Quick Hit Band Interview: Small Forward

Small Forward at Eagle Rock Music Festival

Interview with the band. Enjoy:

How would you describe your sound? We're heavily influenced by 70s folk, rock and soul (a la Fleetwood Mac and Neil Young) as much as we are by newer indie rock, like SALES and Andy Shauf. Our sound is a blend of all those influences, but also pretty much anything we all listen to across all genres!

What is your favorite Small Forward lyric and what about it makes it so special? I really like the line "I'd hate to see your potential wasted on important days" taken from the song Horses. Kind of shows the confusion/conflict one in their 20s might feel about the things you know, inside, are important vs. the things everyone makes out to be important.

Quick Hit Band Interview: Wild Powwers

Wild Powwers at the Resident

Interview with the band (with Lupe). Enjoy:

What are some things that are currently influencing your music? Depression, anxiety, lack of sleep, general confusion, impatience, and a LOT of pent up aggression. We realize that sounds shitty, but also feel that artists create their best works when their dissatisfied.

I noticed you're on tour. What are some of the complexities in putting together a band tour? Well, considering we don’t have a booking agent and are doing this 100% DIY, it’s a LOT of head work. We feel lucky to have so many good friends around the country who play in rad bands and help put together shows. It takes several hours of computer work every day, for months before each tour (booking, promoting, getting merch together etc). Also, financially it’s stressful. It’s hard to find a (good) job, that is understanding of the time off needed to tour. Even then, it’s not like you make a bunch of money on the road (unless you are a huge band). You’re lucky to break even. That being said it’s pretty fucking fun and the only thing we wanna do.

The unique thing about our band: we all still love each other (after creating music and touring in a van together for 5 years). And somehow, writing and playing angry music makes us feel much much better about the world.

I'm Up On Buzzbands: Feels

Feels

I'm up on Buzzbands with a photo gallery of:

Feels
The Paranoyds
Gustaf
the bank of america.

Comment of the night by The Paranoyds: Does Lexi really swallow Tide Pods? That is when you really need to separate the art from the artist.

Quick Hit Artist Interview: L'Freaq

L'Freaq at The Satellite

Interview with the artist. Enjoy:

How would you describe your sound? I would describe my sound as alternative, fueled by pop and r&b but with a biting edge.

Do you find greater enjoyment writing a great song or performing a great song? Why the choice? I find greater enjoyment performing a song. When the energy in the room is just right and you can feel that your song is resonating with people, it's the most incredible experience.

Own final thoughts: I would love to tour with Nick Cave. I find him enchanting, and he's a huge inspiration of mine.

I'm up on California Rocker: Disco Shrine interview

Disco Shrine at Broke LA (2016)

I'm up on CaliforniaRocker with an interview with Disco Shrine.

The Echo: Lucy and La Mer with WASI and Polartropica

It was more than a few months since the last time I caught Lucy & La Mer. And then, when I did catch the band last, it was just for a couple songs during Echo Park Rising (I was running around shooting for Buzzbands). When I got invited to catch Love is Gay event at The Echo, I jumped at the opportunity. The band opened up with a dance song and I was thinking, "I wonder if they're totally switching their sound around over the last 6 months?" Nope, after that energizer first song, they hit the indie pop tunes I so love this band for.

Lucy & La Mer

Opening the night was WASI, which pumped up the crowd with some power kicks. Bands improve over time and this band has really improved since the last time I caught them. I was super impressed with their set.

WASI

Polartropica puts a touch of Asian traditional music into her pop sounds. And then there's her stage show. You can always count on Polartropica to put on a good show. She opened up the show in what I interpreted as her tribute to Sandro Botticelli's The Birth of Venus painting as she sang from a pink inflatable plastic object that reminded me of a giant scallop shell. Of course, art is up to interpretation, because an individual next to me turned to her friend and said, "Is that a vagina?"

Polartropica

Quick Hit Artist Interview: ARSNK

ARSNK at the Viper Room

Interview with the artist. Enjoy:

How would you describe your sound? My sound is a blend of folk, 90s angst driven rock, electro and an obsession with ethereal worlds.

