December | 2009 | ChinaShop

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Music Chris Gore Book Signing : Filmmakers! D.I.Y. or Die Trying

December 18, 2009 - 11:45 am

ChinaShop Film curator and Patron Saint of Indie Filmmaker Counseling Chris Gore was in Las Vegas and Los Angeles recently for a signing of his latest opus, Chris Gore’s Ultimate Film Festival Survival Guide. In addition to the autographing, Gore lived up to his reputation as an advice hound, doling out a dozen different ways he could think of to help the aspiring filmmakers who were there to seek out the film festivals. If they didn’t confess their secret projects, he became a sort of benevolent Torquemada, and had ways to make you talk — even if you didn’t want to.

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Event Music L.A. Red Bull Soundclash: Kid Sister vs. Moving Units

by Jeff Nau

December 17, 2009 - 4:13 pm

It’s probably been a while since Los Angelenos witnessed a good old-fashioned battle of the bands, arena-style and between two worthwhile opponents who’ve had years to hone their craft. But on December 16th, Red Bull Soundclash moved Kid Sister and Moving Units into their own Colosseum (read: hotel) to entertain the bloodthirsty crowd with a two-hour duel, filled with a variety of exchanged musical parries and thrusts. The weapons: guitar, bass, synth, turntables, and lots — and LOTS– of loud drums. And here’s two groups that, at first, couldn’t sound more unlike, yet still had two very common aspirations: a) get yer booty shakin’, and b) wipe the floor with the other.

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Music Oh No Ono: Not What You Think

by Jeff Nau

December 17, 2009 - 1:30 pm

Friendly Fire/Oh No Ono | For those of you who’ve heard Yoko Ono, fear not: this has nothing to do with her, we swear. And secondly, what a deft name for a band– I mean, who doesn’t think “oh no” when they hear the name Yoko Ono? To quote Denis Leary, “John Lennon takes 6 bullets in the chest, Yoko Ono is standing right next to him and not one fucking bullet! Explain it to me, God!” No, Oh No Ono is one of those bands that manages to combine the hip sounds of disco and the new wave sounds of yore with a variety of different musical synth-dance melodies, infectious as they are danceable. Sometimes it’s catchy, sometimes obnoxious, but always captivating in its own Turrets, machine gun-fire fashion. Their songs often verge on catchy singalongs, like The Partridge Family if they were like an electroclash band. ONO’s new album, Eggs, will be out in 2010 on the The Leaf Label and Friendly Fire Recordings. Here’s an early-released single off the new album.

Oh No Ono – Internet Warrior

Music Midnight Juggernauts

by Jeff Nau

December 16, 2009 - 5:29 pm

Bandroom Records | Midnight Juggernauts are another electroclash dance band, the likes of which you may think you have heard before, and maybe even quick to dismiss as just another in the genre’s endless line of assembly line clones. But take another listen — because the boys from Australia probably know this, don’t give a crap, and, if you love this kind of thing, neither should you. Thus far their discography recalls the greatest of early 80′s synth/Britpop, like Missing Persons, Duran Duran, and even a bit of Avalon-era Roxy Music, yet their hooks and dance-stomp beat bring to mind the dance-punk of groups like Franz Ferdinand. It’s this unabashed love for New Wave of old helps them relieve any sort of tedium, though it may not break any barriers. But that’s not what all music’s about. It’s like many of the films of that perilous decade — don’t think so much about it, and just enjoy the show.

Midnight Juggernauts – TNT (memory tapes mix)

This New Technology – Midnight Juggernauts from midnight juggernauts on Vimeo.

Words by Jeff Nau

Event Gallery Santa Con 09

by Zoetica Ebb

December 16, 2009 - 12:13 pm

Deck the streets with boughs of holly,

Fa la la la la, la la la la.

Tis the season to be jolly,

Fa la la la la, la la la la.

Don we now our gay apparel,

Fa la la, la la la, la la la.

Troll LA and scream out carols.

Fa la la la la, la la la la.

See the blazing Yule before us,

Fa la la la la, la la la la.

Hit the booze and join the masses.

Fa la la la la, la la la la.

On Saturday, these words rang more true than ever, when hundreds of crimson-clad Angel City residents marched the streets of Downtown, joined by one common goal – maximum merriment.

