Live Music Tonight: Parson Red Heads and Fruitbats

So.........I caught the Fruitbats on NPR/KCRW this morning and the set was pretty cool. I had first learned of this band in San Diego covering their tune "When you Love Somebody," with Ernie Garcia and StuntDouble. But, I had never really pursued checking the band out despite really enjoying the simple tune with its ups and downs in dynamics and intensity.....Then, yesterday I heard it on the radio and sure enough the DJ says that they're going to be on Morning Becomes Eclectic today so I gave a lis'. Well, they're in town because they are going to play at the Echoplex tonight and I am trying to roust some heads to go peep it out when I head over to the website to see about ticks and........I see that The Parson Red Heads are playing at the Echo tonight as well in a show promoted by my favorite local blog, Aquarium Drunkard. Well ho-lee-shit....what's a kid to do? I first heard about the Parsons from the Drunkard's Ram on L.A. a tribute to Paul and Linda McCartney's RAM album. The Parson Red Heads did one of the best re-makes on that album, which was awesome in spirit and benefitted charity, but in many cases failed to produce good renditions, in my opinion. Their version of "Ram On," stood out enough for me to remember their name and check out their myspace and eventually become a fan. So......this is a good problem to have if you are interested in going out to see some live music in Silverlake tonight, but it still presents a problem.....Parsons or Fruitbats......more to come on this tomorrow.....

Concert Review: A.A. Bondy @ The Echo

A. A. Bondy just finished up at the Echo in Silverlake. First thing that stood out was his voice. Instantly recognizable as a great folk/pop timbre. Instantly. Nice little trio; drummer doubled on pedal steel and had a synth pad he used to trigger some samples (not too exciting, but noteworthy in terms of the electric sound they had on some tunes)...the pedal steel was quite nice, however. After three songs one might think that they were in for an insanely dynamic performance and they wouldn't be too far off, but for the lull in the center of the set. Somewhere in the middle of this lull the band went into a noise-rock/sound experiment of nob turning and feedback, but it just wasn't convincing. I was actually extremely relieved when they brought the intensity back up for the last couple of tunes because they executed it so much better. This was achieved by not solely raising volume and distortion, but doing so whilst maintaining the integrity of a very slow building 6/8 tumbler which they were able to climax beautifully before ending with a dissonant crash. A.A. also displayed some tasty travis-picking independence and the encore displayed the drummer's musicality and skill with a long set of extremely even and poignant double-stroke rolls within his compound metered groove. All in all this headlining set was very mellow, plenty eclectic, and overall, quite satisfying. Always nice to hear a band sound even better then their records.

Fanfarlo @ The Echo this Monday, 11/23

I'm currently listening to a tasty cover of "In the Aeroplane over the Sea," the third cover I have watched from the Fanfarlo myspace page. The indie-rock boy wizard, my roommate Jon, turned me on to this band and their upcoming show at the Echo this coming Monday. I believe it came up during a conversation on how the hell to stand out in this age of blog madness and ten-second singles. Jon mentions that Fanfarlo hand out those plastic tubes, which when swung in a circle over your head create a strange whistle-hum similar to Jim Carrey's tractor-beam noise made by his mouth in Dumb and Dumber. "Sucked me right in..." The band hands these out to the crowd and then everyone joins-in creating a collective whoomph whilst Fanfarlo plays the next number. Sounds cool to me. So being a good little music blogger I read up and listen and so far I'm interested. Their songs sound a bit like Neutral Milk mixed with someone a little wimpier, say Andrew Bird. Their "Diary," is really cool. I read the top installment about touring Europe andthen launching right into a US tour with a ridiculously large trailer. I'm into these bands that Beavis and Butthead would have called "college music..." You know, intelligent musicians who read books (I know, crazy right?) and right poetic lyrics and paste them on the type of rich musical textures, which only multi-instrumentalists could create. Look out for the review or else I'll see you at the gig.