Just when you thought it was safe to turn your back and dwell in pop oblivion, the Gories are back from the grave to feast on your feeble brain and reanimate your behind on the dance floor.
The Gories finished their three show stint in Los Angeles at the Echo last night, their first ever tour on the West coast. A crowd of restless natives huddled around the stage, ready to be hoodooed by the Gories’s footstompin’ riff rock.
Mick Collins and Dan Kroha did a call and response on their six strings while and Peggy O’Neill did a Bo Diddley stomp on the tom toms. Their signature anthem, “Hey Hey We’re the Gories” was an invocation to their glory days, and the hits kept comin’. Highlights included a raucous “Thunderbird ESQ,” a howling and entendre laden “Sister Anne,” a feedback drenched cover of Suicide’s “Ghost Rider” and a bumping and grinding take of Eddie Holland’s “Leavin’ Here.”
The crowd was high, tight and rowdy, with beers flying and arm flailing; like a mob possessed by the gris gris of a thousand years. Back on stage, guitar strings were breaking as Mick and Dan hollered and whined their back catalogue at the congregation of the Gories faithful, as Peggy coolly pounded one out on the drums, peering though dark shades of indifference.
It was as if no time had passed since the Gories’s former incarnation, which broke up in 1992. This was by far the best reunion show this intrepid journalist has ever witnessed, a sacred rite of joy resurrected.
Eyad Karkoutly
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Live Review: Sweater Girls, Procedure Club & Wild Nothing @ Part Timer Punks- The Echo 09/12/10
The evening started out innocently enough. The Sweater Girls brought a self styled naivety to their diary entry turned song book style of twee pop, reminiscent of Comet Gain or Tiger Trap. With a warm charm and a calculated chastity, Sweater Girls could thaw the chilliest of the jaded. They apparently have a new seven inch out, which should more than satisfy the singles club.
Part Time Punk’s Michael Stockton appropriately paired his DJ set list for the evening with treasured obscurities from indie pop groups such as Trixie’s Big Red Motorbike and The Field Mice. It is so cool to see people dance to good music on the dance floor, which is reason enough to come to Part Time Punks each and every week.
Procedure Club (Slumberland Records) took the stage with more members than the Allman Brothers Band. They were really fucking loud! Andrea’s vocals reverberated through the Echo like a wailing widow trapped in the hull of a sinking ship, forlorn and chamber-esque. The rest of the New Haven six piece seemed to be mostly playing the same note and kind of unrehearsed onstage, which was fine, but a bit superfluous. Extra points for attendance, I guess. Although it was pretty punk how much they were just having fun and not giving a shit about the audience.
Wild Nothing, on the Captured Tracks label, were magnetic and majestic. The four piece’s sound recalls the twilight pop sound of earlier bands like the Wake or the Chills, but Wild Nothing are not ape-like in their debt to this ancestral heritage. Guitars were clean and lanky, the approach was minimal and subtle. Few bands create so much atmosphere with so little. Chief songwriter Jack Tatum's wistfully maudlin sound is given vitality onstage with the pulsing bass, cascading synths and driving percussion of his Wild Nothing band mates. Songs like “Summer Holiday” and “Chinatown” have true anthemic potential, and the crowd was ready for an anthem. It was one of those elbow-to-elbow evenings at the Echo where everyone came to actually hear the band, attentive and grateful. Wild Nothing are something definitely worth checking out.
Eyad Karkoutly
Part Time Punk’s Michael Stockton appropriately paired his DJ set list for the evening with treasured obscurities from indie pop groups such as Trixie’s Big Red Motorbike and The Field Mice. It is so cool to see people dance to good music on the dance floor, which is reason enough to come to Part Time Punks each and every week.
