Subject: U2

• Shins-ing the Night Away: A Sounds Eclectic Evening

  [photo by Marc Goldstein] Making a classic SoCal newcomer mistake, I only gave myself 45 minutes to drive from Costa Mesa to Universal City's Gibson Amphitheatre, where influential public radio station KCRW was holding its sixth annual Sounds Eclectic concert; this year proceeds go to help convert its vast music library into digital form. After a stressful 100 minutes in my car (last time I take Mapquest's estimates at face value), I dashed out of the monstrous parking garage and through th

  April 16, 2007

• What you missed over the weekend: Part X

  Cobra Starship landed at the Pomona Glass House Friday night for the closest-to-OC leg of their "Really Really Ridiculously Good Looking Tour." Christopher Victorio caught the main act and support band Metro Station (but missed out on We The Kings and The Cab, also on tour with Cobra). The venue was packed, and some fans brought their Cobra Starship action figures along for the ride. Photos here. Saturday took OCW intern and Cal State Fulleron student Nate Jackson to the L.A. Convention Center

  February 18, 2008

• Funniest Video of the Day...

  ...Is undoubtedly SanTana's rosy envisioning of its grand choo-choo conspiracy. The city still hasn't discovered YouTube, so click here for some MediaPlayer-only fun! Think they paid U2 for the rights to the band's "Beautiful Day"? Also recorded for posterity's sake here is the below, older propaganda. Spot the busty politician in the beginning!

  July 14, 2008

• Aushua, Yellow Red Sparks, Parade of Lights

  March 19, 2009

• The Year in Girl

  January 2, 2003

• Video Killed the Video Star

  September 15, 2005

• Musical Advent Calendar: Death Cab for Cutie, 'Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)'

  At this point, who hasn't covered the Phil Spector co-written classic "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)"? Mariah Carey sang it on her 1994 Merry Christmas album, U2 on the 1987 Christmas compilation A Very Special Christmas. Original singer Darlene Love performs the tune every year on "The Late Show with David Letterman;" even Smash Mouth has their own, no doubt terrible, version.But my favorite version is from 2004's Maybe This Christmas Tree--check out the awesome cover by Shag up in the corn

  December 12, 2008

• LowBallVideoChatter: U2, "New Year's Day" (from the 1983 US Festival)

  OK, a bit too obvious, sure, but I know I'm not the only one who automatically thinks of this song every January 1. This clip is from the 1983 US Festival (I believe the day that was branded as "New Wave Day") near San Bernardino, on the site that years later would become the Blockbuster/Hyundai/San Manuel Pavilion, capturing U2 before the fatal infection of pretense set in . . .  

  January 1, 2009

• Wener Watch: Compound Sentences Galore!

  We've all heard that there's an elegance in simplicity. Well, all of us except for the Orange County Register's music critic/blogger Ben Wener, apparently.Here's the opening paragraph to his nearly 900-word (!) review of U2's latest, No Line on the Horizon. Bring a bookmark:"It's been streaming free for a week on MySpace and just arrived at your nearby Target and Best Buy and such, yet rabid fans who await new U2 missives with evangelical fervor, as well as overheated critics who egg them on,

  March 4, 2009

• Red Chinese are All Over Barack Obama's Visit to OC

  White House photo by Pete SouzaBring on the Australian beer-battered Twinkies.Barack Obama's visit Wednesday to the Orange County Fairgrounds will mark his first visit to Southern California since becoming president, the first visit by a seated president to the facilities more prone to hosting gun shows, swap meets and regurgitated cotton candy stains beneath Tilt-o-Wheels, and the first local event in recent memory to draw the attention of the official press agency of the government of the Peop

  March 17, 2009

• TOMORROW: The Adicts at House of Blues

  As much as some people might hate me for saying this, I've always thought of The Adicts as the U2 of the punk world. One, they have always had an established look about them (though I doubt Bono would ever have the balls to rock the joker make-up like Keith "Monkey" Warren). Two, they're live performance is about as big and grandiose as a punk show can get. And three, they simply refuse to go away. Boasting the longest running original line-up in the punk world, you'd be hard pressed to fin

  March 18, 2009

• [CD Review] Kanye West, '808s & Heartbreak' (Roc-A-Fella)

  November 27, 2008

• Amy Caterina Goes Green at Santa Ana's Grand Central Art Center

  July 24, 2008

• [CD Review] Radiohead, 'The Best Of' CD/DVD (Capitol)

  June 12, 2008

• Tom Delonge of Angels & Airwaves Soars Out of Blink-182's Punk Orbit

  March 6, 2008

• Steve Soto

  February 8, 2001

• CD Review

  Kanye West, Graduation (Island Def Jam/Roc-A-Fella)

  September 13, 2007

• 'Free Avian!'

  The Wildbirds' rugged-outdoorsmen rock is built to blast

  August 2, 2007

• Letters

  December 6, 2001

• Soul Stirrers

  Soweto Gospel Choir

  April 12, 2007

• Cherub Rock

  A toddler and her dad road-test alt-lullabies

  March 29, 2007

• You May Say I'm a Dreamer

  December 21, 2000

• Hits!

  Rhino Records

  February 1, 2007

• Choke You Out

  Nightlife and more: Nov. 2 - Nov. 9

  November 2, 2006

• Hits!

