Starting today Amoeba Hollywood is selling tickets to the Silverlake Jubilee for $25 (plus $2 in service fees) — that's $10 off the regular price for a weekend pass. The show is on Saturday and Sunday, on Santa Monica Blvd. between Commonwealth and Sunset; find out more information here. Check out some of the performances from Silverlake Jubilee bands at Amoeba below, and pick up the latest albums from the artists online or in-store.

Abe Vigoda live at Amoeba Hollywood




The Soft Pack live at Amoeba Hollywood


Albums from Silverlake Jubilee artists:

Aloe Blacc - Good Things (soulful jams on Stones Throw Records)
La Sera - Sees the Light (sweet power-pop from Vivian Girl Katy Goodman)
Abe Vigoda - Crush (nighttime nouveau coldwave)
Fidlar - No Waves/No Ass 7" (whet your appetite for the drunk punks full-length with this one-two waveless/assless punch)
Autolux - Transit Transit (dark alt-rock goodness)

Amoeba Hollywood is holding a sale on recordings released by Bear Family Records, which specializes in re-releasing recordings by such rock ‘n’ roll pioneers as Hank Snow, Johnny Cash, Bob Wills, Bill Haley, Bill Monroe, Webb Pierce, Leslie Gore and Carl Perkins. Now through Friday May 25, Bear Family boxed sets are marked up to 60% off.
 

The German label was founded in 1975 and has come to be known for specializing in Americana, releasing extravagant boxed sets complete with books and rare recordings. Come in to the store and look for the display to check out some sweet Bear Family sets like Tex Ritter’s High Noon, Hank Snow’s The Singing Ranger Vol. 3 and The Osborne Brothers’ 1968-1974!

Mariachi El Bronx stopped by Amoeba Hollywood to play their uniquely American take on traditional Mariachi music. Bedecked in black mariachi garb and with horns in tow, the band played a set of tracks from their 2011 album Mariachi El Bronx II.

Mariachi El Bronx started as post-hardcore band The Bronx before incorporating mariachi elements for this side project, which began when the band was asked to do an acoustic version of the song “Dirty Leaves” from The Bronx’s self-titled second album for a television show and they turned it into a mariachi dirge.

“We never wanted The Bronx to be a soft, quiet band,” says frontman Matt Caughthran, “but this freed up a whole new realm. Sometimes you don’t realize the barriers around yourself until you step outside them. It was a big moment in our career, breathing new life into the band.”



Band members Caughthran, Joby J. Ford (guitar), Jorma Vik (drums) Brad Magers (trumpet), Ken Horne (jarana/guitar), and Vincent Hidalgo (guitarrón) then studied up on YouTube, no less, while touring with The Bronx to make Mariachi El Bronx happen. Learning all the mariachi styles, such as norteno, jorocho, juasteka, bolero, and corridos was essential.

“Mariachi has rules,” Caughthran says. “We learned everything we could out of respect, especially as we’re a bunch of white guys — well, except for Ken, who’s Japanese.”

“Fuck Pitchfork!” was the clearest message Light Asylum’s Shannon Funchess got across in her stage banter while playing the Echoplex on May 15th with Tearist, Chelsea Wolfe, and Violet Tremors. She was referring to the so-so review of Light Asylum’s self-titled debut full-length, with which she (and many, like myself) disagreed.

That she would address the review in such a public setting with such abandon speaks largely to what is great about Funchess and Light Asylum, and why reviews of the band, either glowing or mediocre, are sort of irrelevant. The DGAF nature of her outburst or gruff addressing of the sound guy to lay off the “fucking” effects (immediately followed by a sort of apology) matches the no bullshit appeal of her delivery, whether she’s giving it all in emotional techno-ballads (“Shallow Tears,” which boldly opened the show, or their modern classic “A Certain Person,” which came next to last) or pulverizing audiences with an all-engaging persona of aggressive dancing and an awesome, sometimes terrifying growl in songs like personal fave “Pope Will Roll.”

The show was a huge improvement over the last time I saw them at the Echoplex with Salem, during which the room’s sonics washed out the sound a bit, while Funchess and cohort Bruno Caviello’s stage presence is even stronger than before. Funchess absolutely commands, singing powerfully with some combination of self-choreographed or ad libbed militaristic moves, inching toward the edge of stage and singing in people’s faces without coming off as antagonistic. The feeling gotten by listening to Light Asylum on record and watching them perform is a “bigger picture” thing that can’t be distilled into track-by-track album breakdowns — that’s what some reviewers missed.
 
