Jim James

Music Picks: Rhye, Papa and Motörhead

The Worst of SXSW

Security and Cops Gettin' Wild: Look, I get it. Every drunken dickhead in town "knows someone" or thinks he has pull at the door, but that doesn't mean the hammer goes down on everyone. I was stopped by two cops who didn't want me to walk 50 yards from where the Smashing Pumpkins would be playing an ... More >>

The Best of SXSW

This year, our sister papers the Dallas Observer and Houston Press teamed up to document the SXSW madness for you amusement and/or edification. Here are the 12 best shows and moments they saw.

My Favorite Albums of the Second Half of 2012, in Haiku Form

[Editor's note: Weekly scribe Jeff Weiss's column, "Bizarre Ride," appears on West Coast Sound every Wednesday. His archives are available here.] Kendrick Lamar attributed L.A.'s primacy to the women, weed and weather. He was quoting Biggie, who consecrated the left coast via song, despite his long ... More >>

The Best Los Angeles Concerts of the Summer

5. The Zeros and The Muffs Troubadour, July 20 Though the Zeros and the Muffs began their careers at the start of the punk era and in the middle of grunge, respectively, their billing this summer was inspired. Both play the kind of punk -- catchy pop hooks over wham-bam, cranked-up chords -- that, ... More >>

My Morning Jacket - The Wiltern - 9/12/12

My Morning Jacket The Wiltern 9/12/12 The number of bands building a name and reputation off their live performances has begun dwindling at a startling rate. With Bruce Springsteen and U2 inching closer to performing in wheelchairs, My Morning Jacket seems to be one of the last remaining holdouts w ... More >>

Dr. Dog Learn Some Old Tricks

Pennsylvania rockers return to roots on their new album

My Morning Jacket and Sharon Jones - Gibson Amphitheatre - 12-01-11

My Morning Jacket and Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings Gibson Ampitheatre 12-01-11 Better than...any ride at Universal Studios. Past the gauntlet of Universal City Walk with its seizure-inducing lights, blaring Christmas pop remixes, and downright oppressive wafts of popcorn and cologne, there was a ... More >>

Music Picks: Iggy & the Stooges, Morrissey, Esa-Pekka Salonen

Also, Henry Rollins, Liz Pappademas, Greg Bissonette Quintet

Live Review: My Morning Jacket at The Village Last Night

Jeremiah GarciaThe Jacket wailing away​ Music studios create magic -- that much we know. However, when a band is able to convert its supersized amphitheater show into 250-person capacity venue (which is smaller than The Troubadour FYI), that's what makes this night more special than the avera ... More >>

Music Picks: Alison Krauss, Flying Lotus, My Morning Jacket

Also, Jaga Jazzist, Kid Cudi, Baths and others

Congrats! LA-Based Aquarium Drunkard Wins MTV's First Indie Blog Award

​ A big congratulations to LA-based music blog Aquarium Drunkard, which beat all other music blogs in the country (including some high-profile ones from Brooklyn that like to proclaim their dietary restrictions) on an nationwide Internet vote for MTV's first "O Award." According to MTV, As ... More >>

Indie Rock Food Blogs: Crème-brû-log Should Be Just The Beginning

A James-approved specimen from Miel in Nashville​ We were happy to learn that Monsters of Folk principles Jim James (My Morning Jacket) and M. Ward (She & Him) have a food blog. James is from Louisville, KY, our hometown. We were first exposed to his sweet, billowing voice at an all-ages sho ... More >>

Tonight: My Morning Jacket, Avi Buffalo, Queens of the Stone Age, Eagles of Death Metal, Coheed and Cambria, Porcupine Tree, Budos Band, Hot Club of Cowtown

​ My Morning Jacket, Avi Buffalo at the Greek "Of late, My Morning Jacket singer Jim James has been devoting the majority of his time to projects sporting his inexplicable Yim Yames moniker, so it's a bit of a relief to find him once again at the helm of the exceptional band that first put the ... More >>

Music Picks: BB King and Buddy Guy, Silversun Pickups, Hard Summer, W.A.C.O.

