Anna Webber – Los Angeles Photographer

Blitzen Trapper plays at the El Rey Theater Anna Webber

The Oregon backwoods shepherded Blitzen Trapper to the El Rey Theater last week for a full set of rustic country mountain songs. They killed it every chord, key, smack and shake. Playing everything we all love about them and more, they  included a Bob Dylan cover and other songs that sound exactly – like Bob Dylan.

Singer Eric Earley’s softer “Lady on the Water” put you on a dark cloud covered lake in the mountains, seamlessly soft in their weathered hinterland style. “Furr” is a song Bob Dylan might have written, very Queen Jane Approximately inspired lyrics, harmonica and intonations.

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Rain machine @ the echo sept 25th

Kyp Malone of TV on the Radio debuted his anticipated new solo project Rain Machine at the Echo in LA Friday. The Echo is a scenester’s local well, and Rain Machine continued to chip the paint off it’s charcoal walls with Kyp Malone’s  steep hiccupping intonations and bristling world class coiffure. His voice is key to TV on the Radio’s sound; it got hard to differentiate between the two, and some of the songs flowed together consequentially.

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By: Anna Webber

A little groggy on his fourth cup of coffee, clinking dishes in a New York kitchen, Matisyahu describes the incredible time difference between there, and where he just arrived from – Australia. He was out touring in support of his newest album, Light.

Matisyahu is a sprightly emcee who has been blending Hasidic Judaism with dancehall reggae since his emergence in 2004. He reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Heatseekers Chart after the release of Live at Stubb’s in 2005, with Youth reaching No. 4 on Billboard’s top 200 at its debut the following year.

Youth hit No. 1 on the Reggae Albums chart, gaining some serious critical acclaim by blending Orthodox Judaism and reggae, introducing holy purpose to music – like Bob Marley – at a time when spirituality was necessary in a hardened mainstream. Youth was nominated for a Grammy in 2007 for Best Reggae Album.

With tons of hype already in store from 2008’s Shattered EP, his extensive multi-national summer tour, Light’s high-profile collaborations and the Where’s Matis At Initiative (wheresmatis.at; his interactive social media space), his recent release should be well-received. Light is the most personal record Matisyahu has done, having a darkness to it he describes as “internal struggle and strife that comes from Jewish source, but can almost feel like it has a lot of eastern themes to it. A lot of ideals, emptiness within, allowing oneself to be with oneself.”

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Devendra Banhart, the family affair
By Anna Webber

Chronicle Books, Filter magazine and Space15Twenty kicked off  a month-long gallery event Saturday with the ³Family: Photographs by Lauren Dukoff² Book signing and celebrational gathering with special guests Devendra Banhart, Matteah Baim, Ariana Delwari, Hecuba, and others.

It’s dusk in Hollywood, the devoted arrive early, the restless in line, the new-age hippie kids of Los Angeles, Topanga, and Laurel Canyon feed in and usher through the chipped brick corridors of the open air venue. They want to reminisce and imagine what it was, and existentially adhere to the dream. They are there to sit in Lauren Dukoff’s shoes, the one lucky enough of all of us to have been there at the right time, to have high-schooled with Devendra, a few years younger. It’s the Almost Famous story of a kid who got hooked in, literally, hooked in, and mentored by the new ones. Not the Rainbow children who weave baskets and sleep in vans, no longer the sort from obsolete Woodstock communes of 50 years ago. But so much the same, yet so much more innocent.

Members of the Family include Devendra, Joanna Newsom, Bat For Lashes, Vetiver, Cibelle, Hecuba and more. Lauren, with her long black pigtailed hair, rosy cheeks and dark, purple eyes, has photographed them all. She sits behind a table of books, posters, and flyers, hugging hippie boy after hippie girl, scrawling loose signatures across each of her bound books. She hugs each and every one, each dressed in their Sunday’s best, feathers and beads. To an outsider, it really was a family affair. Most looked the same, and similarly familiar. It goes to show its not just the glam-rocker batty-eyed stilleto-ed Too-Good-For-You’s here in LA. The place was packed full, and the line outside wrapped around the corner.

The sun sets and Devendra walks through the crowd to the stage, meeting there Adam Tullie, and Angeline Rivas. The set was fine, just fine, just three songs and a half. Two were full instrumentals, there were no lights, little volume. But you could hear a pin drop. Few were satiated, but after getting past the hurried set one realizes it’s not the music everyone was there for, it was the feeling. This was Lauren’s night.

Allman Brothers @ The Greek 05/18/09

Not much has changed about the Allman Brothers since the old days except, they’ve gotten better. One of the tightest, most succinct jam-bands still alive, it was only fitting my mom would be my plus one on their 40th Anniversary Tour.

