Radio Free Silver Lake

Saying Goodbye to Death to Anders

by Joe Fielder w/ photo by Zoe Ruth Erwin

We regret to report that one of our favorite LA acts, the iconoclastic "gregorian punk" group Death to Anders have decided to call it quits.

We'd like to sincerely thank the guys for the great musics over the years and their extensive efforts in support of the local music scene. We look forward to their next projects.

A class act to the end, Death to Anders are offering their final album -- which, we should make sure to add, is fucking great -- for free on bandcamp.

Here's a short statement by frontman Rob Danson:

"Death to Anders humbly began here in Los Angeles back in 2004. During the past eight years we started a Collective, released a slew of albums, and participated in a ton of memorable shows with some of our favorite bands. Now after many an adventure, Anders is finally dead.

"We leave with you a gift: Our fifth album, a collection of songs written throughout the past eightyears. It is available for you now as a free digital download on bandcamp. It's also available on vinyl as a "name your price" option (with a suggested donation). You can also stream the album on Spotify.

"A quick thank you to Joe Fielder, Brad Roberts, Kathryn Pinto and the rest of the Radio Free Silverlake crew for being the first blog to offer us coverage back in 2006. Thank You Kevin Bronson for having us be a part of your 3 year anniversary show last year. Thank You Zoe Ruth for your truly incredible photographs you've taken of us. Thanks to Dave Newton for all his stellar work recording our first few releases. Thanks to Ali Nikou, Eric Palmquist, and Pete Lyman for making the new album sound as good as it does, and finally, thanks to all you who ever came out to a show or shared a bill with us. It's been a blast."

 

 

Interview: Torches

by Brad Roberts

Back when they were known as Torches In Trees, I started seeing the band at a few of the Seasons shows I was always showing up at in late '08/early '09, and they made quite an impression right off. Their gorgeous blend of hazy psychedelia, jangly guitars, unusually adventurous drumming by Eric Fabbro, and the stunning on-pitch harmonies of Azad Cheikosman and Bridgette Moody caught my attention. When they shed their second guitarist and assumed their current three-member unit, I worried some of the force of their music would be sacrificed, when actually it tightened them up.

I've watched them drop "In Trees"  and become Torches, and grow into one of the most consistently reliable local bands around and seen, over and over, how they win over every audience they play for. Quality being it's own reward, they are capturing more attention all the time. I'm especially proud that both Radio Free Silver Lake and Feed Your Head have sponsored many of their shows. This Sunday, May 20th, KXLU will present  their album release show for Heads Fill Of Rust, which features a powerful line up of Tenlons Fort, Joey Siara and Manhattan Murder Mystery at The Satellite, and it FREE!

In anticipation, I reached out to Azad with a few questions.

 

Bright Beast on the Bright Beast EP

by Joe Fielder

LA's Bright Beast is new group we like comprised of members of three other groups we like... Namely,  George Glass, The Transmissions and One Trick Pony.

They're performing songs from their recently-released EP at Origami Vinyl at 7 PM on Sunday (two hours before the Torches show). You should go.

We asked the guys to write a few words about the meaning or creation of each said EP, which is available for streaming below while you read.  

"CAMERA"

This was the first real Bright Beast song Christian and I made.  The couple before were kind of silly rap songs for us to laugh at but this one came together in a way that made us start taking it a little more seriously. We split the song between us; I did drums, he did bass, both layed down guitar tracks, i did verse, he did chorus. First real collaboration. - randolph _ randy

"BLOOD SECRETS"

I remember this song took a while to come together. We had a bunch of people hanging out and drinking massive amounts of booze. At one point Randolph and I got in an argument and everyone got really uncomfortable. Then Christian broke up the spat by turning the song up really loud and everyone started drunkenly jumping around the living room without speaking. it was a strange ritualistic bit of peacemaking. _ nick

"ALLERGY"

It started with the idea of how intolerance builds in the body or psyche from repeated exposure. Ithought allergies were a good example of that. We started building music around that idea.  I recorded a super bad, "on the nose" lyrical approach to having allergies. randy's laughter throughout the track and comments at the end are a remnant of that hidden, never to be heard again, take. that's how most stuff ends up in our songs, usually as a byproduct of a failed attempt. _ christian

"SPEAKERS"

We were over at Christian's drinking and started recording. Randy wrote a synth part and then went out to get more wine. Then Christian and myself recorded a bass part, while drinking more beers. I think Christian and Randy went out to get additional beer. I forget but I think King or Nick did something; more wine. Christian had to clean up everything the next day. - rock Hearing it later, it sounded foreign, like we didn't make it but it was still familiar. We don't remember a lot from our sessions, so playing live is like learning another band's songs. - christian

