Oliver Wang

What Music Do Immigrant Janitors Listen To? And Other Questions at L.A.'s EMP Conference

The Seattle-based EMP Pop Conference -- Shangri-La for music nerds -- has this year split into five regional ones, and the Los Angeles incarnation starts tonight. Musicians, scholars, and music writers from all over Southern California will discuss and debate, with specific focus on everything from ... More >>

Rock Picks: Mulatu Astatke, The Soft Pack, Katy Perry, Merle Haggard

Also, Cut Chemist, NOFX, Hal Blaine’s 80th bash and more

Funky Sole Re-launches Saturday Nights at The Echo/Aloe Blacc Tonight at Rootdown

File this under: news that we should have reported last month but were too swarmed with year-end stuff to get to promptly. However, Funky Sole, the Miles Tackett-promoted, Stones Throw-affiliated, pan-global funk party has officially moved to Saturday's at the Echo in Echo Park. While I haven't had ... More >>

Oliver Wang on Ozomatli's Three-Night Stint at H.O.B. (with Chali 2na Back in the Mix)

The first time I ever saw Ozomatli was in 1997, when they played the Elbo Room in San Francisco; their dozen or so members barely fit the tiny stage. The second time I caught them was less than six months later, at a UFW march in support of strawberry workers in Watsonville. The two spaces couldn't ... More >>

Don't Miss This Show: Oliver Wang on Q-Tip, the Cool Kids (MP3), the Knux and Pacific Division at H.O.B.

Saturday, November 15 Q-Tip, The Cool Kids at House of Blues It has been nine years since Q-Tip's last album yet strangely, it hasn't seemed so long. That says much about the enduring power of Q-Tip's old band, A Tribe Called Quest - guaranteed to be in heavy rotation on iPod playlists for any hi ... More >>

Record Reviews: The Knux, Robin Thicke, Gang Gang Dance

This Week in LA Music: Stuff You Might Have Learned When Not Obsessing About the Election

1. Lina Lecaro breaks the story of Jason Shapiro's suit against Swede garage-fellas the Hives. It seems their "Tick Tick Boom" from this year's Get Smart soundtrack sounds suspiciously like his band the Roofies' "Why You?" Same opening riff, same bridge. But ... that's a pretty universal riff. 2. ... More >>

CD Review: Oliver Wang on Robin Thicke's Something Else

Robin Thicke, Something Else (Star Trak) Robin Thicke doesn’t possess the best voice in R&B but he uses what he’s got better than most. His favored falsetto has obvious influences — a little Marvin, some Smokey, even a touch of pre-tabloid Jacko. Yet, at its most wispy, its fragility is les ... More >>

Tonight at USC's Annenberg School: Music Writers Ponder the Life and Death of Criticsim

So tonight at 7:30 at USC's Annenberg School, I'll be participating in a forum on the future of music criticism. Organized by the L.A. Times' chief pop critic Ann Powers, the panel discussion features fellow L.A. Weekly contributors Ernest Hardy and Oliver Wang; Pulitzer Prize-winning music criti ... More >>

Record Reviews: Koushik's Out My Window, Black Ghosts' self-titled debut

Also, Final Solution's Brotherman soundtrack, Look Daggers' Suffer in Style

Soul Love

Ten questions with Soul Sides creator — and album curator — Oliver Wang

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

Letters

Letters

U Don’t Know

Letters

Letters

New Music

Turn the Tide

Super Furry Sound

A year in music

New World Disorder

Radiohead opts in/out

Letters

Body and Soul

A love rain from Jill Scott

Letters

Sound of the Taurus

Vintage soul to please the people

Letters

Thieves Like Us

Stalking classic rock with the Charlatans UK