Orange County Music Blog

So it's only a matter of hours before Exene Cervenka, vocalist of revered LA punk band X, walks on stage at Alex's Bar in Long Beach to kick off her SoCal stint of club dates and you are soooooo excited. As a lifelong fan, you probably pride yourself on every scrap of memorabilia you've compiled over the years: an old ticket stub from a show in the early days, decrepit stacks of vinyl that encapsulate everything from Los Angeles to hey Zeus!, band T-shirts galore. You've allowed yourself to become one of those annoying people who will gladly rattle off the entire history of the band, given only the slightest provocation.

But we all know that true music fanatics can never get enough inside information. For that reason alone, it seems relevant to post a recent interview that Cervenka did with host Eric Blair of the show "Blairing Out" over at Gods & Heros salon and boutique in Costa Mesa. 

​There are few local rappers who can come with enough lyrical material to construct two whole albums based on just the "best of "their own songs. Most are content to just write enough rhymes and siphon enough beats to throw ten tracks together.  "Conflict" by user52708

How the hell did we miss this? Not only did NBC recently launch a fluff-tastic version of "local's only" online news, one of our Local's Only bands were actually on it. On Oct. 27 The Growlers were invited to the newsroom of NBC LA to answer a cavalcade of the world's most generic questions. You could say it was just another score in a busy year for the Costa Mesa four-piece, chock-full of record releases, insane music videos and big time tours with Devandra Banhart and Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes. 

​There are many champions of cutesy, contorted cartoon imagery. But staring into character-filled frames of Spanish artists Mar Hernandez (aka Malota), whose eye-popping Japanese-style cartoons and attention to detail earned her a National Illustration Award in her home country in 2008, finds her own niche in the sleek, modern mix of illustrations, doll-making and design. 

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This week's Locals Only feature introduced some of you to the power generated (literally) by scrappy punk quartet AM. Known for their fiery, stripped down tunes as well as their affinity for guerilla-style live shows in parts of OC and LA, the band is definitely an exciting act to watch, let alone listen to. We got a chance to sit down with their guitar-toting lead singer, Fonzie Heredia. Check out a couple extra tidbits about the band after the jump.

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In the midst of all the "Best Of" goodness you're flipping through in this week's paper, you should have come across the best "porno space funk" band in Orange County, good ol' Iodine 69. As regulars at La Cave in Costa Mesa, this six-piece set of local musicians have mastered the art of laying in the cut with simmering rhythm arrangements and percussion along with some vintage Latin disco flair. If it sounds like fun, it definitely is. This week, we talked briefly with Iodine's Rhodes piano player and founding member Ken Marrata, who is an integral part of the band's hip-shaking sound and who, for all intents and purposes, is the acting conductor of the porno funk express. 

​This week's cover story gave you a chance to get acquainted with the off-beat, lovable founders of Fullerton's newest music dispensary, Burger Records. We hope you're hungry (for vinyl and cassettes). In case you're a total slacker (which is fine, nothing wrong with that) and haven't checked out the story quite yet, please excuse yourself and click here.

For the rest of you, we've complied scraps of our hours and hours of interviews (seriously, these guys couldn't get away from us) with the Burger boys in hopes that you might get to read about some of the cool history/quotes/fun facts that were left on the cutting-room floor.

OC Weekly: When did [Sean and Lee] officially start Burger Records?

Lee Rickard: In 2007 we did the "Too Easy 2 Love You" 45. Brian had a label called Yellow Sun, and we released it together. The record cover didn't even have a label on it, but we just made an insert. Just as kind of like a joke I doodled the Burger logo and Dan [Bush] (lead singer/guitar of Thee Makeout Party) did the yellow sun. And from there, just this last year-and-a-half we started putting out tapes and records.

Sean Bohrman: We heard Audacity and played with them a couple times and I really loved their songs and I would do long drives to my dad's house and stuff and I would think to myself "man, we have to release their EP because Audacity rules." So we did a split 7" with them.

LR: It was their first official, released record. They made a 10" that never came out and that's what we fell in love with.

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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
  

Hirax with Katon De Pena, third from right.

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Interviewing Hirax singer Katon W. De Pena is sort of a waste of time. You see, journalists (me) are supposed to find news and then announce said news to readers (you). But I shit you not when I say that everyone knows De Pena and De Pena knows everyone. This makes my job nearly impossible, as there's nothing I could ask him that someone who otherwise would read this blog couldn't just ask him directly. Seriously, the guy's that popular.

