In the world of local funk, there are few praises higher than “DJ Soul Sister’s Favorite DJ,” but that’s who will be playing his first show in New Orleans December 17. A 20-plus-year veteran, Dâm-Funk’s star began to rise a few years ago when word of his DJ night, “Funkmosphere,” spread throughout Los Angeles and [...]
Tag Archives: los angeles
AM, Future Sons and Daughters (Filter US Records)
November 1, 2010 – 12:52 am
The singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist AM was raised in Mandeville and graduated from Loyola University in New Orleans. AM himself is usually careful to mention his Crescent City soul influences, but Future Sons and Daughters, his third full-length release, bears a much deeper imprint from the other LA. Recorded and mastered on Santa Monica Boulevard, [...]
Local Natives Discover the Value of Change
October 11, 2010 – 2:04 pm
Success has come quickly to the Los Angeles-based indie rock band the Local Natives, but not as quickly as it may seem at first glance. Although the band released its debut album, Gorilla Manor, on February 16 of this year in the US, the five-piece group has been playing together, in some shape or form, [...]
Talk About Pop Music
August 2, 2010 – 2:55 pm
The EMP Pop Conference has been one of the more thought-provoking gatherings of critics, ethnomusicologists and others who find meaning in pop music. In 2010, it leaves its long-time home in Seattle for Los Angeles, where UCLA and the Experience Music Project will host the conference February 24-27. The call for paper proposals went out [...]
Earl Palmer: Hiding in Plain Sight
November 1, 2008 – 12:01 am
In his 1978 book Rhythm and Blues in New Orleans, writer John Broven quotes Earl King attributing the word “funk” to drummer Earl Palmer. “At the recording sessions, he would say, ‘Look, man, let’s play a little funkier,’ and the word would start going around,” King said. But Palmer’s not known for funk. He was [...]
Privilege and Pleasure
April 1, 2008 – 12:01 am
I just got back from my travels: Los Angeles and Austin. Both are great places to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there, particularly Los Angeles: the weather is glorious, but I hate the impersonality of the place. Austin is a different story. Of course, I’ve been there mostly during South by Southwest, so [...]
Shad Weathersby’s Dreamworld
May 1, 1993 – 12:01 am
Dreamworld. A description of New Orleans. Shad Weathersby’s world on the album of the same name. A world of fantastic realities and everyday fantasies. Photos on his album reveal Weathersby’s personal dreamworld. Eerie photos of him in front of a Royal Street poster shop and walking the ancient bricks of Pirate’s Alley. A photo of [...]
Lenny McDaniel, Bad for Me (Renegade Records)
May 1, 1993 – 12:01 am
When New Orleans expatriate Lenny McDaniel came home after 13 years of self-imposed exile in Los Angeles, he didn’t return empty-handed. He brought along material that became his debut as a bandleader, Bad for Me, a well-crafted collection of meat-and-potatoes R&B. This is a solo effort in the truest sense—McDaniel handed vocal, guitar, bass, harmonica [...]
Cypress Hill, Cypress Hill (Rough House/Columbia Records)
October 1, 1991 – 12:01 am
South Central Los Angeles is a rough place, as any hip-hop listener from any socio-economic background knows. N.W.A. first showed us the reality of police and gang violence amid the tract homes of Compton, California. Now, straight outta Cypress Hill come B-Real and Sen-Dog, tour guides for a new trip through musical mean streets. Cypress [...]
