#despite people literally living in socal who write shows set in socal???

[thesweetnessofspring]

There is truly no greater representation of Southern California living than Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.

[jessethorn]

Some Los Angeles Tips

People are always asking me what they should do when they visit LA. I am by no means the greatest LA expert on earth, but I’ve lived here more than a decade now, and I have some ideas for you. Note that I live in the far Northeast corner of LA, and really rarely travel to the western half of town. So if you are looking for advice on Beverly Hills stuff or Malibu stuff or whatever, I am not that helpful. Also this is very subjective and really non-comprehensive in general. Just some stuff I like!

In General

Rent a car if you drive, but don't be afraid to take the bus or subway. There are some very long distances to traverse, and not everything is convenient to transit, but the transit is reasonably comfortable and efficient for a lot of purposes (going downtown, for example), particularly when combined with some judicious ride-sharing. There's plenty of parking everywhere, despite what Angelenos would have you think. Don't try to do too many things in one day, or cross town on the 10, 101 or 405 at anything even resembling rush hour (ie between like seven and ten thirty or three and seven on weekdays). Stick to one area for the day, maybe two.

The Museum of Jurassic Technology This is the best thing in Los Angeles and one of the best things in the world. It is part museum, part art project. To explain it much further might ruin the experience of visiting it, but please take my word that it is one of the most amazing places in the world.

The Watts Towers As the name suggests, they're in Watts, a bit out of the way for some trips, but absolutely without a doubt worth the travel. They're an incredible artwork/building built in a backyard out of rebar, concrete, glass and tile by an illiterate Italian immigrant in the mid-20th century. Worth signing up for a tour, they are cheap (it's a city park) and not all that long. There's also a little gallery on the site. One of the great works of American outsider art and a deeply beloved city treasure.

Other, More Regular Museums LACMA is a world-class art museum. The collection is a bit scattered (and as of this writing a wing is closed for renovation and replacement), but it's really good. It's in Mid-City on the Miracle Mile, and surrounded by other museums. The Petersen Automotive Museum is pretty cool if you're into cars. La Brea Tar Pits are more park than museum, but the museum is fun in a kitschy way, if you're into prehistoric creatures. It's also a nice place to eat lunch. In Exposition Park are a few major museums - the Natural History Museum is pretty good, though not better than others in other major cities (the Field Museum or whatever). The science museum is OK but significantly outclassed by the competition (it's no Exploratorium), though it does have a real space shuttle, which is pretty sweet. The Annenberg Space for Photography does what it says on the label. A good mid-size museum of photographs, check what show is up. The Broad is a nice contemporary art museum in a beautiful building that's right near Walt Disney Concert Hall, also an incredible building. They have a second campus in Little Tokyo that's very nice but smaller.

Architectural Stuff The LA Conservancy runs affordable walking tours that take you into some of the most fascinating built environments in LA. The subject matter ranges from Art Deco in downtown to the modern skyscrapers of the 50s through 90s. They're mostly Saturdays, but a few also run on weekdays. Can't recommend them enough if you're up for a couple hours of walking. You can go inside the Bradbury Building and up into the upper floors! It's cool. (The Conservancy also runs screenings in the big movie palaces downtown, which are mostly otherwise closed to the public. Definitely recommend those.) A couple of other architectural highlights: the Hollyhock House is in Barnsdall Park in Los Feliz. It's a restored Frank Lloyd Wright estate willed to the city many years ago that as of relatively recently runs regular tours. Also in the park is the city art museum of LA, which sometimes has some cool shows. Cal Poly Pomona students run tours on Saturdays of the Neutra VDL studio and residences in Silver Lake, which can be combined with a nice walk around the lake and some middle-aged-hipster watching. The Gamble House in Pasadena is an absolutely breathtaking craftsman mansion with a lot of

Griffith Park Griffith Park is one of the largest urban parks in the United States. It has all kinds of stuff within it - the LA Zoo, the Griffith Observatory, some great hiking. It's a great place to spend some time. If you have little kids, they will love Travel Town, a train graveyard/museum that's inside the park (and free!). The zoo is good if you like zoos, though not incredibly great or anything. The Autry Museum of the American West is worth a visit if you're into that kind of thing.

