I saw Band of Skulls 4 times in 2009 and I still haven’t had enough of this UK trio. I’ve RSVP’d for a couple parties @ SXSW so hopefully I’ll be able to catch them sometime soon. I need my fix! Here’s there new video for the song “Friends” from the New Moon Soundrack.
In L.A. you are encouraged not to acknowledge a celebrity’s existence —certainly don’t say anything to them, that’s what tourists do! It’s understandable why. After all we are all human beings who wish to be rewarded for our deeds but allowed our personal freedoms including the right to peace and privacy. But I’ll have been a citizen of the The City of Angels for 3 years come Valentine’s Day (romantic I know) and I don’t give a fuck what you say, if I want to talk to someone regardless of who they are…I’m gonna. Of course even I have my rules and standards. You never, ever bother a famous person with their kids or at dinner…EVER! And I want it very clear that I’m not trying to bother anyone just because they are famous. It’s ALWAYS about WHAT they do, which is why they are famous to begin with unless they are a non-celebrity like cast members of The Hills*. I’m not going to say something unless I really have something to say. Problem is, you always think of something to say out-of-the-blue 5 minutes later. Fortunately this afternoon. I had just such a 2nd chance.
You should know that I have an EAGLE-EYE for personalities. Some people just have that “glow-of-importance” to them. Maybe I can subconsciously observe their aura. I know that sounds ridiculous.** I have no real explanation for it. When I first moved to California my inner dialog after a quick glance at someone was always, “That person looks a lot like _________.” only to realize at 2nd glance that it most likely was that person, just doing whatever. I’ve learned now to accept that it probably is that person as it proves true more likely than not.
I may technically live in the city of Los Angeles but OFFICIALLY I am a citizen of West Hollywood, CA which has been it’s own entity since 1984. I think the city planners could forsee that LA was set for collapse or realized eventually Sarah Palin would become president and knew us freaks and wierdos would be herded into internment camps for our deviant lifestyles and decided that we should just have our own city so it would be easier to decide where to put the razor-wire fences. Honestly, I can’t see myself living anywhere else or being stuck with a better group of freaks.
Sometimes the wild nights take a couple of strange turns and the next thing you know you’re devising a way to not only destroy your liver with alcohol and your lungs with smoke but we may have collectively devised the largest timebomb you can possibly send down your gullet. I’ve already told you about The Real Sunset Strip, a show that comes live from that famous WeHo drag via USTREAM hosted by Scheff and The Hawk whom each have their own regular “narrowcast” channels. Here is a clip that was streamed live recently where the hosts along with myself and photographer Andrew Herrold took a trip to Duke’s Coffee Shop* (between The Whisky A Go-Go and The Cat Club) and had them bring to reality an epicurean idea hatched next to a “street meat” cart in front of The Roxy minutes before the stream began.
The Real Sunset Dog:
1/4lb. Hot Dog wrapped in Bacon, Dipped in Batter and fried (w/Bun).
Optional Condiment Suggestions: Cholula Hot Sauce, Ketchup, Mustard
Estimated Calories: 700-1,000+
*Sunset Strip History: The current site of Duke’s Coffee Shop used to be a club called The London Fog, which is where The Doors had their first regular gigs in West Hollywood before becoming the house band next door at The Whisky A Go-Go. Jim Morrison in his later years would probably have eaten The Real Sunset Dog without flinching. He was The Lizard King, he would probably eat anything!
Saddle Creek recording artist Orenda Fink (of Azure Ray, wife of Todd Fink of The Faint) has made her 2005 debut album Invisible Ones available for free download on her website now through the end of January in an effort to encourage relief effort donations for the current crisis in Haiti. In a very personal letter posted to her site that recounts her time in Haiti spent making music, art, and – most importantly – friends, Orenda asks that people make a donation to a relief effort organization in return for downloading the album. Invisible Ones, her solo debut, was inspired by and mainly written during her travels there in 2003.
Hey! I’m back in my homestate somewhere in middle America and I’ve been hanging out with a lot of people who really want to come visit me on the coast but with money tight don’t really have that luxury. Behold a solution (of sorts)! Lauren Scheff and The Hawk host a show via UStream called The Real Sunset Strip LIVE from The Roxy Theatre. It’s a great chance to see what goes on during a typical Saturday night in the musical heart of West Hollywood that spawned bands like The Doors, Van Halen, Motley Crue and Guns N Roses.
Speaking of which, former GNR/Velvet Revolver/The Cult drummer Matt Sorum, a regular fixture of the strip, even stopped by a few weeks ago to chat with the guys about the glory days of The Strip (video below). Other recent guests have been Mark McGrath (Sugar Ray), Harry Perry, B-Real from Cypress Hill and Tattooed Millionaire to name very few. Other regular guests and skits from Scheff & The Hawk include bartenders, managers, drunks and misfits from various other Sunset Strip institutions like The Viper Room and The Comedy Store. You’ll probably see me pop-up there every now and then.
Check out the show! Join the Ustream chat sometime and make Twitter and Facebook friends with The Real Sunset Strip!
Makes you want to run away.