"SHORT POCKETS"

The initial idea was born in drunken adventure after our first show at Pehrspace. Randy sang on the steps of the parking lot what would become the first lyrics of the song ,"Too much cash, not enough pockets" over and over and over. The song came together out of the drunken memory of our first show out. _ king

"WAR PAINT"

I thought Nick was saying, "I got war paint for her." I wrote all my lines and named the song based off that. He wasn't saying that all. Nowhere close. _ christian

Interview: Dandelo

by Jane McCarthy

Hailing from Ohio, brothers Erik and Ethan Donley along with childhood friend Rhys Detrow have set up shop in Echo Park and as Dandelo, they’ve been churning out some good old-fashioned rock n’ roll. On a recent Saturday afternoon, I was super excited to hear the band’s latest demos. While over at their place, we also got to talking about dropping out of school, going wild at shows, and getting back-to-basics.

Jane McCarthy: So you guys all grew up together, but when did you start playing music together? Rhys Detrow: We played one night for one of our parents’ parties, as entertainment for them. Erik was screaming. I was beating the shit out of an old drum set. At the end of the night, he had to drink honey cause his voice was so shot.

Erik Donley: Yeah, we were really partying. Thirteen. And then there were these Seniors in high school who heard us play, and they were like, “You guys should start a band and get into a talent show at our high school. We were like, “Okay.” So that’s where it started. I was singing and Rhys was playing drums.

RD: I right away got the bug. I was really fascinated by the actual mechanics of playing the drum set.

JM: And then when did you join in, Ethan?

Ethan Donley: I eventually formed a band in like seventh grade. I had been sitting on the couch watching them for too long so I decided to do it myself.

Erik D: We never had a band all together. We would just jam at the house…So Ethan was always around it. Then Rhys and I had a band out in LA in 2010 that just kind of dissolved after a year. We were then working on our first record, just him and I, and I called Ethan who was going to film school in New York. And I was like, “Hey, wanna drop out of film school?”

JM: Great idea, big brother.

RD: He encouraged both of us at separate times to drop out of school in New York and move to LA.

Erik D: This whole project started New Year’s last year.

JM: And the EP came out in September, yeah?

Erik D: It was done last May, and then we did a college radio campaign in September, which was awesome. But we don’t play that record, any songs off it. We’re just moving forward.

JM: How does the writing process go?

RD: I don’t think we know.

Erik D: Our songs, the ones that are the best are the ones that just happen in the rehearsal space. That’s usually how it is, and it’ll be done in an hour.

RD: Within ten minutes of sitting down in the space, someone’s playing a riff and then singing a note and something infectious is going on, everyone really digging it. And then there’s a song. We’ll think that song is good for like three weeks, and then we’ll think, “Something’s weird about it,” and we’ll take another hour. Tweak it.

JM: Where do you guys rehearse?

Erik D: Across the street at Bedrock. It’s a great community of musicians.

JM: So have you guys met some other bands you really like in LA?

RD: It’s taken a minute. A lot of the shows we played last summer, we were playing bills that didn’t make sense. It’s just now that I think we’re starting to hit our stride finding groups we should be playing with, venues we should be playing. Like The Down And Out bar downtown. Really cool vibe there.

George Glass on the Songs of George Glass

by Joe Fielder

We spoke to Nick Ceglio of local indie rock act George Glass recently about the band's current Indie Go Go campaign to raise funds to release their first album -- and the making of a number of songs on it.

Here's Nick:

THE FUNDRAISER
To be honest, we kept going back and forth on the whole fundraiser thing.  The idea of  approaching friends & family, hat in hand, made us a little uncomfortable, especially at a time when everyone is struggling.  Sometimes it still makes me feel a bit uneasy.  We took pride in being self contained.  But then we ran out of money and we started noticing these fundraiser campaigns were popping up more and more. We figured now would be the time to act before the whole fundraiser trend started to lose its appeal.

THE ALBUM
We tried things a little different with our new batch of songs (20 total). About half of them were conceived in the rehearsal room from top to bottom with the three of us contributing equally in the composition and arrangement of the music. We wanted not to take ourselves too seriously either.  I've spent the past thirteen years writing songs with a certain seriousness that can sometimes be interpreted as glum and depressing. So topically, a decent amount of the new material is a bit tongue-in-cheek on purpose. As far as the recordings go, the four new songs we have up on our soundcloud page right now were recorded both at Bedrock Studios in Echo Park, and in a Northern California studio that used to be an old post office. 

