This was a tough one. Chris Z’s King Tuff feature on the cover.

SHABAZZ PALACES: THINGS ARE VERY CLEAR
Ishmael Butler is known by many names, most of which we aren’t meant to ever discover. In another lifetime, he was Butterfly of Digable Planets. Now, he stands at the center of the universe of the mysterious Shabazz Palaces, holding court as Palaceer Lazaro in the first hip-hop group ever signed to Sub Pop. He speaks here about divine inspiration, being in love, and keeping perspective.

DON JUAN Y LOS BLANCOS (not online yet)
Classic rock ‘n’ roll doesn’t have an established tradition of strong female singers with voices that could scrape the frost off your car windshield, but you’d never know that from hearing Don Juan y Los Blancos. Their bat-out-of-hell garage rock evokes both knife-fights and backseat make-out sessions where the blood gets licked from the wounds. It’s Wanda Jackson, but really, it’s Suzi Quatro. Their new 45 is out now on Wild. We speak to co-lead singers Becky Blanca and Don Juan Villicana about nerds, fights, geese, pinball and hate.

GUY MADDIN: SETTLE FOR A FACSIMILE OF EMPATHY
Director Guy Maddin’s latest project is a “film-to-be” adaptation of a musical originally written for Swedish National Radio by brothers Ron and Russell Mael of Sparks, in which a live cast—including Maddin and the Maels, appearing in supporting roles—will perform on stage the story of Ingmar Bergman, who is mysteriously transported from his native Sweden to Hollywood during the height of the studio system in the 1950s. Maddin will direct the on-stage world premiere of The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman at this year’s L.A. Film Festival and hopes to make the story into a film in the future. He speaks now from his home in Winnipeg.

THE INTERPRETER: RIA AMA (not online yet)
Ria Ama is an artist and filmmaker who uses her background in traditional Japanese sumi painting to capture the quieter moments in life and the shadows of our minds through light paintings for Sprint, an animated textbook of Tao, and a short about a painted phoenix willing herself into existence.

Album reviews:

SHABAZZ PALACES: BLACK UP
He started out in the early 90s as Butterfly of Grammy-winning, jazzy, smooth-rapping trio Digable Planets (remember who taught you how to be “Cool Like Dat?”), and then, after a seven-year hiatus, he returned as the singer of velvety electro-funk band Cherrywine. Six years later, he dropped twin EPs with Afro-Arabian imagery, Shabazz Palaces and Of Light, as the mysterious and press-evasive Palaceer Lazaro of Shabazz Palaces. Black Up is Butler’s debut LP as “Shabazz”—the first hip hop record ever for Seattle indie powerhouse Sub Pop—and here we find Ish at the top of his game

SAMIYAM: SAM BAKER’S ALBUMHis second LP shows what a vivid imagination the Ann Arbor-turned-L.A. producer has, knitting together a series of vignettes that delve into hip-hop and pop and electro-funk, with pixilated explosions punctuated by retro synths, and heavy bass lines, and samples of what sounds like clay pots smashing on a deck and being dragged across concrete.

MATTHEWDAVID: OUTMIND
The Leaving Records co-founder listens differently than most people, latching onto sounds most don’t even hear, much less get inspired by. Matthewdavid magnifies these beautiful, fleeting moments lost in the shuffle of city life, capturing the whipping of the wind and the rustling of reeds in his field recordings.

I’ve been at the L.A. Film Festival and the presentation I’ve been looking forward to the most is Sparks’ The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman at the Ford Amphitheatre. I interviewed Sparks and Guy Maddin for L.A. RECORD, and reviewed the show as well.

The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman is a work of genius, a fantastic performance piece only the Mael brothers could dream up. Last Saturday night, the Los Angeles Film Festival presented the world premiere of Sparks’ musical at the Ford Amphitheatre, with a humorous introduction by Michael Silverblatt—the man responsible for bringing Sparks and Maddin together—of celebrated KCRW program Bookworm. Originally crafted for radio, this is the first time the piece has ever been performed by actors in front of a live audience.

Read here. Post also features a gallery of photos I took from the show.

Did a quick interview with Mark Sultan for L.A. RECORD in advance of his show at the Blue Star.

You know Mark Sultan from his work with the King Khan & BBQ show, but he also has two new solo albums and a new 7″, and is about to embark on a June tour that will take him to L.A.’s Blue Star Bar Friday. He speaks now about In the Red Records, excrement, and so much more.

