Radio Free Silver Lake

Show Spotlight: Dana Falconberry with Califone, Radar Brothers and Blues Oblique Tonight at the Satellite

By Kathryn Pinto

Austin’s Dana Falconberry plays the Satellite tonight along with Califone, Radar Bros. and Blues Oblique (Michael Krassner & Wil Hendricks). The sound of Dana Falconberry’s voice conjures up a world like an exquisitely drawn picture book one intended as a gift, but saved for oneself. Her songwriting works in the same way, sweet but with enough grit and strangeness to lure you in and hold you with its conflicting complexity. When her pixie-ish vocals veer toward precious, a percussion line or harmony will inject a layer of eeriness into the mix. She is backed by a six-piece band that includes Christopher Cox of Austin's Tosca String Quartet. It is the backing from Cox’s string arrangements that create a fullness of sound that can support the subtle and delicate nature of these songs. Falconberry’s latest release Leelanau (Antenna Farm) is a nostalgic travelogue, musical drawings of places in northern Michigan where she has spent summers since childhood: Lake Charlevoix, Sturgeon Bay, Copperleaf. While one can listen to this album and hear the magic of woodland sprites, they are from a world of the imagination that is also strange and spooky. We are really looking forward to seeing this music played live tonight.

Opening the evening are the cinematic “electrified blues-folk” Califone, dark, hard rocking, psychedelic  Radar Bros. and the Silver Lake veteran duo Blues Oblique.

 

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Dana Falconberry plays the Satellite (1717 Silverlake Blvd., LA 90026) tonight February 28 with Califone, Radar Brothers and Blues Oblique playing in support. Doors open at 8pm, 21+, $12.

 

Video Free Silver Lake: Five Songs with Bikos

When we talked to Bikos about their show at the Smell to benefit Sounds for the Cause we also got a chance to ask them about the music that shaped them--music they wanted to share with our readers. As bandleader Gabe Pearlman put it,  "I decided to highlight life-changing music that each of the members of bikos first shared with me and/or otherwise call to my mind."

By Gabriel Pearlman (of Bikos)

Austin Wester, Drums.
DJ Shadow - Building Steam with a Grain of Salt
"...I'm a student of the drum, and I'm also a teacher of the drums too"

When Austin and I were 17 years old, we were participated in a statewide youth program called Youth & Government. We were in Sacramento lounging in the lobby of our group's hotel and Austin, who I at that point didn't know all that well turned to me, took his disc man headphones off and said "dude, you gotta hear this" and put the headphones on me. DJ Shadow's album Endtroducing, was just beginning. I had never heard anything like it.

 

 

Daniel Hur, Lead Guitar.
The Mountain Goats - Cubs in Five
"...and I will love you again"

Show Spotlight: Harley Cortez Art Show at 727 Spring

By Kathryn Pinto

Lines from Harley Prechtel-Cortez, the multi-talented frontman of Halfbluud and formerly of Red Cortez, is an exhibition of visual art opening this Saturday at Space 727 in Downtown LA. Artists Matt Maust and Cody Comrie join Prechtel-Cortez in this trio show, curated by Edgar Varela Fine Arts, one of the leading galleries of the downtown First Thursday circuit.

In addition to his projects with Red Cortez in its various incarnations (Weather Underground, Just An Animal), Prechtel-Cortez has worked in filmmaking and visual arts. Since last summer he has been posting studio work: paintings, drawings and collages on his tumblr page, as a kind of running online studio visit. The work is smudgy emoting portraits and figurative work that experiments with improvised texture and mark making.

Prechtel-Cortez has not slacked off on his musical projects this year, either. On January 15, he released a solo EP under the moniker Halfbluud (previewed on RFSL). That release 1st EP is available now on bandcamp and a second EP Shibuya is due out in February, according to the Halfbluud bandcamp page.

