Yo La Tengo

The Best Concerts to See in Los Angeles This Week

For any show in town see our regularly-updated concert calendar. Monday, May 13 Torches THE ECHO Torches are an L.A. band (the band that was once Torches in Trees, if your indie rock database needs an update) who've submerged themselves completely in the same kind of anthemic, happy-sad music that ... More >>

FYF Fest 2013 Lineup Announced

The lineup for FYF Fest 2013 was announced this morning and features Saturday Sunday headliners My Bloody Valentine and Sunday Saturday headliners the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Artists including TV on the Radio, Flag, Deerhunter, MGMT, Beach House, Yo La Tengo, The Breeders, Devendra Banhart, Solange and Shl ... More >>

Music Picks: Rhye, Papa and Motörhead

The Best Concerts to See in L.A. This Weekend

Friday, April 26 Medeski Martin & Wood ROYCE HALL More than 20 years ago, keyboardist John Medeski, bassist Chris Wood and drummer Billy Martin formed a trio that quickly became one of the most successful in contemporary jazz. A 1995 performance with Phish established them as a jam band, and subseq ... More >>

Music Picks: Shuggie Otis, The Rolling Stones, Juvenile

Parquet Courts - The Echo - 1/15/13

Parquet Courts, Wet Illustrated The Echo 1/15/13 Among the most notable music trends in 2012 was the arrival of a handful of punk revival bands, who drew from indie rock and old school punk influences like Minor Threat and Black Flag to give the genre an updated sound. With bands like Metz and Merc ... More >>

S.F.'s Sic Alps Scrubbed the Noise, But Still Want to Freak You Out

By Ian S. Port "I'm kind of like Ron Swanson -- I fucking hate paperwork." Mike Donovan, figurehead of San Francisco rock band Sic Alps, is grinning in the kitchen of his ground-floor apartment, explaining what he likes about driving a cab for a living. Along with the fact that Donovan usually wor ... More >>

The Roots, Hilary Hahn, The Urinals

Also, Barbara Lynn, Stalley, Active Child and others

The Albums the Critics Were Wrong About

Two thousand eleven was the year in which musicians were praised for embracing their essences. M83 gets even more epic! Bradford Cox gets even more introverted! Drake gets Draker! The members of Wild Flag still rock! Artists were also derided for the obvious: Odd Future proves they don't give a fu ... More >>

Future Islands - Echoplex - 11/17/11

Ian Cohen​See also: Future Islands: Too Noisy For New Wave, Too Pussy For Punk Future Islands Echoplex 11-17-11 Better than: Nursing your woes while crying in your beer. Having someone spill theirs on you while dancing in place takes way less effort I'd been told that Baltimore synth-pop be ... More >>

Top Five Worst Ironic Indie Rock Band Names, Besides Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.

Stuart Conner​This week Brian Jonestown Massacre, a seminal and well-named act, announced the release of a new double CD, The Singles Collection (1992-2011), out at the end of August. It got us thinking about indie rock band names, and how they've gone from fun-ironic to kill-yourself-ironic. ... More >>

Music Picks: Willie Nelson's Country Throwdown, Yellow Magic Orchestra, Holly Golightly & the Brokeoffs, Peter Murphy

Also, Erykah Badu, Andre Williams, Animals & Men and others

Music Picks: Plastic Ono Band, Ooh La LA Fest, Belle & Sebastian

Also, Marianne Dissard, Bad Company, Matador 21 and others

Day 3: Coachella WINs and FAILs (featuring Charlotte Gainsbourg, Thom Yorke, Phoenix, etc.)!