The Grove I know that we talk about The Grove a lot on Jordan, Jesse, Go. Please do not waste your vacation time at the Grove. It's a mall. It's fine. This also applies to the Americana at Brand, which we sometimes talk about because we have talked about the Grove too much. Also a mall. A little nicer than some? I went there when I needed a new power cable for my Surface.

Dodger Stadium Look, I am a Giants fan and hate the Dodgers, but if you are a baseball fan, Dodger Stadium is a great place to watch a baseball game. Even I can admit that. Angel Stadium is about as generic as it gets, but if you go on a weekday you can take a train from Union Station in LA.

The Getty Center The Getty Center is a beautiful building on a breathtaking piece of real estate. It's pretty cool to visit, but be aware that most of the art is pretty early, so if you don't like busts or paintings of feasts and stuff from the bible, then it might not be your jam art-wise. And getting up there is a whole thing. That said: it really is a beautiful building and an incredible view, so you probably won't feel like it's a waste. And if you like busts, then get your ass over there.

Downtown Stuff I will again recommend the LA Conservancy's walking tours to get a flavor of downtown LA, which is very walkable and full of incredible stuff. The main library is a beautiful edifice, the history of which is detailed in Susan Orlean's The Library Book. Worth wandering around in. Grand Central Market is a great place to get a bite, though pretty bougie at this point. Right next to Grand Central Market is Angel's Flight, a block-long funicular that is a lot of fun and costs next to nothing. Besides this, there are still functional specialized commercial districts in downtown LA. The flower district is particularly fun - the big flower market opens early for wholesale sales but is open to the public and there are tons of stores selling silk and artificial flowers which are very fun to wander through. There are also areas with stores specializing in selling imported toys, store fixtures (a favorite of mine), jewelry and fabric. Most of the fabric is kinda garbage honestly but there is a good tailor supply store called B. Black and Sons and a great hat making store (worth visiting even if you don't make hats) called California Millinery Supply. FIDM also has a thrift store with cheap fabric leftover from LA-based factories.

Movies The Arclight is a fancy movie chain, and the Hollywood location (near Amoeba Records) is also the home of the Cinerama Dome, which is pretty fun. The Vista is a great single-screen theater on the east side. There are some great rep houses on the west side - check your local listings.

Comedy Stuff The UCB has a few great shows every night at both locations. It's hard to go wrong, though you should be aware you will be seeing things that are a little rougher than whatever makes it to your town as a road show. The signature improv show is Asssscat, which is absolutely as good as it gets. Dynasty Typewriter (right by our office) has a lot of great shows these days. A great standup show is Hot Tub at the Virgil. The big comedy clubs have pretty comedy-club-y comedy in them, not necessarily what I'd recommend, though you will certainly see a lot of relatively big names doing sets. The Improv Lab sometimes has MaxFun-adjacent headliners who've put together their own lineups, as does Flappers in Burbank. Largo has bigger-name shows of this variety as well, and if you go see a show there headlined by a Sarah Silverman or Patton Oswalt, the lineup will likely be packed with their pals, even if they aren't advertised.

Some Places To Eat This is NOT a comprehensive list. First: Jonathan Gold died a few years ago, but he is still the king of LA food. Anything he recommended in the Weekly or Times is still the gold standard (no pun intended). He was also a wonderful writer and a champion of foodways that are unfamiliar to many in LA, much less outside LA. If you are a food nerd, KCRW's Good Food is a superb local food show (and podcast) produced by Nick Liao, who used to work at MaxFun.

Philipe's The French Dip A restaurant that's been around for literally a century, with sawdust on the floor, big jars of pickled eggs, ladies in hairnets and really tasty French Dips. They have competing claims to having invented them but the other competitor turned into one of those goofy sleeve-garter-barman subway tile exposed lightbulb places about ten years ago. Philipe's is totally for real and great.

