May 2, 2009
Why is one pop diva du jour and one not? They are both female-fronted, synth-powered throwbacks, stealing gleefully from the 80s. (Kraftwerk will never die.) New Yorker music critic Sasha Frere Jones just wrote a column arguing for Lady Gaga’s significance as a one-hit (or two-hit) wonder: “She cites Andy Warhol… opines in public about whether a certain shade of red is ‘Communist,’ and has dropped Rilke’s name more than once.” Her monster hit is the naughty “Poker Face.”
The difference is, while Lady Gaga is Read More
April 24, 2009
Adam Schlesinger (Fountains of Wayne) wrote some songs with James Iha (Smashing Pumpkins) and Taylor Hanson (Hanson). Flashy, melodic, hook-oholic songs like those he crafts for Fountains of Wayne. All they needed was a drummer who knows classic, Beatles-y song structure (intro, verse, chorus, bridge, guitar solo, repeat chorus, outro). Someone able to propel hardish rock with a clean sheen. Someone like, say, Bun E. Carlos of Cheap Trick. “We kept throwing out names, until finally we said, ‘Why don’t we just call Bun E. and see if he’ll work with us?’ ” And new super group, Tinted Windows, was complete. (The Carlos story is in Huffington Post.)
Now there’s an album and some shows (including April 28 at the Troubadour in L.A.). You can hear two songs on Read More
April 9, 2009
Imagine Brad Pitt was not only as huge a star as he is, but wrote number-one songs for the top singers of the day, was a brilliant performer in his own right, and championed radical politics when they weren’t popular. You’d be close to describing the significance of Kris Kristofferson. He starred in huge-grossing movies (The Deer Hunter, A Star Is Born); he wrote “Me and Bobby McGee” (biggest Janis Joplin hit) and “Sunday Morning Comin’ Down” (major Johnny Cash song); and helped reframe country music (along with Cash, Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings) toward pure personal expression.
Ethan Hawke’s profile in the new Rolling Stone has some great stories. Like the time Kristofferson, Read More
April 4, 2009
Music Review: The Omar Sosa Afreecanos Quartet performed this weekend at The Jazz Bakery in Culver City. The pianist explores Afro-Cuban jazz, but not in the traditional sense of Perez Prado and Hugo Santamaria (you know, ostinato beats and one- or two-chord vamps). Instead, Sosa and cohorts launch from Caribbean grooves into electronically tinged free-jazz. (Hence the name “Afreecanos.”) Colorful and exploratory, and never overly “outside,” the group structured its set within Read More
January 12, 2009
Hot Sheet editor Jack Skelley, who moonlights as a poet and musician, recently teamed-up with his longtime collaborator, performance artist The Dark Bob. Together they wrote a happy little holiday song and recorded it with their old pal D.J. Bonebrake (drummer for legendary L.A. punk band “X” no less!!). It’s called “Ha Ha Ha Ha Happy New Year.” We hope everyone gets a lift out of it. Here is the low-def, high-energy video.
January 5, 2009
Dominic Priore’s book – Riot on Sunset Strip: Rock ‘n’ Roll’s Last Stand in Hollywood - explores the music and cultural scene of the Sunset Strip in the 1960s and early L.A. “garage punk” pop. These include artists ambitiously inventing within the 45-rpm format. Their raw, surf-rock roots joined the mania over British invasion groups such as The Beatles, Stones and Kinks. But these Los Angeles bands were still “rock ‘n’ roll” — not the San Francisco “rock” music that dominated after 1968. Some elevated themselves into national profiles: The Byrds, The Doors, Mothers of Invention (Frank Zappa). Others remain urgently obscure. Among them: Love (imaginative), The Seeds (primal), Electric Prunes (psychedelic), Count Five and The Leaves (fierce).
There is an urban-planning lesson to all this: Various developers and the County of Los Angeles had Read More
December 17, 2008
Or alterna-world-beat-classical? It’s tough to typecast Star FK Radium, the arty new pop acoustic instrumental band garnering a cult following in Washington DC. Claiming influences from Hendrix to Radiohead, the trio explores undiscovered territory. Star FK Radium, whose name plays on the Mid-Atlantic venue RFK Stadium, merges guitar picking and strumming with violin and percussion. The acoustic guitar, usually a much more delicate instrument than its electric cousin, gets banged out at times, hard-rock style. Star FK Radum’s tour through instrumental-land drives through tempo and mood changes, often with multiple complementary melodies per song. The band will also at times redundantly repeat a musical theme into a drone, only to launch a satisfying harmonic change, as in “Blue Siberia” (found on the MySpace page.) The fact that it’s all instrumental makes it Read More
December 10, 2008
Another month, another crop of female pop. (See previous posts on School of Seven Bells, The Duke Spirit and The Ravonettes.) This time The Hot Sheet spotlights two songwriters sharing a dusky sound that seems steeped in experience. Australian Sia (full name Sia Furler) brings her soulful voice to bear on some strong originals. The bluesy-ness may come from her days as a jazz vocalist. She also sang backup for popular English artist Jamiroquai. Check out her “Soon We’ll be Found.” With its ¾ time and great melody. Feels like a classic.
Also grabbing attention – and Grammy nominations last week – is Adele. Hailing from Read More
November 20, 2008
Well in to their US tour, breakthrough London alt rockers The Duke Spirit shook the famous 9:30 Club the other night. It was a sub-freezing November Tuesday night in the nation’s capital. But lead vocalist Liela Moss warmed the crowd with the emotion, range and strength of her dark-edged voice… a combination of Courtney Love and Björk. (A previous Hot Sheet post compared her to Nico and Grace Slick.) From high and loud to a sultry whisper. The short-haired Moss (her new do) poses dramatically, one foot on the s Read More
November 17, 2008
Scott Weiland, one of the world’s most prolific – if erratic – rock performers in the last couple decades recently revealed details of a new upcoming solo album, slated for release on November 25. The announcement comes on the heels of a summer reunion tour with The Stone Temple Pilots. Frontman Weiland and original STP band mates Richard and Dean DeLeo on guitar and bass respectively, along with Eric Kretz on drums, not only reworked their mid-90s grunge rock, they also explored never-before-performed tracks. The new album Happy in Galoshes is Read More
