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  • New Gelli Haha, Slayyyter and More of What You Heard Upstairs at Underground 3/27/26

    Gelli Haha "Klouds Will Carry Me to Sleep" single cover by Daniela Buvat
    Gelli Haha “Klouds Will Carry Me to Sleep” single cover by Daniela Buvat

    I have to admit that it took me a minute to get into Gelli Haha. “Bounce House” kept coming up on my Instagram feed and I thought the song was fine, but not as interesting as the video. So, it wasn’t until a month or so ago that I sat down and listened to Switcheroo. What a fun album! There’s a song called “Piss Artist” that I love because it’s irreverent, like the early ‘00s club hits that only the people who were there still remember. And “Tiramisu,” which I can only describe as sounding like someone playing a tribute to ‘90s house live a DIY art-punk show, has been getting stuck in my head. But, I didn’t play either of those songs last night at Underground because Gelli Haha has a new single out, “Klouds Will Carry Me to Sleep,” and it’s super cute in a way that reminds of a cross between The Avalanches and The Go! Team. I played it early last night, mostly to see how it sounds in the room, but I think I’ll keep it on hand. 

    The other new release that I want to mention is Wor$t Girl in America by Slayyyter. I wasn’t expecting to like it, but, every now and then there’s a pop album with a bunch of hype surrounding it that doesn’t bore the crap out of me and this is one of those moments. It has the sleazy club sound that I love, where it sounds like your dancing on a beer-sticky floor under a ceiling that’s dripping sweat. I didn’t really know what to play off the album. “Yes Goddd” has a killer Gesaffelstein-ish beat, but it didn’t work with the rest of the set this week. Maybe next time. I ended up going with “Unknown Loverz,” which has a much lighter sound, at the last minute.

    Anyhow, the set list is below. Songs from the past year or so link back to previous mentions on the blog. 

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  • ADULT. Captures Real World Dystopian Tension on Kissing Luck Goodbye

    ADULT. Kissing Luck Goodbye Album cover

    Maybe the best place to start talking about Kissing Luck Goodbye is at the end of the latest album from ADULT. Just when you think “Destroyers” is done, an electronic swoosh gives way to what sounds like traffic noise. Then, Nicola Kuperus’ voice reappears, singing, “We pay the price for those in power/Exploiting you, exploiting me/Consuming you, consuming me.” 

    I’ve had an advance copy of Kissing Luck Goodbye for a good minute and have now listened to it enough times to be somewhat haunted by the album’s finale. Listening to “Destroyers,” I think about how we’re literally paying the price for those in power every time we go to a store or restaurant and notice how things are ever-so-slightly more expensive than they were the week prior. We are being exploited, by politicians, by Big Tech, by virtually every corporate entity. We know this and, yet, it seems like there’s no way to stop it. 

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  • The Strokes Night at Club Underground + More Happening in L.A. This Weekend

    The Strokes night at Club Underground flyer March 27, 2026

    This Friday, March 27, is The Strokes Night at Club Underground. Both rooms of Grand Star Jazz Club will be open, with Larry G. and I on the decks, so you’ll get  a solid dose of The Strokes, plus the Underground mix of indie, post-punk, Britpop, synthpop, new wave, darkwave and more. Advance tickets are available now. See you on the dance floor this Friday night. Doors are at 9:30 p.m. and it’s 21+. 

    Keep reading for my recommendations for the rest of this weekend and early next week. 

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  • Voxtrot Returns With New Album and Tour

    Voxtrot press photo Annie Gunn
    (Photo: Annie Gunn)

    For singer/guitarist Ramesh Srivastava, there are distinct eras of Voxtrot, the band he fronts. The first he references centers around the band’s 2005 EP, Raised by Wolves, where he sings about his first major love and heartbreak. “To me, those songs are very clearly that and don’t really have much poetic diffusion,” he says on a recent video call. With the band’s self-titled album, released nearly 20 years ago now, Srivastava sang about the pressure he says he felt being in a group with a record deal and big opportunities before them. “It was a very challenging time, so I feel like that album is lyrically mostly about my psychology. It’s not really about other people,” he explains. 

    Emerging from Austin, Voxtrot’s first run coincided with the rise of music blogs, file-sharing and early social networks like Friendster and MySpace, what people now might fondly refer to as “the good internet.” The band gained a buzz online, as well as in traditional media, with the EPs leading towards their 2007 album. While a couple singles followed the debut full-length, Voxtrot split in 2010. 

    A 2022 reunion and successful tour led to recording Voxtrot’s recently-released full-length, Dreamers in Exile. In the 12 years that passed between the band’s first and second lives, plenty changed, including Srivastava’s lyrical approach. “Now, I feel that I try to talk a lot about my own experience, to talk about my experience, being gay and of mixed race and how weird it is to be that and be from Texas and how hard it is to be that anyway,” he says. “I try to talk about my unique human experience, but also constantly bringing in stories and references of people and works of art that inspire me.”

    He adds, “I’m really into creating a world that is both deep and meaningful, but is also aesthetically enjoyable.”

