A Cross The Universe - Justice (Documentary)

Justice are 2 pretty funny French dudes & this is an epic 1-hour documentary following them for 20 days of their North American tour in Spring of 2008. I really hope the rumors are true that Justice will be 1 of the Coachella 2012 headliners (Radiohead is also rumored to be 100% confirmed) but I won't believe it 'til I see it. The lineup is often released ON my birthday which is January 19th so hopefully the same thing happens again this year! It definitely makes my b-day that much happier! I'm ready for my EIGHTH Coachella in a row!!!

We are your friends. You'll never be alone again so come on...

MISS YOU by Foster the People & The Rolling Stones

1 song title -> 2 of my favorite songs

The Rolling Stones

Foster The People

The Milk of Human Kindness by Caribou

Old Caribou sounds incredibly different than new Caribou but both the past & the present are pretty genius. Check out my top 3 favorite tracks from Caribou's 2005 album The Milk of Human Kindness & be sure to watch the videos!!!

Barnowl

Hello Hammerheads

Bees

LCD Soundsystem Covers Franz Ferdinand's Live Alone

Black Star @ Club Nokia in Downtown LA - 12/15/11

On Sunday night of Coachella 2005 (my 1st Coachella EVER!), I was in The Sahara Tent dancing my ass off to Prodigy when a couple of my UCLA buddies said they were ditching out to go see Black Star close out the entire festival on the main stage. I ignorantly asked, "Who's Black Star?" & was told it's Mos Def & Talib Kweli. I knew & liked Mos Def but I had only heard of Talib. Regardless, I was intrigued so I left Prodigy & went to watch what turned out to be 1 of THE best hip hop shows I've ever seen!

Mos Def (aka Yasiin Bey & Dante Terrell Smith) & Talib Kweli have a chemistry on stage unlike any other I've seen in live hip hop. They literally finish each other's sentences & they flow SO smoothly together that it sometimes sounds & feels like they're the same person. And it doesn't hurt that their beats are always BAD ASS!

Black Star brought the house down last night at Club Nokia in Downtown LA. I have now seen Mos & Talib together 2x & both sets have been unforgettable hip hop performances. I took my 21-year-old cousin Jack with me to the show last night & our 1st cousin concert experience couldn't have been more fabulous!

What It Is


Mos Freeflowin'


Get By

The Art of Flight Soundtrack

OK, first & foremost, EVERYONE needs to see the film The Art of Flight. Shot with the same types of cameras used to shoot the National Geographic series Planet Earth, this breathtakingly epic snowboarding documentary will seriously blow your mind...guaranteed. And the soundtrack is pure perfection which is just the icing on the cake.

The Art of Flight Trailer

Deadmau5 - Ghosts N Stuff (Nero Remix)


The Naked & Famous - No Way

The Black Angels - Young Men Dead

We Are Augustines - Chapel Song

M83 - Intro

The Soft Pack @ The Satellite - 12/9/11

Tennis @ The Satellite - 12/7/11

I have a new girl crush :-)

Marathon

Don't Miss Rachael Owens TONIGHT at WitZend Live in Venice!

Be sure to catch Rachael Owens TONIGHT at WitZend Live on Lincoln Boulevard in Venice!

http://www.witzendlive.com/

Serve The People by Handsome Furs

Handsome Furs - Serve The People from stereogum on Vimeo.

MAXIMUM BALLOON

Dave Sitek of TV on the Radio's solo album Maximum Balloon has been out for well over a year now but I still keep it on steady rotation. Each song is uniquely awesome & the list of contributing artists includes some of my all-time faves.

Communion featuring Karen O


Groove Me featuring Theophilus London


Apartment Hunting featuring David Byrne


If You Return featuring Little Dragon

Chali 2na @ Central in Santa Monica - 11/19/11

Despite the fact I had spent 10+ hours drinking, watching football & stuffing my face with an incredible & HUGE pre-Thanksgiving (aka Friendsgiving feast) in Echo Park, I am SO happy I rallied to trek all the way back to Santa Monica late Saturday night to catch Chali 2na of Jurassic 5 & Ozomatli's midnight set at Central S.A.P.C.

