Ian Curtis

Iceage - The Echoplex - 3/29/13

Iceage The Echoplex 3/29/13 Better Than... Throwing elbows to meet Joy Division's Peter Hook at his book signing in Silver Lake a couple weeks ago. To say that the lads in Copenhagen band Iceage don't give a fuck would not be entirely accurate, but it goes a ways in expressing the group's effortl ... More >>

Ode to Joy Division

New Order - The Greek Theatre - 10/7/12

New Order The Greek Theatre 10/7/12 A lot has changed for New Order since they last played Los Angeles in 2001. Longtime bassist Peter Hook criticized and subsequently left the band, and in 2009 after their second break-up singer/guitarist Bernard Sumner vowed to never make music again with them. I ... More >>

A Place to Bury Strangers - Echoplex - June 7, 2012

A Place to Bury Strangers Echoplex 6-8-12 Even outside of their hometown New York base, A Place to Bury Strangers has a diehard fan base. In the smoking courtyard of the Echoplex last night, a man in a leather jacket told a much younger woman, also wearing leather, that he had driven all the way f ... More >>

Five Must-See L.A. Bands at SXSW

Initially a place where music executives could check out a bunch of emerging bands in the span of a few days, SXSW has become the spring break of the music biz. Bands from all over the globe descend on Austin hoping to convince the masses they're the next big thing. While megastars like Bruce Spring ... More >>

Inni: Sigus Ros' Second Movie

Music Picks: Joan Osborne, Tears for Fears, the Cute Lepers, J. Cole, Low

Also Bon Iver, Cerebellion, Surfer Blood and others

Peter Hook and The Light - The Music Box -9/14/11

Daniel Kohn​Peter Hook and The Light The Music Box 9/14/11 See also: Peter Hook on Joy Division and New Order: "Ian Curtis Was Too Unique a Person to Copy" Better Than... attending the X-Factor premier. When a musician reaches back into his catalog and hits the road playing a classic album, ... More >>

Peter Hook on Joy Division and New Order: "Ian Curtis Was Too Unique a Person to Copy"

Mark McNultyPeter Hook​Peter Hook, the potent bassist of Joy Division and New Order, who had just returned from sunny Spain, sat in the comforts of rain and gloom in his native England home while we talked over a crackly phone connection last Thursday morning. Hook and his backing band The Li ... More >>

Music Picks: NKOTBSB, Mixed Message, Earthless

Also, Catwalk, Holly Miranda, Darwin Dees, and others

Live Review: Lord Huron at Troubadour

Danielle BacherLord Huron​WHO: Lord Huron featuring Calder Quartet, The Union Line and Milo Greene WHERE: Troubadour WHEN: 5/14/11 Never have a headliner and their venue been a better fit in name. Ben Schneider, the Michigan-born singer-songwriter who began to record as musical alter ego Lord ... More >>

Bob Dylan's L.A. Weekly Birthday Cake: Tangled Up in Frosting

Eating Bob Dylan (In Chocolate)

Star ForemanBob Dylan birthday cake​ Where did we go when we wanted a likeness of Bob Dylan painted on a cake for the cover of this week's LA Weekly? To Kate Steffens, the DJ and chocolatier who specializes in rock 'n roll cakes via her baking enterprise behind Straight Outta Chocolate. From B ... More >>

Q&A with Joy Division's Peter Hook

An album tour of Unknown Pleasures resonates with fans

Joy Division's Peter Hook: "We Wanted to Sound Like The Damned and The Sex Pistols"

​After a Joy Division U.S. tour was thwarted 30 years ago, the opportunity for most Americans to hear the band's 1979 debut album live was, much like its title, an unknown pleasure. For the past several months, Peter Hook -- without fellow Joy Division/New Order members Bernard Sumner and Step ... More >>

Former Ghosts' New Album 'New Love' Out Today

​ Out today on Upset The Rhythm: Second album New Love from L.A. band Former Ghosts, which is Freddy Ruppert (This Song Is A Mess But So Am I) with friends Jamie Stewart (Xiu Xiu), Yasmine Kittles (Tearist) and Nika Roza Danilova (Zola Jesus). Last album Fleurs was unflinchingly intimate--a b ... More >>

The American: As American as Existential Dread

Anton Corbijn turns the tried-and-true thriller inward

Over the Weekend: The National ( Ramona Falls) at the Wiltern

Photograph by Paul R. Giunta courtesy of Prefix MagazineThe National​Before seeing The National at The Wiltern, I already had cheap shots ready for this introduction, all centered on one cold, snarky question: Is Joy Division from Brooklyn? On Saturday night, as the sun dropped into the down ... More >>

