///// Aural Standards

Wrote about our favorite place to eat vegan brunch while thrashing to some new noise. Where? Why, The Smell, of course (pictured above on the cover of No Age’s Weirdo Rippers). Read about venue and others over at LA Weekly.

It was a true honor to interview Shirley Manson for SPIN. The Q&A originally appeared as the cover story of the April iPad issue, and exclusive content from our two-hour face-off wound up in the print mag too (Words of Wisdom, LOUD issue). Here’s an excerpt from the chat, which covered everything from the overdue Garbage reunion to Shirley’s status as a recovering cutter:

“It’s unbelievable what’s happened to Lana Del Rey! It’s shocking misogyny. I look at her and say, “What more do you want?” Here’s a beautiful young girl who tried her hand at being a working musician under her own name and it didn’t stick. She had the fortitude to go back to the drawing board and create something new, a perfectly executed re-entry into the world of music, and she’s getting destroyed for the very same thing that Jack White is so brilliant at. Granted, they’re very different artists, but why are we attacking a young girl who’s ballsy and creative? All I can say is they did the same thing to me when I came out. I was constantly being called a phony, and I’m thinking, ‘I was in a band that failed miserably for ten years. What’s fake about that?’”