Gustavo TurnerThe Great Thom Yorke in the Sky​ Sunday was the hottest day of the Coachella weekend and it felt like the most crowded, a change from previous years when (thanks to the one-day passes) the last day had shown a welcome self-weeding-out of the masses. In terms of festival logisti ... More >>

MAKE US LAUGH, FUNNY BOY! -- EUGENE MIRMAN

Guest Blogger Jason Reitman IDs Some of His Favorite Cover Songs

Editor's note. This week director Jason Reitman is guest blogging at West Coast Sound. Reitman, whose new film, Up in the Air, was nominated for six Golden Globes yesterday (including Best Director and Best Screenplay nominations for Reitman ... congrats!), is also a pretty big music head, as you'll ... More >>

Gold from the Treasure Island Festival

​ Despite the auspicious image above, the only green spotted at the Treasure Island Festival this weekend, was that being smoked by the heavy hippie and hipster quotient that swarmed San Francisco's finest former Naval base cum music festival grounds. Indeed, for any wayward Angelenos incubat ... More >>

Rock Picks: Steve Earle, Polvo, These Arms Are Snakes, Correatown

Also, Bob Dylan & His Band, Motorhead, John Doe & Exene Cervenka and others

Rock Picks: Future of the Left, Deerhoof, Ronnie Mack's Barndance, The Urinals

Also, Torche, Alejandro Escovedo, Quintron & Miss Pussycat, and others

Rock Picks: The Kills, Lady Sovereign, Fischerspooner, the Dears

Also, Sun Kil Moon, St. Vincent, Alexandra Hope and others

Tonight at the Smell: The Godfather of Indie, K Records' Calvin Johnson

Among Calvin Johnson's many accomplishments over the course of his illustrious career: He was part of the petri dish that morphed into Sub Pop Records in the early 1980s. He founded K Records in 1982, a label that has gone on to release some of the first and best recordings by Beck, Bikini Kill, ... More >>

Rock Picks: Part Time Punks Festival, The Breeders, Rodney Crowell

Also, Uh Huh Her, James Intveld, Miranda Lee Richards and more

This Weekend: Devo, Chrissie Hynde, the Black Keys Stump in Akron for Obama

I'm finishing a larger piece for later this week on Devo, Chrissie Hynde and the Black Keys' devastatingly great Obama benefit in their native Akron (reassure my editor that it's on its way, really!), but for now I'd like to offer you what for me was the highlight of the night: the band's furious, N ... More >>

Marriage Records: Coupledom in Indie Rock Has a Special Patina but Is Not Without Its Perils

Witness the Submarines

Lou Reed's Berlin: Julian Schnabel Captures the Music, Moment and Mood of His Man

Director makes cinematic trance of Reed's days-long 2006 concert at Brooklyn's St. Ann’s Warehouse

Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim

Dyspeptic duo

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 >>

Record Reviews: The Mars Volta, Radar Brothers

Also: Vampire Weekend, Crystal Antlers

Rock Picks: The Hives, Buck 65, Redd Kross, Yo La Tengo

For the week of Nov. 1 - 8

Rock Picks: Neil Young, the Pogues, Michelle Shocked

For the week of Oct. 26-Nov. 1

Rock Picks: Ruins, Beirut, Turbonegro, Metric

Also, Bill Callahan, Emmylou Harris and more picks for the week of October 4 –11

Last Orgasm in Hollywood

Movie sex, dirty and clean, through the ages

The Right to Die... Onstage!

Between rock and a sidesplitting place with “World’s Funnyman” Neil Hamburger

The Pen and the Axe

The New Yorker’s Sasha Frere-Jones attempts to rock

Festivus Maximus

Do you enjoy crowds, music and exhaustion?

White Chocolate

U.K.’s Hot Chip love American R&B, cars and slang. Some things never change

Chapter and Verse

Rick Moody, Jonathan Lethem and John Darnielle on the crossbreeding of literature and pop

Myspace Taste of the Week

I'd like to think that I'm way more popular in real life than I am on Myspace. I've only got like 50 friends, but that's probably because I only say yes to requests from peeps who truly are friends. Call me a weirdo. Anyway, the pals I do have, happen to have thousands of friends and way too much ... More >>

Sketchers, Hair Wars and Courting Venus

A Small New Future

ALEC HANLEY BEMIS on the casualties and survivors in the war between the Cynics and the True Believers

Pink Flag Burning

Three-Ring Chaos

You can’t wreck a disaster

The Intangibles

Play It Loud, Real Real Loud

Mission of Burma's cluster bomb for a new millennium

A Fan's Notes

Kiwi Catharsis

Getaway tooNZ from Down Under

Dead Air

Jim Ladd on the demise of freeform radio