Jeff Jacquin and Joey Cevetello of Grey Factor (Photo courtesy of the band)
When first wave L.A. synth band Grey Factor originally played around town, it was the junction of the 1970s and 1980s, an era when synths were more cumbersome and complicated than they are today and local audiences weren’t totally sold on electronic music.
Back then, Jeff Jacquin and Joey Cevetello, the core of the group, and their bandmates lugged analog gear into punk clubs. Sometimes, they brought their own soundboard as well. Cevetello carried pieces of paper with charts showing how all the knobs on the synthesizers should be arranged. Their stands were repurposed shelving units.
Agender (Photo: Lindsey Byrnes) plays a free show to celebrate new album, Berserk, at Zebulon on 3/28/25
I made an executive decision to scale back on the event listings here, just to save myself some time. Going forward, I’ll post these on Thursdays and the list will include my top five recommendations for events happening in L.A. through Wednesday of the following week.
The top 5 will be in addition to my DJ gigs. (I’m not playing anywhere this week.) If an event is going on multiple days, like a week-long movie run, it will be listed at the top. After that, everything is listed chronologically.
This week’s recommendations include David Lynch movies screening in L.A. and Orange County. Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire or David Lynch: The Art Life? Take your pick. There’s also animation studio Titmouse’s annual 5 Second Day shorts fest over Vidiots on Friday night. For shows, Agender’s free, album release gig at Zebulon will be a blast on Friday. On Saturday, consider Franz Ferdinand at The Wiltern or Vague Lanes and Darkswoon at The Goldfish. All the details are listed below.
A little more than an hour had passed since Caravan Palace launched into their set at The Novo on Monday night. The French group, a trio in the studio now six people strong on stage, had already pumped up the crowd with a near-seamless mix of older tunes, like their version of “Black Betty,” and material from last year’s album, Gangbusters Melody Club. The stage was now saturated in blue light that moved like a wave as singer Zoé Colotis talked the audience.
“Let’s get crazy for a while. Forget all your troubles, just spread good energy and craziness,” she told the crowd.
White lights burst from the strobes, pulsating with the beat that had just kicked the crowd in the pants. They pumped their hands in the air and jumped in unison. The floor vibrated. My phone started to shake as I tried to record video.
Michael Rother live at The Broad in Los Angeles for Intuition Festival on Saturday, March 22, 2025. (Pic: Liz O.)
When Michael Rother, who co-founded Nue! and Harmonia, played Intuition Festival at The Broad on Saturday night, I had a mini-revelation. This might have happened during a Harmonia song, but I can’t be sure since it was well past the point where everything Rother played on the stage outside of the museum converged into one giant piece of music in my head. I was dancing and, suddenly, something in the tone of the guitar made me think of New Order. It’s not as random a thought as you think.
With a title like Night Life, one might assume that The Horrors would drop listeners into the sweatiest, dingiest, bassiest warehouse after-hours on their latest album. That’s a semi-reasonable assumption if you heard the band’s 2021 EPs, Lout and Against the Blade, but it’s also an incorrect one. On the U.K. band’s six album— their first full-length in seven years— night life is hushed and melancholy. It’s gothic, not goth, i.e. more Brontë sisters than Sisters of Mercy.
It’s the second track off Dead Channel Sky, the latest album from hip-hop trio clipping., that hooked me into the album. “Dominator” begins with a snippet of Human Resource’s early ‘90s banger of the same name, the line “I’m the one and only” pitched up and stuttering towards a collision with rapper Daveed Diggs, who drops a quote from “Bring the Noise,” the Public Enemy classic, “Once again back it’s the incredible.” The sound is bombastic, in the way that the old rave anthems were, and clipping. keeps up the big, boisterous vibe as “Dominator” slides into “Change the Channel,” which twists towards late ‘90s electronic tastes, think “Firestarter”-era Prodigy-meets-Chemical Brothers.
Michael Rother of Neu! and Harmonia plays Intuition Festival at The Broad on Saturday March 22 (Photo courtesy of the artist)
No gigs for me this week, but there’s a lot happening in L.A. from The Smiths tribute nights to David Lynch screenings. Deaf Club kicks off the weekend on Thursday at Alex’s Bar, Intuition Festival is happening at The Broad, Night Tempo is back in L.A. on Saturday night, French group Caravan Palace kicks off next week with a Monday night show at The Novo and Snow Patrol is in town on Tuesday and Wednesday.
In addition, as you might have heard, Dark Delicacies is closing its brick-and-mortar early next month. The Burbank book shop has been a mainstay for horror literature and film fans and I spoke with co-owner Del Howison for the Daily News about the decision to semi-retire. (Click here for a gift link to the story.) Del’s signing his new book at the shop on Saturday, so stop by then, or during business hours before the last day.
Meanwhile, Deadly Wax, a killer record store, just relocated to Granada Hills and the soft opening of the new space is this week. The shop is now located at 17820A Chatsworth Street 91344 and hours are posted on Deadly Wax’s Instagram page, so if you’re in the north San Fernando Valley, stop by and check it out.
In other news, Ash, the new sci-fi horror film directed by Flying Lotus, is out on March 21 and it will be showing at various theaters around L.A. I have not seen the film yet, but the soundtrack is cool, so I’m curious to check it out soon.
Cover of the soundtrack for Goodbye Horses: The Many Lives of Q Lazzarus out on Sacred Bones
If you’ve ever requested “Goodbye Horses” at your local ‘80s or goth club, you need to seek out the new Q Lazzarus documentary. TBH, you need to see this movie even if you’re tired of hearing the song from Silence of the Lambs at every spooky night in town. You need to see it even if you think you don’t know what I’m talking about because- trust me- you will once year hear the first few seconds of the melody. Goodbye Horses: The Many Lives of Q Lazzarus, directed by Eva Aridjis Fuentes, is a must-see music documentary, in part because it’s much more than one song that became an unexpected club hit. This film is no nostalgia ride. In it, Diane Luckey, aka Q, shares her struggles and what ultimately led her to vanish from music in the mid-1990s.
Last month, I reviewed the Goodbye Horses soundtrack for Bandcamp. The 21-song collection is the first ever full-length Q Lazzarus release and, while listening to it, I was stunned by how she built up a large and eclectic body of work over a 10 year period, yet struggled to find anyone to release it. So, I went to a screening of Goodbye Horses at Philosophical Research Society in Los Feliz on Friday night to find out what happened. While I had read about bits-and-pieces of Luckey’s life and knew that she died while the documentary was in the works, I wasn’t expecting the revelations that come in the film.
The view from the DJ booth at Midnight Cities. (Pic: Liz O.)
This is just a super quick update with last night’s set list from Midnight Cities at Catch One. It was a super fun night and, for everyone who was there, I hope you had a good time on the dance floor.
“You could pop on the internet right this second and find people road-raging,” says Mark Lane. “It’s so ubiquitous, such a part of the culture.”
That unabashed anger so often on display online and in the streets is what Lane is referencing in “Yelling at Cars,” the title track from his latest EP, released last November. “I saw you standing in the street/Yelling at cars,” he sings over a beat that’s a little electro, a little EBM, a clubby sound that still conveys the shock and dismay of his observations.
“It’s really hostile now,” he says. “The record touches on this psychosis of imagined road ownership. These people really believe, the road is mine. You see it over and over.”