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  • New Ladytron and More of What You Heard for Girl Power Nite at Club Underground

    Ladytron Paradise Album cover
    Cover of Paradise, the new album from Ladytron

    Ladytron released a new album, Paradise, yesterday. I gave it a first listen on Bandcamp yesterday and knew immediately that I had to get it and had to play “I See Red” at Underground for Girl Power Nite. The whole album is fantastic. It’s also long and I’ve only listened through it one-and-a-half times at this point, so I don’t have much to say about it yet. 

    The other new song in last night’s set is “Strings of Terror” by Sam Quealy, who you really need to hear if your taste in music is dance pop-meets-clubby performance art. Stacey Q-meets-Chicks on Speed is the comparison I used in my review. Anyhow, you can also hear “Strings of Terror” on this month’s Beatique mix. 

    Set list is below. Songs from the past year or so link back to other references on the blog. 

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  • Some Monuments Need to Be Toppled

    Toppled, paintbombed Jefferson Davis statue inside MOCA Geffen Contemporary for Monuments (Photo: Liz Ohanesian)
    The toppled and paintbombed Jefferson Davis statue inside Monuments at Geffen Contemporary at MOCA (Pic: Liz O.)

    Jefferson Davis looks like he’s been clocked. The oversized, bronze statue of the  onetime president of the Confederacy is laid out on the floor of the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA. He’s splotched and tagged with paint, dried pink streams running down the length of the statue like blood. Walk up close and you’ll see that the top of his head has been pounded flat. An outstretched arm, partially severed from the shoulder, may have once given him the appearance of a savior. Now, it looks like he the one who needs saving. I study the hulking figure for a few moments, snap a couple photos and continue through the museum. Some monuments are better left down for the count. 

    Monuments, a collaboration between MOCA and The Brick that’s on view at the Geffen Contemporary through May 3, is an exhibition juxtaposing decommissioned monuments with contemporary art to explore U.S. post-Civil War history. The Jefferson Davis statue, which was dedicated in 1907, lived in Richmond, Virginia, where it was part of a whole complex of Confederate monuments. In 2018, a local commission in Richmond recommended its removal, but that didn’t happen until two years later, when the statue was paintbombed and toppled during protests following the murder of George Floyd. 

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  • Girl Power Nite at Club Underground + More Happening in L.A. This Weekend

    Club Underground Girl Power Nite Grand Star Jazz Club flyer March 20, 2026

    March is Women’s History Month and, this Friday, March 20, we’re celebrating at Club Underground with Girl Power Nite. Both floors of Grand Star Jazz Club will be open, with Larry G. and I will be DJing all night. I’m playing in the theme room, where you’ll hear everyone from Siouxsie and the Banshees to Elastica to Le Tigre to Boy Harsher to Wet Leg. A bonus: for those of you who are going to see Peaches and Pixel Grip at the Bellwether on Friday night, you can get into Underground for just $5 if you show your ticket at the door, so definitely plan to stop by after the show. Advance tickets are available now. 

    As for the rest of this weekend, and early next week, here are my recommendations. 

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  • Boiled in Lead Embraces the Darkness of Folk Music

    Boiled in Lead press photo Darrell Eager
    Boiled in Lead (Pic: Darrell Eager)

    For Drew Miller, one word sums up the themes that attract Boiled in Lead to traditional tunes: Darkness. 

    Darkness extends to the Celtic punk band’s name too. Boiled in Lead is derived from an Irish song, “The Two Sisters,” specifically a version associated with Clannad and is a reference to the punishment that befell a murderous sibling. “In 1983, that seemed like a really good name for a punk rock band doing folk music,” the bassist explains.

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  • Grrrl Gang: Online 24/7 and IRL This Weekend

    Grrrl Gang press photo by Elizabeth Kezia
    Grrrl Gang photo credit: Elizabeth Kezia

    Grrrl Gang spends a lot of time online. “It’s just too much sometimes, to be honest,” says bassist Akbar Rumandung. But, the inspiration for the band’s latest release, Online 24/7, hit IRL via a photoshoot at a friend’s gallery. One shot of the Indonesian punk band, taken through a window with a sticker that read, “Online 24/7” on it, stood out. It looked as though people were watching the band through their phones. 

    “That photo it reflects what we actually feel as a band nowadays,” says Rumandung on a recent video call from Jakarta, “where people try to categorize us through social media through what they see about us through social media, where they don’t actually know us, they don’t actually understand what this band is actually about.” It also, coincidentally, fit the music that Rumandung’s bandmates, Angeeta Sentana and Edo Alventa, had been writing, which reflected what they were seeing online. “Before that, we didn’t know what we should name the maxi-single. There are so many options, but we didn’t feel it yet,” Rumandung adds. “After the photos… we knew that this was our title for the maxi-single.”

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  • Andrew Becker on Human Potential and Eel Sparkles

    Human Potential press photo by Daniel Roland Tierney
    Photo: Daniel Roland Tierney

    Andrew Becker awoke from a dream with a phrase “the house that kept Hemingway alive” in his head. “Did I make that up or did I read that?” he wondered. So, the LA-based musician, who records as Human Potential, looked around and found an article about the house in Idaho where Hemingway lived until he died of suicide in 1961. 

    “Out of the four or five houses that he lived in, that’s the only one that is not open to tourism,” says Becker on a recent video call, rain visibly beating against the window of his home in Highland Park. “I found that interesting. Then there are stories about all these people making pilgrimages to the house and trying to climb the fence and get in.”

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