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He’s My Brother She’s My Sister | 02.15 | L.A.

March 15th, 2010 | No Comments

Words by: Ryan Torok | Images by: Daiana Feuer

He’s My Brother She’s My Sister :: 02.15.10 :: Bootleg Theater :: Los Angeles, CA

He’s My Brother She’s My Sister :: 02.15 :: L.A.

For 45 minutes on a Monday night, He’s My Brother She’s My Sister, an indie quintet out of downtown L.A. – with a debut album coming soon – played a concise, confident set of ghost town-folk and blues with a vaudeville aesthetic. Sure, it’s not an original sound or look, but not many bands have a tap dancer (Lauren Brown) for additional percussion and a cello (Satya Bhabha) instead of a bass.

Stylish brother and sister vocalist combo Robert (guitar) and Rachel Kolar led the festivities and Rachel’s scratchy vocals truly shined. Flight of the Conchords‘ Jemaine Clement was in the audience of approximately 200 at the Bootleg Theater, which is basically a giant shed made out of plywood and cement in an otherwise dark City of Angels neighborhood.

Highlights included the haunting and swinging “Tales That I Tell,” the band’s closest thing to a hit, “I Was Born” – where the entire group, including drummer Felipe Ceballos, came center stage to join Robert and his banjo for a rootsy, familial sing-along – and “What Goes On,” a rousing Velvet Underground cover. There was no self-indulgence and yet, they seemed to be completely indulging themselves.

The set might have been tight but attitudes were loose. They donned Eyes Wide Shut orgy masks, just because they felt like it. No encore was planned, but when the audience demanded one, Robert turned to his bandmates and said, “We can’t disappoint them. Fuck that. Even if it sounds like shit.”

See them before your friends do.

02.15.10 :: Bootleg Theater :: Los Angeles, CA

Clackin’ Heels, Coattails, Straight Shooter, Choir, I Was Born, Tales That I Tell, What Goes On (Velvet Underground cover), Lazy Daze, House That Isn’t Mine

E: How Am I Gonna Get Home

Continue reading for more pics…

He’s My Brother She’s My Sister
He’s My Brother She’s My Sister
He’s My Brother She’s My Sister
He’s My Brother She’s My Sister
He’s My Brother She’s My Sister
He’s My Brother She’s My Sister
He’s My Brother She’s My Sister
He’s My Brother She’s My Sister
He’s My Brother She’s My Sister
He’s My Brother She’s My Sister
He’s My Brother She’s My Sister

He’s My Brother She’s My Sister Tour Dates :: He’s My Brother She’s My Sister News :: He’s My Brother She’s My Sister Concert Reviews

JamBase | SoCal
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Cold War Kids | 01.23 | Los Angeles

January 27th, 2010 | No Comments

By: Ryan Torok

Cold War Kids :: 01.23.10 :: The Wiltern :: Los Angeles, CA

Cold War Kids by Valerie Nannery

In the midst of a six-date tour in support of their new EP, Behave Yourself (released December 21), Cold War Kids made a stop at The Wiltern. During “We Used to Vacation,” a fan favorite from the Long Beach quartet’s debut, Robbers & Cowards (2006), singer/bandleader Nathan Willett attempted to sing in his signature screeching wail and falsetto, but with his roadie standing over him, holding the mic steady, Willet looked like he couldn’t let quite as loose as he wanted to. In many ways, this was the evening’s most compelling moment.

Willett has a knack for vivid storytelling about real people, but he failed to make a connection with the real people standing in the audience this night. Sure, the crowd of mostly older teenagers welcomed guitarist Jonnie Russell‘s snaking licks on “Hang Me Out to Dry” and the scrappy dance-punker “Something Is Not Right With Me” – off their stellar sophomore effort, Loyalty to Loyalty (JamBase review) – with enthusiastic applause, but they could have been listening to the albums at home. It would have been the same experience. The only surprise was a musically faithful cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Long As I Can See the Light,” although, with Willett’s unusual vocals, it was hard to recognize.

Yes, Cold War Kids are a radio rock band and fans don’t go to their shows expecting improvised jams that last over ten minutes. But the band incorporates more obscure genres like soul and punk into their music, and the indie rock world embraces them, so their live shows could better reflect their open-mindedness and ability to transcend the line between underground and mainstream. They are capable of more than just performing the songs the way they sound on the albums, especially since some of the material is almost five years old already. Given the amount of time they’ve had touring with these songs, they could experiment more with the live renditions.