It’s clear that the Allmans are dedicated to a very real, very rich, very down home deep echoing-canyon style of backyard jam progressions. The boys had three percussionists – two drummers, one Latin percussion player wielding a full rig of congas, timbalis, bongos, chimes, ringers and tingers – added the perfect touch of trebling percussion between the two equivalently rigged drummers. And even though Derek Trucks still looks to be the age of twelve, he stands poised with calm caution and smooth precision, ripping and wailing hide off his hands. Covers of Bob Dylan’s “Highway 61″ and “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry” with surprise guests Tom Petty (and his Heartbreakers) were otherworldly, save Petty’s signature nasal-rich Bob Dylan imitations. The Allman Brothers were all surprises – 15 minute drawn out jams aside. I had heard a rumor Petty would be at the show, but the spotting of Bruce Willis taking the stage with harmonica in hand made my music heart tremble with fear, until he started commanding the thing, with his whole body, during “Morning Dew.” I immediately knew that could easily have been the sexiest thing I’ve seen. The boy’s got talent.

The Doobie brother’s opening up for the Allman’s was nary the shocker, for reasons too obvious to note, but a great decision for the song “Black Water.”  No, these are not forgotten oldies. With 2 drummers, and 7 members total, the Doobie’s know how to light up a crowd – very literally. I look over at the cute mom to my side, who is persistently sneezing, who looks up at me and says, “All those doobies are making me sneeze!” You think only twenty-somethings know how to party?

April 21, 2009 by Anna Webber

She’s what Stevie Ray Vaughan would look like without a soul patch and the Texasflooder Manny Gammage hat. That was a certain likeness – and the first immediate good sign. She could have a wailing match on par with Caleb Followill, and her cracking pitchy snarling voice would surely win. If she wasn’t wearing little heels, she could probably jump around a little more, but dirty blues woman Erika Wennerstrom packs a punch and holds no mercy.

The Heartless Bastards took the stage and needless to say, the shimmery blue sequined bandstand disappeared and the crowd was slammed into what could have been Townes Van Zandt’s Hole in the Wall in Austin, TX, Wennerstrom’s hometown. Her little physique was no foolin’, and her strapping bronchial tubes tore through all the lonely ones out there saluting their Shiner Bocks dry. The Heartless Bastards are a bare-bones band, whose sound may possibly be as timeless as the music genre they’ve landed in. Keep an eye out, they’ve got a hot US tour rolling through, as well as a short bit in Europe, then back for some big shows at ACL Music Festival, Bonnaroo in Nashville, and SF Outside Lands.

Erika Wennerstom of The Heartless Bastards - photo: Anna Webber

Following his performance at Coachella, Paolo played an intimate showcase luncheon Tuesday at the Viper Room in Hollywood to debut his upcoming release, Sunny Side Up.

The Viper Room and Atlantic Records supplied the Open Bar and luncheon – however – it didn’t matter how drunk they got the guests, the music was phenomenal. By the first song, enough honest sweat was flowing out of his pores to mean he would not be letting up anytime soon – he’d done this before. Paolo has got the same Johnny Lang elated, scathing, rasp and quiver, mixed with Jeff Buckley moans and lingering “ooo’s” during the sultry ballads that were to die for. The timelessness of his music would throw a smile across anyone’s face and a chill down their spine as his boyish sincerity dabbled in motown and blues, reggae and barbershop bebop. As he picked up what appeared to be a watered down whiskey, smiling, he says “It’s the first one I’ve done of these things where everybody’s listening.” Not because he’s not extraordinary, but because he can be seen most often playing at big music halls, bigger concert venues, and music festivals like Coachella and Bonnaroo. And his giddy Scottish accent would sometimes sound more like a thick island one. It was adorable. In fact, all but one of the 6 piece band is from Scotland, and his 2007 record went platinum in the UK, and sold about 2 million copies. He played the single off of his last record, “New Shoes”, which Paolo is most notably known for. Keeping an eye on Paolo and awating the release of his next record out in June, he showed no deficit of talent Tuesday, no elevated ego.

Paolo Nutini @ Viper Room showcase (photo: anna webber)

Even though the Ventura Theater is located about an hour short of both L.A. and Santa Barbara, the crowd filled it in for TV on the Radio’s high-octane set Thursday. Three black guys and four white guys comprise the band whose sound is a detailed mix between afro-beat breakdown, funk delicacies, flattening punk rock, and electro-synth reverberations. They put on (with no pun intended) an intrinsically colorful show that slung the crowd through rainbows and gouged them from doldrums with decadent neon textures. Not really anyone wasn’t dancing and sweating, and I’d say it might have been the first time leaving the photo pit actually carrying the scent of the band’s body odor – even Damian Marley’s tour bus left me unscathed in that area. Frontman Tunde Adebimpe danced like a fish out of water while Kyp Malone (vocals, guitar, loops) killed it with a voice sometimes reaching frequencies of Al Green heights, possibly even upwards, but with less gospel gradation. The most crowd response came from songs like Wolf Like Me and Staring at the Sun, and the die-hards hardly missed a word dead on. The Ventura show was the second of 2 shows surrounding L.A. county before they hit the Coachella mainstage Saturday, which they also dominated.

