Mixtape #48: Sitting Out On Your House, Watching Hardcore UFOs

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.

Standing as my favorite mixtape of the past several weeks, today’s collection features a diverse survey of Californian musicians — Best Coast, the Soft Pack, Henry Clay People, the Beach Boys, Foreign Born, Kárin Tatoyan and Beck – along with favorite tracks by Guided By Voices, Superchunk, Liz Phair, Captain Beefheart, Sun Kil Moon, and more.  It’s a nice batch of road-trip worthy rock and indie-pop; tracklisting and song info after the jump.

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June 30, 2010 | Filed Under Exclusive Features, Featured Media, Mixtapes | Leave a Comment 

Things on the horizon…

Regular readers of Web in Front may have noticed a decrease in daily content this summer — and while this is surely an embolism-causing turn of events for you, my regulars, fret not: Web in Front is not slipping away into the night.  Rather, I’m getting into a new local music endeavor/ project that has begun to steal away a great deal of my free time/ brainpower as far as la la land music is concerned.  It’s going to rock, but it’s also going to keep things around here in relatively low gear for the next few weeks.

So, just fyi, Web in Front is marching on, and look for news on this new local music project in the (hopefully) near future.  So readers, keep reading; bands, keep sending your music; and spammers, please keep leaving comments about how I can nab a great time-share in south Florida.  Thanks!

June 29, 2010 | Filed Under Exclusive Features, Music News | Leave a Comment 

New Tunes: Red Cortez – “Cherokee Heart”

Serving as a prelude and preview to their devilishly good debut LP (which will hopefully see the light of day this year–it’s a stunner), Red Cortez’s “Cherokee Heart” swings from slowburn hymn to rock ‘n roll swagger over the course of three minutes without a single second going to waste.  Check it out below, and keep those fingers crossed for a Red Cortez full-length in 2010.

June 29, 2010 | Filed Under New Tunes | Leave a Comment 

Album Review: Various Artists – L’Adventure

album-laventure

By Travis Woods

Release Date: 6.22.10

Label: Autumn Tone

Opening with the elastic grooves and the swaggering anthemics of “Glory” by way of the Henry Clay People’s SoCal rock classicism, Aquarium Drunkard’s L’Adventure (a covers compilation of Television’s second record, Adventure, featuring eight L.A.-based bands) certainly lives up to the original’s title – by taking Television’s criminally underheard/ underappreciated second album and using it as the overarching narrative to bind together eight of la la land’s most compelling and exciting musical acts, the AD comp essentially hurls the listener on a giddy sonic rollercoaster that moves breathlessly from rock ‘n roll to dreamy pop to punkish bloodletting, but all within Television’s alternately lovely and hypnotic funhouse.

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June 25, 2010 | Filed Under Album Reviews, Music News, New Music Preview | Leave a Comment 

Mixtape 47: “This Human Form Where I Was Born I Now Repent–Repent!”

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.

While there’s a myriad of new tunes in today’s mixtape–new tracks from Local Natives, Sharon Van Etten, Jenny Lewis and Jonathan Rice, The Smiles, Seasons, and Telegram, along with older material by My Morning Jacket, Lou Reed, the National, Pixies, and Madeleine Peyroux–the real draw is the mix’s closer, “Good Times!”.  An boozy and freewheeling acoustic jam, the song was composed by Red Cortez’s Ryan Kirkpatrick as a tune to commemorate equally boozy and freewheeling, well, good times had with friends in L.A.  Hang out with the guy at Spaceland, and you find the song sitting in your inbox the next day–and it’ll put a smile on your face.  Tracklisting and song info after the jump.

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June 23, 2010 | Filed Under Exclusive Features, Mixtapes | Leave a Comment 

New Video: The Henry Clay People – “Your Famous Friends”

Taking one of Somewhere on the Golden Coast’s (review here) strongest tracks and giving it the Ronald Reagan People treatment (with a healthy supply of water balloons, flour, and superfan Fieron Santos), the Ben Hoste-directed clip for the Henry Clay People’s “Your Famous Friends” was released today–all irreverent visual non sequiturs and rollicking, piano-driven rock ‘n roll.  Strangely, it’s not far off from a typical HCP show.

June 23, 2010 | Filed Under New Tunes, New Videos | 1 Comment 

Album Review: Seasons – Winter EP

album-winterep

By Travis Woods

Release Date: 6.22.10

Label: Self-released

As was the case with their Summer EP (review here), schizoid psych/rock/pop/electro-ers Seasons have managed to lock onto a singular element of their hydra-necked sound (Summer was a batch of ragged and raging psych-pop; with Winter, it’s moody, ruminative ballads and rockers) and stretch it tight across a five-song EP.  As dark and chilly as Summer was wildly adventurous, this loosely conceptual disc – it’s good for winter listening, get it? – grooves and swaggers through a series of late-night jams with a sense of increasing maturity and weary melancholy only occasionally punctuated by the band’s penchant for sonic freakouts.

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June 22, 2010 | Filed Under Album Reviews, New Music Preview | Leave a Comment 

New Video: Fol Chen – “In Ruins”

As a prelude to their new album, Part II: The New December, and it’s release in July, Fol Chen dispatched director Chris Wilcha (This American Life) to the erupting Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland.  There he shot the video for the band’s new single “In Ruins,” all schizoid bedroom-pop married to gear-grinding beats.  Fitting imagery, considering the song’s post-apocalyptic wordplay–check it out.  And be sure to catch the band’s record release show at the Echo on July 6th.

Via Pitchfork.TV

June 21, 2010 | Filed Under New Music Preview, New Tunes, New Videos | Leave a Comment 

When You Awake Presentes: A Tribute to the Beach Boys (Sweet Relief Musician’s Fund Benefit – 6.19.10)

BeachBoys

June 18, 2010 | Filed Under Music News | Leave a Comment 

Mixtape #46: “It Takes An Ocean Not To Break”

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.

This week’s mixtape finds me almost totally embedded in new music, from new tracks by the National, Best Coast, the Black Keys, Hold Steady and Film School, and peppered with slightly older tracks from the likes of Autolux and Robert Francis.  It’s a quick primer on some of the best new releases of the past few weeks, and a preamble to our Best Music of 2010 Part II that’s coming up shortly (Part I is here).  Tracklisting and song info after the jump.

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June 16, 2010 | Filed Under Featured Media, Mixtapes | Leave a Comment 

Free Ticket Giveaway: Woodsist Festival @ The Echoplex/ The Echo (6.15.10)

Looking for a free way to have your ears blown away tonight?  Try the Woodsist Festival tonight at the Echoplex and Echo, which will feature Real Estate, Woods, Kurt Vile, Abe Vigoda, Art Museums, The Mantles, Nodzzz, Sun Araw, All Saints Day (Katy from Vivian Girls + Greg from Cat Power), and The Baths. Moreover, if you’d like to see that stellar lineup for free, hit us up on our Twitter — we’re giving away three free pairs of tix to the show by 1 PM today.  See you there.

woodsistMBflyer

June 15, 2010 | Filed Under Exclusive Features, Music News | Leave a Comment 

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