L.A. Times - Music News

Outrage over wall blocking free U2 Berlin concert?

Thu, 5 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Fans hoping to catch a glimpse Thursday of U2's free concert celebrating 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall will have to "scale these city walls" after organizers threw up a barrier to block the view for those without tickets.

Pop music review: High on Fire, Converge, Mastodon and Dethklok

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The most animated act (think: Adult Swim) grabs the spotlight at a metal mash.

It's telling that the most orthodox act on one of the season's most anticipated metal package tours was the one composed of cartoon characters. The sprawling quadruple bill of High on Fire, Converge, Mastodon and Dethklok -- the last a Gorillaz-like animated band project for self-aware Hessians -- proved Thursday night at the Hollywood Palladium that while the heaviest strains of rock music are very much thriving, the rule book for what constitutes metal today has been burned at the stake.

Live: Chris Brown at the Avalon

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

A little singing, a little dancing from the performer in his first local show since his sentencing.

Chris Brown had already pleaded guilty to assaulting his then-girlfriend Rihanna earlier this year. But Wednesday night at the Avalon, in his first local performance since being sentenced to probation and community service in the February altercation in L.A., Brown still seemed to be offering up character witnesses in an attempt to prove, as he insists in a widely circulated YouTube video, that he's no monster.

EMI is first major label to agree to distribute music videos on Hulu

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

EMI Music became the first major music company to agree to distribute its music videos and concert footage on Hulu, the popular online video site.

Operatic trills rise from Botswana bush

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The tiny south African nation's first opera, written by the author of the 'No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency' series, is a version of 'Macbeth,' with baboons. It's a rare opportunity for a local soprano.

The villages of Botswana are full of music. Gospel music. Choral music. The singsong repetitive music of rote classroom learning.

Despite a romantic split, it's still a Swell Season

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The 'Once' couple's romantic relationship is off, but their musical partnership plays on.

When Irish singer Glen Hansard and Czech pianist Markéta Irglová fell in love on the big screen in the 2007 hit "Once," audiences swooned over the passionate and fragile acoustic music the couple made together in the film, which mirrored, reflected and fictionalized their lives.

Them Crooked Vultures have an understanding

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Dave Grohl, Joshua Homme and John Paul Jones, who jelled from their first jam, have an album to show for their fast-bonding ways.

Dave Grohl had a new rock 'n' roll dream, and it came true in a castle in Orange County. It was his 40th birthday, so the lead Foo Fighter and former Nirvana drummer celebrated with a January evening of jousting and costumed swordplay at the Medieval Times dinner theater, a venue promising a night "where honor was unquestioned and courage was unmatched!"

Loudon Wainwright III and Richard Thompson at UCLA's Royce Hall

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The folk-rock veterans get to the emotional heart of things in a sterling skillful set of songwriting acumen and musicianship.

Loudon Wainwright III and Richard Thompson wrapped up their five-week tour as a duo under the ironic title Loud & Rich at UCLA on Friday with a sterling display of songwriting acumen and musicianship -- but one that wasn't particularly loud or likely to make anybody rich.

Ray Davies at the Orpheum Theatre

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Kinks frontman reinterprets his life's work, with the help of the Vox Society Choir, in an engaging two-hour show.

Ray Davies has learned to embrace his long season of reinvention. In recent years, the Kinks frontman has lamented the indefinite hiatus of the band he led for decades, but as of late he's responded with renewed energy and ambition unknown to many of his surviving contemporaries from rock's original British Invasion.

John Adams is feeling festive

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The composer is organizing the Los Angeles Philharmonic's first festival for its new music director, Gustavo Dudamel.

What does a renowned, Harvard-educated, Pulitzer Prize-winning classical music composer say just after the standing-ovation world premiere of his new symphony at Walt Disney Concert Hall, performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic under the baton of its wildly celebrated new music director, Gustavo Dudamel? ¶ "That was rockin' , wasn't it?" says a beaming John Adams. ¶ Yeah, that's the way "we old boomers" talk, Los Angeles Philharmonic Assn. President Deborah Borda, 60, jokes of her longtime friend and colleague Adams, 62. It doesn't seem to surprise her during a conversation at the gala party after the Oct. 8 premiere that Adams would use the phrase when talking about "City Noir," a work inspired by Hollywood's classic noir films of the 1940s and '50s. ¶ Besides -- it was rockin'. The buzz at the Latin-themed post-premiere affair seemed to have less to do with the generously distributed "Pasión" cocktail created in honor of Dudamel's first Disney Hall concert as Philharmonic music director -- an alarmingly sweet combo of rum, pineapple, coconut juice and grenadine -- than with the afterglow of the music. ¶ The heady sensation made it clear that 28-year-old Dudamel isn't the only new kid at the Phil: The other is Adams, in his inaugural season as the orchestra's creative chair and curator of the Philharmonic's first festival of Dudamel's tenure: West Coast, Left Coast, a three-week event launching Saturday and exploring California music.