Lines opens Saturday February 2, with an opening reception that promises special guests and free booze while it lasts  from 6:30-10:30pm at Space 727, 727 Spring St, Downtown Los Angeles, CA 90013. For more information see the Lines event page on facebook.

 

Interview: Haunted Summer (John Seasons and Bridgette Moody)

By Kathryn Pinto
Photos by Amanda Glover

Here’s the story. You grow up with these guys, start a band, toil in obscurity for years playing tiny venues for nothing, and then something starts to click. People come out to the shows. Things start to happen. Better gigs, tours, little deals that mean you can buy studio time, make the record you want to make. But just when everything starts to come together, everything unravels. You just can’t get along with your bandmates, can’t make it work. It’s like putting on your favorite jeans, but they just don’t fit anymore.

In a most unlikely twist to this story, the two people who tell it very nearly this very same way found each other. Romance lead to collaboration and a new project called Haunted Summer. Bridgette Moody left Torches about the same time John Seasons left Seasons. Together they are heading in directions they couldn’t pursue in their former bands, making an eerie psychedelic orchestral pop. Radio Free Silver Lake caught up with the two recently at Lot 1 and sat down to hear about their new music as well as their departures from their previous bands.

Kathryn Pinto (Radio Free Silver Lake): Tell me about Haunted Summer, who’s in the band, what’s the sound, how’d it start?

Johnny Seasons: The band is me and Bridgette and we’re making all the music. Our live bad I is a band, with a string quartet, a harp player and drums and a bass player. The strings are going to be composed by Kaitlin [Wolfberg] who’s still in Seasons. She’s going to compose the strings, do a string quartet and we’re going o to co-compose with her on some songs, but it’s going to be a different sound from either of the bands we were in. And Bridgette, it’s her first time singing lead.

RFSL (to Bridgette): What’s your take?

Bridgette Moody: We’re both in a similar situation, just kind of working this whole thing on our own. We’re really excited, the response so far with just our really basic demos has been really positive and it’s been really exciting.

Show Spotlight: Sounds for the Cause Benefit Show for Laura's House Shelter with Bikos, Owls, Danger Friends USA!, SNACKTIME (cd release show), and Protect Me at the Smell Saturday 1/26/13

By Kathryn Pinto

Sounds for the Cause presents a benefit show for Laura's House domestic violence shelter Saturday night at The Smell with a lineup of great bands that includes Bikos, Danger Friends USA! , SNACKTIME (cd release show), PROTECT ME, and  Owls.  The show benefits Laura's House, a domestic violence shelter in south Orange County that has provided emergency shelter, crisis support, counseling and children's programs to women survivors of domestic violence and their children since 1994. Admission to the benefit is $5 donation or an unwraped toy for the children. The Smell is located at 247 South Main Street, Los Angeles, CA.

RFSL checked in with Bikos frontman Gabe Pearlman to hear more about the benefit and what the band has been up to.

Kathryn Pinto (RFSL): What has Bikos been up to lately? You had a 2012 release. Have you been writing? recording? touring?

Gabe Pearlman (Bikos): We've had a lot going on. I was really excited to release an EP in March, Let Down Your Avant Garde (available on bandcamp as a free download). Summer 2012 was really crazy time for our band, we had to take some time off.  Our drummer, Austin, had his first child, and we found out that our keyboardist, Jaron, was leaving the band. Jaron was there from the beginning, and still remains a dear friend and prized collaborator... not an easy loss. We've regrouped now and are back in the swing of things.

In May of 2012, just our respite, our producer/engineer Dean Nelson flew in from Canada to work with us on the new record, it's Post-Prom.  One week, tracking straight to tape. 13 songs.  Mixing was just completed shortly after New Year's. Final sequencing and mastering are happening soon. Dean was working with Beck in LA a few years ago when a demo of ours made its way to him. He mixed our first record, Make Your Sound Sound, and just added a little additional tracking. He was drawn to what we had put together thus far in the process. For this album, he was there the whole time and we really couldn't be much happier with what transpired that week and in mixing. Not sure how/when we're gonna release it's Post-Prom just yet.

