. If you missed the first show, Tara at GetFamousLA.com posted some pictures. If you look hard enough, you might see me trying to make out with Chad’s fresh scars from his recent emergency spleen-removal surgery.
La Quiete
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
In the 1990s, when my main musical fascination was hardcore, metal, and punk — basically anything loud, fast, or extreme — European bands were viewed as a bad joke. No one liked any bands from Europe, with the notable exception of David Meiklejohn who was in love with the all-female Scandanavian band Doughnuts.
La Quiete is a band from Italy that’s been kicking around for the past few years, sounding a bit like bands from DC’s Revolution Summer or early 90s San Diego. Below is a pretty awesome video they did for a song a while back, but that I just found. The song itself is strangely catchy, with the vocals vaguely reminiscent of At the Drive-In. Of course, anything involving ping pong and mass destruction is going to get a positive response around here.
Earthquake
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Los Angeles residents were just treated to a 5.8 earthquake, centered out of Chino Hills, mere minutes ago. Downtown, buildings swayed. There are reports of cut gas lines and electric blackouts. Cell phones have been rendered useless; most landlines aren’t faring much better. The vibrations reached as far as San Diego and Las Vegas.
Newscasters informed the public that there is a one in twenty chance that any initial rumble can be followed with a much larger shock. Now, reports are coming in that several 3.8 aftershocks have followed, so fears of the apocalypse have been quelled for the moment. A helicopter reporter calls into the studio to reassure the newscasters that up in the air, he felt nothing.
In March 2001, I lived in Seattle, and awoke to a 6.8. That one extra point makes a significant difference, but my first major wave in Los Angeles feels much more sinister, a reminder — no, a warning — that our side of the Ring of Fire is overdue.
the new Primal Scream
Monday, July 28, 2008
Primal Scream just released their newest album, Beautiful Future. PRML SCRM have been remarkably consistent over the course of the last 15 or so years, outliving plenty of bands, both shitty and good, along the way. Beautiful Future, on first listen, is much less restrained than previous releases, including my favorites Evil Heat and XTRMNTR. My favorite track so far is “I Love to Hurt (You Love to be Hurt).” If you like music that doesn’t suck, you might want to give this a spin.
telephones
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Citizen Engineer is a newish site dedicated to producing instructional videos on “modifying” phones, whether older pay phones all the way up to SIM cards. This is an interesting site if you ever modified a Radio Shack auto dialer or had a subscription to 2600.