THE SONGS

1. "Aleph" -- The name comes from a short story I was reading at the time by Jorge Luis Borges. It's about a point in space that contains all other points and anyone who gazes into it can see everything in the universe from every angle simultaneously.  The narrator finds this point in his basement.  Lyrically I thought it would be funny to take that point in space and move it out of a basement and into an empty music venue where some random bar band is playing a lackluster set to their girlfriends and the bartender.

2. "Patchwork Girl" -- I went to this dance recital with a friend of mine and I saw a female performer who was absolutely captivating.  i became obsessed for a week or two.  I never actually met her, so instead I just wrote a song about our imaginary first date where we sneak into the Hollywood Cemetery after hours and drink booze and hunt for the graves of old movie stars.

3. "Future Former" - This was one of the two songs we recorded at the old post office up in Boulder Creek.  It was an awesome experience to leave town and spend the better part of an entire weekend doing nothing but drinking beer, eating in small-town diners and jamming. This song in particular is about the unstable art of sleeping with your friends. Yep.

4. "Side Effects" -- The other post office recording.  The song is one of our mellower recordings.  I'm really obsessed with the keyboards on this song.  They remind me of the theme song from Taxi.  It really shouldn't, because other than the tone, it doesn't really sound like the Taxi theme song at all.  Regarding the song's lyrical content, it involves the death throes of a relationship and lots of cocaine.  Just say no.

Interview: The World Record

by Joe Fielder

Indie rock act The World Record have been putting on some goddamn good shows in LA since their inception five plus years ago.

They recently posted a Kickstarter project in order to fund the vinyl and CD release of a double album that's been in the works for some time.

We spoke to The World Record's Andy Creighton to, y'know, talk about it all... 

Hey, guys. What's the story behind the Kickstarter project?

We've been waiting to release this record for quite a while. Back in 2008 a label made us an offer, very exciting, and it spurned us to get cracking on our next record. But events conspired to slow everything down. Because recording was so slow, more songs got written. I think it was Evan (from the Parsons) who first suggested that it be a double album (we were getting close to that length). So a few more songs had to be written & recorded. Anyway by the time we were through, the label offer was no longer available. So here we are. I should mention that another label has stepped up to release & distribute, but a vinyl double with a gatefold jacket exceeds their budget by a fair stretch.

If you don't mind me asking, what happened that caused the delays?

OK let's see how concisely I can do this. If it gets boring just skip ahead:

Our last record came out in June of 2006. I moved away right after that for about a year (just good stuff, but unfortunate timing). When I got back in '07 we did a record re-release. Aaron was out of commission for the beginning of '08 (just busy). We got going again at the end of '08, which is when the label offer happened. At that point Sam and Evan from the Parsons were playing with us, and Aaron and I were playing in the Parsons. The Parsons are of course one of the hardest-working bands in show biz. It proved challenging to find time to record. We did manage a few sessions at a studio, with mixed results. We then made the decision to do all the tracking at my house. This was the middle of '09, and is really when the record started taking shape. Still, it remained difficult to find the needed time. Finally in early '10 we had a show conflict (I can't believe it took that long to happen) and Ross and Brian from The Broken West/Apex Manor were called in as worthy replacements. However, they too were busy gents and progress remained slow, though by now in spite of the sluggishness we had nearly finished the whole thing. In 2011 we presented it to the label from back in 2008. They passed (a depressing moment). Finally waking to our biggest encumbrance, Aaron & I made a push to find permanent members, with great success (that's Jacob & Brian). We then decided to do a kickstarter & release it ourselves. Literally the night before the kickstarter was to commence, a wonderful guy from another label saw us play and offered to put out our record for us. Of course that knocked back the release date further, but it was a small price to pay for a happy ending.

Interspersed in there were tours and recording sessions with Let's Go Sailing, Apex Manor, The Papercuts, and many with The Parson Red Heads. We also did music for a documentary called "Laffghanistan" (check it out!).

It's so cathartic to tell the story. Thanks for asking.

Interview: The Monolators on Mechanookie

by Joe Fielder

Members of LA's "punk rock Buddy Holly" act The Monolators are doing something a little different with their latest project, Mechanookie.

We like differences, both small and large, so spoke with Eli Monolator recently to find out more.

Exactly who or what is Mechanookie? And how can we be a part of it?

Mechanookie is the title of a radio play that I've been working on for about the past two years.  It's an episodic science fiction show that takes place in 3000 AD and features new songs by The Monolators.  It's about a a dumpy robot named Mechanor and his famous roommate, The Magician, who are both in love with the same girl, a  beautiful cyborg crossing guard named Robot Girl.  We've written and recorded six 15-minute episodes, with a full cast of actors (some of them being members of local Los Angeles bands) and each episode has a Monolators song at the end.  The songs are played by us but sung by different members of the cast.

