I love Slayyyter’s remix/cover of Turnstile’s song “Birds,” which is on Never Enough: Versions. It’s such a unexpected take on the song, clubby and with a dubstep twist. Plus, Slayyyter is really good with aggressive vocals. I included “Birds” on my September mix, but didn’t get the chance to try it out in a club until last night. Set list is below.
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I’m way into “You You You,” from Arab Strap’s new album, Half-Told Tales. Played in my set for the first time on Friday night at Club Underground. It’s a groovy, dance-rock track that’s good for the warm-up portion of the night. Anyhow, it’s been a long-hot weekend so I don’t have much to say, except that the set list from Friday night is below. I’ll be back at Underground on October 16 for the Fontaines D.C. album release party. Get your tickets for that asap.
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Mark your calendars for Friday, October 16. Fontaines D.C. will be releasing their new album, Dopamine Chamber, and we’re doing a listening party at Club Underground. Doors are at 9:30 p.m. and album play starts at 9:45 p.m. sharp. After the album, stick around for dancing because both floors of the Grand Star Jazz Club will be open and Larry G. and I will have plenty of Fontaines D.C. on us. Tickets are available online now.
As for this weekend, head to Club Underground on Friday, October 2 for indie, Britpop, post-punk, synthpop, etc. Advance tickets are available. If you’re going to see Marlon Magnée at Pacific Electric on Friday night, stop by Underground after the show. The venues are close to each other.
On Saturday, October 3, I’ll be DJing at Harvard and Stone from 10 p.m. until close. No cover! If you’re going to Corpse Bride at Hollywood Forever, Perfume Genius at Barnsdall Gallery, Poison Girlfriend at The Vermont or The Growlers at The Greek, Harvard & Stone is pretty close, so stop by afterwards and say hi.
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James Bookert is trying not to get jaded with age. “Especially being from Austin, there are a lot of older, jaded musicians,” he says on a recent video call. “I was really at risk of becoming one of those people. Maybe, in some ways, I can be and I have to actively fight not to be.”
That tension found its way into Adult Onset Goth, the EP that Bookert released in September under his alias, San Gabriel. “The older I get, the more serious I get,” he says. So Bookert imagined a medical infomercial tackling grown up teen angst. The title, though, isn’t a description of the EP’s sound. San Gabriel’s brand of synth-heavy melancholy is tempered with a touch of sweetness, a style that’s closer to Air’s soundtrack for The Virgin Suicides or Tame Impala on The Slow Rush. There’s a dose of rebellion on the EP too, in the form of the song “Fuck the Money,” where Bookert sings, “I was so tired of 9-5/Working for the weekend.”
(more…)Long-running indie duos Arab Strap and Club 8 both released new albums in September. Plus, Swedish singer/musician Murex released her debut. Keep reading for the reviews.
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There’s a new Hercules and Love Affair album out now. It’s called Danseur and it’s fantastic. If you were upstairs at Underground last night, you might have heard “Heaven,” which features Faris Badwan of The Horrors on vocals and is my favorite song on the album. (Read the review here) Other new releases in the set include the title track from Soft Cell’s final album, Danceteria (review) and “Exploded View” from Actors latest, Our Love Will Live Forever (review).
It was The Cure Nite, but, I was playing in the not-The Cure room upstairs. Got a few Fontaines D.C. songs in for those of you who came to the club after the show, and those of us who didn’t get tickets. As usual, releases from the past two years are highlighted and link back to other mentions on the blog. Thanks for dancing.
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On my first trip to New York, I connected with an L.A. friend who was at NYU. We were going to meet up in Times Square. “Meet me by the Disney Store,” he said.
The Disney Store? I don’t know if my shock and disappointment carried over the hotel lobby phone. This was the end of the 1990s, the era of Rudy Giuliani and TRL if you will, but the Times Square in my head was closer to the one Marc Almond describes on the latest Soft Cell album, with B movies playing in rundown theaters.
For their final album, Danceteria, Soft Cell takes listeners to the New York that inspired inspired so much of the English duo’s work. It’s the same New York that Madonna recalls on Confessions II and, if you listen to the two albums, you can hear similar perspectives that unfold in very different ways. Where Confessions II jumps back and forth through time, Danceteria maintains a narrative, and sound, that’s firmly rooted in the 1980s. You can hear the end of disco and the beginning of house in “Danceteria” and “The Space Inside,” which sit side by side on the album.
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It’s been three years since waltzerr’s first show, but band founder Emily Waltzer remembers it well. “We had only been playing music in my friend’s bedroom for a year,” she recalls of the gig opening for Palettes at Seattle venue Funhouse. “We didn’t know how it was going to turn out. My mic didn’t work for half of the set.”
In spite of the mic issue, it was a good night, she adds. “It was a really tiny venue, which was kind of nice because it filled up quickly, so it felt like a large audience.”
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Friday, September 25, is The Cure Nite at Club Underground with Larry G. and I DJing. Both floors of the Grand Star Jazz Clubwill be open, with one floor dedicated The Cure and the other to a mix of indie, Britpop, post-punk, new wave, darkwave, synthpop, etc. Advance tickets are available now and it’s 21+. Party starts at 9:30 p.m. and goes until 2 a.m., so if you’re going to the sold out Fontaines D.C. show at Hollywood Forever, stop by afterwards to hit the dance floor. For those of you who haven’t been to Underground before, the Grand Star is located in Chinatown’s Central Plaza, right next to the Bruce Lee statue.
As for the rest of this weekend, and early next week, here are my recommendations.
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The downtown L.A. Moomin pop-up is easy to miss. It’s on the same level of The Bloc as Kinokuniya, but it’s a couple doors down from the Japanese bookshop, lodged between a Botox salon and a vacant storefront. Moomin is understated in a very Nordic way, with lots of clean lines and earthy colors, so it’s easily overshadowed by the vacant shop’s hot pink window signs, which have been advertising a K-beauty photo studio “coming soon” for months now.
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