Autolux, HEALTH @ El Rey, 2/1/08

HEALTH is an experimental noise rock band from Los Angeles. I saw them open for Autolux at the El Rey Theatre Friday night. They are really great live, and even better than the album! I personally wished that they were a little louder (there's really no other way to hear their debut self-titled LP than at full volume!) but nonetheless they were still damn entertaining. I also missed some of the video game sounding effects on "Triceratops", but the absence of them didn't effect their incredible, adrenaline pumping experience that much. On the album, this song sounds like the soundtrack to a post-apocalyptic video game themed rollercoaster with dinosaur-head shaped oscillating sprinklers that shoot liquid acid onto the screaming passengers.

The singer/guitarist had a T-shirt that read in all caps "I DON'T GIVE A FUCK" and I guess you could say that this music can fit your mood when you feel the same way. It's loud, abrasive yet fluid, mechanical, aggressive, spontaneous...very similar to Boredoms, or a more raw and stripped down Battles. The drummer really beats the demons out of those drums, and everyone in the band has so much energy and is hopping around so damn much that I was having Pokemon Snap flashbacks while taking pics. I felt like these guys were on stage for about 30 minutes, close to the length of their album. I can't wait to see them at The Smell (where they recorded their album and have been playing live shows at forever)! Please make sure to catch them there on 4/20 (uh oh)!



Okay, so it's about fucking time I got to see Autolux. They've played at so many festivals where I missed them, and after seeing them live, I wish I had caught them all the previous times before. Although the songs do stick to the same structure as on the album, they are a lot heavier, louder, and more shoegazy on stage! I think that their only current LP, Future Perfect, would have highly benefited from, oh, let's say, Steve Albini's production, because it's a little too polished, in my opinion.

Singer/bassist Eugene Goreshter looked like he was having a great time up there because he had a permanent mischievous Joker grin. He sang with a confident ease...Drummer Carla Azar looks very similar to Karen O and has a super cool transparent drumset. I love it when the drummer sings on some of the songs, and she does a fine job of doing it. She was sporting a metallic-silver looking leotard kind of thing (i don't know what the hell you'd call it) and a loose fitting silver top, which matched up well with guitarist Greg Edwards' Gibson SG, which was covered in what appeared to be aluminum foil, as did Eugene's Fender Bass.

They ripped through a handful of hits off Future Perfect, such as Turnstile Blues and Blanket, and a few new songs that I haven't heard yet. We'll all hear the new songs soon enough on the upcoming album which is scheduled for a non-specified release date this year.

All in all, they sound incredible live, but I would have liked to see a little more energy on stage. At least some feet stomping or something, but I guess shoegaze didn't get the name from them tapdancing on stage, haha.














Spotted at the Show: Pixies' guitarist Joey Santiago!

In Waves @ Silverlake Lounge, 1/28/08

I fucking love this band. If I could describe them in one word, it would be "sprawling". With a tsunami of post-punk revival bands flooding the music scene, for some damn reason, In Waves really rise above and drown the whole lot of them. They'll drown you in their music, too. Joy Division and Echo and the Bunnymen are definitely recalled in their sound, but who isn't these days? Where this band stands out and totally kills the most recent wannabe acts (I won't say any names) is in their deeply lush and organic soundscapes.

A band like this, in my opinion, has too big of a presence for a small venue like Silverlake Lounge. I saw them play with A Place to Bury Strangers at the Viper Room on December 3rd (check my review on that show as well!), and I thought the same thing. But that doesn't mean they don't sound fucking HUGE.

On this particular night, In Waves barely tested their instruments and just started playing suddenly. No unnecessary long intro jamming sessions. Just pure immediate bliss. Dreamy ambient music, and from only three musicians! The vocals echoed with a deep lush reverb as if they were sung by frontman Jimmy Vincent in a giant empty church. Drummer Dean Cooper fucking pounds the shit out of the drums, and the bassist Tim Gregorio especially thumps through well structured basslines and rocks out more than most bassists I've seen in recent times. Dancing, moving around, and stomping his feet without looking awkward or out of place.

Not only are they great on stage, but Jimmy Vincent is a very nice guy. When I gave him a $20 bill to buy a demo, he said he didn't have change, and when I said I'd come back with it, he insisted on me taking the CD for free. I know how hard it is to make it in today's music scene. Excessive touring to get your name out there can be very tough, not to mention the very little money that bands actually make when playing many smaller shows...not trying to brag, but of course I came back with the money. After all, I started this blog with the primary focus of helping to promote the music scene, not to take from them.