Fortunately for the band, some of the songs are strong enough that even when played almost exactly like their studio counterparts it’s still a treat. The powerful vocals and haunting piano minor keys in “Hospital Beds” made for a show highlight, as did the intensely catchy new tune “Audience,” which features a hip hop drum beat courtesy of Matthew Aveiro. An appreciation for hip hop is evident in other places as well. During “St. John,” Willett shook a tambourine and rapped melodically over Matt Maust‘s heavy bass line, and this was also strong.

Truth be told, the band sounded confident and comfortable throughout the 80-minute set, but that wasn’t enough. Cold War Kids enjoy commercial success and share some fans with chart-topping groups like Linkin Park, so there is probably pressure to perform like an arena rock band, to abandon their more indie and artful tendencies altogether – this is a business, after all – but, to borrow the words from one of their own songs, “something is not right” about it.

Cold War Kids :: 01.23.10 :: The Wiltern :: Los Angeles, CA

I’ve Seen Enough, Hair Down, Audience, Red Wine, Success!, Welcome To The Occupation, Coffee Spoon, Dreams Old Me Dream, Relief, Hang Me Up To Dry, Santa Ana Winds, Hospital Beds, Long As I Can See The Light (CCR cover), St. John, Something Is Not Right With Me

E: Mexican Dogs, Tell Me In The Morning, Sermons, We Used To Vacation

Cold War Kids tour dates available here.

JamBase | Lukewarm
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The Dodos | 12.19.09 | Spain

January 19th, 2010 | No Comments

By: Ryan Torok

The Dodos :: 12.19.09 :: Club Nasti :: Madrid, Spain

The Dodos by Scott Galbraith

On December 19, the San Francisco folk-rock trio The Dodos unexpectedly conquered Madrid. Since the beginning of the month, they had been touring in support of Time to Die, their recent full-length album. The two-hour show was full of extended and improvised versions of songs spanning their five year, three album career, and included four encores – something few bands ever do.

A thick cloud of cigarette smoke hovered and drifted above the audience all night long. The venue, Club Nasti, which holds 250 people, was packed and practically sold out.

Taking the stage, the plaid-wearing Meric Long (vocals, guitar) greeted the crowd warmly, “Hola!” The band then opened with “Paint the Rust” off their critically acclaimed sophomore breakthrough Visiter (2006). The rendition, however, was mediocre, with Logan Kroeber‘s heavy drumming and the electric distortion from Long’s finger-picking and jazz riffs swallowed up Long’s Grizzly Bear-ish vocals. Plus, newest member Keaton Snyder‘s vibraphone didn’t complement the music; rather, it sounded like it was being played on top of it. The second song, the upbeat “Longform” from Time to Die, suffered similarly. The vocals were lost in the strummy guitar playing and ceaseless, quirky drum rolls.

By the middle of the set, though, things really took off. Long finally strapped on an acoustic guitar, and the uneven start became a distant memory. The sweet tom-tom heavy, minimalist tribal rhythm of “Winter,” one of the strongest tunes on Visiter, was the first highlight. It wasn’t that it was the best Long had sung all night, it was that the audience could finally hear how good he sounded. Afterward, somebody in the audience handed each member of the band a shot, and the guys downed them. In Spain they say, “Salute!”

Meric Long – The Dodos by Scott Galbraith

Next came a show-stopping version of “Red and Purple” featuring tight, spitfire drum rolls and a musical mid-section that the hushed crowd watched respectfully as Snyder created an orchestral tapestry by rubbing violin bows along the edge of his vibraphone. Long grabbed a bow and assisted on the other side. It sounded the way it does when people make music with half-full water glasses. It was beautiful.

