L.A. Concert Update

Ok it's been a while since I've updated Suburban Sound, but it's been a really slow month as far as music goes. Nothing new has grabbed my attention or has inspired me to write a review. I know that last sentence sounded really pretentious.

Anyway, while I'm waiting for some good music to come out I'll try to post weekly concert updates for the Los Angeles area.

Circa Survive lead singer Anthony Green is playing a solo show at the Fox Theater in Pomona on Saturday, February 11th. Opening for him will be indie rock band The Dear Hunter (not to be confused with Deerhunter) and Isodora Crane. Tickets are on sale now and are $18.50 + fees.

Singer-songwriters Jay Farrar and Anders Parker will be teaming up with Will Johnson (frontman of indie rock band Centro-matic) and Jim James (lead vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter of My Morning Jacket) to perform at The Music Box in Los Angeles on Wednesday, March 7th. Singer-songwriter Sarah Jaffe will be opening for the quartet. Tickets are on sale now and are $33.15 after fees.

For heavy metal fans out there, Five Finger Death Punch will be playing at the Fox Theater in Pomona on Saturday, March 24th as part of their tour supporting their October release of American Capitalist. Tickets go on sale Friday, January 27th @10am and will cost $43.80 after fees.

Portugal. The Man will be performing at the Fox Theater in Pomona on Friday, May 4th. Tickets go on sale Friday, January 27th @10am and will cost $33.15 after fees.

Singer-songwriter Kina Grannis will be playing at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre in Los Angeles on Friday, May 18th. Tickets go on sale Saturday, January 28th @10am and will cost $31.65 after fees.

For fans of bluegrass, Trampled by Turtles will be performing on Tuesday, May 22nd at The Music Box in Hollywood. Tickets go on sale Saturday, January 28th @10am and will cost $33.15 after fees.

And finally, for those of you who need a quick concert fix ASAP, I recommend checking out Mutemath at Club Nokia next Thursday, February 2nd. Tickets are still available and cost $27.50 plus fees.

Coachella 2012 Lineup

Just about 9 hours ago, Goldenvoice released the lineup for Coachella 2012. Though most of you have probably already seen it by now, here it is:

Friday April 13th & 20th

The Black Keys
Swedish House Mafia
Pulp
Refused
Arctic Monkeys
Mazzy Star
Afrojack
Explosions In The Sky
M83
Amon Tobin
Cat Power
Madness
Jimmy Cliff & Tim Armstrong
GIRLS
The Rapture
Madeon
M. Ward
The Horrors
Frank Ocean
James
Alesso
SebastiAn
Datsik
Yuck
Neon Indian
Dawes
The Black Angels
Death Grips
WU LYF
Breakbot
Atari Teenage Riot
Feed Me
GIVERS
Other Lives
Band Of Skulls
R3hab
Wolf Gang
The Midnight Beast
EMA
Ximena Sarinana
Kendrick Lamar
The Dear Hunter
honeyhoney
Hello Seahorse!
The Sheepdogs
LA Riots



Saturday April 14th & 21st
Radiohead
Bon Iver
The Shins
David Guetta
Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds
Kaskade
Miike Snow
Jeff Mangum
Sebastian Ingrosso
Andrew Bird
Feist
fIREHOSE
Godspeed You! Black Emperor
St. Vincent
Martin Solveig
Sub Focus
SBTRKT
Flying Lotus
Manchester Orchestra
Kasabian
AWOLNATION
Azealia Banks
Squeeze
A$AP Rocky
Buzzcocks
Kaiser Chiefs
Destroyer
The Head and the Heart
Laura Marling
tUnE-yArDs
Grace Potter and the Nocturnals
Black Lips
The Big Pink
Childish Gambino
The Vaccines
Zeds Dead
Grouplove
Jacques Lu Cont
We Were Promised Jetpacks
Gary Clark Jr.
Borgore
Dragonette
We Are Augustines
Mt Eden
Destructo
Suedehead
Keep Shelly in Athens
Pure Filth Sound



Sunday April 15th & 22nd
Dr. Dre & Snoop Dogg
At The Drive-In
Justice
Florence + The Machine
AVICII
La Roux
Beirut
The Weeknd
Girl Talk
The Hives
DJ Shadow
Calvin Harris
Nero
Wild Flag
Modeselektor
Dada Life
Porter Robinson
Santigold
Flux Pavilion & Dr. P
Gotye
Seun Kuti & Egypt 80
Beats Antique
Fitz and the Tantrums
araabMUZIK
Company Flow
Real Estate
Zedd
Le Bucherettes
Greg Ginn
The Growlers
NOISIA
Morgan Page
The Gaslamp Killer
First Aid Kit
Oberhofer
Lissie
Thunder Cat
Metronomy
Wild Beasts
Housse de Racket
Fanfarlo
Spector
Gardens & Villa
Airplane Boys
Sleeper Agent



After staring relentlessly at this lineup since its release here are my reactions:

• Great headliners, but it's weird to see The Black Keys in a headlining spot. Especially after they played last year as the #1 subheadliner on Friday. Nevertheless, I will make sure I'm there to see them because they always bring their A game. Can't wait to see Radiohead in what will no doubt be the biggest crowd of the weekend. Dr. Dre & Snoop Dogg should be interesting to watch, though Goldenvoice is clearly going out of their way to get a big name hip hop act in a headlining spot every year. As far as hip hop artists making new music today you don't get much bigger than Jay-Z and Kanye West. Since they've headlined back to back years, I suppose this is the biggest they could've gotten. An Outkast reunion would've been unreal though...

