Top 3 Best California Girl Summer Rock Albums

Summer is here! And to celebrate, I had a musical marathon of my favorite California Girl Summer Rock Albums. Basically, this is what Katy Perry wishes she could sound like if she wasn’t so busy shooting firecrackers from her boobs. It’s Beach Boys-infused, California-Girl Pop-Rock at it’s finest, best enjoyed poolside in an 310 area code with pink ipod speakers and a chilled diet coke.

1. Best Coast - “Crazy For You”

Look at this freaking album cover! If this doesn’t spell the perfect California Girl Summer album, I don’t know what will. I saw Best Coast open for Weezer in November 2010 during their Memories Tour, which mostly just made you wish that Weezer still sounded like they did in 1997. Thanks for charging me $50 for that realization, Rivers. Needless to say, Best Coast was reminiscent of another girl pop band that used to open for Weezer during their songwriting heyday and who’s also featured on this list - That Dog. And for as big of a That Dog fan as I am, I wasn’t filled with the sappy 90’s nostalgia of wishing That Dog was playing instead of Best Coast. It’s 2011. Weezer has been selling out and producing craptastic music for over a decade. Best Coast, however, is seriously worth your while. The lead singer, Bethany Cosentino, is also the best thing that happened to twitter since Charlie Sheen.

Best Songs for the Summer: “Boyfriend”, “Summer Mood”, “When I’m With You”

2. The Breeders - “Last Splash”

The Breeders don’t hail from Los Angeles like the other two bands on this list. Instead, they hail from the mystical land of Kim Deal’s Pixies’ side-project turned full-time gig, completed with the addition of Deal’s twin sister Kelley. The Breeders basically invented surf rock for the girl masses, laying the foundation for a plethora of other bands to follow with “Last Splash” being their signature opus. Their debut album “Pod” is also a great listen. It includes a cover of “Happiness Is a Warm Gun” which has the distinction of being the only Beatles cover I prefer to the original. The band was derailed in 1995 because of the Deal Twins’ heroin addiction to which I can only say “How freaking 90’s of them?”. Since then, they’ve sobered up, and I’ve had the pleasure of seeing them live in September 2009 at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles when they opened for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, but honestly, it was a decade too late. If you have no clue what the 90’s were like, watch the music video links below. Their horrifically 90’s, yet brilliantly Spike Jonze all at the same time. “Summer is ready when you are.”

Best Songs for the Summer: “Cannonball”, “Invisible Man”, “Divine Hammer”

3. That Dog - “Retreat From The Sun”

That Dog is seriously one of the most under-rated and over-looked girl pop acts that nobody has ever heard of. The lead singer, Anna Waronker, is mostly remembered for writing the music for the 2001 “Josie and the Pussycats” movie… which pretty much means that nobody except for me remembers her musical contributions. Rachel Haden will ring a bell to most old-school Weezer fans for snatching the lead vocals away from Rivers’s bare hands on the Weezer track “I Just Threw Out the Love of My Dreams”. If you haven’t heard that song, download it immediately. “Retreat From the Sun” is girl pop perfection. It’s basically the girl version of “Pinkerton” or “The Blue Album” without Rivers Cuomo’s underage Japanese-girl obsession. That being said, That Dog polished up the pop from what the Breeders were doing, and then Best Coast garaged it back up again. Thus is the circle of life. Woah, I’m a cheeseball.

Best Songs for the Summer: “Minneapolis”, “Retreat From The Sun”, “Long Island”

Being There

Today is the last day for my friend Jeff Ramirez’s Two Person Exhibition at ThinkSpace in Culver City. Jeff is a really amazing painter and there’s awesome work by Pakayla Rae Biehn as well. In the exhibit you’ll find paintings of Jen Reiter and Marah Morris, my producing partners on “Spin Convenient Truth: The Val Fierno Story”. If you have a chance, check it out! The address is 6099 Washington Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232.

“Nothing Ever Happens (Still)” - Jeff Ramirez

“Life’s Been Great” - Jeff Ramirez

“Ten Thousand Times I Thought About, This Time I’m Doing It” - Pakayla Rae Biehn

Coachella without the Sunburn: Bright Eyes + Jenny & Johnny + Broken Social Scene: Part 2

After catching the sold-out Bright Eyes show with Jenny and Johnny at the Fox Theatre in Pomona on their route to Coachella, I attended a fan-club only Broken Social Scene Show on their return from Coachella at the Masonic Lodge in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. That’s right, the concert was at a cemetery and it was one of the most unique shows I’ve ever been to. Kevin Drew himself kept saying repeatedly that this was a special evening for him and the band, and the audience definitely felt it was experiencing something truly special as well. I was able to sit in the front row of chairs that lined the Masonic Temple and there was a long narrow stage taking up the entire width of the room that was adored with antique chairs, fit for a cemetery, perhaps. I personally just wondered how all of the 10+ revolving tribe of musicians was even going to fit up there.

Soon enough, 9 band members took the stage, including permanent members Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning, Apostle of Hustle’s Andrew Whiteman, Lisa Lobsinger and Charles Spearin. The set-list was very eclectic and included a Modest Mouse cover, a Apostle of Hustle song, and Charles Spearin presenting a song from his concept album “The Happiness Project” which translates people’s distinctive speech patterns and cadence into music. Spearin played an audio tape of an older Creole woman from New Orleans giving a touching interview and then the band played along with the speech, translating language into music. Amazingly, the music had the same effect, if not more, than the original speech did.

