Album Review: The Morning Benders – Big Echo

By Travis Woods

Release Date: 3.9.10

Label: Rough Trade

A record that more than lives up to its title, the Morning Bender’s Big Echo takes the Kinks-y, ‘60s-pop-meets-‘00s-indie of 2008’s Talking Through Tin Cans and blows it wide open with an atmospheric burst of woozy and echo-laden Phil Spector-styled production.  With knob-twisting assistance from Grizzly Bear’s Chris Taylor, the Benders have expanded their sound, crafting a collection of lightly neurotic, richly detailed songs jacketed with complexity and a seemingly endless series of knowing sonic references.  But with songs like the sprightly, jangling “Cold War (Nice Clean Fight),” the crunchy stop-start grooves of “Promises,” and the epic pop majesty of the Back to Mono’d (and album highlight) “Excuses,” the Morning Benders have done more than imitate the best moments of their predecessors; with Big Echo, they’ve made a warm, moody disc of intelligent pop, one that equals what came before it while simultaneously – and joyously – increasing the stakes for what comes next.

Listen to “Excuses” by the Morning Benders

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March 9, 2010 | Filed Under Album Reviews, Exclusive Features | Leave a Comment  |

The Henry Clay People Sign to TBD Records; Third Album to Come in June

Local – and Web in Front – favorites the Henry Clay People continue to move up in the music world: following the release of their exceptional second record, For Cheap or For Free, in 2008, along with opening for fellow L.A. rockers the Airborne Toxic Event on their U.S. tours in 2009, signing with the C3 management company, and snagging a slot at last year’s Lollapalooza (also managed by C3), the Henry Clay People announced today their signing to TBD Records.

TBD (a sublabel of ATO Records), you may remember, is the label responsible for the physical distribution of Radiohead’s pay-what-you-want digital download album, In Rainbows.  The label will release the People’s upcoming raucous third album (the glammy, gritty and swaggering Somewhere on the Golden Coast) in early June.

Listen to “Slow Burn” and “Working Part Time” (new version) from Somewhere on the Golden Coast

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March 8, 2010 | Filed Under Music News, New Music Preview | Leave a Comment  |

Residency Diary: The Delta Mirror, Part One

Residency Diaries are exactly what they sound like: the thoughts, musings, and scribbles of rock bands as they host a series of month-long shows in various Los Angeles venues. This month’s R.D. entries are from the Delta Mirror, whose dark, shoegazed electronica can be heard every Monday night in March for free at the Echo.

Listen to “He Was Worse Than the Needle He Gave You” by The Delta Mirror

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March 1st (first night)

So here we are, jazzed about the fact that we just booked a SXSW showcase with The Whigs and Henry Clay People for C3 presents, when Matt Halverson at Lefse calls and says, “Hey Liz wants to give you a residency at The Echo.”  This is really exciting to me as it would be our first residency anywhere, and this is what I’m telling Matt when he says, “Well hang on. She wants you to do it in March.” The decision between SXSW and a residency in the town you live is really no decision at all, but we also just booked Neon Reverb festival in Vegas with Spindrift and Mere Mortals, so this just didn’t seem possible to me. Luckily Liz was pretty cool about it. She said that since there were five Mondays in March, and we were already booked for February 24th with Oliver Future, we could take March 22nd off and still hit the road for a couple weeks. I think my exact words were “Fuck it, lets do it.”

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March 7, 2010 | Filed Under Concert Reviews, Exclusive Features, Residency Diaries | 1 Comment  |

Podcast: Pavement live in Sydney, Australia (REUNION TOUR – 3.4.10)

27 songs, two hours, two encores — the second show in Pavement’s loooooooooong awaited reunion tour is ever more epic than the first, with Stockton, California’s sordid sentinels laying down an epic, sprawling setlist of gold sounds spanning the band’s entire career, from the opening salvo of Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain’s “Silence Kid” to a particularly energetic singalong take on the gutterfuzz lo-fi of “Summer Babe” to the languid, concert-closing “Spit on a Stranger” from the band’s LP swan song, Terror Twilight.  And the band hits nearly every point in between, bouncing between singles, deep tracks and rarities with a ragged charm and a smirk.  Nothing too revelatory or life-altering is here, nor is there a stifling sense of greatest-hits nostalgia.  It’s simply the sound of one of the 1990’s best bands playing some of that decade’s best songs, and it is good.  Podcast and setlist after the jump.

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March 5, 2010 | Filed Under Featured Media, Podcasts | 1 Comment  |

Record Release Show: The Deadly Syndrome Celebrates ‘Nolens Volens’ Release at the Echoplex (3.25.10)

Download “Wingwalker” from Nolens Volens (email required)

March 4, 2010 | Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment  |

New Video: Manhattan Murder Mystery – “Parking Lot”

All slash-and-burn post-punk kinetics married to an epileptic collage of L.A. locales, the new Simon Cardoza-directed clip for Manhattan Murder Mystery’s “Parking Lot” (from one of our favorite EP’s of 2009) is a lot like the band itself — lo-fi, frenetic, and more than a just little hard to ignore.  Check it out below.