Torches: Northwest Tour Diary 2012

Torches performing at Make Music Pasadena (photo by K.Pinto)

The much buzzed about eastside trio TORCHES set off northward on a tour to support their new album Heads Full of Rust four weeks ago with a AAA card, a big box of merch and a dream. Along the way they wrote down some notes about the scenery, sleazy clubs, friendly women and the vegan bounty of the Great Northwest. Road weary but stoked they share these tales with you,  good readers of Radio Free Silver Lake. TORCHES is back home to play July 30 at the Echoplex with Seasons, Manhattan Murder Mystery, & Body Parts.

By Azad Cheikosman of Torches

Day One - LA to Santa Cruz: June 29, 2012
We’ve embarked on our first northwest tour and we couldn’t be happier. The ride proved to be pretty smooth until we got a flat tire ten miles outside of Santa Cruz. Luckily a guy who works for a state-run highway program came to our rescue. Timing was perfect because he arrived minutes before the AAA guy got there. Shortly after we were back on the road again and arrived in Santa Cruz to play our first show of the tour. Metavinyl is a really rad record store and not to mention a great and intimate place to play a show. The place is pretty small, but it’s cozy and the people who watched were kind seemed to dig what we were doing. We haven’t ended our streak of selling albums at shows yet, which is a good sign…for now.

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Day Two – Santa Cruz to Humboldt: June 30, 2012
We were fortunate enough to be able to sleep in. I must have forgot to mention our friend Matt surprised us by showing up to the Santa Cruz last night. The only thing is…he didn’t make it to the show on time. It’s alright because we got some time to make a stop at Streetlight Records, the Boardwalk, and the beach. Now we’re on the road headed for Humboldt where Eric’s [Fabbro, the band's drummer] cousin lives. We’ll be staying the night in Humboldt before we head out to Portland in the morning. Tomorrow’s show takes place at Ash Street Saloon. At this particular moment in time we’re driving through the Redwoods.

Five Songs with Antony Benedetti of Escalator Hill

By Antony Benedetti
of Escaltor Hill

Before I begin revealing the secrets of my musical past and present,  I'll say a few general words regarding our residency this month at Casey's. We'll be there every Saturday. The Lonely Wild will be joining us this weekend, which personally, I am looking forward to. The World Record will be rocking out the following weekend, and we'll close up shop with none other than The Far West (also looking forward to these). It's going to be a fun month, but also a busy one for us. We'll be traversing into the studio first thing in August to record another record (and sell some extremely sentimental personal belongings and some less than necessary organs to help subsidize the cost). So wish us luck! Now without further ado--or at least much more ado--Five songs from my past and present that I would like to share with you.

5. Mr. Bungle - Goodbye Sober Day

The Album California  was given to me as a gift by my eldest brother (I have three) as I was mid-way through my high-school experience. As someone who was always looking for something "different" to listen to (I use quotes because I have not quite uncovered the standards for normality when it comes to listening to music. I just knew I didn't like most of what my peers were listening to) this was the perfect gift. This song in particular had a little bit of everything, blending genres, interesting melodies, rhythmic patterns; it almost made my head explode, it didn't though. If you have time and you haven't heard it before, I highly recommend giving the whole album a listen.

 

We Miss Death to Anders Already...

by Joe Fielder w/ photo by Zoe Ruth Erwin 

A few weeks back, we regetfully reported that one of our favorite LA acts, the iconoclastic "gregorian punk" group Death to Anders had decided to call it quits.

Since then, we asked a few members of the LA music community to share their thoughts on losing the group, favorite memories, and that sort of thing.

Here's a stream of the group's posthumously-released FREE final album, followed by said commentar -- which we like to think of less of a eulogy and more of a drunken Irish wake in a brawl with a goddamn Viking funeral pyre....

