Radio Free Silver Lake

Ticket Giveaway(s): Two great shows. Two great local venues. One night (this Thursday).

By Joel Robinson

A big Tuesday hello out to our Radio Free Silver Lake friends. Here's hoping you are all doing well and that vuvuzela-induced madness hasn't claimed too many of you just yet. But we here at RFSL aren't just hoping you're staving off the madness, we are acting to help by offering free entry to catch some terrific sounds and help clear that vuvuzela mayhem out of your heads!

We are able to do this thanks to the assistance of friends at Spaceland and The Echo, who are offering free entry for a reader and guest to each of their events come this Thursday evening.

Option the first: Spaceland presents Year Long Disaster, along with Waxy, Open Hand, and Solare. A night of great rock sound through and through.

Option the first again (it's a tie between the two): The Echo presents Dum Dum Girls, Crocodiles, Dunes, and Soft Healer. Another outstanding offering on this evening of quality sounds throughout.

So, take a swing at gaining free entry to one of these gems. If you are 21 or older, drop an e-mail to "RFSLjoel(at)gmail(dot)com.” Include "Vuvuzela eraser Thursday" in the subject line and your full name and which of the two venues you would favor (and any other comments you may have) in the e-mail text. We'll need that e-mail by NOON Thursday to get you in the mix! 

And by the way, if you were to bring an actual vuvuzela with you to one of these events, you might very well be beaten senseless with that device, so RFSL cannot advocate or support that course of action. Have a great week all! -jdr

Album Review: Bear in Heaven - Beast Rest Forth Mouth

By Jackie Lam

Beast Rest Forth Mouth, Bear in Heaven’s follow-up to their debut, Red Bloom of the Boom is like a collection of cinematic moments: those times in our lives that are so vividly stored in our minds, such as our first kiss or perhaps a quiet discovery we keep to ourselves.  This Brooklyn-based threesome has managed to put out a sophomore album that is a venture into far-ranging soundscapes with nuanced emotionality. Like trying to ponder the dynamics behind a cosmic relationship or the reasons for a whimsical occurrence, I didn’t want to bother breaking it down how or why the songs work too much. To listen to the 10 tracks is to revel in something so eerily well-thought-out that it’s bordering on majesty.

“Beast in Peace” has a haunting, tribal drumbeat with an beautifully executed drum solo wedged in the middle of the song.  Although there’s a healthy mixture of airy guitars and lush synths there’s a deliberate minimalism that balances the rest of the song. One of my favorite recordings on the album is “Lovesick Teenagers,” a hefty ballad that manages to be potent without too much sentimentality. What really reels you in is the way Jon Philpot sings with moderate restraint. There’s even a subtle sound effect of a flock of seagulls crying at certain points in the song, which is quite a kicker.

“Fake Out” is another standout. The song cuts right into intricate layering of a heady swell of guitars, pervasive bass drum and windy synths. It’s like a scene in a story or part of a movie that that work so wonderfully but you can’t manage to figure out what. Tracks such as “Dust Cloud” bears a bit of shoegazer rock reminiscent of My Bloody Valentine, while  “Wholehearted Mess” and “You Do You” have an undeniable krautrock influence with a profuse, lyrical pop quality.

It’s no secret that these songs are a byproduct of laborious songwriting. Beast Rest Forth Mouth is just song after deliriously enjoyable song of a great creative magnitude. They will be rereleasing the album this fall as a dual disc with bonus remix CD featuring Twin Shadow, Jesu, and Twin Shadow.

You can download an mp3 of “Lovesick Teenagers” here: http://pitchfork.com/reviews/tracks/11522-lovesick-teenagers/

Bear in Heaven will be playing at The Echo on July 27th with Twin Sister.

The L.A Show Low Down (Or: "If The Truth Be Told, I Am Not So Old As You Might First Have Taken Me To Be, For Numbers Never Could Apply To Me...")

by Brad Roberts

This is going to be a memorable week where I get to see some of my very favorite bands under really great circumstances. Actually it started on Saturday night when I saw Everest in Pasadena at the KCRW Summer Nights series at One Colorado. They played a sterling set that seemed kind of perfect to me, and they pulled in a huge crowd. 

