Radio Free Silver Lake

Show Review: Kurt Vile & The Violators at the Echoplex 5/7/13

Text & Photos by Kathryn Pinto

My excitement about the Kurt Vile show was tempered by my trepidation at all things that happen at a BNM show (his latest album won Pitchfork’s Best New Music designation). Yeah the buzz was great on this album, which is how I ended up buying the excellent Wakin on a Pretty Daze on vinyl and playing it non-stop. Pretty Daze combines laconic easy-paced songwriting in the vein of Neil Young with guitar playing that’s about as close to shredding as a chill guy from Philadelphia gets. But that same good buzz threatened to fill the room at the Echoplex with dilettantes likely to make me pissy as hell.

You know what I mean. There are the structural flaws of the Echoplex like terrible sightlines, Hollywood drink prices ($9 beer) and bathroom attendants. (Isn’t the ladies’ room just about the last place you’d want to buy a pack of mints?). Then there are the so-called fans who talk, make out or dry hump (as my colorful show buddy put it) while standing three feet from the stage the entire show. After bearing witness to some of the anticipated dry-humping during opener the Fresh and Onlys' well-fogged in and very droney, but good set, I ducked outside to escape the fog for the relative fresh air of the smokers’ patio outside between sets.

Kurt Vile took the stage dressed in the same white-white jeans, white shirt, white jacket and white Converse he sports in his “Never Run Away” video and opened with “Wakin on a Pretty Day.” He followed with “KV Crimes,” the second track from Wakin on a Pretty Daze. Vile mumbles his lyrics and his long metalhead locks obscure his face, but these outward gestures do nothing to distance him from the audience. Throughout the set the experience of seeing Vile play live was one of being lured in ever closer. He seemed to be backed by at least a dozen guitarists on stage with him, but really I think there were only three. The audience was a stoked, but reverent crowd. They certainly welcomed it when he played the hits, but there was awed appreciation throughout the set. On “Jesus Fever” from his previous album Smoke Ring For My Halo Vile was head bopping and toe-tapping and the crowd just about lost their collective minds in approval. “Peeping Tom” he played solo on acoustic guitar, creating a very intimate moment with the more than seven hundred in the room. From there he went into a full band vibing heavy, the romantics in our midst having presumably filtered to the back of the venue. After the encores, Vile left the stage saying, “You’ve been a beautiful audience, see you in the parking lot.”

More photos after the jump.

Show Review: MUDHONEY (and the curse of part-time punks) 4/14/13

Text by Seamus Simpson
Photos by Simon Cardoza

So a couple of weeks back I was taxed with going to see Mudhoney at the Echo. I haven’t seen this band since around ‘93 or ‘94 and the lasting image in my head was the band wearing dresses and ripping through “Mudride,” but a lasting image it was. This was a band that in high school was the lesser-known progeny of the Seattle scene. I have always appreciated how they never seemed to take themselves nearly as seriously as their peers in the scene. They always looked like they were up for a good time and Mark Arm was going to drag you there if he had to and you were going to enjoy it. So I was more than excited to learn that they were back on tour again and even more excited that they were doing only small clubs on this tour. A win-win situation for the fans.

Well, there I was sitting on my friend’s couch listening to Super Fuzz/ Big Muff and casually watching some really pretentious band on the first weekend Coachella (I let you the reader pick which band I was viewing as it will probably be right) and it occurs to double check when the shows starts and that is when the reoccurring curse of Part-Time Punks stuck me again. Due to this DJ night the damn Sunday shows at the Echo  start early in order to make way for the post-punk waifs dressed in black to lurch and sway all over the dance floor to a drone of classic post-punk and new wave, so of course I love the night.  I just always seem to forget about it.

Needless to say, we made record time from downtown to Echo Park and shoved our way to the front in order to catch a spectacle going full tilt as we walked in. This was a much different crowd at the Echo  than I was accustomed to seeing. It felt for a second that I was somehow back to 1994.

Photo File: The Orwells at the Echo (2/22/13)

By Kathryn Pinto

The Orwells electrified The Echo last Friday night (2/22/13) with a sweaty Tesla coil of a show. The Chicago teens unleashed themselves on the room in an explosion of hair, sweat and wild yelps. There's that time when you're so young that every day is a whole lifetime when you don't know much about history or anything that can before you, because today is now, man. These guys play like they've absorbed the Ramones, the Stooges and the Replacements and shook it all up like a bottle of soda, hand on the cap as long as a seventeen year old--who hasn't learned to think about cutting the grass and baseball at these moments--possibly can, then released it all in a single explosion of guitar bass drums as if no one had ever wrangled his four best friends and a case of cheap beer into a garage to rock out.

