Ra Ra Riot fans rejoiced as the Syracuse rockers finally made it back to LA for a make up show; Last November’s date was canceled due to vocalist Wes Miles losing his voice. Three months later, Miles is sounding better than ever and fans were pleased. “He was on fire tonight!” exclaimed longtime fan Josh Berryman.
For those of you that haven’t heard of Knife Party, here’s the rundown. Pendulum, the British drum/bass/rock band from Perth, announced a hiatus to focus on recording a new album and plans on being back in action sometime in 2013. While on break from touring, lead singer Rob Swire teamed up with bandmate Gareth McGrillen to form Knife Party, an electro-house/dubstep project. Knife Party released it’s debut EP, 100% No Modern Talking, digitally in December of 2011. A collaborative effort between Knife Party and Swedish House Mafia, “Antidote,” became a YouTube sensation, racking in over 5.7 million views. The dubsteppin’ duo is currently on tour, hitting everywhere from Ibiza to Melbourne and has an appearance scheduled at South by Southwest.
The votes are in, the judges have spoken, and the categories are sealed for this year’s 2012 OC Music Awards. The show takes place on March 3rd and will recognize a variety of winners in categories such as “Best Album,” “Best Song,” “Best New Artist,” “Best Club DJ,” “Best Surf,” and more… Orange County music lovers have been showing their favorite local bands support at the many “Best Live Band” and “Best Live Acoustic” showcases that have been going on since January. The final two showcases occurred this past weekend, with “Best Live Acoustic” on 2/22 and “Best Live Band” on 2/24.
ChinaShop headed to Costa Mesa on Friday night to check out the final 2012 OC Music Award Showcase where five of the OC’s budding bands squared off to take home the title of “Best Live Band.” Midnight Hour, Slime Kings, Railroad to Alaska, Robert Jon & The Wreck, and We Are The Arsenal took the stage, each performing a 30 minute set of original tunes. While fans packed the venue cheering hard for their favorites, it all came down to the panel of judges – Lil Bose (Music Editor, OC Weekly), Nadia Betkouchar (Writer, CBS Radio/KROQ), Joyce Mealey (General Manager, Fearless Records), and Tazy Phyllypz (Concert Promoter and Radio Personality). At the end of the evening, it was announced that Railroad To Alaska, an alternative metal/post grunge group from Midway City, CA took home the title.
We caught up with Railroad to Alaska prior to their performance to discuss The Warped Tour’s delicious catering, unhappy song lyrics, and a fan sticking a pin into his forehead for a free t-shirt.
While patiently awaiting the May 15th release of her upcoming album, Meiko is keeping herself busy by performing sporadic shows. The lively singer/songwriter recently took the stage at Hollywood’s Hotel Café, her former waitressing stomping grounds and venue that hosted her early career launching performances. “My parents were at the show so I was trying to make a good impression,” jokes Meiko, still glowing at the crowd’s reception to her live renditions of songs off her forthcoming album, The Bright Side.
See below for our pre-show interview with Meiko as she discusses strange gifts she’s received from fans, hearing her song come on the radio during a date, and finding a love interest for her upcoming music video.
The BoomCase is decidedly clever, and unconventionally cool. Essentially it’s an old suitcase, lunchbox, briefcase, case of any kind really, that got turned into a speaker system for your iPod. In fact, not only are these one of a kind, but you can send them your own favorite old nostalgic suitcase and they will turn that into a speaker and return it to you 10x better.
Flogging Molly kicked off their 8th annual Green 17 tour last Friday at Detroit’s Fillmore theater. And the group, who has been burning up stages since 1997 (over 15 years), pulled no punches, coming out swinging in support of their most recent release “Speed of Darkness” (as you can see by the below pictures). The 2012 Green 17 tour, presented by Sailor Jerry, will scour the U.S. before heading east to Japan mid April. If you’ve never seen this raucous clan, be sure to pick up a your ticket here and get your rowdy shoes ready for one hell of a show.
When you have a band called “fun.” at your disposal, an extraordinary photo shoot is in order. We can get a little goofy at times so fortunately for us Nate Ruess, Andrew Dost, and Jack Antonoff were up for jumping on outdoor stationary bikes and pedaling away on some Astroturf.
We caught up with the band as they came through Los Angeles to perform a private rooftop gig at the Hollywood Tower Penthouse. fun. is in the midst of a North American tour to promote their new album, Some Nights, which just released on Tuesday. We sat down with the guys to discuss their hit single “We Are Young” blowing up the iTunes charts, being hypersensitive to the word “fun,” and their secret dollhouse building skills.
Ariana Grande took the stage at The Roxy for her California debut dressed in a sparkly pink dress and flirty heels with her signature red locks slicked back in a ponytail. She pranced to the microphone as four backup dancers lined up behind her and kicked off the set with an energetic cover of Rhanna’s “Only Girl in The World.” Grande thanked her overzealous audience for showing up, joking that she “was scared nobody was going to come to her first show in LA.”
Everyone was describing President Obama’s cool Spotify playlist as a mix. Well, it wasn’t. But it is now.
Obama’s favorite songs… including music from U2, Aretha Franklin, Al Green, Florence & The Machine, No Doubt, Bruce Springsteen, Raphael Saadiq and more… now mixed together Mick Boogie & Terry Urban style.
It’s safe to say that things are going well for Young The Giant. The Irvine-based quartet is in the midst of their first massive headlining tour and is selling out dates left and right. You can’t turn the radio on without hearing their hit singles “My Body” or “Cough Syrup” and the recent leak of the 2012 Bonnaroo line up shows them signed on to perform on one of the festival’s main stages.
Young The Giant recently played The Wiltern on consecutive nights last week in Los Angeles where venue’s two thousand and three hundred people chimed in and enthusiastically belted out lyrics to the alt rocker’s catchy rendition of “Cough Syrup:” It’s been a week since the show and we still can’t get: “Life’s too short to even care at all, oh. I’m losing my mind, losing my mind, losing control” out of our heads!
Prior to the set, we nabbed bassist Payam Doostzadeh for a quick Q&A. Check out our interview after the jump:
