Orange County Music Blog

​It looks like Detroit Bar has discovered the ultimate ingredients for fun on a Friday night: DJ battles, Korean Tacos and Biz Markie.

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Tonight is week No. 2 of LA/Costa Mesa trio Pop Noir's Monday night November residency (aptly titled Noirvember) at Detroit Bar. If I wasn't busy washing my hair tonight, I'd be there for sure because the best band to ever come outta Signal Hill, On Blast, is opening. Also on the bill is Little Red Radio, an electro/dance group from Los Angeles. 

The best part? It's free!

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With a flyer as detailed as this one, I guess I don't really have much to say.

This picture looks racier than it really is.

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Tonight is your chance to be among the first to watch Cold War Kids drummer Matt Aveiro's new short film, Jen in the Painting. It's premiering tonight at 9:45 p.m. at Art Theatre in Long Beach; and you can learn tons more about it through our chat with Aveiro right here. (And watch the trailer--yes, a trailer is still necessary, even if your film is only 17 minutes long. Show business!)

​When you think of the small bar scene clustered in the corner of Fullerton's "SoCo District" (south of Commonwealth) most can agree that it's the only section of downtown where live music truly exists. You've heard plenty about the stages at the Continental Room, Slidebar, Steamers, Stubriks and Santa Fe Cafe. But until now, Commonwealth Lounge hasn't fully committed to opening itself up to the idea of hosting local bands--even though they do host a kick ass jazz ensemble that few people really pay attention to as they chill on trendy furniture sipping Mojitos. Luckily, that's about to change. Tonight, the upscale watering hole is getting a taste of local soul on the opening night of live music Wednesdays. It's about time.

Fostering a vibe strikingly similar to Continental (Latin, soul, funk, hip hop, etc.) the club ushers in a performance by East L.A. three piece Stedapole C.C. Watt, whom you've heard us talking about lately (look forward to more in next week's print edition of the Weekly). Armed with a gut-fueled hybrid of stripped down, eclectic funk and soul, band mates Rodney Gardiner (vocals), Rob Brill (drums) and Jonny Brill (bass) deliver a punchy sense of purpose to their jams that makes it impossible (or at least really hard) to stand still. The music continues this month with Soul Hustlers w/ Solrak (B-Side Players) on Oct. 21, and the Chuck Boogie Trio on Oct. 28. It also features DJ sets by J-Luv, Bobby Soul and DJ Lito. But live acts aren't the only thing Wednesdays at Commonwealth have to offer--check out their specials after the jump.

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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.

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."

​Apparently, last week's initial Big Audio at Long Beach's Basement Lounge didn't involve any sex acts (not in the club, anyway...afterwards, that's a different story) and the folks running the joint is letting the promoters do it again. Promoter Markus D. Manley was kind enough to give us the scoop on what's going down this week, which includes Thursday and Saturday night events.

So instead of boring you with our words, let's let him do the talking. Take it away, Markus.

(Oh, and by the way, the Basement Lounge is an ultra-killer underground club beneath the Broadlind. And better yet, there's no dress code.)

Krijin van Noordwijk

​Once every few years a game-changing album will accelerate the evolution of electronic dance music. The Prodigy added punk rock aggression to the scene in 1992 (Experience), the Chemical Brothers became the Beatles of club-land in 1995 (Exit Planet Dust) and Moby introduced the world to the tuneful, down-tempo side of e-music in 1999 (Play). In the '00s, much of the progression happened behind the scenes and in studios where technology forged new ways of layering, mixing and matching sounds. The music became more polished than ever, but rarely was there a sense that dance music had leapt forward like it had in the 1990s.

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Is lucha libre imagery played out? Can we blame the abysmal 2006 Jack Black "comedy" Nacho Libre for that? (Please? It really was pretty laughless.)

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"Until the Day I Die." "Anthem of Our Dying Day." Other songs that contain words other than "day." Story of the Year will be doing all of those things tonight at Slidebar.