And from that point on, the greatness never subsided. During the airy, crowd-pleasing “Fools,” the serenity of Long’s vocals contrasted with Kroeber and Snyder’s duel-drumming typhoon. “Joe’s Waltz” boasted dance music percussion provided by Kroeber with rolls on the rim of his set, while Long chanted the big chorus over recorded loops. It was very journey-like, epic, and free-form. Meanwhile, the vibraphone imitated hypnotic electronic synths before eventually dropping off, leaving only Kroeber’s soft strokes on the cymbal and Long’s gentle finger-picking. In The Dodos’ own way, this was like a composition, with three whole distinct parts. It called to mind instrumental post-rockers Explosions in the Sky – uplifting, pleasant and dramatic – with at least a ten-minute jam during which a good portion of the audience closed their eyes and happily got lost in it.

Kroeber, who, between songs, had been speaking to the audience in their native tongue, thanked the audience in Spanish. It was a perfect way to end the set.

The Dodos by Scott Galbraith

Musically, the last song of the main set was the finest moment of the night, but the acoustic-guitar driven “Walking,” the first song of the first encore, proved to be the most heartwarming. “You can fight the fire in your head,” Long sang. This song demonstrated that at the core of the material is a singer-songwriter who wears his heart on his sleeve.

In the second encore, the wistful love song “Ashley,” which many in the audience had been yelling out requests for, was bolstered by the call-and-response of the crowd singing out the name of the title character. In the third encore, The Dodos delved into older material, playing the snappy, poetic “Men” from their 2006 debut, Beware of the Maniacs.

“You guys are fucking amazing,” said the almost-in-tears Long. “Seriously. Thank you so much.”

The audience responded by collectively singing in Spanish for them to kiss each other, which is what they urge the bride and groom to do at weddings.

Grinning, The Dodos mostly just looked at each other, perplexed. But before they walked off stage, they did do a group hug, sending the crowd into a merry uproar. It was all about love this night.

This would have been more than enough. Everybody assumed the show was over – the band had already done three encores, after all. But, to the astonishment of all, The Dodos returned for the fourth encore. This is what cemented it as the kind of night that the band will look back on and say, “Yeah, that one was special.” Indeed, people were remarking to each other that it was one of the best shows they had ever seen, and they cheered like crazy, clapping their hands, shaking their bodies and the low ceilings. Since the stage was only barely elevated above the ground, it seemed like the audience was in the show rather than at it, a show belonging as much to them as to The Dodos. It was a celebration of the band and their accomplishments AND a celebration of life. Salute!

The Dodos tour dates available here.

JamBase | International
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Girls | 12.05 | Hollywood

December 17th, 2009 | No Comments

Words by: Ryan Torok

Girls :: 12.05.09 :: The Troubadour :: West Hollywood, CA

Girls by Sandy Kim

Beautiful, reckless-seeming, tragic-appearing and probably heartbroken, Christopher Owens probably doesn’t give a shit, but his band Girls are fucking hot right now.

They have just wrapped up the first leg of their U.S. tour. Since November, they’ve been packing clubs around the U.S. in support of their debut album, the creatively and awesomely titled, Album.

The five-piece band from San Francisco probably doesn’t even agree, but they could be seen as gay hipster rock (in a really great way, think David Bowie back in the day). Near the conclusion of Girls’ 70-minute set at The Troubadour in West Hollywood, somebody in the largely young, stylish and homosexual audience yelled out to Owens, “You blow my mind!”

“Yeah, you blow my mind,” responded Owens, smiling. “Let’s all blow each other.”

Then Owens and his four merrily deranged bandmates launched into “Lust for Life,” the catchiest and most upbeat song off their debut (check the racy video here). If any Girls song ever achieves radio-play, it will be “Lust for Life.” For now, the garage rock sing-along was a show highlight. “I wish I had a boyfriend,” sang Owens in a vocal style that is reminiscent of Elvis Costello and Robert Smith from The Cure – except, Owens rocks much harder than both of them. While Costello’s brightness is irritating and Smith is just too much of a fucking mope, Owens is simultaneously ratty, snarling and sunny.

The longhaired Owens also showed off his awesome wardrobe sense. He was wearing an oversized ’90s Bush tour t-shirt that hung off his lanky, emaciated frame, and red leggings tucked into white sneakers. His tights were shiny as stars. Owens looked like Peter Pan, like a Lost Boy. He looked like a Hanson brother. Girls’ guitarist Ryan Lynch also looked like a Hanson brother. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt the color of fruit punch.

