"New" "Band" Alert: Best Coast/Los Angeles, CA.

Hey CDW, she likes Hawaiian vinyl, too.

I listen to the myspace tracks, I hear a million bloggers poop themselves. I'm down for it.

Like: Abe Vigoda, No Age, Wavves

All credit Skull Kontrol

Best Coast (myspace)

Let's get her down here, Big Mar. I got five on it.

Police Arrest Alleged "Westside Rapist" LA's Most Prolific Serial Killer

Los Angeles Police are claiming that they have cracked nearly 30 70s era sex assaults and/or murders that are thought to have been committed by the notorious "Westside Rapist." His signature move? Raping the victim and then strangling them to death. You know what District Attorney's say about strangulation: It's an intimate way to kill someone.

The accused is John Thomas Jr., and he's actually been in custody since March 30th. I guess since they got him they've been doing some DNA analysis on old cases:

"When all is said and done, Mr. Thomas stands to be Los Angeles' most prolific serial killer," Bengston told The Times.

The slayings began in the mid-1970s when a killer who came to be known as the "Westside Rapist" slipped into homes from Hollywood to Inglewood at night, first raping his victims and then squeezing their necks until they passed out or died. Police said he placed pillows or blankets over the faces of 17 women ranging in age from their 50s to their 90s.

A second spree of attacks began a decade later in Claremont, where five older women were raped and strangled in the same fashion, according to The Times.

(LA TIMES)

Even the Los Angeles County District Attorney is going to go for the death penalty here. Right?

Riverside DA Rod Pacheco Cries Because It Takes too Long to Execute People in California

Pacheco singled out the 1992 death sentence for Andrew Lamont Brown, of Riverside, for killing 17-year-old Christina Ann Ramirez, of Riverside, during a carjacking. Brown remains on death row.

"How has this animal not received justice?" Pacheco said, choking up. "He has been sitting on death row at our expense for $90,000 a year for 17 years."

In recent years, Pacheco has sponsored several unsuccessful bills meant to accelerate the death-penalty process. None has passed the Legislature.

The current death-penalty process, Pacheco said, "ignores victims, cheapens their pain and tolerates injustice."

Pacheco added that his job takes a personal toll.

"I must admit there are moments when the struggle to deliver justice sometimes overwhelms me, when I think I can fight no more, when I feel like I cannot take one more step, when the ease of tolerating evil sometimes tempts even me," Pacheco said. "But I think of all of you and I think of those who have entered my life because they have been victimized or their precious loved ones have been taken."

(Riverside PE)

Swine Flu Goes to "Stage Five"

Perfectly healthy


Swine flu upgraded to Stage 5 epidemic (San Diego Union Tribune)

Here is the state of the art google map. (Swine Flu Map)

The more recent illnesses and the reported death suggest that a pattern of more severe illness associated with this virus may be emerging in the U.S. Most people will not have immunity to this new virus and, as it continues to spread, more cases, more hospitalizations and more deaths are expected in the coming days and weeks. (CDC Website)

The Juggalo Threat: Gang or Whimsy?

Assault defendants called gangsters; Expert: 4 accused in attack are 'down with the clown' (MODESTO BEE)

Teens to be tried in Price Township 'Juggalo' murder; Poems describing a stabbing death submitted as evidence against teens(POCONO RECORD)

Okie Juggalo menaces woman with a hatchet, gets his clown ass sent to jail.(WAYWORD BLOG)

Am I the only person worried about the spasmodic rise of the national Juggalo fan club/gang threat. Wikipedia does identify them as a gang, instead defining Juggalo's as:

Juggalo or Juggalette (the latter more commonly used for a female) is a name given to fans of Insane Clown Posse or any other Psychopathic Records hip hop group. Juggalos view their group as one based on a common philosophy, derived from the Dark Carnival, a fictional mythology that was carried as a theme in six Insane Clown Posse albums known as the 6 Joker's Cards.

(Wiki)

As late as last year, the Phoenix based East Valley Tribune delved deeply into the issue asking, "Fans or gang? Meet the Juggalos." There, law enforcement appeared to be on the fence of the fan/gang divide:

"We're extremely divided," said Arizona Department of Public Safety gang expert Detective Michelle Vasey. "I've kind of made these guys my passion over the past year-and-a-half. You've got 90 percent of them that are true fans ... but what we've found ... is small groups of gangs breaking off and calling themselves some kind of gang sect."

