To Live and Shave in L.A.


To Live and Shave in L.A. is an experimental noise rock collective founded in 1993 by avant-garde composer/producer Tom Smith and Miami Beach musician/producer Frank "Rat Bastard" Falestra. They were soon joined by oscillator player Ben Wolcott. This lineup created the majority of the early releases in TLASILA's extensive discography.
The group's debut album, 30-minuten männercreme, was released in 1994. Bananafish Magazine described the recording as "a wind tunnel of 30-weight vitriol." The "wildly inaccessible" ensemble has featured Don Fleming, Andrew W.K., Weasel Walter, Thurston Moore, and at least a dozen other musicians and sound artists.
The group's primary aesthetic assertion posits that "genre is obsolete". Although often categorized as purveyors of noise rock, TLASILA have been noted to pursue an unorthodox approach, "construct songs around an overwhelming plethora of sonic detail, challenging the listener to engage with a surfeit of information," deliberately blurring "the line between harsh metal-on-metal noise and abstract musique concrète" Smith's lyrics "distance" the group "from any potential peers," "scanning like came from some previously unearthed hermetic treatise."
Following the release of The Cortège, the collective went on hiatus, abjuring live performances but releasing albums all the while. Regrouping in January 2015 with the album Unwept to Meet Strange Clay, TLASILA resumed its touring activities.
Founding member Tom Smith died in January 2022. In 2025, Palilalia released a 25th anniversary deluxe four LP box set reissue of The Wigmaker in Eighteenth-Century Williamsburg.

Selected discography

  • 30-minuten männercreme CD
  • Vedder Vedder Bedwetter CD
  • An Interview with the Mitchell Brothers CD
  • Tonal Harmony CD
  • Where a Horse Has Been Standing and Where You Belong CD
  • Peter Criss vs. Peter Christopherson CD-R
  • The Wigmaker in Eighteenth Century Williamsburg 2xCD
  • God and Country Rally! CD
  • Horóscopo: Sanatorio de Molière CD
  • Noon & Eternity CD
  • Les Tricoteuses CD
  • Like Other Painters of Her Generation... Split LP
  • Le Ceneri di.../Sun Hidden There Split CD-3
  • Les poisons délectables C-40
  • The Cortège 12" LP
  • The Cortège CD
  • Chorea Vinyl 2xCD
  • The Death 6xCD
  • The Tall Ma'rib with Coalition Skin CD
  • Unwept to Meet Strange Clay CD
  • Apfel - Messer - Fliege CD
  • The Propagation of Negation Volumes 1 & 2 CD
  • Deluxe reissue of The Wigmaker in Eighteenth-Century Williamsburg 4 LP box set