You might have noticed that at the L.A. Times, there are two music blogs, Soundboard (psst, that's the one you're reading now) and Extended Play. Well, those two blogs have decided to join forces and become one white-hot, radical blog by the name of Pop & Hiss. Expect the same coverage of local shows, new music, breaking news and awards buzz at our new home.
Blog mascot? It's got to be this pet serval in Texas, who didn't take too kindly to the camera in his face. We at Pop & Hiss promise to be a little more cuddly from time to time but don't tick us off by neglecting to bookmark our new home!
Blair Shehan, the voice behind old-guard L.A. indie rockers the Jealous Sound and Knapsack, has somehow missed out on three generations of emo revivals. This, by consensus of people who care about such things, is a total injustice. His off-kilter chord changes and raspy howl straddle the line between brainy guitar pop and wantonly earnest '90s-throwback emo, adding up to a sound that should theoretically be paying his bills into infinity by now. The Jealous Sound's 2000 self-titled EP and 2003's full-length "Kill Them With Kindness" were worthy confections, but somehow the band never grew out of the small club circuit, and prognostications for a follow-up record grew dimmer every year.
Can we expect country superstar Tim McGraw’s update on Brenda Lee’s biggest hit sometime soon? McGraw sounds like he’s ready for a chorus of “I’m Sorry” in the statement he issued today apologizing for the new collection of his hits that his record label is issuing for the holidays.
“I am saddened and disappointed that my label chose to put out another hits album instead of new music,” McGraw said in the statement. “I’ve only had one studio album since my last hits package. It has to be just as confusing to the fans as it is to me. I had no involvement in the creation or presentation of this record.”
British-born artist Antony Hegarty creates the kind of songs that paint, with just a few strokes, the profound but confusing nature of the world, to which being an androgynous, spiritually roaming seeker is seemingly the best response.
He and his band of soft-handed musicians released a self-titled album in 2000, but it wasn't until 2005, with the release of "I Am a Bird Now," that Antony stepped out of the New York art scene where he had gathered steam with his performance-art group Blacklips. A delicate yet resilient album with guest spots from Devendra Banhart and Hegarty heroes Lou Reed and Boy George, it won the Mercury Prize and expanded Antony's cultish audience of cabaret sages and faint-hearted beauties.
Since then, he's collaborated with several musicians and artists, including Björk, lending his quavering tenor to her song "Dull Flame of Desire," which appears on "Volta" from 2007. For his old friend Andy Butler in Hercules and Love Affair, he transformed his ghostly voice for the disco floor, which wasn't, it turned out, all that much of a stretch.
For the last couple of months, Antony has abandoned his beloved East Village for orchestral shows in Spain and Italy, entrusting the arrangements of his compositions with Nico Muhly, boy-wonder of the avant music scene. He's also released "Another World," an EP with another of Hegarty's idols on the cover, butoh dancer Kazuo Ohno. This precursor to "The Crying Light," the highly anticipated full-length due in January, only shares the title track with the longer work, but Antony sees the songs as united by themes of discovery.
On the occasion of his show tonight at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, Antony spoke by phone a couple of days ago about working with an orchestra and dealing with the pressures of creating new work.
You’ll be working with a 20-piece orchestra Tuesday, and you’ve been performing with various orchestras around the world for the last couple of months. How’s that been going?
It’s been fun. It’s rare to get to to make music with such a large group of people. The orchestras have ranged from 20 to 50. The biggest increase in numbers occur in the string section, not wind or horns. It’s like you can never sweeten the pot enough.
Spew bile if you must on Canuck rockers Nickelback -- everybodydoes -- but those boys have some patient fans. A few thousand skipped the Dodgers game Sunday and headed to the Forum for a "commercial video shoot," enticed by the promise of a mini-concert following the filming.
With no beer being served, endless waits as cameras were adjusted, crowds coached on how to cheer just right and a chilly draft overtaking the half-filled arena as the afternoon became evening, this was the kind of live music experience that turns fun into an ordeal, if not cause for a riot. But the tank top hotties, frat boys, Latino teens and moms from Yucaipa who dutifully moved around the arena at the video director's behest never stepped over the line from enthusiasm to anger. And after the long haul, they all seemed delighted with what they got.
The commercial, helmed by Baker Smith (the guy behind the Gatorade-hawking viral "Ball Girl" campaign), will somehow link Nickelback's new inspirational strutfest "Gotta Be Somebody" to the financial services offered by Citibank. Nobody at the Forum seemed troubled by the demand that they pummel air for a bank during these troubled economic times; even after half a dozen takes of singer Chad Kroeger lip-syncing, these good-natured extras still raised their hands every time he mouthed the lyric, "Nobody wants to be the last one there." Perhaps they were thinking about the poor sods on the floor of the stock exchange.
