Celebrate the new year's first Friday with First Fridays! Once a month, Los Angeles's Natural History Museum stays open late and features live music, exciting scientific discussion, and behind-the-scenes curatorial tours as part of the First Fridays program. Amoeba is excited to sponsor this fabulous series of live music, discussion, concessions, tours, DJs, and more.

Join us on January 4th from 5-10pm for live performances from Lord Huron and Wildcat! Wildcat!, special DJs, and a guest lecture from Dr. Kirk Johnson ("Digging Snowmastodon: Discovering an Ice Age World in the Colorado Rockies").

Find out more HERE!
 

Western-themed rockers dressed for the part Lord Huron began their set Nov. 19 at Amoeba Hollywood with “Ends of the Earth,” the opener of Lonesome Dreams, the band’s recently released debut record. The fact that the band brought the bongos that appear on the song to the crowded stage shows what detail means for the band, who didn’t skimp on additional instrumentation beyond the typical guitars-and-drums setup. That attention paid off, as Ben Schneider and his band’s music was nicely layered without sounding cluttered. The set made the most of the band’s five-man makeup, utilizing starry guitar lines and soaring harmonies to great effect. The band turned in a splashier version of “I Will Be Back One Day,” rocking out a bit harder while making the vocals less of a priority. The sound of ocean opened to the galloping rhythm of “Time to Run,” a clear crowd favorite. “The Man Who Lives Forever” proved the band’s most impressive song live, beautifully syncopated and stuffed with gorgeous guitar work, complete with slide guitar and harmonic playing. It was amazing to hear what they could accomplish with just a handful of guitars, echoing the sounds of banjo, southern rock and Eastern-influenced tonality. See more photos of the show here. Read my interview with Schneider here.

Friday I caught Tame Impala at The El Rey Theatre. I’ve been sick for over a week with a stupid head cold that makes my eyes start to shut around 10 p.m., but I was determined to see my favorite current band — and El Rey shows end early. The first thing I noticed was that the show was packed, and not entirely with your garden-variety hipsters. Older folks and lots of BROS. But like, cool, sensitive ones. Cause Tame Impala have left their Australian lily pad of coolness with their latest album, Lonerism, which has garnered the band great widespread acclaim and support from Pitchfork, KCRW and the like. So they upgrade to The El Rey from The Echo, where I think they played the last time they were in these parts.

On Lonesome Dreams, Lord Huron’s Ben Schneider creates a soundtrack for travel. Opener “Ends of the Earth” finds him telling his lover “There’s an island where everything is silent/I’m gonna whistle a tune,” among other evocative lines about getting the hell out of dodge. From there his Americana-fueled journey touches on hints of the exotic — the clanging percussion of “Time to Run” calling to mind the East while he sings concurrently about finding a life way out West. Along the way he discovers the loneliness of wide-open space on the spare title track; harmonicas haunt him on “The Ghost on the Shore,” hinting at nostalgia born from hitting the edge of the land and looking back. The whole thing gallops along with country jangle, nightsky atmosphere and Schneider’s throaty, impassioned vocals, and it’s nearly impossible not to get swept in its romanticism.

The whole thing could be thought of as a travelogue for Schneider’s own journey out west, travelling from his home in Michigan to New York, around the world and eventually to Los Angeles, where while pursuing a career in visual arts, his Lord Huron project took off. Comprising songs he recorded back in Michigan at Lake Huron, where he formatively would strum the guitar in his youth, his first EP Yours, Truly gained traction in the blogosphere, and Schneider formed a band to begin playing live in 2010. His debut record, Lonesome Dreams, is out now via IAMSOUND. Lord Huron play Amoeba Hollywood Monday Nov. 19 at 7:00 p.m. I took a minute to speak with Schneider about his journeys, musical and otherwise.

Flying Lotus – “Between Friends” (ft. Earl Sweatshirt and Captain Murphy)
 
Everything Flying Lotus does requires us to pay attention — not just because everything he touches, whether it be hosting excellent artists like Jeremiah Jae on his Brainfeeder label or his own work on albums like Comsmogramma, seems to be uniformly excellent, but because there’s a depth of complexity there that extends past sample-rap-repeat. This song for Adult Swim’s Singles Program features guest spots from Earl Sweatshirt and Captain Murphy — who is maybe Tyler, the Creator? So postulates Pitchfork, which may be true, since Captain Murphy was a character from the off-the-air animated series “Sealab 2021” whose original voice, Harry Goz, died in 2003. I love how it starts with this dream soul intro that completely cuts out twice before getting into trading codeine-fueled raps. Sounds like something that would have been concocted at the bottom of the sea, indeed! (Ugh.) Flying Lotus’ new album Until the Quiet Comes is due Oct. 1 on Warp Records, featuring guest spots by Thom Yorke, Erykah Badu and more.