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Event The Splicers Will Return: Faneuil Hall, Boston MA

by Shop Keeper

December 15, 2009 - 4:16 pm

Another week, another mob–this time at Faneuil Hall in Boston, Massachusetts, on Saturday, Dec. 19 @ noon. If you missed NYC, don’t freak out, put on a dress and start stabbing people–wait for your friends so you can do it together! Here’s a way to get involved with fellow BioShock fans and join bloody hands in anticipation of the 2010 BS 2 release…

http://twitter.com/BioShock2

http://www.facebook.com/2KGames

www.cultofrapture.com

Music The Schizophrenic Sounds of Dragon Turtle

by Jeff Nau

December 14, 2009 - 5:01 pm

La Société Expéditionnaire | With a name like Dragon Turtle, the 2-piece Brooklynites sound like they might steer through some pretty temperamental elements — maybe a bit of the ferocious and fire-breathing, perhaps a bit of the slow-paced and lackadasical. Musically there ain’t much angry to Dragon Turtle, as opposed to the much more subtle and ambient. Lyrically, however, it’s a different and rather epic story — there’s a bit more of the destructive in the prose of a song like “Moon Fallout”, which tells the story of a young Israeli boy whose dream is interrupted by the sounds of bombing outside his home — than in “Belt of Venus”, which is more like a free-floating trip in space you might need to interrupt the pathos. They might remind you of Hammock or any of the other 2-piece post-rock, semi-shoegazing acts that have stumbled onto the modern rock scene in the past decade or so. Their new work, Almanac, is out now on La Société Expéditionnaire.

Dragon Turtle – Island of Broken Glass

Words by Jeff Nau

Music Are Crazy P as Insane as They Look?

by Shop Keeper

December 14, 2009 - 11:24 am

When a band’s biography describes them as “undeniably disco”, such an M.O. usually sends the would-be listener running for the hills. But now since everyone and their brother is experimenting with synths and workstations of all different kinds, it doesn’t seem highly unlikely that a band would adopt the syncopated electric bass and hi-hat mainstay of old Bee Gees and Donna Summer songs, and that it would work. It’s not exactly Partridge Family polyester shirts and plaid bellbottoms, though — there’s a lot in Crazy P‘s music that is perhaps blasphemously modern, and their beats and dance melodies may seem to walk the line between stuck in the past or just pointless and wandering. It seems to be a healthy dose of both,judging by their rapidly increasing following–whether out of nostalgia or appreciation for the genre’s heyday, Crazy P may be the only band that can possibly bring disco back. Take a step into the future and the gold-chained, leisure-suited days of yesteryear at The Red Bull Music Academy and see what you think.

Music The Vines

by Shop Keeper

December 11, 2009 - 5:35 pm

There’s something different yet oh-so-familiar about The Vines. They play unpolished proto-punk–the kind your daddy would have liked, probably, had he been a punk rocker, perhaps the kind The MC5 and some of their cohorts of the time would have churned out. There’s even a little bit of, dare I say, The Pistols themselves in there, a bit of the Clash–if you remember what loud, distorted guitar, a chugging, bottom-end bass, and just good old-fashioned Marshall amp feedback was like. It might be a welcome change from all the teenybopper pseudo-punk you hear nowadays, and is best appreciated LIVE–in this case, at the SXSW Festival, and available now on Red Bull Music Academy Radio.

Music Secret Machines

by Shop Keeper

December 10, 2009 - 3:33 pm

All that bland indie folk rock and sound-alike DJ stuff got ya yearning for something a little more distorted? Twangy? Epic? The stream-of-consciousness nomads that are Secret Machines are here to take you away on a sojourn of the soul, and while their wanderings may appeal more to the prog-rock crowd who more appreciate the exploratory experimentalism of guys like The Mars Volta or Sparta, they are neither as, er, prolific, nor as melodic (which is perhaps for the best). They’ve already jammed with Ringo Starr on a cover of “I Am the Walrus” for the movie Across the Universe, and now with Rolling Stone’s official endorsement of them as “part Pink Floyd psychedelia, Led Zeppelin, The Who-inspired choruses,” they may be inextricably tied to the bands of prog-esque past. Listen for yourselves on The Red Bull Music Academy and see if they’re the real deal or just rehashed–you might be pleasantly surprised.

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