Full story available via LxA Magazine: “So Angelenos have a tendency born and bred in the fiber of our Western society to register our history via culture. Our soil may not have been watered with the blood of revolution, but so too do you Easterners lack the dubious and sordid heritage of Film Noir. No Founding Fathers pontificated on the nature of democracy and human liberty in Los Angeles halls, but the psychic specter of Tom Joad and his real life metonym Woody Guthrie never picketed your collective unconscious as it did ours.  We may not hold our Pio Picos and E.O.C. Ords in the same musty reverence as a Peter Stuyvesant or John Hancock, but given the uninspiring nature of our recent political figures and the grotesque, hidden dimensions of our police department, you’ll have to forgive us for looking elsewhere for our civic heroes.”

Full story available via LxA Magazine:

“So Angelenos have a tendency born and bred in the fiber of our Western society to register our history via culture. Our soil may not have been watered with the blood of revolution, but so too do you Easterners lack the dubious and sordid heritage of Film Noir. No Founding Fathers pontificated on the nature of democracy and human liberty in Los Angeles halls, but the psychic specter of Tom Joad and his real life metonym Woody Guthrie never picketed your collective unconscious as it did ours. 

We may not hold our Pio Picos and E.O.C. Ords in the same musty reverence as a Peter Stuyvesant or John Hancock, but given the uninspiring nature of our recent political figures and the grotesque, hidden dimensions of our police department, you’ll have to forgive us for looking elsewhere for our civic heroes.”

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What If Dylan Klebold Had Gone to College via Thought Catalog “One wonders about Dylan Klebold though. Harris’ aloof and awkward sidekick begs the question: is the edge something you fall off of or something you hang on to? If you’re looking over a chasm, surely the edge demarcates the point of destruction. But if you’re learning to swim in a public pool, the edge is the thing you cling onto for safety. In a school setting where belonging and popularity were made to seem like everything, Klebold came to see himself as too ugly and too strange to belong. One pictures Klebold drowning in a sea of insecurity as others swam confidently around him. The rhetoric of 90s Rock and the dissonant chords of its churning musical movements was as a sort of pool’s edge for Dylan Klebold. By embracing the sharp edge oozing from the music, a fan like Klebold was entering a cultural world free from appearance-based judgment and one in which the outsider was inherently strong. The edge for him was a safety line. He latched on to the only thing he could in the slick world of modern adolescent identity: Hard Rock. When his grip slipped no one thought to blame the chasm that swallowed him. They vilified the only refuge he had.” Full Story HERE.

What If Dylan Klebold Had Gone to College

via Thought Catalog

“One wonders about Dylan Klebold though. Harris’ aloof and awkward sidekick begs the question: is the edge something you fall off of or something you hang on to? If you’re looking over a chasm, surely the edge demarcates the point of destruction. But if you’re learning to swim in a public pool, the edge is the thing you cling onto for safety. In a school setting where belonging and popularity were made to seem like everything, Klebold came to see himself as too ugly and too strange to belong. One pictures Klebold drowning in a sea of insecurity as others swam confidently around him.

The rhetoric of 90s Rock and the dissonant chords of its churning musical movements was as a sort of pool’s edge for Dylan Klebold. By embracing the sharp edge oozing from the music, a fan like Klebold was entering a cultural world free from appearance-based judgment and one in which the outsider was inherently strong. The edge for him was a safety line. He latched on to the only thing he could in the slick world of modern adolescent identity: Hard Rock. When his grip slipped no one thought to blame the chasm that swallowed him. They vilified the only refuge he had.”

Full Story HERE.

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Rob Garza: Conquering Champion The ugly truth is that not everyone can be a good DJ. The secret truth is that most people who are technically proficient as DJs couldn’t string together any sequence of music into something intriguing or visionary because one cannot learn good taste like you can a pair of decks. But the good truth is that for every hundred DJ Douches out there and their throngs of sweaty South Beach styled I-bankers, there is at least one Rob Garza. As the raucous half of DC based Thievery Corporation, Garza has been on the beat side of world lounge since it wasn’t cool. He’s steadily built his talent, his reach and his disciples. He’s crafted beats around most conceivable ethnic music forms. He’s helped orchestrate massive live displays of mixed acoustic and electronic musicianship. He’s weathered a politically pointed IRS audit. He has spat the truth. Moreover, he has been able to change. Now a resident of San Francisco, Garza is at the forefront of another evolution in Lounge. The deep house phenomena is still a bit nebulous and undefined, which I imagine suits Garza just fine. 2012 found him dropping mix after mix of the real good stuff—the sweet, sweet syrup of deep house and groove electronica. Check out his SOUNDCLOUD and bump these: 

Rob Garza: Conquering Champion

The ugly truth is that not everyone can be a good DJ. The secret truth is that most people who are technically proficient as DJs couldn’t string together any sequence of music into something intriguing or visionary because one cannot learn good taste like you can a pair of decks.

But the good truth is that for every hundred DJ Douches out there and their throngs of sweaty South Beach styled I-bankers, there is at least one Rob Garza.

As the raucous half of DC based Thievery Corporation, Garza has been on the beat side of world lounge since it wasn’t cool. He’s steadily built his talent, his reach and his disciples. He’s crafted beats around most conceivable ethnic music forms. He’s helped orchestrate massive live displays of mixed acoustic and electronic musicianship. He’s weathered a politically pointed IRS audit. He has spat the truth.