The crowd was bobbing, thrashing around and letting inhibitions float away with the harmonies. Midway through the punchy, two-and-a-half-minute “Lust For Life,” Owens jumped in the air. Electric guitar dangling from his neck, he did a front-kick, ninja-style.

Owens’ schizo stage persona and lovesick lyrics reek of damaged goods. This is partially what made him so compelling to watch. If his back-story is true, he should be commended for not being worse off than he is.

Apparently, he was raised in a cult.

Apparently, his father was M.I.A.

Apparently, this cult forced Owens’s mother to prostitute herself.

Apparently, Owens became a homeless kid in Texas.

Apparently, a Texas millionaire took Owens in.

Girls by Kayceman

If all this is indeed how it happened, Owens deserves a shit ton of praise for his optimism. Even if it’s not all true, his lyrics still resonate. They convey a suffering soul that isn’t ready to give up on life, and isn’t that the case with most of us? During the translucent, mid-tempo “Hellhole Ratrace,” over Girls co-founder Chet JR White‘s mellow and intricate bass-work, Owen sang, “I don’t want to die… So come on, come on, come on, come on, dance with me.”

The nearly seven-minute bedroom-pop epic was the first song anybody heard by Girls. Before Album was released, “Ratrace” caught fire in the blogosphere. It demonstrates Owens’ knack for clever songwriting, which translated live.

The emotional core of the set, “Ratrace” built up to a hazy and dramatic conclusion before crash-landing into a cyclone of duel-psychedelic guitars, heavy bass, and tumbling tom drums. Without stopping, the band segued into “Morning Light.” It was their first noise-rock number of the night. Rash, angry, aggressive, bolstered by Garett Godard‘s rapid drum rolls and pounding of the snare, the tune recalled Sonic Youth and Kevin Drew of Broken Social Scene. Owens fed off his band’s and the audience’s energy. He climbed onto his PA and knocked over his microphone stand.

The remainder of the night, Owens traded off between electric and acoustic guitar. Only during the final song of the set did he play anything else. During “Solitude,” which isn’t on Album, he played harmonica. He played well enough to make for a poignant moment.

Girls

The audience demanded an encore. Not two minutes later, they got one. It didn’t seem like the band had planned for it, which of course made it more special.

“We don’t know what we’re going to play,” Owens said.

For not knowing, they did a pretty damn good job. They broke out into a concise, rollicking and spunky rendition of their surf-rocker “Big Bad Mean Motherfucker.” The Beach Boys would’ve been proud.

Afterward, the band left Owens alone. It was just Owens and the transfixed audience. It was pretty cool. It was like he was just hanging out.

“I have more songs, but I just have to figure out how to play them,” Owens said, sheepishly.

All eyes were on him – they had been all night. It was the perfect send-off.

My friend Showghy accompanied me to the show. Drunk to the point of being blacked out, he became a part of the show, frequently talking to Owens from his place in the crowd. He gave Owens a high-five. He told Owens not to worry about the one instance of rude assholes talking in the crowd.

“Yeah, I know,” said Owens, grinning at Showghy.

During a small window of time, Showghy and Owens became buddies. Maybe it was Showghy’s sleazy mustache that attracted Owens. Maybe they were just feeling each other’s vibe.

One thing is for sure: Everybody was feeling Owens’s vibe. Everybody.

Girls tour dates available here.

JamBase | Hollywood Nights
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The Books | 11.23 | Los Angeles

December 7th, 2009 | No Comments

Words by: Ryan Torok | Images from: thebooksmusic.com

The Books :: 11.23.09 :: Masonic Lodge :: Los Angeles, CA

The Books

The Books never intended to be seen live. Since forming in 2000 in New York, they’ve released three albums and only started touring after the last one in 2005, and that was because they needed money. Even nowadays they don’t tour very often – they aren’t promoting any new material on their current tour – and their delicate music seems like the result of tedious trial-and-error making it difficult to give justice to onstage. They utilize acoustic guitar, arrhythmic strumming, and folksy fingerpick patterns (played by Nick Zammuto) cut up with textural electric cello (Paul de Jong), and they achieve sonic depth by copying and pasting digitally chopped up recordings of sounds from nature, conversations between ordinary people, machines, from creations meant to be art, such as movie and TV dialogue, and from sources not meant to be art, like home videos and personal recordings. This is where The Books excel, taking things not meant to be art, and which most people would never think of using as art, and turning them into art by placing them in a new context.