 

 

SARAH NEGAHDARI - THE HAPPY HOLLOWS

Death to Anders will always hold the most important place of any local band in my heart. Rob and Nick have been longtime friends, and it was their collaboration in Death to Anders, that so many years ago, inspired me to play music.

They wrote some of the most important and favorite songs of my whole life. Songs like, "Africa", "the Fall", "Heavyweight", and "Camera Lens", are better, and more genius, than almost any song I've heard come out in the world in the last decade.Why they were not world famous from their early days on, I just don't know.

Maybe it's Los Angeles, maybe because they didn't have the urban outfitters hipster "look" enough for people to really hear. I will tell you that it is not because of their music. The songs they made were pure genius, and that band deserved to be plucked out of this city and placed on the world's stage.

I am sad that Death to Anders is no more, but I feel good in the knowing that the songs they recorded are forever. Also, Im looking forward to everything they are doing in new projects to come! Thank you for sharing and expressing your genius guys. What a gift to my life. What a gift your music is to so many lives. Love, Sarah

BEN "MOUSE" MCSHANE - CLASSICAL GEEK THEATRE

I first saw Death to Anders at a Radio Free Silver Lake show at Bordello. My face melted. I got to know Rob, Nick, Pete, and John some over the years. Eventually I became Rob's roommate in Echo Park. We got drunk at Pehrspace. A lot. We put-on a show at Spaceland with D2A and The Mae Shi, and it was one of the best local shows I ever attended. (Rob's hands are in the promo video.) Rob was always bringing bands together, trying to put-on shows, pushing is music and passionately carrying on, even after his Collective imploded and not many people really cared about Death to Anders anymore. (Admittedly, myself included.) He was and is a great guy. I still play poker with Nick sometimes. He texts me about my Colts and I text him about his 49ers. Pete's daughter is adorable. I haven't seen John in years. I never met the new guys in the band.

Death to Anders was usually better than most bands, if not great, but they were always Doing A Good Thing. They were loud. Their music was weird. You could jump around to it. No goddamned facepaint or stupid fey nostalgia. I really liked that one song about the horse.

ANDREW SPITSER - RADARS TO THE SKY

At the beginning of the song, "Two Chords," the first track on the Don't Give Up e.p. Death to Anders put out last fall, Rob sings, "What'cha gonna do when you make it fall apart? / What'cha gonna do when it makes its way this far?" It's a question many artists of many kinds through many iterations have faced -- what do I do when I get here, when I've gotten this far into this thing that I love doing, and yet it seems on the verge of falling apart?

And truly, there is no perfect answer. Even the greats struggle with exits. Willie Mays, perhaps one of the greatest five baseball players of all time, famously held on too long, a paunchy 40-something spilling out of a strange-looking Mets uniform and struggling just to hold his spot on the team. Robert DeNiro has taken to playing the father in "comedies" whose major gag is that one of the characters has a last name that sounds like a swear word. Bill Clinton now seems like that dad in the stands at a Little League game clinging desperately to his old glories while yelling a little too vociferously about the umpire's bad calls. On the other hand, there's Hemingway who shoots himself when he can't muster another Nick Adams story he's happy with.

But, then again, those decisions of the greats are fraught with less implications than the question of when to pick up your chips and walk away a loser. Michael Jordan's Washington Wizards career may have sullied the outlines of his career, but nothing can destroy his greaness at his peak. You can't un-write The Sun Also Rises or erase the memory of Taxi Driver. But what about the kid drafted Jordan's rookie year who didn't even make the team and spent the next six years bouncing from one team in Spain to another in Israel. When is he ready to hang it up and go deliver the mail? How does he give up the dream? When does the young painter realize she's never going to get that Soho gallery show? And what does she do when she does -- does she keep painting; or take that job as a paralegal?