Blitzen Trapper (above), sing with sublime, heavenly harmonies, songs about boyfriends killing girlfriends, sitting around doing time, falling in with the wrong people, horses, other All-American themes and generally trying to resist tumbling into the abyss on their album Destroyer of the Void. There are wise words here, and they're wrapped in inventive and non-linear song structures that have captured my imagination and I get to hear it live at El Rey on Tuesday. I wouldn't miss it for the world.

I'm pretty good at predicting which shows are going to be really special, before I see them. It's kind of a built in radar I think I've honed over the years, and I try to do my homework. It's what I rely on when I buy tickets well in advance, and I've already got tickets way through October based on these hunches. I've got a very strong feeling about the Pinback presents The Rob & Zach Show at the Detroit Bar in Costa Mesa on Thursday night so I got a ticket months ago. I believe it's the first time Pinback have ever gone out as a twosome (maybe early in their career, I don't know) and the chance to hear Rob Crow and Zach Smith's music, before it's reinterpreted for a live band, sounds very special indeed.

Locally, Voxhaul Broadcast and The Union Line are on the final residency bill of a band that has played here so much this month, they seem local now; Hot Hot Heat at the Bootleg Theatre on Wednesday. That's a really good bill. Tenlons Fort have a final local show (for a while) on the Damien Jurado bill Wednesday at Spaceland. Jack Gibson is heading out of town and I can't urge you enough to see his band in it's current, perfectly integrated, incarnation. They create magic on stage. On Thursday, Saint Motel and Kitten inaugurate the first BuzzbandsLA/KCRW curated "Also I Like To Rock" summer series at the Hammer Museum. Future Thursdays will see Admiral Radley and The Happy Hollows, and I get to cover the Fitz and the Tantrums show on July 15.

The Summer Listening Article

by RFSL Staff

It's summer. Maybe it's the extra free time, maybe it's the nicer weather, but there's something extra special about listening to great new music this time of year. It's like being nostalgic about the present.

We asked our staff what they've most been enjoying lately - specifically, for their top three picks for summer listening, whether they be local, national, or beyond. 

Some writers had a hard time keeping it to just three...

Kathryn Pinto - Managing Editor

Walking Sleep - Measures
These guys grabbed me the first time I saw them live as the The Flying Tourbillion Orchestra. Sarah Radle's vocals are captivating and harmonize well with Hunter Curra's; the musical chemistry between the two of them really works. The music has a narrative, cinematic quality, but also has a lightness that recalls 1960's pop.

Seasons - Winter EP
I cringed at the wolf album art but when I first played the EP, but I found myself walking back to the other room to get a better listen. The songs are good, but more than that there are moments of pure emotional connection with the listener on "Open Your Eyes" and "Always."

Voxhaul Broadcast - EP
Garage rock, big vocals that swing, driving beats, and everything that makes rock 'n roll fun.

Honorable Mention: Big Whup & Pizza!
I don't have any new recorded music from either band, but I've seen them both a ton live in the last few months. These bands share some members and an appealing oddness that is equal part David Byrne and David Lynch. The music is experimental, ambitious and good stuff.

Brad Roberts - Editor & Frequent Show Goer

Wow, only three...huh? Here's three big ones, and they're all local.

Interview: Hey Marseilles

By Kathryn Pinto
Photos by Hayley Young

The guys from Seattle band Hey Marseilles are good sports. They put on great show right after the Lakers' game seven victory last Thursday and even agreed to answer questions that compared their press photo to kinky conceptual art. In the final installment of our Hey Marseilles love fest, front man Matt Bishop fields my interview questions via email.

Kathryn Pinto: This was your first LA show, catch us up on how you got together. How and when did you all get started, who thought of adding an accordion, strings and brass to the mix?

Matt Bishop: Nick, Philip and I met at the University of Washington. We’d play jams on their front lawn and in Seattle parks in warm-weather months. ("Gasworks" is named after on such park.) Philip had just bought an accordion off craigslist when we first started playing together, and had grown up with the Anderson brothers, who play viola and cello, so we eventually started inviting them over.

