Monday, June 22, 2009
Huge thanks to all our old friends we saw on Saturday either on stage or out in the audience. It was really a fun night and all the bands sounded terrific. Special shout out to The Shade for asking us to help with the show. For a new band they certainly held their own opening up the night. They're apparently finishing up some recordings soon so look out for those. More shout outs to Robotanists for taking on the late night finale slot with as much gusto as they would if they were headlining the Troubadour. We clearly have not seen them nearly enough over the years, but to be fair we actually thought they had long moved on from the underground when we saw Loma Lynda do Aoki's Cinespace Tuesdays back in 2004. That band's dark, hypnotic rock mixed in with their noir-drenched visuals made them one of the more talked about bands at the time. These days, Ms. Ellquist has never sounded more confident with that beguiling voice of hers, a voice not too distant from Hooverphonic's Geike Arnaert or Olive's Ruth-Ann Boyle. In any case, chances are we'll be begging them for another show with us again soon, you can guarantee that. One last shout out to I Make This Sound, which featured a whole new lineup of musicians including members of Le Switch, The Breakups, and The Sweet Hurt. It was their first show in many months but with such an all-star cast of players (not to mention great songs) they 'made that sound' quite well. Ok, that was stupid. Anyway, thanks again to all attendees. Video streams of the show are archived here.
This week...
Monday residencies have been yummy this month, haven't they? More please. Also, the lovely Caitlin Crosby celebrates the release of her debut record Flawz at the Hotel Cafe tonight. Whitman, Splinter Cake, Bipolar Bear, and others at Carnage's night at Women. Lemonwilde is strangely scheduled to play at both Viper and the Silverlake Lounge. If you love them, which you should, you should go to both. Oh, and some guy named Elvis Costello plays Amoeba (tapes Conan tomorrow) and new buzz band Wilco is in town at The Wiltern. Incubus at Echoplex. And check out Pete Yorn on Conan O'Brien later tonight.
On Tuesday, Foreign Born celebrates the release of their new record Person to Person (out on Secretly Canadian) at Vacation [Download "Vacationing People" here and "Early Warnings" here]. Acid Girls celebrates their new single at Arena. Ditto for Pete Yorn who will be doing an in-store at Fingerprints down in Long Bizzle. thenewno2 and others at Spaceland. The Sweet Sweet Things, Carrick Moore, and The Wheel at the Silverlake Lounge. Cryptacize, Wounded Lion, Missincinatti, and Emily Lacy at Echo Curio.
Also on Tuesday, Lex Land tapes a performance on Carson Daly to be aired this Friday. A few months ago, she was gracious enough to perform at our "Live at Mr. T's Bowl" show and blew everyone away with her voice, her songwriting, and of course her rendition of the Habanera from Bizet's "Carmen." If she's not signed yet, she will be. Easily, one of the best singer-songwriters in town right now and one of the finest voices we have ever heard, period. Believe it... As a related note, has anyone checked out Daly's new late night format of taped man-on-the-street shows? Apparently, he's been all over Los Angeles Twittering and promoting local establishments while touting network television debuts of some indie bands. We haven't seen much of it but it's not a bad idea -- although it's pretty transparent that his production and talent booking staff know more about the local scene than he does. In other words, we highly doubt he's been anywhere near The Smell but you can pretty much guess that he'll have a camera crew over there at some point taping Mika Miko while he voice-over's that he's been into them since the Cobalt. We really don't care about him touting indie cred as long as he actually helps out local bands, which he should do often if he ever wants us to write a paragraph this long about him again.
Damn, this is long. If you want a complete calendar go here. We'll try and do a Wednesday update thing maybe.
