Subject: The Velvet Underground

• Mudhoney Plugged-In

  December 21, 2000

• R.I.P. Ellen Willis ("Beginning To See The Light")

  VVoice reports: Groundbreaking feminist author, activist, and academic Ellen Willis died Wednesday. Willis had been sick from some time. Born in 1941, she served as the first pop music critic at the New Yorker, and later worked as an editor and writer at the Village Voice, on and off, until the mid 1990s. I'm at the office away from my extensive reference library but you music people will remember Willis from her essay in Greil Marcus' desert-island-disc book Stranded: "Velvet Underground"

  November 9, 2006

• Lost Faust Album Found On Internet (MP3s)

  Via excellent WFMU and others: Faust was one of the definitive Krautrock bands (up with Kraftwerk/Can/Neu/Harmonia) even though they started a little late (early '70s instead of late '60s like much of this stuff) and if you haven't heard their actual songs at the smarter bars you frequent, then you've heard their weird after-effects. I always thought Pixies should have covered "Sad Skinhead" (from Faust IV), and if you have space between Velvet Underground and Eno to push in a few more records

  November 16, 2006

• MySpace Genre Semiotics!

  If you didn't know, bands don't like telling you what they sound like. Here's an example why: Let's say I play in a band, we're called "Stillborn Leper", and my boss asks me what we sound like, and I say "We're like a mix of Radiohead and The Velvet Underground, but our guitarist is really into The Pixies and Joy Division so sometimes we have a lot of post-punk going on, too." Stillborn Leper is, in all likeliness, a poorly executed teenage train wreck so godawfully bland it could sound like an

  December 7, 2006

• Venus Infers CD Release Party Tonight

  OC quartet Venus Infers may be the best band ever to pun on a Velvet Underground song title... until somebody comes up with You're a Peon, Son. Tonight the group's celebrating the release of the five-song EP But You Already Knew That. Led by Trisha Smith's vocals and Davis Fetters' guitar, the music's uniformly smart and tart, dreamy and creamy, sparky and not at all snarky. Venus Infers' sound is ideal for spring, when you want something light and iridescent that injects a sprightly bounce in

  April 12, 2007

• Live Review: Parson Red Heads and Others @ Detroit Bar:

  The Parson Red Heads photo by Zach Schrock The three bands on this bill proved that rock can be uplifting without being corny—which was an inspirational lesson on a Sunday night in a mostly empty house. Detroit Bar's desolation was a shame and maybe to be expected, as the lineup seemed to be cobbled together at the last minute. But the groups proved to be troopers, playing as if to a packed room. LA's Parson Red Heads number eight (four guitarists, a bassist, a drummer, a keyboardist and a

  June 25, 2007

• A Bloggy Valentine: 20 Songs About Love

  By Jeff Shaw at our sister paper, Citypages. Love is a many-splendored thing and all, but it's also dependent upon a relationship's context -- and so is the associated music. You don't want Al Green's "Let's Get Married" to stream through the car speakers during your third date, you don't want your intended to think you stopped listening to new records after "I Love You Just The Way You Are" was released. . .aaaand you don't want "You Oughtta Know" to come on, well, ever. Swapping out these em

  February 14, 2008

• Last Night: Album Leaf at Detroit Bar

  Review by Reza Allah-Bakhshi Album Leaf Detroit Bar February 21, 2008 Better Than: Wishing you could inherit Jimmy Lavalle's talent simply by touching him. Download: “On Your Way” vid by Album Leaf I couldn’t think of a better way to spend a rainy Thursday night than to kick back with a brew and take in the visceral temptation that is Album Leaf live. And now that I have experienced it, the rest of my nights are pretty much ruined. Opening band What Laura Says Thinks and Feels sounds

  February 22, 2008

• Lou Reed on the Odious Audio of MP3s

  Lou Reed is an asshole—but a very talented, sharp-minded asshole. Below, hear the rock legend drone on about the inferior sound quality of MP3s during the just-completed South By Southwest in Austin, Texas. I love much of Lou Reed's music (especially that of the Velvet Underground, whose canon is essential), but I sure wouldn't want to live with him. In honor of his notorious prickliness, check out a video of his band doing “Vicious” live in 1974. (I do like Lou as a speed-freak blond—

  March 17, 2008

• Motorik Meister Klaus Dinger, R.I.P.

