Pop & Hiss

The L.A. Times music blog

Category: Nate Jackson

Crocodiles prepare to inject more pop in their psychedelic, post-punk sound

Crocodiles 

For a surging, psychedelic band such as the Crocodiles, being provocative is a surefire ticket to underground popularity. But these days, it’s not all about raucous stage shows and sonic threats to Sheriff Joe Arpaio for the San Diego duo. Instead, members Brandon Welchez and Charles Rowell are doing something they consider equally risqué: embracing pop music.

“From a lyrical perspective we just try to be honest with whatever is going on in our lives,” Welchez said. “The second record is somewhat death-obsessed. But the further along we go, the less shy we are about showing the pop side of our sound.”

But don’t expect lighthearted songs to translate into a bubble gum aesthetic during their show at the Echo on Friday. Punk-rock attitude and spastic stage antics -- a trademark that dates back to their previous bands such as the Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower -- remain a viable reason to see these guys live.

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Tonight: Skinny Puppy's cEvin Key brings his SUB CON Beyond Fest 2011 to Santa Monica

CEvin+Key+cKey 

Using bass and glitch as its niche, the SUBcon Beyond Fest continues to occupy a special place in the dark, experimental world of electronic music. Organized by cEVin Key of industrial quartet Skinny Puppy, the moniker of the festival stems from Key's L.A.-based label Subconscious Communications. Originated in 1993, SUBcon has lasted for 18 years on a strict diet of sonic weirdness.

Starting Tuesday night at Zanzibar in Santa Monica, Key and other notable Subconscious artists, including Philip Western of Vancouver and England's Mark Spybey, parlay their various programming and  psychedelic synth projects into a weeklong tour through the western U.S. and Canada. The carnival of ambient and ear-splitting noise includes Key's hypnotic side projects, Tokyo Decadence and plaTEAU (featuring Western), along with Spybey and Western's collaborative act Download.

Spybey is also showcasing the haunting atmospherics of his solo project, Dead Voices on Air, and Gnome and Spybey, a collaboration with trance and industrial artist Tony D'Oporto. Aside from Key, who's from L.A. by way of Vancouver, the local portion of the bill resides with electro experimentalist Cyrusrex and Wet Mango, a raucous beat vixen based in downtown whose abrasive mix of ghetto house and Game Boy beats rounds out the lineup.

SUBcon Beyond Fest, Tuesday at Zanzibar, 1301 5th St., Santa Monica, 9 p.m. $5 before 11 p.m., $10 after. (310) 451-2221, www.zanzibarlive.com.

Photo: cEvin Key of Skinny Puppy, founder of L.A. label Subconscious Communications. Credit: Subconscious Communications


King Buzzo talks about the Melvins' January residency at the Satellite

BuzzOsborne 

As Buzz Osborne (a.k.a. King Buzzo) rattles off a list of tours, albums and weird artistic collaborations he's been involved in, it's hard to imagine anything he hasn't done with his band, the Melvins, over their 28 years. Until now, one of those things was an L.A. club residency. 

Starting Jan. 7, the Melvins descend on the club every Friday for a month, melding blistering full-album sets with their newest atonal material. That means two sets per night with no opener. For Osborne, the band's gray, mop-headed commander, the ability to showcase the Melvins'  sprawling discography is something he's been waiting to do for quite a while. 

Pop & Hiss: Since we’re just days into 2011, what’s the Melvins' main goal or resolution for the new year?

Buzz Osborne: The first goal is to actually survive as a band. That’s the first goal, which it is every year. We're just continuing to work and continuing to make music is another. And that encompasses a whole lot of things. A lot of it has to do with the fact that I don’t necessarily trust the outside world and their opinions. So it’s having the faith to be able to thrust yourself forward and make sure that as long as you think it’s good, everyone else will. And if you don’t, there’s nothing you can do about that.

Looking at the residency schedule that you guys have, the show seems to evolve every week. What conscious decisions went into planning the residency at the Satellite (formerly Club Spaceland)?

It’s one of the things I thought might be kind of a cool trend to get into, is this trend of bands playing whole albums. It gets people excited about the bands for one reason or another and it makes people feel like they’re gonna see something they don’t normally see. We’re always looking for something new and weird to do. So a residency for us at a club in L.A. is something we’ve wanted to do for a long time.

To me, the only way to make that make sense is to have it be a little different [each week]. So this is one way to do it. So we’re gonna do normal Melvins stuff as well as specific records. We’re doing the specific records as normally as we would [laughs] … which is to say not exactly how everything is [on the record].

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Local Natives rising: Appearances on 'Late Night With Jimmy Fallon' and Disney Hall

Local natives 
Surprise, surprise, 2011 begins with the Local Natives moving up in the world. With no signs of stopping on their exhilarating rise to national consciousness, L.A.'s favorite five-part harmonizers are turning their amps on for a massive televised audience as the featured musical act on NBC's "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon" airing Tuesday night / Wednesday morning at 12:35 a.m.

