Orange County Music Blog

​This weekend, while you're engaging in the age-old debate over what you and your friends are going to do on Saturday, why not try something weird? Sure, the term "weird" has a smörgåsbord of different connotations, some of which we don't suggest you explore with friends who may judge you harshly. But at the Party Weirdo Festival, the latest installment of hipster-centric outings sponsored by The Academy boutique store in Long Beach, "weird" takes on a slightly more specific meaning. It seems to revolve around roping it's audience into a full-day of some of OC, Long Beach and LA's craziest aural mavericks.

Andrew Youssef

​Last Night: Vampire Weekend at the Art Theatre in Long Beach (11/02/09)

Better Than: the last time I saw them at the Glass House in September of 2008.

After a secret show in Chinatown and a last minute show in Boyle Heights, Vampire Weekend "officially" kicked off their mini tour of California at the Art Theatre in Long Beach. Vampire Weekend is gearing up for the release of their new album Contra which is due on 1/12 on XL recordings.

Selling out the roughly 400 capacity theater in a fleet nine minutes, a line of 30 people was already stationed outside the venue hoping to secure a good spot up front. With new song titles like "Horchata" and "California English", one might consider that the East coast based band have been spending some time in our state and are showing some appreciation.

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That record right there, Greater California's All the Colors, was declared OC Weekly's "Best of OC" best album of the past 12 months--sure, Greater California are from Long Beach, but we've considered that to be part of our coverage area for so long that even residents there get a little confused at times.

Full of shimmering, mature and fully realized pop like "It's Great" and the title track, it's a must-listen for anyone that loves the best of '60s and '70s rock (like the Byrds: the Next Generation). Your next opportunity to hear some of that album's fine tunes is sooner than you might think: tomorrow, at the Long Beach Museum of Art, for their latest "After Dark" event. Root for culture! They're playing, and it's also a chance to check out three new exhibitions: Sweet Subversives: Contemporary California Drawings, Surviving Hard Times: WPA Artists and 3313º Fahrenheit. It's from 7 to 10 p.m.; $10, free for members. Check out the flier after the jump for more details and a sneak preview of a cool image from one of the exhibitions.

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New York City nightlife is pretty full of hipsters on a normal night, but during the five days of the College Music Journal's annual Music Marathon--an Atlantic northeast version of South by Southwest/excuse to party ostensibly serving as a college radio conference with dozens of nightly shows spread across Manhattan and Brooklyn venues which officially began today--it's dripping even more heavily with skinny jeans and ironic yet impeccably maintained facial hair.

Though there's still dozens and dozens of scheduled performers (seriously, you try reading this list without breaking your concentration before you get to the Cs) it's much less thick with bands than SXSW, and as a result, OC and LB have a much smaller representation than the gaggle of groups we had representin' in Austin this year. But we've still got a few fine folks bringing the SoCal music goodness: San Juan Capistrano's recently-signed-to-RCA the Union Line (pictured), and Long Beach bands Crystal Antlers (where are they not?) and So Many Wizards, who just played Detroit Bar last week. TUL aren't actually on CMJ's official lineup, but trust us, they're over there!

Good luck to all local dudes showcasin' over there this week, and in case you yourself happen to be in the big city for some marathon-ing, pertinent schedules are after the jump.

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A festival-type show on a Tuesday? Hey, sure, why not? That's the day of LA 101, a concert put on by our sister paper, LA Weekly, up north at the Gibson Amphitheater in Universal City.

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They're calling it the "one of the coolest bits of promo you'll ever see," and who are we to argue?

Chris Bishow

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Orange County singer/songwriter Stacy Clark is certainly no stranger to "placement" (that's what they call getting your songs in the background of TV, movies or commercials in the, um, "biz")--she had her song "Touch and Go" featured on an ad for the Canadian release of the Palm Pre cell phone just last month, for instance. But you're nobody until you've gotten a song on a CW young adult drama, which is exactly what Ms. Clark has netted for tonight, when her track "All Time Low" (not to be confused with the wildly popular Baltimore-based pop-punk band of the same name) will be played during a surely riveting scene on One Tree Hill (yep, that show's still on).

One Tree Hill airs at 8 p.m. on the CW, which locally is KTLA, channel 5. Clark is actually the second female singer from Orange County to get a song on the Hill in 2009--our pal Trisha Smith's band, Honeypie, got their song "Never Get Enough" on an episdoe back in April. Read our interview with Smith about it here.