TV on the Radio - Tunde Adebimpe (photo: Anna Webber)

TV on the Radio - Tunde Adebimpe (photo: Anna Webber)

TV on the Radio - Kyp Malone (photo: Anna Webber)

Reviewing Teddy Thompson – Live – opening at the Largo L.A. for Jayhawks’ Gary Louris and Mark Olsen

The sound systems in L.A. usually have a tweeter out or other some such ear jerking clamor rattle out of from its speakers. I have never in my life heard a sound so clear, so full and so ranging, than from British Folk singer’s Teddy Thompson’s acoustic guitar and honeyed voice, as I did Saturday at the Largo.

I drove past the Largo three times, even with my gps suggesting its coordinates were not far, at which point I’d pass it. One sign flashes vertically, blinking “Theater” and another small sign without lights some ways beneath – “Largo”. This place rules.

Red velvet everywhere with burgundy walls and no bar, the Largo is fundamentally one of the last traces of class leeched from the old jazz theater days we can find here in L.A. And for British folk-blues singer/songwriter Teddy Thompson, all seats were occupied. The house filled up absolutely with people that came to hear the music, which can be a pretty novel purpose these days on a Saturday night in the city.

Thompson’s voice resounded with a rhythm that only comes from a practiced musician devoted to his addiction – to melody, to harmony, and sound. His voice is comparable to that of Jackson Brown, or notably, Chris Isaac, Buddy Holly. But that night it was Thompson alone with his guitar, belting it out with lights in his eyes to a pitch black room of a hundred people or so, with chills that could call a storm.

Teddy Thompson

HECUBA

listen while you read:

[01:58] Hecuba – Tom & Jerry

Jon Beasley

(photos: anna webber)

Jon Beasley and Isabelle Albuquerque are a band – and a brand new genre.

By Anna Webber

Hecuba is pretty well clipped in with our L.A. art/pop/space/macabre scene known to lurk around in black boxes and low-beat dub lounges that chip paint off the ceilings in the backstreets of downtown. They’ve toured with Devendra Banhart and friends, and are — absolutely and unequivocally — a delightfully inspired pair. Jon Beasley and Isabelle Albuquerque kick out theatrically crafted, ambient electro-dub – weaving, chugging, spacey, licking, scratching dance … compositions.They’d much rather feather around talking about the music than give the kind of quick-lipped answer that we’re used to. When asked to classify their EP, Sir (Manimal Vinyl), they say it’s of the genre of “Aw-man-I-dunno,” and redirect you to their press site to hinge on what “they all” have to say.

“We find importance to leave it up to the listener … see it how you’d watch a film or story, interpret it that way,” says Albuquerque.

In fact, new interpretations of their music are well received by the band, who publish new mixes of their songs by other people on their site (www.hecubahecuba.com) and their MySpace (www.myspace.com/hecubahecuba). Their Butchy Fuego “Virtual 7” No. 1” Sir re-mix is available as a free download at hecubahecuba.com.

Sir creeps and croons across hypnotic, dreamlike non sequitur. It can echo you along a trance-y lull or make you feel like you’re at an underground dance party with Tom and Jerry, Yoko Ono and a twitching videogame caught on “Berzerk,” maybe “Asteroids.”

These songs were birthed out of a cartoon, and equally characteristic, they are playful, fun, on the edge of dangerous and moving. What then courses out from the cat-and-mouse pair is a flossing through rhythms and sound bites with rapid precision.

This EP is a swathing of echoes through loud speakers and ends up something that the media feels the need to be qualified, quantified, categorized, customarily. Aw man, just go listen.

“We are really into theater … [the name Hecuba] was a joke, now it’s really more serious. It’s the tragicality, the theatricality of the character Hecuba … she got into the sensibility of what we were playing,” remarks Albuquerque.

The character Hecuba went insane after seeing the grisly dead corpses of her children Polydorus and Polyxena.

“Our music was inspired by L.A. We started out in New York, working on science fiction musical projects, theatrical stuff. The music turns itself out, we let the ideas go wherever they want to go,” says Beasley.

As entertainers who have a heavy history in theater and film, the intrigue seems to lie partly in the access one gets to audience perception in order to power each individual show.

“Every place is so different. We try to make our shows uniquely specific to the place,” says Albuquerque. “Our music takes on a lot of different characters.”

In 2007 Hecuba went with Banhart on his West Coast tour. When asked what that was like, Albuquerque starts laughing, “Oh! There was this one time at the Orpheum Theatre in L.A., Devendra got all these kids up on stage, they started dancing … it was wild. The stage almost fell down, the fire marshal got called … pretty beautiful.”

Devendra has dubbed Hecuba “the best band in L.A.”

“The next record is going to be so different from the EP. We hope as many different people as possible will be interested in our music,” Beasley says. “A full-length pop record. We are making songs that are incredibly musical, actually, inspired in part by Michael Jackson. We are excited to hear it start turning itself out.”

Sir is currently available. Hecuba will perform Oct. 31 at the Hammer Museum and Nov. 11 at the Smell. For more information, visit hecubahecuba.com.