James Brown

Legendary DJ Alan Freed Received a Strange Form of Payola

Henry Stone is one of those legends in the music biz; he ran ventures including the mega-successful, disco-heavy TK Records (responsible for KC & The Sunshine Band and many more), and helped pioneer the way popular music is distributed and promoted. Hint: In all the sleazy ways you can imagine. In ... More >>

Ghostface Killah and Adrian Younge - The Mayan - 3/28/13

Ghostface Killah with Adrian Younge The Mayan 3/28/13 Somewhere between a classic film score and an adventurous concept album is where Ghostface Killah and Adrian Younge meet on their upcoming album "Twelve Reasons to Die. Inspired by Tarantino and the RZA, the album is heavy in genre specific homa ... More >>

Fanatics! Henry Rollins' KCRW Show Tomorrow Night: Your Ears Are in Good Hands

KCRW BROADCAST #207 03-16-13 See also: Henry Rollins: Our Constitutional Rights Require Constant Vigilance Fanatics! Is this fantastic or what?! We are back on the radio yet again and this one is going to rock! Last week, we had quite the esoteric affair, especially ending with Free Bird. Perhaps ... More >>

Theater to See in L.A. This Week, Including Sherlock's Last Case

No new reviews this week, but these will return at the same time next week, as the new theater season gets underway. See below for complete listings of shows to see this week.In this week's stage feature, we asked our stable of critics what they most dread and anticipate when being assigned a s ... More >>

The Miracle That Is 
A Charlie Brown Christmas

[Editor's note: Weekly scribe Jeff Weiss's column, "Bizarre Ride," appears on West Coast Sound every Wednesday. His archives are available here.] If you look outside while reading this, the odds are that it's sunny and mild. You might see green and red lights and tinseled pine trees glowing through ... More >>

The Five Best Concerts in L.A. This Week

Monday, December 17 The Moonbeams HEMINGWAY'S LOUNGE The Moonbeams' upcoming single might be titled "Life's a Circus," but the song is more mournful and foreboding than cheery or escapist. Lead singer Beck Black howls her bloody imprecations with a solemn, sullen intensity as drummer Adam Alt and g ... More >>

The Five Best Concerts in L.A. This Weekend

Friday, December 14 Thrill Jockey 20th-anniversary party with Wooden Shjips, Liturgy, Trans Am, Kid Millions THE ECHOPLEX Back in the '90s, arty Chicago alt/indie warhorse label Thrill Jockey basically drew the map for marginalized music's move into the mainstream, with a roster including Tortoise, ... More >>

5 Lessons From Nick Hornby's Talk Last Night on Writing and Pop Culture

Nick Hornby rose to fame for expertly explaining the man-boy world to legions. His memoir Fever Pitch chronicles his devotion to the Arsenal football (soccer) league. His novels High Fidelity, About a Boy and, more recently, Juliet, Naked talk of grown men still struggling with relationships. But ... More >>

What Happened to the Reseda Country Club?

The San Fernando Valley doesn't come to mind when you think "iconic clubs," but in the 1980s the West Valley was the place to see acts like Tom Petty, Merle Haggard, Metallica and U2. See also: What Makes the Hollywood Bowl So Perfect? The Reseda Country Club, located on Sherman Way near Reseda B ... More >>

Train Kept a-Soulin'

Fanatics! Henry Rollins' KCRW Show Tomorrow Night: More Aussie Music, Boris

KCRW Broadcast #164 for Saturday, May 12, 2012 See also: Henry Rollins: The Column! R.I.P. MCA Fanatics! Hello from beautiful Western Australia! This will be the last Saturday I will be here. Soon, off to South Africa for a few shows and then, on the 26th, of this month, we will be live on the rad ... More >>

Ice Cube - KDAY Krush Groove - April 28, 2012

Ice Cube, Cypress Hill, Mystikal and others KDAY Krush Groove Gibson Amphitheater April 28, 2012 An invitation to Ice Cube's gangsta nation is tough to decline, even for those on the right side of the law. Which is why at one point during the Krush Groove hip-hop concert on Saturday a yellow-shirte ... More >>

Vintage Trouble's Soulful Homecoming

The hills of Laurel Canyon might not be the first place you'd think to look for a gritty soul band like Vintage Trouble. But one thing that gives the band's rollicking, old-school flavor some authenticity is their decision to rehearse at their drummer Richard Danielson's house there, pitted inside a ... More >>

The Afrobeat Goes On

Henry Rollins: The Column! The War On Christmas Starts With Me

​[Look for your weekly fix from the one and only Henry Rollins right here on West Coast Sound every Thursday, and come back tomorrow for the awesomely annotated playlist for his Saturday KCRW broadcast.] I am a veteran of the War on Christmas. It's been a few days now, and I am just emerging ... More >>

Henry Rollins: The Column! Just the Ticket: Cain and Paterno?

