The Brooklyn band Nada Surf are one part '90s indie, one part chiming power pop, one part '60s songcraft, and last night they melded all three styles in a loud, forceful Troubadour show that left my ears ringing. The tour -- which continues tonight at the same club -- supports their new record of idiosyncratic covers, If I Had a Hi-Fi.The show, of course, wasn't perfect, with a few songs that … [Read more...]
Art’s "Cool School" Returns
THE Ferus Gallery is probably the most famous gallery in the history of Los Angeles – the site of Warhol’s first-ever solo show, obscenity charges over a Wallace Berman exhibit, and home base of the “cool school” of L.A. artists which included Ed Moses, Robert Irwin and Ed Ruscha. Quite an impact for a place which only lasted from 1957 to '67.The other night the storied space held an opening – … [Read more...]
Otis Redding Live on the Sunset Strip
Perhaps the most exciting development in West Coast culture this week is the release of one of the greatest R&B records I have ever heard – Otis Redding Live on the Sunset Strip. It should be equally appealing even to people who know classics like Redding’s Live in Europe and other, shorter recordings of these April 1966 dates at the Whisky a Go Go.Peter Guralnick, in his masterly Sweet Soul … [Read more...]
Pro and Con on Ray Bradbury
THE first Los Angeles writer many people read -- I think this was true for me -- is Ray Bradbury. The fantasy and science-fiction writer, nearing his 90th birthday, gets a very fine treatment from Nathaniel Rich in Slate this week. (Here for his piece.) I dedicated the book I co-edited, The Misread City: New Literary Los Angeles, to Bradbury; my partner in crime Dana Gioia and I regarded him as a … [Read more...]
The Sound of Southern California: The Radar Brothers
AMONG Los Angeles' most intriguing -- and quietest -- bands are The Radar Brothers, an Eastside group dedicated to a blend of mellowness and tension. They were once associated with fellow "slowcore" or "psychedelic depression" bands Acetone and Spain.The Bros.' new album, The Illustrated Garden, comes out on Merge next week. (I especially like the song "For the Birds.") They're currently in … [Read more...]
The Return of The Blue Moods of Spain
How often you arrive at a club and kick yourself for having missed the opening band? Not bloody often I'll bet. But when I got to Spaceland on Saturday to find I'd arrived too late to see a rare (and barely announced) show by LA indie kings Spain, my heart sunk into the kind of melancholy the group conjures so well in song.Spain, which is led by Josh Haden (son of legendary jazz bassist Charlie … [Read more...]
The Beginning — and the End — of The Clientele
Followers of the UK indie scene have been aware or the chimey, reverb-drenched Clientele for several years now. The band's current tour, which brings them to LA’s Spaceland on Friday and Saturday night, could likely be their last.Here is my LA Times piece on the band, which goes up Friday. I spoke to lead singer/guitarist Al MacLean about his early schooling in classical guitar, his fondness for … [Read more...]
MOCA and Postwar Art
NOT long ago I snuck over to the Museum of Contemporary Art for the exhibit of its permanent collection. Am I crazy, or is this - dedicated to the years from 1940 to '80 -- one of LA's best shows of postwar art in the last few years?The exhibit, of course, comes at a time when MOCA has just survived a major financial crisis that led to the resignation of its longtime director. Now, in the period … [Read more...]
Eagle Rock and Small Business
TONIGHT I go to a wake of sorts for Paper, a shop on Eagle Rock's Colorado Boulevard. The shop sold cool books, smart gifts, letterpress printed cards, and leather journals -- exactly the kind of combination that signals the arrival of a neighborhood into bobo heaven.The closing of the store -- done in by the recession, of course -- is especially poignant because owner Shannon Bedell lost another … [Read more...]
Robert Crais vs. LA Noir
TOMORROW is the release date for the new novel by Robert Crais, "The First Rule." Crime fiction aficionados know Crais as a deft, literate writer with a strong sense of place and of social history -- one of the great inheritors of Ross Macdonald in the world of West Coast noir.HERE is my profile of Crais, who is one of the best adjusted novelists I've ever spoken to -- someone who seems … [Read more...]