Jay Babcock

Photo by B. Diemannoberger JAMES "BLOOD" ULMER TRIO at the Jazz Bakery, January 30 Up on stage are three ungrumpy old men, all in their seventh decade. They're a little bit wise guys, a whole lot wise men. At right is the eldest, Reggie Workman (b. 1937), who's playing an......

Two speakers above and behind me, at the curled ends of overhead rods emanating from the 5.1-equipped Bose DVD Lifestyle System (retail: $2,499) on the shelf in front of me, surrounded on either side by three more speakers, and below, one subwoofer. The salesman is pushing buttons on the remote,......

Look closely at almost any significant rock band‘s background, and you’ll find an instigator, a critical link without whom the chain would not hold. Led Zeppelin had Roy Harper. Nirvana had King Buzzo. And Queens of the Stone Age, arguably the best American melodic hard-rock band since Cobain exited in......

THE DATSUNSat Spaceland, July 18THE KILLSat the Silverlake Lounge, July 18 Mike Watt calls them clone bands: those groups who wear their influences not just on their sleeves but in their hearts and souls, too. This is a murderously apt observation, especially when applied to the bands Watt usually applies......

Photo by Jason Amos LIFT TO EXPERIENCE at the Silver Lake Lounge, June 29, and at the Derby, June 30 Talk about cojones: These boys opened with "Kashmir." Is there really anything to add? Okay, here: A guitar-bass-drums trio from Denton, Texas, going onstage at 7:15 p.m. on a Saturday......

Josh Pearson, the 28-year-old singer-guitarist-songwriter for the Texas-based art-rock band Lift to Experience, lives and works in a world drenched in Judeo-Christian allusion and metaphor. So of course he‘s conducting a midtour interview on a cell phone from a Manhattan pub called the Slaughtered Lamb. ”Yeah, it’s perfect,“ he says,......

Photo by John Falls MERCURY REV, THE SHINS at El Rey, June 11 "Plans and schemes/Thoughts and dreams/Who cares what they mean/When they work they're amazing things" is how the song goes. And amazing is how tonight's sold-out show goes. First, though, are the Arizona-based Shins with their we-may-be-here-by-accident onstage......

ANDREW W.K.at House of Blues, May 31 One night before Israeli klezmer outfit Simply Tsfat hit town for what was (according to our most reliable Weekly sources) a raucous after-sunset shindig down at Hochmat HaNahal on Robertson, neo-pop-metal gold medalist Andrew W.K. threw a Sunset Strip dance party of his......