Thrillhouse Productions released the movie Pass the Music last year. Perhaps more than anything, it chronicled a moment in time, when a bunch of people who were friendly and supportive of each other came together to play shows and write blog posts and film videos and do Sunday night shows on famous music stations that all centered around the idea that all of those people had channeled something, some zeitgeist, some tidal wave of community that would lift all boats. And watching that movie projected on the side of a wall to a packed room in the back of the Bootleg Theatre a few months ago, the feeling that stuck out above all of the laughs and the claps and the knowing chuckles at one Siara brother putting another in a headlock, was -- for me, at least, and, I suspect, quite a few of the other people who were chroicled as having been part of that fleeting moment -- a feeling of having lost something. It was the ghost of Christmas past.

Because the fact is, that moment passed.

So what do you do? What do you when it's made its way this far? Do you have the strength to let it fall apart? Can you do that with dignity, before everyone has stopped even caring?

Five Awesome Songs with Radars to the Sky

Radars to the Sky play this Saturday, June 23rd at The Central in Santa Monica.  Radio Free Silverlake presents the show, which also features omnipresent buzzfave Torches, the inimitable The Hectors, the charisma parade of Fort King, and talented newcomer Ceeca.  If you write to radarstothesky(at)gmail(dot)com, and give them unlimited names, you and your friends are in for $5.

by Andrew Spitser

There really must be some theme I can muster here.  My five favorite songs of all time? (Impossible task.) Five songs you've never heard before? (Meh. I've covered some of my favorite underappreciated songs before. And it's not like I'm some connoisseur of of obscure tunes to begin with.)  A history of my musical tastes of 30-some-odd years? (I don't think anyone would read past "John Denver.") Five great songs by local bands we love? (Hard to pick five without slighting someone, and I haven't been going out very much in the last year or so, making the list rather dated.) One song from each of five continents? (I could just choose five Beirut songs instead, I guess.)  The five songs with the highest play totals in my iTunes? (I checked -- too narcissistic; if you want that, just go here.)

No, I guess this will simply be five songs that I'd like to share with you; some you've heard, some you might not have heard; some have influenced the way I write music, some not as much. But all are awesome. Now there's a theme.

1. "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" by The Smiths

Maybe because it's after midnight and I'm sitting in near darkness thinking about my daughter having turned 5 today, and I'm trying not to wake anyone with the clickety-clack of these keys, and I haven't been sleeping well; or maybe it's because I've always had a tendency to be slightly nostalgic for things, even before they end; but, in any event, but I'm feeling nostalgic. I've recently been trying to master Back to the Old House, which I was going to include here until I stumbled upon this incredible live video of "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now," which fits my mood just fine. Johnny Marr's guitar work on both of these songs is so rich, so textured, and so subtle, it's incredible. Back to the Old House doesn't even sound complicated, and I've been playing guitar for more than half my life, but there are subtle phrasing things that he pulls off, that absolutely make the song, that I can't quite pull off. A true master.

In this video, I can't get over the easy charisma that Morrissey carries. You take a picture of him up there on that stage, divorce it from the music, and you have a sort of odd-looking cat with a weird belt hanging phallicly down his pants. And even live, his dancing is sort of off, and he doesn't engage the crowd at all. But damn, is he not one of the greatest frontmen ever? Yes, yes, he is.

 

Interview: Light FM on matchsticksuicidecamouflagedisaster

by Joe Fielder

LA super-pop act Light FM recently released matchsticksuicidecamouflagedisaster -- a collection of b-sides and rarities -- for FREE on Bandcamp.

They're one of the good ones, both recorded and live. Always. If you've never heard them before, take this opportunity to check them out. (If you have heard them, you should also take this opportunity...)

And then read band lead Josiah Mazzaschi's recounting of the making or recording of each of the tracks on this release below.

