Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Great local lineup on Monday at The Echo. Should we continue our overbearing rant/rave on how much we love Summer Darling and Wait.Think.Fast.? Probably not necessary. And, of course, our friends Shiloe and Two Guns perfectly bookended the evening, sounding better than ever -- although raise your hand if Shiloe should always play within a cloud of stage smoke and dramatic low-angle floor lighting (it just makes them even sexier, no?). By the way, if you've been wondering what's up with this Echo residency, which features Summer Darling and Wait.Think.Fast. sharing the weekly honors, it's all being curated/organized by the new record label Origami Records, which will also soon be a vinyl-only record store located just a few doors down from The Echo. This is one of the more ballsier music business ideas we've heard in a long while, especially in this economy -- especially, especially in this record industry economy. And we're totally in support of it.
Earlier on Monday, we stopped by the Hotel Cafe for Alex & Sam. It was nice to see them so well-behaved and strait-laced; quite different from the hilariously maniacal road house rock show that several of their members put on last Friday at American Legion as Electric Dinosaur... And, of course, later on Monday L.A. Record celebrated their new issue launch at Cha Cha. But, more importantly, Ashley Jex celebrated her 25th year on planet earth.
Tuesday was probably the busiest day of the week and when it's that busy in Los Angeles we of course get away to Long Beach so it was a total coincidence one of the best lineups of the month just happened to be at The Prospector. You should know by now that we think very highly of Ms. Jenny O. Her eagerly-anticipated debut album is being mixed as we type this so we only have a few months until we'll be hitting that pre-order button -- and, oh yes, we'll be hitting the eff out of the pre-order button. Turns out, she also occassionally plays in Spirit Animal, the new electro rap group fronted by the one-and-only Steve Cooper (aka The Gray Kid). With only a few shows under their belt, the band (picture above) still sounded pretty damn hot and Cooper still takes charge on the mic like no other. We received the Asa Ransom track "Crystal" from our NY correspondent recently, however, that track obviously did not fully prepare us for the sheer mastery in which these boys take a stage. This is easily one of the best new bands we've seen this year, a statement we are actually sad to make since they are from New York. Still, they play again tonight at Spaceland and we all know that two consecutive nights in Los Angeles means they will probably move here. You'll want to see this. "Crystal" is off their new EP available only at shows.
Happy Birthday today to Marko Schafer of the Hotel Cafe.
Speaking of birthdays, be sure to get your tickets for Sunday's big Sly Stone birthday party at Zanzibar featuring performances by Sly, Babystone, and secret surprises we can't tell you. We just posted details here if you need more info.
Asa Ransom - "Crystal" (MP3) Limited time download
