As I stepped into the classy El Rey Theatre once more this week, I couldn’t help but think of how different it would be from my Balkan Beat Box experience. Upon arrival for a DeVotchKa show, I was anticipating looking at a different type of crowd. However, I found similarities more than differences. For The El Rey, the volume of concert goers never seems to dwindle. No matter what night it is, if it’s a good show, especially one so highly expected to be as DeVotchKa, the crowd will spill past the bar.

Gaining most of their mainstream popularity from scoring the film, Little Miss Sunshine, DeVotchKa had finally been able to reach the masses with their unique take on American punk and folk roots. This four piece band, however, goes far beyond what’s expected of a rock band. Exhibiting their credibility, all multi-instrumentalists flourish together as they weave in and out of Greek, Mariachi, and Slavic notes. I wondered, will Los Angeles embrace them tonight as much as world music lovers or those so called sophiticated hipsters? I was about to find out.

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The term “concept album” has always brought with it promises of twenty-minute epics, mind-boggling signature shifts, and countless solos from every member of the band. To see the idea carried out a little differently, look no further than On the Eve of Absolute Get Down, the debut album from Player/Kommander. Not a single song breaks the four-minute mark; instead, its ambition lies in a broad range of musical influences brought in to accent this otherwise straightforward rock album. Over the course of the thirteen songs, broken up into four rather indistinguishable “phases,” frontman James Hall tries everything from a Bee Gees croon to a raspy shout, and the results are equally scattered across the board. As a group, P/K moves from the mellow ballad “All Night Wednesday” to the sludge rock of “Way Faux El Diablo,” but the best cuts come when they find a happy medium. Tracks like “White-Out of the Mind” and “Easy When It’s On” are catchy and upbeat, the latter riding a boogie rock sensibility and full-bodied riffing from guitarists Jim Troglen and John Fuller. “Be This Way” sounds a little too much like Kings Of Leon to earn originality points, but it opens the album in style and ends before it grows tired.

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Following the Pet Shop Boys, contemporaries with Daft Punk, and setting the stage for Gnarls Barkley, The Chemical Brothers have secured a place for themselves in the power of two. “Brotherhood”, their latest compilation release, spans thirteen years of contribution towards the experimental psychadelic electronic scene.

As an admitted first-time listener, I found the material rich and suited in its styling, that if presented in any other format or genre would be easily picked apart for trying too hard. The benefit of electronic/dance music is that if it sounds and feels good, it’s all good - and with the added component of high experimentation, it bears license to blow the listener away at whim.

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When you first hear the name Balkan Beat Box, your thoughts may stray off into the land of open mics for hip-hop artists only. However, this super-group of a band who has steadily become an international phenomenon does not only go out of the box but tears down any structures or barriers your mind may have had in regards to their name.

For those who already knew what Balkan Beat Box is about, they know it just keeps getting better with each performance. However, as I waited around at the El Rey Theatre, I was very anxious for my very first BBB show. All I knew was that they took traditional world music and spiced it up for today’s generation. I also knew it was dance music but I was very curious to see how the crowd at the theatre would respond to it.

It wasn’t a surprise but it was incredibly fulfilling as the curtains opened only to have the crowd go from a cool collected group to a crazed jumping ocean of bodies and hands in the air. BBB managed to own the theatre with the very first beat they put down. The atmosphere was immediately filled with Mediterranean dance hall rhythms, pleasing fans of hip-hop to electronica to rock to big band… It was definitely an overwhelming sensation.

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So now that the giddiness of “ZOMG NEW 90210!!!” has passed, what are we left with? Frankly, not a lot.

The A plot revolves around the oh-so-overdone “How do we transplant our wholesome Midwestern family values into shallow Beverly Hills?” Namely, Aunt Becky and Harry the Dad-slash-Principal want to have “Family Night” just like back home. (And we’re supposed to believe that, in Wichita, Wholesome Annie and Black!!! Dixon happily spent their Friday nights with Mom and Dad?)

Aunt Becky surprises them on a school day morning with an Alice Wakefieldian pancake breakfast, but natch, everyone is too busy rushing off to school, which makes Aunt Becky sad. Is their family falling apart? (Yeah, because it isn’t last week’s surprise illegitimate child that’s an issue, cupcake, it’s breakkie.) So she insists that tomorrow they’re all going to go bowling! Dadcipal agrees that they’re bringin’ a Little Kansas to Beverly Hills because it’s all about family! FUN! Yes, and despite the fact that both kids’ve already made plans, to: Annie’s supposed to go out with Not-Zach-Efron-But-Close Ty and Dixon’s going to hang with Navid “Ethnic Okay (tm Mediarama)” Shirazi and Ethan “Overbite” Ward to watch a new, unreleased Bond flick in Navid’s family’s screening room (Wait, I thought Navid’s dad was a porn director?). So maybe the kids’re gonna watch “James Dong: Quantum of Penis” or something?

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Keaton Simons new album asks “Can you hear me?”  The answer is a resounding yes, and we want to hear more!  From the moment I popped this album into my CD player, I was amazed by the talent Simons displays.  I wondered where on earth he could have been hiding, but I suppose that an unimportant question now that I’ve been graced by his musical magic. Woo!

