MusicFridayLive | Music Junkie Press

CYLVIA by the band Cylvia: a midnight ride at full throttle in a musical Lamborghini by Patrick O’Heffernan

January 9, 2015

Joyful, sophisticated, dense, funky, intelligent, addictive, crazy-quilt soaring rock. I never thought I would write a review with that combination of words in it, but they all describes, CYLVIA, the debut EP of Cylvia, a band that just might be best new LA band of 2015. Listening to this album is like getting behind the wheel of vintage Chevy convertible and discovering that it is really a Lamborghini and you are coming down the PCH at full throttle. Cylvia was carefully assembled by Zach Villa whose instincts for music and talent are on the money. Seven superb musicians move together on this record like a single, living, breathing, rocking organism. The effect is almost scary if it wasn’t so much fun. Front woman Lindsay Claire is the very definition of fire and ice. She morphs from punk to blues to white-hot burning rock with a personal touch honed from her work in theater and her family of musicians and performers. She blends perfectly with the diverse creations of founder Villa and the precisely [Read More]

Maggie Szabo ups her game at the Hotel Cafe by Patrick O’Heffernan

November 9, 2014

With her brilliant smile, athletic body and mischievous eyes, the diminutive Maggie Szabo put on a show Friday night at LA’s premier showcase club this Friday that topped even her high-energy performance record. Nobody sat still as she rocked through 11 songs – mostly new material including the new, soon-to-be-a-hit “Paralyze”, along with favorites like “Sweetest Heartache” and the solid pop-anthem, “Slow Fire”. Having seen her live four times, I could tell that there has been both a creative burst and a lot of hard work in her career since I started following her about a year ago. New songs blended smoothly with her audience’s established favorites, making the evening seem like a party with old friends; there were no dissonant notes, no “where is Maggie going?”, questions. It just all worked. Even when she took to the old upright piano in far stage left and shifted mood for “Touch the Ground” and “Take Your Time”, she was on target both as a singer and as a performer. Plus she gave a preview of [Read More]

Kat McDowell’s USA debut Rise Above is a winner from the first note by Patrick O’Heffernan

October 13, 2014

The thing about Kat McDowell is that she is just plain fun to listen to. And remarkably, she is fun to listen to in two languages, English and Japanese. And that’s not an easy thing to accomplish, given the difference between the two languages. But Kat McDowell does it so well that in any language her music can make you sit up and take notice, or just let you happily tap your feet. Either way, she is a musical force on a fast track. Born in Japan, raised mostly in New Zealand, with many parts of both cultures inside her, she combines pop, J-Pop, calypso, rock and a positive musical attitude in a mixture that is like sunshine to listen to. She built a successful career in Japan and now is in the USA, Los Angeles to be geographically exact, enjoying its surf (she is avid surfer), its plethora of recording assets and a world class population of collaborating artists. The first fruits of that relocation, the album Rise Above, is due out in [Read More]

Maggie Szabo rocks LA and then heads for New York (but she’ll be back) by Patrick O’Heffernan

August 14, 2014

Maggie Szabo left fans at the Silverlake Lounge with a lightning bolt of a parting shot before heading off to a recording session in New York Monday night. A high energy, beat-driven eight-song set, finished off with her hit single “Tidal Waves and Hurricanes” kept the packed club moving and dancing. Sparks and flames were practically flying out of Maggie and her band she was so on. I have seen Maggie live three times, most recently at the Hotel Café in February, and she has grown and improved orders of magnitude – and she was top rated to start with. Her band Monday night– regular drummer Sam Campbell, the kick-ass Kyle Calvillo on lead guitar, Steven Shook on rhythm guitar and Sonny Kennelly on bass – were so tight they moved with Maggie without a nanometer between them. They showed a Grammy-level of professionalism that was a joy to watch. Maggie was among friends at the Lounge – part of her huge and constantly growing fan base – as she shouted out to various [Read More]

Oceansongs lights the afterburner on the Polaris Rose skyrocket. by Patrick O’Heffernan

June 2, 2014

Polaris Rose has been characterized as alt. rock, but I don’t call them that. Maddie Elyse and Peter Anthony, better known as Polaris Rose, create music that I call The Polaris Rose Sound because there is nothing like it. These two young singer/songwriters bring progressive rock, hot jazz, metal and pop together with male-female congruence and musical brilliance that creates a whole that is much larger than the sum of its parts. And they do it in the studio and on stage with equal ease. There new EP, Oceansongs, is a megadose of the flowing harmonies, metal guitar and high concept lyrics that has made this enormously talented pair a flaming comet in the star-crowded sky of LA music. Opening with “Goddess”, a cut kicked off with a drum and guitar explosion like a fast-moving storm, it quickly slides into a dreamy waterscape woven with Peter’s voice and guitar and Maddie’s backup echo and bass. A call to a love-hate goddess, Peter chronicles his beautiful anguish and we feel it with the rise and fall [Read More]

“Love You Anyway”: Karen Dezelle’s Valentine gift. Review by Patrick O’Heffernan

February 18, 2014

“Love You Anyway”: Karen Dezelle’s Valentine gift Patrick O’Heffernan I just like listening to Karen Dezelle. Everything she does, every song she writes and records is a glowing jewel. Karen knows how to deftly stimulate the pleasure centers of my brain through my ears. Some songs are happy, some are sad, all are personal, all are universal. When one of her songs comes up in my playlist, I often have to squeeze my eyes closed for a few seconds and just let her wash over me. Karen’s voice is that color you can only get just after the sun sinks below the ocean on a clear day. Warm, red-yellow and blue, soft and moving slowly to moonlit silver. Her songwriting lavishes in the same pallet – delicate, intense, painted with the red of her heart blood and the blue of life’s oxygen. The combination of her poetry and her singing brings the gift of tears, cries both of joy and of sadness. The words to the title song from her EP, Lost and Found have [Read More]

Wild Tones debut album by Junk Parlor. “Wild” is the right word. by Patrick O’Heffernan

February 14, 2014

Wild Tones debut album by Junk Parlor. “Wild” is the right word. Review by Patrick O’Heffernan, host, Music FridayLive! Junk Parlor’s debut album Wild Tones is like taking a drug – a big rush, continuing high, then addiction, often accompanied by dancing. Gypsy junk rock and roll. Sounds dangerous, but it’s actually really fun. Whether you are dancing or head-bobbing in your chair at a club, or bopping with your ear buds in, the music of Junk Parlor is like taking a drug – a big rush, continuing high, then addiction, often accompanied by dancing. Founder Jason Vanderford has incorporated his ramblings, both physical and mental, into a unique music form that I just can’t get out of my head without the help of a psychiatrist. And who would want to anyway? Seriously, whether he is singing in a shuffle beat about “how we became you and me” in a kind of not-quite-love song, or trying breathlessly to keep up with a frantic guitar riff while he extols escape from suburbia by becoming a vampire, [Read More]