Chali 2na is the fuckin man!!



Quality Control

Holy Ghost! @ The Music Box - 11/11/11

I was particularly enjoying Holy Ghost! at 11:11pm on 11/11/11 :-)

Do It Again


Closing Encore

M83 @ The Music Box - 11/9/11 = Show I WISH I'd Seen!

And why didn't I get to see M83 at The Music Box on Wednesday night?? Because scalpers are the devil. Bad people on Craigslist were trying to sell $30-35/ticket face value tickets for as much as $150 a pop! That then lead to many enraged ticket seekers posting their own ads on Craigslist just to say, "Fuck you, scalpers! I'm just gonna end up snagging a $20 ticket from 1 of you delusional & suddenly desperate dicks the moment M83 starts his set. You have no choice but to sell it for something versus not selling it at all & getting exactly what you deserve...fucked." Or something like that...haha. People, including myself, were PISSED. In the end, if I had made the effort to trek all the way to Hollywood at 10pm on a Wednesday in the hopes I might get lucky & find a reasonably priced ticket at the very last minute, I think it probably would've worked out but I was too exhausted to rally basely solely on a chance.

Of course, the next time M83 will be playing in the LA area is on 1/13/12 at Club Nokia when I'll be on my 10 year Semester at Sea reunion cruise to the Bahamas (tough life, I know) so I'm just going to have to wait a little longer to see him. I'm keeping my fingers crossed he'll be on the 2012 festival circuit & I'm optimistic I'll get to see him in the not too distant future. From what I can tell from the Youtube footage from Wednesday night's Music Box show, it's pretty much necessary to see M83 live.

Lykke Li & First Aid Kit @ The Fox Theatre in Pomona - 11/7/11

After waking up at 2:45am PST time last Monday morning to catch a 6:15am flight back to LA from Phoenix (last weekend’s time change set Arizona 1 hour ahead of Cali) then working a hectic & full 10 hour day at the office, I somehow managed to muster the energy to trek all the way out to The Fox Theatre in Pomona to see Lykke Li & First Aid Kit. All 3 of these beautiful & extremely talented Swedish women were more than worth the effort. I’d never heard of First Aid Kit before seeing them & now they’re a new favorite. I swear, sometimes I know don’t know how I do it…but, man, I’m SO happy I DO do it!!! J

First Aid Kit

LYKKE LI – Dance Dance Dance

LYKKE LI – Silent My Song featuring First Aid Kit

LYKKE LI – Little Bit

LYKKE LI – 1^st minute of Get Some

Days by The Drums

And our days go by & I never needed you...

Phantogram @ The Music Box - 11/4/11

You Are The Ocean <3

tUnE-yArDs & Cut Chemist @ The Music Box - 11/2/11

On the 1st Friday of January 2010 when I attended my very 1st First Friday event at The Natural History Museum at USC in Los Angeles, I had never before heard of tUnE-yArDs who was opening for Atlas Sound that night. Atlas Sound is Bradford Cox's (the lead singer of Deerhunter) solo project &, fittingly enough, his next album Parallax comes out tomorrow 11/8! Back then, I had NO idea what an incredible night of music I was about to experience.

Before tUnE-yArDs (aka East coast native Merrill Garbus) actually stepped out onto stage in The North American Mammal Hall where the crowd was surrounded by dioramas of animals in their natural habitats, all you could hear was a woman yodeling from an unknown location. Then Merrill took her place at the microphone (still yodeling) & started looping her own voice. Next came the ukulele & the drums & this one woman wonder just blew everyone away.

Fast forward almost 2 years (22 months to be exact)…after seeing tUnE-yArDs for my 2nd time at Sasquatch 2010, last Wednesday night, I saw Merrill for my 3rd time headlining her own show at The Music Box in Hollywood & she TOTALLY brought it!

