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  • Some Monuments Need to Be Toppled

    Toppled, paintbombed Jefferson Davis statue inside MOCA Geffen Contemporary for Monuments (Photo: Liz Ohanesian)
    The toppled and paintbombed Jefferson Davis statue inside Monuments at Geffen Contemporary at MOCA (Pic: Liz O.)

    Jefferson Davis looks like he’s been clocked. The oversized, bronze statue of the  onetime president of the Confederacy is laid out on the floor of the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA. He’s splotched and tagged with paint, dried pink streams running down the length of the statue like blood. Walk up close and you’ll see that the top of his head has been pounded flat. An outstretched arm, partially severed from the shoulder, may have once given him the appearance of a savior. Now, it looks like he the one who needs saving. I study the hulking figure for a few moments, snap a couple photos and continue through the museum. Some monuments are better left down for the count. 

    Monuments, a collaboration between MOCA and The Brick that’s on view at the Geffen Contemporary through May 3, is an exhibition juxtaposing decommissioned monuments with contemporary art to explore U.S. post-Civil War history. The Jefferson Davis statue, which was dedicated in 1907, lived in Richmond, Virginia, where it was part of a whole complex of Confederate monuments. In 2018, a local commission in Richmond recommended its removal, but that didn’t happen until two years later, when the statue was paintbombed and toppled during protests following the murder of George Floyd. 

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  • Girl Power Nite at Club Underground + More Happening in L.A. This Weekend

    Club Underground Girl Power Nite Grand Star Jazz Club flyer March 20, 2026

    March is Women’s History Month and, this Friday, March 20, we’re celebrating at Club Underground with Girl Power Nite. Both floors of Grand Star Jazz Club will be open, with Larry G. and I will be DJing all night. I’m playing in the theme room, where you’ll hear everyone from Siouxsie and the Banshees to Elastica to Le Tigre to Boy Harsher to Wet Leg. A bonus: for those of you who are going to see Peaches and Pixel Grip at the Bellwether on Friday night, you can get into Underground for just $5 if you show your ticket at the door, so definitely plan to stop by after the show. Advance tickets are available now. 

    As for the rest of this weekend, and early next week, here are my recommendations. 

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  • Boiled in Lead Embraces the Darkness of Folk Music

    Boiled in Lead press photo Darrell Eager
    Boiled in Lead (Pic: Darrell Eager)

    For Drew Miller, one word sums up the themes that attract Boiled in Lead to traditional tunes: Darkness. 

    Darkness extends to the Celtic punk band’s name too. Boiled in Lead is derived from an Irish song, “The Two Sisters,” specifically a version associated with Clannad and is a reference to the punishment that befell a murderous sibling. “In 1983, that seemed like a really good name for a punk rock band doing folk music,” the bassist explains.

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  • Grrrl Gang: Online 24/7 and IRL This Weekend

    Grrrl Gang press photo by Elizabeth Kezia
    Grrrl Gang photo credit: Elizabeth Kezia

    Grrrl Gang spends a lot of time online. “It’s just too much sometimes, to be honest,” says bassist Akbar Rumandung. But, the inspiration for the band’s latest release, Online 24/7, hit IRL via a photoshoot at a friend’s gallery. One shot of the Indonesian punk band, taken through a window with a sticker that read, “Online 24/7” on it, stood out. It looked as though people were watching the band through their phones. 

    “That photo it reflects what we actually feel as a band nowadays,” says Rumandung on a recent video call from Jakarta, “where people try to categorize us through social media through what they see about us through social media, where they don’t actually know us, they don’t actually understand what this band is actually about.” It also, coincidentally, fit the music that Rumandung’s bandmates, Angeeta Sentana and Edo Alventa, had been writing, which reflected what they were seeing online. “Before that, we didn’t know what we should name the maxi-single. There are so many options, but we didn’t feel it yet,” Rumandung adds. “After the photos… we knew that this was our title for the maxi-single.”

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  • Andrew Becker on Human Potential and Eel Sparkles

    Human Potential press photo by Daniel Roland Tierney
    Photo: Daniel Roland Tierney

    Andrew Becker awoke from a dream with a phrase “the house that kept Hemingway alive” in his head. “Did I make that up or did I read that?” he wondered. So, the LA-based musician, who records as Human Potential, looked around and found an article about the house in Idaho where Hemingway lived until he died of suicide in 1961. 

    “Out of the four or five houses that he lived in, that’s the only one that is not open to tourism,” says Becker on a recent video call, rain visibly beating against the window of his home in Highland Park. “I found that interesting. Then there are stories about all these people making pilgrimages to the house and trying to climb the fence and get in.”

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  • Go See Sirât + More Happening in L.A. from 3/12 – 3/18

    Go see Sirât. It’s not widely screening in LA right now, but it is playing at Alamo Drafthouse, which is where I saw the Spanish film, through next Wednesday. The  movie is about a Spanish man, his son and their dog traveling in Morocco to find his daughter, who has disappeared into the desert rave scene some months earlier. A war breaks out, the ravers decamp to the south of the country and the father and son follow them deeper into the desert. 

