Chicago – The second day of Pitchfork Music Festival kicked off with plenty of sun and sweat, with the humidity causing temps to rise and deodorant to fail. Though, given that Pitchfork weekend tends to bring with it a heatwave, having temps linger in the 70s and 80s was an absolute delight! The crowds didn’t
San Francisco – Multi-instrumentalist and delightful weirdo Luis Vasquez is no stranger to the fickle streets of Oakland, CA. Vasquez’s musical invention—his noisy post-punk project The Soft Moon—recently played a couple of shows on his home turf in the Bay Area, the first of which was a headlining slot at Oakland’s New Parish, a smaller
Los Angeles – “You just have to see them live to appreciate them” is an ever-common prerequisite when introducing a friend/relative/stranger to a band you love. It serves as slight insurance, a safety-valve if you will, in case said person quickly dismisses the tunes emanating from the speakers. For some artists, a strong live show
Los Angeles – Shannon and the Clam’s record release show on Wednesday night at Los Angeles’ El Rey Theater was a bit of a West Coast punk rock extravaganza. While the theater is most well-known for hosting larger indie-rock shows and even the occasional mainstream concert, it was a down-and-dirty night of DIY retro-style garage-punk
Los Angeles – In the wake of More Than Any Other Day’s enormous splash, critics could not help themselves but reference groups like Television or The Talking Heads when describing the wiry post-punk heard throughout Ought’s debut release. This opinion is backed up with some decent arguments; the sing/speaking bears a passing resemblance to David
Los Angeles - Petite Noir has successfully created one of the best albums of 2015 with La Vie Est Belle / Life Is Beautiful. 24 year-old South African artist Yannick Ilunga takes his electronic post-punk to a new genre, noir wave. If not the best album, than it is certainly the most imaginative. Petite Noir’s aesthetic
Austin – At a glance you could mistake the cover of Communions’ new self-titled EP for a movie poster. Probably that’s because it’s using the same tactics for conveying seriousness that you see in the branding for Blackfish, Short Term 12, and so on: light tint, minimal pallet, a subject unaware that it’s being watched
Los Angeles – While The Soft Moon have previously released a pair of solid LPs since their founding in 2009, this year’s Deeper has found the Oakland-based post-punk band reaching ever larger audiences. This increased level of underground popularity was quite evident as the Luis Vasquez-led trio powered through a captivating set in front of
New York – Girl Band has hamstrung themselves with their terrible name. It’s almost impossible to catch anyone’s attention in the infinite, overwhelming virtual SXSW of the Internet, so a first impression via a name can be of crucial importance. A band doesn’t want to allow a potential listener to write them off without hearing
Oakland – This past Monday, ambitious garage rocker John Barrett’s project Bass Drum of Death played a raucous set at the stylishly small Club Leo’s in Oakland. Bass Drum of Death’s set was preluded by sets by local bands War Cloud and Pookie & the Poodlez, but the stars of the show were definitely the