Sunday, January 25, 2009
8:00 pm and 9:30 pm $25 (reduced price for students under 21 with valid ID card) – Tix

Jazz Bakery
3233 Helms Ave.
Culver City, CA 90034
310-271-9039

jazzbakery.org | spencerday.com

Young singer-songwriter with an affinity for jazz, soul and folk performs at Culver City’s Jazz Bakery Sunday, January 25. Two sets, 8:00 and 9:30.

“This is a contemporary songwriter with a lot on his mind, one who’s able to offer salient comments on the passing scene.” –The Napa Valley Register

“Partnering cello and voice that evoke[s] Simon and Garfunkel.” –ccSCOOP.com

Happy 24 hours A.B. (After Bush). To celebrate this momentous occasion, I’ve decided to get all of you guys a little present. Actually, it’s a big present. See, Aretha Franklin even put a gargantuan bow on her head to signify just how awesome she is. You bitches better enjoy this. It’s not easy to get her in a box.

There are many, many, many things that make me love this video.

1) Aretha reminds me of this old woman I once saw in Westwood Village shopping at CVS listening to her Walkman SCREAMING along to the lyrics. Some of the words she gets, others are just old lady noises. She doesn’t know and/or care that her belting is off-key and possibly irritating; she’s just having a good time and that’s all that matters.

2) At 1:10 in this video, the lady in the audience looks like she just noticed that giant bow on Aretha’s head. Yeah, yeah, it’s probably just that she realized she was on TV, but that’s what I like to pretend.

3) Doesn’t it sound like Aretha told some ho to “shut up” at 2:18? She looked down at some peasant beneath her, told him or her to close the pie hole, and just KEPT IT MOVIN’. She may sound awful but that’s what you call showmanship.

4) JUST LOOK AT THAT BOW.

I hope you all know what I want for my birthday this year. Don’t disappoint me.

–J

Saturday, February 7, 2009
5515 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90036
$30-60 / 18+ / Show: 9 PM /
(323) 936-6400.
UCLA Student Discount w/ ID @ Venu

www.sixdegreesrecords.com / www.niyazmusic.com / www.theelrey.com / www.bflybuzz.com

For tickets and information visit: www.radiojavan.com/NI

NIYAZ on Tour

In case this name doesn’t almost give you a heart attack, Blake was the lead vocals in the 90’s bay area punk band Jawbreaker (one of which is my favorite bands of all time and possibly might have tattooed myself at one point in my life). Grown as a cult band more and more since their break up in 1996, Jawbreaker is known to have influenced several other bands including Saves the Day, as well as members of American Football, Braid, and Rise Against. After they broke up, Blake founded Jets To Brazil, an indie punk band from New York. However, after three albums, by 2003 the band had split up…which takes me to…

JANUARY 23, 2009 - Eagle Rock Center For The Arts!

Blakes new band, Thorns of Life, along with drummer Aaron Cometbus from Crimpshine are comin to LA! If you have ever had a drunken singalong or beat shit up while listening to either of these bands, YOU CANNOT MISS THEM HERE. 

Regarding the band, Schwarzenbach has been quoted as saying, “I can only say it’s loud and tender, and we’re called the Thorns of Life. Whether it’s more Jetesque or Breaker-like, I honestly don’t know; it sounds like a storehouse of fond hatred from the last few years and in the now.”

Best punk news of the year. Thorns of Life live in Brooklyn

-Kelsie!

Tune in to UCLAradio.com this Sunday, Jan. 18th at 9pm to hear a live acoustic set from LA Times featured singer-songwriter Pete Holland!

He’ll also field questions from DJ Octoon…and you? AIM: BruinRadio

And don’t miss Pete’s MySpace Page.

See ya Sunday.

Where were you? Catch up on everything you missed in Saturday’s extremely close, exciting showdown with ASU, right here in Pauley Pavilion.
Join Nate Pillar and Angel Rodriguez on this play-by-play podcast of the game.

Where were you? Catch up on everything you missed in the conclusion to Saturday’s extremely close, exciting showdown with ASU, right here in Pauley Pavilion.
Join Nate Pillar and Angel Rodriguez on this play-by-play podcast of the game.

-Julie OK

Notorious hits theaters tomorrow, and I’ll spare you all the chatter going around about what a giant piece of shit this movie is going to be. Don’t get me wrong, I will still be going to the theater with a 40 in my jacket pocket and my sense of humor in the other one (I got the hook up on free tickets), but that’s beside the point.

I got to thinking about what other hip-hop “epic” flicks we will surely be subjected to in the coming years. Mr. Wallace was clearly an easy choice for the topic of a rapper film, even if they did a piss poor job on casting, writing… basically everything. But who from our current musical landscape will be emblazoned on the silver screen in the future? As much as I’d like to hear all about the painstaking effort that went into making this Gucci Mane album cover, I think there just might not be enough to make a movie out of there. The only person I could think of is Lil Wayne. And to you budding filmmakers out there, I already have the perfect leading man for you.

GOLLUM! OK, so he’s not technically a real person, but hey, that saves you actor salaries! You might even just dub the voiceovers from your Two Towers VHS and The Carter III.  The leftover money can be spent on other story-enhancing details, such as Robotussin and styrofoam cups.

As for Birdman… maybe that kid who’s playing Lil Cease in Notorious can go two for two. He kind of looks like him, right? Trina and Nivea, two of Weezy’s previous ladies, can be played by themselves because, let’s face it, they need the check.

Any other ideas are welcome. I’m going to package this bitch and sell it off to the highest bidder. Maybe I’ll even give you a cut. WEE-OOH-WEE-OOH-WEE!

Edit: Tell me honestly you can’t just HEAR Wayne screaming “THE PRECIOUS, THE PRECIOUSSSSSS” on some mixtape song. I’m even giving HIM ideas here.