Chelsea Wolfe performed her brand of brand of gothic noise-folk admirably, though her inclusion was slightly misplaced compared with the other three acts. Violet Tremors provided Minimal Wave Tapes-esque robotic pop that nicely whetted the appetite for Light Asylum’s more humanistic take later on. L.A.’s Tearist’s performance proved the closest in kinship, with singer Yasmine Kittles headbanging and lending her smoky drawl to industrial dance soundscreens, though the band still calls for clearer songs (like the skittery “Headless,” one of its best thus far, which sounded amazing Tuesday) to match their impressively theatrical performances.

Anticipation has been high for the new albums from Baltimore dream-pop duo Beach House and Cali-cool pop-rock duo Best Coast, and luckily neither disappoints. Beach House continues the upward trajectory set by their previous three album — the haunting, murky lo-fi of their self-titled debut, the more grandiose Devotion and its modern classic follow-up, Teen Dream —with an even fuller, more confident statement on Bloom. The album jumps from the springboard set by Teen Dream’s “Norway” into more definitively pop territory, albeit the sort of cerebral goth-pop pioneered by Kate Bush and Cocteau Twins. Like that song, “Lazuli” emits a sky-searing chorus of Victoria Legrand’s cloudy vocals that is simply glorious, the kind of thing directors dream about hearing in their film’s opening sequences, eliciting sudden and unspeakable emotion. The band combines this with verses that are more mysterious and harder to recall — it’s a perfect example of the band’s strength in fusing archness and pop structure, retaining their intrigue while delivering hooks. Every song on Bloom is a highlight, as the album moves from the cascading keys and chiming guitars of opener “Myth” to propulsive “The Hours” and “New Year,” perhaps their clearest stabs yet at radio-ready pop-rock, through closer “Irene,” which stretches its music-box arrangement to epic proportions, boosted by Alex Scally’s hauntingly spare yet melodically uplifting guitar lines. Every song on Bloom somehow sounds strange and new, yet somehow feels intimately familiar upon first listen. Listening is like unearthing someone else’s memories, each song like a glittering diamond that has just been waiting to be found.
 
Meanwhile, Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino documents the process of entering adulthood and looking for lasting love the way few singer-songwriters can on The Only Place. Her sophomore full-length album is a more grown-up affair than the anxiety-pinned sunshine pop of Crazy For You, aided by springy, shimmering production from Jon Brion, but luckily Cosentino hasn’t changed too much. The longing Cosentino communicated in songs like Crazy For You’s “Boyfriend” is still present in songs like the swaying countrified ballad “No One Like You,” asking “if I sleep on the floor, will it make you love me more?” The simplicity of her lyrics belies their cleverness, as she pleads with her subject by offering to leave in order to make him stay. Throughout The Only Place, Cosentino and multi-instrumentalist Bobb Bruno reference ’50s and ’60s country starlets and girl groups, creating Phil Spector-style melodrama with crystalline guitars and lyrics yearning for individualism within codependence in songs like “How They Want Me To Be.” Throughout, Bruno and Brian keep things chugging along nicely in order to allow Cosentino’s personality to shine and not wallow too much in sentimentality, giving the haunting, Julee Cruise-style ballad “Dreaming My Life Away” some nice propulsive drum work, an improvement from an earlier, sparer recording, while “The Only Place” and “Let’s Go Home” burn with college-rock energy to spare. And Cosentino has never sounded better, her voice now brimming with confidence and pulling the heartstrings directly rather than from behind a shield of reverb and lo-fi sonics. It’s impossible not to be affected as she sings simple lines like “I wanna see you, for ever and ever” in the show-stopping “Up All Night.” She makes us feel the simplest sentiments as deeply as the first time we felt them, a hallmark of a truly great songwriter and performer. (The LP comes with a free bonus 7" while supplies last.)
 
And I would be remiss not to mention the reissues of My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless, Isn’t Anything and EPs 1988-1991, including songs released between those two albums, plus previously unreleased songs from that era. I’m not the biggest reissue person — often seems like a money grab with few good unheard songs and tweaks only an audiophile can hear, but this is My Bloody Valentine we’re talking about. The band’s two shoegaze classics sound better than ever, as only the most delicate nob twiddling has taken place at the hands of Kevin Shields. Anyone who doesn’t own these two albums, two of the best ever in my humble opinion, should get these import CDs right now. Even if you don’t buy CDs anymore. It’s time. Meanwhile the EP collection is a no-brainer for any fan of the band, as My Bloody Valentine’s throwaways tend to be better than most bands’ entire catalogs. Superfans may have the material Tremolo and You Made Me Realise EPs already, all excellent of course, but not songs like “Good For You” and “How Do You Do It,” terrific jangly pop songs gnarled by shuddering noise that sound nearly as good as anything on Isn’t Anything.