Show Review: Hey Marseilles and Loch Lomond at the Bootleg Theater (6/17/10)

By Kathryn Pinto

It’s been over a year since I first heard Hey Marseilles and was looking forward to seeing them live. But when the day finally arrived it was Game Seven and even the hipsters were out torching fixies or going for the Tecate AND the tequila. In the twitter sphere, every music blogger who ever watches sports was blowing up with 140 characters about Ron Artest. In contrast, the Bootleg was putting the theater in Bootleg Theater that night. When I arrived I was warned that a play was still going on and asked to keep it to what my elementary school principal called, “a conversational tone,” until the play let out. The crowd had the artificial hush of a school library the last week of classes.

When Hey Marseilles took the stage, faces sun-kissed to sun-cooked, it was the kids who had just finished finals storming into study hall with trumpet, accordion, strings and heart-on-a sleeve lyrics.

Show Review: Tenlons Fort, Judson and Mary at Echo Curio (6/18/10)

by Brad Roberts

 

Once in a while you innocently stumble into a show that ends up rearranging your head and making life shine more brilliantly that it actually does. This story formally begins back on June 11 at the Helen Stellar show at Spaceland, where I was hanging with Greg of The 704 and we struck up a conversation with Judson McKinney, who I'd met before at a couple of shows.

 

You know how some people are just so genuinely open and friendly and non cynical that it triggers a release valve in your head, the self-editing mechanism fails and one begins pouring out one's life story all over the floor of Spaceland. Mary, of Judson and Mary (above), joined us and I thoroughly enjoyed our chat. They gave me the EP they've been handing out all over town and I didn't think much about it.

 

The night before the show at Echo Curio, I was at Matt Pond PA at The Troubadour, talking to Kevin Bronson and Laurie Scavo, and when I mentioned I was seeing Judson and Mary, along with Tenlons Fort the next night at Echo Curio, they both visibly brightened. Kevin told me a wonderful story about how Judson and Mary had risen out of no where to save his Buzzbands show at Spaceland last Tuesday. Failing to secure an act to replace his cancelled show closer, the young indie-folk stepped in at the last minute to fill his midnight slot.

Video Free Silver Lake: Fol Chen, Henry Clay People, Random Patterns, Hey Marseilles, Stars

By Jed

Good morning friends! Starting July 1, I'll be taking a few months off from LA to travel myself to a few places in Europe, so will be passing off Video Free Silver Lake to somebody starting July 7. I'll miss you all, but I'll say my temporary goodbyes again next week. 

1) Fol Chen previewed their single "In Ruins" last month with this monologue by Brian Cox, but have now released a video for the song, directed by Chris Wilcha (of the television version of This American Life) set amidst the ash of Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano.  The area in which the video was filmed is supposedly green most of the year (as is most of Iceland), but here is pretty grey, smoky, and for lack of a better phrase...in ruins.  I'll actually be heading out to Iceland late this July, so was particularly interested in seeing the fallout from the eruption. In fact, I'm trying desperately to get a spot on a hike which is not THAT far from where all the ashiness went down, and hope that if I do make it, things don't look like they do in this video!

Ticket Giveaway: Fitz & The Tantrums at Spaceland this Thursday, June 24

By Joel Robinson

Big hello out to all our Radio Free Silver Lake friends! Tuesday is here and brings with it a ticket giveaway for a great show. Thanks to RFSL's Spaceland friends, we are able to offer free entry for some lucky folk to catch Fitz & The Tantrums come Thursday night.

This week has Fitz & The Tantrums (pictured here courtesy photos from their myspace site) wrapping their thrilling Thursday nights' June residency at Spaceland. Joining in on the fun will be Ben Lovett and The Damselles, providing for an evening of sound to move your soul and to put that smile back on your face.

Show Review: Everest at Amoeba Music (6/16/10)

by Brad Roberts

Wow, that was an amazing show that caught me by surprise. And it shouldn't have. I've been loving Everest's new album, On Approach, for a while now, but just didn't expect such a powerful and moving set from a band I've seen about ten times already. At Amoeba Music on Wednesday, June 16, 2010, I literally had to choke back tears, I became so emotionally involved. This will be a review that can, literally, write itself and I'll just hold the pencil.

Not having seen the band since last September at The Troubadour, I hadn't heard many of the new songs live. Unlike their first album, Ghost Notes, which was recorded quickly and featured songs they had worked on for over a year at numerous live shows, On Approach, was a more difficult, but more rewarding, birth.