Radio Free Silver Lake

Show Spotlight: RFSL Presents United Ghosts, The Hectors, Modern Time Machines and Bulletins Tonight at the Silverlake Lounge

By Kathryn Pinto

Radio Free Silver Lake is excited to present a stellar lineup for the second week of United Ghosts’ Thursday record release residency at the Silverlake Lounge. The Hectors, Modern Time Machines and Bulletins (members of Film School) will play in support tonight.

This residency launches the self-titled album  United Ghosts  were recording when RFSL last spoke with the band. The music was inspired by the underbelly of LA. The rusting shopping carts, payphones and guns  entombed in Echo Lake that were uncovered when the lake was recently dredged resonated with the band. Tracks like “Echo Lake” reveal the dark and sinister things hidden behind cool jackets, shimmering blonde locks and California smiles. It’s the sound of big guitar steeped in a back catalog of psychedelia, shoegaze and Kraut rock. Frontman Axel Steuerwald says he’s always trying to turn people on to NEU!, but his real love is a pre-Britpop sound in England in the 1990’s, (Primal Scream, My Bloody Valentine and countless other less storied bands) a genre-crossing sound equal parts experimentation and pop sensibility, anything goes noise but always carried by a melody. In fact the album has tracks like “Sparks from a Cold Star” that recall American indie rock like Husker Dü or The Replacements as much as anything from England.

Watch "Echo Lake" and hear the band's take on making the album.

 

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United Ghosts play the Silverlake Lounge (2906 Sunset Blvd., LA, 90026), along with The Hectors, Modern Time Machines and Bulletins, Thursday May 16 at 9pm (first set), FREE SHOW, 21+.

Torches Second Residency Night at The Echo (5/13/13)

text and photos by Brad Roberts

Sometimes I feel like I have just landed in the right place at the right time, with all elements in place and all the planets aligned. I have to confess, it's happened to me a lot my life and it happened again on Monday night, May 13. Attending the second Monday of the Torches (at right) residency at The Echo, I was aware that they were going to cover some songs by Arcade Fire, but when they started with "Rebellion", that feeling came over me again. A lot of people already know this story about how Arcade Fire are directly responsible for my entry into the world of music, but I'm going to tell it again.

Once upon a time, I was sitting on my couch realizing that my world was pretty settled, life was fairly routine. I had a job, a career, a few friends, family of the other coast and I was entering late middle-age and beginning to feel my passion for living was waning. It was after 11 PM on Monday, August 1st 2005, and as I was channel-surfing on TV, I went by a music video for "Rebellion" by Arcade Fire and it stopped me in my tracks. I listened for a minute then moved on, but realized I couldn't stop hearing that song so I went back to that channel.

Over the next 2 and a half minutes, a fire was ignited in me that grew and grew and has been burning brightly ever since. I had not listened to rock and roll in about 15 years and had believed it to be a dead art form. The next day I went out and bought the first rock CD I had bought in over ten years, Funeral by Arcade Fire and my journey began. There's so much to recount here, involving the Internet, the failing grasp of the giant music label behemoths, the rise on independent music, and the fertile local music scene, the hotbed of creative energy all around us...and on and on, that I need to write a book.

Show Review: Kurt Vile & The Violators at the Echoplex 5/7/13

Text & Photos by Kathryn Pinto

My excitement about the Kurt Vile show was tempered by my trepidation at all things that happen at a BNM show (his latest album won Pitchfork’s Best New Music designation). Yeah the buzz was great on this album, which is how I ended up buying the excellent Wakin on a Pretty Daze on vinyl and playing it non-stop. Pretty Daze combines laconic easy-paced songwriting in the vein of Neil Young with guitar playing that’s about as close to shredding as a chill guy from Philadelphia gets. But that same good buzz threatened to fill the room at the Echoplex with dilettantes likely to make me pissy as hell.

You know what I mean. There are the structural flaws of the Echoplex like terrible sightlines, Hollywood drink prices ($9 beer) and bathroom attendants. (Isn’t the ladies’ room just about the last place you’d want to buy a pack of mints?). Then there are the so-called fans who talk, make out or dry hump (as my colorful show buddy put it) while standing three feet from the stage the entire show. After bearing witness to some of the anticipated dry-humping during opener the Fresh and Onlys' well-fogged in and very droney, but good set, I ducked outside to escape the fog for the relative fresh air of the smokers’ patio outside between sets.