 

Here's Josiah:

matchsticksuicidecamouflagedisaster was the name of what was supposed to be Light FM's second album. We recorded a lot of it just before I moved to Los Angeles in June of 2005. We never released it because the Chicago band wasn't able to tour to promote it (nor did we have the money to manufacture it). The drummer Mark Ruggiero just had a son and Chris Frantisak had just bought a house. It reaffirmed my decision to move to LA as domesticity was slowly caving in on me. Brian Barbier the bass player moved to Los Angeles a year later and we played together in Light FM for a couple of years in LA after that.

"In a Dreamscape" -- Recorded in my apartment in Chicago. It was our psychedelic intro to our album.

"Shadowdrifter" -- This was also on our Save the Drama EP but didn't have the crazy intro on it. Shadow drifter was written about a guy I had met who called himself the Wolf. He was a street musician that took acid and recorded a lot of his songs on the sidewalk or camping in Wisconsin. He was very strange!! He had all these recordings on cassette so I transferred them all to CD for him. Some of the cassettes were from the 70s and were like Kmart brand tapes. I was very nervous inviting him into my home but he ended up being a gentle giant acid casualty. He offered me a can of mango juice in return for doing him a favor. I politely declined.

"Cool Winner" -- I wrote this song around the same time (2004)but recorded it here in LA in 2006. I guess I was writing a lot about manhood at that time. Society sets us dudes up to not talk about our feelings and being a sensitive man artist I kinda have problems with that. Cool Winner was about a jock kinda looking back at his high school trophies and saying "let me tell you what a real man is". It's a joke song really. Ariana Murray from Earlimart played the piano solo and Jason Borger wrote the string arrangement. Daphne Chen from the Section Quartet played Violin and Viola and Matt Fish played Cello. Dave Trumfio mixed the song.

"Rise and Fall" -- This was tracked at the same studio and by the same producer (Ken Sluiter) who recorded This is the Beginning of My Golden Age. It sounds very Smashing Pumpkins/ Radiohead. It seemed relevant to release it as we just toured with the Smashing Pumpkins last year and Nicole Fiorentino ( SP's bass player) used to play bass in Light FM.

"Man Boy" -- Speaking of manhood. I paint sometimes and I was painting circus freaks. I painted Pig Boys, Claw Hand man, Bearded Ladies, etc. It got me thinking, "what kind of a circus freak would I be?" A Man Boy. A guy who is perpetually stuck in between being a boy and a man. Perma-puberty? I have a high voice and a lot of people confuse me on the phone as a woman. I am also one of those dudes you can't really tell how old I am. I could be in my 20's although I'm well in my 30's, etc. this wasn't meant to be a homo-erotic song. Although, I'm sure it could be a NAMBLA theme song?

"Wedding Song" -- I know it's cheesy but I wrote this song for my wife. I love her and sang it to her at our wedding reception. Side of the Road... We recorded this at Butch Vigs Smart Studios in Madison, WI. Some of Nirvana's " Nevermind" was recorded there as well as the Smashing Pumpkins, " Gish" and Garbage recorded there also. Butch walked in on me doing vocals there. Mike Zirkel engineered and mixed it. It was an amazing experience.

"Tell It To My Heart" -- This is a cover of Taylor Dayne's. It's originally a weird dance song from the 80's. I wanted to make it into a more meaningful Pink Floyd-esque version. I was working at Kingsize Sound Labs as an engineer and the studio manager Harry Trumfio of The Pulsars fame also played drums. He brought in his Chicago buddy Eric Heywood (Pretenders, Jayhawks) to play lap steel. He pretty much made the song. Such a great musician!!

"Part of the Problem" -- I guess I was feeling guilty for not being environmentally or politically active. I feel like people are much lazier and less socially and politically active than they were in the 60's. Maybe, because of the Internet? Or, maybe it's just a California thing? Everyone is just high? I don't know.

"Never Forget" -- True story. I woke up one morning crying thinking about all my friends that had died and I felt encouraged to get out and live. It's my duty to live as hard as I possibly can because you never know when it's your turn to die. It's my cheerleader anthem. Go get em tiger!!