L.A. indie pop/electronica band Mansions on the Moon have released a new EP, Lightyears, and have made it available as a free download for the time being. All you have to do is like it on Facebook. I did this, and I like it in real life, too, especially the second song, "Leaves Fall," which is just as serene and pretty as you might guess from its title. And it's executive produced by Pharrell Williams! Download it while it's hot. They'll have a full-length out later this year, and they play L.A.'s The Mint March 9.
It's lucky 13 for us in LA as the Film Noir Foundation is offering quite an unusual batch of films this year. Last night kicked off the festival with newly struck prints of Audrey Totter in High Wall and a recently restored Anthony Mann obscurity Strangers In The Night. Tonight's offering is a prison themed double starting off with Jules Dassin classic Brute Force. Well known for its ensemble cast, it features a particularly stellar performance from Hume Cronyn as the sadistic Capt. Munsey. Paired with Brute Force is Jack Palance vehicle House of Numbers, which features vintage San Quentin locations and Tim
Sunday brings a couple of unearthed gems in Whiplash and The Hunted, neither on DVD. In fact, 6 of the first 10 movies in this year's lineup are not available on DVD! Wednesday offers the murderous combination of Humphrey Bogart as a psychotic artist in the Two Mrs. Carrols & Olivia De Havilland in a dual role as twins accused of murder in The Dark Mirror. Thursday rounds out the first week with Charles McGraw as a murderer on the lam in The Threat & Joan Crawford as a gangster losing her eyesight in This Woman is Dangerous. Promised to be "Joan at her Joaniest," what more could you ask for?!
Evidence "To Be Continued" live @ Fat Beats LA on Friday Sept 17th 2010
Two weekends ago the Fat Beats retail store in New York City closed shop for good and today the Fat Beats store in LA will follow suit. And while the shuttering of this longtime SoCal meeting ground for hip-hop fans and artists is most definitely a sad day, the good folks at Fat Beats are going out on a high 
celebratory note rather than a just a downer tearful farewell. Today's final day for the LA Fat Beats on Melrose is the culmination of a week and a half long series of music industry panels and energized instore performances that included Ras Kass, Dilated Peoples, Evidence (solo, as in video above from Friday), Bishop Lamont, Kurupt, Mellow Man Ace, and 2Mex (as seen in video below from last weekend), with a day long DJ showcase featuring J Rocc, Rhettmatic, DJ Revolution, and other turntable manipulators throughout today.
Don't miss it if you are the LA area! Allow time to get in, as the relatively small space will quickly get crowded. Two weekends ago at the September 4th closing of Fat Beats on Sixth Ave in Greenwich Village, NY, it was so crazy that myself and another two or three hundred fans, who arrived late in the afternoon, got stuck outside listening to the music blaring out the windows of the second floor store. Like the closing of the NYC Fat Beats, the closing of the LA store is more than simply some retail space closing down. It is the loss of an important community common ground, a local hip-hop institution that lovers of the genre gravitated towards and where, it seemed, there was always some must-see instore performance.
