10 Must-See Acts at Los Angeles' FYF Fest

Fresh from the Chicago suburbs, The Orwells are testosterone-fueled teenage garage rock, the kind that inspires all-day skating binges and late-night making out buzzed on beer and bravery. They are sort of cocky in that cute way, but are still just a bunch of punk rock kids riding high on shout-outs from eclectic outlets like Pitchfork to NPR. Because The Orwells are not just a couple of kids that were plucked from someone’s basement, their songwriting is so infectious that it’s hookier than Top 40 pop without any of the pre-packaged pretense.

Sprinkle some quirky Quaalude-high swingers party samples onto a throbbing beat that sounds partially like a ‘70s-style porno party and partially like a Mortal Combat death match, mix that with stylishly-lackadaisical rapping that moves like Biggie at his most fucked up on chronic, and some Bay Area punk rock realness—blend that up. Then you’ve come close to San Jose’s Antwon. In his song, "Living The Dream, " Antwon points out that chilling on the couch is cool by him. He’s doing good, "even if he’s laying around. " The lyrics are both consciously literate, jabby, and hedonistic without the typical hip-hop hubris making him a needed addition to the new breed of West Coast hip-hop slacker radicals who unintentionally promote peace by being all about popping pills rather than popping caps and drive-thrus instead of drive-bys.

Laguna Beach born-and-bred grunge-popper, Mikal Cronin, mixes the gritty punch of surf-punk with well-orchestrated jangly ‘60s garage-pop influence that’s all paisley and boardshorts and sparklers by the bonfire. The effect is free and fearless, grin-inducing tambo-bangers that make even the most stoic of bearded boyfriends spin dance with their girlfriends. It’s like the Millennials version of shared straw milkshakes and sock hop seduction.

Just for fun, Ty Segall still works at a local record store in Eagle Rock. Just for fun, Ty Segall has like seven thousands bands, the exact names we can’t remember, but there are tons. And, just for fun, Ty Segall is known to ecstatically hop onstage with his friends and rock out. Because for someone who is lauded for his talent, professionalism, and super chill bro attitude on life, noisy garage-rocker Ty Segall does pretty much everything for the fun of it and therefore makes all his gigs just really fucking fun. If you don’t leave wanting to give sweaty hugs to the dude that just crushed your skull in with his Converse after moshing, go mope with the cool kids in VIP.

The dream of the ‘90s is alive in The Breeders who singularly represent everything that was so nostalgia-worthy about that decade. Consistently comprised of two sisters, Kelley Deal, and her Pixies-famous sister, Kim Deal, The Breeders are a supergroup of sorts that was formed on some ferocious femme power but the fact that they never threw that in their audience’s face as always pretty badass. Because in the ‘90s, women could be rockers, hard rockers, and they could be red-hot hotties like Shirley Manson, glammed up grunge like Courtney Love, androgynous like Justine Frischmann, or normal greasy-haired girls like Kim Deal, and still be worshipped for their power chords.

Darkness will descend upon the dusty cornfields at FYF and while some kids will stand like sheep in puddles of sappy electronica, swoony shoegazers My Bloody Valentine will be making a beautiful mess of the distortion dorks who have been third date back seat fumbling to Loveless since 1991. It’s not a rare thing for the Dublin-based dream poppers to play, but their sound is so surreal and chimerical that it makes your nerve-endings fizzle into a relaxed euphoria that the drugged-out chillwavers of today are too sexless to create. My Bloody Valentine are so good at channeling sonic serotonin that they make skin-on-skin contact almost unbearable.

She is the woman, but she is also the wolf. Gothic freak-folk mistress, Chelsea Wolfe, is both modern feminist and fairy tale remixer. Her grim narrative sonic tales retell that damsel-in-distress narrative as one where the princess whips out her dagger and rips out the blackened heart of the wolf before he even has time for elder abuse. Wolfe’s rumbling of darkness is as liberating and vital as a fresh flood of blood and amongst the current backdrop of beachy garage rock babes timid in their manic pixie dream girl stoner twee, Wolfe’s mysterious music is actually a light at the end of a very cat-and-cupcake-infested tunnel.

'

Screw your belief system. FYF isn’t just a playground for the indie elite, cracked-out crate diggers, or rainbow-clad rave babies. There’s some serious soul slinking across the stages and Charles Bradley is a prime example of that. Dubbed retro-soul, 65-year-old Bradley is more like the real deal with a sounds that transcends time and taste. One of Daptone Records’ finest, Bradley’s oral outpourings are both tender and true, strained tsunamis of emotion that communicate the dichotomous nature of a life well-lived, well-worn, and well-nourished spiritually.

Chlorine. Cocktails. Carefree afternoons. Reenact that Palm Springs lounge chair life. Los Angeles’ Poolside buzz in your brain in a golden haze of disco-tinged intoxication akin to being daytime drunk. Which is actually perfect timing-wise because their 5:oo p.m. set at FYF will give you just enough time to get a gloss on before the sun begins to dip, creating a silhouette of downtown Los Angeles.

Pro-tip: If you’re looking to hook-up with someone semi-stable at FYF, all the tatted-up, straight-edge, fixie-bike, shit-together hotties are watching the hardcore shows. But meeting your sardonic soulmate is not the only reason to check out Canada’s thrashed-up post-punkers, Metz. Their sound is simultaneously melodic and mind-crunching. Like the silence of an airplane cockpit with lightning bolts sizzling the air around you, like taking shelter under an awning while hail falls around you, like the sort of electrical shock they gave crazy people in the ‘50s that made their brains into a comfortable white noise. Not that we’re saying we condone that practice of human torture, but you get the idea.