How do you believe that you, as an artist, have progressed over time? I want to tell bigger stories now. I’m fascinated with this moment when you are in between dream and awake, like a kind of stasis and my keyboardist Jess was saying that she thinks the previous set we were playing was an entirely different color and I love that, that rings true. I like to lace the lyrics in a way that presents as fairy tales. Sonically, I love layered builds that are cinematic as all my music comes to me visually. I want to lead people into an abyss like state but also still be raw, cutting and direct.

What's next for Fierce Femme Sounds (Thea of ARSNK is a co-founder of this musician collective)? We want to start a movement in Los Angeles for women to come forward and seek the support they need for their careers in music. We are absolutely a music industry showcase for women but we want to offer resources that women in music find indispensable too. Hopefully the word gets out that we are putting together nights of amazing female talent and can grow into panel discussions that are relevant to women.

Own final thoughts: I guess my pagan Celtic roots, I just am just so fascinated by the people who walked the earth before us and the landscapes they saw. I spent long childhoods in the Scottish highlands wandering around dilapidated ruins and the wildness of this underpins all the stories I’m telling. My aim is to build an entire world people can be propelled into both musically and visually (I’m also a film maker and make all my own videos).

Quick Hit Artist Interview: Nikki Lorenzo

Nikki Lorenzo at Harvard & Stone

Interview with the artist. Enjoy:

What are some of the things that are currently influencing your music? Poetry and quite simply experiencing life.

What is one of your high or low moments (music related) and what makes it stand out? To combine the two, I would say being heartbroken, because it felt extremely isolating and lonely; to the point that I had nothing else to do but write about it and create some of my favorite music with it. Also, having a jazz band on the side (which fills another musical part of me) that I got to perform with at The Geffen Playhouse and The Wallis Annenberg Theatre.

Quick Hit Band Interview: Murci

Murci at Harvard & Stone

Interview with the band (with Curt). Enjoy:

How would you describe your sound? We want you to imagine a fantasy world in which Prince, Michael Jackson, Rick James and George Micheal might have hung up their differences and somehow met on a chemical-fueled summer eve behind the mixing board . . . at least, that’s how we’ve imagined it. There’s this element of classic club cuts as well. Pulled from crates of early 90’s Manchester or Chicago in ’85. It’s essentially made for the dance floor and your headphones. However, you choose to escape.

Outside of music, what are some of your other interests? Definitely leisure time. Definitely. Lounge chairs, pools, underground night clubs, bikini designs from the mid 70s, dirty gin martinis . . . that kind of stuff. But when it really comes down to it, it's music 110%. We spend a lot of hard-earned time in the studio, all night long, looking for that next floor shaker to bring to life.

Own Q&A: How do you feel about the local (LA) music scene these days? We definitely would love to see some of these creators pull their forces together. Especially those that are passionate, original and . . . nice. It's big business here, can't let anyone tell anybody you can't make a career out of it. There is a hierarchy, there is a bourgeois state and there's barely any financial support at the bottom of the hill, but hey, fire in the heart will burn down the status quo. We just wanna be a part of that.

Quick Hit Band Interview: Slugs

Slugs at The Echo

Interview with the band (with Marissa). Enjoy:

What's the story behind how the band started? I'd been writing songs and recording them in my bedroom for about a year when I met Sarsten (bass/vocals) at our coffee shop job and then, Josh (guitar) at a house show. The three of us, plus my brother James, started to jam on my acoustic songs and soon after started playing shows whenever we could.

How has the band gelled together as a group? It's a blast! We're all friends and we love playing music. I want to see us all succeed and to do it within a rock n roll band together, that's a dank dream.

Quick Hit Artist Interview: Lauren Lakis

Lauren Lakis at The Viper Room

Interview with the artist. Enjoy:

What's the story behind when you knew you wanted to become a singer? I first wanted to be a musician when I was 15 and discovered riot grrrl bands from the 90s (especially Hole, Babes in Toyland, Sleater Kinney, etc) but never had the confidence to really pursue it until years later. I started singing in my first band about 5 years ago, and started to feel more capable of writing my own songs as time went on. After surviving a terrible break-up and my mom going through a traumatic car accident, something shifted within me and I decided to get out of my own way and finally write my first solo album, which I just released this summer.

