What can you say about a musical that’s dropped three years ago and has been touring since? “Hamilton,” which is Broadway’s smash hit of all smash hits, has been playing in New York for three years, Chicago for two, West End, is coming to D.C., and has two — soon to be three — national […]
Dengue Fever Prepares to Infect Female-Fronted Burger A Go Go Fest
Dengue Fever has such a great origin story that folks forget that they’re still one of the hardest working bands in Southern California. Formed after keyboardist Ethan Holtzman discovered Cambodian psych pop while traveling in Southeast Asia, the band really gelled together after they scoured Long Beach — home of the biggest Cambodian enclave in […]
Cambodian Rock Band Joins an Inspiration Continuum
Trying to figure out when the seed for Lauren Yee’s play “Cambodian Rock Band” was actually planted is a tricky thing. Do you start with the Vietnam war, and the vestiges of an American imperialist legacy in Southeast Asia? That was when the Far East Network broadcast rock & roll — Rolling Stones, Elvis, the […]
El Ten Eleven Expand Their Instrumental Jams By Adding a Singer
El Ten Eleven define themselves as working musicians: big enough that they never had to get 9-5 jobs, but still at the level where performing the music is actual work. They have to go on tour, perform regularly and sell merch. If only all work was as sublime as El Ten Eleven’s songs. The post-rock […]
OC Native Noah Plomgren on Finding Neverland’s Lessons
Laguna Beach native Noah Plomgren is in the ensemble of the national tour of Finding Neverland, which opens at Segerstrom today. He also plays Lord Canaan and is the understudy for Peter Pan author J.M. Barrie. The Carnegie Mellon graduate counts stints as Claude on Hair and Benny Southstreet on Guys and Dolls as memorable […]
Twenty One Pilots Fly Through a Perfect Set for the Millennial Music Fan
Twenty One Pilots Honda Center, Anaheim Feb. 16, 2017 Right after the curtains dropped onstage and Twenty One Pilots barrelled through “Heavydirtysoul,” the first song of their Emotional Roadshow Tour, I looked back at the crowd. A teenager with green hair was so overwrought with emotion she was crying, but she instead of directing her […]
Aging Hipster Parent Goes the Normy Route at Segerstrom Center for the Arts
As an aging hipster, who is also a parent, I toe a thin line between finding cool places and events to bring my six-year-old and places where, if I did bring him, I would get all kinds of shade from other moms at PTA meetings. For example: A They Might Be Giants concert: Cool for […]
These Songs of Freedom: How an Aging Hipster Parent Teaches Resistance
Last week, my husband and I dragged my 6-year-old son and our 17-month-old to the Women’s March in Santa Ana. The night before, a friend of ours (who also has a 5-year-old daughter) expressed her misgivings about what we were planning on doing. “What if it gets violent? What if you get separated? What if […]
Flor de Toloache on that East Coast-West Coast All-Female Mariachi Divide
It’s odd when you realize that Flor de Toloache — made up of Mireya I. Ramos on violin, Shae Fiol on vihuela, Julie Acosta on trumpet and Eunice Aparicio on guitarron— is New York City’s first all-female mariachi band. After all, this is a musical expression formed in 18th century Western Mexico, and the West […]
Six Metal Protest Songs You Can Dust Off to Give Trump the Finger
Everyday that we get closer to his inauguration we find even more to hate about Donald Trump. His cabinet picks are billionaires who are climate change deniers, likely to funnel public funds to their interests. (Say goodbye to public schools, national parks, and the EPA as we know it.) President-elect Trump just said he’s too […]
Carole King Musical is Really About a Young Girl Finding Her Voice — in Love and in Art
Tomorrow, “Beautiful, The Carole King Musical” opens at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts at Segerstrom Hall. The show, based on Carole King’s early life as a singer-songwriter, runs through Oct. 16, and has won both Tony and Grammy Awards. In the telling of King’s journey from a teenaged songwriter who made her way into […]
Five Types of Aging Hipster Parents in Orange County
Even though we hate the term “hipster,” we know that’s what we were. We drank PBR, bought organic-only produce, collected — and listened to — to vinyl records. My husband had mutton chops, we owned air plants before they were on display at the Packing District, and had a pinball machine in our living room. […]
Animal Collective Immersive Show Drowns the Fonda in Joy
Animal Collective The Fonda March 8, 2016 What a joy to hear Painting With live. Animal Collective is touring their 10th studio album — created by Avey Tare (David Portner), Panda Bear (Noah Lennox), and Geologist (Brian Weitz) — and stopped at the Fonda in Los Angeles last night for the first of two shows. […]
A 2-Month-Old Baby Reviews 'Rockabye Baby: Lullabye Renditions of Sublime'
What's this? Orange County's favorite adopted ska-punk band Sublime (yup, Long Beach is our favorite adopted LA 'burb) finally got Rockabyed? About time, we say. While Rockabye Baby has been infantilizing your favorite bands' music since 2006 with all the xylophones and bells your baby could need, but never with one this close to our […]
The Aquabats! Super Show! Marathon Screening at the Frida Cinema
Who can resist back-to-back-to-back-to-back episodes of The Aquabats! Super Show! on the big screen? Frida Cinema is hosting a screening event on Saturday, June 27, with the Aquabats presenting all 13 episodes of The Aquabats! Super Show! playing from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. And sure, you can already binge watch the live-action kid's show […]
Andrew McMahon Personifies Dad Rock…In a Good Way
If anyone lived happily ever after, you'd think that would be Andrew McMahon. Everything about his life–the highs, the lows–was made for a storybook. The 32-year-old singer/songwriter was a teenage rock star; in the late '90s, he led Dana Point pop-punkers Something Corporate to fame. He moved on to the solo project Jack's Mannequin a […]
Ibeyi – Masonic Lodge – April 1, 2015
Ibeyi April 1, 2015 Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever Ibeyi is a French-Cuban duo made up of 20-year-old twins Naomi and Lisa-Kainde Diaz. To understand the context of their music, we first need a glossary, and some history. Ibeyi (pronounced "ee-bey-ee") means "twins" in Yoruba. Originally from Nigeria, the Yoruba people were brought to Cuba […]
The Dodos Are the Most Underrated Indie Band In the World
Let's call the Dodos the most underrated indie rock band in existence. Since Meric Long and Logan Kroeber started producing their ultra-catchy, intellectual folk songs (all syncopated rhythms and entwining melodies, natch) in 2005, every album they've produced has been better then the last. The fact that they don't have fans as rabid as Animal Collective's is a […]
Why Karaoke is Important to Immigrants in OC
For Asian Americans, there's an odd sense of comfort in holding a mic and singing along to the midi version of schmaltzy pop hits. Whether they're tunes by Basil Valdez, Sin Sisamouth or Frank Sinatra, played in private rooms (such as at Ziller in Fullerton) or set against chintzy lights and throbbing bass, (as in […]
First Aid Kit – The Observatory – November 10, 2014
First Aid Kit The Observatory 11/10/14 It's always a surprise to see how indie folk singers can rock out on stage — just because their album is personal and familiar, their songs confined to your four walls in the dark, doesn't mean it translates to a quiet, intimate show live. First Aid Kit showed exactly […]
Pop-Punk Band Real Friends Is Getting Big Quick
Real Friends are blowing up. "I don't really like to use that term," says Kyle Fasel, the band's bassist and lyricist. "I mean, we've definitely grown a lot as a band." Despite the cliché, that's what Real Friends are doing, though. The pop/punk/emo band–one of the last few stalwarts carrying the Jimmy Eat World banner–are […]