The set was short but spastic. Energetic and loud. Experimental guitar noodling punctuated by shrill cajoling, yelping and trilling from lead vocalist Molly Siegel. In short, everything you'd expect from exuberant Baltimore art-pop band Ponytail. Playing to a small but intimate crowd at the Phoenix Grille on the campus of UCI on Saturday, Siegel grimaced and smiled throughout the show. Her infectious dancing incited the audience to do the same. The first few rows became a flurry of tangled limbs —sometimes with Siegel in the mix.
Famed rock 'n' roll photographer Bob Gruen, known for some of the most iconic shots in rock history, is in town this week for the opening of his first-ever solo show at the Los Angeles Morrison Hotel Gallery. We talked to the native New Yorker on Thursday a bit about his photographs of the New York Dolls (many of which were shot in L.A. during the Dolls' first trip to California), about 10 of which will be on display at the exhibition (opening Saturday at 6 p.m. and running until Nov. 11). Gruen, 62, will attend the event to sign copies of his fantastic, just-released book, "New York Dolls: Photographs by Bob Gruen," from 6 to 10 p.m. Saturday. Our brief chat with the photographer follows after the jump...
"The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson" ran No Age's performance of "Eraser" Thursday night, instead of the scheduled Oct. 27 running -- perhaps, just maybe, to capitalize on all the chatter? Seriously, before this No Age thing, when was the last time you thought about Craig Ferguson? Wait, so you've actually thought about Craig Ferguson before? All teasing aside, he decently diffuses the situation with a quintessentially late-night host monologue, replete with self-deprecation, "I'm so wacky" facial expressions and props to the band he's clearly never heard. As far as No Age goes, well, it wasn't their finest hour but Randy Randall stripping off his flannel at the last minute and storming off the stage should go down as one of 2008's more punk, if compromised, moments.
Kids' music -- what is it? For better or worse (and I often can't decide), this generation of parents is redefining the term. No longer is it enough to sit in a circle with your babe on your lap and clap along as a bandana-wearing folkie sings "Little Boxes" -- and sometimes I think that's a shame. There's a lot to be said for going at the speed of children, not to mention sharing songs that comprise a children's music tradition going back a century or so.
But today's hipster parents like to rock. Kids like to rock, too, as long as the mix is not too loud, and the songs have choruses that hook their little ears, and the artists onstage engage with them. The best of the new bunch of kids' musicians -- like Farmer Jason, the Sippy Cups and that great old new folkie Dan Zanes -- play music that's complex enough for adults to enjoy, while still inviting to developing minds. (Writing about animals and holidays helps a lot -- the Sippy Cups, for example, have a song on their new EP called "The Day After Halloween.")
It's hard to strike this balance between sophistication and warmth; that's why so much neo-kids' music ends up working better for the parents than the tots. But Kidrockers, an interesting series born in New York and now coming to Echo Park, seems partly designed to give bands instruction on how to play to the junior seats.
Our friends at Culture Monster turned us on to this cool event...
If Thelonious Monk had stuck around for a metaphorical third set,
he'd be 91 this month. Monk walked onto the scene at 19, settling
behind the piano with the house band at Harlem's Minton's Playhouse in the early '40s and started fiddling with jazz's molecular structure, altering it forever.
Monk's compositions (and his approach to them) --angular, intricate
and shot through with humor --were marked by twists of whimsy and
dissonance. Those distinct, abstract soundings became an intrinsic part
of the jazz idiom making Monk -- along with Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie
Parker -- one of bebop's key architects.
Honoring his influence
(and part of a countdown to Monk's 100th birthday), a free three-hour
marathon of his music (and the music and musicians he influenced) --
"Monk at 91: Fazioli Piano Marathon" -- will take place in downtown
L.A. on Friday, Oct. 17, from noon to 3 p.m. Participants scheduled: Geri Allen, Jean-Michel Pilc, Bill Cunliffe and Alan Broadbent. The event is a collaboration between Brookfield Properties and the city of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.
That's "Monk at 91: Fazioli Piano Marathon," Oct. 17, at Ernst & Young Plaza at 7+Fig , 735 Figueroa St., upper plaza. For more info: (213) 955-7150.
-- Lynell George
Photo: Thelonious Monk at Minton's Playhouse, New York City, 1949. Credit: Herman Leonard
Blair Shehan, the voice behind old-guard L.A. indie rockers the 