Drew and Canning might just have some of the best band banter ever. Canning took the reins while Drew was off-stage for a number and when Drew returned, everyone was standing up from their chairs and dancing. Canning joked that it must have been the correct BPMs to get the crowd pumping and Drew reacted by spontaneously adding more songs, danceable ones of course, to the set list. Then both of them began arguing about whether the crowd should be standing up or sitting down up during particular numbers and the crowd listened, sitting down for a Kevin Drew number only to stand back up again for a Canning song. Canning defended his case using a comical reference from the movie “The Fighter”, but honestly, it was all about the BPMs, man.

Coachella without the Sunburn: Bright Eyes + Jenny & Johnny + Broken Social Scene: Part 1

I am no longer the rambunctious punk rocker of my youth because when I think about an outdoor weekend concert/festival, only two things come to mind: sunburns and how much a bottle of water is going to cost me. That being said, I did not attend Coachella this year, but luckily, living in LA I didn’t really have to. I opted instead to mooch off of Coachella, attending a sold out Bright Eyes concert with Jenny and Johnny at The Fox Theater in Pomona on their route to Coachella and seeing an intimate fan-club only Broken Social Scene show inside of the Masonic Lodge at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery on their triumphant return from the Cochella festivities.

Jenny and Johnny were a blast as always, starting off their set with “Committed” as they did the last time I saw them at their first ever show at The Three Clubs in Los Angeles. This time around they played a beautiful deconstructed version of “The End of the Affair” off of Jonathan Rice’s solo album “Further North” that was exponentially more amazing than the album version. They also played a lot of fun songs off of their album “I’m Having Fun Now”, including “Scissor Runner”, “Just Like Zeus” and “Big Wave”, proving that only Jenny Lewis can write a pop song about the waning economy. They closed the night with ”The Next Messiah” off of Jenny Lewis’s second solo album “Acid Tongue” which includes three different songs stringed into one melody which Jenny Lewis describes as “an ode to Barbara Streisand and the devil”. I concur.

Bright Eyes put on an amazing show as well. The last time I saw Conor Oberst was with The Mystic Valley Band at the Echoplex and it was refreshing this time to see him not always strapped down into a guitar with a performance that seemed more of an multi-instrumental rapper than of a tortured singer-songwriter prodigy. It was really the emergence of Conor Oberst the performer. And for that evolution, I applaud. Mike Moggis and Nate Walcott were equally as impressive to watch, as was the new addition of Laura Burhenn from the band Georgie James (which featured the ex-dummer of Q and Not U, an amazing D.C. band I was fortunate enough to see live in Miami before their break-up in 2005).

The first time I heard Bright Eyes, I was sixteen years old, and as I’ve grown up, the band has grown up and their music has continued evolving over the years. That being said, I was extremely satisfied with their set-list. There were old songs played that filled my sixteen year old sad sappy emo heart with joy such as “Something Vague”, “Going for the Gold”, “Falling Out Of Love At This Volume” and “The Calendar Hung Itself” (The titles of these songs alone are a dead give-away to the sad sappy emo heart I’m referring to). However, the new Bright Eyes album “The People’s Key” is really spectacular and I was really excited to hear some of my favorite songs from the new album as well like the hard drum-roll trashing intro of “Jejune Stars”, the catchy danceable pop emo single “Shell Games” and the eerie piano haunt of the “Ladder Song”. If there was ever a Bright Eyes album to hear live, this may be the one.

The Getty

The last time I went to The Getty Center, I was seven years old. I remember coy fish ponds surrounding Roman architecture and French furniture from the era of Louis XIV. I didn’t recall a tram though, or it being plopped on a rather large mountain overlooking the highway, and people always looked confused when I talked about the coy fish ponds. It took me an embarrassingly long amount of time to realize that the Getty Center of my youth is now called the Getty Villa and that I had in fact never been to “new” Getty Center I frequently drove past on the 405. I knew I had to go.

Outside there were no coy fish ponds, but a beautiful asian-inspired garden designed by Robert Irwin and spectacular views of Los Angeles. And yes, 17th and 18th century French furniture located in the South Pavillion including an extravagant clock that had only four copies made, two of which belonged to Marie Antoinette, and lavish beds that were cut short in length so that Parisian women could sleep sitting up as to not ruin their hairstyles. Love it! I also learned that from April 26 to August 7th, they’ll have a special exhibit called “Paris: Life & Luxury” showcasing the 18th century Parisian living. Count me in.

Of course, I also saw a Van Gogh, a Rembrandt, Renoir, Monte. I believe this was the first time I’ve seen a Van Gogh without a rather large crowd of people surrounding the painting and either commenting on it or trying to sneak a picture. Yeah, there was still people gathered around, but it was more than a semi-circle than a crowd, which was nice. I guess I always go to museums when they’re busy.

Aside from the wonderful collection of permanent art and displays, I really enjoyed the “Gods of Angkor” exhibit which included breathtaking Buddhist and Hindu statues from present-day Cambodia. The Vishnu statue was zen to say the least and all of the statues were moving and beautifully crafted. It was my favorite non-permanent exhibition along with “The Photography of New China” exhibit, if only for the works of Zhang Huan, whose work gathered a little bit of a crowd as well. Personally, I think he was just competing with Van Gogh. Seeing as his work is being exhibited while he’s still alive, he might actually have the one up.

I highly recommend checking out these exhibits. “The Photography of New China” will be on display until April 24th and “The Gods of Angkor” closes August 14th. 

Jenny and Johnny’s First Show at Three Clubs

Jenny Lewis.

Jenny and Johnny’s First Show. Committed.

A Scissor Runner Stole My Heart.

Big Wave.