​Kool Keith is a man of many mysteries, many personalities and, of course, many surprises. Since the twilight years of hip hop's Golden Era, Keith (aka Black Elvis, aka Dr. Octagon) has held the torch for rappers who dare to be different, and a little eccentric. You'll definitely get a taste of that in this excerpt of a phone interview he did with the Weekly in preparation for a totally awesome, totally random gig at Slidebar in Fullerton this Sunday with Free Moral Agents and Speaker Junkies. Check it out.

So I've heard you're making a trip to Slidebar over in Fullerton?Have you ever been down there before?

Kool Keith: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm comin' down to hang out. I think I have, isn't House of Blues somewhere around there? I've done some Black Elvis tours down there. I remember it was always warm there.

You've also got a new record coming out on Oct. 13, Bikinis and Thongs, can you talk a little bit about what's going on with that?
KK: I have a couple of records out.

Right, this one and Lost Masters are your 2009 releases so far right?
KK:Yeah, I had Lost Masters Vol. 3 it's an add on combined with Vol. 1 and Vol. 2. Those are the Lost Masters which are the collector's additions of all the albums, which are a colossal piece of records, things I didn't release and things that people would probably love to hear as records that I never put out before. Bikinis and Thongs is a collaboration with Yeti Beats and Dennis Deft. I think the originally under the name KDY.

Those are both artists you've worked with in the past. What was it like recording with Dennis and Yeti this time around?
KK: We recorded some tracks when I was in L.A. and we made a lot of records when I was in Los Angeles in the last couple months and made some videos but we never really "collaged" it together, I guess they finally "collaged" it together. We were working kinda random, we didn't know it was going to end up as an album. We just made videos and records and after a while, you keep recording enough and it ends up being an album. I forget sometimes what I did. I forget how many records I've accomplished.

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Long Beach (OK, technically they live in Signal Hill) quartet On Blast--multi-instrumentalist Andy Kiddoo, singer Josh Brown, guitarist Travis Raab and producer/bassist Tone Blair -- play Thursday night at Alex's Bar with Free Moral Agents and Mode and Friday night...at a bar mitzvah. After running into Kiddoo at a Long Beach grocery store, I caught up with him for a Q&A.

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Shuli Egar is a hard-working man. When he's not covering breaking news stories such as the Craptacular (two guys competing to see who could shit the most over a 24-hour period) for the Howard 100 News team on Sirius Satellite Radio, he's hosting the Miserable Men show every Sunday, contributing to the team on The Jay Thomas Show or traveling across the country nearly every weekend to perform stand-up comedy. Oh yeah, he's also having his first child--a daughter--in March.

The 35-year-old is performing Friday at the Grove of Anaheim as part of the Killers of Comedy with Howard Stern show regulars including the barely literate stand-up Rev. Bob Levy, insult comic Yucko the Clown, microcephalic dwarf Beetlejuice and fellow comedian John Tole.

Egar, born in Israel and raised in Los Angeles, now lives in New York City. We caught up with him for a Q&A.

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There's not much to say about the Costa Mesa man/myth/legend that is Alfunction.that hasn't already been said, so I'll keep it at this. When he's not playing guitar in SiX, he's screen printing t-shirts, stickers and whatever else he can put ink on and currently he's the guitar tech for Maryland-based rockers Clutch. Oh, he's also got killer facial hair.

Alfunction's also my friend and I hadn't heard from him in a while. With the hectic world that is rock music, it's difficult to get him on the phone, so like the Y2K guy that I am, I emailed him. And now, for your reading pleasure, is the result of our techno-conversation.

From Religulous: Bill Maher on the left, Jesus on the right.

​Comedian, talk show host and atheist evangelical Bill Maher will perform at the Grove of Anaheim on Sunday, Sept. 13. We got a chance to chat with him on the phone last week, mainly to ask him for his thoughts on all things Orange County and right-wing.

Maher hosts HBO's Real Time With Bill Maher, and produced and starred in the 2008 anti-religion documentary Religulous. If you think he's a jerk for saying Saddleback Church pastor Rick Warren suffers from a "neurological disorder," consider this: He was nice enough to call the Weekly back when the phone went dead!

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BY GABRIEL SAN ROMAN

For years, Lila Downs has melded her powerful multilingual vocals with musical arrangements that engagingly blend the sounds of our global village. Of mixed heritage herself, the signature syncretism that has come to define her artistic presentation has been most recently evidenced by the release in late June of the appropriately Spanglish titled anthology The Very Best of el Alma de Lila Downs. The Oaxaca-born singer's commanding range will be echoing through the Grove of Anaheim this Wednesday, but before that, Downs made time to speak with the Weekly about her music.