Pie N Burger This is just a burger place in Pasadena that sells classic SoCal-style burgers and is really great. Cash only, though.

Langer's The only one of the Jewish delis in LA that's really worth a special trip. The #19 (pastrami, cole slaw and swiss on rye) is truly one of the world's greatest foods. Pastrami here is better than anywhere else I've ever eaten, including those famous delis in New York.

Park's BBQ 

One of many great Korean BBQ restaurants in LA, but the only one recommended to me personally by Jonathan Gold. (I also like Soot Bull Jeep, which barbeques over charcoal and will leave you smelling like smoke, and Hae Jang Chong for all-you-can-eat.) (There are LOTS of different kinds of Korean food, but I am not an expert on the soups and blood sausages and bibimbaps and etc., but if you're adventurous, you could eat a different Korean food at a different spot every month in LA and make out well.)

Guelagetza Oaxacan food is one of the best kinds of food in the world, and Guelagetza is an LA institution that serves good-quality Oaxacan food. Moles, tlayudas, queso fundido. If you've never eaten any of this stuff, a couple of chicken moles are a great place to start (as is Guelagetza).

Dim Sum You can drive all the way to the San Gabriel Valley and eat at one of the many wonderful dim sum places there. That's where the best stuff is. If it's not worth a special trip to you, I like a place called Lunasia in Pasadena, and they also serve dim sum for dinner. Not a HUGE menu but good food.

Mozza This pizzeria, now a sort of group of restaurants, is an unimpeachably excellent Fancy Meal in LA. So (per my producer Kevin) are the other restaurants run by the same chef, Nancy Silverton.

The Dal Rae This is an old-timey fancy restaurant in Pico Rivera, a semi-industrial part of LA. It's just a great place to wear a suit to and eat Clams Casino. Famous for their table-made Caesar salad (legit great) and pepper steak (too peppery for me). Generally the food is excellent in a 1955 sort of way.

Bludsoe's Best Texas-style barbeque I've had outside of Texas. Used to be a window down by the airport, now a fancier place on La Brea, but I'm told the food is just as good at the fancy place.

Pupusas I love to eat pupusas. Maybe my favorite food. I really like to eat pupusas at Los Molcajetes on Hoover in Westlake (near Koreatown). Note they are weirdly big here (a regional variation of some kind) and they only take cash. (Note also this is one of 10,000 restaurants in LA named Los Molcajetes.)  I also sometimes eat at a nice sit-down Salvadoran place called Las Cazuelas on Figueroa in Highland Park.

In N Out In N Out is good! It will not change your life! But it is very tasty, especially for a $4 food! Some people complain about the fries, which are fresh-cut and fried only once and thus are less crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside than some others! I think they are fine! Try In N Out, why not! But maybe don't make a whole special trip to do so!

Tacos and Other SoCal Mexican Food Stuff Everyone has their own favorite taco places, and none of my favorites are so special they should be destinations. They are mostly my favorites because they are close to my home and work. But I can tell you that I like to get sit-down Mexican-American food at La Abeja on Figueroa in LA, where I eat a lot of carne adovada and enchiladas and sometimes albondigas or breakfast. I also really like to eat carne en su jugo at Carnes Asadas Pancho Lopez on Pasadena in Lincoln Heights. I eat tacos from Tacos La Estrella on York in Highland Park or the truck (with no name) across from the Mexican consulate on Park View at sixth in Westlake. At night I sometimes get cheap tacos (I like buche) from the place that opens up on Pasadena at Avenue 37. I like the shrimp and fish tacos at Via-Mar on Figueroa. I like Huaraches from Huaraches Azteca on York. The burritos at Yuca’s in Los Feliz (or Pasadena) are great, though they are totally different from the SF-style burritos that I grew up eating. I sometimes get nachos at Carnitas Michoacan on Broadway in Lincoln Heights, which feature meat and cheese sauce and are gross but also really, really good.  I have also eaten at the very fancy Mexican restaurant Border Grill and to be honest it is really good even though the interior feels a little like a cross between a fancy restaurant in 1989 and a Chili's.

