Last night I made it out to my first show out here in Los Angeles as a resident. I've seen shows here and there as a visitor. The club was called Spaceland in the Silver Lake are of Los Angeles. It's right near Dodger Stadium. The Dodgers were out of town, so it was a quick 30 minute drive over there. I'm still getting used to the highways here; even though I've driven them many times it's still a shockingly huge difference than they are back east. Seems like everyone goes about 75 mph, habitually switching lanes back and forth for no particular reason. It takes a little getting used to, but I think the Massachusetts experience has hardened me into having just a big of a "fuck you I'm from Boston" attitude on the road. That mixed with respect for the rules here as some of them people actually follow, like my favorite: people don't cut you off turning left at red lights, they wait until everyone going forward is past. Even the most obnoxious looking douche in the BMW will wait their turn. A far cry from Massachusetts where every dickhead in a Patriots jacket can't wait the four or five seconds to turn and has to disrupt the flow of traffic. So there are good and bad things about driving here. Driving home was also a breeze, I didn't even make it through to the end of Torche's Meanderthal album which is a brief thirty-six minutes.
I got to the club far too early, and parking was non-existent, until I noticed a valet parking guy for the club which was a pretty awesome little perk. The club was pretty cool, small, maybe comparable to TT the Bears. There was a smoking area which was cool, if you're a smoker (!). Going to club shows by myself in Boston was never a big deal, and I go to huge concerts by myself all the time, but going to a club one seemed a little more daunting. There was nobody there when I walked in, and at the end of the night there were maybe thirty people there.
The first band were billed as a "disco-punk" band and apparently ex-members of something else, who knows. I originally cringed at this description, but they turned out to have a cool little Gang of Four vibe going. A guitar player, a drummer with a laptop that played beats and some noise and then an instrumentless singer. They were easily the best of the three openers. They played a brief 15 minute set. I would definitely go see them again.
The second band, Protect Me didn't really do it for me. A two piece (bass and drums) noisy mess that sounded like they may have done all their homework and practiced but hadn't mastered their instruments and how to make them sound good. The ideas were there, but execution was "meh". I think they were underage, as they looked like they were both about sixteen.
Next up were another two piece band (what the fuck is with this trend? What happened to the good old days of the Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Earth, Wind and Fire where there were like sixteen people on stage!) from Brooklyn who were traveling with headliners Screaming Females called Shellshag. They didn't really do anything for me either: a guy playing a Stratocaster and a woman playing drums standing up with bells all over her. People seemed to dig them and they had plenty of energy and a cool little thing going, but in the end when they said they were from Brooklyn I thought to myself "no shit, no wonder that was not enjoyable". Only good band to ever come out of Brooklyn was Biohazard. Ha, take that weird hipster two piece band!
I saw Screaming Females a while back in Boston with Throwing Muses, and frankly they blew TM off the stage. What initially sounded like just another indie rock band with a girl screaming turned out to be a different beast all together. Elements of funk and heavy metal but not funkmetal and straight up rock, and even a couple moments that (most likely unintentionally) sounded like Rudimentary Peni to these ears.
Your initial thoughts when you first see this band are the make up of the band, a really tall bass player, and a really short female guitar player. Maybe 5'2"? Last night she wore a long Victorian looking dress, has short hair and the guitar is almost as big as her. She's not traditionally pretty, but I easily developed a crush on her after the first time I saw them and I went and found videos online. If anything though, the crush was more on her stage presence and her guitar playing. It would be easy to fall into the old "wow she is great...for a girl", but it's beyond that. She smokes most male guitar players I have seen (at least in club settings). Listening to them you'll initially think they're just a really tight indie rock band with a chick singer and then all of a sudden, BOOM she'll play a fill or solo that drops your jaw. There was a guy in the front row who literally had his mouth open the whole time last night. When I first saw them it was in a packed club from the back so I was pretty excited to be able to be right at the foot of the stage for last night. Her vocals go back and forth from Bikini Kill/Sleater-Kinney style to guttural screams, all the while playing an intricate lead pattern on the guitar, not just strummed chords. Last night they played for maybe 40 minutes and it was great. I felt like I was seeing something special because of the size of the crowd and just how well the band present themselves. From the way she dressed and carries herself on stage to the tightness of the rhythm section they are the real deal. They apparently played some shows with Jack White's band recently and I'm sure the crowd loved them. Here's hoping they go on to bigger things than last night. LA must have been busy doing something else last night as it was a shame they played to such a small crowd.
