Good cause so we are passing this along to you. 826LA PRESENTS CHICKENS IN LOVE- A benefit concert for 826LA, Hosted by Dianna Agron (GLEE) with special guest Thao Nguyen. Read the rest of this entry »
Chickens in Love : A One-day Music Festival
March 3rd, 2010
Deerhoof, Bus Driver @ The Echoplex
July 27th, 2009
Please join us for a ridiculous night of music. We are really excited about presenting this stellar show. Please come out and support us and listen to live music by Deerhoof, Bus Driver, and Avocet.
Show is Friday, July 31th @ The Echoplex. The Echoplex is located at 1154 Glendale Blvd, Los Angeles.
Mayer Hawthorne and The County @ Echoplex
April 24th, 2009
Smooooooooth! That’s the first word that comes to mind when I think of Mayer Hawthorne. I saw him play at the Echoplex Tuesday night. It was a Stones Throw record label night and oh, what a night it was. I had been having a bad day and thought I might not make it to the show, but I knew that would be a very bad choice, especially since Tuesday night marked the last time… Read the rest of this entry »
Juliette Commagere @ The Echo
April 8th, 2009
Hoo boy. I am exhausted. I’ve gone out every night for the last five nights. In fact, I almost decided to ditch last night’s show at the Echo in favor of potato chips and netflix instant viewing. But no, I picked myself up and said, “Rachel, don’t be lame! Get out and see Juliette Commagere’s solo show!” Why? Because her music is super pretty and I knew I’d kick myself for missing it. Besides, I’d seen her kick vocal ass two nights in a row. Why not go for a solid three?
In fact, I think Juliette Commagere must have a supernatural amount of energy. I saw her perform in Puscifer (the Maynard James Keenan of Tool’s side project) at the Nokia Club on Saturday AND Sunday. And those were an hour and half sets! I’m a huge Tool freak, so I immediately have a huge amount of respect for those who collaborate with him. Still, her performances with him were so badass that I knew I had to see her perform a third consecutive time.
But unlike her art-metal cohort, Juliette Commagere provided more gentle, delicate sounds. Her voice is haunting and angelic, as if descending from some twilight horizon. She sang about looking out from skyscrapers and queens dying proudly. She clearly had super mad skills as a singer and could have carried all of her numbers a capella. Instead though, she was supported by large crowd of super talented musicians. With trumpets, cellos, guitars, keyboards and synths, this ten-person team made her work amazingly layered and versatile. She didn’t hide behind them, she worked with them. In fact, she even made a point of saying, “I’m Juliette Commagere. And this is band is… also Juliette Commagere! We’re all Juliette Commagere!” Together they even got the place jumping with some pretty dancy numbers.
And (of course) the highlight of my evening came when Juliette brought up Maynard James Keenan and Puscifer:
“So… I woke up with these Puscifer lyrics stuck in my head. Wanna hear? ‘This vagina mine teach ya patient diligence. Keep the chain-gangs waiting, make a cat-bird sing…’ Oh wait, this is an All-ages show! Maybe I shouldn’t say vagina! Whoops!”
It was pretty hilarious and I loved her shout out to Maynard. Did I mention I’m a huge Tool freak? Yep…
Anyway, Juliette Commagere’s twinkling, layered songs were a real delight. After her set ended, she proceeded to sing another full set supporting the Bird and the Bee! That’s… four sets in three days. See? Supernatural amount of energy. I was still pretty tired when I got home last night, but I am so glad I didn’t stay in.
-Rachel K.
www.loudvine.com
Gram Rabbit @ The Echo
March 15th, 2009
When I told my friends I was going to be seeing Gram Rabbit at the Echo last night, they had some very important words of advice: Find a pair of Bunny Ears, put on your dancing shoes, and get ready to join the Cult of the Rabbit. This band doesn’t just play music, they take you to a dance party in Wonderland. Tripper, weird, and yes, wonderful, Gram Rabbit are a musical tilt-a-whirl you have to see live to really get.
Don’t see this band with any expectations of “sense” or “logic”. Gram Rabbit are space-cowboy electropop on acid. Jessica “Von Rabbit” was dressed like a 1950′s pinup cowgirl and provided sexy, Lolita-esque vocals (when she wasn’t on keyboard or guitar). Todd Rutherford was less dressed up, but what he lacked in theatricality he made up for in talent as he alternated between various instruments in addition to his deep cowboy-man vocals.