Of course, not to take anything away from either of those fine talents, but both spots ultimately pale in comparison to the greatest moment from OTH this year--and maybe TV history. That's after the jump.

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Over at our food blog, Gustavo Arellano (perhaps you've heard of him) rather amusingly skewered the many more unfortunate choices in our recent "Best of OC" readers' poll: Starbucks for best coffee, Chipotle for best burrito. Not so insightful or adventurous, you see, kind of the equivalent of giving Titanic "best movie about a boat sinking" or scrambled "best way to prepare an egg." Yawn.

Of course, there were reader picks for music and culture categories, as well. But unlike Gustavo, we're more than willing to give our readers benefit of the doubt--these are highly subjective matters, after all, and we're no more experts than anyone else is, except we're more likely to be at local shows struggling desperately to look cool.

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Time to back up our words. In last week's "Best of" issue, the OC Weekly declared Costa Mesa's the New Limb to be the "best live band" in Orange County. Quite the title! And you judge for yourself, tonight, for free. With free food, too. Pretty good deal, all things considered.

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Deep Sea Diver, that always-enjoyable Long Beach band headed up by the multi-talented Jessica Dobson, were originally scheduled to play Detroit Bar tonight as part of the Fling's residency--they're still on the flier on Detroit's website, even--but that's no longer happening, per no less a source than the Fling themselves.

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Way back in May, we told you about how Long Beach band Repeater were hand-picked by big-time producer Ross Robinson (the Cure, Korn, At the Drive-In, buckets of other various stuffs) to serve as his next project. We met with them at Robinson's home studio in Venice Beach--where the band lived for weeks while recording an album.

Out-of-date publicity photo!

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No joke, Moostache really seems like one of those bands that we'll soon be able to say "we knew them back when."

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Another local band has signed to a major label: San Juan Capistrano's the Union Line have signed with Black Seal, an imprint of RCA Records--part of Sony Music Entertainment.

Andrew Steven

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Playing the House of Blues in Anaheim is a big deal for a national touring act, but for a local band, the opportunity to gig at one of Orange County's premier venues--nestled in Downtown Disney, no less--has to be even more of a treat.

Tan Dollar--just last night at the Tribal Cafe in LA!

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Jessica and Kady Bell, fresh talent (and sisters!) making their OC Weekly debut in our latest issue, told you about Irvine/Tustin's Tan Dollar in Locals Only. They've got a couple of shows coming up this week--tonight in Fullerton at the Santa Fe Cafe at 8 p.m., and this Saturday at UCI's Social Science Trailer 103 (8 p.m., $5). That's the tour kick-off for Railcars, who will be joined on tour by Acrobatics Everyday mastermind Sam Farzin.

The Bells told you about Tan Dollar's two six-song EPs, Pink Sky and an untitled on, but what you may not know is that you can download them--right now!--for free. Feel free to do that right here.

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Irvine band Entice beat out four other bands--from an initial field of 120--Friday night at Citywalk in Universal City to win the grand prize of 98.7's "Rockstar" competition, netting them $10,000 in cash, $5,000 at the Best Buy music store (yes, some Best Buys sell instruments) and a smattering of other fab winnings; by far their biggest achievement in three years as a band.

We caught up with Entice singer/guitarist Isaac Leland to get his thoughts on the big win, and what's next for the band now that they're insanely rich and all that. (Well, by local band standards.)

Taylor Herron photography

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It's always interesting to hear people say the good hip hop doesn't exist in Orange County. It's a rather defeatist attitude. Don't you know all you have to do is turn over the right rock to find what you need? In this case, the Lake Forest emcees of Rock Bottom are just one example of the goodness you can find underground.

This saliva slanging set of artists (emcees pictured left to right: Bumps the GooseGot, Elephant Pelican and Innate) are always on the move, so you're not going to to see too many OC shows on their calendar but it seems that Malone's in Santa Ana has become their central stomping ground in these parts. Currently recording on San Diego-based hip hop label Raw Poetix, the group recently released a new album, "Expanding the Cage", pregnant with down to earth observations, raucous delivery, and a bit of  sample-happy east coast swagger.