Real Live Flesh (one of my TOP favorites...ESPECIALLY live!!!)

Trentemoller @ The Music Box - 10/27/11

Omg...I am SO behind on my shows from the past week! I saw Trentemoller last Thursday then tUnE-yArDs & Cut Chemist on Wednesday & now I'm about to rush out the door to see Reptar & Phantogram! P.S. ALL of these shows have been at The Music Box which is kinda crazy. Luckily, I love the old Fonda :-)

Anyway, I don't have time to say enough about Trentemoller but I can assure you he's an artist you MUST SEE live. I saw him at Coachella back in April thinking he was just your average, run of the mill DJ who'd be spinning some cool tracks on a couple turntables with perhaps a little pretty lighting. Boy was I wrong! Trentemoller performs with a live band & runs around the stage playing all kinds of different & unique instruments. He isn't a DJ. He's a fuckin MUSICIAN. Check it out...

Shades of Marble

NEW BLACK KEYS SINGLE!!!

LONELY BOY

Twin Falcons @ Busby's East - 10/25/11

Twin Falcons have an incredibly unique sound unlike anything else I've ever heard. It's the perfect blend of electronic, funk & rock. They've pretty much created their own new genre of music (elecfunkrock perhaps?) &, even you aren't a big dancer, there's no way you can listen to a TF track without at least tapping your foot.

Twin Falcons is the band everyone was asking me about when they performed at my 1st live music event production Vibe Fest on October 8th at The Vibe Hotel in Hollywood. I felt like a proud parent when I saw the crowd getting crazy groovy dancing during TF's set. Nzo, Byron & Thomas killed it at Vibe Fest just like they do EVERY time.

Mark my words...Twin Falcons are gonna blow up someday very soon & I strongly suggest you start rockin' their EP now before it becomes the "cool" thing to do (because it will). Then you can brag to all your friends later about how "in the know" you were back in Twin Falcons' early days. I'm already bragging :-)

"Who" Are Twin Falcons?

http://soundcloud.com/twin-falcons

https://www.facebook.com/twinfalconsmusic

Mansions on the Moon @ Saint Rocke in Hermosa Beach - 10/22/11

Hot Like Sauce by Pretty Lights

Portishead @ The Shrine Expo - 10/18/11

When Portishead opened for Prince on the 2nd night of Coachella 2008, it was one of the greatest concert experiences of my life so, when I discovered in mid-July (only 1 short hour before the presale) that Portishead was going to play The Shrine Expo in LA on October 18th, I immediately purchased a pair of tickets. And the fact that the tix were $70 a pop didn't even phase me. A Portishead show in LA is an extreme rarity & I knew those tickets would end up being worth every penny...and they were :-)

The Rip

Glory Box

The Naked & Famous @ The Music Box - 10/17/11

For a long time, the only song I knew by The Naked & Famous was their hit single Young Blood but, after listening to the entire album with my girlfriend Dana on our BEAUTIFUL drive back to Vancouver from Whistler while I was visiting Dana & my other fabulous Canadian Sasquatch friends in mid-September, I ended up falling in love with Passive Me, Aggressive You in its entirety. I also became obsessed with the track No Way after hearing it again in the incredible snowboarding documentary The Art of Flight. So, when I went to see The Naked & Famous on Monday night at The Music Box, I hoped/assumed they'd be pretty good live but I had NO idea just how fantastic they'd be & I definitely have a new girl crush on co-lead singer Alisa Xayalith.

Punching In A Dream


No Way

Amon Tobin @ The Music Box - 10/16/11

I rarely go to shows by myself but, every once in a while, an artist comes to town who I simply cannot miss so, when I managed to find a super last minute ticket to the sold out Amon Tobin show on Sunday night at The Music Box, I just HAD to go. To find out why, just WATCH...

Cut Copy @ The Hollywood Palladium - 10/12/11