Moreover, he has been able to change. Now a resident of San Francisco, Garza is at the forefront of another evolution in Lounge. The deep house phenomena is still a bit nebulous and undefined, which I imagine suits Garza just fine. 2012 found him dropping mix after mix of the real good stuff—the sweet, sweet syrup of deep house and groove electronica.

Check out his SOUNDCLOUD and bump these: 

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THE AKS Imagine my utter disappointment when ancient prognostications and modern paranoias failed to coalesce into the promised apocalypse last month. Not one to be put down by another’s failure to accurately predict my demise, I sojourned to the Black Cat in what may be the most surreal moment of my life. Namely: seeing a Hardcore show with my mom’s best friend from high school. Long story short, but DC Hardcore is alive and well. The screaming, the brief musical statements of disgust and the smell. It was all thriving as the AKs took the stage for a Christmas time reunion. This was by far my favorite song of the night, if not for the lyrics then for the six times it was played by an assortment of musicians throughout the show. <a href=”http://theaks.bandcamp.com/track/divorce-court” data-mce-href=”http://theaks.bandcamp.com/track/divorce-court”>Divorce Court by The A.K.s</a>

THE AKS

Imagine my utter disappointment when ancient prognostications and modern paranoias failed to coalesce into the promised apocalypse last month.

Not one to be put down by another’s failure to accurately predict my demise, I sojourned to the Black Cat in what may be the most surreal moment of my life. Namely: seeing a Hardcore show with my mom’s best friend from high school.

Long story short, but DC Hardcore is alive and well. The screaming, the brief musical statements of disgust and the smell. It was all thriving as the AKs took the stage for a Christmas time reunion.

This was by far my favorite song of the night, if not for the lyrics then for the six times it was played by an assortment of musicians throughout the show.

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Unknown Mortal Orchestra Live at Pygmalion If you’re not already familiar with the squirrelly, high strung guitar noodles of New Zealand transplant Ruban Nielson after more than a year of rave reviews for the Unknown Mortal Orchestra debut album, go ahead and put this LIVE SET in your pipe and smoke it. The whimsical, motif bending psychedelia is a whole nother beast live as devout audiences have discovered. With bass player Jake Portrait (a renowned producer in his own right) and lock tight drummer Julien Enrlich, UMO is poised to drop their sophomore effort “ii” in February.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra Live at Pygmalion

If you’re not already familiar with the squirrelly, high strung guitar noodles of New Zealand transplant Ruban Nielson after more than a year of rave reviews for the Unknown Mortal Orchestra debut album, go ahead and put this LIVE SET in your pipe and smoke it.

The whimsical, motif bending psychedelia is a whole nother beast live as devout audiences have discovered. With bass player Jake Portrait (a renowned producer in his own right) and lock tight drummer Julien Enrlich, UMO is poised to drop their sophomore effort “ii” in February.

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Ghost-“Secular Haze” I had the curious fortune of seeing these Scandinavian devil worshipers and their incense burning, incantation spewing, groove metal black mass during the Opeth/Mastodon tour this year. Everything darkly appealing about metal and its outsider stance becomes evident in this one band that seems intent on using the well-crafted appearance of Satan worshiping ghouls in an attempt to weed the sensitive and too-serious from their shows. Which is why I felt comfortable enough giving their fan outreach collective “The Clergy” my email and why, while unnerved by the message thanking me for “my offering,” felt generally optimistic. Then like a hot charcoal briquette shot right out of the devil’s ass onto a bound and naked BDSM maven’s exposed chest, they hurled this gem at me email.

Ghost-“Secular Haze”

I had the curious fortune of seeing these Scandinavian devil worshipers and their incense burning, incantation spewing, groove metal black mass during the Opeth/Mastodon tour this year.

Everything darkly appealing about metal and its outsider stance becomes evident in this one band that seems intent on using the well-crafted appearance of Satan worshiping ghouls in an attempt to weed the sensitive and too-serious from their shows.

Which is why I felt comfortable enough giving their fan outreach collective “The Clergy” my email and why, while unnerved by the message thanking me for “my offering,” felt generally optimistic.

Then like a hot charcoal briquette shot right out of the devil’s ass onto a bound and naked BDSM maven’s exposed chest, they hurled this gem at me email.

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We Know What You Mean, Man The twisted and probing musings of world-traveled, Scot born, Los Angeles infected fiction and essayist Ross Gardiner. With a Joycean talent for the discipline of observant silence  and a churlish wit that encompasses the broadly idiosyncratic meat and potatoes fiber of LA, Gardiner’s adopted home becomes a sandbox of depravity, cruel banality and the subtly macabre.

We Know What You Mean, Man

The twisted and probing musings of world-traveled, Scot born, Los Angeles infected fiction and essayist Ross Gardiner.

With a Joycean talent for the discipline of observant silence  and a churlish wit that encompasses the broadly idiosyncratic meat and potatoes fiber of LA, Gardiner’s adopted home becomes a sandbox of depravity, cruel banality and the subtly macabre.

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How To Destroy Angels Remixes

After a couple decades in musical servitude perhaps Trent Reznor has found the mantra “Trying To Find Myself, But Myself Keeps Slipping Away” is no longer useful or relevant.

Notes of affection and a deep seated love color How To Destroy Angels, Reznor’s side project with wife Mariqueen Maandig, fellow Oscar winner Atticus Ross and long time cohort Rob Sheridan.

The Deadmau5 look at “Ice Age” is also worth a couple slow passes over the ear drums as you sip Kahlua and pray for the apocalypse.

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