Kevin Bronson on September 19th, 2014

2

The enigmatic Billy Changer has had his fingers in a lot of pies around L.A. – he’s a member of Corners, a producer/engineer, radio DJ and studio manager at Lolipop Records’ studio – and now he has his mitts in ’60s garage- and psych-pop under his own name. Changer’s album, co-released on cassette with Tracy Bryant on Burger Records last month, quickly sold out; like a lot of the time-capsule rock in the Burger/Lolipop scene, it’s accessible and lovingly rough around the edges, the music having been written in his apartment on an old 4-track. The San Fernando Valley native keeps the vibe “Chiller,” to cop one of the song titles, and the 10 tunes on his self-titled album feel informed by his experiences, like his onetime involvement in the McWorld scene in Culver City, which ended one night when he nearly killed himself falling off a roof. After wrestling with “girl problems and drugs,” the bio tells us, Changer cleaned up, joined Corners, DJ’d on KXLU, started booking shows at the Smell, became producer/engineer for the Part Time Punks sessions and graduated from Loyola Marymount in civil engineering. That’s a lot of juggling, and he’s keep the ball in the air when his album is re-issued on vinyl next year.

||| Stream: “Band of Brothers” and “Barbarella”