Bloc Party at the Mayan

Bloc Party are very cunning... take a support band on tour that is so bad that whatever you do will sound brilliant. The band in question is 'Does it offend you yeah?' They did offend me because they were fucking awful... When nu-rave came out it sounded like an interesting concept but 30 seconds into some 'Shit Disco' song or other I realised it was crap. Shit music, shit clothes, shit disco. 'Does it offend you yeah?' are great spokesmen for the dead in the water movement that is nu-rave - deafeningly loud and wouldn't know a tune if it crawled up their shell suits and bit them in the bum...

Talking of shit clothes, red shorts and a white Obama T-shirt isn't a great look - you haven't got the legs for it Kele! Still, it makes a difference from the pastel Lacostes... Anyways, Bloc Party sounded great after DIOYY and it was actually a good show... I wouldn't say I'm a fan exactly, the music (like the live show) is all smoke and mirrors to me, reflections of Robert Smith in Kele Okereke's vocals and the music is stuck in an early 80's timewarp somewhere between early Bunnymen and Adrian Borland's The Sound. For current bands playing this type of stuff I would choose Editors any day. Bloc Party are best when they step outside their comfort zone and take a break from the duelling 100 mph guitar riffs that dominate songs such as Helicopter and Hoping for a miracle. A good example is Mercury, which has room to breathe and shows what Bloc Party could sound like if they went down the dub route, a good direction to take...

5.4 quake rocks Los Angeles area

Earthquake

The building has been rolling for two minutes! 11:43am

Zombie Zombie vs The Thing vs G.I.Joe

Evolutionary Sunset Call...

Received the new STANLEYLUCASREVOLUTION cd from Sean the other day and it's great. One or two minor things to be fixed before we do the mastering but it's 99% there. It's more commercial than some of his other stuff and that's probably a good thing... Amongst the songs he's been playing live over the last few months ('New Stone 40', 'Sacred Sons', 'Insatiable' and 'We still love them') there's some new stuff like 'Consultation Valley Ruse' which sounds like a lo-fi 'Boys & Girls', the spritely opener 'Wasteful Youth' and the epic 'I need love downhearted'. The CD is strung together with some instrumental intros and outros which give the CD a musical journey feel - right through to final track 'Happy Sun Day', with its backwards guitar giving the end of the LP a poignant, almost celtic feel...

Brookline at The Clinic

The Clinic is a new art/music/workspace a few doors down from The Echo in Echo Park... An interesting space - a long narrow room (that was obviously a clinic) with rooms either side with some art exhibits, amongst which were an exhibit that could only be described as upskirt photography... Up a small flight of stairs was a makeshift bar serving sangria and kegged beer and then on the roof was some food and a band called Dogweed, who were serving up some decent alt-country... The crowd was cool and artsy - definitely Echo Park hipsters... The music was great too - the DJ playing the Santogold vs Diplo mixtape before Brookline came on...

Orange County's Brookline played a good set - one or two minor sounds problems but these were quickly resolved... I find it difficult to classify Brookline and this may be a good or a bad thing. Definately bad in terms of my lazy 'journalism' but I think they need to develop more of an aural personality. They look good and are all great musicians but their lack of a memorable song or two has me thinking 'Battle of the Bands'... Anyways, they are better than 95% of the bands I see when I go to this type of thing and I'd like to see them play again before The Unknown Theater night...

Stroboscopic vs Unknown Theater