–J

Indie 103.1 went off-air today.

Now an internet-only station, Indie 103 says they will no longer play the “corporate game”; they’re now on the internets where you can do whatever you like. I’m really interested to see how all of this plays out, especially since this didn’t come as much of a surprise. Indie seemed to be faltering for awhile now, especially with the content being aired. Lately, I often found myself listening to KROQ in the car instead. Anyways, you should tune into Indie to hear their official announcement played between every song on a 5-song playlist that has been playing on a loop all day. To encourage you to join the “Indie Revolution”, their 5-song punk playlist includes: the Sex Pistols, Black Flag, the Clash, and the Buzzcocks.

Or at least go to their site where the announcement is also posted.

With that said, consider this: it appears the company that owns Indie, Entravision Communications, is in the midst of trying not to get fucked. Their stock has fallen below the minimum trading price.

Byeee Indie 103!!!,
or well, I guess, welcome to the world of internet-only radio,
where UCLAradio.com has never played the corporate game
and we shall share the fraction of a percentage that is the non-corporate internet radio audience.

-Julie OK

Tune in to hear Martin Luther King Jr.’s speeches over hip hop beats and conversations with prominent professors with differing outlooks on the man’s impact. Listen in, have fun, and maybe even learn while DJ TEC DIF and DJ Deuce explore Dr. King!!! Call in be a part of our conversation: 310.794.9348 or AIM: bruinradio

The Winter UCLAradio family portrait (incomplete)

The Young Team (1997-2003)

In 1997 Scottish band Mogwai released their debut album Young Team (also known as Mogwai Young Team) and hence the second generation of post-rock was born. The prominent bands of this era are mainly the Big Four: Mogwai, Godspeed You Black Emperor! (later to be known as Godspeed You! Black Emperor), Sigur Ros, and Explosions in the Sky. And the Little Three: Do Make Say Think, Mono, and A Silver Mt. Zion (later to be known as Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra and Tra-La-La Band.) And somewhere in middle lay Tortoise and Dirty Three.

Now, though these bands are the backbone of what people call post-rock these days, sonically they don’t have much of a connection to the post-rock of the early 90s. The two are entirely different beasts. However, unlike the early 90s bands, these bands did sound somewhat similar to one another. So what you’re seeing here is post-rock beginning to develop its own sound. Bands continued the tradition of making non-rock music with rock instruments (albeit more rockishly than previously,) but stylistically they were all for the most part veering towards the same path – long compositions, nearly entirely instrumental, building atmosphere and tension with slow churning buildups that erupt into massive walls of sound.

I’d like to note that I’m pretty much hand waving here because post-rock is and always has been essentially an umbrella term. These bands don’t necessarily sound alike (like Tortoise and ASMZ or even GY!BE and EITS) but they are all associated with each other for various reasons. However, this quiet-to-loud dynamic mentioned above is what almost everybody associates with post-rock these days, whether that be an accurate description of the music or not.

To get a better understanding of this “traditional post-rock sound”, give a listen to these links and videos.

(more…)

Dear Hipsters,

I heard you berate Interpol when they started to sell some records. I was there when you thought Modest Mouse had sold-out because they wrote a catchy tune. And now I hear from you is, “You like The Killers?” with astonishment, or ironic astonishment (I can’t tell which one).

But, to answer your question, yeah, I like The Killers.

“You know their lead singer is named Brandon Flowers?”

Yeah yeah, that’s cheese, but I forgive them. Why? Because they’re catchy. And catchy is key.

Why do hipsters hate The Killers? Because they’re catchy – something so catchy, so dancy, so light, that it can’t be good. It’s too sweet, like candy.

But fruit is sweet too.

And so are marshmallows.

Where am I going with this? Back to The Killers, I suppose.

Day & Age is The Killers’s worst album. That said, you gotta hear it.

“I ain’t in no hurry, you go run and tell your friends I’m losing touch / Fill their heads with rumors of impeding doom / It must be true.”

That’s from “Losing Touch,” a nice start with lyrics that seem to attack people who are quick to criticize. The saxophone is a bit much, but that’s pretty much my main complaint for the whole album. A little sax goes a long way.

“Human” – Berated by PitchFork for “not making sense,” because the Flowers dares to play with grammar and ask, “Are we human or are we dancer?” in reference to Hunter S. Thompson’s assertation that Americans are turning into a nation of dancers. I have to disrepectfully disagree with PitchFork and say, hey, that makes a lot of sense, actually.

By the way, if you’re going to hate songs because they’re lyrics don’t make sense, I’ve got some Pixies tracks you gotta hear.

With the third track, “Spaceman,” the band picks up the pace and returns to the “Somebody Told Me,” days. But with higher vocals.

“Joy Ride” sounds like a lost track from a Wham! album with too much sax. Don’t know Wham!? You gotta know Wham! The thing about Wham!…they knew when to take it easy on the sax.

A friend of mine says “A Dustland Fairtale” is his favorite Killers song of all time. I know, I didn’t write “The Killers.” He still likes it. And I can see why – it crescendos into something great, lets you taste it, then ends. It also sounds like a song from Sam’s Town. Like Flowers said, “No, no, let’s save that one for the next album.”

But my friend is wrong – “I Can’t Stay” is the best song from The Killers. At least on this album. (It’s no Mr. Brightside) But it does have a Bossanova (yeah, you read that right) beat, some well-placed-but-still-excessive saxophone work, strings, and some sweet bass work.

And with that, I ask all hipsters to put your fedoras to the side and give Day & Age a listen. If it helps, imagine it’s a band from LA that you heard first, struggling to get a residency at The Echo.

See, I can talk the talk. Now listen to the damn album.

Seriously.

-DJ Octoon

PS.