On a closing note, some bands struggle live and have too many damn people on stage. Some peer into the audience to see if people actually give a damn. These guys don't seem to worry about that, and I don't think they have to. Not all bands have got it. In Waves do.

White Williams @ the Echo, 1/27/08

White Williams played the Part Time Punks night last night at the Echo. According to parttimepunks.com, "PART TIME PUNKS is a club that takes over noted Echo Park live music venue, The Echo on 1822 Sunset, every Sunday night. The night focuses heavily on obscure and classic music coming out of America, the UK and Europe in 1978 to the present: Punk, Post-punk, Punk-funk, New Wave, No Wave, Hardcore, Indie-Pop, Twee, Grunge, Electro, Minimal-Synth, Shoegaze, Baggy."

Okay, so I don't really get it either. Seemed like yet another night at the Echo. There always seems to be bands playing one of those genres anyway, but whatever. Everybody wants their name on something I guess.

White Williams is the name for the music project of 23-year old Cleveland-based musician Joe Williams. His debut LP Smoke is as good as it gets for slower tempo dance music. He plays live with bassist Tyler and guitarist Hayes O Crypt. Tyler plays a black Fender Musicmaster and O Crypt plays an awesome white Japanese Fender Mustang, and he's pretty damn good at it too. It's a sharp yet non-piercing sound he's got setup, and he's got the riffs down very fucking tightly.

White Williams is young and small and skinny. His haircut is totally 80's Gahan. At the Echo, he wore a thrift store jacket that looked like he picked it with his eyes closed, a black vest, skinny jeans, and ultra-padded and overly gaudy high-top black sneakers. Anyway, he walked out onto the stage just after 11 PM...he had a mixing board and too many knobs to adjust and a MacBook on one table, and a keyboard that I didn't recognize right across from it. Also, to my surprise, he had a Hohner 32-key melodica (yes I counted in the pictures), which he used on many of the songs! Fucking rad! I was in San Francisco just last week and was looking to buy one until my sister told me I could have hers.

The guitarist and bassist both serve the band well and fit perfectly with the electronics coming from Joe, who goes back and forth from the keys to the controls to the drum beats inside his MacBook to melodica to vocals. He's a smooth operator; he doesn't freeze up, he doesn't fall down, and he doesn't fuck up. He glides effortlessly from instrument to instrument, and rarely makes eye contact with the audience while he steps through his songs. But the lack of eye contact is not one of shyness, instead, it appears to be one of confidence and carelessness; you'd swear he's been doing this for decades. He loosely wraps the mic cord around his hand to prevent himself from tripping over it while he slowly dances through his loungy beats.

There was a petite little brunette in the audience, maybe 21. She was walking around the Echo picking up mostly empty drinks that people had left behind and drinking them down in a hurry. I think in the 15 minutes that she was scourging the stage and bar for leftover icy ass-sips, she MAYBE got a whole drink down her throat. Maybe. Maybe next time the guy she was with could've just bought her a fucking drink, for god's sakes. Making out with that chick must be real delicious. Anyway, point being, she was dancing like crazy, front row, to my side, arms flailing to the point of almost hitting people. Totally into the show, and believe me, this didn't go unnoticed. Joe Williams put the microphone up to her screaming mouth, and turned some knobs to twist her voice up with delay. Didn't really work in the song, but fun nonetheless.

I really liked White Williams live. It was a fun show! I didn't find myself waiting for the next song, and I recognized every album track after only listening to the album a handful of times. It's great fucking music. Think Beck, Hot Chip, and Devo but with a more warm and chill foggy vibe. The only thing I would've added to this show was maybe a fog machine and some colored light beams.

I only paid $10 to get in but I highly recommend seeing him live even if it costs more. Don't trust your instinct, trust mine. Who the fuck am I? Just another blogger. But if you like the bands I listed as sounding similar in style, check out Smoke ASAP. I get the feeling White Williams is going to be huge.

Set List:

1. INTRO
2. HEADLINES
3. IN THE CLUB
4. VIOLATOR
5. NEW VIOLENCE
6. FLEETWOOD CRACK
7. GOING DOWN
8. SHADOW
9. ROUTE TO PALM



Spotted at the show:
Tim Presley of Darker My Love/The Fall
Matt Popieluch, lead singer of Foreign Born

A Place to Bury Strangers Interview

Here is a brief interview that I conducted with A Place To Bury Strangers' singer Oliver Ackermann, bassist Jono MOFO and drummer Jay Space.

B-Ex: There's been lots of shoegaze bands out there in the past 20 years…what makes you guys so special?