Tonight: Xiu Xiu Bring Their Art-Shock to The Echo

The Doctor Will Spritz You Now: Xiu Xiu​Dear God I Hate Myself is the latest provocation from Xiu Xiu, the San Jose band formed by Jamie Stewart and assorted collaborators (former Xiu Xiu agit-prop includes albums called Knife Play, Fabulous Muscles and Fag Patrol, songs with titles like "Ian ... More >>

Stage Raw: The Wooster Group's "North Atlantic"

 COMPREHENSIVE THEATER LISTINGSNEW REVIEWS THE 31ST ANNUAL L.A. WEEKLY THEATER AWARDSECHO CHAMBERS Resonances from The Wooster Group's North Atlantic​Ground Control to Major Tom Photo by Paula Court If you drive through the San Gabriel Mountains, where radio reception is already dodgy, set ... More >>

The Horrors: London’s Burning

Prowling cobblestone streets, telling tales of murder with bloodcurdling screams

Nine Inch Nails at Palladium: Sweat and Darkness

Never let it be said that Trent Reznor can't admit when he's wrong. Last spring's co-headlining tour with Nine Inch Nails and Jane's Addiction was an exciting idea; two alt-rock giants -- one exiting the music scene, the other re-entering -- hitting the road together. But it wasn't NIN's tour to ste ... More >>

Rock Picks: Camper Van Beethoven, Cass McCombs, AC/DC

Also, Twilight Circus Dub Sound System, Magda, Hedgehog, Mos Def and others

INCHES005: New Wax from The Mars Volta, Glasser, Wet Hair, Kissing Cousins ( MP3s, video, chart)

In the unpredictable wake of music's digital rebirth, vinyl has experienced a modest boom in popularity, seen by many (with delicious irony) as a replacement for the awkward middleman that is the compact disc. INCHES seeks not only to review the output of L.A.'s healthy vinyl community (artists and ... More >>

West Coast Sound Interviews Silk Flowers re: Christian Bale, the Smell and Sun-Bleached Chicken Bones

​ New York's proud sons Silk Flowers make the kind of mood music you can loose yourself in on a sunny winter day, traversing the long open roads of your neighborhood trying figure out what it all means. A most excellent mix of the hypnotic 80s electronic sounds and bizarre noises, the band is ... More >>

Ten Great Cover Songs from Coachella 2009 (and a few extras)

Timothy NorrisEven the machinery was flashing the horns. Nothing says "I love you" like a cover song. Artists at Coachella like to acknowledge their influences, love to thrill the crowd with a surprise singalong. This year bands drew from music of many genres, from ragtime to post punk to hip hop. ... More >>

Last Night: Kaiser Chiefs Score at Henry Fonda Theatre

Foxtail Wagging

Bolthouse unlocked; playing out; reel rock & roll

Portishead at the Edinburgh Corn Exchange, Scotland 4.12.08

Photos by Rena Kosnett Claiming that I just happened to catch a Portishead concert during my recent visit to the UK would fashion me a liar. The trip was pretty much planned AROUND the Portishead show in Edinburgh. I probably wouldn't have gone up to Scotland at all if not for the concert; so fo ... More >>

Joy Division to the World

Ian Curtis’ afterlife seems like it’s been one big after-party

Unknown Pleasures

Joy Division portrait, Control, proves the exception to the rock-biopic drool

In Control

Anton Corbijn masters the moving image

Rock Picks: The Humpers, Secretary Bird, Cut Chemist & DJ Shadow

For the week of June 21–28

Anti-Gravity Rainbow

The Klaxons' Myths of the Near Future

Gnarls Barkley, the Beauty of Being Blunt, and the Poppy Lips Battle the Apocalypse

Shit, Forgot the Drugs

She Wants Revenge at El Rey Theater, January 20

Editors at Cinespace

Meet Interpol’s heirs apparent, all drizzled in Celtic melancholy and hope

Live in LA

Tender-Fried Juicy Love Bits

Poet Against the War

Blood Rush

No more Coldplay, show us the love

Letters

Street Action

From Requiem to Rave...

...and back again, in Michael Winterbottom’s 24 Hour Party People

The Ghosts of 'Madchester'

A Mythic Thing

Tony Wilson on the city of Manchester, the Sex Pistols, Joy Division, Factory Records, New Order, the Hacienda Club, Happy Mondays . . . had enough yet?

New Dawn Fades

Joy Division's grim effervescence

Love Will Tear Us Apart

Ian Curtis, 1956 - 1980: No Rest, No Peace By Tony Wilson from his memoir 24 Hour Party People

The Painted Word

From the Shadows

Joy Division's tell-tale heart