En route towards a Paolo Nutini/Gavin Degraw-esque sound, Simons differs in ways that prove to be extremely successful for this album.  Think a dash of pizzazz, a sprinkle of edge, and a pinch of fresh that make his sound something worth hearing.  He succeeds in coercing you to want to listen to what he’s saying; mainly because unlike some artists, he sounds like he has lived.  Through his music you, in turn, are experiencing his experiences, and isn’t that what music is all about?

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Io Echo… echo… echo… Even their name has resonance. Seeing Io Echo is always a good time and last Thursday was no exception.

By the time I arrived at Silverlake Lounge, I was catching the last part of the set by our new friends, The Oohlas. The crowd was a little thin for an Io Echo show but I assumed the best. Their shows are always a full blown dance party in the end.

I wasn’t let down. After opening up with with a dark and lush but slow and bashful introduction, they exploded with “Enter the Exit,” a number with organ chords and an incredibly catchy chorus. I looked back to the audience and the bar was already twice the size it was before her first song. Looking back to the band, Io Echo was then busy with making a song quite the show in itself. Structured in a very schizophrenic tempo, this song started out with slow, deep vocals while the the guitarist and bassist slowly came up like creepy crawlies out of cemetery dirt. Then when you least expected it the driving ferocious chorus of “I’m On Fire” was released and your body was surged with endorphins. At least mine was. Bodies were shaking and grooving to the band’s concoction of goth and dance punk music but ours weren’t the only ones moving to the beat.

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I cannot emphasize how great the music scene is here for the city of angels. We seem to be having some sort of music festival every weekend. So it was no exception that we went and had our 28th Annual Sunset Junction Street Festival this weekend (August 23rd and 24th) for year 2008.

It has the feeling of the Los Feliz Street Fair; relaxed, two stages, lots of food and informational stands for good causes. However, every aspect is just kicked up a bit in its magnitude. The stages were bigger - plus one, the plethora of food choices was more extravagant, the booths were catered more to general LA rather than focused on a certain area of LA, but most of all - the line up of bands was much greater in recognition and talent.

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Well I’m not going to lie. Before I even went to The Cat Club for the Silent Treatment show August 16^th, I knew it was going to be great. The energy, dedication, and passion that radiated from their album (that I had the pleasure of reviewing last week) was so heavily reflected in their live show that it blew my mind times ten. I think what struck me most is just the feeling that I was in the presence of rock stars. And honestly I haven’t felt that way at a show in a while. I mean, a lot of the shows I’ve gone to in the recent past have been chock full of emo hairstyles, skinny jeans, and that sort of hipster dance where you’re not quite sure if you’re allowed to show that you actually LIKE the song so you just sorta shake your tush for a while in sync with the mass of other unemotional hip kids around you. But this was such a far cry from all of that. [ Read The Full Story -> ]

When Parisian DJ Xavier Gassemann boasts, “You’re chillin’ with the Don Rimini, bitch,” he perfectly encapsulates the feeling of his Kick ‘N Run EP.  The six-track offering, seems intent on pummeling listeners into submission while reminding them how much fun they’re having. The first and fourth tracks are basically collections of outlandishly arrogant soundbites, while the four actual songs are mostly overlong, hyperactive techno paired with nearly unintelligible words and phrases shouted ad nauseum.

“Ohow?” starts things off with some fairly catchy industrial synth riffs, and manages to avoid monotony.”Nervous Breakdown” does sound adequately paranoid, but after the first four minutes you start to wish he would just take his medication. “Rave On” is the stand-out track, with overloaded synths and an energetically danceable beat, punctuated by an emphatic chant of “We’ve come to kick your ass! (Ass! Ass! Ass! Ass!)” The closer, “Hools,” is mostly forgettable, and may even be capable of inducing mild headaches. The songs may find their place in a club setting, packed into a like-minded playlist, but for now Don Rimini may want to tone down the boasting until his music can speak for itself.

Buy the CD now on this MySpace page!

Silent Treatment

I”ll be honest here. I have been pretty bored with music recently. I find myself rummaging through my cd case, settling on the “old faithfuls” (we all have them) rather than any of my new additions. As unreliable as the radio is and always has been, the extent to which it has taken my boredom these days has been extreme to say the least. And who knows, maybe I’m just not looking in the right place. But really, should good music be so far tucked away that it takes the impossible to discover it, anyway? Oh well, whatever. What I’m getting to is a neat little band called Silent Treatment. And while I wouldn’t go as far as saying they are going to revolutionize the radio, I will say they will be a welcome addition to what may otherwise be a very sad lineup.

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A few weeks ago, Wall-E was released and quickly received some of the best critical praise a film has gotten all year. Then The Dark Knight was released, and immediately dominated the summer movie market. But with the biggest movies of the summer out of the way, what are we supposed to do now? Sit through those again?

By the way, the answer is yes. Both of them. Over, and over, and over again.

However, once we’ve all had our fill of those two triumphs—just when we’re wondering if their tremendous successes have signaled the end of blockbuster season, Ben Stiller’s Tropic Thunder charges in to remind us that this summer is not over! We do not have to want for movies with a nine figure budget! We can still blow things up!

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