Walking into The Crocodile, it was hard to believe that just a week ago at the same venue I was there, in the heart of the hip-hop scene, seeing Nacho Picasso and Cam’ron. To say that a different crowd filled the venue to see LA-based (but Oregon raised) ZZ Ward would be doing an injustice to the word different. Where blunt-smoking youngsters stood just a week before stood parental couples on date nights and dolled-up ladies singing along to the…

New band Hank And Cupcakes packed Pianos to the brim Tuesday night. The bass and drum duo roared through their set like wild things romping through a neon electro-funk jungle with the energy level of a ridiculously high intensity. The now Brooklyn-based couple formed in Tel Aviv, named themselves in reference to Charles Bukowski, and then made their pilgrimage to NYC to be inspired and inspire. If the people-filled sweat fest of a show on a Tuesday was even the…

There are some bands that you just have to see live to fully appreciate, and on Saturday night I found out that Cuckoo Chaos is one of those bands. The San Diego-based quintet has been on tour with Los Angeles up-and-comers Incan Abraham, and this weekend marked Incan Abe’s homecoming and the last show on the road for Cuckoo Chaos before returning to the studio to record its sophomore album.   Because the band is currently working on new material,…

In a crowd where “set change” is synonymous for almost all with “smoke break,” a rare moment of hollow space allowed me to see and appreciate the space I was in: a low ceiling using burlap coffee sacs as its acoustical installation, a stage backdrop of unintentionally floral curtains and a cement floor soon to be re-covered by the miscellaneous shoes of post-teen youths stuck as, regardless of gender, 16-year-old boys. This could only be a venue and audience for…