At the Echo on Thursday night, backed up by 4 musician friends, brother and sister played guitar as if they had been breast-fed with it (actually there had since their father is composer, songwriter, producer Jay Gruska) and they gave a set of exuberant pop songs tainted of vibrant countrish harmonies and served by powerful and bright vocals.
If they seemed to fully enjoy themselves with their fast strumming guitars and jumping around, the fun was also coming from Barbara’s jovial personality who gave away presents to the members of the band, opening her special surprise bag in the middle of the performance, because, after all, it was a Christmas show. Most of the presents were books, apparently specially chosen for each one, and she even had one for the crowd, that she threw away before asking the happy receiver to read the first paragraph! Actually it was an empty jacket entitled ‘What men know about women’,… she is a joker.
For a first one of three acts in total scheduled during the night, they had managed to fill up the place pretty well, and if I sometimes don’t pay too much attention to the opening act, I could not stop thinking how good their harmonies and instrumentations were, and how tight their songs were, with their just perfect balance between happy-foot-stomping- outbursts (‘Sweet Louise’) and joyfully pissed-off anthems (‘Losers’).
The Belle Brigade opened for Fitz and the Tantrums who played the El Rey mid November, and I have read their name mentioned a few other times here and there, but they seem rather new in the LA scene, and at the same time, they were playing as if they had been together forever. But if you’re doing some research about this Barbara Gruska, you’ll learn she has been the drummer of about a zillion bands, and is even Indie queen Jenny Lewis’ drummer. I accidentally stumbled across a cover of Traveling Wilburys’ ‘Handle With Care’ featuring Jenny Lewis, Johnathan Rice, Barbara Gruska, and…. Conor Oberst among others,… Ha! The Bright Eyes’ connection.
Barbara actually showed her drummer’s talent on Thursday night, by switching behind the drum set for a few songs, and she certainly was a powerhouse just by herself.
They apparently have released a full-length album, entitled ‘Everyone Around You’ as other blogs have reported (but I curiously couldn’t trace it anywhere), and they will have a free Monday night residency at Spaceland in January! No reason to skip it!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ip8GJOXF95U&fs=1&hl=en_US]