We'll broadcast a new episode every week for the six-week run starting March 8 on mechanookie.com and then we're having a live performance of the entire play with all the actors and music at the Hudson Theater in Hollywood on Saturday, April 14.

For those of you who're asking themselves "radio play, what are you talking about?": radio plays were a popular form of entertainment in the United States before television took over in the 1950's.  People would tune in to hear The Lone Ranger or Little Orphan Annie (or whatever) every week on their radios instead of watching them on TV.  Radio plays are pretty much dead here in the US now, but they're still produced regularly in the UK by the BBC.  Some famous tv shows & movies actually started out as radio plays on the BBC, like The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy and The Mighty Boosh.  I've always liked radio plays and have produced a couple myself through the years, so Mechanookie is the latest one. 

How did the project first begin?

I used to work as a freelance animator, and in 2004 a client asked me to create a pair of 30-second  "faux anime" cartoon clips that could be shown on television and pass for genuine Japanese animation.  I'm not sure how accurate my version of anime actually is (probably: not very), but the project turned out well, and I called it "Mechanookie."  This is where the characters of Robot Girl, School Girl, and Mechanor first appeared.

These clips were licensed as stock footage and, over the years, have appeared in all sorts of different network tv shows: The Bernie Mac Show, Weeds, and Jailbreak, among others.  I still have friends write me now and then to say that they spotted Mechanookie clips on tv.

So--in 2009, Mary and I were talking about experimenting with new ways of releasing Monolators songs other than our usual LP/EP formats.  Mary suggested that we try doing a release in the form of a radio play--I needed a theme for the script, and Mary suggested adapting and expanding Mechanookie, so that's what we've done. 

What's the inspiration behind it?

I mentioned that it started off as an anime parody, but I abandoned that pretty quickly.  When I started to write the various episodes, I realized that the action scenes you often have in sci-fi/fantasy adventure shows are difficult to pull off over the radio--it's not that easy to describe laser-gun battles and explosions without pictures.

I struggled with the direction of the script for a long time until Mary and I started watching melodrama romance movies and tv shows: we watched a lot of 1950's Douglas Sirk movies like "Magnificent Obsession" and "Imitation Of Life," and a whole bunch of Bette Davis movies (my favorite being "Now Voyager").  We also watched tv shows like "Dynasty" and "Return To Eden."  Instead of explosions and gunfights (well--there's explosions and gunfights in Dynasty, granted) these movies were more about feelings and relationships and personal conflicts than things blowing up.  I figured out that they were a better fit for Mechanookie than anime was--but it took me a long time to learn how to write dialogue that focused on character development instead of action.  That's one reason why I've been working on this play for 2 years, but the basic inspiration ended up being romantic melodrama.  And people crying--lots of crying.

When will you be performing the songs?

All of them will be performed by the cast at the live show at the Hudson Theater on April 14.

Sounds fun!

Thanks, Joe!

 

Interview: The Breakups

by Joe Fielder

The new album from indie pop act The Breakups recently came out and the group is celebrating with a release show at The Syrup Loft downtown on March 9th w/ The World Record and a special mystery band (performing a SXSW warm-up set).

We asked The Breakups' lead Jake to write about the recording or making of some of his favorite tracks on the album. Here are streams and his own words.

“I’m thinking of a number between 1 and 99”

There are a few recurring themes on running jumping falling shouting.  One is willful self-delusion.  There’s a lot of that going on in “1 and 99.”  The couple in this song is too selfish to give each other what they need.  They are doomed and they know it, but they stay together because they are used to each other.  They would rather lie to one another and themselves than be alone.

We’ve been known, from time to time, to think of ourselves as a power pop band (whatever that means) so we planned on starting the record off by smacking people in the face with loud guitars and drums and harmonies.  My friend George suggested “1 and 99” as the opener.  I believe my response was, “Are we allowed to do that?”  The longer the idea simmered, the more I liked it.  I think it creates some mystery about what will follow.

This may have been the most difficult song on the album to record.  I won’t even tell you how many years it took.  It’s probably enough to say that it literally did take multiple years.  It wasn’t a straightforward band song, and it took a lot of experimentation to figure out how it should sound.  When everything was finished except for Wendy Wang’s backing vocal, I still wasn’t sure it was all working the way I wanted.  Then Wendy sent me some ideas she had for the section with the “ahhhs,” and I remember a huge smile spreading across my face and saying out loud, to myself… “It’s done.”