Oliver: We are not so special as far as I can tell, we are just doing what we do. I was not anybody else in any of those bands so I couldn't tell you how their experience was different.

Jono: We're not a shoegaze band. That's what makes us special.

Jay: if you listen to those older bands and then listen to us you can see we're louder and more ferocious!

B-Ex: " A Place To Bury Strangers". What an amazing name. Where do you think the best place would be to bury a stranger?

Oliver: Thanks, it all depends on your thrill, maybe in their own backyard.

B-Ex: The album has a real timeless sound. How long did it take to record, and did you guys use any impractical recording techniques?

Jono: You'd have to ask Oliver.

Jay: again that's a question for oliver.

Oliver: It was recorded over the past few years and is just a collection of songs, it was not intended to be released as a record. To others there would seem to be lots of impractical recording techniques but we are just trying to get the best sounds. Amps were put in the oven, down the hall, 2 faced together, ran through bad speakers etc. Microphones were sometimes crappy, had spoons taped on them, caught sounds reflected off of cymbals, stuck on speaker magnets, headphones as mics and just about anything else that seemed like it got a good sound. It is just a lot of experimentation and then decisions based upon how well different ideas worked.

B-Ex: Nice! I like the idea of using headphones as microphones. I once placed some cheap earphones into a piano at my church when I was growing up. The results were haunting. Sounds like music from a machine that is picking up interference from ghosts...

Oliver: I know what you mean about getting some creepy sounds in church, there is something even about the atmosphere, maybe ghosts?

B-Ex: Who would you cite as your most unlikely influence? To clarify, who has been a big influence in your music that wouldn't be obvious to listeners?

Oliver: Six Finger Satellite?

Jono: Adam Clayton. Linear basslines.

Jay: dead ho... you'll see...

B-Ex: What has been your favorite city touring in, and why?

Oliver: I like the Midwest and small towns but it is hard to say, I just like to travel around and see lots of different places.

Jono: Chicago is nice. It's kind of in the middle of nowhere. It's big, beautiful and lots of fun. And of course there's LA. I find it very exotic. Sun, mountains, palm trees. And a lot of good friends.

Jay: L.A. has always been a place i love to go to because we have so many friends there... also Philadelphia cause that's where i'm from.

B-Ex: Tell me, what newer band should I be listening to right now? Something that rocks as much as you guys do.

Oliver: The Vandelles, Ceremony, Ringo Deathstarr.

Jono: Holy Fuck.

Jay: My best friend, Holy Fuck, and wait for the new Secret Machines' record it's wicked... also Ripcord they are the shit!!!

B-Ex: What is the last great movie you saw?

Oliver: I saw Vertigo last night, very good.

B-Ex: Nice. I recently saw North By Northwest for the first time and it was great. Hitchcock has so many fucking great movies it's hard to keep up. They're all so funny to me because the characters are sometimes so ridiculous and over-the-top...

If any, who was your biggest celebrity crush growing up?

Oliver: Madonna

B-Ex: Are you a fan of horror films?

Oliver: Sure, I like all kinds of movies, if it is good why not watch.

B-Ex: What is your biggest pet peeve about people?

Oliver: When people are stubborn and can't change their mind.

B-Ex: Can you guys PLEASE make a live DVD? The December 3rd Viper Room show was fucking epic! The strobe lights especially almost made me shit my pants.

Jono: We're making a live record. Will that do for now? Maybe we can distribute it with a free strobe light.

Jay: We're working on a live beta max first.

B-Ex: Thank you so much for allowing me to take up your time. Is there anything else you'd like to say to our readers? Something inspirational, haha.

Oliver: Do what you love.

Jono: God is a vengeful fuck. Seek solace elsewhere.

Jay: Jono is dead... seek inspiration elsewhere!!!

A Place To Bury Strangers, In Waves @ The Viper Room, 12/3/07

I just saw psychedelic noise 3-piece A Place to Bury Strangers at The Viper Room. HOLY SHIT alert. If you like shoegaze, check out these guys. So far I've gotten a handful of people into them, and I'm glad to spread the word. Dare I say it, these guys were better live than Jesus and Mary Chain at Coachella 2007. Yup, that's right. Their music is heavier than a ton of bricks being dropped through a glass house full of revved up tractors. Find any two consecutive radio stations. Now tune into the static that is in between them, and mic that up to a board full of Big Muffs and into a stack of Twin Reverbs all turned up to 10. Now add strobe lights. That is what it is to see A Place To Bury Strangers live.