Do you find greater enjoyment writing a great song or performing a great song? Why the choice? They are such different experiences, it's hard to choose! Writing a song is spiritual - the process feels like I'm channeling it, like the song is coming through me as if I'm a conduit. It's very personal, and finding those pockets of inspiration are exhilarating. On the flip side, connecting with an audience and my band mates while we perform is sort of the whole point of music making - to share in this human experience through art. I don't think I can choose because both elements are important.

Own unique band comment. My band mate, Becca (keys/bass), and I are both from the same neighborhood in Baltimore . . . but we never knew each other then. We met when we were both servers at Cafe Gratitude here in LA. Small world!

Quick Hit Artist Interview: Jane Machine

Jane Machine at the Viper Room

Interview with the artist. Enjoy:

Q. What is currently influencing your music? A. My first album was mainly inspired by internal conflict and desire. I think that’s how first albums can work because you basically have all of these things in your life that have led up to you finally putting out a collective body of music and so there’s kind of a lot of shit to get out. These days I find it’s been moving a little bit outward, the subject matter of the tracks. Ideas for songs generally come to me in dreams or right at that moment where you’re about to go to sleep or just waking up. I also don’t just sit around playing with melodies, they generally just come to me because I have something I want to say and about 80% of the songs are written at once. So these days the fact that I am recording all of my music out in the desert definitely has inspired the amount of space in the songs and I even think the amount of space and more softness in the vocal takes. I find myself writing more about issues that are out of myself and concern more of a larger human or an environmental scale versus my own personal demons which was the first album. But hey we all have a concern for both, don’t we?

Q. Where is your favorite spot to write music? And why the spot? A. I have a studio out in the Joshua Tree area where I write and record the majority of the music. It’s on 5 acres so there is really nobody to disturb and it is on top of the Mesa so you really do feel like you’re on the moon. As I just mentioned, I write and arrange about 80% of the songs at a time and then I’m really lucky to have some beautiful musicians (who I play with live who are part of the creative integrity of the project now) track guitar or drums or bass or whatever didn’t feel right for me to play.

Basically, I’ll create a really advanced demo and then we will play with that for concerts or whatever and that has truly shaped the new tone of Jane Machine and it’s a tone that I think is a little bit more alive than the previous album. Jules de Gasperis has played a huge part in the project as more than a drummer, but also has helped a lot with production and structure ideas, as well as mixing all of the songs. Sonically for the recordings his mixing work and little production details are why it sounds as large and punchy as it does. I’m really looking forward to releasing the new tracks very soon and can’t wait for you to hear them!

Up on Buzzbands: Turtles on Speed, The Tracks, The Premonitions (The Hi Hat)

Photos I took on a recent night at The Hi Hat are up on Buzzbands.

Turtles on Speed
The Tracks
The Premonitions

Quick Hit Band Interview: MRCH

MRCH at the Moroccan Lounge

Interview with the band (with Mickey). Enjoy:

How would you describe your sound? Indie electronic / synthwave. Somewhere in the vein of Metric, Phantogram & perhaps Cocteau Twins. DIY.

If folks from Los Angeles were going to visit Phoenix, what bands or venues would you suggest they check out?

A.

Venues: Valley Bar, Crescent Ballroom, The Van Buren, Rebel Lounge. All great spots with awesome sound, good food & drinks, friendly staff. Plus the best bands from all around on any given night. Phoenix can be a little unique in its preferences too, so you can often see a band like Alvvays or Cut Copy play for a 500 cap space - so it’s a nice cozy experience.

Bands:

There’s a really wide range of musical tastes in the PHX scene. Here are a few we dig -

Secret Attraction (shoe-gazy-verbed vox & synths)
Nanami Ozone (garage rock)
Paper Foxes (alt pop)
Playboy Manbaby (ruckus punky stuff)
House of Stairs (jazz fusion)

Own final thoughts: I (Mickey) am a vegan. Jesse’s favorite thing in the universe is a good al pastor street taco. We agree on the excellence of Pete Rock.