Artsweek

April 13, 2006

L.A. Confidential

By Aly Comingore

It's no wonder so many music fans hate L.A. With its congested freeways, overpriced concert tickets and pretentious, industry-driven scene, the setting seems bleak for anyone trying to make it big (unless, of course, you...

April 13, 2006

Inside Man | Pay Very Close Attention

By Alyson Osterman

Directors often encourage the audience not to ask questions or come up with their own ideas. Rather, we are expected to remain one step ahead of the central characters, aware of the answers to their problems as we watch ...

April 13, 2006

Slither | It’s Still Considered Passing

By Harrison Coltun

Do the names Roger Corman, John Carpenter and Wes Craven ring any of your bells like they ring mine? These master "horror" filmmakers revel in a trough of second-rate films which, due to their low production quality and ...

April 13, 2006

Artist in Profile: Cuesta Drive

By Sean Swaby

You just can't quite put your finger on Cuesta Drive's CD, Where the Palm Trees Grow. It sounds so familiar, yet at the same time, peculiarly different. That's probably because their vast range of extremely dissimilar in...

April 13, 2006

The Boy Least Likely To | The Best Party Ever | Too Young To Die Records

By Aly Comingore

While my inner judgmental music critic constantly warns me not to judge a book - or album - by its cover, my inner six-year-old sometimes gets the best of me. Such was the case when I caught sight of the debut full-lengt...

April 13, 2006

Mudhoney | Under a Billion Suns | Sub Pop

By Alex Benowitz-Fredricks

Political awareness is ultimately frightening. Most of us - or at least most people who would buy a Mudhoney album - are apprehensively aware of the social/political mess that currently envelopes the United States.

April 13, 2006

Matt Bauer | Nandina | Matt Bauer

By Sophia Kercher

"What luck I had / To somehow draw you in," Bay Area singer Matt Bauer croons in his song "Western States." Listening to Nandina leaves its listener feeling just that - lucky.

April 7, 2006

An Inferno Even Dante Would Love

By Matt Cappiello

Rock and roll is essentially licentious. Though, at its essence it is a fiery and ultimately liberating art. This July, the World/Inferno Friendship Society will release its new record, an amalgamation of cabaret, sailor...

April 7, 2006

Live: KCRW’s A Sounds Eclectic Evening @ Gibson Amphitheatre

By Aly Comingore

Once upon a time, NPR meant droning talk radio, hours of highbrow classical programming and the occasional hour of "world music" aimed at affluent middle-agers. Luckily, this age of pretentiousness has slowly faded into ...

April 7, 2006

Live: Belle & Sebastian / The New Pornographers @ The Wiltern LG

By Staff

Just after the first three songs of the band’s set list, Belle & Sebastian frontman Stuart Murdoch stopped for a moment to check on his bandmates’ morale. Guitarist Steve Jackson quickly answered him wit...

April 7, 2006

“A” for Amen

By Harrison Coltun

While we fight a war with an increasing death toll, attempt to repair the damage of a hurricane disaster which is slipping further and further out of public view, and try to make sense of the announcement that Paula Abdu...

April 7, 2006

Stop Hatin’

By Harrison Coltun

Documentaries are all the rage nowadays. All it takes is a few key items and you’re set. First, you need a camera, hopefully a nice one, none of that skate video looking stuff. Second, you will probably Final Cut P...

April 7, 2006

Yeah Yeah Yeahs | Show Your Bones | Interscope

By Aly Comingore

“Sometimes I think that I’m bigger than the sound,” bemoans Yeah Yeah Yeahs frontwoman Karen O throughout “Cheated Hearts.” The cut is just one of 11 decidedly personal dialogues that O rela...

March 9, 2006

Don’t Panic

By Matt Cappiello

If I was in a rock band, I would ride onstage on a gold-plated motorcycle. Unfortunately, the members of The Academy Is... had too much integrity for this death-defying stunt. However, Artsweek did interview Academy guit...

March 9, 2006

What, No Blarney Stone?

By Sophia Kercher

Dense and sinister-a fog slowly rolls over the audience's heads setting the stage for a performance of visiting playwright Marina Carr's "By the Bog of Cats." The fog preludes the clouds of malady that is to fall over th...

March 9, 2006

Ghetto Musik

By Harrison Coltun

If the "Girl from Ipanema" were alive today, she would certainly be homeless, addicted to drugs or dead. Today's Rio de Janeiro is much different than the Rio that inspired Stan Getz to write that famous song about Brazi...