happy friday: i think you are great

Happy Friday. Love for everyone.

I Think U Are Great - Yellow Ostrich by jokerwoman

infogram/fyf fest

I just wanted to make sure you all are aware that F*ck Yeah Fest Fest is coming up soon! Labor Day weekend! I've provided the site link HERE so you can buy tickets online, and they even list local record stores so that you can buy your tickets there instead and skip the (middle)-man. Get your tickets! Go to the show! If you haven't been, it's really fantastically fab. It's in downtown LA, it's $40, it's got an AMAZING lineup of bands including Death From Above 1979, Explosions in the Sky, Simian Mobile Disco, Girls, No Age, Cults... Just look at the pretty picture above and read the pretty words.

lollapalooza withdrawals mix/ for you!!

I've been on a non-stop lolla artist binge since I got back. Can't believe it's been over a week already. In celebration of my week-long remembrance,  I've put together a playlist on 8tracks.

8tracks, if you aren't hip to it's heat already, is a site that lets members make digital mixtapes to share with whomever, AND it just got listed in TIME Magazine as one of the 50 best websites of 2011 (Read up on the rest of them here TIMELinketyLink). So check it out and make your own mix- it's just like the old days of emotionally-drenched-i-secretly-love-you mixtapes, but without the cassettes, glitter, lisa frank stickers, sharpies... in a word, streamlined.

So here's my mix, I made it for you, I made it for me. xo

music find/ oh my rockness

I, while a blogger myself, understand the limits of blogs. I understand that truly, if I am only telling you oh-so-self-importantly that I love this or that band, I'm not really doing a service to anyone. What I mean is, if you listen to a track on my blog and decide that you like it, what options am I giving you to be an active participant in the listener/artist relationship? I would like to think that if anything, I would be able to give you a way to go experience your new-found interest at a live show.

Enter my newest discovery and obsession: Oh/My/Rockness. It's a website dedicated to listing each and every indie rock show in the city, at every venue- big and small and microscopic and barely existing. How else are you supposed to know where your favorite un-signed band who totally doesn't have a website yet is playing? This website is AMAZING, and although the link I posted sends you to the LA version of the site, there are other city sites as well. 

In one day of perusing, I already found out that crunchy, distorted, tin-can recorded, Asian-Elvis,  Dirty Beaches is playing next week in my area for free. And I'm going. So thank you, Oh My Rockness- my day planner now looks like a year round music festival.

The video below is a perfect representation of Dirty Beaches, just move it up to the 30 second mark. 

work in progress.

I was recently reinvigorated, but I haven't quite been able to bottle up all of the creative sparks of energy that are floating around my head all firefly-fashion. A three day trip to Chicago was apparently all I needed to turn the volume back on in my life. My ears are open, and since I've been consistently going to more shows than ever, I've got a lot to say about my newfound appreciation for the independently-run, sweat-splattered, claustrophobia-inducing dive venues we've got in this sprawling city of ours. Just got to sit down and focus. think. write. share. create. You know, all the good stuff.

While I'm working on that, you work on enjoying this track by Bleached, a band I recently got to see at the Smell in downtown LA. Local band, old school, low-fi, garage rock.  

Bleached, "Think of You" by The FADER

tom vek: where have you been?

I recently came across this handsome gentleman and his equally handsome sound. Apparently he released a pretty dope album back in 2005 and then dropped off the audio map until now. I know a thing or two about dropping off the map though, so no hard feelings, Tom. I guess I lucked out on discovering him mid the second-coming. Please to be enjoying some electro rock goodness.

Music Video- Tom Vek: A Chore

freebie- couldn't wait to share

We Are Enfant Terrible, the French trio that adorably and with gramatically-incorrect-enthusiasm defines their music as "an electro dance sound with indie rock and synthpop sounds and a touch of 8bit music", has a free download of their single "Filthy Love" on their site. Click here to get there. Be warned: their site is just as jumbled, energetic, and colorful as their music. Also, if you're going to SXSW this year, you'll have a chance to see them live.

We Are Enfant Terrible - Filthy Love from bif on Vimeo.

ferocious few

I'm a fan of buskers, being that I know a few and have seen how much it means to them to even have a few onlookers toss a dollar their way. These buskers are a new discovery to me and soon to be discovered by many more people than the passers-by in their native city of San Francisco (especially since their appearance last year at SXSW). The Ferocious Few, a two man band a la The White Stripes or The Black Keys, have gained a following for their unique style of garage rock- subbing out the usual blues influence for a country/folk twang. The result is something like folk-punk. I'm not so good at naming genres...maybe because there are way too many already, so just listen and think happy thrash-punk-folk-rock thoughts.

Here's their music video for Loc'd Out, which chronicles a night of geurilla projections across the city set to their music. Rad.

these are two of my favorite things

I knew that Jonny Greenwood (of Radiohead) was working on a solo project, but what I didn't know was that his solo endeavor makes up the score to a film adaptation of Norwegian Wood, a novel by one of my favorite authors, Haruki Murakami. Oh joy of joys! This is a combination of wonderful that I haven't seen the likes of since Oreo decided to dip their cookies in mint chocolate. The soundtrack is set to be released in March, and you can check out the tracklist on Pitchfork until then, although it really is more of a tease than anything else. I really can't emphasize enough how great this collaboration is. Murakami is such an amazing story teller- his words are poetic and dark, twisted and invasive; and his novels are an experience. His words paired with the music of one of the greatest composers/ rock gods out there (and performed by the BBC Concert Orchestra and the Emperor Quartet) is sure to result in an explosion of aesthetics. You can watch the trailer below, and get excited for whenever the movie hits (most likely selected) theaters in the U.S.

dance music friday

I accidentally downloaded Robyn's new album... well, bought it...on accident. I don't know how it ended up on my iPod. I swear. But now that it's here, I might as well listen. I'm super down with her, even if the only thing keeping her hanging by a thread of credibility was being featured on Royksopp's album Junior and a FIFA soundtrack (which is always amazing). The sun just came out again in Los Angeles, and it's time for some dance music. Here's the video to "Indestructible", voted one of the top videos of the week on Stereogum when the video was released back in October.

To hear more of this almost-not-guilty-pleasure-at-all dance music and a new (free) track from MNDR, another female working hard to give us some tunes and look awesomely weird doing it, head to Green Label Sound.

new year. new calendar.

I finally had to retire my calendar of 1.33 years- a 2010 calendar bought in September of 2009, scribbled on to double the dates and used way beyond its $15.00 worth. Then I found this date-keeper on Old Hollywood's website:

A totally stripped down calendar focusing more than half of each month's page on musicians and their lyrics, rather than dates. Nice work. Too bad it's sold out. Too good I made my own...

Old Hollywood's got some really cool stuff to be had though, check out their website here: oldhollywoodmoxie.com