Tickets are on sale now via Brown Paper Tickets and “the fair-trade ticketing company” will donate a portion of the proceeds from the festival to the charity of the ticket purchaser’s choice. You can buy general admission passes ($35 + $2.22 service fee) or there are three additional ticket options that include camping (tent, lakeside or RV) for a bit more. Buy tickets here.
Moon Block Party's second annual Beyond The Witching Hour Halloween extravaganza is nearly upon us. Get your Halloween on early at The Echoplex Friday, October 26 for a night of music featuring Peaking Lights, Lumerians (and many more across 3 stages!), live art, installations, and costume contests, all meant to be experienced in Crystal Vision (the organizers have partnered with Future Eyes, an LA based prismatic eye wear company, to create crystal goggles which transform whatever's in front of you into a kaleidoscopic wonderland).
Come dressed up and you could win tickets to Desert Daze 2013, an Amoeba Gift Pack, a pair of Future Eyes and other goodies.
If you're hungry, feast at food trucks (The Urban Oven Pizza, Texas Chili Pie, Sweet Wheels). If you're thirsty, everyone's favorite festival libations purveyor, Sailor Jerry, will be on hand with drink specials.
You can buy a general admission ticket ($13 advance, $15 day of show) or a special package including your very own pair of Future Eyes glasses ($21 advance, $23 day of show). Get tickets here.
Moon Block Party is finally landing in San Francisco after many successful happenings down south! Join the party on October 13th at 8pm atBrick and Mortarand catch musical guests Sleepy Sun, Glitter Wizard, Juju, Al Lover & The Haters,and DJ sets from Al Lover. Plus, art presented by Sioux Magazine and a featured installation by Celeste Byers.
Moon Block Party is curated and organized by a collective of musicians and artists who strive to gather and enliven the many through honest, thought-provoking music and innovative visual installations.
This year is turning out to be a good one for Allah-Las. This week saw the announcement that the L.A.-based band, who weave strains of ’60s Nuggets-style garage rock with ’80s Paisley Underground jangle and au currant surf rock swagger, would be releasing their self-titled debut album Sept. 18 on Innovative Leisure. Additionally, Allah-Las were announced as part of the FYF Fest lineup this week, taking place Sept. 1-2. And the band also is playing this weekend at Moon Block Party in Pomona Saturday June 23.
Allah-La's debut album was recorded at the Distillery Studio, a Costa Mesa-based haven for analog recording, and was produced by label mate and local rock hero Nick Waterhouse. The band, which consists of bassist Spencer Dunham, singer/guitarist Miles Michaud, guitarist Pedrum Siadatian and drummer/singer Matt Correia, already has released a video for the album cut “Tell Me (What’s On Your Mind),” a jangly powerhouse that calls to mind Them’s garage classic “Gloria,” but relaxed instead of manic, resplendent in its analog sheen and laid-back cool.
I checked in with Dunham, a fellow South Bay native, to ask about the new album and what it was like for 3/4 of the band to work together at Amoeba.
PST: Has it been difficult to capture the exact sound you've been looking for on record?
Dunham: We tried recording a bunch of ways with different people but were never really satisfied until we went to the Distillery.
PST: What has recording with Nick Waterhouse and at the Distillery afforded the band in terms of sound and direction?
Dunham: Nick grew up in Orange County and has known the owner, Mike, since he was about 16. Mike loves to tinker with weird electronics to create one-of-a-kind instruments and effects, like microphones that go through record player needles. Sometimes those kind of things can be very complicated and time consuming, so it was really helpful to have two people working together to set up strange reverb tracks and whatnot.
PST: Can you talk a bit about working at Amoeba and how that affected the formation of the band and development of its sound? And what did you do while working at the store?
Dunham: Pedrum, Matt and I all used to work upstairs in the warehouse as “case switchers,” which is where you take bins of used CDs and put them in fresh jewel cases. You get a CD player and a hold box and basically just listen to music all day. It's pretty mundane work, but you get to see a lot of unusual albums, and we were all exposed to a lot of new music.
PST: In addition to the screaming girls and whatnot, have you had a lot of older “Nuggets” fans and people like that be into you guys? Have you had any particularly strange fan experiences so far?
Dunham: We definitely have a healthy contingency of garage fans, but our main audience remains American Apparel models. Not too many strange fan experiences yet, but Patrick Campbell Lyons from the ’60s band Nirvana (UK) befriended us after hearing our old radio show on KXLU a while back.
PST: I was never really that into the punk and stuff that a lot of other kids from the South Bay were into. Were you guys always attracted to more of the rock n roll stuff compared to what the area is known for? Were you exposed to it by parents, older siblings etc.?
Dunham: I used to listen to punk and it will always have a place in my heart, but in high school we mostly listened to a lot of classic rock: Hendrix, Who, Rolling Stones etc. We also used to hang around Scooter’s, which was a legendary Hermosa Beach record store owned by Uncle Tim, who hosts my all time favorite radio show, “The Bombshelter,” on KXLU. His shop was about the size of a closet, and while the majority of it catered to the punk scene, he also kept an eclectic selection of rock and got us turned onto stuff like The Velvet Underground and early Moody Blues.
PST: Can you give me a top five garage rock and paisley underground list of records you're particularly fond of?
Dunham: Here's a mix of classics and current jams:
The Second Annual Moon Block Party is coming back to the Downtown Pomona Arts Colony on Saturday, June 23rd and Amoeba is delighted to be a sponsor!
The free and all-ages event starts at 2:00pm and runs till midnight with over 30 live acts including Fool's Gold, The Entrance Band, Sleepy Sun, Crystal Antlers, Allah-Las, SuperTall Paul, Dante vs. Zombies and more. The bands will be joined by tons of live artists, handpicked craft vendors, art galleries, large sculptures, and art installations. Plus, 5% of the proceeds will go to benefit the local School of the Arts and Enterprise, a public charter high school in Pomona.
south! Join the party on October 13th at 8pm at 
This year is turning out to be a good one for 
