If your New Year’s Resolution is to get out of the house more often, you might as well start now because there are some very cool events happening in Los Angeles for this first weekend of 2026, including The Smell’s weekend-long anniversary bash, the L.A. Fights Back benefit show with Sextile, Automatic and Choir Boy, a David Bowie-themed skate party, film tributes to Bowie, David Lynch, Rob Reiner and Udo Kier, plus lots more. Keep reading for the breakdown.
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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.
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