Spaceland has a star, and his name is Finn Andrews, front man and innovator of the British pop-noir band, the Veils. If the road to art is hard and winding (which it couldn’t be for the progeny of XTC keyboardist Barry Andrews), then Finn is irked by every moment of it. With a series of spectacles including unyielding photographic flashes, Blackberries, and iPhones galore, and a crowd of bar-hanging PRs throughout the Veils’ set, the venue seemed like it could...
Let’s get it out of the way: what is Simian Mobile Disco? It’s undoubtedly one of the more unusual names in music today. But doing some investigative sleuthing, or really just putting two and two together, the name itself isn’t much of a conundrum. Going on just the facts alone, Simian draws itself from the pysch-rock English act whose former members, the two James’—James Shaw and James Ford—now make up this Simian version 2.0, which to take a page of...
With certain bands, the fanboy tendencies that writers try to suppress go right out the window, along with any sort of journalistic objectivity. Luckily, we don't have to be all that objective, since criticism is by nature subjective. That being said, we love The National. In fact, they would find it very difficult to do wrong in our eyes. So when they stop by Daytrotter to lay down some tracks, of course we are going to lose our shit and...
I’m not sure why, but every time I had Made Out of Babies’ 2006 release Coward playing in my car, I usually just ended up getting stared at with a look that said, “dude?!” Well, I thought the New York band rocked hard and the chick lead singer, Julie Christmas, was pretty intense, but pulled off that harsh, grip-you-by-the-throat vocal performance that lives of to the band’s name. When you’re called Made Out of Babies, you’re not allowed to sound...
Joining a roster that tugs between roots-based music and reeling noise punk on Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace Records, the newly inducted James Toth has taken sides and forged ahead without a look back over his shoulder. Dropping the ever-changing latter half of his moniker (be it "the Vanishing Voice" or "the Sky High Band") and prefaced by a self-reflexive nod to Toth's own exploration of understatement, the thusly entitled Wooden Wand's James and the Quiet bears itself unembellished in every...
From the moment I walked up to the Key Club in Los Angeles for the final regional qualifier for the U.S. Air Guitar Championships, I knew this night would be amazing. What tipped me off was my first glimpse at a few of the contestants making their way into the venue before the doors opened to the public. Some made me shrug, some made me laugh, and some actually made me want to puke. But as my press contacts ushered...
2007 has turned out to be a pretty spectacular year for music in our opinion. So much so that we wanted to share our Top 10 records of the year…so far. Mark Ziemke1. The National – Boxer 2. The Bees – Octopus3. Land of Talk – Applause Cheer Boo Hiss4. Chris Bathgate – A Cork Tale Wake5. Cloud Cult – The Meaning of the Number 86. Pela – Anytown Graffiti 7. !!! – Myth Takes8. The White Stripes – Icky...
Once upon a time in January, Division Day was on the verge of taking the indie world by storm. They’d recorded a record—Beartrap Island—at John Vanderslice’s Tiny Telephone studio, which was garnering all sorts of pre-release buzz in the blogs. They’d played to acclaim at the 2006 CMJ festival, and were preparing to tear up Austin for SXSW. Promos were hot in the hands of print journalists, heading towards a late March release. All in all, things were looking up....
Leslie Feist managed to make an enormous splash on Let It Die, her second album out from under the umbrella of Canada’s musical superhero coalition Broken Social Scene, in part out of shock at her incredible talent and songwriting. One album and 3 years later, the element of surprise long washed away, she’s proven that her abilities (and there are many) are only improving. The crowd at the Wiltern is a sea of what appear to be the most interesting...