Check out the song "Morning Breath" below, an interview with the group. As far as their skills and sense of humor, these guys are far from "rock bottom". But go ahead and decide for yourself. Don't forget to read the interview after the JUMP.

Morning Breath by Rock Bottom
  

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You would think that a band on a well-known national indie label like SideOneDummy Records would have all the money in the world; free to spend it on whatever bizarre whims they might devise. Well, you would be really, really wrong, actually.

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We've kept tabs on 98.7's "Rockstar Contest" throughout its run--first, there were several Orange County bands in the top 15, then Irvine's Entice and Non-P both made the final five. Following Friday night's competition at CityWalk up in Universal City, Entice are the official winners of the contest, beating out a total of 120 other bands from across Southern California and once again proving that OC music is a force to be reckoned with (they also beat out a band fronted by a Power Ranger, no small feat).

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Saturday Night: Iris DeMent at the Richard and Karen Carpenter Performing Arts Center at California State University, Long Beach; September 26, 2009.

Better Than: Plenty!

Iris DeMent is country because in the country is where you still find things living tough and wild; tonight she wore a polka-dot dress and eggshell-blue cowboy boots and when she pumped the pedals on the piano, her heels would dip and scoop like she was bouncing around on top of a horse.

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We talked to On Blast earlier in the week, so the next natural step? Seeing their show at Alex's Bar last night.

Jenevieve Belair

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Usually in Locals Only Extra, we provide you with an mp3 from the local band spotlighted, so you can actually have some aural accompaniment to whatever nonsense we come up with. But this week's band, Costa Mesa's Semi Sweet, have already done us one (or several) better: all four songs of their self-titled EP are already available for streaming and downloading right here on their official site. "Heart Lock and Key" might be our favorite, but they're all pretty cool. And free. So, do it.

Semi Sweet's next show is Thursday, October 1 at Woody's Wharf in Newport--yes, we said in the write-up that they're a little too "overtly hipster-y" for Newport, but trust us, we meant it as a compliment. Read said Locals Only here.

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Last night was a busy one for Orange County bands--Make Moon, the Growlers, the New Limb, Janu and the Whalesharks at the Yost Theater; the Union Line and Yellow Red Sparks at Detroit Bar; and the final night of Handsome G's residency at the Gypsy Lounge. We made it to the first two.

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There's been plenty of great bands playing at the Yost Theater lately thanks to our friendly neighborhood college-radio station KUCI.

Previous KUCI shows at the Yost pulled acts from throughout Orange County, Long Beach and Los Angeles, but tonight is all about the locals. Locals Only in fact. Every band has been featured in our weekly Locals Only column. Man, we get around don't we?

Slutty journalism aside, we're more than happy to have added some shoe box clips to tonight's lineup. Here's the playing order: Argyle Smile open, followed by Janu and the Whalesharks, the New Limb, Make Moon; the night ends with the Growlers. Flaunting a mix of friendly folk, pop, surf rock and psychedelics, The KUCI line up should definitely bring out a diverse crowd to the dark concert hall. Tickets are $8 and doors open at 8 p.m. Set times after the jump.

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It's easy to hate Venus Infers. Out of any yet-unsigned Orange County band, they get the most awards (three trophies at the OC Music Awards earlier this year), the most critical acclaim (just check out all the quotes on their MySpace, and, yes, a plurality of them are written by me), getting the most radio play (KROQ's Locals Only show seems to play them every week), their music on the most TV shows (appearing on The Real World, Damages, among others), and the best gigs (having toured with Peter Murphy earlier in the year, and previously opened up for Chris Cornell).

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Fullerton's Dusty Rhodes and the River Band experienced a bit of a setback last month--namely, bassist Brad Babinski being hit with both mono and shingles (yeesh), forcing the band to scrap their east coast tour.

Non-P want you to remember their name.

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The top five finalists of 98.7 FM's "Rockstar Contest" were announced today, and two of the chosen acts are from Orange County. Not a bad ratio, no?

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When the Jakes announced their big-time major label deal with Roadrunner (a subsidiary of Warner) last month, their official comment advised that a couple of LA shows at Spaceland and the Viper Room would likely be their last area shows before holing up in the studio, working on their full-length album (the follow-up to EP Shake My Hand, featuring catchy tunes like "Schizophrenia" and "Cough Syrup" that got them all that attention they're currently benefiting from).