I was fortunate enough to chat with the incredibly modest and friendly frontman Oliver Ackermann outside the venue, and I thanked him for putting on THE BEST small show I've seen all year. He was incredibly kind, and told me if I liked them, then I should check out "Ringo Deathstarr". That I did, and they sound even more like Jesus and Mary Chain. In a world where nothing is original anymore, I definitely do not mind an overabundance of bands that sound like the kings of shoegaze.


Post-punky. Dreamy. Lush. Ethereal. Atmospheric. Haunting. These are just a few of the words that come to mind when witnessing headliners In Waves. What beautiful music this Echo Park band creates. The vocals recall the soft melancholy of Cass McCombs. I can't fucking wait for them to come out with an LP. Soon enough. May I recommend the song "Too Much Vision" as a starting point.


Spotted at the show: Lukas Haas.

Maxwell Demon @ Bad Dog Ale House, 11/30/07

Maxwell Demon rocked the fucking walls off at Bad Dog Ale House tonight in El Segundo and frontman Raymond had a lot more energy than I've seen in a while. It reminded me of the good old days years ago when they'd play clubs like 705 and Westchester Sports Bar and Grill. I fucking love this band; they're by far my favorite South Bay local act of the last 5 years.

In a great finale to the show, Raymond jumped up to rip down a Coors Light banner. A bartender chick who wasn't too happy about this immediately rushed over to scold him, but don't think he cared nor will he remember it, haha.

José González, Cass McCombs @ Henry Fonda Theatre, 11/27/07

Cass McCombs opened for José González tonight at the Henry Fonda Theatre in Los Angeles. It was a good show, but I'm pissed at the audience as usual for being too fucking stupid and loud during the opening set. Cass McCombs was playing acoustic and a handful of dumb bitches up front were being too loud the entire time. People were shushing them and telling them to be quiet, but they must've been fucking drunk for the first time in their pathetic young lip gloss covered lives, because they laughed and kept talking.

Anyway, Cass McCombs didn't play "Equinox" so I was pretty disappointed. I was really surprised to see bearded bassist Rob Barbato (of Los Angeles psychedelic shoegaze band Darker My Love and more recently of the legendary The Fall) at this show...he was playing bass for Cass McCombs. I also read that he played theremin on the album. Pretty interesting stuff!

Swede Jose Gonzales, who is mostly known for his folk cover of The Knife's electronic Heartbeats, performed an incredible solo acoustic set, with a spotlight shining down on him the entire time. The entire Henry Fonda crowd was respectfully silent. A moving experience, but maybe more of them should've had some respect for the opener that I went to see.

The Hives @ The Avalon, 11/7/07

The Hives played at the Avalon tonight in Hollywood, supporting their more-of-the-same-but-good new album, The Black and White Album . These Swedes rock hard (as most of them do) and were extremely tight and poppy as expected. Everyone in that band must have been hyped up on a Costco crate of Pixie Stix or something because those guys are nuts!

The Hives are known for being completely wild, and saying very ridiculous, nonsensical and seemingly cocky and arrogant things between songs. At one point, frontman Howlin' Pelle Almqvist wanted everyone to applaud louder and louder and he wasn't satisfied so he said "don't make me come down there and set the rest of the city on fire Los Angeles!" What a low blow! He's referring to all the fires in Malibu. The crowd "oooed" and "booed", then the singer was silent for a minute, and then said "ah fuck you guys!" and they kept rocking. Hahahaha, crazy Swede.

Highlight of the show for sure: in the middle of the song "You Dress Up For Armageddon", right after the line "who is the man with the microphone? Today he is here but tomorrow he is gone" the entire band froze exactly like wax figures for about 30 seconds. Silence. Then the crowd applauded louder and louder, until Pelle Almqvist broke the stillness with a smile, and then two seconds later the band continued with "but I disagree!!!" Awesome. And lucky you, bathtubexplosion blog reader! I have a clip of this below!



Only real letdown of the night was, I didn't know it was a fucking KROQ show! Yes, KROQ! The same idiots who fucked up radio with all the same shitty bands. Seen the "I Am KROQ" billboards? Incubus, Chili Peppers, Foo Fighters...get over them already, FUCK! These shows are always filled with a bunch of kids and idiots. There was a loud fat Mexican chick in front of me the whole show who kept crashing into people, and a bunch of high school kids who smuggled in beer cans and were obviously drunk for the first or second time because they acted like fucking fools and talked too loud in my face. I wanted to smash heads. But that's the price you pay to get up close and take sweet ass pictures!

