The original cover art of Tales of Paranoia by R. Crumb on view at David Zwirner in Los Angeles (Photo: Liz O.)
Next month, Fantagraphics will releaseTales of Paranoia, the first comic book from R. Crumb in 23 years. Right now, though, you can check out original art from the book, as well as other works from Crumb, at David Zwirner here in L.A. The gallery exhibition, which runs through December 20, is the first Crumb exhibition in the city since The Bible Illuminated: R. Crumb’s Book of Genesis ran at the Hammer in 2009/10.
It’s late. The club has ended and I’ve been in the DJ booth all night, so I’m both exhausted and loquacious. We’re talking music and the conversation jumps from Fontaines D.C. to Kneecap to Bob Vylan with a hundred different asides. My mind is a jumbled reflection of my Instagram feed, which is how the English duo came up in conversation. My friends don’t know too much about Bob Vylan, but they’ve been high on my timeline for months, so I get into the whole story about the Glastonbury incident and how they don’t have a tour visa for the U.S. now. It’s all documented in this story from The Guardian, but the details sound particularly absurd when you’re recounting them aloud. Then again, just about everything in the news sounds more absurd out loud these days.
The last song at Underground last night was “Favourite” by Fontaines D.C. and, when I saw people singing along, I thought finally. Romance has been out for over a year now. It was my favorite album of 2024. It was a lot of people’s favorite album of last year. Both Larry and I have been playing multiple tracks off the album since it came out, and we were both playing Fontaines D.C. before Romance, but it wasn’t until this past summer that I really started to see the band hit with the indie club crowd here in L.A. Back in the pre-algorithm days, that would have been really unusual, but now it’s kind of normal. A band can meet all the metrics by which it would be considered successful, like award nominations and sold-out shows, and people still don’t know who they are because their “personalized” feeds are really just regurgitating nostalgia content based on basic demographic info and passive likes, served with a dollop of hot takes on Taylor Swift and Sabrina Carpenter to make you feel like you know what’s happening in the world.
What I’m saying is that the internet is making us sad and uncool, so go out to a real club and dance to the music that real people put together into sets that would baffle Spotify. Dance to the new stuff. If you don’t know it this week, you’ll know it next week.
Anyhow, here’s last night’s set list, which includes new music The New Eves, Gorillaz (with Sparks), Alice Glass and more, plus a few oldies that I haven’t played in a really long time, like “Cupid Boy” from Kylie Minogue’s best album, the Scissor Sisters/Mylo mashup and probably some other tunes. All 2025 releases are in bold and link back to other references here on the blog.
Oh, before we get to the set list, be sure to pick up tickets for Halloween at Club Underground. Both floors of Grand Star Jazz Club will be open on Friday, October 31, and there will be a costume contest.
Malka Spigel and Colin Newman of Immersion (photo courtesy of the artists)
A funny thing happened last year for Colin Newman and Malka Spigel and their project Immersion. “We suddenly had a tour last autumn and we only had a half-hour set,” says Newman. “Instead of adding a few oldies and fleshing it out, we wrote a bunch of new material.”
Newman and Spigel have made a lot of music. Newman first gained acclaim with Wire in the late 1970s. Spigel co-founded the post-punk band Minimal Compact in the early 1980s. “If you try and sell Immersion as being somebody from Wire and somebody from Minimal Compact, they come with with a whole expectation that it’s going to be those things or both and it’s neither,” says Newman. “Immersion is Immersion. It’s its own thing and for us it makes much more sense to build that organically.”
Trying to find something to do in Los Angeles this weekend? I know, it’s rough. I just spent too long combing through Instagram feeds and screencapping flyers that have yet to pop up on my feed. Still, there are places to go and bands to see. In fact, I’m a little surprised to see that some shows, like Sextile at The Novo on Saturday, October 11, and Wolf Alice at the Wiltern on Monday, October 13, still have tickets left. There are also loads of movies screenings, a few great dance nights, a comedy show for a really good cause and lots more, so keep reading and share this with any pals who might be interested. All the events here are happening in Los Angeles sometime between Thursday, October 9, and Wednesday, October 15.
Last week, Ultra Sunn released The Beast in You. While the Belgian duo’s sophomore album isn’t quite a departure from previous club hits like “Keep Your Eyes Peeled” and “Broken Monsters,” or last year’s debut full-length, US, it shows some welcome growth from the EBM outfit.
Heavily influenced by European dance music of the late 1980s and early 1990s, Ultra Sunn excels at songs that bridge the old and the new. It’s no wonder that they’ve been one of the most requested artists I’ve seen while DJing. Most of their songs are around 124 or 125 BPM, which is solidly mid-tempo when you’re DJing a darkwave night, and they fit perfectly in between Front 242 and Nitzer Ebb classics and more recent bangers from Boy Harsher and Sextile. This kind of consistency makes Ultra Sunn songs ideal for club play, but it’s also what makes them less interesting for at home listening. That’s very common amongst artists who work in hyper-specific niches of dance music, but, nonetheless, I can’t help wondering what it would sound like if Ultra Sunn stepped outside of the comfort zone.
On her latest album, Amateur, Molly Nilsson considers how a word that is derived from the Latin for “lover” or “admirer” came to mean a lack of experience or professionalism. “I see ‘amateurism’ as a delighted, even foolish, protest,” says Nilsson in a statement on the album’s Bandcamp page. “Protest against everything. Of what’s expected of someone, or expected of someone to desire or strive for. To be elite, to be expert, to be professional, to be a master, to excel and succeed. Where’s the joy in that?”
Played a rock set at Harvard and Stone on Thursday night. It was a mix of music from, basically, the 1960s to today. Got everyone from The Stooges to Lambrini Girls in it. No, I didn’t get to see Lambrini Girls on Wednesday night, unfortunately. The videos I saw were pretty wild. I’m a little jealous of everyone who did go. Anyhow, here’s the set list.
Legendary Pink Dots head back to L.A. this Friday, October 3. At the time of writing this, it looks like there are still some tickets available on Dice to catch the band live at Zebulon. I’ve seen LPD live a number of times over the years and each show has been magical, so I would definitely recommend catching them in concert.
Goths for Palestine, Vol. II includes music from Nuovo Testamento, Leæther Strip, A Place to Bury Strangers and More curated by Suzi Sabotage
Late last year, Finnish singer Suzi Sabotage curated the first Goths for Palestine compilation, a 30-track collection featuring contributions from an international group of artists, including Belgrado, Zanias, Dancing Plague and Taleen Kali, and with proceeds benefiting long-running relief group Anera. Earlier this month, Goths for Palestine, Volume II hit Bandcamp.