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Since their sharp-edged entry into the dance-punk scene in 1996 (yeah it existed somewhat back then), Sacramento's !!! (Chk Chk Chk) have done plenty to live up to their exclamatory moniker--and for the most part, their fans have followed suit. These days, the band haven't lost any steam, though they've picked up a handful of new(er) members.

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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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Popular kids shows inevitably produce a bucketload of unnecessary licensed junk. What child of the '80s didn't eat grocery store birthday cake off of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles-adorned paper plate at some point in his or her life? But ever since Hannah Montana premiered on the Disney Channel on March 2006, the show's preteen fans have faced an unending onslaught of merchandise that happen to have a slapped-on logo. Some make sense (dolls, t-shirts, DVDs), while others proudly push the limits of absurdity (like this unfortunately shaped candy).

So in honor of tonight's Miley Cyrus concert at the Honda Center in Anaheim, check out these bizarre pieces of loosely affiliated Hannah Montana paraphernalia.

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Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker has had plenty of side gigs over the years. Box Car Racer and +44 both featured other Blink members, while a duo called TRV$DJAM included his friend Adam Goldstein. Known as DJ AM, Goldstein, of course, was with Barker in a Learjet crash that killed four people in September, 2008, and he died late last month in an apparent drug overdose.

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We're all about the sweet tweets here at Heard Mentality--you can read ours and follow us through the little blobbies of text to the right. And we're also fans of local acts the New Limb (pictured) and Stacy Clark, who we've written copious amounts about in the past. And who doesn't love supporting a good cause? So a fundraising event revolving around Twitter and featuring performances from the New Limb and Stacy Clark is sort of a no-brainer for us. (There's also free food.)

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A lot of exciting developments are happening in the world of Long Beach folk rockers of Eugene and the 1914. Aside from the fact that you'll see their names in print very shortly, in a music feature penned by yours truly, they've also been invited to record some tracks at the historic Westlake Studios in Santa Monica, where anyone who is anyone in the music business has recorded...seriously, check out their credits.

Either way, it's all well and good except for one thing: their show tonight at The Prospector is going to be their one around here for a little while, as front man Eugene Owens and drummer JP Bendzinsky travel to New York at the end of the week for a brief outing with the Rosewood Thieves, joing up again w/ the 1914 for a show in Seattle. Though tonight may be bittersweet, Eugene fans should definitely come out of the wood work as Owens and his band, including Bendzinsky, guitarist Michael J. Salter, bassist Timmy Samorile and keyboardist Alfred Hernandez take to Long Beach's best cramped bar stage armed with their infections hybrid of pop, folk and inventive indie hooks.

They're also playing tonight with fellow  female folksters Red Sweater and the Seattle shoegazers of Levator. Oh, are you a new or soon to be fan of the 1914? Wanna see what they're all about? Follow me.... 

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The canon of west coast hip hop legends holds a special place for Todd Shaw, better known as Too $hort, even better known as Bay Area hip hop's oldest mac. With almost 30 years in the rap game, his relaxed brand of raunchy realism could be recognized anywhere. 17 albums, 3 gold records, 5 platinum record and one double platinum record (1988's Life is...Too Short) pretty much proves that point. He's been rapping and doing shows since before most people who read this blog were even born. And while many of his peers have trailed off into anonymity, $hort dawg is still at it. And tonight happens to be one of his biggest Orange County shows to date at The Grove of Anaheim. But aside from his history of success from struggle, Too $hort's affinity for "freaky tales", scandalous exploits and x-rated humor probably scared the shit out of your parents when they heard you bumping "I'm a Player" in your bedroom.

But when it comes to reliving the glory days of hip hop's yesteryear, it doesn't get any better than the boom bap and thick bass of  "Gettin' It", or even the revamped Donny Hathaway sample on "The Ghetto". And of course, you can look forward to plenty of club bangin' craziness with his more recent jams/ stripper anthems  (i.e.  "Blow the Whistle" and "Shake That Monkey"). But if you're like me, $hort dawg's old material will always be his gold material. Check out this vintage interview he did way back in the day after the JUMP....priceless.