Yo La Tengo @ MOCA, La Jolla, 11/5/07

Oh how I love driving all the way to San Diego on a whim. I did it recently to purchase a white maple necked Eric Clapton Strat, and I did it Sunday night to go see Yo La Tengo do an acoustic set at the MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Arts) in La Jolla. This show was sold out so I posted an ad on Craigslist and luckily enough I found a seller who sold me two tickets for face value of $25 each. What a fucking deal.

I drove all the way to La Jolla from Los Angeles and arrived at a very nice area in La Jolla with upscale shopping centers and plenty of coffee shops and restaurants. I had learned earlier in the week that Yo La Tengo were touring and playing special intimate acoustic sets which included audience Q&A's in between songs! I wasn't sure how well their feedback heavy sound would transfer to acoustic performances, but they sounded fucking fantastic!

They performed mellower versions of songs throughout their career (for an audience of almost 500), such as Autumn Sweater, Stockholm Syndrome, Griselda, and Mr. Tough. While many of the songs were sung so mellowly you'd swear you were having a flashback to a Simon and Garfunkel concert, some of them really picked it up with Ira Kaplan breaking out into Proco Rat distorted acoustic guitar solos. Very similar to the guitar in Tom Waits' Hoist That Rag! And his head-bowed-down-on-and-rocking-back-and-forth stage stance is very similar to Mr. Waits as well. Badass! This guy can really switch between soft guitar to fucking heavy fast shit--very similar to Thurston Moore's guitar playing.

The highlight of the night was definitely when I yelled out to Ira: "The song The Room Got Heavy relies so heavily on bongo drums and organ--is it even humanly possible to transfer such a song to a live acoustic set?" Mr. Kaplan smirked, and said "I don't know if that's ever even been done...is this a dare?" and they played a fucking awesome acoustic version that found simple amplified acoustic riffs opening the song, which eventually turned into some heavily distorted power chord shifts to finish off the climactic organ solo from the original version on I am Not Afraid of You And I Will Beat Your Ass.

This was one of the best shows I have been to all year. I won't soon forget the Ira Kaplan's between song commentary and soft spoken words of benevolence. He really seems like a nice guy, and handled the transition from "song--to audience question--to song (related to the audience question) very smoothly!

Thurston Moore @ Echoplex, 10/30/07

I met up with J. Giovanni and B. and B. Hart tonight for the soothing sounds of Thurston Moore's new "Trees Outside the Academy" tour. I have already heard many die hard Sonic Youth fan's, such as (Raymond of locals E>K>U>K and Maxwell Demon) say that Trees Outside the Academy was everything that Sonic Youth's Rather Ripped should have been. Relying heavily on acoustic guitars and stringed arrangements, this warm and lush album transfers excellently to the stage live.

I worked my way to the front of the hardly packed Echoplex and waited through one of the shittiest 27 minutes of my young adult life. Scores (featuring Heather Leigh Murray and Christina Carter who sings on a couple tracks on Trees Outside the Academy) opened for Thurston, and regrettably so. This female duo on electric slide guitar and lap steel started the night with a whole bunch of high pitched howlin'. This is obviously music from the soul, but maybe it's left better kept in the soul rather than in the ears of the audience, who seemed squeamish the entire time. Scores sounded like a gang of ghosts raping a pregnant lesbian wolf bitch while riding the Matterhorn at Disneyland and listening to Cocteau Twins. And don't get me wrong, I love Cocteau Twins. This duo was a bunch of bullshit in my honest opinion (which you're going to get whether you like it or not; you're reading this.) Seriously, it was just two older chicks howling for at least half an hour and playing some slow and droney guitars. The music DID NOT CHANGE the entire time. So fucking repetitive I wanted to walk on stage on start peeing on their faces so they would fucking leave already. If there was talent on stage, I didn't see it, and neither did the handful of people from the audience who walked away during their set.

Finally the cacophonous cries for mother's milk ended and the man, the legend, Mr. Thurston Moore came on stage! He came out calm and cool, and mentioned something of having a Halloween mask. He asked if we wanted to see it. Of course we did! The audience cheered and screamed. He went backstage, and came back with the corniest skull mask I have ever seen. Then he jumped into the audience and got on his back and began having what appeared to be a violent fake seizure of some sort. He growled and he hissed for a minute, then got back on stage. I don't know for sure, but I think I was the only one who was amused by this. I didn't know he'd be so playful and geekily down to earth. The audience was pretty silent.

He ripped through a tight acoustic set composed entirely of songs from his new album, and then came back with an encore that consisted of a couple songs from Psychic Hearts, the highlights being Queen Bee and Her Pals and the title track which were the only songs he switched to a Jazzmaster for. And Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley (surprise!) beat the hell out of the drums the whole time. Rock on!