“Momentum” A Chinatown Gallery Inaugural Exhibition
LeBasse Projects – Chinatown, CA
4/9 thru 4/30/11

Opening Reception begins on Saturday, April 9th, 2011 from 7-10PM.  The new addition to the program will be located in the historic Chinatown District of Los Angeles, situated on the gallery row of Chung King Road. The new gallery space will be a compliment to the existing program, giving our represented artists additional opportunities. LBP will also be adding several new artists to the program who will be represented exclusively in the Chinatown gallery. →

Detroit Bar – Costa Mesa, CA
Live Review: 3/22/11

One year ago, Toro y Moi was a lonely one-man band. Typical of the suppressive “chillwave” label into which he was unwittingly lumped during his debut album and tour, he would station himself behind his DIY laptop setup and methodically pace through karaoke renditions of the electronic synth-based, reality-blurred songs that defined his record Causers of This. →

An Evening With Kate & Laura Mulleavy of Rodarte
The Cinefamily – LA, CA
3/31/11

Co-presented by MOCA (in conjunction with their exhibit “Rodarte: States Of Matter”), Kate and Laura Mulleavy, sibling fashion designers and founders of Rodarte, come to the Cinefamily to present a unique double-header of “female double” movies! →

After the critically acclaimed band Destroyer released their ninth anticipated album, Kaputt at the start of the year on Merge Records, Dan Bejar and company led a string of successful North American shows beginning in March. As one of the most unlikely success stories of the recording industry, Dan Bejar (the brains behind Destroyer) started his DIY home-recording project as purely a solo effort in the mid-nineties. →

Cassette School
Music Opinion

Like fellow rap veteran Talib Kweli, Pharoahe Monch has maintained his ability to demonstrate verbal gymnastics even as he’s edging toward middle age. His debut with Organized Konfusion once solidified his reputation as a gifted lyricist, ultimately spawning six records’ worth of sharp-tongued metaphors and multisyllabic rhymes. As a political conscience, Monch veers toward the paranoiac left, which provides fuel for his fiery reproaches of societal evils and record industry wrongs. His lyrics have always been full of barbs and invective, and the songs featured on his latest record W.A.R. (We Are Renegades) is no different from past take-downs of social ills. →

Dom + Heavy Hawaii + Support Force + Trudgers
Cross Cultural Center, UCI – Irvine, CA
3/24/11

Dom’s “Living in America” was written for the express purpose of being broadcast in football stadiums one day. Whether that dream comes true remains to be seen. So far, the group has had the privilege of having none other than Gucci Mane spit a verse on a remix of their single. Living the dream. For those living south of the 5 and 405, you can watch Dom and San Diego lo-fi surf pop group Heavy Hawaii for just $6 at the Cross Cultural Center in Irvine. →

Dirty Beaches
Kill Zoo Music
(2011)

David Lynch’s neo-noir road film Wild at Heart stars Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern as two rebellious lovers on the run from the mob. In characteristic Lynch fashion, the film is a dark, surreal tribute to the ethos of Elvis Presley, who starred in 33 feature films of his own. The music of Alex Zhang Hungtai’s Dirty Beaches project is made in a similar spirit, although lacking the budget of an established auteur, Hungtai’s work has more of the homemade, lo-fi aesthetic of underground filmmaker Jon Moritsugu. The music lends itself to comparisons to film by way of tightly focusing on mood and theme, most often the frequent loneliness and psychic displacement of the open road. →

Photo by Andy Sternberg, licensed under Creative Commons

The Echo – Los Angeles, CA
Live Review: 3/20/11

It rained hard last night in Echo Park, where run-off from the hills kept the sidewalks slick and cold. As Fujiya & Miyagi singer/guitarist David Best would describe it later that night, the night was “treacherous.” But those of us who missed out on the past week’s festivities in Austin could rest easy in the warm embrace of The Echo, where Australian indie pop band The Holidays, Los Angeles chameleon pop rockers Fol Chen and British Krautrockers Fujiya & Miyagi put on a show which added a bit of color to the current grayness of Los Angeles. →

The Echo – Los Angeles, CA
Live Review: 3/10/11

Summer can’t arrive soon enough in Los Angeles, where the weather these days isn’t quite temperately warm as one would enjoy in Southern California three seasons out of the year. Fortunately, there are other means of finding greater warmth during the winter. All it takes is a song or two to summon thoughts of warmer nights, an exacting lyric or melody to bring back memories of the past summer. The Los Angeles duo Kisses accomplishes this with simple precision using synth, guitar and hand clap beats. Their lyrics are sweet but never saccharine, and although their name suggests sugar and twee, their sound can be wistful and world-weary. →

Royce Hall – Los Angeles, CA
Live Review: 2/23/11

What would it be like to go on a date with John Waters?

You could mimic the experience at home by listening to his compilation from a few years ago, “A Date with John Waters” (maybe even adding the video below full-screen next to a candlelit dinner set for one) or you could see his live stage show, “This Filthy World,” and have a real live John Waters experience. Sure, you have to share his attention with hundreds of other eager fans, but when else would you get a chance to hear John Waters opine about Justin Bieber, the Oscars and his favorite bars? The date was set: February 23, UCLA’s Royce Hall. Full-grown adults became giddy teenage girls, ready for a date with one of cinema’s bad boys. →