We at AvantTrash come from the Midwest. Nebraska, specifically. The dead center of the country. The Heartland. The Great Plains. Sound boring? It can be! (There’s a reason most of us fled to the big city besides the outstanding warrants.) But when there is an absence of “something to do”, you are afforded the unique opportunity to make your own good time. This is not a vacuum of creativity, it is a ground as fertile as the dirt beneath your feet. When you don’t have a venue for your band in the Midwest, you go underground…literally. Most bands I’ve ever been in came not from garages, but basements. Some of the best shows I’ve ever seen were subterranean.
There’s a house in Omaha that for the better part of 20 years has been a kind of artists commune. It’s parties are as notorious as it’s residents. Infamous even. It’s called Hotel Frank and this is the environment that Capgun Coup was borne from. Their new record Maudlin has that lazy lo-fi punk sound nailed. Each song on this album sounds like it could come from a different record. I guess that shows their flexibility as artists but cuts in a bit to the territory of the Black Lips and Jay Reatard, but a bit more sophisticated. So even at times a bit like a dirty, midwest Little Joy, but without all the cuteness.
Capgun Coup’s sophomore album Maudlin comes out TODAY and is the follow up to 2007’s Brought to You by Nebraskafish both albums are available for purchase via Conor Oberst*’s Team Love Records website.
On the last night of a month-long tour, Esser and DATAROCK (and KAV for the West Coast) were playing a venue in Seattle rhat completely dropped the ball with the show’s production. The sound was terrible and non-existent in the monitors and the promoter was not-to-be-found until about 10pm and booked this terrible hipster rap act that ate up the headliner’s set time and threw water all over the stage (which doesn’t mix well with electronics!). Also, Seattle (and maybe all of Washington) has this bogus law about “No alcoholic beverages onstage”. All in all, it was a weird scene. But we made the best of it until finally the band was asked to stop playing around 1:30 am.
On top of this, the last night of any tour is subject to some ribbing, some hijinks…you know, shenanigans. One camera can’t possible do this night justice but I can hope that this sheds a little light on the situation. A cautionary tale.
I posted about this event this time last year and a lot of people have been searching for it lately (at least 63 of you today alone!). So I figured I would repost with the new information so you are privy to the new shit.
On Octobre 24th head over to Hollywood Forever Cemetery (6000 Santa Monica Blvd) from 4 – 11pm for Dia De Los Muertos. It’s $10 and they make it a point to tell you No Dogs, No Coolers and…No Skateboards? Im sure there has been some axle grinding on Valentino’s Crypt or something to prompt this rule. It’s not like you can ride very smoothly on the cemetery’s driveway or anything.
Be sure to put a sugar skull on Johnny Ramone’s Statue.
More info @ LadyOfTheDead.com
“To weep too much for the dead is to affront the living.”
Old Saying
Magic Wands is an indie/electronic duo out of Nashville TN. Their debut EP Magic Love & Dreams comes out May 25th on Bright Antenna. Here’s an mp3 of their first single “Black Magic“. If you dig it then you should definitely pick up the Magic Love & Dreams EP.
Want to win it? You’ve come to the right place! Thanks to our friends at Filter Magazine we have a copy of the EP as well as an AUTOGRAPHED Magic Wands T-Shirt to give away.
All you have to do is answer these 4 questions below that relate to Nashville. We’ll randomly pick a winner from the correct answers! Email your answers to contest@avanttrash.com. US RESIDENTS ONLY! Ready? Here we go:
My friends/associates at Dead Lantern Productions are having an open casting call for their next movie. So if you are in or around NEBRASKA then email deadcasting@gmail.com to get involved!
When Buddy Holly died 50 years ago today, he was only 22. But I feel as if music still hasn’t caught up. In that short amount of time he spent on earth he forged a legacy that has kept him as relevant as he was in 1959. Buddy was the real thing. He wrote his own songs, his ideas were as far “out there” as any could be (pre-LSD). Because you’ve heard his songs a million times then maybe you don’t notice it, but his croon, warble and hiccup vocal delivery is other worldly. His rhythm guitar playing is so simple, subtle and sophisticated that you probably don’t notice how FAST he is really playing! On top of all of that his peculiar studio methods and instrumentation would precursor the innovations of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. (The Beatles also took their name in part from The Crickets and the ‘Stones had an early hit with “Not Fade Away”) His influence is immeasurable to the degree that you would be hard-pressed to find a legend who WASN’T influenced by the bespectacled son of Lubbock, Texas. For that reason, Buddy Holly Lives!
Headliners:
Day 1 (Mopey White Dudes Night Out!) – Paul McCartney (I heard he was dead?), Morrisey (be sure to wear your tux to the soundcheck), Franz Ferdinand (Were the Strokes busy that night?), Leonard Cohen (exempt), Conor Oberst and the “Not as good as Bright Eyes” Band.
Day 2 (Music for people who hate Music Night) – The Killers (They kill good music), Amy Winehouse (if she lives 77 more days), TV on the Radio (exempt), Thievery Corporation (you call that a headliner?).