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OK, this is cool. We all know the usual DJ nights: crappy current hip-hop tunes, people you wouldn't normally want to be seen in public with grinding on the dance floor. Then came hipper, more "indie" DJ nights, where you'd be more liable to hear Justice or LCD Soundsystem. That's all well and good, but second Wednesdays at the Crosby in downtown Santa Ana are taking it to another, much harder, darker, eviler, and generally more badass level with "Bangover."

It's pretty much how it sounds: Metallica, Megadeth, Maiden, Sabbath, Anthrax, Pantera. As someone who pays pretty close attention to these things, I've never heard of another bar night going in this direction (not counting cheesy hair metal cover bands), so this sounds like a treat. Free entry, starting at 9. Rawk.

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Night can either be fun (the carefree frolic described in R.E.M.'s "Nightswimming") or scary (like the vampire-filled 30 Days of Night), or somewhere in between, like beloved '90s Nickelodeon series Are You Afraid of the Dark? (Plus there's the "Night" that's in M. Night Shyamalan's middle name, which is on a classification by itself.)

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One of alternative rock's longest-running acts, Ween, is in town tonight at the Grove of Anaheim. They've been around 25 years, amassing a cult following while going virtually unnoticed by the mainstream; releasing playful neo-psychedelic albums like Pure Guava, Chocolate & Cheese and The Mollusk. But the way I know them best is the inclusion of their song "Voodoo Lady" in this relatively amazing skit from '90s MTV sketch comedy series The State. (I'd embed it if I could, but embedding was disabled by request. Rats!) "Adios, ozone layer!" Tickets are still available.

My computer ain't working right, which means I have no idea what's going on in the world. But from memory I do know that tonight is karaoke at the Foxfire Restaurant in Anaheim Hills. Should I know that? No. But I do.

I've never been to the Foxfire, but I've heard magical things about the place for more than a decade. Singing "Suspicious Minds" to cougars has been on my list of things to review for this here blog for a while now, but I just haven't made it yet. Soon folks, soon.

Until then, why don't you go and tell me what the word on the street is.

And if you're that one person in all of Orange County who doesn't know about the Foxfire, supposedly it's where sexy women above the age of 35 go to meet young dudes. Or something like that. Like I said, I've never been.

Matt Jacoby

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If you didn't make it into tonight's free Used show at Chain Reaction by pre-ordering a copy of their new album, there's still another option for free music in Orange County, albeit 180 degrees musically and culturally in the other direction: try Dawes, in the final night of their Monday night August residency at Detroit Bar (appropriate enough, seeing how this is the final night in August and all that).

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There's something about every August 27, 2009, that makes it a big night for shows. The warm weather? The fact that it's Street Scene eve? Pent-up Ted Kennedy/Dominick Dunne mourning? Who knows.

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It sends a very specific message when you put your own name in your band's name--a message that Rye Douglas of Orange County's former Rye Douglas Band apparently no longer intends to send.

They're changed their name to My Blurry Sight, with their MySpace almost-but-not-quiet completely reflecting the change. They play a lot with Make Moon, who themselves changed their names recently (used to be Dolphin City), so maybe that's how they got the idea. (Or not.) That's not all this busy band is up to: they're also performing live today on KUCI's Press Pass Music show from 1 to 2 p.m., and playing a show at the Yost Theater tonight along with Francisco the Man!, the Broken Remotes and Mississippi Man, which sounds like a solid lineup--plus, there's talk of movie ticket giveaways there for The Final Destination and the new Halloween sequel. Oooh, spooky.

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This is important: Built to Spill are playing at the Galaxy Theatre in Santa Ana tonight.

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The next person who says "there's nothing to do around here" is officially wrong. This can be scientifically proven. Or just be clicking on the jump.

​I wrote about Walk In Medical (pictured here in a now-outdated lineup) back in late November, in our Locals Only section. I though their EP, The Recluse, was promising, and am glad to see that they're still going and got some coverage from another publication, newly debuted local start-up OC Music Magazine. The article is here, and details the band's songwriting process and lineup changes. Only one weird thing: when writing about this year's addition of new bassist David Sachs, it neglects to mention that it is, in fact, the same David Sachs that is the "Publishing Editor" of OC Music Magazine.