This Friday, November 28, is Nocturno over at Catch One with five rooms of dancing. I’ll be in the Rock en Español vs. cumbia room all night and hope to see you on the dance floor.
Click here for Klub Nocturno tickets
Continue reading Klub Nocturno at Catch One and More Happening in L.A., 11/27-12/03/25
From its first note, “Mini, Midi, Maxi,” the opening track off Bourj Hammoud Groove, Habibi Funk’s new Ara Kekedjian retrospective, will transport you to another time and place. You don’t know where in the world you are, but it’s somewhere around the end of the 1960s and you’re feeling very jet set as you shimmy against psychedelic lights in your Paco Rabanne fit while smoking a really long cigarette. The band is giving Jacques Dutronc energy with a song that falls somewhere in between “Mini, Mini, Mini” and “Et Moi, Et Moi, Et Moi.” You don’t really understand the lyrics, but it doesn’t matter. Vibe transcends language at the global disco-a-go-go.
Continue reading Habibi Funk Gets Into the ‘Bourj Hammoud Groove’ with Ara Kekedjian Collection
If there is one song on Chin Up Buttercup that summarizes this fifth full-length album from Austra, it’s “The Hopefulness of Dawn.” The six-minute epic opens with a cavernous, echoing intro that plays up the ethereal quality of Katie Stelmanis’ voice. Then, at about two-and-a-half minutes into the song, the raver synths kick in, rising with her voice as a new rhythm overtakes the song. Stelmanis’ name-checks Ray of Light as an influence and, indeed, “The Hopefulness of Dawn” does play out like Austra’s twist on the title track from Madonna’s era-defining 1998 album in that it’s an ecstatic, almost spiritual, slice of dance music.
Continue reading Chin Up Buttercup, Austra Dropped a New Album and It’s Dance Floor Magic
August, the latest album from Karen Schoemer, began with the prompt to write a poem a day for a month. Sounds like a straightforward premise, right? In reality, it was a multi-year process of writing and cutting and pasting before recording the poems, which are backed by music that pals like Mike Watt, Oli Heffernan, Amy Rigby, Wednesday Knudsen and others composed.
“I had the idea to make an album in August of 2022,” Schoemer recalls on a recent video call. That’s when she emailed her collaborators with the idea as well. “Oli Heffernan sent music within an hour. He was like, here are seven pieces of music that I’m not doing anything with.” A few others composed pieces with only the knowledge that the piece needed to be about two minutes long and it was for a project called August.
Continue reading Karen Schoemer Wrote a Poem a Day in August, 2022. The Resulting Album Is Out Now.
It’s a big week for Brian Jonestown Massacre fans in L.A. The psychedelic band is playing two nights at Teragram Ballroom and, while the show on Saturday, November 22, is totally sold out, there are still tickets available to see them on Sunday, November 23.
In addition, there are two related film screenings happening within the next week. On Saturday, November 22, Dig! XX, the 20th anniversary of the cult classic Brian Jonestown Massacre/Dandy Warhols documentary screens at Brain Dead Studios with Joel Gion of the band on hand for a Q/A session with moderator Yasi Salek of Bandsplain Podcast. Over at Philosophical Research Society on Tuesday, November 25, you can catch the world premiere of God Is My Girlfriend, a BJM jam session filmed in 2010 that has not been screened in a theater until now. Members of the band will be at the premiere as well.
Keep reading for more happening around town between today, November 20, and next Wednesday, November 26.
Continue reading Brian Jonestown Massacre, PRS Fundraiser and More Happening in Los Angeles 11/20-11/26
November 18 is the last day of Nils Vik’s life. And, for his final act, the elderly ferryman boards his boat and navigates the fjord, as he has done on so many other days. This time, though, he is joined by his dearly departed, yet still trusty, dog. As he travels the waters that he knows so well, Vik encounters a legion of passengers who, like his dog, have already died. As memories and revelations of his life rise to the surface, Vik awaits the one person with whom he wants to reunite, his late wife.