Melancholy acoustic songs were thrown in with sonic acoustic beats. They have songs about cowboys versus aliens, the devil’s playground, and dancing the bunny hop. It was sexy, funky, and dancy. Over the course of the evening, they covered Siouxsie and the Banshees AND Black Sabbath. They sampled clips about mescaline from “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” then projected distorted pictures of OJ Simpson during a chorus that went “I say I kill.” Gram Rabbit are an intentionally trippy band (they are from Joshua Tree after all). They were all about messing with the audience’s head.
They didn’t just rely on trippy projections. Oh no. The band had their own performance artist whose sole job was to dress in ridiculous costumes and create drug-addled awesomeness. Sometimes this nameless creature would be a Space-Vixen shooting from a bubble gun or a bobble-headed geisha girl throwing bunny ears into the audience. Finally, she appeared as a supreme, baroque White Rabbit. Sporting a huge Marie-Antoinette wig and scary, porcelain bunny-masque, she infiltrated the crowd and adorned individuals with bunny ears. I made it my mission to follow her with my camera until I realized, “Oh Shit! I’m chasing the white rabbit!”
And yes, they did cover Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit. Their funky, electro version got the crowd so excited that I was finally convinced to join the Cult of the Rabbit. I found a pair of bunny ears and danced along. So, as the song goes: “Remember what the dormouse said, Feed your head.” Feed your head with Gram Rabbit, dance your way to Wonderland, and find a pair of bunny ears. You’ll be seduced by this sexy, crazy, surreal band too.
Rachel K-
www.loudvine.com
Amebix @ Echoplex
January 23rd, 2009
I love metal. I. Love. Metal. I have been a metal-head since high school and I can tell you that there is nothing better than a couple hours of the fist-pumping, head-banging, and physical violence that comes from the metal concert. So I was really, really excited when I found out Amebix were playing at the Echoplex last night. I put on my combat boots and black clothes, and headed out. Let me tell you, this show was not for the weak of heart.
Amebix are the metal band that history forgot. Originally formed in 1979 Britain, they are responsible for starting Crust-Punk (punk meets metal on speed). In fact, without them, we wouldn’t have Napalm Death or Sepultura. But history is making amends; last night was their first show EVER in 22 years. And I will be honest, this worried me. A lot of bands “re-unite” only for the fans to discover that there’s one original member standing off to the side pretending to play (and the merch tent is always over-flowing with expensive re-union t-shirts). Thankfully, this was not the case with Amebix.
Lead singer Chris Miller growled, “Something wicked this way comes.” And so right he was. This was one of the most brutal shows I’ve ever been to. The Echoplex is a relatively small venue, so the crowd was especially tight and compressed. And I have to confess, although I’m 5’4″ and a girl, I love running headfirst at the biggest guys in the pit. The ones over 6ft, covered in tattoos, and who look like they’re fresh out of prison. Those are my favorite, because when else in normal life would I ever attack one? Certainly not at the bank.
It’s difficult to describe the insanity of a truly great metal concert. It’s a little like a war zone. You have to weave and bob around the crowd-surfers, the drunken kamikazes who will punch anything, the occasional stupid kid with something to prove. But you get to be as frenzied in the music as you want. You can run, freak out, and slam into other people as hard as you can, only to be tossed back at someone else. If you don’t like the annoying guy to your right, you can throw him in the pit and feel better. When do you ever get to punch annoying hipsters at a concert?
Amebix were amazing. They knew when to play the big hits (they even played Axeman!); they knew when to calm the crowd down and when to stir them up again. Sick drums, ripping guitars and bass, and those insane angry vocals. By the end of the concert I was in a complete daze. I was smelly, covered in beer, sore and battered all over. Today I am a giant walking bruise and I’m pretty sure I have whiplash. I can’t even remember all of Amebix’s show, it’s a blur. In other words: last night was freaking fantastic.