(East Valley Tribune)

I think the trend, as evidence by the Modesto Bee story above, is to go for the gang tag. Certainly these incidents do pop up. Something for all the Juggalos to take note of: the next time you get into a fight at a house party or assault a bum after smoking crack, you could find yourself doing more time in prison.

Volar Records Blog

Volar Records Blog

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Things "Still Not Going Well" in Tijuana vis a vis Murder

Tijuana, city of crime.

Seven Cops in Tijuana were murdered yesterday:

Heavily armed gunmen staged a series of surprise attacks against municipal police forces in this tense border city, killing seven and wounding three in brazen assaults that shattered a four-month period of relative calm.

Six police officers and an auxiliary officer died within a 45-minute span late Monday in ambushes at a hillside substation, on busy streets and outside an OXXO mini-mart, where four were killed in a hail of bullets, including one who tried to fight back.

"He took out his gun and tried to fire at them, but they shot him and he fell backward, and his eyes rolled up in his head," said a teenager who witnessed the shooting in the tough Los Arenales neighborhood.

(LA TIMES)

Compiliation of Crocodiles 'Summer of Hate' Record Reviews

First, did you see this Pitchfork "Day Tripping" feature with Wavves? Ow Pitchfork, quit it: Wavves is having a hard enough time with the haters without a video featuring Wavves hanging with Bun B.

Here are what bloggers are saying about the Crocodiles new release on Fat Possum Records "Summer of Hate." Haters will do what they'll do, but I actually know that these guys are hard workers and not actually jerks at all. All the bands in town could take a lesson in career development from these two. Fact.

Dusted Magazine: And yet, Crocodiles’ first full-length, Summer of Hate is quite a bit better than fellow San Diegan Wavves, at least a couple of notches ahead of Crystal Stilts and, oh, far better than Vivian Girls (though maybe not quite as enjoyable as Pains of Being Pure at Heart). Summer of Hate is fairly diverse, with bits of punk, pop, shoegaze and space-rock woven into nine distinct tracks. What unites all these elements is a fascination with tone, rather than song structure or lyrical content.

Welcome to the Salon: i hear their live performance is something! check them out in san francisco april 29 and 30 at the Fillmore.

The Dumbing of America: TDOA: The Crocodiles, The Soft Pack and a bunch of other good bands are all coming out of San Diego lately. A lot of the great scenes in America (Athen, GA, Seattle, etc.) sprouted because there were great record stores or other entities that nutured the scene. What’s going on in San Diego that is spawning all of this great music?

BW: It’s a pretty boring place to live so there are a ton of bands. People play music to alleviate boredom in san diego.


Sound on the Sound: The Crocodiles are currently on tour with The Faint and Ladytron, a tour which stops by the Showbox SODO on May 2. I might need to go to this show.

Rolling Stone: Crocodiles' 2008 cult hit "Neon Jesus" was a pledge of faith — in Echo and the Bunnymen's 1980 LP Crocodiles as well as in the Jesus and Mary Chain. Their debut stays true: "I Wanna Kill" is Chain-like bubblegum noise that's less death threat than come-on, while the raw guitar dub rock of "Soft Skull (In My Room)" could be an old Bunnymen demo. But there's a thrilling free play in the duo's wildly distorted, trippy hook fetishism that makes them more than rehash: This is a repeat-ready 34 minutes of melodic pop pushed to the disintegration point and beyond. Welcome to the art-punk renaissance.

Coke Machine Glow: The slower dirge gospels—“Sleeping with the Lord,” “Here Comes the Sky”—aren’t so much tired retreads as they’re late revisions of a sound that many bands retreat into, but Crocodiles choose to genuinely explore; exploding Spacemen 3’s whole onus into something like arrogance. This is drone ambiance for your buds, and Buds. Meaning: Crocodiles did good!

Columbus based Band Plainly Jealous Over Wavves "Success"

Psychedelic Horseshit Hates Wavves


Psychedelic Horseshit

hates Wavves:

MW: Right it’s one person with GarageBand and a few chords and like — Wavves to me sounds like [expletive] TV on the Radio. That band sucks [expletive]. It’s one of the worst bands to get popular in a long time. They [expletive] trump No Age because I think it’s worse than No Age. No Age is just like, [expletive]. It’s really [expletive].
Washington Post: Do you think it’ll be fleeting, or will these bands maintain fans?
MW: I don’t know. Honestly I hope so because somehow if those [expletive][expletive]-[expletive] bands, by default, are like the leaders of the lo-fi movement now and we’re somehow under that umbrella because we made a lo-fi album. So it’s like, if those bands [expletive] don’t do good, I’m going to hunt them down and kill them because that’s the end of us. They’re [expletive] representing a bunch of good bands. Somehow the [expletive] bands get to represent the good bands. But it’s like that all through [expletive] history. Psychedelic Horse[expletive] - I think we’re better than Wavves, for sure….
I don’t care if people like Psychedelic Horse[expletive]. It’s for me. It’s for me to make music that I like. I don’t give a [expletive] if anybody likes it. Those bands, they’re all about like, Oh, we’re girls! Or, Oh, we’re skaters! Or, Oh, we’re California bros! Yeah, but, can you write a good song? No. You [expletive] put a couple chords together - I don’t know. I shouldn’t be talking so much [expletive] in an interview about Psychedelic Horse[expletive]. But it’s so prevalent now, everybody’s getting a [expletive] about all these bands…
Washington Post: Anyway, so you think this will make it harder for the “good” bands to break through?
MW: Well now it’s like if we make a record people are gonna be like, Oh, this Psychedelic Horse[expletive] record sounds like Wavves! Because it’s lo-fi! No. No, it doesn’t sound like Wavves. Wavves sounds like TV on the Radio, which [expletive] sounds like some really bad [expletive].

Metric is Playing the 94/9 Independence Jam: Sunday June 7th 2009

True story about this band:

Wife and I had the album, and we were hanging out with our lawyer friend from SF. She is... not a music person? Actually, not true- she went to the same so cal college that our other "not music, asher roth loving" duo went to, so she listens to music, has an ipod. Anyway, we were like "Hey- listen to this new band Metric"(this is three four years ago) and this friend she says, "Oh yeah, Metric... I've been into them for a couple years now. I play the album on my ipod all the time." Wow.

Metric is playing the 94/9 Independence Jamathon. This is a "short film" (video) for Help I'm Alive by Deco Dawson. The 94/9 Indie Jam is on Sunday June 7th, 2009 at the Oceanside Pier. (Site)

Tonight at the Casbah: Acid Mothers Temple, Sonic Suicide Squad

April 28th, 2009
The Casbah Presents
Acid Mothers Temple
Sonic Suicide Squad
$10
21+

2 Groups and members
2.1 Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O.
2.2 Acid Mothers Temple & the Cosmic Inferno
2.3 Acid Mothers Afrirampo
2.4 Acid Mothers Temple & the Pink Ladies Blues
2.5 Acid Mothers Temple SWR
2.6 Acid Mothers Guru Guru
2.7 Acid Mothers Gong
2.8 Acid Mothers Temple & the Incredible Strange Band
2.9 Kawabata Makoto & the Mothers of Invasion
2.10 MMMH!

Openers, Sonic Suicide Squad. aren't too shabby either, and they are from New Jersey.

To me this a show where attendance is basically mandatory because it's like, ok, it's at the Casbah, so sound will be good, and sound is important for these bands. I guess maybe if you've seen Acid Mothers Temple a dozen times you could be like "Well, I've seen the act already." I'm certainly not in that boat.

Also, you know what I like about Japanese bands? Amazingly prolific.

America's Sheriff Takes Five (and a half)

Take five, Michael Corona

Michael Corona, the former Sheriff of Orange County, CA was sentenced to more then five years in prison yesterday. This case illustrates the difference between getting convicted of everything and getting convicted of one count out of many. Here, Corona beat the meat of the case, but got convicted of witness tampering. So what was the benefit he received for beating most of the case? Five and half years in prison. I haven't looked at the sentencing guidelines, but I'm pretty sure he would have gotten the same sentence if he had lost on everything.

Interesting to see whether the current grant of bail-pending-appeal (which extends to his son's high school graduation... in late july, wtf?) will be extended while the case goes up to the Ninth Circuit. That means another year plus of freedom, and should be a clear illustration of the significance of being granted "bail pending appeal." Quite frankly, that's what you pay the big legal bucks for.

Tonight at the Casbah: Mr. Lif

Mr. Lif @ Casbah Tonight

Anti Monday League Presents
Mr. Lif,
DJ Statik,
Willie Evans,
Grieves,
Destructo Bunny,
Audios @ Casbah, San Diego CA. $12

What I want to know is, will they all be rapping at once? Cue laudatory San Diego City Beat article:

His thoughtful, often inflammatory body of work suggests that he’s carrying the torch lit by Public Enemy in the late 1980s.

