Tag Archives: Coachella

Art The Cutting-Edge Concert Visuals of Vello Virkhaus

by Andy Hermann
January 16, 2012 - 11:40 am

If you went to a rave in the ‘90s, there’s a good chance you’ve gaped at the work of VJ and visual artist Vello Virkhaus. Back then, his O.V.T. crew was at the cutting edge of live video mixing for electronic music events. They did literally hundreds of gigs.

Ironically, the Michigan-born Virkhaus hated his first rave. The year was 1991, and the music was all whooshing, vacuum-cleaner techno. “I didn’t like it at all.”

At a later event in Chicago, where he was enrolled in the same art school his grandfather had attended, he discovered Richie Hawtin and Juan Atkins. He also discovered that if he took some of the video feedback and looping experiments he had conducted as teenager in his mom’s basement, and projected them behind the DJ, the kids went nuts for it.

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Music A Rock and Reality Intervention With Kill The Complex

by Nicole Pajer and Lisa Johnson
November 3, 2011 - 11:53 am

Kill The Complex might not be able to escape the wrath of being associated with Jersey Shore but it seems to be working for them. After having three different songs appear on the show over the last few years, fans of the Guido-centric train wreck are starting to recognize the band’s music, and not just in the US. In a recent interview with ChinaShop, Ted Barakat, Mike Elling, and Dann Saxton explain how their recent TV placements have earned them followers in countries as far away as Australia and how they are “so big in Israel and Denmark that it would blow your mind.” The guys also talk about transitioning from punk to more of a rock sound, their forthcoming acoustic album, and music being cheaper therapy than a shrink.

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Gallery Music Electrical Tropical : Bomba Estéreo

by Nicole Pajer and Catie Laffoon
June 2, 2011 - 10:31 am

Colombia’s own Bomba Estéreo rocked a live session inside Red Bull Studios on Thursday, March 26th. Before jumping on a plane and heading back to their hometown, guitarist Julian Salazar joined us in the greenroom to dish about the latest North American tour. In an exclusive interview with ChinaShop Julian discusses American TV shows, surviving gigs in small town Ohio, and road tripping across the United States.

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Gallery Music Dim Lights and Strobes: Yeasayer

by Nicole Pajer and Sidney Bensimon
June 1, 2011 - 10:48 am

It seemed as if everyone in the vicinity of Hollywood was at the Yeasayer show this past week. The Brooklyn-based experimental rock band took the stage at Hollywood’s Music Box on May 23rd and 24th, performing to a sea of eager Angelenos.

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Gallery Music Fun With Foster The People: Amoeba Music

by Nicole Pajer and Sidney Bensimon
May 31, 2011 - 11:06 am

Foster The People is in the midst of an extensive headlining tour. They won over thousands at Coachella and have already sold out their upcoming El Rey dates in Los Angeles in July. Last week, the titans of indie rock played a free set at Hollywood’s Amoeba Music to a crowd of over 600 fans.

The show kicked off shortly after 6:30 p.m., however, fans skipped out of work and got in line way before to solidify their spots; the earliest arriving at 10 a.m. Groups of Foster lovers crammed into CD aisles which were roped off once at capacity.

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Featured Gallery Music Falling For France: Yelle

by Nicole Pajer and Sidney Bensimon
May 26, 2011 - 9:43 am

With her explicit lyrics, edgy beats, and spunky personality, Yelle might single handedly be responsible for making the US fall in love with France. Julie Budet (Yelle) and her band, consisting of Jean-Francois Perrier (GrandMariner) and Tanguy Destable (Tepr), have been out on the road for a 6-week tour in support of their latest release, Safari Disco Club.

Backstage before the show at Los Angeles’s Music Box, Yelle greeted us with a smile and a look that would have taken the average person a team of stylists to assemble. Dressed in spotted animal print pants and a black scoop neck shirt, sporting a soft pretzel necklace and Eiffel Tower earrings, she pulled up a chair and began expressing her love for America.

In an interview with ChinaShop, Yelle discusses remixing songs for Katy Perry and Robyn, getting used to American culture, and dressing to impress on stage.

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Gallery Music HEALTH: Time for your Medicine

by Rich Thomas and Dustin Downing
April 28, 2011 - 9:52 am

Between Death From Above 1979, the Bloody Beetroots, Lightning Bolt and Green Velvet, you knew the forecast for Coachella Day Three was going to be mostly heavy with an 80% chance of mosh. One of the bands most responsible for that late afternoon deluge of noise was LA rockers HEALTH, who decimated the Mojave Tent with a 14+ song set that included hits like “Die Slow,” “USA Boys” and “Crimewave,” in addition to underground favorites like “Zoothorns” and a cover of Pictureplane’s “Goth Star.” If you’ve never seen HEALTH live, you’re missing out, though your hearing is probably more intact than mine. These guys thrash around on stage like deep water fish on the end of a long line of 50-pound test, and they don’t play their instruments as much as abuse them. (The photo gallery tells the story.) They’re currently writing material for a new record—the follow-up to 2009’s Get Color—so we caught up with bassist John Famiglietti after their Coachella set to find out more.

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Gallery Music The Big 4 and The Road to Hell: Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax and Slayer Play Indio

by Jeff Nau
April 27, 2011 - 11:20 am

When asked about Coachella in a recent interview, Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian stated his feelings in no uncertain terms. “Metal bands have never been invited or been able to be part of the cool kids, and I like it that way.” Then, for extra emphasis: “I don’t want to have anything to do with you, I don’t like your music, I don’t like your scene, I don’t like your ironic mustaches, and I don’t like your stupid hats.”

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Music Francis and the Lights: Catching Rays at Coachella

by Rich Thomas and Dustin Downing
April 26, 2011 - 10:19 am

Francis

Last year, amidst major releases from Kanye West, the Kings of Leon, Vampire Weekend and Gorillaz, a little album by Francis and the Lights called It’ll Be Better snuck into slot five in my car’s CD changer sometime around April and stayed there for the rest of the 2010. Simple in its construction, heavily dependent on melody, and pristinely produced to enhance every hi-hat, keyboard flourish and tasteful guitar solo, It’ll Be Better proved that less was indeed more. But when I finally got frontman Francis Farewell Starlite on the phone, I found there was way more going on than meets the eye, and that dude is just as eccentric as his name—his real name, mind you—makes him out to be. But the fact remains that if you don’t keep him on your radar, you’re going to miss out on some of the best music this decade will have to offer. Backstage at Coachella 2011, he gave us a little insight into what he’s got coming next.

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