    There’s a lot going on in Sirât and I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, so the one thing that I will mention is that the sound design is exceptional. The score is frequently diegetic, meaning that it’s the music the characters in the film hear, and it interacts with their surroundings in both clever and realistic ways. For example, you can hear the crackle of techno pouring through busted speakers and the way a song fades into the wind when you’re driving in the middle of nowhere with the windows open. This all adds to the story, but you need to hear it for yourself.

    Sirât is a beautiful, and heavy, film that will stick with you after you leave the theater. See it with someone else so that you can talk about it afterwards. Like I said, it looks like Alamo is the only place in L.A. showing Sirât this weekend and next week, but it’s right in the middle of downtown, literally above a Metro station where four trains converge, so it’s a fairly convenient for most people. Plus, they have half-priced screenings on Tuesday and bottomless popcorn, which is a plus even if you have to order from your phone now. In Orange County, Sirât is playing at The Frida, which is also an excellent movie theater and is walking distance from the Metrolink stop in Santa Ana. Plus, Metrolink has$10 day passes on the weekends, a good option if gas prices have you reconsidering plans right now. 

    But, wait, there are more recommendations below. 

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  • Depeche Mode, Fontaines D.C. and War Child: The Wars Change, But the Protest Songs Remain the Same

    Photo of antiwar protestors in front of Los Angeles City Hall on March 7, 2026 (Photo: Liz Ohanesian)
    Protesting outside City Hall, March 7, 2026 (Pic: Liz O.)

    As the Santa Ana winds whipped through Los Angeles, downtown protestors clung to signs that read, “Invest in peace not the Pentagon” and “War crimes don’t hide sex crimes.” A string of activists spoke on the steps of City Hall. They led us in a run of chants all of which could be summarized in one point: end the wars. 

    Before walking to the Saturday afternoon protest, I listened toHelp (2), the War Child compilation album that came out on Friday, for the second or third time. On it, Depeche Mode covers “Universal Soldier,” written by Buffy Sainte-Marie in the early 1960s. It’s a striking condemnation of war made all the more ominous when performed as a dark, synthpop song. Listen closely and you might swear you hear jets in the background. Even if you’re only playing the song in the background, you can’t miss the resignation in Dave Gahan’s voice when he delivers the closing line, “this is not the way we put the end to war.” 

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  • Klub Nocturno New Wave vs. Darkwave Setlist March 6, 2026

    Sam Quealy Jawbreaker album cover
    Cover for Jawbreaker by Sam Quealy. Get this album!

    Thanks to everyone who hit the dance floor in the new wave vs. darkwave room at Nocturno last night. Was very happy to see you dancing to “Londontown” by Sam Quealy. Wasn’t sure if I was going to play that or not last night, so I’m glad it went over well. Her album, Jawbreaker, is overloaded with bangers. Give it a listen when you have the chance. Lots of Depeche Mode in last night’s set, because that was the theme, plus new music from Night Ritualz, a few of last year’s club hits from the likes of Sextile, Pixel Girl, N8NOFACE, French Police and Alice Glass, lots of throwbacks from Soft Cell to Ladytron and more. Set list is below and, as always all songs from the past year link back to other references on this blog. 

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  • The Black Watch Just Wasn’t Made For These Times

    The Black Watch live at the Barkley press photo by Lee Gentile
    The Black Watch live at The Barkley in South Pasadena (Press photo by Lee Gentile)

    At some point in the middle of a conversation with the black watch founder John Andrew Fredrick and producer Rob Campanella the subject shifts to Fredrick’s flip phone. Or, really, it shifts to Fredrick’s unease with technology. “I’m a very right brained kind of person who thinks that technology is killing us,” he says as we sit on the back patio of the Echo Park bookstore/cafe Stories,  “and I don’t want to be the sort of person who is staring at a phone all the time or going on Tinder or anything along those lines at all.”

    That’s fair. Technology probably is killing us and scrolling is tedious. Plus, Fredrick’s flip phone has become a conversation-starter in its own right. “It’s a way to make people chuckle. They want to touch it and consider me a relic, which is fine. I don’t care,” he says.

    “Brian Wilson isn’t the only guy who just wasn’t made for these times,” he adds. “I was not either.”

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  • Klub Nocturno + More Happening in LA Between March 5 -11

    Nocturno flyer March 6, 2025

    I’ll be back in the new wave vs. darkwave room at Klub Nocturno this Friday, March 6. If you haven’t been to Nocturno before, it’s a five-room party at Catch One where you can dance to anything from Boy Harsher to Los Angeles Azules throughout the course of the night. It does tend to sell out in advance, so the sooner you get your tickets, the better. You can do that right now on Dice. 

    As for the rest of the weekend, plus early next week, keep reading for my recommendations. 

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