Tag Archives: Local Favorites

On Friday, Dec. 20, my list of favorite local music of 2013 came out in The Press-Enterprise’s Guide section.

If you missed the big spread in the paper, I’ll be posting my favorites over the next week or so. In the seven years I’ve been at The Press-Enterprise, I’ve never heard so much great local music.

Big Papa and the TCB
“Six Pack of Cool”

Big Papa and the TCB leaves the experimentation of its last record and goes back to its jump blues roots for this album. The addition of a horn section serves the band well and adds more texture to the combo’s songs.

Watch performances from the new album and an interview with the band from a PE Live session we did earlier this year.

Visit www.bigpapaandthetcb.com for more on the band.

Want to see who else made the list? Visit the Local Favorites link. 

On Friday, Dec. 20, we ran my list of my favorite local music of 2013 in the Guide section of The Press-Enterprise.

If you missed the big spread in the paper, I’ll be posting my favorites over the next week or so. In the seven years I’ve been at The Press-Enterprise, I’ve never heard so much great local music.

Assuming We Survive
“Get Busy Living”

If you like your punk with a streak of melody and some breakdowns thrown in, meet Assuming We Survive. The hard-working band even landed guest stars from A Static Lullaby and Scary Kids Scaring Kids on this EP.

Assuming We Survive has had a huge year, and just last weekend opened X103.9’s Merry Meltdown with Korn, Stone Temple Pilots and more. Look for the band on tour in 2014.

Get to know a little more about Assuming We Survive in a story we ran in last week’s paper.

Visit www.assumingwesurvive.com to learn more about the band.

Want to see who else made the list? Visit the Local Favorites link. 

If you pick up a copy of The Press-Enterprise today, Friday, Dec. 20, you can see the whole list of the best in local music for 2013.

I’ll be posting my Local Favorites list for 2013 over the next few days and stay tuned, because I am still compiling a giant list of all of the local releases for 2013 that people have sent my way. This year’s Local Favorites list was really tough since we had more than 100 releases this year throughout the Inland Empire.

Let’s get it started with The Dangers.

The Dangers
“Gold!!”

Forget Arcade Fire and Daft Punk, The Dangers made the album of the year. With perfect melodies, this is power pop at its finest a la Big Star or The Beatles. The eclectic AM radio vibe makes it a fun discovery from track to track from Chris LeRoy and friends. The album moves with ease from a Sergio Mendes + Brasil ’66-inspired bossa nova to telling the story of what happened after The Kinks’ “Waterloo Sunset.” The last four songs get psychedelic and fit together like side two of “Abbey Road,” closing with the powerhouse vocal from Lisa Kekaula on “My Someday.”

The Dangers did a PE Live session with us a few weeks back and we have four performances from “Gold!!”