SD City Beat.
Pitchfork says that he's

seen better days

:

Unfortunately, the ratio of thoughtful zeal to clunky screed this time around is decidedly not in his favor.

Pitchfork

His booking is done by the Windish agency. (WINDISH AGENCY AVAILS) I wish the Windish agency handled my booking.

Mika Miko to Rock the U.S. in June; West Coast in July

I've missed Mika Miko. You can hear what they've been up to over at Trip Wire there they have a I Got A Lot (New New New) MP3 posted. Also, they've added some west coast dates in July- after finishing their south west/south east/mid atlantic/north east tour in June. Whew. What a summer vacation!

Here are the West Coast tour dates for July 2009:

06.29.09 Mon Los Angeles, California. The Smell
w/ The Strange Boys
07.15.09 Wed San Diego, California. The Casbah
w/ Audacity
07.17.09 Fri Los Angeles, California. The Smell
w/ Audacity
07.18.09 Sat Berkeley, California. Gilman's
w/ Audacity
07.19.09 Sun Santa Cruz, California. Crepe Place
w/ Audacity
07.20.09 Mon Arcata, California. Green House
w/ Audacity
07.21.09 Tue Portland, Oregon. The Space
w/ Audacity
07.22.09 Wed Vancouver, British Columbia. Biltmore Cabaret
w/ Audacity, White Lung
07.23.09 Thu Olympia, Washington. Northern
w/ Audacity
07.24.09 Fri Seattle, Washington. Capitol Hill Block Party
w/ Audacity, Past Lives
07.25.09 Sat Portland, Oregon. Satyricon
w/ Audacity, Panther
07.27.09 Mon San Jose, California. Nickel City Arcade
w/ Audacity
07.28.09 Tue San Luis Obispo, California. San Luis Art Center
w/ Audacity
07.29.09 Wed Long Beach, California. Alex's Bar
w/ Audacity

The Return of No Doubt

No Doubt it's real big money & real hard to find a picture of jimmy iovine and gwen stefani together.

How much money do you think Jimmy Iovine has made off of Gwen Stefani? Have you seen their list of tour dates? Did you know he gets a piece of LAMB? I think to credit the rise of No Doubt to No Doubt alone is utterly preposterous, but in terms of who else to point at and say, "Hey, this is what made No Doubt big enough to play five consecutive dates in Irvine and not even be releasing a record till 2010!" Jimmy Iovine is probably the guy.

Experts on Flu "We Have No Idea"

"What makes this so difficult is we may be somewhere between an important but yet still uneventful public health occurrence here — with something that could literally die out over the next couple of weeks and never show up again — or this could be the opening act of a full-fledged influenza pandemic, we have no clue right now where we are between those two extremes. That's the problem,"

said Michael Osterholm, a prominent expert on global flu outbreaks with the University of Minnesota. (AP)

It's Really Bird Pig Human Flu, Not Swine Flu

I'm sure we have nothing to worry about.

number of media sources covering "swine flu"

Look at the growth in news media sources covering "swine flu" according to google news.

Latest Swine Flu Numbers/Map

Swine Flu Pandemic map

Deaths: 86, all in Mexico. 22 confirmed as swine flu, 64 suspected.

_ Sickened: 1,384 in Mexico, suspected or confirmed; 20 confirmed in U.S.; 10 suspected in New Zealand; 6 confirmed in Canada; 7 suspected in Spain; 1 suspected in France; 1 suspected in Israel.
_ Locations in Mexico: 17 states, including Mexico City, Mexico State, Veracruz, Oaxaca, Baja California and San Luis Potosi. Some, including Oaxaca, Mexico City and Baja California, have tourist areas, but authorities have not said where in these states the outbreaks occurred.
_ Locations in U.S.: California, Kansas, New York, Ohio and Texas.

So What's Up With Swine Flu in San Diego, CA?

Swine flu!

Since my job puts me into contact with recent immigrants from Mexico on approximately daily basis, I read with interest the initial reports about Swine Flu spreading in Mexico City. As of today, the federal government declared a "public health emergency" and 10 cases have been reported in the San Diego area. I still have no idea, what, if anything the local authorities are doing, or whether more cases have been reported at local hospitals. What's up with that, San Diego area public health authorities?

Also, I note that searches for "swine flu" arent't even charting on Google Trends. This is a potential pandemic according to hyperbolic newspaper headlines. Isn't anyone panicking yet? It's like a metaphor for illegal immigration.