Radio Free Silver Lake

Radio Free Silver Lake Will Go Dark on January 18 to Oppose SOPA & PIPA

By Kathryn Pinto
Radio Free Silver Lake is going dark on January 18 to oppose SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act (House Bill 3261 or H.R. 3261) and PIPA, PROTECT IP Act of 2011 (Senate Bill 986 or S.968). We oppose these bills because they will infringe on the First Amendment right to free expression and have a chilling effect on the free exchange of information and collaboration on the internet. For these reasons we will post nothing tomorrow. We stand in solidarity with other music sites going dark including: Listen Before You Buy, Beats Per Minute, In Your Speakers, The Owl Mag, GIMME TINNITUS, Tiny Mix Tapes, .

Read more about the pending SOPA/PIPA legislation. The House of Representatives will resume work on SOPA in February.

• Technical Explanation of SOPA and PIPA
• An overview of the SOPA bill
• Full text of the bill, H.R. 3261
• Why SOPA Is Dangerous
• White House opposition to SOPA
• House to take up anti-piracy bill in February

Show UPDATE: Tonight Delicate Steve at Origami Vinyl 8pm, Yellow Ostrich plays with Bikos at Silverlake Lounge

By Kathryn Pinto

Putting the word out about a couple of new last minute shows tonight: Delicate Steve plays a free show at Origami Vinyl at 8pm. Yellow Ostrich plays an early opening set for the Bikos album release show (listed as 8pm) at the Silverlake Lounge. Both bands were on the bill to play with Ra Ra Riot at the El Rey tonight, but the show was cancelled because of Ra Ra Riot singer Wes Miles' voice strain. We wish him a speedy recovery and hope you can make it out to see these shows.

Check videos by the bands.

Delicate Steve - Don't Get Stuck (Proud Elephants) - Live at the Robin's Nest from Mickey Sanchez on Vimeo.

 

 

 

Festival Report: In Lieu of Sunset Junction... (Part I) with John Graney of the Californian

With so many shows and festivals in the past week or so Radio Free Silver Lake has lots of great stories piling up on our newsroom. Before we give you our FYF Fest report, RFSL catches up with our Sunset Junction coverage. Special thanks to John Graney of the Californian who volunteered to report back as a Special Correspondent during this crazy couple of days.

By John Graney

If you read this site you know that Sunset Junction was shut down this year.  Never mind why, but it left a lot of local music makers and shakers without a way to give their audience what they had hoped for.  My band, The Californian, is one of said Music Makers - and like everyone else I spent the last week scrambling and clawing at the ceiling trying to come up with the answer to the question "what the fuck do we do now?"  Well it's now Sunday morning and we are square in the middle of the "what the fuck we do now" festival.  An interesting side point:  I never went to Sunset Junction ever.  I am a third generation Angelino and a professional noise maker and I just never went - so I don't have any of the "boohoo my party was shut down" feelings - nor do I have any of the "I hated that thing anyway thank god it's dead" feelings.   I'm approaching this weekend's ragtag entertainment hodgepodge  with a completely open mind.  And before I get going with my run down of events I'll say this - It's pretty fucking cool.

FYF Fest 2011: It Was Pretty Great, Film at 11

By Kathryn Pinto (text & photos)

Oh Hai. FYF 2011, it was pretty great.
You need to know that. It looks like my own particular vanilla fudge swirl of stubbornness and optimism was rewarded yesterday on the dusty fields of the Los Angeles State Historic Park. The  FYF 2011 organizers took it up a notch, teamed with Goldenvoice and decided that they wanted to keep this festival around. From picking up tickets (Thursday offsite at Stories Books and Cafe in Echo Park, thank you) to the helpful, efficient (if a bit militant, "Please open your bag, Miss") and ubiquitous event staff to the varied and plentiful food trucks, everything went smoothly. Festival go-ers were smiling. I was smiling (don't tell anyone).

We saw so many bands I had to set my beer down: Ty Segall (badass!), Smith Westerns, the Olivia Tremor Control, Cults, No Age (everything I love about rock 'n roll), Broken Social Scene, Guided By Voices, Explosions in the Sky, Death From Above 1979, Dan Deacon (ruled the day). Our complete festival report is coming in the next few days, but until then here are a couple photos (after the jump) from our Radio Free Silver Lake team.

We Don't Need No Stinking Festival: Marvelous Toy, Manhattan Murder Mystery Announce Weekend Shows

By Kathryn Pinto

(Updated 9:20 PM August 24)
Hitting back like a firm booty pinched one too many times at a rum-soaked Christmas party, Marvelous Toy, and Manhattan Murder Mystery announce rescheduled weekend shows. The Damselles are rescheduling, but have not confirmed a venue or time. The three bands were on the bill for the Sunset Junction Festival cancelled this morning when permits were denied by the City of Los Angeles.

Marvelous Toy is playing the R-Bar Saturday night at 9pm along with the Broken Numbers Band (Password for the R-Bar is Hello. I'm Johnny Cash.) for Boozapaloozacon. Origami Vinyl in Echo Park confirmed via their twitter feed that Manhattan Murder Mystery will play at the shop Sunday (and Barrio Tiger plays Saturday). Details about the shows and refunds for advance Sunset Junction tickets purchased at Origami Vinyl are coming soon.

Sunset Junction Festival Cancelled. Permit Denied.

By Kathryn Pinto

The Sunset Junction Festival scheduled for this weekend has been cancelled. The L.A. City Board of Public Works denied the festival's request for a permit in a unanimous vote.  Festival organizers failed to allay concerns of Silver Lake neighborhood groups or pay fees for city services in a timely manner, attempting an eleventh-hour maneuver with public requests for donations and a loan of funds from mega promoter Live Nation. For a more detailed explanation of this week's events see the Sunset Junction coverage at buzzbands.la.

As of this posting several excellent acts covered by this site are available to play this weekend, including Marvelous Toy, The Californian, Manhattan Murder Mystery, Shadow Shadow Shade, The Damselles, Olin and the Moon, among other more widely-known acts. According to buzzbands, promoters have been working to schedule makeup dates for the musical acts booked for the festival. Radio Free Silver Lake will keep you posted with these developments as we learn more.

New Releases from Bands We Love

By Kathryn Pinto

While I'm off curing cancer this week and letting demos and emails pile up, I thought I'd let you know about some bands who have new projects out now or soon to be released. Many of these are records we're going to review in the next few weeks, but why wait?

The Californian A Billion Grains of Sand: the new album is out soon from John Graney's modern surf rock dream project, but you can preview a free stream right now at their bandcamp page. (Disclosure: more than one RFSL staffer contributed to the Kickstarter project to fund the production of this record.)

Correatown Etch the Line: The review for this EP is next on my "to write" list. It's much poppier and more layered in the production that earlier Correatown work I've heard, and it's great stuff. Buy it on sexy seaglass blue vinyl. Catch the band Monday August 22 at the Echo, 9pm sharp.

Geoff Geis Princess: I saw the Pizza! and Big Whup frontman play some new material from this album at pehrspace a little while back. It was spastic Britney Spears meets David Byrne on acid doing performance art--and it was a really great show. We owe Geis a lot more ink on this one.

The Spires Curved Space:  Their new album isn't out for a little while yet, you'll have to go see their show at Lot 1 on Friday to hear the new stuff. Check out the excellent 2010 release Curved Space from the trio from Ventura.

Escalator Hill Poplar Avenue: This band impressed the hell out of us when they played the RFSL residency at the now defunct Labrie's with the Lonely Wild. You can see them live at Villians Tavern August 30 for the album release show.

Kissing Cousins Unfortunate End: We love this all-girl grunge band who could go mano a mano with Metallica at their best. Heather Heywood, Alexis Woodall, Amanda Paganini, & Beth Zeigler bring it.

Duniven I Have to Try for Her: Duniven sounded great at the Silverlake Lounge, four Mondays in a row which is no small accomplishment. Mr. Duniven transforms intensely personal love songs from the heart's impulse to on-your-feet rowdy dance-alongs that set the audience afire.

New Tracks, a Couple New Ways to Keep in Touch

By Kathryn Pinto

With all the new music coming out in the next couple of months, and all the great live shows coming up, we've added a couple of ways to bounce around the internet to keep up with Radio Free Silver Lake. Check out our new Sound Cloud page, and  then yeah we finally got around to adding a facebook page where you can like us. You know the drill.

Streaming over at Sound Cloud we've got a couple of tracks from the Californian from their soon to be released self-titled full length, two from Manhattan Murder Mystery's excellent recent release,  a song from the College Kids and one from  Rademacher's Baby Hawk (Part I of III)  that released today on bandcamp.

 

Radio Free Silver Lake Free Tuesdays with the Lonely Wild: the Aftermath

By Kathryn Pinto
About halfway into the second song of opening band Escalator Hill’s set, a feeling of alchemical perfection set in on the room at Labrie’s. A nice-sized crowd of friends, fans and supporters was filtering in, the sound mix was spot on and the everywhere you looked people were smiling. I had that ever-elusive feeling that we were getting something right. The Lonely Wild, who stole my musical heart forever when we first saw them play on that very stage back in December, owned the room. These kids are incredible songwriters with a live show that reaches down somewhere deep into your soul and doesn’t let go. Jessi Williams earned a special “grace under pressure” mention for stepping into the vocals part and making it her own. Wires in the Walls closed out the evening with high-spirited roots rock and a performance that just keeps on getting better every time I see them play. Kevin Bronson of buzzbands DJ’ed the best of the new material from L.A. bands between sets, and at the end of the night playing, “some really pretty songs that I want to hear on this big sound system.”

Happy Record Store Day!

By Kathryn Pinto
In the lead up to Record Store Day I was surprised by how many people I talked to had never heard of the celebration, and not just civilians, but bloggers and band guys. I wanted to write a story about the day and reflect on it with all the optimism and enthusiasm for local music that are at the core of Radio Free Silver Lake. With a heavy heart and a huge, ominous deadline looming large at the day job I gave away this plum assignment to Radio Free Silver Lake staff writers Jackie and Jed. RFSL Jackie wrote an RSD Low Down for the event detailing what the various Los Angeles record shops have planned, and today RFSL Jed takes on Record Store Day 101 for the benefit of the uninitiated.

If the music scene has something like soul surfers—people make music for the love and joy of making it—that’s who Radio Free Silver Lake was is here to write about, review and document. At its heart Record Store Day is a day for people who really love music to get together in real life.

The day is worth paying attention to not because it’s going to “save” the record business or even because it’s a chance to score a limited edition LP to sell on ebay, but because it reflects some larger trends in the music world. The music industry as a business got bloated—selling $19 CDs then suing its customer base when they started downloading—and then it started shrinking and dying slowly (for a great read on the topic, see Greg Kot's Ripped), while at the same time music as something that people play and record and see live and listen to is quite vital.

When a fan can download nearly any album imaginable via the internet, where is the place for physical records? If we don't need a physical product to hear these songs and if no one is buying CDs or records by the millions and no one is making any money off it, then what is going on in this places? Why are new stores like Origami Vinyl opening? (We Listen for You has a passionate and entertaining discussion of vinyl love on their soundcast.) Maybe the more that we fans can have nearly unlimited music collections, the more we miss something physical and finite. Record stores are equally important because they are places where you can meet up and talk to other people about music, disagree, get recommendations and geek out a little. Get out there today and get yourself some records.