Email Author CHRIS ZIEGLER

2009 Stories by CHRIS ZIEGLER

• Paperplanes Can Make Long Beach Feel Like Lubbock

  published September 3, 2009

  Rhinestone CowboysPaperplanes can make Long Beach feel like LubbockPaperplanes put out a record last year, and at... More >>

• Smogtown

  published September 3, 2009

  Smogtown’s punk songs come built on the Adolescents, TSOL and the Beach Blvd. bands and bear such heavy production that sometimes that... More >>

• Afrobeat Down

  published September 3, 2009

  Afrobeat Down started as a tribute to Nigeria’s Fela Kuti, a musical figure so fearlessly larger than life that even something on the scale... More >>

• Lexi Lee

  published August 27, 2009

  Lexi Lee creates spare but iron-spined folk with a ukulele and a catch in her voice that might make George Herriman (who was writing at the same... More >>

• Kurt Vile Follows in the Footsteps of Dylan and the Boss

  published August 20, 2009

  Schooled In SongKurt Vile follows in the rugged, well-crafted tradition of the singer/songwriterThere are many... More >>

• Jedi Mind Tricks

  published August 20, 2009

  Philadelphia hip-hop group Jedi Mind Tricks have been chopping together rage and righteousness for just about twelve years now—since their... More >>

• Los Duggans

  published August 13, 2009

  From the piney backwoods between Billy Bragg and Captain Beefheart come Los Duggans, an electric folk-punk-blues foursome burning through murder... More >>

• Depeche Mode

  published August 13, 2009

  Depeche Mode—French for “there eez no such thing as new wave”—got started thanks to interest from the man behind the... More >>

• LA's Wounded Lion Take Pride in Making a Lot Out of a Little

  published August 6, 2009

  Two-Chord MinimumWounded Lion take pride in making a lot out of a little“Some people are friennnnnnndly ... More >>

• 100 Worst Album Covers

  published August 6, 2009

  There’s a lot of ugliness in the world, but it’s hard to see it all at once—thanks then to Jim Washburn, who presents here far more... More >>

• Dâm Funk? Damn Right

  published July 30, 2009

  Dâm, That Was Funky!Time traveling from the lo-fi/sci-fi futuristic ’80s to once upon a time called right now, ... More >>

• Spindrift

  published July 30, 2009

  There’s one album where Spindrift are completely the psychedelic spaghetti-western band they’re popularly presumed to be—the... More >>

• Long Beach's Crystal Antlers Deal With Disaster

  published July 23, 2009

  Hard-Knock LifeLong Beach’s Crystal Antlers take things one disaster at a time“Every time we do an... More >>

• X

  published July 23, 2009

  X at the county fair is X right where they should be—why not? X’s place as an L.A. punk band is established—but like Dylan, Guthrie... More >>

• Nino Moschella

  published July 23, 2009

  Years ago, Nino Moschella wandered out of the wilderness wielding four-track demos that sounded like Sly, Stevie and Shuggie chopping out new... More >>

• Downtown/Union

  published July 16, 2009

  Duo Downtown/Union—possibly once the earthiest of all the L.A. two pieces, thanks to a rough and healthy rock ‘n’ roll sound and an... More >>

• Indian Jewelry

  published July 9, 2009

  Suicide and Spacemen 3 and Sister Ray helped pull up the pavement in front of Texas’ Indian Jewelry, once one of LA’s best bands before... More >>

• Foreign Born

  published July 9, 2009

  L.A.’s Foreign Born stretch and reach out farther than ever before on their new full-length, Person To Person (Secretly Canadian), which... More >>

• U-N-I

  published July 2, 2009

  Don’t-call-it-a-throwback Inglewood hip-hop duo U-N-I—as seen in flannels, kicks and Mohawks—might often touch the better moments... More >>

• Thavius Beck

  published June 25, 2009

  Thavius Beck is the 2009 man that 1989 hip-hop knew was coming one day—all sampled gunshots, over-cranked bass hits and a post-Bomb Squad... More >>

• Ida Maria

  published June 25, 2009

  Splat between Katy Perry (“I Kissed A Girl”) and Josie Cotton (“Johnny, Are You Queer?”) is Norway’s hard-eyed Ida Maria,... More >>