Day 3 (Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel Night aka Music to cake yourself in makeup and cut your wrists to) – The Cure (are still sad), My Bloody Valentine (are still irrelevant), Yeah Yeah Yeahs (Were the Strokes busy that night, too?), Throbbing Gristle, X, Peter Bjorn & John (PB&J? Yummy!). Full Lineup After the Jump!
Remind those stupid motherfuckers that it isn’t real. None of it. Your “holy books” are dangerously outdated. Look at me marginalizing what you’ve wasted THOUSANDS of years on by putting my “you-are-all-fucking-loony” quotes around it. The whole fucking thing. None of it’s real. None of it’s holy. If anything the whole world is holy. People are holy. Love people. Not Allah or Yaweh or God or Mohammed. The Earth is your God. You came from it, you couldn’t survive without it and most importantly YOU CAN SEE IT! Boom! If you want to fight, how about you fight pollution and poaching and everything else that harms the only reason you exist. There are no virgins, there is no heaven. Virgins usually just lay there anyway. You are just an asshole with a gun, an asshole with a bomb, an asshole on a rug 5 times a day, an asshole with a bagel and a lot of money and bad sideburns. I hate you all because you do NOTHING to help the world or ANYBODY besides yourselves! You fucking selfish assholes.
Oh my sweet Darwinian Irony! An Hero for the protection of Sharks has been supposedly eaten by a great white! Wow! This story is like eating a fried Twinkie! It’s so terrible but you have to love when someone says, “Deadly nature, you are so beautiful! Let me give you a great big hug!” and nature says, “Yum! Human Sacrifice!”
In all seriousness though Shark Poaching is a serious problem because their numbers are scary low and Asians with tiny penises are harvesting them for JUST THEIR DORSAL FINS to put in a tasteless soup to give them VIRILITY! In many cases they discard the rest of the fish.
6am flights, Ick. LAX, Double Ick. I didn’t go to sleep last night because the airport shuttle came at 3:30am and the flight that I was going to get a good power nap in there just happened to be 2 goddamned screaming kids. One was named Carson and the other Cadence, I overheard their names being announced to no less than 5 other passengers and both flight attendants, and I had headphones on. What’s with all of the “C” names anyway? A few years ago it was all -ayden names (Hayden, Jayden, Thayden-WTF?) While I’m in the Seinfeld spirit, what’s with all of this procreation? What the fuck have you done that you think you should make more of you!? Cured any diseases lately? Made any lasting artworks? I’m speaking directly to you, boring L.L. Bean and Husker hat wearing couple with your parent jeans. If it was summer I bet you’d be wearing Crocs. Does the world really need more insurance salesmen? Sterilization for all. Children of Men wasn’t a warning, it was a utopia, no kids watching Dora the Explorer at FULL VOLUME to stay distracted. (And yes, MaT, I realize they ripped it off.)
WARNING! IF NAME-DROPPING MAKES YOU SICK THEN THIS POST IS THE DEADLY MUTABA VIRUS!
I’ve got the Eagle Eye, yo. I’ve been spotting screen gems all over the city. 4 of the last 5 days this week I have seen a celebrity of some merit. I’d say in normal day-to-day life I average one sighting for every two weeks or so but this week has been nuts! (Too bad you weren’t visiting) Of course I didn’t get my NEW CAMERA until just tonight… but ain’t that always the way. Here are a few sightings I’ve had this week (read the keywords below for a preview):
So I’m waiting for the Westbound 72 bus at Damen tonight, when I hear music, horns, hootin’ and hollerin’ and such. I take my earbuds out and look to my left and see a huge group of bicycles circling a cab in the middle of the intersection like sharks goin’ in for the kill. The streets were flooded with people on bicycles. WTGDF?!? Read the rest of this entry »
Shiver me timbers and blow me down ya scabbers and sea dogs! ‘Tis been another voyage around the sun leavin’ us shipwrecked at Septembre the 19th fer another International Talk Like a Pirate Day! So ya best be a-strappin on your peg leg and feedin’ yer parrot cause iff’n ye be talkin’ like a land lover then I be makin’ ya walk the plank! Speak not lighly of a day like today, be a true holiday soon enough to be sure! Look at Mardi Gras and St.Pats!?
And what grand opportunitys would ye aquiece to on this salty day? If ye be in Los Angeles then ye should hit up the Redwood Bar & Grill Downtown. Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum! (But the $2 Happy Hour Ales cost ye less pieces of eight). ‘Tis A Pirates Life Fer Thee at all times Thar! Arrr.
Ah Labor Day Weekend! Time to crazily jump from project to project around my apartment with frequent computer breaks. So what have I found this evening? Whilst lazing around the dying star of Myspace I went from a neighbor’s profile to Margaret Cho in her top friends to Murray Hill. I clicked because he looks like a corpulent version of a co-worker’s very interesting husband, Mo. And because corpulent is my favorite word for old timey fatty. And *sigh* because there is a font called Murray Hill.
It took me about 5 pictures to figure out that this portly fellow was actually a fille. (see what I did there) The tell for me was the non-receding hairline, and that wonderful mustache was just too perfect.