• Saturday is the best day. I don't know how it would be possible to see everyone I want to see. Radiohead, everyone on line 2, Andrew Bird, Feist, St. Vincent, SBTRKT, Manchester Orchestra, AWOLNATION, Kaiser Chiefs, tUnE-yArDs, Childish Gambino, and Grouplove make for a very exciting, but somewhat stressful day. Some sacrifices will need to be made. Luckily there is plenty of time to prioritize so that when the set times are released, I'll have some idea of who I'd want to see.

• Friday is the second-best day, Sunday is a distant 3rd.

• Though Saturday is the best day overall, the combo of The Black Keys, Arctic Monkeys, and M83 is my favorite of the weekend and are all must-sees.

• Lot of repeat artists this year. This can happen when you have a festival that's been held every year since 2001. However, a lot of the artists on this year's bill have played Coachella in the last 2 years, including The Black Keys, Afrojack, SBTRKT, Band of Skulls, Florence + the Machine, David Guetta, Miike Snow, The Big Pink, La Roux, and Kaskade. 

• Two of the three members of Swedish House Mafia (Axwell and Steve Angello) played their own dj sets last year. And Sebastian Ingrosso is playing twice this year (Friday with Swedish House Mafia and Saturday as a solo act).

• Omar Rodriguez-Lopez played last year as a solo act and will play this year with a reunited At The Drive-In.

• Frank Ocean is a member of OFWGKTA. They played last year as well.

• So happy to see The Hives making their return! It's been a little over 4 years since their last album came out and they have a new album slated to be released later this year.

• I'm gonna make a giant "Put a Bird on It" poster just in case I end up seeing Wild Flag.

• I'm a big fan of Donald Glover and his work as Childish Gambino. He'll be a priority on Saturday.

• "Up Up Up" by Givers and "Colours" by Grouplove were two of my favorite songs of summer 2011.

• "Somebody That I Used to Know" by Gotye has been a favorite song of mine in the past couple months and has started getting a fair amount of airplay on L.A. alternative radio stations.

• Not a huge fan of AWOLNATION, but "Not Your Fault" is another song that I've really been enjoying by him recently.

• I can see myself spending a lot of time in the Sahara tent this year. Acts like SBTRKT, AVICII, Calvin Harris, and Kaskade are starting to convert me to a fan of dance music.

• "Laid" by James: the first song I thought of after seeing this lineup. I'd see them just to hear this song. "This bed is on fire with passionate love. The neighbors complain about the noises above..."

• Has any concert lineup ever featured more artists with capital letters? (GIRLS, WU LYF, GIVERS, EMA, fIREHOSE, SBTRKT, AWOLNATION, A$AP Rocky, tUnE-yArDs, AVICII, araabMUZIK, and NOISIA)

• Not as good of a lineup as last year's, but that would've been impossible to top. Great music came out in 2010, which is why the 2011 lineup was so great. Not a lot of great music came out in 2011, which is why the lineup isn't as strong. Plus, it's incredibly difficult to book artists for 2 weekends in a row so hat's off to the workers at Goldenvoice for being able to put together a lineup this great considering these facts. Overall I feel that Coachella 2012 has a solid lineup and will be an amazing weekend full of great music in the blistering heat of Indio. Weekend 2 here I come!

Coachella Update! Pt. 5

Though the lineup announcement is mere days away, the Coachella website continued to post music videos over the weekend of artists who will be there. On Saturday the music video for "Baby I'm Yours" by French producer and dj Breakbot was featured on Coachella's home page. And earlier today the video for "Oh Yeah !" by indie electronic act Housse de Racket.

Coachella Update! Pt. 4

About 5 hours ago, Coachella posted this image on their Facebook and Twitter and encouraged us to tell all our friends:

One could only assume this means we will be getting the lineup next week! It could as soon as Monday morning or as late as Friday evening. Either way, this weekend is gonna take forever to get through with this being the only thing on my mind for the next (at least) 2 days.

Coachella Update! Pt. 3

And the list of confirmed Coachella 2012 artists continues to grow. Yesterday, the music video for "The Harder They Come" by ska musician Jimmy Cliff was posted on the Coachella website. 

In other news, a band called Atari Teenage Riot has confirmed on their Facebook account that they are performing at Coachella 2012, much to the excitement of 104 of their fans.

Coachella Update! Pt. 2

Another video has been posted on the Coachella website. This time it's a video of hip hop producer Araabmuzik freestyling some dubstep beats at a show in New York City. Again, this doesn't count as an official announcement, but it is likely that he'll be performing at Coachella 2012.

Coachella Update! Pt. 1

It looks like we have the closest confirmation of at least one of the artists on the bill for Coachella 2012. Yesterday afternoon, the music video for "212" by Azealia Banks was posted on the Coachella website.

While this doesn't quite count as confirmation that Banks will be performing in Indio this April, Goldenvoice seems to be repeating what it did last year.  In the last week or so leading up to the 2011 lineup announcement, music videos by Phantogram, Lightning Bolt, Tame Impala, and Trentemøller were all posted on the website. All of these artists played Coachella 2012. So I think it's safe to assume Azealia Banks will be performing at Coachella 2012.

Sexy Update: Banks has since confirmed via Twitter that she will be performing at Coachella. Also, she  twitter-dissed god awful rapper Kreayshawn after the latter posted Banks' "212" video on a porn website. Banks seems to be doing her best to win me over.