El Coyote This is a famous Mexican-American restaurant from the early part of the 20th century, but you shouldn't go there because the food sucks.

Stores I Like This is going to be REAL subjective, but a few stores I like which sell the kinda stuff you'd expect me to want. &etc - A great (small) antique store at 1913 Fremont in Pasadena. The Last Bookstore - A downtown bookstore that is the closest thing to a "destination" book store in LA. Good selection and reasonable prices on used books, and a nice art book room. (Records as well, but they're not very good.) Gimme Gimme Records - I like this record store in Highland Park. You'll pay retail here, but reasonable retail, and the selection (while not immense) is really excellent. Good stuff in all genres.

Secret Headquarters - One time at this small comics store in Silver Lake the lady at the counter asked if I was Jesse from Jordan Jesse Go and they won my business forever in that moment. Don Ville - My friend Raul makes and sells shoes (and repairs them!) in the northern part of Koreatown. If you have the dough, get him to make you some shoes! The Bloke - A really great little menswear store in Pasadena. Sells cool (expensive) trad-ish brands like Drake's and Hilditch & Key and Alden. The Good Liver - A beautiful shop in Little Tokyo specializing in perfect home goods. The perfect scissors, the perfect dish towel and so forth. Some things are expensive, some aren't. H Lorenzo Archive - The "outlet" shop of a designer clothing store on the west side. Discounts aren't huge, but the selection is really interesting, and they have a good collection of one of my favorite brands, Kapital. Sid Mashburn - Excellent classic clothing shop on the west side. Suit Supply & Uniqlo - if you haven't got these where you live, they're the places I usually send people for reasonably-priced tailored clothes (Suit Supply) and cheap basics (Uniqlo). Olvera Street - This is an old-timey tourist attraction, a street of folks selling Mexican handcrafts (and their Chinese-made analogs). Right near Union Station and Philipe's, and a great place to buy factory-made huaraches (the shoes, not the food). They even have sizes big enough for me, which is pretty much impossible to find in Mexico or most Mexican-American shoe stores. Thrift Stores - I go to a lot of thrift stores but if I told you which ones you might buy something I would have bought so I'm not going to tell you which thrift stores.

Flea Markets You may know I am at the flea market every weekend. The good fleas are on Sundays, and there's one every week. First Sunday of the month is Pasadena City College, a big (and free) market with pretty reasonable pricing. PCC has a pretty big record section in addition to the regular flea market stuff. Second weekend is the famous Rose Bowl flea, which is HUGE and has a big new goods section (blech) and vintage clothing area (good!). Third weekend is Long Beach Airport, which is a great overall show. Fourth is Santa Monica airport, which is smaller and a little fancier but very nice. The Valley flea is also fourth Sundays, at Pierce College, and that's not huge but sometimes surprises me. With all of these, the earlier you can arrive, the better you'll do (not least for weather reasons). I usually try to get there around 7:30 or 8:00. The Rose Bowl in particularl is a 4-6 hour operation if you do most of it. There are also a lot of swap meets - I don't know enought to recommend any in particular, but these are much more about tube socks and batteries and bootleg movies than antiques and collectibles. Still can be fun, though, and are certainly a proud SoCal tradition. (The Silverlake Flea and the Melrose Trading Post are garbage, don't go there.)

Going to the Beach I'm not a huge beach goer, but by all means go to the beach if that's your thing. The Annenberg Community Beach House in Santa Monica is a great place to base your operation, though you have to arrive in the morning on busy days to get a parking spot.

Kid Stuff I mentioned Travel Town, that's pretty great. Kidspace in Pasadena is a very good children's museum. The Bob Baker Marionette Theater is a great place to see a marionette show straight out of 1966. There's a good aquarium in Long Beach though it's a bit nutty there on weekends, and the zoo in Griffith Park is a good zoo. I really like Descanso Gardens, a big botanical garden northeast of LA. Huntington Gardens is also very nice, though it's much more expensive and hotter.

