Deerhunter

Deerhunter at Bumbershoot, 2013

Deerhunter will be performing at Variety Playhouse on January 8, 2016.

EL VY

Scooter Island

Just when I think there's nothing new I can learn from KCRW, they go and post Scooter Island as their Top Tune for the day.  

Scooter Island reportedly has more than 20 vocalists, producers and visual artists, and is led by record producer/DJ and music supervisor Matt FX Feldman.

Here's Breezy, a taste of what they call "rooftop music" from their self-titled CD.

Thomas Pynchon Meets Dan Deacon

Dan Deacon at The Mammal Gallery, March 2015

Not really, but as an indication of how far things have come in the past several decades, consider this:

"We're the only bar in the area, you know, that has a strict electronic music policy. Come on around on Saturdays, starting midnight we have your Sinewave Session, that's a live get-together, fellas come in just to jam from all over the state, San Jose, Santa Barbara, San Diego--" 

"Live?" Metzger said, "electronic music, live?" 

"They put it on tape, here, live, fella.  We got a whole back room full of your audio oscillators, gunshot machines, contact mikes, everything man.  That's for if you didn't bring your ax, see, but you get the feeling and you want to swing with the rest of the cats, there's always something available." 

"No offense," said Metzger, with a winning Baby Igor smile. (From The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon [1965])

And then 50 years later, this:

Spoon

Warpaint

Warpaint at Bumbershoot, 2011

Wondering when Warpaint will get around to touring the American South again, or if our paths will cross on the festival circuit?

Ana Tijoux

I know there hasn't been much hip-hop presented in this blog, but still, one of my favorite rappers ever since I saw her highly anticipated set at Bumbershoot 2012 (probably before that) is Chile's Ana Tijoux. Here's her KCRW Morning Becomes Eclectic set.

Washed Out

Washed Out at Bumbershoot 2013

Washed Out on KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic.

AM & Shawn Lee

Another day, another video. . . 

Two Trains by Yo La Tango

Yo La Tengo at Buckhead Theater, January 25, 2013

Just because it sounds so damn sweet, here's Yo La Tengo at KCRW's Santa Monica studios performing Two Trains from their album Fade.

Meanwhile, Back in LA . . . .

Pillowfight

Following the release of Used To Think, Santa Barbara's KCRW named a new Pillowfight song as their Top Tune for Wednesday, January 23, 2013.  According to the station:

Gorillaz' Dan the Automator and multi-instrumentalist Emily Wells team up for a ferocious new project called Pillowfight. It feels like a party when Kid Koala contributes on the 1's and 2's and graffiti artist David Choe handles the artwork. Today's Top Tune, Get Down, from Pillowfight's self-titled debut, features Lateef the Truthspeaker on vocals.

(Sounds a little like vintage Big Audio Dynamite at the 2:00 minute mark)

Local Natives

And here's Local Natives in a special January 11, 2013, KCRW concert at Apogee's Berkeley Street Studio in Santa Monica (with a long Jason Bentley interview after the song Colombia for some reason).

0:00   You and I

4:30   Breakers

8:39   Ceilings

11:32 Colombia

  (interview)

28:50 Black Spot
33:35 Heavy Feet
37:45 Three Months

42:25 Bowery
47:15 Wide Eyes
51:50 Who Knows Who Cares
55:55 Sun Hands 

Lost In The Trees

Somehow, between the technical problems over at the LiveJournal site and the crash of my computer, I forgot to post the pictures of Lost In The Trees performance at The Earl back on November 3 - which is a shame, because it was a really terrific show. It wasn't until I stumbled across their Morning Becomes Eclectic set over at KCRW that I remembered that I had forgotten.

  

The opening act was Atlanta's Oryx and Crake, a fine orchestral pop outfit worthy of wider attention.

Touring with Lost In The Trees were North Carolina's Midtown Dickens, who played a spirited set of Appalachia-influenced Americana.

Headliners Lost In The Trees played a magnificent set, mainly performing songs from their latest album A Church To Fit Our Needs, a cycle of songs frontman Ari Picker wrote about the passing away of his mother, but also including some older songs, such as Walk Around The Lake.

In addition to violin, cello, and even french horn accompaniment, Picker had Midtown Dickens join them on stage late in the set to provide even more strings and, yes, that's a bowed saw being played behind him.

For the end-of-the-set finale, Picker and company left the stage to perform an acoustic and unamplified version of Song for the Painter, one of my favorite of their songs.  An encore after that touching and intimate performance would have been superfluous.

I'm just now realizing that I haven't been to The Earl since that November 3 set - maybe not a record for me, but certainly an exception to my usual behavior.