Also Lady Gaga, Frazey Ford, Whispertown 2000, Ludacris and others

Music Picks: Laura Veirs, Experience Hendrix, Boyz II Men, Earthworm Ensemble

Also, David Scott Stone, Slow Club, Little Boots and others

LA and Affiliated (and Random) New Releases, August 4, 2009

A selection of new releases for beginning of the end of summer 2009. Los Angeles-related releases out this week: The Dub Club, which takes place every Wednesday night at the Echoplex, has brought to LA some of Jamaican music's most important and legendary figures, and has been recording and int ... More >>

Busdriver: Crushed Groove

"Your least favorite rapper/With a haircut like a pineapple/Wearing khakis torn/With a voice like a high soprano."

Last Night: The Marijuana Policy Project Party at the Playboy Mansion--The Dandy Warhols, Playmates, and Pinball

Laurie ScavoI don't need to explain the Playboy Mansion. You've probably seen Girls Next Door, the E! Entertainment show that managed to successfully de-mystify the estate like the channel did Saved by the Bell, Puff Daddy, and Fabio. But despite the camera's depiction of Heff as goofy and groping g ... More >>

Top 10 Americana Albums of 2008

By Noah W. Bailey Picking the best folk and Americana records of the year isn't nearly as hard as discarding those great records that just didn't feel right stuck in the category.Releases by Calexico and DeVotchKa felt far too worldly to pigeonhole as folk or country, for instance, while Blitzen ... More >>

The 25 Best Non Hip-Hop Songs of 2008 (M-Z)

Mezzanine Owls-"Snow Globe" Because it never snows in Los Angeles, we're forced to romanticize it. The first draft of "White Christmas," originally chided a spoiled Angeleno,"longing to be up North on December 24," surrounded by sunshine, green grass and swaying palms. The closest you get to w ... More >>

Weiss' 25 Best Non Hip-Hop Songs of 2008 (A-L)

Graffiti originally spotted on Bedford Ave., Williamsburg in 2002--soon followed by copycat crimes on Silverlake Blvd. and San Francisco's Mission District. Now playing at a Hot Topic near you. For spread-the-wealth reasons, this list was restricted to songs from albums that did not make the Top ... More >>

Outside Lands Day 3-We Have a Winner

Ted DiBiase knows a winner when he sees one. That's how he earned the nickname "The Million Dollar Man" when those Cash Money clowns were still learning to ice their first teeth. And rest assured, Teddy B. would've inevitably proclaimed Day 3 of Outside Lands, the winner of the match, even if he wo ... More >>

Pitchfork Music Festival, Day 2: No Age, the Hold Steady, Fleet Foxes and Blunts the Size of Burritos

Pitchfork Music Festival, Day 2 By Jeff Weiss Tad Kubler of the Hold Steady (Photos by Nick Lucchesi) Sometimes, on your own, you arrive at the realization that "hey, it isn't so bad. I'm attending a music festival for free in a very beautiful city and even though I'm trying hard not to gawk at ... More >>

Why My Morning Jacket Is the Best Live Band in the World

In an age when certified rock stars are a dying breed, a Kentucky band stakes its claim

SXSW Day 3-The Unifying Power of Devin the Dude

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."-Hunter S. Thompson "What you gonna do when the people go home/ and you wanna smoke weed but the reefer's all gone/ And somebody had the nerve to take the herb up out the doobie ashtray/Why they do me that way?"-Devin the Dude If the going hasn't g ... More >>

SXSW Day 1-My Morning Jacket Prove That They May Be Invincible and Britt Daniel is Everywhere

If you do a Google Image search for "Austin" this is one of the first things that pops up. Two girls at the 1998 Austin Corvette Day. Granted, this probably has nothing at all to do with SXSW--yet judging by my first impressions of this place, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if by the end ... More >>

Rock Picks

For February 1–8

Trout-Faced Piano Man Sings of Sex, Dogs

Politically 4th Street

Girls Incited, City Burned

E=MC⁵

Knock 'Em Dead, Kid