I was shocked to find out that my favorite album ever, Radiohead's OK Computer, has now hit the double-digits in age since its original release. The album, which opened up a huge can of creativity-worms for me, still stands as a triumph of cohesive recording and multi-faceted beauty. So let's take a look at it, track by track: 1. Airbag: "In the next world war… In a jack-knifed juggernaut… I am born again." How perfect are these opening lines? It...
For our 6th Lunarcast, we had a chance to meet up with L.A.’s own disco-lovin’ groovemeister Kennedy—yeah, the “Your Mama” guy. We first met up with him June 28 when he played the Warped Tour 2007 pre-party at the Glass House in Pomona, CA. Then the following week we headed up to a Hollywood studio where he was finalizing his latest single—it's not on his new album, Kennedy For President, due out on Cordless Recordings/Warner Brothers on September 25, so...
For our 6th Lunarcast, we had a chance to meet up with L.A.’s own disco-lovin’ groovemeister Kennedy—yeah, the “Your Mama” guy. We first met up with him June 28 when he played the Warped Tour 2007 pre-party at the Glass House in Pomona, CA. Then the following week we headed up to a Hollywood studio where he was finalizing his latest single, that isn’t on his new album, Kennedy For President, due out on Cordless Recordings/Warner Brothers on August 21,...
I am like powderI am like relaxationI am the snowI dig in this oceanAnd I try to fill it with gold OK, so who hasn’t heard of Matador Records? It’s pretty much the label that virtually every indie band wants to get signed by. After a gig a few whiskey’s you’ll hear shit like, “Awww man, dude, that would be so sweet if we got signed by Matador.” It’s not a bad dream, but it’s not necessarily the most attainable...
How many times have you walked away from an otherwise amazing live show thinking "Man, I just wish they had played !" The bad part about the inserting of a new album into a band's canon is that offbeat old favorites often have to surrender their spot in the setlist to the new work. All Tomorrow's Parties "Don't Look Back" concert series solves some of these problems, inviting artists to revisit classic albums in their entirety on stage....
As a long-time fan and friend of San Francisco’s The Court & Spark, hearing the possibility of them calling it quits kind of made my heart hurt a little bit. The drummer, James Kim, and I have been friends since 1984 and I was there when he bought his first drum kit. After short stints in several bands in high school and college, he made his way up to San Francisco with some pals from UCSB and while visiting him...
The National have decided to stay out super late this fall, spending five weeks in September and October touring the states before heading over to Ireland on Halloween to kick off a European jaunt. It's a sad fact that cloning technology is still in the rudimentary stages. Otherwise, we could have one set of The National continuously on tour and one set always in the studio pumping out album after album. Of course then we'd probably have to have a...
Full capacity at the El Rey Theater and only one measly glow stick was in sight. Disappointing really what with the ad nauseam hype that seemed to besiege the men of Klaxons. Publicity that may have gotten too ridiculous in fact, as to this day no one really has the faintest idea what “New Rave” really is and who knows, we’re possibly just one click away until we’ve logged onto simontaylordavishaircut.blogspot.com...
It has been almost three years since Interpol released Antics, their defense to the darts of preconceived "sophomoric slump" criticism. In response to the praise of their debut Turn On The Bright Lights, the group insisted that merely improvement was not an option, and that allof their future musical efforts would contribute to creating "different" albums rather than simply "better" ones. With all this talk about different musical directions and new changes, they certainly weren’t kidding. Antics offered...
The ever-hip kids over at Stereogum just announced some radness: the online-only release of OKX: A Tribute to OK Computer. The album, corresponding with the ten year anniversary of Radiohead's groundbreaking album–you remember the one everyone hated at the beginning, and then decided it was the future of music? Yeah, that one–includes covers from Mobius Band, Cold War Kids, John Vanderslice and David Bazan (of Pedro the Lion). Along with notes on each track from the performers, Stereogum is offering...