[Look for your weekly fix from the one and only Henry Rollins right here on West Coast Sound every Thursday, and come back tomorrow for the awesomely annotated playlist for his Saturday KCRW broadcast.] We are heading toward the holiday season. Retailers are steeling themselves for what might be ... More >>

Fanatics! Henry Rollins' KCRW Show Tomorrow Night: New York Dolls, Fugazi, Motörhead and more

​KCRW BROADCAST #1248 for Saturday, August 20 Fanatics! Beaming in from Edinburgh, Scotland. The weather is great and the streets are full of people. It is time for the annual Edinburgh Festival. You might remember that I wrote you from here last year. This year, I am only here for two shows. ... More >>

Top Ten Rap Remixes Of '90s R&B Songs

Take that​This Friday, the Stokely Williams-fronted Mint Condition will be taking the stage at Club Nokia. The group came to prominence in the '90s with the huge hit ballad "What Kind Of Man Would I Be?" But beyond Mint Condition's slick soul moments, the band also embraced the mid-'90s trend ... More >>

Now Again's Eothen Alapatt Finally Releases His Dream Soul Reissue

Brick's Picks: We Go to Playboy Jazz Festival for the Music

Music to Pick Up/Download

RIP Cornell Dupree

Cornell Dupree​Famed jazz and R&B guitarist Cornell Dupree passed away Sunday, May 8, in his hometown of Fort Worth, TX. He was 69 years old. At 19, the blues musician joined King Curtis and the Kingpins, playing alongside a young Jimi Hendrix. In the 1960s, he became one of Atlantic Records ... More >>

Fanatics! Henry Rollins' KCRW Show Saturday Night: L.A. Weekly Cover Stars Tearist, Plus La Sera, Lydia Kavina

Timothy Norris​KCRW BROADCAST #113 for Saturday, May 7. Fanatics! Greetings from Louisiana. I am down here doing a little work with National Geographic. It's just the start of a lot of footage we will be shooting over the next several weeks all over America and abroad. It's going to be very ho ... More >>

Vinyl of the Week: Captain Ahab's Grotesque Opus, 'The End of Irony' [MP3]

In the strange wake of music's digital rebirth, vinyl has experienced a modest boom in popularity, seen by many as a replacement for the awkward middleman that is the compact disc. INCHES reviews the output of L.A.'s healthy vinyl community, believing that good music deserves much more than a handfu ... More >>

West African Get Down with Polyrhythmic Songstress Wunmi

West African Get Down with Polyrhythmic Songstress Wunmi

Brick's Picks: Here, There and Way Out There

The Nightlife Before Christmas

Camp Freddy's Billy Morrison and Donovan Leitch List Ten Important Cultural Moments of the 1990s

Editor's note: In honor of the final week of Camp Freddy's December residency, which happens tonight at the Roxy, West Coast Sound asked members of the band to chime in on their favorite music of the decades. Two weeks ago Billy Morrison highlighted his favorite things about the 1970s. Last week Don ... More >>

Abstract Truths

Blues and Ballads on a Budget

I Rode With a Zombie: An Undead Memoir

“Whadda they think this is, Grand Central Station?” my father would always exclaim about the zombies.

Rock Picks: Doves, Ceci Bastida, Carina Round, New York Dolls

Also, The Detroit Cobras, the Aggrolites, Loney Dear and others

Pitchfork Day 3-I Now Pronounce You Hip-Stock

Every time I inasmuch as mention the word "hipster" on the blog these days, some Mensa Mind has to scrawl some stupid, scurrilous statement about how "maaan, all you do is stereotype hipsters and make egregious generalizations and you, Jeff Weiss, are the worst writer in the history of time. Plus, ... More >>

Record Reviews: Badd Santa, Beanie Sigel, Regime Noir

Holiday music that doesn't suck, unhinged thug talk and a MySpace page

Bricks Picks: Old Forms, New Sounds

Kenny Burrell, Davi Vieira, Sal Marquez and more

War by any Other Name Sounds Just as Sweet

Take that pearl

Rock Picks

For the week of April 26 – May 3

Sales Go Soft. Shins Go Limp. Rock Critics Go Limper.

Heart and Lungs

Charles Lloyd, Zakir Hussain and Eric Harland's new album and Omar Sosa's Mulatos Remix.

Beyond Bubbly

The Style Council’s New Year’s Eve party mixes

Live in LA

Think Pink

Love or Fusion

The Voice of America

Deep listening with DJ Shadow

New Music

African Sunrise

Melting into Chocolate City

Soul Stirrer

The gospel according to Bobby Womack

Shout at the Devil

Public Enemy rants to the music

Doge Food

A pound of flesh at the Venice Room

Rocket Reducer

Wayne Kramer on the MC5