Radio Free Silver Lake

Festival Report and Photo Gallery: FYF 2012

Photos by Matt Heizman
Text by Kathryn Pinto

Radio Free Silver Lake is back from two back-to-back days at the FYF Fest, tired and dusty, but exhilarated and with the photos to prove it. When set times were announced it unleashed a fury of phone refreshing, texts, tweets, illegible instagrams and even a few old school scrawled pencil lists on the backs of parking tickets, all in an effort to map out some kind of a game plan for two marathon days of music. Inevitably we take a deep inhale and consider: “how’s this going to go down this year?” and “Is it worth it?” Since FYF partnered with Goldenvoice these past two FYF festivals, logistics have been smoother. You could get through the gate without much trouble and buy a bottle of water and refill it or cool off at a water station, a welcome change. Combined it added up to two days when fans’ biggest worry was which stage to choose. Here’s what we saw. (More photos after the jump.)

AA Bondy

Festival Report: Echo Park Rising + Torches at The Satellite (8/25/12)

by Brad Roberts

Saturday was like an extended trip down the rabbit hole, keeping one step ahead of the next band I wanted to see. The day started out normal enough, breakfast, blogging, rolling preparatory elements, etc. and boarding a bus down Sunset to the east side for Echo Park Rising. Once I figured out the schedule and where I wanted to see who, I decided my best course of action was to begin at the western edge of the festival and slowly work my way east. 

Arriving around 2, I went into Taix to find the Champagne Room where The Far West were scheduled to play. Kevin Bronson (Buzzbands) was curating the activities here and the line up was most impressive, but after a rousing set of alt country indie by The Far West, I was off to Echoplex to catch some garage rock by The Dead Ships, before heading upstairs to The Echo to see Seasons. 

By now the neighborhood was filling up and there was a good crowd for Seasons at 3:30 which was payed off with a really terrific set by the hard working band. In fact their violinist, Kaitlin Wolfberg was all over the place performing in different bands, and ending up at the wedding party that night at The Bootleg for Jacob Dillan Summers and Caitlin Dwyer (Congratulations to you both), which I couldn't attend owing to the Torches show at The Satellite...also that night. 

Video Free Silver Lake: Julia Holter, Ariel Pink, Echo Park Rising w/ Dante v. Zombies, Future Ghost, HOTT MT, Hands

By Kathryn Pinto

This week we bring you a quick round up including a couple LA artists who are receiving acclaim on a national scale and a sampling of some of the videos of live Echo Park Rising performances we found.

Julia Holter - Goddess Eyes I
Julia Holter operates in a space where the experimental meets independent music closer to indie rock meets DIY bedroom pop, but with jazz, harpsichord and just about anything else you can imagine fair game as inspiration and source material.

 

Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti “Only in Dreams”
Ariel Pink, as RFSL's  Octavius chronicled in a 2010 live show review, is an artist known as well for his moodiness and petulance as he is for making strange music that occasionally flickers with something akin to genius when he decides he's on. A couple of albums on 4AD and a favorable review in the national music press have brought him wider attention.

Festival Spotlight: Silver Lake Jubilee 2012 (Saturday)

by Brad Roberts

photos by Zoe-Ruth Erwin

The Silver Lake Jubilee was not only an entertaining extravaganza, it was an endurance test. Arriving at 1 on Saturday, May 26, I met up with Zoe-Ruth Erwin, who would photograph a bunch of the sets we got to hear that day. The weather was absolutely perfect, clouds on the horizon, the sun passed in and out of the few clouds overhead and the temperature was barely 70, coupled with a swift cool breeze that occasionally swept the fairway. What followed was a swirl of people, bands, food and drink.

Entering through the press entrance at Santa Monica Blvd. and Commonwealth, we wanted to figure out the layout so we could scurry back and forth between stages. Walking past the Hoover Stage first, we headed straight up to the Sunset Stage where we wanted to start with Wildcat! Wildcat! (at right) who began their set at 2. I hadn't seen them before but they quickly caught my attention with their thumping bass, chiming guitars and strong vocals. I liked the songwriting and was left wanting to hear more. A good beginning.

SXSW 2012 Road Report: Seasons, The Lonely Wild

By Kathryn Pinto

RFSL Brad and I had been talking about South By Southwest all year, scheming about booking showcases, plotting our caravan out to Austin. But in the end with the numbers on the board, it just wasn’t to be. Then at the eleventh hour Manhattan Murder Mystery asked us to present a showcase of LA bands at District 301, including The Henry Clay People, Seasons, Torches, Judson McKinney and  Salt Petal. Even without your intrepid writers in Texas, the first Radio Free Silver Lake SXSW show was born. At the same time some really good people from the Eastside music community stepped up to help us out with tour reports, photos and all manner of assistance. Here are some photos from Austin and reports from the road. As bands return from tour we will continue to update you with their tour diaries.