At the Masonic Lodge at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, an unreleased song with no title illustrated this best. When a hunter uses a duck caller to attract some game, the sound the duck caller makes certainly isn’t art (unless you are defining “art” in the everything-is-art sense). But The Books manage to find a recording of this duck call, sample it in their music and make it musical and thought-provoking in a way that is perfect for somebody who likes to think too much (and this is meant as a compliment). While they sat and performed this playful song onstage – they sat for the entire hour-and-fifteen-minute set, as did the 200-person sold out audience, until after the one and only encore, when The Books said goodbye and the crowd saw them off with a heartwarming standing ovation – video of hunters and geese was projected onto the wall above their heads. That they found this duck call somewhere and incorporated it into their live show while a video of hunters trying to lure ducks flying past played, AND it seemed like the duck calling sound was coming from the ducks flying on-screen rather than from The Books, is some serious re-contextualization. Even if you didn’t think too deeply about it, it was emotionally stirring.

The Books

Another highlight was “Smells like Content” from their 2005 album, Lost and Safe. Zammuto introduced this song saying that his brother was the type of person who would go into the woods and record his thoughts. Snippets of these recordings opened and closed the song, including one line in particular that makes the song great: “Expectation leads to disappointment/ If you don’t expect something big, huge and exciting/ usually… uh, I don’t know… it’s just not as…” And that’s where the song ends on record, and that’s where The Books cut it off live. A precious and over-analytical state-of-mind probably brought these words into Zammuto’s brother’s head, but played live, bookending Zammuto’s soft and only barely melodic vocals which recalls Swedish singer-songwriter Jose Gonzalez‘s singing-style, it was just beautiful. The Books and Gonzales collaborated on 2009′s Dark was the Night, where they covered Nick Drake’s “Cello Song,” which The Books performed as the encore. Zammuto demonstrated the dexterity of his self-taught guitar skills on this number.

The Books weren’t afraid to show off their darkly humorous side either. A montage of footage extracted from home videos – which they explained they found at various Salvation Army stores and thrift shops – of penguins falling and kids beating each other up, played throughout. Near the end of the set, a video of all the anagrams of the word “meditation” cracked the crowd up.

The Books

Some of what was played on the video screen wasn’t as successful. At the opening of the show, the guys spoke about how they are currently very into hypnotherapy and a different kind of group therapy, where instead of a group of patients sitting in a room with one therapist, a group of therapists practice on one patient. They performed a hypnotic, ambient version of “Take Time,” from their 2003 album Lemon of Pink, while a video of therapists’ heads told the audience to, “Close your eyes in your ears.” This kind of dragged.

Several thrones fit for kings were set up on the stage, and big, framed ’70s movie posters adorned the walls – Jaws, Chinatown, Star Wars, Raging Bull and Harold and Maude, to name a few. The Books obviously didn’t ask for these posters to be put up – these films are definitive Hollywood expressions, and that is why they were up there – but they were appropriate. They all are mainstream movies, but they all have vision and artistic integrity nonetheless. In other words, they all hold up despite themselves.

The Books make ostensibly boring music that is good to get a massage or fall asleep to. In 2006, they made elevator music for the Ministry of Culture building in Paris, France, and that seems like a match made in bookish heaven. But, they do what they do with a purpose that makes them original, if not pioneers. During the show, you felt like you were a part of something important, bearing witness to something groundbreaking, even if you couldn’t, and still can’t, explain why. I guess the best you can do is say that The Books are really inclusive. All night they seemed to be saying, “Look what can be art. Art can be pretty much anything, if presented imaginatively.”

The Books tour dates available here.

