Your Friends' Favorite Generic Silverlake Indie Pop Band

Hey guys. Remember when I posted THIS?:

For those of you who aren't familiar with east side LA rock club schedules, Monday nights are when you can get into the Echo, Spaceland, and the Silverlake Lounge for free and check out a tightly-packed bill invariably consisting of some combination of:

A) ultra-generic silverlake indie pop bands (more on these later)

Well later is right now!

Ultra-generic Silverlake indie pop bands. Where to begin? First, lets establish the pointless, self-absorbed and incredibly contrived content of their "songs". I don't know if it's Rilo Kiley's fault or Weezer 's or Elliott Smith's, but there isn't a single original songwriting voice in an entire scene based on "singer-songwriters".

Then there are the "country via Dylan via indie pop" rootsy cutesy bands. I don't know why, but there's usually at least one girl with a great dress collection and a guy with a beard involved. Listening to anything by the Parson Redheads, to name one of many, is akin to listening to room-temperature milk evaporating. I swear to God, one of their songs combines the chorus melody of "Mr. Tambourine Man" and the verse melody of "Blowin' in the Wind." I remember standing there in the near-empty room on some free night, in awe of the balls that guy must have to try and pass that off as his own song.

The main problem may be the blatant and homogenous hero worship that goes on in these bands. Maybe if Elliott Smith was still alive all these 3rd stringers wouldn't have the guts to get up on stage and jerk off to themselves. Imagine a world without Gavin Rossdales!

You know your scene's in trouble when the "successful" band is a Smashing Pumpkins sound-alike, and the band with "art cred", Autolux, hasn't released an album since 2004. Great Northern, Sea Wolf, Airborne Toxic Event, and many many more epitomize this self-congratulatory, kidding-themselves-and-each-other scene. The good news is, it seems like younger people have stopped forming this type of band in the last couple of years.

Your Band Sucks Report: Gangi

Look people, I'm not the only one. Shitty bands are real, and they'll stop at nothing to get your attention. To wit, I just received this open letter/report from one of our anonymous agents in the field:

Dear Gangi:

You're the reason I'm not on MySpace. [rest of letter redacted by request]

Loving hating you,

Your Band Sucks

"Naming names since 2009"

noise: a self-invented problem

Today I went to a "noise show" at an Echo Park gallery that I usually love. Unfortunately, it kind of sucked.

As the first performer went on there were about 5 people inside watching the show and about 15 herded out on the sidewalk, awkwardly pacing around, chatting and smoking. One dude in his late 20s, dressed in classic SF bike messenger style, was non-non-chalantly puffing on a wooden tobacco pipe. I guess wooden pipes are a thing now/again/still.

A photo crew from "Bloomingdales Magazine" (wtf?) waddled by and asked if they could take some photos of their model standing in front of the building. A willowy brunette in white posed self-consciously in front of all the freaky art types, who turned their backs to the camera ever so slightly. According to a story I overheard from an old Latina woman, the crew had been walking around the neighborhood all day, pissing off old Latina women.

errol flynn: a spectre still haunts h-wood

I can't believe I'm updating this blog again. This can only mean that in the massively influential epicenter of one of the three most culture-producing/destroying cities of the United States, you can still see shitty bands three nights in a fucking row. I should know - it just happened to me.

Last night I went to a somewhat trendy but "still cool" bar in the dregs of south Hollywood. "Why not?," I thought. "It might be fun."

It's hard to believe how naive and tragic those words seem to me now, less than a day later.

On an off-night this is the kind of dimly lit, vaguely-decadent-in-an-early-70s way place where you might see the solo project of a guy who used to tour as a rhythm guitarist in Black Rebel Motorcycle Club/Brian Jonestown Massacre/Queens of the Stone Age in the late 90s.

I walk in the place to find two guys playing a fratty rock song on acoustic guitars. I can tell they're "indie" tho cause the one singing has long straight hair and an Eroll Flynn moustache, and the other guy's guitar is turned up about 4 times louder than the moustache guy. I couldn't discern many lyrics because of all the slurring and intensity, but from the tone of it I gathered it to be some kind of metaphor combining love and drug addiction.

The next band, a rock 4-piece complete with smoke machines, ultra tight clothes, and age-inappropriate hairstyles, was fronted by some sort of 40 year old ghost of a goth. They did that repetitive heavy blues riffs thing that Spiritualized and all those 'heroin' bands do. Great, thanks, I like those bands. But you must really REALLY like those bands! Because for some reason you don't mind sounding exactly like them and proudly showing the world that you know how to print a Xerox. Thanks.

bands that play the wrong place at the wrong time

Last night I went to a bar I usually like and surprise surprise! I saw a shitty band for free.

This particular shitty band appeared to be on tour from Iowa, judging by their uniform 1992 Lollapalooza-era white boy dreadlocks, "intense" grunge riffs, and general shirtless-ness. Also their singer's name was like Sioux City Pete or something.

Now if these guys stuck to being really big Tool and Nine Inch Nails fans and playing daytime slots at "hardcore" festivals in the Midwest, I would never have to talk about them. But for some reason, they chose to drive to Los Angeles and play at a weird art-fag bar in Silverlake. Which I must point out they did not have to do, and most assuredly were not paid to do.

After Pete & the boys finished their set, a bone-thin homeless-looking man in his 40s wearing work-out clothes picked up an electric guitar and began bashing out shouty, out-of-tune Billy Idol and Rolling Stones covers, changing around chords and lyrics as the mood struck him. This went on, seemingly, for a couple of days.

I wish I was making any of this up. I don't know where these terrible bands come from or where they end up, but I can't get ignored by a bartender in Silverlake without hearing one.

another monday, another shitty band at the echo

Ah, Monday nights. Or as I call them, "free nights". 

For those of you who aren't familiar with east side LA rock club schedules, Monday nights are when you can get into the Echo, Spaceland, and the Silverlake Lounge for free and check out a tightly-packed bill invariably consisting of some combination of :

A) ultra-generic silverlake indie pop bands (more on these later)

B) pretty songwriter girls with more "western" clothing accessories than decent songs 

C) hilariously inauthentic 'roots rock' combos from Orange County

D) visibly-uncomfortable-on-stage 'experimental' acts 

E) aging (but still thin!) hipster jam bands

F) other marginally-talented friends of people who do sound at the club.

Of course, sometimes a decent (or at least interesting) act somehow slips through the cracks, but I'll save THOSE all-too-rare occasions for another blog. This here blog is for hatin'.

Last night at the Echo, I had the distinct displeasure of grimacing through a set by Pit Er Pat, who are on Chicago post-rock label Thrill Jockey. You'd think they'd be pretty good, right? Or at least 'interesting' and 'sophisticated'? Well, you'd be wrong.

I'm not sure what was going through their heads while they jammed on skeletal fragments of half-songs for ten minutes at a time, but throughout their set they showed no evidence of compositional, improvisational, or technical prowess. Keep it in the garage, guys (and girl). I'm really not sure how you made it this far. I'm honestly baffled.

The final band of the night apparently featured former members of Sparta, which was a band that featured former members of At the Drive In. Now if you're paying attention, that means they are three whole degrees removed from a band that was "pretty ok" "ten years ago".