  December 21, 2006

• Live Review

  June 8, 2006

• Black to Comm

  August 18, 2005

• Running to Stand Still

  April 7, 2005

• SecondSpin

  December 23, 2004

• Another Great Band Bites It

  April 15, 2004

• Cross Pollination

  July 24, 2003

• Sodomized Again!

  April 24, 2003

• Sneaky Good

  February 13, 2003

• H

  October 24, 2002

• Maple Leaf Rag

  August 15, 2002

• Im a Puss

  February 28, 2002

• Like a Third Leg!

  January 24, 2002

• The Unbearable Lightness of Being a Rock Star

  November 29, 2001

• Rage Against the Radio

  October 4, 2001

• Holiday in Anaheim

  September 16, 1999

• THIS WEEKEND: Taste of Ladera at Founders Park

  Now that Mark McGrath is no longer the host of daily celebrity wankfest Extra, he has time for his band Sugar Ray to play events like the 5th annual Taste of Ladera: which he is indeed doing, headlining tonight at 6:30 p.m. (headliners going on at 6:30! Bunch of party animals at Ladera Ranch!).I don't know all that much more about the festival, other than it's two days (today and tomorrow), and in Ladera Ranch, which I hadn't even heard of until I heard about this event (hey, I'm still sort of n

  May 2, 2009

• [Sound Guy] The Best of the Music Blog for the Week of June 15-21

  June 25, 2009

• Friday Night: Art Brut at the Echo

  Yeah, I haven't updated to the iPhone 3GS with the better camera yet.Friday Night: Art Brut, the Blood Arm at the Echo, Los Angeles; June 19, 2009.Better than: Listening to the bands Art Brut (playfully) criticized during their set (The Killers, Kings of Leon, U2).Best perk: Freebie show posters given out after the show, with Morrissey, Charles Manson, Alfred E. Neuman and Dick Tracy on them! What a crew! (They also threw out condoms to the crowd, but I didn't get any. Literally.)I wasn't planni

  June 22, 2009

• [Locals Only] Modern Subject Keep It Up-to-Date

  July 2, 2009

• Tomorrow: Fauxchella

  It's not often that Pearl Jam, the Rolling Stones, No Doubt, U2, the Cure, the Dave Matthews Band and Bruce Springsteen perform a free concert in Long Beach. In fact, it's never happened. Unfortunately, you can add tomorrow as just another one of those days when that dream bill won't come to fruition.But what do you do when you can't see the real deal? Tribute bands. Yes, that's right, a bunch of groups with names that have something to do with the artists they cover are playing a free show in L

  July 24, 2009

• Dishney: Flash Mob at Disneyland Plaza This Thursday

  Paul Hiffmeyer/DisneylandFreeze frame!​In continued protest of the Iran Election, Twitter user @GreenThumbNails has organized a flash mob event for a two-minute freeze at Disneyland Plaza on Thurs., July 30 at 6:30 p.m. If you're not familiar with the flash mob phenomenon, it was recently popularized with a group called Improv Everywhere, a New York-based comedic performance group founded in 2001 by Charlie Todd. The aim of Improv Everywhere is fairly simple, but the effect is definitely anyt

  July 29, 2009

• U2 Rose Bowl Show to Be Streamed Live on YouTube

  Chris SansenbachU2 in Anaheim, April 2005.​U2, YouTube. It just makes too much sense.We talked earlier this week about how massively packed the Rose Bowl in Pasadena will be for the U2 show this Sunday, with 100,000 cross-generational music fans coming from across Southern California--really, just think about that drive there, and the parking, and the leaving the parking lot, and the drive home. It took me a half hour to leave the parking garage of the Bren Events Center at UCI on Sunday, for

  October 21, 2009

• More U2 Info

  ​We all know U2 sucks. The songs are boring, Bono's a pompous ass and the rhythm section might be the worst in the history of rock 'n' roll. They've sold a bazillion records, yet no one I know has ever bought one of them, probably because my friends and I have good taste. But lame-os who own four CDs think the boys from Ireland are the second coming of God.If you're one of the many thousands of people who are getting suckered into seeing U2 at the Rose Bowl Sunday because your boss bought 17 t

  October 21, 2009

• What You Missed: UFC 104, Autumn Food Festival, Zombie Pub Crawl, Kid Sister

  Keith MayNewport Beach Zombie Pub Crawl​Okay, so a whooooole lot of things happened this weekend. Like a lot. First up was the Zombie Pub Crawl in Newport Beach, where tons of fabulous zombies dragged themselves to Newps for the first ever undead pub crawl. Sponsored by LocalHipster.com, the all-day event featured plenty of braaaaaaains and beer. See the full set of awesome photos by Keith May right here. Now, after the jump: Many, many photos from UFC 104 and the UFC 104 After Party in Los An

  October 26, 2009

• Last Night: U2 at the Rose Bowl

  Andrew Youssef​Last Night: U2, at the Rose Bowl, Pasadena; October 25, 2009. (More photos here!) Better Than: Any other stadium tour I have witnessed.Historic. Epic. Magical. These are just a few of the words that come to mind in describing U2's performance at the Rose Bowl. Even as I watch the rebroadcast of the concert streaming on Youtube, nothing will be able to convey the spine tingling and electric moments of being in a stadium with close to a 100,000 people.Is U2 the biggest band in the

  October 26, 2009