Black Francis’ double seance

PHOTO by MICHAEL HALSBAND
In the thick of all the tension and band conflict in Steven Cantor’s Pixies reunion documentary loudQUIETloud, there’s one moment of surreal honesty that flawlessly articulates Frank Black’s frustration, both with his own solo material and the Pixies. He’s doing a phone interview while lying on a hotel bed [...]

Earlimart get together, grow up, stop looking back

PHOTO by DREW REYNOLDS
Heading for Los Angeles from California’s Central Valley, 70 miles south of Fresno on Highway 99, you see the signs that lead to the town of Earlimart. To founder and frontman Aaron Espinoza, those signs mean you’ve left Fresno and you’re on your way to [...]

Favored Long Beach band Forcefield ON is heading down to Detroit Bar tonight and through sheer force of charisma and skill they have secured a special kind of guest list to benefit you the cash-drained music hoover. Per Forcefield frontman Jesse Wilder:

Nomo’s regional approach

ILLUSTRATION by JOE MCGARRY
Nomo produced their first record in the classic tradition of Afro-beat founder Fela Kuti: fifteen people huddled together in a room, recording each song live together. They used everything that made Kuti famous, like huge horn arrangements and hypnotic guitar lines backed up by what sounds like a polyrhythmic army [...]

Peter Hook in motion

ILLUSTRATION by JOE MCGARRY
Right before Peter Hook—New Order and Joy Division’s ex-bassist—picked up deejaying, a friend warned him: the loneliest place in the room was behind the turntables. Despite the thousands of people in front of you dancing, you’re totally alone up there. “When you’re deejaying, there are no fans,” Hook says [...]

Respect and a check with C.R.A.C.

PHOTO by ANGELICA GARDE
Two sentences into a C.R.A.C. interview (“This is Ta’Raach.” “This is Blu.”) and they run right to fundamental questions of craft and creation before they even sit all the way down—is Pete Rock the best producer because he has the best record collection? Does Blu need more [...]

Busywork and its year of total harmony

ILLUSTRATION by JOE MCGARRY
When Dan Sena co-founded Busywork with fellow resident DJ GMO (Guillermo Arce) his life was in limbo: He’d been floating between various dead-end temp jobs and his band, Bullet Train to Vegas, was stuck working on a doomed follow-up to 2005’s We Put Scissors Where Our [...]

How Darondo got over

PHOTO by MORGAN HOWLAND
For 30 years Darondo had two identities, even though he never knew it. The first was William Daron Pulliam: 62 years old, a retired physical therapist and family man from Berkeley with a voice that immediately sets you at ease and a tendency to tell long, rambling stories about [...]

Ten years of hip-hop with Abstract Workshop

ILLUSTRATION by JOE MCGARRY
Abstract Workshop’s 10 years of hard hip-hop labor stands out as one of Orange County’s most impressive endurance tests. DJ, co-founder and producer Cocoe Tsimahidis said he’s lucky if he and the rest of his crew—DJs Scotty Coats and Josh One and MC Jud Nester—leave a [...]