Geography Los Angeles is BIG. I'd say try to spend each of your days within about a sixth of it, geographically. It's entirely possible to do west side and east side stuff on the same trip, but don't try to do them on the same day. Look at a map and look at driving times when you're planning. Neighborhoods in LA are BIG, geographically speaking, don't assume two things in the same neighborhood are an easy walk. There aren't a ton of urban neighborhoods suitable for wandering in the way there are in some places. A few manageable general areas for stuff you might like: Silverlake/Los Feliz/Echo Park, Koreatown, Highland Park, downtown, Little Tokyo and the Arts District. (I live in the northeast part of town, and don't spend much time on the west side, which is one reason why this list focuses more on east side stuff. Some folks like West Hollywood and Venice on the west side. Long Beach and Pasadena are both neat towns with their own thing going on that might be worth a visit, too.)

Books & Media The Great Los Angeles Book is probably City of Quartz, a socialist-leaning history of LA. I really loved Susan Orlean's The Library Book, which is about the library as an institution, but also specifically the LA central library and the mysterious fire that nearly destroyed it. And a wild guy named Charles Lummis who was one of the founding fathers of LA culture and was really something else. (You can visit his house - it's right off the 110 near Highland Park.) An LA movie I love is The Long Goodbye, which is sort of a predecessor/inspiration for The Big Lebowski. A shaggy mystery directed by Altman where Elliott Gould just sort of wanders around LA. Another really cool one is Los Angeles Plays Itself, a long (long!) film essay about the ways the real Los Angeles has been used to create fictional worlds in film over the decades.

TV Tapings I'm not an expert in TV tapings. I can say that I've been to a few Conan tapings, and while it takes a LOOOOONG time to get in there, the show is fun to watch live. This is generally true of talk shows and most game shows, which tape more or less as-live. Sitcoms take WAY longer than you were expecting them to. Make sure to try to book tickets early if you have something you want to see. No matter what it's a most-of-the-day thing.

Nightlife Is a word that describes evening activities - especially dance clubs. I am old and don't know about these things.

The Magic Castle I can't get you in, please don't ask me to. I went a couple times. It's fine. If you're not into magic you're not missing too much. If you are, then obviously, it's a priority.

The Walk of Fame and Hollywood Not recommended, not worth it, don't bother.

Disneyland Why would you want my opinion about Disneyland? It's Disneyland. You're in or you're out.

San Diego If you happen to plan a side trip to San Diego, you can take the Amtrak there, and it is a breathtakingly beautiful and exceedingly pleasant trip. I have no San Diego expertise to impart beyond that, however.

[edibleflowerseu]

SOUNDS

Alexandre Bazin / Full Moon (2016) [Umor Rex]

“Eleven stunning compositions with a neo-classical signature, an obsessive focus on structure and a refined sense of melody. Emotional compositions serve as interludes to relaxing, post-new age moments, with plenty of space for intuitive beat journeys. An independent-minded composer attuned to the society that surrounds him, he channels the fury of the world into exceptional music marked with poetry. With a free-thinking approach to writing, Alexandre transcends context and genres. Full Moon is the meeting point of early electronic analog exploration and classical minimalism.” (---)

...

What the fuck does that quote even mean. I dunno, bruh. I'm feeling kinda sick and beat af. Need to sleep. Didn't do enough of that last night or the two nights before.

Anyway I've only listened to like four tracks off this but its a lot of fun, I think. I think its fun. I can't tell what is fun anymore, but I still try to have it. U know??

I wanna listen to this more when I have the time but rn gotta meet up with a gal, u know how it is. I honestly just wanted to include this cause it has bangin' artwork I'm very into. An aesthetic I would like to emulate for my own work, whatever or whenever that will be. A reminder to return here when the weather improves.