 

Photo File: Radar Brothers, Babies on Acid, and Young Unknowns at the Echo 2/2/13

Photos and Text by Amanda Glover

Radar Brothers appeared at the Echo this past Saturday (February 2) as part of the record release for their new album Eight. Jim Putnam (son of recording pioneer/Universal Audio founder Bill Putnam) and the rest of the band played their blend of surreal, swirling, guitar-driven tunes to an appreciative audience with support from Babies On Acid (whose set was pleasantly folky in contrast to their name) and Young Unknowns. The RFSL Flickr page has the complete photoset for the show.

Head over to RFSL Flickr page for more photos.

Photo File: The Gaslamp Killer and Adventure Time at First Fridays at the Natural History Museum 2/1/13

Photos and Text by Amanda Glover

The Natural History Museum's latest First Friday extravaganza featured explosive sets by headliners The Gaslamp Killer and Adventure Time. An electronically-oriented bill this month, the event also featured DJ Sodapop and Inka One (across from the headliners) in the African Animal Hall. A fun and intriguing venue for concerts, the museum also plays host to scientific lectures and other activities before the music begins.

Head over to the RFSL Flickr page for more photos.

Head over to the RFSL Flickr page for more photos.

Photo File: A Benefit for Mike Atta at the Echoplex 1/25/13 with Mike Watt & The Missingmen, 45 Grave, AUDACITY, White Flag, The Abigails, Channel 3, The Garden, Agent Orange, White Night, The Urinals, Shattered Faith

By Amanda Glover

Last Friday, legendary OC punk rockers Agent Orange kicked off the "Help Mike!" benefit at the Echoplex. The concert was organized to raise funds for Middle Class guitarist Mike Atta, suffering from kidney cancer. One of the first Orange County hardcore punk bands, Middle Class was influential to the likes of The Adolescents (who also headlined the benefit), Black Flag and many others.

Head over to our Flickr page for more photos.

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

Photo File: A Place to Bury Strangers at the Echoplex 6/7/12

Photos by Luz Gallardo, text by Kathryn Pinto

Last Thursday psychedelic shoegazers  A Place to Bury Strangers played the Echoplex and photographer Luz Gallardo was there to capture the visuals of a band once described by the Washington Post as "the most ear-shatteringly loud garage/shoegaze band you'll ever hear."

We welcome Gallardo to RFSL with her second contribution this week; she also shot the video for Old Toy Trains that debuted on Video Free Silver Lake yesterday. More photos after the break.

Photo File: A Couple Weeks of Shows--Escalator Hill, Youth Lagoon, Races

By Kathryn Pinto
(Text & photos)

Radio Free Silver Lake presented the final night of the Escalator Hill  residency at the Central SAPC in Santa Monica last month, when Radars to the Sky, Tizoc Estrada and a reunion of You, Me and Iowa, played in support. It was an incredibly frenetic evening of performances.

The following week Trevor Powers brought his bedroom pop project, Youth Lagoon to a sold out room at the Echo November 2nd. Accompanied by guitarist Logan Hyde, Powers transforms these tracks into a quietly, but forcefully compelling live show. 

Races released their Big Broom EP last night to a nearly full house and a warm reception by an audience of music fans, including members of several Silver Lake bands.

Photo File: FYF Fest 2011

By Matthew Heizman (photos)
and Kathryn Pinto (text)

A little while back the Radio Free Silver Lake team hit the FYF Fest hard and returned with more images from photographer Matt Heizman than we could include in our initial story. As we reported earlier, the logistics of the festival went smoothly and far more competently than any FYF in recent memory, allowing us to get down to the business of hearing the bands. We saw some pretty great acts: Ty Segall, Smith Westerns, the Olivia Tremor Control,  No Age, Guided By Voices, Explosions in the Sky,  and Dan Deacon who impressed us above all others. Here are a few shots. (Photos by Matthew Heizman, except where noted.)

Ty Segall:

Smith Westerns: