The boys of fun.–lead singer/songwriter Nate Ruess, Jack Antonoff, and Andrew Dost–are back with their second studio album, Some Nights, which drops today. As a long time Nate Ruess fan, from his Format days, I feel qualified and obligated to review this record. People who are just beginning to listen to fun. might be
New Year’s Eve can be quite an ordeal in a city like Los Angeles. Dance clubs and bars exploit the holiday by charging obscene cover charges and even more obscene drink prices. So where is one to go who doesn’t want to deal with the club scene but still wants a kickass party? How about
The Cave Singers could not have chosen a better venue to host its backwoods-inspired folk than the legendary Troubadour in West Hollywood. Astounding history aside, the Los Angeles club’s atmosphere is small and intimate, which is perfect for a band that engages its audience as much as the Seattle-based swamp rockers. Saturday night was not
I was fortunate enough to catch The Postelles open for
I arrived at the Fillmore for the Blitzen Trapper/Dawes show around 7:55 for an 8:00 show stoned out of my mind. There is no greater high than that of being on a cloud when music hits you. As I stood admiring the empty stage, the collective masses of San Francisco streamed into the iconic Fillmore.
After listening to Two Guns’ self-titled debut album, I was thoroughly impressed. Kevin Poush, the lead singer and guitarist, had such a melancholy affable tone on the first album, which was a bit reminiscent of Jeff Tweedy at his most laconic. I saw great potential in the band and recognized a sound that was distinct
Peter Wolf Crier is a band that you probably haven’t heard of…yet. But after watching the duo (trio during live performances) immobilize the audience of Los Angeles’ Bootleg Theatre, I am confident you will be hearing this name more and more as we roll into 2012. The Minneapolis-based outfit encompassed a peculiar dichotomy in its
I was sitting in front of my new laptop today lamenting the death of Punk Rock…again. Punk has lived and died more times in the past twenty years than Paul McCartney during the Abbey Road years. Then I listened to the new Indians album and saw a minor resurgence on the horizon. Their self-titled debut
Although the band has its roots in California, there is something far more east coast about We Barbarians’ post-punk revivalist sound. The grandiose hard-pop of their new EP, Headspace, sounds more at home darting between skyscrapers and roaming the 8 million person blob of New York, than basking in the laid-back fun in the sun
It was a night of retrospectively paying tribute to a genre that conjures up the music of the 70s. Two bands that wave the banner for revival rock hit the stage at the O2 – Gentleman’s Pistols with its hairy, metal laced heavy rock and The Answer with equally hairy, Irish brogue, evangelical stuff. This