Procedure Club (Slumberland Records) took the stage with more members than the Allman Brothers Band. They were really fucking loud! Andrea’s vocals reverberated through the Echo like a wailing widow trapped in the hull of a sinking ship, forlorn and chamber-esque. The rest of the New Haven six piece seemed to be mostly playing the same note and kind of unrehearsed onstage, which was fine, but a bit superfluous. Extra points for attendance, I guess. Although it was pretty punk how much they were just having fun and not giving a shit about the audience.
Wild Nothing, on the Captured Tracks label, were magnetic and majestic. The four piece’s sound recalls the twilight pop sound of earlier bands like the Wake or the Chills, but Wild Nothing are not ape-like in their debt to this ancestral heritage. Guitars were clean and lanky, the approach was minimal and subtle. Few bands create so much atmosphere with so little. Chief songwriter Jack Tatum's wistfully maudlin sound is given vitality onstage with the pulsing bass, cascading synths and driving percussion of his Wild Nothing band mates. Songs like “Summer Holiday” and “Chinatown” have true anthemic potential, and the crowd was ready for an anthem. It was one of those elbow-to-elbow evenings at the Echo where everyone came to actually hear the band, attentive and grateful. Wild Nothing are something definitely worth checking out.
Eyad Karkoutly
Thursday, July 8, 2010
One Man Beatles -Emitt Rhodes Documentary
Tonite is the US premiere of what looks to be an amazing documentary about Emitt Rhodes, entitled One Man Beatles. Should be amazing night, featuring an Emitt Rhodes tribute band as well! http://www.cinefamily.org/calendar/thursday.html#onemanbeatles
Go to Cinefamily.org for more information on the Don't Knock The Rock Film and Music Festival.
Go to Cinefamily.org for more information on the Don't Knock The Rock Film and Music Festival.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
The Yummy Fur/ Neverever @ Part Time Punks (The Echo) 1/17/10
FROM LARECORD.COM
Yummy Fur and Neverever @ The Echo- Part Time Punks 1/17/10
Truth be told, most reunions shows usually suck. Who wants to watch some oldster relive former glories while dipshit kids sing along to lyrics that they weren’t out of diapers for the first time around? Yet this is hardly a steadfast rule, and I am happy to report the exception was the Yummy Fur’s glorious reunion show on Sunday Night at Part Time Punks.
Michael Stock started off the night right, as he always seems to do. I love walking into a night club and hearing the Shop Assistants being blared at top volume. We, the people of Los Angeles, really are blessed to have a night like this, where else you gonna go to dance to Blurt and Section 25?
The opening act, Neverever, came on strong and slick, like a Roxy Music send up of a doo-wop 45: Blondie does Dion in day-glo design. There was a serious Chiki Ti-Ta up front in a letterman sweater and panty hose, cooing like a mocking bird. The backup was workmanlike and locked in. I was reminded of The Long Blondes or Music Go Music and I was into it.
People started tripping in the door, two by two, and man was it a stylin’ crowd. Fred Perry and stove pipe pants were just as meticulous and the hair do’s. The Yummy Fur, who were obscure in the 1990s, seem to have found an audience ten years after their break up. This was their first ever tour of the good ol’ US of A and people were stoked to be there. As they fell onto the stage and began trading barbs with the crowd, their Glasgow charm was whisky soaked and affable. “We are going to play a long set, because when do the Yummy Fur play Los Angeles? Next you’ll tell me it’s raining outside.” John McKeown plucked the opening riff of “Career Saver” and up jumped the crowd like a bag of Jiffy Pop. Paul Thomson smiled wryly through the gap in his teeth and managed to give a wink to every lady in the crowd, while simultaneously pounding a drumbeat with a Belmondo swagger. Songs such as “Kodak” and “Plastic Cowboy” were gorgeously shambling around repetitive riffs that Mark E. Smith would disdainfully wag a wrinkled thumbs up to. Ever the showmen, jokes of the evening included doozys like ‘Why can’t Stevie Wonder see his friends?…Because he’s married! (rimshot).