  April 3, 2008

• Last Night: The Muslims, Crash Normal, Wounded Lion, Some Days @ Phoenix Grill at UCI

  The Muslims, Crash Normal, Wounded Lion, Some Days April 23, 2008 The Phoenix Grille at UCI Better Than: Studying for that test tomorrow. Download: Nightlife by The Muslims. This is cool: UCI student, Sam Farzin, has started to put on music shows at the UC Irvine’s The Phoenix Grille, one of the campus’ dining spots. Located in what one of the members of Wounded Lion described as “the anus” of UCI (you have to twist and turn and go down and around the campus until you find the Phoenix G

  April 24, 2008

• Last Night: Ink-N-Iron Festival at the Queen Mary

  Last Night: Ink-N-Iron Festival at the Queen Mary June 1st, 2008 Better Than: Getting a tattoo from a shady parlor. Download: The First Vietnamese War from their first album Passover. I thought I was in a hornet's nest when I heard the consistent buzz of tattoo needles as I walked into the Queen Mary. The Queen Mary had been transformed into a giant tattoo parlor with multiple floors of artists with bottles of ink at their disposal. The Ink-N-Iron festival was already in full swing. After c

  June 7, 2008

• Clone Defects

  May 1, 2003

• The Bellrays

  May 29, 2003

• Hits!

  KUCI-FM 88.9

  December 27, 2007

• [Sound Guy] Talking Summer Songs With OC's Music Community

  June 4, 2009

• For Young Guys, the Morning Benders Sure Like Some Old Music

  January 29, 2009

• The Black Angels Prepare to Psych Out at Ink N Iron Fest

  June 5, 2008

• The Walkmen’s Costa Mesa Invasion

  February 21, 2008

• Sprawl of Sound

  From '90s Detroit to '00s Bergen, Via Long Beach: Majesty Crush’s Sole Music, The Scando-Retro-Future of Rock

  October 11, 2007

• Stupidity

  August 4, 2005

• Hits!

  July 20, 2006

• Get Out!

  July 20 - July 27: Sue Me Baby
  

  July 20, 2006

• Don't Need a Cure

  July 20, 2006

• Library Music

  April 13, 2006

• SXSW Report

  March 23, 2006

• Get Out!

  True Poison
  March 9 - March 16

  March 9, 2006

• Get Out!

  February 9, 2006

• Everything Come Through

  February 2, 2006

• Monster Mash

  Five hits from Hell

  October 27, 2005

• Black Mountain

  August 25, 2005

• Black to Comm

  August 18, 2005

• Pop Goes the Artist

  August 11, 2005

• Away From My Country

  August 11, 2005

• Tell Me Im Bad

  Nightlife and more: June 16-23

  June 16, 2005

• Diary of a Loud County

  December 30, 2004

• All Tomorrow's Parties

  November 11, 2004

• Velvet Underground

  September 9, 2004

• Komeda

  August 5, 2004

• 2003 Soundtrack

  January 1, 2004

• The Dandy Warhols

  September 25, 2003

• Baxter Dury

  March 27, 2003

• Psychotic Reaction

  February 13, 2003

• The Hunches

  January 30, 2003

• Fair Deal

  September 20, 2001

• Keep It Like a Secret

  June 7, 2001

• Thank Yew, Richuhd Blade!

  May 11, 2000

• Bargin Music, Two Dollar Guitar, Robin & Linda Williams

  March 16, 2000

• Michael Rosas

  December 30, 1999

• Ultra Phat!

  February 11, 1999