BeatCrave is excited to bring you band, Saint Motel, as part of our Know Your LA Bands series. It’s not too often that you meet a band at a Thai restaurant, hear one of the band members speak fluent Thai, then have another band member tell you they’re honorary Thai guests. That or have one of their moms come in only to exclaim, “I have the fake blood!”

With Saint Motel, everything is extravagant but it’s all done in a very homemade way. This is another way to say that Saint Motel is one very hard working band who knows how to engage fans, look professional, yet also just be who simply they are: Four normal guys who met in film school and decided to start a band that would eventually rock the hell out of LA.  If you haven’t been to one of their shows, that needs to be added on to your “To-Do” lists, because it’s music fully enhanced. They make sure of it.

We got the chance to chat with Saint Motel about everything serious, silly, and anything in between. Check out this exclusive interview with the entire band and learn what they think about illegal downloading, how they changed digital purchasing, and well… their possible careers as match-makers!

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BeatCrave brings you band, Cosio, as part of our Know Your LA Bands series. This five-piece band is no stranger to the pages of BeatCrave as they were not only a BeatCrave Fav of the week but also our winner for BeatCrave Fav of July. So we decided to please you, our loyal readers, as well as ourselves by featuring them in a full interview!

Cosio, a band that is part testosterone and estrogen, creates beauty in sophisticated form through their charming, mystical folk rock sounds. Led by tender yet unyielding vocals, their orchestration is enticing as a night out on the town in Paris. Although LA is comprised of mostly alternative and noise rock bands, Cosio combines every imaginable instrument for refreshing and unusual melodies that stick with you like a lifelong fantasy.

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Hip-hop can be mightily unforgiving when it comes to defining – and especially redefining oneself. Amanda Blank began her career with a string of increasingly high-profile guest spots on rap and later pop singles; but even though she moved from the likes of Spank Rock to Britney Spears with an ease and dexterity matched only by her effortless, rapid-fire delivery, even fans assumed she was essentially – if not only – a filthy motormouth whose thoughts wandered more often into the bedroom than onto the dancefloor.

With the release of I Love You, her solo debut, Blank wastes no time challenging that perception: although the disc doesn’t skimp on dirty talk, it’s first and foremost a collection of future club classics, with several more reflective tunes thrown in as an indication her music is more than ready to make its way into the mainstream. Crave recently spoke to Blank (real name: Amanda Mallory) via telephone to discuss the development of her album, reflected on redefining herself and her music in her own terms, and talked about the challenges of being a formidable female in hip-hop’s boys club.

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A little while ago we sat down with Gavin Hayes (vocals) and Mark Engles (lead guitar) of Dredg to talk to them about the one thing we care about the most, music. If your not familiar with the group, their a progressive/rock band from California who’ve been around for over 15 years. They’re latest album dropped back in June, and is entitled The Pariah, the Parrot, the Delusion. We were lucky enough to talk to these guys about their fans, their performances, and most importantly their tunes!

Without further ado, check out our two part interview below…

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***Some sad news everyone. Due to some schedule changes and technical problems, we won’t be able to bring dredg live to you. We will however have our interview with them up tonight on BeatCrave, so check back then!***

Next Monday, August 31st, lead singer Gavin Hayes and lead guitarist Mark Engles of dredg will be visiting BeatCrave.com for our first ever LIVE interview in which you will be able to video in and ask Charles questions! We’ll be talking to them about their latest album, The Pariah, the Parrot, the Delusion, their current tour, and whatever else you feel like asking!

To participate in the interview, all you need to do is come by BeatCrave at 4:00pm on August 31st and we’ll take care of the rest! You’ll be able to watch and if you like call in to talk to Gavin and Mark via our homepage! It’s that easy!

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BeatCrave brings you Brooklyn-based mash-up artist, Brilliant, My Boy, as part of our Know Your NYC Bands series. Although Brilliant, My Boy (aka Skyler Klingenberg) is just one guy, we just had to feature him. Not only is mash-up a growing phenomenon in music, but we know that everyone wonders these very questions we’re about to ask him. Why and how do you do mash-up? In this case, how do you make an album that astonishingly echoes the great mash-up artists like Girl Talk?

With one listen to his album, Dance, Blacula, Dance!, one is pleasantly surprised to contemplate if he IS the next Girl Talk. With songs like “Hail to the King, Baby” that layersNelly Furtado’s “Promiscuous” over Modest Mouse’s “Float On,” intervened by NWA’s “Express Yourself” and followed by Dr. Dre’s riff in “Nuthin’ but a G Thang,” the rhyme from RUN-DMC’s “King of Rock,” Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth,” and The Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby,” you’ll love feeling of ADD during each three minute song.

Dance, Blacula, Dance! is available on his MySpace page and it’s FREE! We strongly recommend for you to check it out. Until then, check out this exclusive interview with Brilliant, My Boy’s Skyler Klingenberg below!

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BeatCrave is proud to bring you band, Meho Plaza, as part of our Know Your LA Bands series. This three piece band is possibly the most quintessential LA band I have come across yet, and by using the term “quintessential,” I definitely don’t mean the “typical.” At first listen, the distorted bass and screeching guitars under the heavy drums may mistakenly group them into only noise rock bands of LA. However, as soon as you listen to your second Meho Plaza song, you begin to realize that this band is nothing like the others.

Meho Plaza could easily be as big of a name as HEALTH or No Age. Intsead, Mike Thrasher (vox/guitar), Jennifer Hwang (keys), and James Connelly (drums) have been keeping their profile low with only two-self released EPs and one full length album. Not only are their song titles clever, (I Sold My Organs, Let’s Play Police, We’ll Drink The Blood) but under all those chaotic layers of lo-fi quality is refreshing songwriting. Combining electro with punk will always win me over, but when you insert insanely catchy pop melodies in there, I become deliriously giddy. Anti-melody and synthesizers on the surface may be too tricky for some,  but that’s the best thing about this band. They make juxtaposition sound easy, AND naturally good. So, in this case, quintessential only takes on the meaning of “original, pure, and concentrated form” – kind of like the first time you ever heard Sonic Youth.

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After an amazing show at The Glass House in Pomona (read the review), BeatCrave was lucky enough to sit down with Casey Cresecenzo and Erick Serna backstage.  What followed was one an in-depth discussion of how the band came to be, where the band is going, what about the music industry they would both like to change and quite a bit more.  Throughout the entire interview, it was quite apparent that both Casey and Erick absolutely love what they do and are extremely (justifiably) proud of the of the vehicle they’ve created to present their work.

The Dear Hunter is a band who is going to be around for quite some time and with such amazing talents as Casey, Erick and the rest steering their artistic direction, they’ll continue on a path of great music worth paying attention to: this is a band that gifts its listeners with albums that take them on an odyssey through layers of sounds and lyrics ever changing and ever engaging.

Take some time and get to know a band that has only just begun to leave their heavy imprint on the history of sound. Continue Reading

Welcome to part 2 of our interview with thenewno2. If you haven’t checked out the first part of our interview with the duo, you definitely should. Part one is a written Q&A with the band, with all sorts of fun stuff in it; they’re definitely not short on things to say. I don’t know about you, sometimes I find written interviews can seem a little impersonal, right? So we decided to switch things up a bit, so, and record them! That’s right, we have a series of exclusive video interviews with thenewno2 below. Enjoy!

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