Burial / Rival Dealer (2013) [Hyperdub]

“Few electronic artists from the last decade have been pigeonholed like William Bevan. Since the London producer behind Burial gained widespread attention with 2007's epochal second album, Untrue, listeners and critics alike have spoken of "the Burial sound"—pitched-down vocal samples, rustling noise, blocky garage rhythms in perpetual decay—as if it were straight gospel ... As imitators big and small have lined up to pay respect, the phrase 'sounds like Burial' escaped the connotation of wishful thinking and started sounding almost like, well, an insult.

Insulting because, as this decade so far has proven, one person who doesn't sound like Burial anymore is Burial himself.” (---)

...

Burial has long been in the domain of “shit I fuck with if I ever decide to fuck with it.” I've known about him a long ass time, been in my radar, and showered with praise in every corner of the internet in which his named is dropped. Good dude, mysterious dude. Wintery dark type dude.

I don't know shit about this genre front as I may. But I like the way it makes me feel, and I want to feel like this more.

Max Richter / The Blue Notebooks (2004) [Fat Cat]

“Conceptually, Max Richter's The Blue Notebooks – German-born composer mixes contemporary classical compositions with electronic elements in a dreamscapy journalogue featuring excerpts from Kafka's The Blue Octavo Notebooks as narrated by Tilda Swinton – reads like a relentlessly precious endeavor, as new age music for grad students, the sort of record that sagely pats you on the back for being smart enough to seek it out. And yet in practice, despite the fact that it is exactly as outlined above, Kafka quotes and all, there is absolutely nothing exclusive or contrived-feeling about it.” (---)

___

“[U]nlike his influences, he's not remotely interested in subverting the traditional rules of composition. Short of one very beautiful moment that plunges an electronic sublow bassline into a deep sea of harpsichords and violas (see: the literally perfect "Shadow Journal"), there is nothing here to suggest that Richter is concerned with anything other than melody and economy. It's a formula he singlemindedly exploits with staggering effect.” (---)

...

I have a problem with Max Richter. Back in college, I took a summer semester film course in which – among other things – I had to watch old ass movies. One of those old ass movies was a bit called Intolerance, which was D.W. Griffith's attempt at redemption after he massively fucked up with the famously racist Birth of a Nation**. Within, it's a handful of unconnected narratives set throughout history (Babylonia, the Renaissance in France, Jesus getting his ass whooped by a cross, and one set in “modern” times a.k.a. 1916). It's pomp, it's pretentious, it's James Cameron in the 1910s. But most importantly, it's two hours and silent. I had to watch a shitty two hour silent film for class. I guarantee u I was the only one who actually did it.

I survived by endlessly looping Richter's Memoryhouse as a quasi-score for the film. It worked incredibly well and I got very into the movie. But now, every time I hear that album or anything from it, an image of a huge and horrifically expensive historical set piece being set on firefor some weak high art film snobbery wedges itself into my subconscious.

The Blue Notebooks wholesale revisits some melodic motifs here and there, which instantly conjured up my past woes. That being said, it was still a killer, moving album. It has Tilda Swinton reading some excerpts from Kafka's journals, which teeters between “ooh this is fun” and “try-hard city.” Generally it is the the former, and upon multiple listens, maybe its always the former.

**ok looked this up actually an urban myth, he apparently made this film in reaction to the intolerance he perceived the NAACP and others had for him after making the famously racist Birth of a Nation. deadass this is Griffith's “you're the real racist for calling me racist.”

UPDATE: briefly checked out Richter's 24 Postcards in Full Colour and its probs my fav thing by him so if u wanna fuck with this dude start there, is what I say.

The Pharcyde / Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde (1992) [Delicious Vinyl]

“Nearly two decades after it was released, Bizarre Ride's dizzying mix of SoCal 420 culture, jazzy bohemianism, self-conscious rap smarts and postmodern pop-cult potpourri is still as entertaining and emotionally satisfying as ever, and with the benefit of hindsight, stands as a perfect snapshot of rap's rapid, diverse ascent to pop status in the early 1990s.” (---) ___

“"We're serious about certain things, but everything is basically a joke. We live through hard shit, but we can laugh about it." (---) ___

“She keeps on passin’ me by”

...