This televised opportunity comes less than a year after their percussive prowess and soaring vocals had their late-night initiation on CBS' "Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson" in May 2010. Although the release of their Frenchkiss label debut, "Gorilla Manor," is fading gradually in their rearview, live performances of songs such as "World News" continue to gain world interest. Not to mention the fact that L.A. is touting them highly as well, judging by their upcoming performance at the Walt Disney Concert Hall on Feb. 26.

The Natives aren't the only L.A. band that will get to meet Fallon house band the Roots. On Monday night, another surging L.A. act, Best Coast, performs on the show.

-- Nate Jackson

 Photo: Local Natives. Credit: Tom Oxley


Download: Ariano and Delmos Wade, 'Remix My Soul'

Remix My Soul Local hip-hop outfits are dropping free tracks left and right in the spirit of the holidays. One of the latest is a five-track EP by Huntington Beach-based wordsmith Ariano and Delmos Wade (a recent pseudonym of Long Beach soul singer Judd Nestor).

Released on Christmas Eve on Ariano's label Technicali Sound, "Remix My Soul" does exactly what its title suggests. The project started with a batch of Ariano's a capella songs and verses that would eventually become chopped and screwed into an amalgam of throwback funk, club-rattling bass and eerie vocal riffs and runs. Not to mention the socially conscious prognostication of songs such as  "R.I.P. to the Radio" and "Gotta Get Mine" (featuring U-God of Wu-Tang Clan).

Both collaborators regularly hustle various side and solo projects at places such as the Airliner and the House of Blues. Teaming up in the studio together earlier this year, DW's process of building tracks and choruses around Ariano's flows took the better part of two months to complete.The joint effort by both artists offers a spoonful of a forthcoming Ariano solo album that DW is also producing.

Click here to download the free EP.

-- Nate Jackson


Members of Deer Tick, Delta Spirit and Dawes join forces as Middle Brother

Middlebro2 
 
Anytime a collection of well-respected frontmen join forces, the term supergroup will inevitably get bandied about. But you won’t hear the members of Middle Brother ascribing that lofty title to themselves anytime soon. Yes, members John McCauley III (Deer Tick), Matt Vasquez (Delta Spirit) and Taylor Goldsmith (Dawes) have a hefty helping of the indie folk buzz in their respective corners. But even after the year of exposure each of their primary bands has  had (everything from new albums to night-time appearances on "Letterman"), their humble moniker pretty much tells us where they stand on the issue.

“I don’t think any of these bands are on the level of what you’d normally consider a supergroup,” says Goldsmith, whose L.A.-based band is set to release a new album next year. “As of now, we’re definitely one of the little guys.”

Humility aside, the sprawling three-part harmonies blanketing the band’s woodsy, acoustic balladry will likely turn heads. L.A. fans are getting their first live taste of the band Monday during  a benefit concert for Invisible Children, a nonprofit dedicated to aiding impoverished children in various parts of war-torn Uganda, at the Troubadour in West Hollywood. (Read more about the benefit over at Brand X.)

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Peaches talks tonight's performance of 'Peaches Christ Superstar,' her adaptation of a classic rock opera

PeachesColorPhotoOneCreditAngelCeballos 
 
A lot can happen to an artist’s development in 10 years. Just ask Peaches. Primarily regarded as the high priestess of electro-sex and bass-rattling nihilism, the 42-year-old electroclash provocateur is one of the last people you’d expect to star in a 1970s rock opera -- about Jesus Christ, no less. This year, the 10th anniversary of her seminal sophomore album, “The Teaches of Peaches,” the Toronto-born artist is continuing on a monumental departure -- “Peaches Christ Superstar” -- her one-woman rendition of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s  “Jesus Christ Superstar.” 

Accompanied by the virtuosic piano skills of longtime collaborator Chilly Gonzales, Peaches delivers every song from the play without pause. This performance also inspired a similar project, “Peaches Does Herself,” a musical based on 24 of her own songs that ran in October.

After a controversial and critically acclaimed debut in Germany and a string of U.S. tour dates, “Peaches Christ” makes its stop in L.A. tonight at the Orpheum Theatre.  In a recent phone conversation, the artist known for such songs as  “... the Pain Away” and “I Feel Cream” talked about how her (metaphorically) stripped-down performance satisfies a childhood dream and a need for bold avenues to  get her creative juices flowing.

How does the opportunity to perform "Jesus Christ Superstar" as a one-woman show challenge you as an artist?

When I was 15, I got a copy of it from a boyfriend and I thought it was really cool because it told a story without having acting in it. I liked that you could tell the whole story without having parts in between that get you to the next song. And I thought, ‘I wonder if I could possibly pull off doing the whole thing myself without any sense of irony or parody?' And on top of that, having  people who know me as Peaches watching me doing the last days of Jesus’ life is a big risk for me.

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