John Seasons (of Seasons):
“Our Trip in Austin was amazing. We played nine shows in five days and made new friends and fans, we stayed with an amazing journalist called Duggan Flanakin where like four other bands were staying, partied by the river in front of house every night, ate free bbq and beer everyday, it was amazing. To any band who has ever wondered if SXSW is worth your time, money, and effort the answer is yes!! It will be a experience you will never forget, SEASONS will be forever grateful to the people of Austin for taking us in as one of their own and promise to return every year!” (More photos after the jump.)

The Lonely Wild played so often that they posted a map that so fans could find every show, drunk or sober. One stop was the Tofu BBQ Blowout where Rich Russell of Texas band The Lonesome Heroes (who are playing Los Angeles in May) captured these photos. (Photos of The Lonely Wild by Rich Russell)

SXSW 2012 Tour Diary: (Azad from) Torches

By Azad Cheikosman of Torches

As if touring isn't crazy enough, we managed to fit all of our gear (lots of pedals 'n shit) and ourselves into a goddamn PT Cruiser. We could have toured in our big Chevy Club Wagon, but this time it boiled down to funds. Our ride was pretty smooth besides getting our car searched at Border Patrol in El Paso. The dog was freaking the fuck out and luckily Bridgette was able to hide her greens. By some strange cosmic coincidence we happened to be driving on the same stretch of highway as Voxhaul Broadcast in the middle of nowhere Arizona. Bridgette's dad shamed us for not mooning them.

Here in Austin we've seen loads of streets performers, weirdoes, and beautiful people. It's hard to catch everything because there's so much going on at once. There isn't enough time to see or hear everything, but it's fun to be able to choose and catch as many live sets as possible in a day. As for LA bands we've seen NO, The Henry Clay People, Manhattan Murder Mystery, Seasons and more. We also caught Stepkids, Erykah Badu, Trash Talk, Built to Spill. We were pretty bummed about missing Deerhoof, but there will be another time.

Show Spotlight: Radio Free Silver Lake Sunday Slog Showcase at SXSW

By Kathryn Pinto

The Radio Free Silver Lake Sunday Slog Showcase is an exercise in sheer endurance. After a week of free booze and all night shows, who will still be standing, ready to start a tour? We've got the most shit-together professional band (The Lonely Wild), the rawest hard living band (Manhattan Murder Mystery), the most fun, most heart all-weather band The Henry Clay People), Seasons--orbiting the earth in a class all their own--and a bunch of kids we just love to pieces (Torches, Judson McKinney, Salt Petal) and they're going to play you out of Austin this Sunday at District 301 on Sixth Street.

Even at the biggest, craziest festival of the year, RFSL is about music and not hype. Our friends over at Nonstop Sound once coined the term blogegomania, defined as "an over-confident rock 'n' roll mentality built out of blogspeak rather than the slog of the tour." We like that word SLOG (the guy's got a good ear) because it's the dirty, rough, mean tired that makes the songs light, that grabs you in the gut, that reasonates with the raw places in your own heart. This show is all about things worth getting out of bed for,  bands that will make you soul feel alive.

The Radio Free Silver Lake Sunday Slog Showcase featuring The Henry Clay People, Manhattan Murder Mystery, Seasons, Torches, Judson McKinney, The Lonely Wild and Salt Petall goes down Sunday March 18 1:00-6:30PM at District 301, 301 W 6th Street, Austin, TX, free show.

[Updated Corrected 3/16/12 4:15pm In an earlier version of this story the name of the band Salt Petal was incorrectly stated as Soft Pedal.]

MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY "TRAILER TRASH" from Gorillacoustic.com on Vimeo.

Show Spotlight: Killer Tofu at SXSW with Auditorium, Hands, Guards, Field Mouse and more

By Kathryn Pinto

We're still swooning from Auditorium's heart-stealing show at last week at the Bootleg. If you are in Austin today and you get out EARLY, like NOON you can see them play one of their few SXSW shows at the Killer Tofu party presented by I Guess I'm Floating, Small Plates & Ultra8201. It's a free show that also includes LA's own excellent HANDS as well as Field Mouse, Guards, and more. See set times below and get there early for the free beer while it lasts. The show goes down at Lovejoys 604 Neches Street, Austin, TX 78701, from 12 noon-7pm, 21+, free show.

