It was a scene straight out of 1976: Justin Tranter, the front-man of the daring glam-group Semi Precious Weapons, pouring champagne (from a bottle emblazoned with his own picture I might add) over the entire crowd at The Roxy in LA, as girls bared their chests in excitement and chanted “IT’S OKAY, IT’S OKAY,” in unison. Needless to say, every Semi Precious Weapons show becomes its own experience. Returning to the west coast for the first time since their stint opening for Lady Gaga, last night’s gig served as a sending off of the Weapons to Europe, where they’ll continue touring with the one-woman pop megashow until this summer. Upon seeing them headline their own gig however, it became difficult to conceive how they don’t upstage the Lady herself. […keep reading…]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Another year, another epic weekend in the desert. Long before the third weekend of April it was clear that this year’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts festival was going to be a bit different from years past. With pleasant temperatures in the 80s, and some snow still on the distant mountaintops the scene couldn’t have been more ideal. We caught up with LA DJ Paparazzi after his Sunday afternoon set in the Sahara tent, but more on that later. Before anyone arrived in Indio, word went up on the official festival site that tickets were all sold out. The decision to sell only three day wrist bands certainly met some opposition from fans, but despite this restriction, the festival, indeed, sold out for the first time since 2007. That point was re-emphasized throughout the entire weekend with signs all throughout Indio and incessant tweets, not to mention Craigslist ads from people selling or looking to buy tickets. 
After a fast and furious rampaged through North America, Groove Armada and their hand-picked opener Fenech-Soler closed their tour at the Music Box (formerly the Henry Fonda Theater) in Hollywood last night. Into the second decade of their career, GA are now the stalwarts and with their first album still unreleased, F-S are the babies. GA features F-S on their new album, Black Light, their first album for Om Records. In a way, this short tour was both a coming out party for Soler (who dazzled at SXSW a few days prior) and a reacquainting party for the Armada.
Little time has passed since we last saw Little Boots stateside, and with good reason. Since her last gig, her debut album Hands was officially released alongside a teaser EP, and Boots easily became one of the most hyped artists of the last year. In promotion of the album, she’s embarked on a tour with Canadian sweethearts Dragonette and New York chill wave trio Class Actress, which made its stop at the El Rey in Los Angeles last night. In all honesty, the last Little Boots show famously fell short of expectations, so those in the crowd who had seen her before were a little nervous about what was to come later that evening. The buzz was that she had a larger budget and was working on updating her live band (buzz supported, in part, by her twitter page).
Going to a Crystal Castles show is like stepping into some sort of tripped-out Tim Burton musical. Or at least, that’s how it felt at Vancouver’s Gossip Night Club on the last Saturday of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. Flowing white curtains hung from the ceiling, with pink lights clashing against them. Spiral chandeliers reached out towards the floor. The bar was backlit with odd arrangements of red, black and yellow lights. And perhaps scariest above all was that a beer cost nearly nine dollars! Guess that’s the price you pay for living in an Olympic city.