JamBase | Bound
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Sunset Rubdown | 10.27 | Los Angeles

November 10th, 2009 | No Comments

By: Ryan Torok

Sunset Rubdown :: 10.27.09 :: The Troubadour :: Los Angeles, CA

Sunset Rubdown

Back in 2005, Spencer Krug, arguably the hardest-working man in indie rock – he is the vocalist, pianist and guitarist of four different bands: Sunset Rubdown, Wolf Parade, Frog Eyes, and Swan Lake – gave the world a great song. It was called “I’ll Believe in Anything.” It first appeared on Sunset Rubdown’s debut LP, Snake’s Got a Leg. A few months later, it re-surfaced in a different version on Wolf Parade’s first full-length album, Apologizes to the Queen Mary. The song, in a word, soared. Raw, powerful drumming backed by Krug’s intense, melodic yelp yielded results that were passionate, dramatic, and touching in ways impossible for a songwriter to plan. It was the kind of song that made you either want to weep or stand up in the passenger seat of a moving car with half your body out the open sun-roof, while you closed your eyes, threw your hands to the sky, tilted your head back, and smiled because you were finally confident in your place in the world. Somehow, one line, the song’s recurring lyric – “Nobody knows you and nobody gives a damn!” – encapsulated every wild emotion every teenager has ever felt – all the pain, love, confusion, remorse, regret, and hope. More than anything else, “I’ll Believe in Anything” demonstrated Krug’s ability to make chaos beautiful.

Unfortunately, nothing Krug has done since comes close. Anything he is involved in is doomed to be a letdown, including live shows.

All summer long, Krug and Sunset Rubdown – comprised of Camilla Wynne Ingr (back-up vocals, percussion, keys), Michael Doerksen (guitar, bass, synthesizers, drums), Jordan Robson-Cramer (drums, guitar, keys), and newest member Mark Nicol (bass, drums) – toured in support of their latest album, Dragonslayer (released June 23 on Jagjaguar), a sprawling, ambitious saga whose eight songs enjoy an average length of over five minutes. On October 27, Rubdown played their final North American date to an almost sold out club of mostly early twenty-somethings at The Troubadour, a small club in West Hollywood. Expectedly, the 75-minute set, including one encore, continued Krug’s post-”I’ll Believe in Anything” streak of fine but not great music. The band comfortably executed “You Go on Ahead (Trumpet Trumpet II)” and “Idiot Heart,” two of the stronger songs from Dragonslayer. They unveiled a brand new song, which Krug clarified was about getting drunk and forcing your friends to take care of you (he then dedicated the song to his tour manager), and older material like “The Mending of the Gown,” which was driven by the weaving together of a proggy guitar riff with Krug’s brief, redundant, ’80s pop piano notes, and “The Empty Threats of Little Lord,” during which Krug repeatedly cried, “No, I am not that kind of whore!” These selections represented how consistently the band, throughout its half-decade career, has managed to create complex but accessible arrangements. Nothing, however, stood out. It was a show devoid of highs and even lows. The show was just fine.

Sunset Rubdown

“Idiot Heart” was perhaps the closest thing to a highlight. The song demonstrated one of the ways Sunset Rubdown is unique; they are one of the few bands that allow the lyrics to dictate the sound of the music, rather than vice versa. After Krug sang, “I was never much of a dancer, but I know enough to know you gotta move,” Robson-Cramer sped up on the hi-hat, creating a synergy between lyric and music hard to find in any genre. The crowd erupted, letting loose into a semi-dance party.

“Silver Moons,” also from Dragonslayer, should have been great. On record, when Krug and Ingr harmonize during the bridge, the sweet and child-like sound of Ingr’s pipes gorgeously complement Krug’s rough, fractured whimpers, essentially creating a third voice. Live, however, they didn’t pull it off; it sounded like two people competing to be heard. Krug had a head cold, so that might have been the reason. At one point, he even apologized to the crowd that his voice sounded “fucked up.” Other than that, he was his usual shy self and kept stage banter to a minimum, even ignoring the fan who kept yelling out, “It’s always sunny with Sunset!”

The only surprise of the night was the opening band, Tune-Yards. Led by talented female vocalist Merrill Garbus, this three-piece, which included a touring bassist and guitarist, commanded the stage for a fast half-hour set. Garbus beat the hell out of a snare and a tom drum, strummed and fingerpicked a ukulele, scatted and yodeled, recording sounds on the spot and then looping them to create beats. She sang over these literally fresh beats as well as over funky bass lines in a vocal style that conjured influences as wide-ranging and perplexing as Aretha Franklin AND Alanis Morissette. The initial reaction of some was, “WTF?” but the music was angry, sexual, a lot of fun, and won the crowd over by the end. Sunset Rubdown should have been taking notes.

JamBase | California
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