Thursday, September 29, 2011
On September 30th we are presenting the first of a series of "Best of 2011" shows to finish off the year. While it may seem a bit early for such a night, we've been anxious to put this show together all year, and the sooner we do so the sooner you'll become as big a fan as we are of these bands.
Pageants made their debut show on the very first day of 2011 at pehrspace. A room full of friends became a room full of fans to a band that we instantly believed would be one of the best new bands of the year. And we were right. Back when lead singer Rebecca Coleman was just an ivory tickler for Avi Buffalo she was already somewhat flirting with her own musical aspirations with her first band familyblankets. That band only played a handful of shows before evolving into what would become Pageants. Nine months later and a bit of a transition to a duo, the band has finally finished a new EP that's already gotten played on KCRW before it was even properly pressed. No release date has been set but you'll want to like/follow them asap to get in early when it does.
If you would have told us in 2001 when we saw our favorite band Imperial Teen at the Troubadour open for White Stripes that ten years later in 2011 we'd be presenting shows with pop genius Will Schwartz's new band Psychic Friend, we would have said, "pshaw" (which was our catch phrase in 2001). We still believe "Ivanka" to be one of the most brilliantly-written songs in music history and evidently with songs like "Once A Servant," none of that brilliance has gone away. The band is coming off a wonderful four-night stand at Casey's, playing quite a few new tunes we're anxious to get on record.
March 2005 was a memorable month. Steve Fossett circumnavigated around the world non-stop in his now-famous GlobalFlyer. Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa testified under oath about taking steroids. And The Lovemakers played one of the best Monday residencies Los Angeles has ever witnessed at Spaceland. Sadly, the band disbanded in 2010 with Lisa Light moving on to form the electro-pop/ultra-sexy dance frenzy of El Elle. The band made their L.A. debut earlier in the summer playing intimate party gatherings and we couldn't wait to get them for this show, especially now that we can now call Ms. Light an Angeleno -- the singer recently moved to the City of Angels (finally!). El Elle's debut album is available on CD, white vinyl, and digital here. Get it.
Having just hosted The Nocturnes semi-official record release just a month ago at pehrspace, it might be a bit overzealous of us to be doing another one so soon but, to be honest, we couldn't/wouldn't wait a minute longer to do just that. If you were at that show, then you already know you saw something special that night, a sound so massively beautiful those hymnal melodies probably haunted your dreams that night. Their new record Aokigahara is available now through Bandcamp.
So this is show #1 of our "Best of 2011" series. We're so honored all of these bands could take the time to play our little big show and we really hope you'll be able to trek out to the westside to see this one. Be sure to RSVP to get on the $5 list.
September 30, 2011
Los Angeles Loves...
THE NOCTURNES - 11pm
EL ELLE - 10pm
PSYCHIC FRIEND - 9pm
PAGEANTS - 8pm
DJ CRQLR (DJing in between bands)
The Central
1348 14th St.
Santa Monica, CA 90404
21+/7:30pm
$7 or $5 with RSVP through Facebook or message us or the bands (RSVP by 5pm 9/30)