Read here.

Chicago’s Permanent Records is coming to L.A.! Specifically, Eagle Rock, the new home of their second shop. The grand opening party is this Saturday, and they’ll be hosting performances by the Cosmonauts, Francis Harold and the Holograms, and Amanda of Not Not Fun (DJ set). I interviewed Permanent co-owner Lance for L.A. RECORD.

Read here.

My second Off-Ramp segment! I interviewed Nick Waterhouse, one of the most amazing musicians I’ve ever met. I already interviewed him for L.A. RECORD so I knew he’d be good for the show. He let me premiere a new track on the segment too. Pretty awesome!

Nick Waterhouse is a twenty-five year old San Francisco-based musician and producer from Huntington Beach who makes R&B records that sound like they’re straight out of the 60s. He’s got a real love and understanding of analog production and the success of his first single led to several other California bands asking him to produce their records. Off-Ramp’s Lainna Fader talked with Nick on his most recent trip to Los Angeles.

Listen HERE.

In this case, Death warmed over is a good thing. The Detroit-based group called Death played punk music before there was punk music. Their 1974 demos were excavated by an indie label and released last year, and next weekend they’re playing their first concert in LA. Off-Ramp’s Lainna Fader talked with Death’s singer and bassist Bobby Hackney from his home in Vermont.

Listen HERE.

Just published an interview I did with the filmmakers of a new Lee Scratch Perry doc that’s screening at the Downtown Independent.

The Upsetter: The Life and Music of Lee Scratch Perry is the result of seven years of Lee Perry digging by directors Ethan Higbee and Adam Bhala Lough, who speak now about Lee’s true spirit and his love for burning things and National Enquirer’s brand of gossip—especially when it involves Britney Spears.

Read HERE.

We just released L.A. RECORD103, and my interview with longtime L.A. RECORD favorite DAEDELUS is the cover feature. So proud of this one. Been a huge Daedelus fan for years and years, and have wanted to interview him for quite some time. When I heard it was his ten-year recording anniversary, I jumped on it and met up with him at Susina, my favorite bakery in L.A., a few days before he started his third Magical Properties tour.

Daedelus is a perfect Victorian gentleman who makes beautiful records about wars no one cares about, and the virtues of handmade clothing. 2011 marks ten years of his recording, celebrated now with the release of his latest Bespoke on Ninja Tune, as well as a third Magical Properties tour, and shows at SXSW and Coachella. This is truly his year, as it should be.

Read Daedelus: All of Music is a Failure!

My other 103 interviews:

NICK WATERHOUSE: HUNTINGTON NEVER GAVE ME ANYTHING
Nick Waterhouse makes vintage R&B records like Dam-Funk makes funk records and he does it on his own label PRES Records Co. with the help of the Tarots, the Naturelles, and Mike McHugh’s Distillery in Costa Mesa. He speaks now from a curb outside of the Black Boar in Eagle Rock after a long day of recording and right before DJing a set of killer soul and R&B 45s that made people go crazy.

AUSTIN PERALTA: GO THROUGH THE DARKNESS
Pianist Austin Peralta has been traveling jazz’s interstellar space ways since he was 15 and his new album, Endless Planets, hangs naturally in the Brainfeeder universe. He speaks now about life and death and the few feelings worth feeling in between.

NANCY ANDREWS: LIFE WITHOUT MYSTERY IS BORING
Nancy Andrews is an animator of wonderful films that explore perception and consciousness through bird-woman cyborgs, space monkeys, and spiders with faces that are inspired by the intersection of nature and technology and her own brush with death. She speaks now about making earrings out of photos of slabs of beef, what she learned from floating between life and death, and why she wants to be friends with a crow.

THE INTERPRETER: DIMITRI SIMAKIS
Dimitri Simakis, a.k.a. “Ghoul School” is an excavator of lost and terrible VHS gold and co-founder of Everything is Terrible!, the blog that edits down video for found footage freaks worldwide. With a monstrous library of clips of awful movies, unintentionally hilarious infomercials and bizarre instructional tapes, EIT! trolls all—sometimes in person in cloaks or monster suits. Here are some of his best VHS finds.

And album reviews:

A.D.L.R.: FOAM ON THE WAVES OF SPACE-TIME…
Foam on the Waves of Space-Time… is as complex as its title suggests; it’s a gentle exploration of classically-informed ambient electronics, warped beats, drone minimalism, and astral jazz, with hints of early Aphex Twin and Squarepusher seeping in quietly.

