Day Two at Echo Park Rising and even more music, actually, an orgy of bands to choose from, with more questions: Where to go first? Who am I going to see? And who are all these people I have never heard of? I probably wanted to overdose on music so I managed to see around 20 bands in a day! A much better score than on Saturday, but a super exhausting marathon which almost fried my brain… everything is kind of mixed up right now, but if I can make sense of what I have seen, there is a ‘big is better’ trend right now, bands like it, large and crowded on stage, of course, trios and quartets still exist but a lot of groups showed up with 6, 7, 8 or even 9 people on stage! Plus folk is back, more exuberant than ever, the kind of foot-tapping folk a lot of people like, and I blame Mumford and Sons for this one, or the kind of folk that makes-your-head-explode-with-euphoria, with a spiritual side, and I blame Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros for that one. Violins are back too, I have spotted a lot of them, in Manhattan Murder Mystery, Kan Wakan, Holy Folk, Herbert Bail Orchestra for example, and sax are quite common too!
Here are a few highlights (and less high-lights) of my Sunday at Echo Park Rising:
First, James Supercave was actually a quintet with synth-pop, dynamic to languishing songs and sweet voices going falsetto. They were young and cute, sweating under the hot sun and their last song did soar at the end in a quite Bowie-esque manner.
I didn’t stay very long for Northern American inside the Taix room, probably because I wasn’t really captivated, they sounded like another agreeable synth upbeat pop band, with floating sweet vocals, making a few laser-gun synth effects, and gunfire-like drumming.
But Kera and the Lesbians at the Echo was a great surprise, I guess I knew who was Kera but who were the lesbians? These three (then four) guys who joined her on stage? Kera had a retro look with a short Mohawk haircut, she was making expressive faces and was playing the most animated cabaret gypsy-folk music that she calls ‘bipolar folk’ with trumpet and funny percussion. It was passionate, gritty, foot-kicking, and a lot of fun… she was the joyous crazy character you want to see more often live, talkative and bold, screaming, joking, crooning, and even jumping high with her guitar without missing a chord. Everyone was asking for more.
I didn’t see much of Rainbow Jackson’s performance downstairs at the Echoplex, where the ambiance was smoky and I first thought they were a hair metal band, but not really… I just caught their last song to be honest, Kera was too cute to leave the scene and their last tune sounded Ramones-y-poppy.
I went back to the bright sun to check out Quinto Sol on the outdoor stage, and as I expected they were a Latino band playing music with lots of percussion, deeply rooted in reggae, dub, cumbia and other world music. I spotted a girl with a Ozomatli tattoo, I didn’t stay long enough but they had that same Chicano-political vibe than the Los Angeles beloved band.
Inside the Taix room, Avid Dancer had sweet melodies sung with tenderness, going into full rock effect and a light touch of Americana. Other songs were more languishing with jazzy or tremelo-ing guitars. I read they are from Alaska, so no offence but what were they doing at Echo Park Rising?
Only You, which played in the same room, was a retro-sounding band with a retro moniker, fronted by the charming and tiny Rachel Fannan, who had a big girl-group voice. The songs were definitively showcasing her crooning vocals and the music had a 60s charm. Jail Weddings’ singer Gabriel Hart was watching her performance, while the sexy Rachel, in a light summer dress, was promoting her band’s new vinyl.
I mentioned earlier that folk was back and this was very true with El Sportivo and the Blooz playing their bluesy-Americana heartfelt melodies with steel guitar… Among the band I recognized guitarist Lewis Pesacov who also plays with the Afro-pop band Fool’s Gold among the numerous things he does (he also produced Best Coast).
Also playing at the Echo, Holy Folk, as their moniker cares to say, was an interesting folk band, but not that folk at first… They played poppy and very catchy songs, with even an Iron and Wine vibe for certain,… I really liked them, and their fast tempo combined with touching melodies.
Herbert Bail Orchestra was great too, a large ensemble of gypsy-folk with accordion, trombone, percussion and violin, playing uplifting foot-tapping bombast music… Quite Edward Sharpe at times, or a reinvented version of Alex Ebert who had exchanged his Jesus- look for a straw-hat adventurer one.
Also in the same folk-country category was the big ensemble of Tall Tales and the Silver Lining (I think there were eight on stage), I caught their last song at the Echo, and I thought they sounded a bit like the Eagles.
The Eagle Rock Gospel Singers were also a great surprise, nine on stage with four singing women wearing white dresses, they blew up the roof of the Echo with their devlish foot-tapping gospels, part Polyphonic Spree, part madness of swampy blues. The drummer was singing a lot, the energy was fantastic and the place became as sweaty as a bayou on a hot summer night.
What else? Fever the Ghost gave a strange and elaborated spectacle, with psychedelic-funky music, ghostly vocals, luminous synth and golden dancers holding rings. When I entered the Echoplex, I thought it was a sort of circus act in the dark, but I only saw the end of their set.
Mystic Braves at the Echoplex sounded a lot like the Allah Las with their retro surf guitar packed in a touch of beach-psychedelia. They had drawn a large crowd, girls were dancing and the Braves looked cute in their flower-power shirts. A song had the flavor of a Tarantino spaghetti western (this has to become a genre as I hear that quite often) and another one reminded me the beginning of the Animals’ ‘House of the Rising Sun’!
Strangers Family Band was a weird one, a band with guitar, sax, trumpet, drums and bass which was producing a sound so cacophonic and experimental and songs so long it was becoming very hypnotic, or may be I arrived during their weirdest number… not my cup of tea but they were very bold and adventurous.
Old Testament were quite mysterious, one of them was wearing an Edgar Poe t-shirt, and the other one was playing on the floor a sort of slide guitar or some keyboard (it was so dark and smoggy I could not see anything). The ambiance was intense, hypnotic and druggy with some sitar-like sound, making people close their eyes. There were some moments of lovely guitar, a tranquil melancholic haze disrupted by some brusque distortion coming from the guy on the floor, making an interesting twist on country ballads.
The only band that was absolutely different from the other ones was Crimekillz! These kids were crazy and had obviously listened to Tyler the creator and the Odd Future gang. They were hiding their faces behind bandanas while doing some electronic punk-rap over a droning synth going all Nintendo. A black guy (not among the ones who were rapping) was erupting from time to time, talking about a certain Noface being in jail, then promoting the band and giving away free CDs and beers at the end of the set… Are they riding the Odd Future craze?
My crazy night continued with Santoros, a band of Chicanos who had invited the whole Echoplex crowd on stage. The music was festive and sounded a bit as if Jim Morrison had spent a lot of time in Mexico. People were bouncing, dancing and drinking beer on stage and white confetti were raining from the ceiling. This was a party if I’ve ever seen one.
Next at the Echoplex was the large ensemble of Jail Weddings and their over-the-top exploration of weepy, heartbreaking theatrical messy songs. If there is a contest for singers who truly live the songs they sing, Gabriel Hart should get the first place, he was doing his frenetic dance, arms apart to the sky, holding his swagger tenor tone high in the middle of this musical-cabaret-rock. There was so much drama happening I could not stay for another band and I left Echo Park Rising just after their grandiose vision.
Some people say Echo Park Rising reminded them the FYF fest in its infancy, so we can wonder what is the future of the festival, will it grow bigger, become a pricey event and book well-known bands, or be loyal to its humble beginning and stay local? Who knows? I hope it stays this way, because local bands need to be discovered and we don’t need a second FYF fest a week earlier; but fame and success are dangerously attractive.
