Getting down to the business of getting down with Ozma

PHOTO and ILLUSTRATION by STERLING ANDREWS
At their best, the ’90s were a clusterfuck of brilliant and weird pop bands that now either sit comfortably idle on pedestals (Nirvana, that dog., Ben Folds Five) or uncomfortably idle in a debilitating vegetative state. These bands (names withheld to [...]

A rich man sits on Deepakalypse’s chest

ILLUSTRATION by JOE MCGARRY
When Deepak Super plays live—as the surprisingly appropriate Deepakalypse—it’s kind of a Bert Jansch/Gram Parsons/Guthrie hybrid, inviting a community to silently rally behind a (sometimes bearded) singer giving away the only thing that’s his to give: the truth! And he’s more than happy for the chance. [...]

Josh One contemplating ‘Tolerance’

PHOTO by ZACK PIANKO
Josh One moved to California as a little kid from Louisiana and found it slow right from the start: “I was like, ‘I learned this last year!’” he laughs now, remembering crash disillusionment in fourth grade. And he may well have recalled how it felt to be out front [...]

High on Fire awake from Sleep

PHOTO by LUKE MCGARRY

“Matt Pike never mellowed with age,” Ethan Miller told me once. “High on Fire stomps the shit out of you, and that’s great!” And except to add footnotes—Miller plays guitar in Comets on Fire, the Pink Floyd to Pike and High on Fire’s Black Sabbath—that particular observation [...]

Be Your Own Pet: Banned in the U.S.A.

PHOTO by MICHAEL LAVINE
Be Your Own Pet are from Nashville, a town so infested with country-music-industry cutthroats that it rivals only Los Angeles on the entertainment-biz creativity-discouragement index. So it’s little surprise, maybe, that their music—unpredictable, rapid-fire tempo, 1980s-camp-movie meets rock-party—has fallen victim to industry censorship. Universal, the [...]

Daily living is maximal with Magic Lantern

PHOTO by JENNIE WARREN
Magic Lantern (guitarists Cameron Stallones and William Giacchi, bassist Gavin Fort, drummer Chip Knechtel and auxiliary unchained Phil French) appeared from some truly cosmic nowhere last August—the kind of place where the big bang comes with narration by Vincent Price and gamelan accompaniment. But they really [...]

The Warlocks of Euphoria

ILLUSTRATION by LUKE MCGARRY
The Warlocks overlapped their name with what the Velvet Underground was going to be called—“The Primitives” got used up the same way but someone can still try something with a modern version of “The Beachnuts”—and overlapped their sound with what the Velvet Underground was gonna do if John Cale [...]

9 BEET STRETCH @ OCMA SAT-SUN | MAY 3-4

It’s hard to imagine that Leif Inge, the sound artist behind 9 Beet Stretch, ever listened to this piece in its entirety. But I haven’t, either. In fact, I doubt anyone has. 9 Beet Stretch is a 24-hour rendition of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, with each note slowed [...]

Come on home with Sugar Minott

ILLUSTRATION by LUKE MCGARRY
He tried singing very first at a talent show when he was 12 but he didn’t win—but he did make the finals, and close enough like that was encouragement enough to keep going, and so Sugar Minott—then Lincoln Barrington Minott—took his first tiptoes toward becoming one of [...]

The Good, The Bad and Los Mysteriosos

PHOTO by PAIGE MCCORMACK
Every Cinco de Mayo since their very first show, they ride in from the horizon: Los Mysteriosos, arguably the best-dressed band in Long Beach, though he wouldn’t want to sap the honor from the Bolides, says guitarist/singer El Mysterioso. As the house band at Alex’s Bar—in [...]