The song “Policeman” brought guitarist Brian McDougal to the mic, chanting “Policeman” as John sang “You’re working for the government, that uniform is excellent.” Scotland apparently loves cops as much as we do.
At the tail end of an hour and a half long set, they broke into “Department,” which effectively communicates the Yummy Fur mission statement as well as anything else: “She asked for makeup tips, not my department baby, why don’t you ask your lady?...I’ve got my own department, Rock and Roll!”. A clichéd term for any other band, but Yummy Fur play with such a “who gives a shit” attitude that they really do rock, without all the trappings and studied poses that usually come with such a misnomer. Instead of an Axl Rose, you get a Pete Townsend.
The Yummy Fur stumbled offstage, after a jubilant encore of “Chinese Bookie,” to no doubt be plowed by whiskey n’ gingers and dance around until the keys in their backs wound down and they passed out on somebody’s couch, in true “rock and roll” fashion.
Eyad Karkoutly
Yummy Fur and Neverever @ The Echo- Part Time Punks 1/17/10
Truth be told, most reunions shows usually suck. Who wants to watch some oldster relive former glories while dipshit kids sing along to lyrics that they weren’t out of diapers for the first time around? Yet this is hardly a steadfast rule, and I am happy to report the exception was the Yummy Fur’s glorious reunion show on Sunday Night at Part Time Punks.
Michael Stock started off the night right, as he always seems to do. I love walking into a night club and hearing the Shop Assistants being blared at top volume. We, the people of Los Angeles, really are blessed to have a night like this, where else you gonna go to dance to Blurt and Section 25?
The opening act, Neverever, came on strong and slick, like a Roxy Music send up of a doo-wop 45: Blondie does Dion in day-glo design. There was a serious Chiki Ti-Ta up front in a letterman sweater and panty hose, cooing like a mocking bird. The backup was workmanlike and locked in. I was reminded of The Long Blondes or Music Go Music and I was into it.
People started tripping in the door, two by two, and man was it a stylin’ crowd. Fred Perry and stove pipe pants were just as meticulous and the hair do’s. The Yummy Fur, who were obscure in the 1990s, seem to have found an audience ten years after their break up. This was their first ever tour of the good ol’ US of A and people were stoked to be there. As they fell onto the stage and began trading barbs with the crowd, their Glasgow charm was whisky soaked and affable. “We are going to play a long set, because when do the Yummy Fur play Los Angeles? Next you’ll tell me it’s raining outside.” John McKeown plucked the opening riff of “Career Saver” and up jumped the crowd like a bag of Jiffy Pop. Paul Thomson smiled wryly through the gap in his teeth and managed to give a wink to every lady in the crowd, while simultaneously pounding a drumbeat with a Belmondo swagger. Songs such as “Kodak” and “Plastic Cowboy” were gorgeously shambling around repetitive riffs that Mark E. Smith would disdainfully wag a wrinkled thumbs up to. Ever the showmen, jokes of the evening included doozys like ‘Why can’t Stevie Wonder see his friends?…Because he’s married! (rimshot).
The song “Policeman” brought guitarist Brian McDougal to the mic, chanting “Policeman” as John sang “You’re working for the government, that uniform is excellent.” Scotland apparently loves cops as much as we do.
At the tail end of an hour and a half long set, they broke into “Department,” which effectively communicates the Yummy Fur mission statement as well as anything else: “She asked for makeup tips, not my department baby, why don’t you ask your lady?...I’ve got my own department, Rock and Roll!”. A clichéd term for any other band, but Yummy Fur play with such a “who gives a shit” attitude that they really do rock, without all the trappings and studied poses that usually come with such a misnomer. Instead of an Axl Rose, you get a Pete Townsend.
The Yummy Fur stumbled offstage, after a jubilant encore of “Chinese Bookie,” to no doubt be plowed by whiskey n’ gingers and dance around until the keys in their backs wound down and they passed out on somebody’s couch, in true “rock and roll” fashion.
Eyad Karkoutly
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