Since 2009, Grill ’Em All has been the dark lord of the Los Angeles gourmet food truck world. On January 19, they put their last truck on hiatus and opened a 50-seat restaurant nicknamed "Valhalla" in the Edwards Cinema Plaza in downtown Alhambra, the first non-mobile location to serve their heavy-metal hamburgers. Grill ’Em All is next to the Applebee’s, and two storefronts down from the Menchie’s frozen yogurtorium; to get a better sense of how it fits in with its new neighbors, know that on a recent Wednesday afternoon, the plaza-facing speakers at Applebee’s were playing “Best of You” by the Foo Fighters, while Menchie’s was piping out Tom Petty’s “Mary Jane’s Last Dance.” At Grill ’Em All, it was “Into the Coven” from Mercyful Fate’s theatrically demonic debut, Melissa.
Waiting inside was Bobb Bruno, one half of the band Best Coast and an aficionado of both metal and L.A. gutbuster cuisine. He was dressed in his customary all-black wardrobe, his facial hair reliably wispy. Bruno’s been around the Los Angeles music scene for almost two decades — playing in and recording bands, and previously working as an assistant to producer/performer/film composer Jon Brion. There was a period last decade where Bruno would perform solo shows on a Roland SPD-S sampling drum pad while wearing a white bunny costume with a cartoonishly oversized head that he got at a department store in Japan.
WhatsAnAvailableName: "Better then that stupid song about walking." fnormality : "'Take A Walk' was not stupid! It made me nod my head & dance."
By the way, I will now and forever more give my opinion on everything as being "Better than that stupid song about walking." How was The Dark Knight Rises? "Better than that stupid song about walking." How was the chorizo in your breakfast burrito? "Better than that stupid song about walking." How was your walk? "Better than that stupid song about walking." Etc.
Two highly anticipated albums from two big indie acts are streaming this week, ahead of their July 10 due date. First we have Swing Lo Magellan, from the Dirty Projectors, their first release since 2009's adored Bitte Orca. Recorded in a secluded house in upstate New York, Magellan finds lead Projector David Longstreth pushing his military-precision band into bigger, brighter territory. And while I haven’t actually gotten a chance to listen to the whole thing yet, from the sound of the humming on explosive opening track "Offspring Are Blank," it would appear that a big influence on Longstreth during the recording process was Crash Test Dummies?
In November, Big Boi returns with Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors, his first album since 2010’s often sublime Sir Lucious Left Foot, and by the sounds of the compressed funk of “Gossip,” dude hasn’t lost a mile on his fastball. By the way, I know Big’s way too down for the team to do this in public, but do you think maybe he ever holes up in his bathroom screaming stuff at the mirror like, "I’m making classics and people out here whining about no Three Stacks tracks! I can’t believe you don’t own my goddamn records!"
