[contextly_auto_sidebar id="lc08pyxv3eSerUA4sZEPFYeA0ka8ZMiw"] ONE of the best bands going these days is an LA group who met at Amoeba Music on Sunset. Their records sound like lost tracks from the West Coast garage collection Nuggets. And unlike a lot of revivalists, these guys can put it across live and make the music sound not retro but somehow timeless. Your humble blogger corresponded … [Read more...]
Allah-Las and Woods in Echo Park
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="pHxetFmD8PAhck5zTGruKBeGPrlL5XUG"] IT was 1966 again on Friday night, as two of today's best retro-rock bands, the folky Woods and the garage-psych Allah-Las played at the free Echo Park Rising Festival. Ideally I would have taken in more of the festival, but these were two really strong sets. I was there to see LA's Allah-Las, whose reverb-heavy take on folk rock … [Read more...]
Legends of the High Desert
A few weeks back I had the pleasure to visit Joshua Tree with my wife and son. I guess for some people the place invokes U2, but it always makes me think of Gram Parsons and his hippie/ Dylanesque updating of the high-lonesome sound.Here is my piece that runs in this Sundays' LATimes. It's both a meditation on the power of music and a trip-with-kids story. It's also one of the few trips I've taken … [Read more...]
Our Favorite Guitarists
SOME of you -- especially if you are a musician, music writer, or serious listener -- have already taken part in my informal poll of favorite guitarists. This was conceived not exactly as a historically rigorous greatest-of-all-time but the work you'd grab either if your house was burning down, or to take to the proverbial desert island. (I'm aware that these are two slightly different categories, … [Read more...]