-Rachel K.
www.loudvine.com
Crooked Cowboy @ Echoplex
January 14th, 2009
As many of you know, there’s this ridiculous flu/cold traveling around Los Angeles right now. And I’ve been coughing and wheezing the last few days. If I was a normal human being, I should have stayed in last night and rested. That was my plan, I swear. But then I found out the Echoplex was having a free Tuesday night show. And, well, gothic Southwestern music has got to be good for a cold, right? That may not make any sense, but I really wanted to check out Crooked Cowboy last night.
I had never been to the Echoplex before and I was surprised by how large and cavernous the venue is. The bar is deep in the back, red lights and candles flicker along low tables and benches. And yet the stage is actually pretty huge. I also had no idea what to expect from Crooked Cowboy. I knew they were vaguely country and experimental, but that could have meant anything. Crooked Cowboy are a little hard to define. You could say they play folk music, or country, or folk-rock, and you wouldn’t necessarily be wrong. But after seeing them live, these labels would be so limiting. When you look at them as whole, the best way to describe them would be ghost-cowboy rock on acid.
That’s right, ghost cowboy rock on acid. Marianne Williams’ voice was ethereal, an otherworldly call above Brendan Willard’s steady, growling vocals. The guitarist didn’t provide a predictable country twang, but instead sounded a lot more on the psyche rock side. And with his drum sticks pounding away at a giant tom-tom drum, their drummer, Nick Murray could really drum. Not to mention Williams’ use of a celesta, a small metal-xylophone piano.
Crooked Cowboy sang songs about silver six shooters, gypsy lovers, and bumpy roads. A few band members stayed true to the cowboy theme, wearing old Wild-West-style hats and clothes (the nice looking kind, not the cheesy looking kind). All throughout their set, giant stage projections displayed above their heads. The multimedia often multiplied a live feed of the band, creating a trippy feel. Distorted clips from Todd Browning’s 1932 film Freaks mixed with blurred videos of strippers pole dancing. It was a little bizarre and completely fitting for the band.
I really enjoyed this mix of psychedelic imagery in the set, but that might have been due to all of the Dayquil I had ingested. And no, going to the Echoplex didn’t really help my cold. I’m still hacking and wheezing and feeling all over icky. But Crooked Cowboy were worth it. So to everyone else sick this week: drink lots of water, take your cold medication, and go see some shows!
Rachel K.
www.loudvine.com
Everest @ Echoplex
November 19th, 2008
Last night was my inaugural Everest experience. I’d heard a handful of their songs online, but seeing a band live almost always casts it in a new light. For Everest, this is especially true. Their music fuses Neil Young-dusted Americana with a brand of ethereal indie. Granted, the less-than-great speakers on my computer maybe didn’t convey all the textures, but live I realized just how panoramic their sound is.
I got to The Echoplex just as Indie Check 1-Tuesday’s night was getting a proper intro. The Henry Clay People were on stage, bouncing around, hammering out song after song about that weird transition between post adolescence and adulthood, with equal parts heart and wit. They got the crowd riled and ready for what was next.
Everest came on, and the audience immediately grew. Everyone who’d been hanging out by the bar or waiting in the wings came up close. With 6 people (including 3 guitarists), the band easily occupied the large Echoplex stage. True to their sound, they began easy, nothing too mellow or too hard. Behind them, they were accompanied by a very cool visual: across a huge screen, artistically-rendered snow drifted over a mountain. The hypnotic huge-ness of it nicely mirrored what was happening on stage. Without much swinging or jumping, the band created full soundscapes around their otherwise straightforward songs. The visual and aural together lifted the set’s more lyrical, romantic tunes into something greater.
About a quarter of the way into the set, the singer brought out his friends, the Watson Twins (you may also know them as, well, The Watson Twins). For indie geeks, it was a big moment. They lent some pretty harmonies to the chorus of a song, before leaving just as quickly as they entered.
Typically I enjoy watching bands that are a little more energetic, but Everest didn’t need to be. In fact, it would’ve been kind of weird if they were all over the place. They peppered in just the right amount of upbeat songs to keep the set from stalling, and they seemed to be having a blast through all of it. The singer at one point even told the crowd, “This is just about the most fun I’ve ever had.”
And now, after seeing them, I can finally say that I — wait for it — conquered Everest.
B. Soika
www.loudvine.com
