Candace Hansen

Late July 2017. The Last Gang are sitting in traffic on the 405 freeway, just shy of Sepulveda, about to board their first international flight as a band. Vocalist and guitarist Brenna Red’s phone rings, flashing an unknown number across her screen. She picks up, on the other line is Erin Burkett from infamous Bay […]

It’s hard to not look at the smiling face of Bigira Mustapha Prince David Willy Kirokiro without feeling a little bit better about life. It’s rare to meet a human so magnanimous, especially one so iconic to a locale that his face is printed on vinyl slaps, inspiring onlookers to consider celebration, simplicity and life […]

Few rock bands ever reach legendary status. Even fewer can say that they did so while changing the game. Sleater Kinney is one of the few who did both. They have written incredible rock albums blending politics and personal experience, all while shifting the representation of women in music media, and inspiring countless women and […]

“We’re always fighting,” DJ Yellow Black Bird says, shifting a bit with an intense, forward propelling energy. She’s seated on the edge of a small black couch at Chulita Vinyl Club Santa Ana HQ, starkly against a blue wall filled with art dedicated to and inspired by Santa Ana, the city that has shaped the […]

[Editor’s note: Candace Hansen is a drummer and a writer who has done a lot of small and medium DIY tours including punk legend Alice Bag and her own band, YAAWN.] Now that we’re getting into late spring/early summer, tour season is just around the corner. Maybe you and your band have decided that you […]

Tacocat The Constellation Room 4/19/2017 Distorted guitar cut through the fog of anticipation just a few minutes after 10 p.m. on Wednesday, turning silence and teenage baited breath into a punctual punky pop dance party fueled equally by catchy hooks, glitter, and some light feminist fury. Seattle-based Tacocat clearly came to party, and did not […]

Ska lovers rejoice… again! The Skacademy Awards are back for their second year of celebrating all things checkered, up-stroked, and horn themed behind the Orange Curtain – and now (one step) beyond! Skacademy Awards cofounders Cameron Hallenbeck and Whitney Dunkle caused quite a stir in the ska world in 2016 when they turned a ska […]

On a fall evening in 2014 Lauren Lusardi, aka Plasmic, nervously stood center stage behind her signature pink mane and synthesizer in front of a wall of neon splatter and old televisions playing a mix art films and static at the now defunct Heart of Art Gallery in Los Angeles. The then-18-year-old loosened up as […]

X The Roxy 12/31/2016 Being a life long fan of X, when the opportunity arose to see them in Hollywood on New Years Eve I couldn’t refuse. Born and raised in OC, I’ve seen X more times than I can count, but never in the town that so much of their music and mythology are […]

When Transgress Fest organizer Drew Arriola-Sands is on stage singing in her band Trap Girl she is a woman possessed. Behind long black locks she emits witchy magic with the transfixing might of a gorgon, she screams, falls, thrashes, and bleeds while feeling connected to something larger than herself. Their sound is urgent; their aesthetic […]

Tattoo artist and musician Louie Perez III is a major fan of all things vintage, especially vintage California. Buildings, Catholic ruins, urban fixtures, and art and culture that whether they wanted to or not, were forced to stand the test of time. Stained glass and giant paintings on sun-bleached walls. Rusty steel bridges, and mossy […]

Screeching feedback echoed through the dark, sticker-filled ambiance of the Doll Hut on some cold night in the early days of the recession. The smell of piss and stale beer emanated from everything that night and clung to my smoke drenched cardigan, even as the crisp air begged to freshen everything within its reach. I […]

The dog days of summer are upon us and that means two things for my fellow OC cuties: squeezing every motherfucking second left of all the amazing summer happenings, and beating the abysmal global warming style heat that’s been pummeling us for the better half of the last 3 months. One of my personal favorite […]

Save Ferris The Echo 8/1/2016 For those of us OC die hards who loved ska and grrrl power, and hated being under 21, Save Ferris’s 1997 debut It Means Everything provided the soundtrack to countless bedroom sing alongs, first car drives to band practice, and probably a break up or two. But after the band’s […]

When Irvine based multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and TV fan Jenna Mason-Brase was fourteen she fell in love with a teen drama called Pretty Little Liars. The show was full of gripping drama and excitement, but more than its YA storylines, Mason-Brase was drawn to its four strong female main characters, one of whom, Emily, was queer. […]

Orange County musicians, artists, creatives, and DIY enthusiasts rejoice! OC DIY has finally opened their physical space in Lake Forest! “We were surprised to find a spot in Lake Forest considering that most of the spaces we looked at in south Orange County were way out of our budget,” says Nadya Diaz, organizer and volunteer […]

I spent the better half of my youth looking up to giants I thought I’d never see. Countless hours of watching and rewinding bootleg tapes from Black Hole and Bionic Records that I’d scrounge up change from recycling and save chore money for. When I would get home from buying a fresh find and pop […]