I captured some video of the show on my iPhone. The sound is horrible but...the picture is good.
I got to the club far too early, and parking was non-existent, until I noticed a valet parking guy for the club which was a pretty awesome little perk. The club was pretty cool, small, maybe comparable to TT the Bears. There was a smoking area which was cool, if you're a smoker (!). Going to club shows by myself in Boston was never a big deal, and I go to huge concerts by myself all the time, but going to a club one seemed a little more daunting. There was nobody there when I walked in, and at the end of the night there were maybe thirty people there.
The first band were billed as a "disco-punk" band and apparently ex-members of something else, who knows. I originally cringed at this description, but they turned out to have a cool little Gang of Four vibe going. A guitar player, a drummer with a laptop that played beats and some noise and then an instrumentless singer. They were easily the best of the three openers. They played a brief 15 minute set. I would definitely go see them again.
The second band, Protect Me didn't really do it for me. A two piece (bass and drums) noisy mess that sounded like they may have done all their homework and practiced but hadn't mastered their instruments and how to make them sound good. The ideas were there, but execution was "meh". I think they were underage, as they looked like they were both about sixteen.
Next up were another two piece band (what the fuck is with this trend? What happened to the good old days of the Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Earth, Wind and Fire where there were like sixteen people on stage!) from Brooklyn who were traveling with headliners Screaming Females called Shellshag. They didn't really do anything for me either: a guy playing a Stratocaster and a woman playing drums standing up with bells all over her. People seemed to dig them and they had plenty of energy and a cool little thing going, but in the end when they said they were from Brooklyn I thought to myself "no shit, no wonder that was not enjoyable". Only good band to ever come out of Brooklyn was Biohazard. Ha, take that weird hipster two piece band!
I saw Screaming Females a while back in Boston with Throwing Muses, and frankly they blew TM off the stage. What initially sounded like just another indie rock band with a girl screaming turned out to be a different beast all together. Elements of funk and heavy metal but not funkmetal and straight up rock, and even a couple moments that (most likely unintentionally) sounded like Rudimentary Peni to these ears.
Your initial thoughts when you first see this band are the make up of the band, a really tall bass player, and a really short female guitar player. Maybe 5'2"? Last night she wore a long Victorian looking dress, has short hair and the guitar is almost as big as her. She's not traditionally pretty, but I easily developed a crush on her after the first time I saw them and I went and found videos online. If anything though, the crush was more on her stage presence and her guitar playing. It would be easy to fall into the old "wow she is great...for a girl", but it's beyond that. She smokes most male guitar players I have seen (at least in club settings). Listening to them you'll initially think they're just a really tight indie rock band with a chick singer and then all of a sudden, BOOM she'll play a fill or solo that drops your jaw. There was a guy in the front row who literally had his mouth open the whole time last night. When I first saw them it was in a packed club from the back so I was pretty excited to be able to be right at the foot of the stage for last night. Her vocals go back and forth from Bikini Kill/Sleater-Kinney style to guttural screams, all the while playing an intricate lead pattern on the guitar, not just strummed chords. Last night they played for maybe 40 minutes and it was great. I felt like I was seeing something special because of the size of the crowd and just how well the band present themselves. From the way she dressed and carries herself on stage to the tightness of the rhythm section they are the real deal. They apparently played some shows with Jack White's band recently and I'm sure the crowd loved them. Here's hoping they go on to bigger things than last night. LA must have been busy doing something else last night as it was a shame they played to such a small crowd.
I captured some video of the show on my iPhone. The sound is horrible but...the picture is good.
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