Manhattan Murder Mystery – Parking Lot from Simon Cardoza on Vimeo.

March 4, 2010 | Filed Under Featured Media, New Videos | Leave a Comment  |

Podcast: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers live at the Greek Theatre (8.27.05)

Between the massive, four-disc The Live Anthology that’s dominated my winter listening — seriously, pick that box set up if you can — and the news of a new album, Mojo, and U.S. summer tour, Tom Petty’s been on my mind (and ears) of late.  As such, I’ve been listening to as much live Petty as I can to prepare for catching the man himself this June in Irvine, which leads us to today’s podcast:  Tom Petty live in Los Angeles, at the Greek Theatre.  It’s a hell of a show: the 20-song setlist opens with the one-two punch of “Listen to Her Heart” and “You Don’t Know How it Feels” before delving deep into the Heartbreakers catalog, playing hits, rarities and covers alike before closing up with the inevitable “American Girl.”  Rock ‘n roll bliss.  Podcast and setlist after the jump.

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March 4, 2010 | Filed Under Featured Media, Podcasts | Leave a Comment  |

Mixtape #38: L.A.’s March Residencies Mix

Every Wednesday, Web in Front will be offering up a digital mixtape, comprised of whatever happens to be floating through my head and ears at the time–great local music (including exclusive unreleased tracks from our Featured Artist Interviews), old favorites and oddball obscurities; also featured will be mixes made by some of our favorite Los Angeles musicians, along with the stories and explanations behind their picks.

Somehow, March of 2010 is already upon us, meaning that it’s time for yet another Residency Mixtape, in which we offer up a mix of the bands (both headlining and supporting) that we’re most excited about seeing/ hearing at the free residencies throughout L.A. in March.  This month’s featured bands are almost exclusively in the shoegaze or dream and/or noise-pop vein, bouncing from Warpaint to the Delta Mirror to Pizza! to Moonrats to Twilight Sleep and more.  Tracklisting and song info after the jump.  And be sure to keep an eye out for Residency Diaries by Delta Mirror beginning next week.

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March 3, 2010 | Filed Under Exclusive Features, Featured Media, Mixtapes | Leave a Comment  |

New Tunes/ Free Downloads: Crystal Antlers – “Little Sister” / “Dead Horses”

Having released the unhinged Tentacles (review here) in 2009, and spending the last month “living in La Punta Banda, Mexico where we were working on new songs and being the house band at Los Gordos Cantina,” Long Beach’s Crystal Antlers have returned with a new 7″ recordwith two new songs: the rolling psych pop of “Little Sister” and the spiked, stop-start howls of “Dead Horses.”  The record itself is a limited edition — only 500 copies — but the songs themselves are available for free download on Crystal Antlers’ official website.  Both songs feature the band stretching their legs into catchy, ’60s-styled garage rock and pop, and are definitely worth a listen.  Go get ‘em.

Download “Little Sister” / “Dead Horses”

March 3, 2010 | Filed Under Featured Media, New Music Preview, New Tunes | 3 Comments  |

Album Review: Tenlons Fort – Shelter LP

By Travis Woods

Release Date: 3.3.10

Label: Self-released

A breathy and cavernous expanse of impressionistic folk and quietly rumbling rock, Tenlons Fort’s (aka Jack Gibson) Shelters LP shares the same gorgeous, melancholic space as Neil Young’s After the Gold Rush or On the Beach; however, this is not copycat pop or mimicry—Shelters LP is as honest and unflinching a disc as 2010 has yet to offer.  Full of melancholic strains of wistful lyricism, all delivered in Gibson’s warm and warbly vocal, the album is a lovely slowdrift of one gently staggering song after another—the strum and hum pop of opener “Read It and Weep” folds into the jazzy, confessional “How Would You Live?,” while “Lost in Love” roils with a slowly stinging guitar line before giving way to the aching pleas of “Hold Me.”

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March 2, 2010 | Filed Under Album Reviews | Leave a Comment  |

Podcast: Spoon live @ San Diego Street Scene (9.19.08)

If you’re anything like us, you’ve been obsessing over the newest Spoon record, Transference (review here), of late, losing yourself in the minimalist krautrock drones and cool, hooky pop smarts that barb the sharp disc.  And, if you’re really like us, the album has set you off an major Spoon kick, driving you to snap up every bit of Britt Daniel and Co. ephemera you can find.

Which leads us to today’s podcast, a recording of Spoon’s set at the 2008 Street Scene festival in San Diego, which features a handful of Transference material along with a smattering of older favorites, all buttressed by a stinging horn line and stellar songwriting.  If you’ve exhausted all of your Spoon records, definitely dig into this.  Podcast and setlist after the jump.

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March 1, 2010 | Filed Under Featured Media, Podcasts | Leave a Comment  |

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