Are you getting tired of all the music headlines going to new Brooklyn bands? I bet you the players in Los Angeles' thriving scene are way over it. Why's everybody always talking about Brooklyn when the West Coast boasts a dream team of new talent, turning out a steady stream of polished, moody rock?
Although the rap game gets L.A. plenty of love, lackadaisical, harmony-laden smog-pop hasn't had a true moment since The Beach Boys and The Mamas And Papas ruled the late '60s. But that has been changing, slowly but surely, thanks to the radio dominance of a new class of sun-bleached bands.
Get acquainted with the new L.A. sound in the video playlist below, featuring laid back, perma-tan jams from Jenny Lewis, Earlimart, Silversun Pickups, Pete Yorn, Beck, The Watson Twins, Cold War Kids, The Mars Volta, Incubus, Brett Dennen and many more. It's mellow. Whatever.
Tags Beck, Brett Dennen, Cold War Kids, Earlimart, Incubus, Jenny Lewis, Pete Yorn, Silversun Pickups, The Beach Boys, The Mamas And Papas, The Mars Volta, The Watson Twins
Holy underwater Motown magic fireworks. The Dashing Suns. I'll be damned. This seductively sunny little intersection of every band the '60s and '70s ever loved is really making my morning with its scratchy guitars, ooh-ahh Caramello vocals and vintage head cold production value. Monkees, Modern Lovers and Troggs! Definitely sounds more like something you'd discover in your mom's leftover Creedence records than on the Internet.
The Dashing Suns are a four-piece out of Oakland, California, and they certainly deliver on all that West Coast promise laid out by The Beach Boys, The Mamas & Papas and so on and so forth. Jangly and irresistible, their fuzzy pop fantasies reek of post-prom oceanside campfires. A fact which, in combination with their recent run at SXSW, all but guarantees that they won't go unsigned much longer.
For more on The Dashing Suns at SXSW, keep an eye on Jansport -- the classic backpack company is using The Dashing Suns' "Future Thunder" to promote their insanely cool new Heritage Series. As part of the promotion, they followed the band on a road-trip/mini-tour from Oakland to Austin, filming concerts, car drama and everything in between. When that goes live, we'll be sure to share it with you here. I'm expecting plenty of solar flare and sepia tone. Definitely something to look forward to!
Listen to The Dashing Suns here. "I Wanna Run" is getting all the attention, but I'm a pretty big fan of "When I First Met Ya" and "Future Thunder." Highly recommended for fans of The Black Lips, The Strokes and summertime.
