Continuing to roll into live-act pit stops along the California coast like Los Angeles, San Luis Obispo and San Francisco, the instrumental group known as Robert Walter's 20th Congress has, over the years, acquired a stout following in such cities as well as notable exposure on the East Coast. Keyboardist Robert Walter formed the San…Read more The Spirit of Robert Walter

"Silence is Easy," but what's a bit more challenging is writing music for a record that you hope is just as good, yet just as different, from your last album, which happens to be your debut work that's already sold a ton of copies. Of course, you want it to be interesting, moving and exhilarating;…Read more Starsailor: A Long and Winding Road

As students at UCLA in the late 1990s, my friends and I spent a hefty chunk of our meager college income on music. The type of music - folk, jazz, rock 'n' roll, classical or hip-hop - never mattered just as long as it was good music. We bought albums we would share with each…Read more Charlie Hunter performs at the Jazz Bakery in Culver City Dec. 11 to 14

If you didn't know anything about the group The Thrills except for its music, you'd probably think these five 20-something guys grew up somewhere in California. At closer look, the band's members are all from Dublin, Ireland, and are all enamored of the West Coast lifestyle with references to the cities of Big Sur, Santa…Read more The Thrills will perform at The Troubadour in West Hollywood Nov. 4

and music all its own and one that is a product of some of the more poignant aspects of American history. Aside from being the birthplace of jazz, the Big Easy is known to produce a plethora of musical groups ranging in genres from soul, funk and country to gospel, rock and the blues. Formed…Read more Galactic performs at the House of Blues in Hollywood Oct. 17 and 18

As members of the alt-country rock group, Giant Sand, bassist Joey Burns and drummer John Convertino know a few things about capturing a song's rhythm and groove. Their experience in Giant Sand has laid most of the twisted groundwork for their current musical adventures in the group Calexico. Burns first met Convertino in 1990, during…Read more Calexico to perform at the El Rey Theater Sept. 18

Since the mid-1990s, the Dandy Warhols have created the kind of music that has always been ahead of its time. "We always want to push ourselves to try something different so each record there's always a few things we want to do and we usually pull it off," said the Warhols' guitarist, Peter Loew. "I…Read more Dandy Warhols perform at the Henry Fonda Sept. 24

Local South Bay band Sense Field has endured its fair share of public and personal challenges, but in the end overcame hardships to release an album that some fans may think of as an emotional porthole into the life of one of its members in particular. The emo-rock quartet overcame its first obstacle after signing…Read more Local band Sense Field plays at the Troubadour Sept. 5

As a child of the 1960s, soul singer Sharon Jones grew up with the sounds of James Brown and Aretha Franklin in her hometown of Augusta, Ga., the same birthplace as the Godfather of Soul. "Soul is a feeling and actually I think it comes down to just having a natural gift because I think…Read more Soul singer Sharon Jones performs at the Knitting Factory in Hollywood Aug. 29

As the co-founder of the Brooklyn-based, traditional funk-driven Daptone Records label, Neal Sugarman knows a thing or two about harvesting the funk and soul sounds trademark to the 1960s and 1970s in a new and innovative way. "For us, we've always been interested in this style of music whether it was in the funk idiom…Read more Sugarman to perform at Knitting Factory Aug. 29