MATTHEWDAVID: INTERNATIONAL EP
Sound collagist and Leaving Records label head Matthewdavid brings lush organic textures, warned samples of field recordings, and carefully manipulated hazy beats to his first Brainfeeder EP. These sounds are comforting like yuk.’s warm wilderness in A D W A; Matthewdavid too captures the lo-fi ambient calm of the natural world and the feeling of getting lost in it.

Photo by Debi Del Grande

L.A. RECORD: GANG OF FOUR @ THE MUSIC BOX
“The first time we played here was a disaster,” singer Jon King admitted early into the night. Apparently last time U.K. post-punk legends Gang of Four came to the Music Box, their bass player ran into a steel pillar, shattered his nose to pieces, and the blood poured thick. This time they played a 17-song set without any blood loss, with a mix of new material from Content—their first new record in over fifteen years!—and killer tracks off their classic 1979 album Entertainment!. Same set as the night before at the House of Blues in Anaheim, but I bet no one knew or cared; I’m guessing I’m one of the few who made the trek to Downtown Disney Hell AND the significantly closer and less irritating venue The Music Box.

OC WEEKLY: GANG OF FOUR @ HOB ANAHEIM
Gang of Four’s Entertainment! is one of the most important records in my life, and I’d sell my soul to have seen them in 1980. Seeing Gang of Four in 2011 at the House of Blues is kind of like seeing them in a sports bar. Weird and a little awkward. I think I saw 30 Seconds to Mars ads on at least 10 TVs before Gang of Four’s set tonight, with a few cheesy “Have Blues Will Travel” ads thrown in. I miss the Gang of Four that had Dave Allen and Hugo Burnham, and Jon King was smoking-hot in the Entertainment!-era. That said, the show was pretty fun, even though no microwaves were bashed with baseball bats onstage.

L.A. RECORD 103 out now! I got the cover feature! Hanni El Khatib: I’ll Just Lie Constantly. Found Hanni a while ago when Nate from Innovative Leisure gave me his first 45 when I visited the Stones Throw offices. We met up at one of my favorite spots in L.A., Café Tropical in Silver Lake, for this interview:

Hanni El Khatib plays bluesy garage rock with a lot of soul and a little folk for Highland Park’s Innovative Leisure label. He destroys live with only an electric guitar and drums played by his best friend from high school. From Café Tropical in Silver Lake, he speaks about preferring amps to humans, a memorable mushroom experience in the snow and his various encounters with strippers.

Read HERE.

My other L.A. RECORD 102 interviews:

GANG OF FOUR: A LITTLE INSANE AND FUNNY
Gang of Four finally has a new album that actually is a new album—not a re-recording of old songs—and they sold vials of their own blood to fund it. Singer Jon King speaks here about the gift of blood and ashes, the types of microwaves he likes to smash with baseball bats, and why he so dislikes tiny pieces of cheese.

THE INTERPRETER: CHAD BROWN
Chad Brown knows more about country music than anyone you’ll ever meet and DJs what he calls “the real American soul music”—music that comes from places where you can’t park—all over the world as DJ The Lonesome Cowboy. He makes music of his own as CB Brand and served as music supervisor for Michael Winterbottom’s The Killer Inside Me. He will DJ tonight at Big Freak. He recently starred in The Oregonian with Jed Maheu of the Small Town Talk DJ collective, which will premiere at Sundance. Chad does not listen to music made after 1986 and details his favorite country records below.

ALLISON ANDERS AND KURT VOSS: BE A WONDER IN YOURSELF
First came post-punk cult hit Border Radio and then came Sugar Town, a film about the music industry, aging rock stars, and the women in their lives. Now Strutter, the final chapter in Allison Anders and Kurt Voss’ unexpected trilogy, is well underway. Allison and Kurt have been friends since UCLA film school and even share matching tattoos of the girl in chains on the back of Leonard Cohen’s first album.

Album reviews:

HANNI EL KHATIB: “BUILD. DESTROY. REBUILD.” 7″
Hanni El Khatib’s blend of ’60s garage rock, soul, and blues is everything I like in music, boiled down to its absolute rawest minimum. “Build. Destroy. Rebuild” is the second blistering single off his upcoming album, Will the Guns Come Out, and is a ripping anthem about the destruction and resurrection of a city that channels the anger of young Jonathan Richman.

Already starting to work on L.A. RECORD 103!