Locals Only! We Barbarians

We Barbarians are an amazing three piece band straight out of Long Beach. Their jagged guitar riffs, sick bass lines & thunderous drum beats make them an awesome act to experience live first hand. They are known to play many shows in the LA area and have recently supported Local Natives during their Spaceland Residency. If you ever get the chance to see them live, do so, you will not regret it.

Locals Only!

I am proud to announce that I will be starting a new, hopefully weekly column, showcasing local LA based bands. All the bands will have passed my rigourous, and extremely high standards. So stay tuned!

Roll With The Punches

Four Year Strong isn't what you would call your normal pop-rock band. Hailing from Massachusetts, this energetic 5 piece band takes the clean-cut, fun-loving image of pop-rock and throws it out the window. The best way to describe them is to take the bitter and spiteful lyrics of Fall Out Boy, the energy, image, and breakdowns of A Day To Remember, and a heaping helping of 90s grunge-itude. Some tracks to check out include "Bada Bing! Wit a Pipe!" "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Hell" and their cover of No Doubt's "Spiderwebs." Also, Hi! I'm back from hell with a ton of new music. Sorry for the lack of posts but don't worry we're gonna keep 'em coming strong.

LittleBIGJoy

As I mentioned in a previous post, three other Strokes members have side projects, here is Fab Moretti's band Little Joy.
Little Joy is composed of Fab Moretti (The Strokes), Rodrigo Amarante (Los Hermanos) and Binki Shapiro, a very talented musician and LA native. Amarante and Moretti met at music festival in Lisbon and they both had the idea of forming a music collaboration unrelated to their current bands. While on hiatus from Los Hermanos, Amarante came to LA to work with Moretti on their new music project, they met Binki Shapiro through mutual friends and the rest is history.
All the music on their self titled debut is very laid back and simple. Sometimes simple is all you need to be great. I highly recommend you check out their music.

Phrazes For The Young

I know I am not the only one waiting for a new Strokes album, but it seems that the wait is only going to get longer. It's been three years since First Impressions Of Earth came out, and in those three years, Albert, Nikolai and Fab have all been working on their own endeavors. And now a new Stroke has a side project in the works. Julian Casablancas will be releasing his solo debut album oddly titled Phrazes For The Young.
It's slated for a fall release and 8 tracks have been recorded so far. It will be released by Cult Records/RCA. He is planning a series of tour dates to coincide with the release of the album.
You can check out his official website for a video preview.

http://www.juliancasablancas.com/

The Dead Weather Horehound

The debut album, Horehound, from The Dead Weather is out today. So download it from iTunes or go to your local music store and get your copy. I will post a mini review as soon as I listen to the entire album.

Warped Tour

Warped Tour came to Ventura County, CA this weekend and I must say it was absolutely fantastic. InnerPartySystem totally stole the show. The amount of raw energy and feeling these guys put into their music and performance was staggering. Every line, lyric, and note was delivered perfectly and with feeling which is a rare thing to see not only out of a band these days but especially an electro-rock band. But to be fair to the rest of the bands there I must say that Scary Kids Scaring Kids did put on a fantastic set. Personally I think they should have had more time to perform since they were one of the more popular and talented bands there. The crowd was going wild for SKSK and we all wanted more but due to the fact that they were on a secondary stage and they had another band on after them made them cut their set short. They covered the basics of their music and threw in a more obscure track for the true fans. Streetlight Manifesto put on a pretty good set, but it was lackluster for some reason. Maybe it was the almost apathetic attitude of the singer or maybe it was the lack of a massive pit of people chanting and skanking. Either way they could have had a better show. 3OH!3 was terrible. No energy in their performance, no feeling, no nothing. I'll stick to their albums until they learn how to put on a show. There wasn't much else worth mentioning that I saw. Good Warped Tour this year though. I may go back to Carson when they come back around with Chiodos and He Is Legend in tow.