Kurt Vile took the stage dressed in the same white-white jeans, white shirt, white jacket and white Converse he sports in his “Never Run Away” video and opened with “Wakin on a Pretty Day.” He followed with “KV Crimes,” the second track from Wakin on a Pretty Daze. Vile mumbles his lyrics and his long metalhead locks obscure his face, but these outward gestures do nothing to distance him from the audience. Throughout the set the experience of seeing Vile play live was one of being lured in ever closer. He seemed to be backed by at least a dozen guitarists on stage with him, but really I think there were only three. The audience was a stoked, but reverent crowd. They certainly welcomed it when he played the hits, but there was awed appreciation throughout the set. On “Jesus Fever” from his previous album Smoke Ring For My Halo Vile was head bopping and toe-tapping and the crowd just about lost their collective minds in approval. “Peeping Tom” he played solo on acoustic guitar, creating a very intimate moment with the more than seven hundred in the room. From there he went into a full band vibing heavy, the romantics in our midst having presumably filtered to the back of the venue. After the encores, Vile left the stage saying, “You’ve been a beautiful audience, see you in the parking lot.”

More photos after the jump.

News: 2013 FYF Fest Lineup Announced

By Kathryn Pinto

The FYF Fest announced their lineup yesterday. My Bloody Valentine and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs headline. The two-day festival takes place Saturday August 24 and Sunday August 25 at the L.A. State Historic Park (the Cornfield). Other notable acts include TV on the Radio, Beach House, Kurt Vile & the Violators, Charles Bradley, Baroness, Foxygen and the Orwells.

The festival began in 2004 in Echo Park as the Fuck Yeah Fest. This will be its fifth year at the Cornfield and its second as a two-day festival. Although ticket prices have increased 500 percent since FYF’s first year at the State Historic Park (in 2009 when notable talent was Avi Buffalo, Dan Deacon and Wavves, tickets were $20 for the one-day festival), in recent years since Goldenvoice has produced the event it has been better managed and more enjoyable than the early dusty days at the L.A. State Historic Park.

Tickets go on sale at noon this Thursday May 16 and are available at local record stores including Origami Vinyl and Amoeba Records, and online. Tickets start at $99 General Admission for the weekend and $199 VIP for the weekend.

The L.A. Show Low Down (Or: "When You Wake Up Your Mind...")

by Brad Roberts

So many good shows this week make Los Angeles look like a music cafeteria where you can pick this from here, that set from there, and another band at another club and make a gigantic feast every night either club hoping or just staying put. For me, one of the major shows of the week is for Seven Saturdays (at right), who are having a record release and video premiere show at Eagle Rock Center of the Arts with Little Red Lung on Friday night. Seeing Seven Saturdays as they were forging a new direction with their music last December at The Satellite, I have been anxiously waiting their new CD, Make Note Of Every Sound, which their music is wont to make you do anyway. Adding vocals to their heady mix of atmospheric soundscapes and electronic/orchestral sweep has taken this band to another level.

Torches have the best Monday night residency this week with, among our favorites, Radar To The Sky and Manhattan Murder Mystery on the bill. Other Radio Free Silver Lake favorites are sprinkled throughout the week like Duniven, who got a great write up in L.A. Weekly this week, and is playing a video release show on Wednesday at The Satellite, and Thursday gives us a stellar line up at Silver Lake Lounge with United Ghosts, The Hectors and Modern Time Machines. Look for shows with The World Record, Fort King, The Dustbowl Revival and many more below the fold...

Video Free Silver Lake (Nightmail, The Hectors, Kurt Vile, Brass Bed, Charles Ramsey)

By Kathryn Pinto

1. Nightmail “Pulsar”
Nightmail (fka Spero) looks over their collective shoulder at 1980’s analog synth pop just long enough to pick up on the good memories (and not long enough to be turned to salt by what they have seen). Everything in these arrangements is in remarkable balance. It’s easy to say that it sounds great because the guitar and keys are weighted, but that ignores a pretty great bass line in “Pulsar” to say nothing of the vocals (or drums). The video, like the sound has a nice big open feel. It doesn’t feel restrained, it feels expansive and big and cool.
Nightmail play Thursday May 16 at El Cid.

2. The Hectors  “Her Dark Majesty”
Back when MTV played music videos, at its best each song on the channel had its own little three minute art movie. A favorite band took on a adventure in a new setting for each new single. The Hectors’ videos embrace that spirit completely. The latest one for “Her Dark Majesty” does not disappoint. This video has everything: time travel, green screen footage of battling knights, cameos of nearly everyone who has shared a stage with the Hectors--Jake Breakup (Gideon), Andy Clay People (Siara), Hunter “FTO FTW” Curra--including a pantsless shot of Hectors guitarist Robert Bonilla and Fieron Santos as a lovelorn warrior.
The Hectors play the Silverlake Lounge Thursday May 16, as part of the United Ghosts residency.