Interview: Rademacher on Indie Go Go Project

by Joe Fielder

Our feelings for the music of Fresno/LA indie rock band Rademacher would  probably require a complex German philosophical term to nail succinctly... Some word that combines the concepts of romantic love along with something that you'd like to eat. It's -- rimshot! -- a lovely meal.

Suffice to say, we're looking forward to BabyHawk III, their new album due out in March. Right now, the band has an IndieGoGo project rolling in order to fund pressing the release on vinyl and to cover expenses for a trip to SXSW.

We spoke to lead Malcolm Sosa about all this and more. 

You've been working hard to self-fund the recording of three albums and a trip to SXSW within the last year.

Last February we all sat down and had a talk about what we wanted Rademacher to accomplish in 2011.  We charted out a plan to record and release three mini-albums. We also knew that we wanted to attend SXSW in 2012.  We’ve done a good job achieving what we set out to do.  In December we learned that we received an official showcase at SXSW and in January we completed recording the third and final album of our BABY HAWK trilogy.

You've gotten through two of the albums and are using IndieGoGo to help finance the home stretch, eh?

We managed to pay for all our travel and recording costs (recording three records is expensive!) on our own up to this point.  We accomplished this by releasing parts one and two of the series only in digital form and taking any profits from sales and applying them towards future recording costs.  For the final release we felt it would be worth the effort to fire up our laptops and rally our friends and fans around the idea of a vinyl release.

What are some of the items that people get for donating to the cause?

If you contribute we'll give you a digital version of the new record.  Folks who are willing to contribute $25 get a copy of the limited edition vinyl which we’re having mastered and pressed here in Los Angeles at a place called Capsule Labs. If a person is willing to contribute $1000 towards our goal, we’ll write a song for you about whatever you want, record it and you can do whatever the heck you want with it.  Right now I am working on a song about Yosemite.

This new album finishes off the trilogy. How's it going to end?

We all agreed that it should end on an upbeat note. Looking back, it seemed to us that the previous two records in the series shared some really dark qualities. We had spent a good deal of time exploring the imagery of dreams and flight, and there was this caustic tone that tinged everything and the songs on the first two records felt drone-y and minor even when they were major!  The elements involved in Part III are far more earnest and joyful, ideas like homecoming, love and forgiveness.  Every song has three or four chords and a chorus you can hum.

Interview: The Spires on Forever City Chorus

by Joe Fielder

We're particularly big fans of Ventura-based indie-pop act The Spires. The group released their latest album Forever City Chorus recently and we asked singer Jason Bays to write a few words on the meaning or making of five songs on the album.

Here's Jason:

We recorded the basic tracks for this record live at our practice spot/studio over Christmas last year and added vocals, guitar overdubs, etc. Sporadically over the following months, mixing along the way. Our friend J Dullum engineered, played piano and sang backing vocals on a couple tunes. I think he has now vowed to never record anyone again having gone through The Spires wringer. All the positive vibes in the world are no match for my incessant nit-picking. We wish him well at the sanitarium. It was mastered by Carl Saff.

"Waves"  

Started off as a faster lamer song until Catie figured out it should be slow -- like cough syrup slow. First take was the keeper, guitar solo added later. Catie is like a perfect cross between Kim Deal and Naomi Yang on this one. I think it is about sound and repitition -- and things you can't see maybe.

"Clock Out The Clocks" 

This is an older tune for sure - maybe five or six years it's been hanging around. Some lackadaisical New Order guitars on there for sure - Justin said I should stop at three of them. Not sure what it's about, but that's cool right? Nobody asks what a tree means.

"My Umbrella Fills With Rain" 

Post halloween hang-over jam - I think I was trying to channel some Smog via The Smiths on this one. I really like the drums - Cool piano by Dullum. Kind of a "Who am I to blame" but myself type song.

"NYC" 

The rare narrative song on the record. I like the lyrics on this one. Can I say that? Seems like a naive view of New York from the West Coast or maybe the Mid-west after listening to too many VU songs. I was tempted to put NYC (a naive melody) on the record ala Talking heads but it seemed too snarky. I think the vocals are too loud in the mix - guitars should be up. Dullum is playing Colleen's grandmothers 1950 upright piano on this one.  

"Lost On A Blue Star" 

A Catie fave. Some surf guitar reverb overload for sure. I think it came out pretty cool. It's actually two songs combined into one - I started singing some lyrics from a Flaming Lips song over the end as a place holder and they stuck. They just seemed to fit the song. It's cool with Wayne I'm sure. It's one of those "I'm lonely and bored" type of songs.