By Kathryn Pinto
Some pretty great shows this week, notably The Clash covers show tonight at the Satellite and Echo Park Rising this Saturday. Echo Park Rising is a free all-day music festival and street fair that began last year as a remarkably well-coordinated response to the cancellation of the beleaguered Sunset Junction festival. Think of it as an all-day Monday night show hop, coordinated by local music venues and businesses along the main drag of Echo Park, but minus the part about looking for parking between sets. On a special “can’t count to five” edition of Five Songs we preview some of the acts playing Echo Park Rising with an eye to bands beyond our RFSL faves (a.k.a. “the same six bands” “the bands RFSL blows every week”). Plenty of the usual suspects (Seasons, LA Font, Manhattan Murder Mystery, the Lonely Wild, NO, Fort King) will be there, too. A full listing of live music, participating businesses and sponsors is on the Echo Park Rising web site. But first we start with The Clash.
The Clash "White Riot"
The bar in my hometown that looked the other way to underage kids had Bass Ale on tap and The Clash on the jukebox. Many summer Sunday nights were spent with friends learning their discography with our bar change. The Clash are everything I love about punk rock and about music, especially the physical part about being in a loud, sweaty dark room, not giving a fuck, not having to talk to anyone and feeling the music through some crappy PA. I raise a skeptical eyebrow to this recent rash of covers tribute shows, but when it comes to The Clash it’s too hard to resist. The show is tonight Tuesday August 21 at the Satellite, free, with performances by The Henry Clay People, Duniven, Brian Whelan, The TC4, and The Bixby Knolls.
Echo Park Rising
Pageants “Edible Rust”
Pageants are Rebecca Coleman (formerly of Avi Buffalo) and Devin O’Brien’s project that was a heart-stealing highlight of Make Music Pasadena festival. Coleman’s vocals are the beautifully insistent other voice in the conversation made the debut Avi Buffalo album so compelling. It’s great to see that voice taking the lead in this band.
Kissing Cousins “You Bring Me Down”
Kissing Cousins are a gorgeously dark girl band that walks the line where sex meets death, and where attraction entangles itself into fear. The heavy reverberating vocals draw you into the shadows of this Southern-gothic-preacher’s-daughters-gone-wrong, any one of whom might torch your car if you crossed her.
Salt Petal “Songs I Used to Love”
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Salt Petal takes danceable melodies
into a stripped down indie rock format and wears its Latin influences on its
sleeve. Salt Petal is the answer to the question: If you spent your formative
years at Sunday afternoon carne asada car repair parties—even if you dyed your
hair and listened to Morrissey—how can you just stand their with your arms
folded too cool?
Future Ghost “Brace Yourself”
RFSL contributor Seamus Simpson once told me that every rock ‘n roll band should sound like there’s at least one guy in the band who could kick your ass, and Seamus is a big guy. In pure heavy 90’s guitar sound--if not weight class--Future Ghost makes the grade.
Gothic Tropic “Flesh Dance”
Gothic Tropic are another example of the “you got your peanut butter in my chocolate” syncretic confluence of genres that are popping up now in young bands. Their afro-Caribbean rhythms and joie de vivre leaven the grounding influence of psychedelia and guitar rock.
Voxhaul Broadcast “Leaving on the 5th”
After extensive touring these guys are back home and we just can’t resist including them. Any guitar rock this upbeat, retro and anthemic is so deep in my wheelhouse that I can’t even feign critical distance. If a bandleader turns up on stage in a black muscle-T, jeans and high top Chuck Taylors looking like Bowser from Sha-Na-Na and that only makes you crush harder (musically or otherwise) don’t fight the feeling.
I seldom only hear of white people having riot. What is common is the black against the white. They have been in fight since immemorial.
Posted by: Diana Downs | November 15, 2012 at 08:31 AM
I can only remember one great clash. It was during our discussion in my literature class that we discussed the clash of the titans.
Posted by: Ashley Johnson | December 06, 2012 at 05:49 AM