12:00 – Politics
12:45 – Auditorium
1:30 – Hundred Waters
2:15 – Guards
3:00 – Cadence Weapon
3:45 – Hands
5:15 – Field Mouse
6:00 – Beat Connection
6:45 – Supreme Cuts

Auditorium

Hands

Guards

Field Mouse

SXSW 2012 Low Down: Bands to See from LA and Afar

By Kathryn Pinto

This week bands, writers, industry people and people who make serious money on things that have nothing to do with music come to Austin for South by Southwest (SXSW), a music conference and festival whose very name is a registered trademark. With Bruce Springsteen as a keynote speaker and playing a “secret show” it’s hard to make the case that (SXSW) is a showcase for emerging artists, and that’s been true for a while now. It’s too big, too crazy, too much of a thing. It’s like your high school prom. It’s so hyped that it couldn’t possibly deliver. You’re going to spend too much money, you’re not going to sleep and someone’s going to get laid--but it’s not going to be you. But the only kids not going are the ones staying home to play D&D. So there you have it. You're there. Did we mention so are we? Radio Free Silver Lake's Showcase at District 301 - (301 W 6th St., Austin, TX) with Manhattan Murder Mystery, Henry Clay People, Seasons, The Lonely Wild Torches and more.

What should you see? With more than 2000 official showcase acts, who the hell knows? I’m breaking it down into two ways:

Festival Report: Iceland Airwaves 2011

By Jed

During the week of October 12-16, I absented myself from my Los Angeles-based obligations to once again attend the greatest international music festival ever hosted in the North Atlantic -- Iceland Airwaves.  Since 1999, approximately 200-300 bands/performers and 10,000 attendees make the most of a rainy, chilly week in Iceland's capital city, Reykjavík, squeezing into music stores, bars and cafes during the day, and night clubs, concert halls and an art museum at night to catch bands from all over the world (I'd estimate that between 60%-70% of the bands were Icelandic).  As anyone who writes about Iceland will remind you, the entire nation's population remains well under 400,000, yet the wealth of high quality bands, from just about every genre imaginable, exceeds that of most American cities. 

As much as I have been drawn to the Iceland Airwaves festival for the bands, I have been equally if not more impressed by the fans that make the journey to the North to enjoy something a little bit different from the typical American or European music festival. Just as I did last year, I met delightful people from all over the world, genuinely interested in music, excited about acts they'd never heard of, some having engaged in fairly extensive research of the local scene, not at all snobby and driven to have as much fun as possible, often staying up until the early morning hours to dance, chat over a kebab, or have a few extra overpriced drinks. Airwaves provides an unusually friendly and open atmosphere where one feels just as comfortable striking up a conversation with a stranger from another country as a member of the band one just saw perform.

To answer a few questions people typically ask whenever I go to Iceland:

    1) No, although Iceland is quite north, in October the amount of daily sunlight is approximately similar to that in South California,

    2) Yes, the weather is cold, but nothing worse than a very chilly, rainy day in Los Angeles in February -- you can handle it quite easily, with a decent jacket, especially if you are from the frozen American Northeast or Midwest!,

    3) The language they speak is Icelandic,

    4) Yes, that's a real language,

    5) Yes, I did see Björk! and she was amazing,

    6) While traditional Icelandic food features some very unusual meats, most people most of the time eat the same food we eat here: pizza, kebab, sandwiches, burgers, pasta, hot dogs,

    7) Almost everyone speaks English quite well, often as well or better than the average American you'll meet on the street, and

    8) Yes, the economy is totally screwed, but no, most people you'll meet are not the bankers/politicians responsible for the crisis, so no need to feel resentful towards the Icelandic public. Furthermore, at least according to Paul Krugman, signs indicate that things are getting better in Iceland better than many other European countries.  

This is a long festival report, so I've summed up the highlights here:

Musical Highlights: Björk at the new Harpa venue, Retro Stefson, Gus Gus, Active Child, Yacht

Non-Musical Highlights: Afterparty Sunday night following the final act of the festival, chatting with strangers from around the world while eating kebab at Ali Baba, sitting in a jacuzzi at the Vesturbaer swimming pool Saturday morning

Lowlights: Wednesday night hangover waiting in line outside Nasa club to see Of Monsters and Men, locking myself out of an apartment and sleeping in a doorway, rain and wind

Dietary Highlights: The most amazing lamb soup I've ever tasted, Bæjarins Beztu hot dogs, Ali Baba kebabs (taste great, although 45 minute wait for a sandwich was too long), Svið (sheep's head)  

Favorite Icelandic Musicians That I Met at the Festival: Dr. Gunni (of S.H. Draumur), Lóa of FM Belfast, Unnsteinn of Retro Stefson, and the girls from Samaris, Heiða from Hellvar

Do I recommend this festival?: Strongly, especially to those in Europe, on the East Coast of the U.S. (or near any U.S. city that has a direct flight (NYC, Seattle, DC sometimes)).  I'd recommend it to anyone who likes music, even if that person knows little about Icelandic music specifically. At the risk of coming off all Burning Man (ICELAND AIRWAVES IS NOT LIKE BURNING MAN) I didn't meet a single person there who didn't love it, and come home with more friends than when they started.

The festival officially started on a Wednesday, October 12, but unofficial festivities began the day before.