The landscape of the 90s rap canon is some shit. People cite The Pharcyde among the secretly smart, playful-type about-some-regular-shit school of rap, as opposed to the hard, violent and larger-than-life drama of gangsta rap. But there are holes in that view and p much everyone got down w/ Pharcyde despite or because of their foolish fun times. The group is class clowns with classics. “Oh Shit” is one of those transphobic “found out she had a dick, DAAAAAYUM” rap songs that really don't hold up in 2017. Or rather, you can forgive it as a relic from a less-informed time, but it still sours a room if u play it in mixed company.

Anyway, my boi Jesse sometimes reminds me of The Pharcyde (very much without the transphobia), and every disciple of REAL RAP knows wassup. I think I'm getting a fever or some shit can't think straight at all rn. Oh well, I'm still chugging forward. Progression n shit.

Royal Headache / High (2015) [What’s Your Rupture?]

“The ferocity of punk intimidates some. For those entering the field, High is a pair of training wheels. Even the album’s title track, a good-natured romp through the park with friends at your side, sounds like a muted clink of beers in celebration of revolt to come. It’s cheap, sure, but mediocre songs level out the uproar on others.” (---)

...

Another thing involving my boi Jesse. When he was in Budapest he ran into an Australian dude in the Hungarian equivalent of Staples. They became buds and he was visiting him the other weekend. We talked music for a minute and I name-dropped one of the few Australian bands I was legitimately about and the dude lit the fuck up. He was a huge fan of Aussie garage rock and his sister was a pretty big name in the Melbourne scene. Every time the conversation veered back to Royal Headache, I mentioned how huge they were in the US in terms of the scene. Every time he would say, “Royal Headache? Really? Of all bands??” He showed me some music and a lot of it was just Australian versions of Wavves and videos of dudes drinking and smoking. Nothing I was wild into but I saw the appeal.

Later on, high af w/ him and some dudes from my friend's pop punk band and the frontman/drummer asks if the Australian dude knows Royal Headache. Once again, Australian dude was like “of all bands??” People who know whaddup know that Royal Headache is one of a kind. Pop punk frontman tells me Joyce Manor fucks with them. And that's some cred right there.

Soulful croon-shouts, lo-fi power chords, sweat + beer.

Sleater-Kinney / Dig Me Out (1997) [Kill Rock Stars]

“A life-or-death seriousness is omnipresent with Sleater-Kinney, but they never rejected rock's base desires—sex, dancing, proverbial milkshakes—although sometimes they vaguely mocked them. Sleater-Kinney stole from men what men had in turn stolen from the margins: electrified blues that all still made girls scream.” (---)

...

While it's not going swimmingly, I continue my reacquaintance with quintessential guitar rock of the 1990s. I banged through the first couple of Sleater-Kinney albums and was semi-into em. Not something I would reach for immediately but something I would be down with if I was in the right mood.

This is the first album I listened to that sounded like it was made by a band as revered as Sleater-Kinney. The vocals are a clear precedent to the howling vibrato of Screaming Females (Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein share vocal duties and I'm pretty sure the aforementioned howl belongs to Tucker?), and the guitar-work sounds deft and deliberate, something by people who knew what they were trying to do. This is in contrast to the earlier albums I had heard, which were good but banked more on raw guitar slamming and ~rebellious~ lyrics. I get the feeling that once I poke around Sleater-Kinney's catalog more and get a real feel for their sonic world, I'll be able to confront older albums I was mixed on with new insights and appreciation. Let’s see what happens.

Sleater-Kinney is a monumental band and I wanna do them justice.

Other shit:

Mobb Deep / The Infamous

DJ SVYATOPOLK / Original Moscow Sound

DJ Camgirl / Problems

Merchandise / A Corpse Wired for Sound

Swum / Runway

Saiko / Breezin’

Jinsang / Gratitude

Jinsang / Solitude

Especia / Gusto

Mounika / Basket Sound