The latest novel from Norwegian author Frode Grytten, The Ferryman and His Wife is also his first to be translated into English. In Norway, Den Dagen Nils Vik døde (English: The Day That Nils Vik Died, according to Wikipedia) was released two years ago and went on to win the country’s prestigious Brage Prize. The U.S. edition, translated by Alison McCullough, came out just last week and it’s a must-read.
Continue reading ‘The Ferryman and His Wife’ Travel Through the Space Between Life and Death in New Novel
Nora Keyes is a woman of many bands and, if you’re even slightly acquainted with Los Angeles’ DIY scene, you probably have seen her on stage. Maybe it was with The Centimeters, who were active between the late ‘90s and early ‘00s and will reconvene on November 29 for Spaceland’s 30 year reunion bash at the Regent. Or, maybe you’ve seen her with ‘00s glam outfit Fancy Space People, who also recently reunited for select shows. More recently, there is Tinglez, Keyes’ Italo disco side project with and Bebe McPherson and Eric Nordhauser, and her primary musical focus, Elf Freedom, the improvisational psychedelic band whose 2024 album, Solstice earned raves from Bandcamp and a number of genre-specific publications and was recently released on vinyl via Greek record label Twisted Flowers.
Recorded on the summer solstice of 2023, the album began as a jam session that evolved later with overdubs and became a collection of songs that you likely won’t hear live. “If someone asked us to play that album, we would probably do a variation of the chord progressions, but it would be a whole other improvised thing,” says Keyes.
Continue reading From The Centimeters to Elf Freedom: The Musical Evolution of Nora Keyes
Had been meaning to get “Save It for a Rainy Day,” from the latest Saint Etienne album, into my club sets for a good minute. It was sort of appropriate that the first time I played it out was at Underground last night, on account of the rain and all. The whole album, International, is fantastic. It’s also Saint Etienne’s final album, so do pick it up when you have a chance.
I forgot to take pics. It’s okay, we can use our imagination. Shout out to the handful of people who were on the dance floor for nearly the entire night and to the Kneecap fans who know all the words to “H.O.O.D.” I was impressed. Set list is below. The new-ish stuff is in bold and links to other mentions of the artists on this site.
Continue reading New Saint Etienne and Everything Else You Heard at Underground on 11/14/25
Three Kims inspired the name of L.A. up-and-comers Kim Theory: Deal, Gordon and Shattuck. On the band’s debut EP, Bitch Scene, you can hear the influence of all three indie icons. The punk spirit of The Muffs lives on “Child Star Teenybopper,” where the legacy classic Pixies albums, as well as the Breeders, echo on “GrowingUp” and a noise rock dirge reminiscent of Bad Moon Rising Sonic Youth opens “Wish You Were.”
Kim Theory’s own story begins when Audrey Cymone, Lula Seifert and Zoey Su were in middle school, which wasn’t all that long ago. Cymone and Seifert performed one cover from each of the famed Kims for Seifert’s Women’s History Month school assembly. Su, who was in the crowd that day, recalls one kid proclaim, “Oh my god, they’re playing Sonic Youth!” when the girls busted out a cover of “Kool Thing.”
Continue reading Kim Theory Releases Debut EP, Bitch Scene
A few songs into their set on Wednesday night, Megan James of Purity Ring thanked the crowd for masking up. She talked about a world where we are “caretakers of the land we live on,” where there are no prisons or genocide. “It starts at home with material care for others,” she told the crowd, “like wearing a mask. No one is going to save us. We care for each other. We keep each other safe. Free Palestine.”
The night began with security passing out masks near the entrance to The Novo It ended with guards near the photo pit handing out water bottles to people in the crowd, something I have never seen happen at a show before this one. All of this connects to Purity Ring’s new, self-titled concept album, which was released in September. Inspired by RPGs like Nier Automata and Final Fantasy X, the album is itself a soundtrack for an imagined game, wherein the characters’ quest is to built a better world.
Continue reading Purity Ring Builds a Better World On Stage at The Novo