Despite my super crazy schedule these days I managed to check Kera and the Lesbians’ first night residency at the Echo on Monday night. The crowd was quite big, I guess the buzz is working great for this band, and this is already the third time I am seeing them! I wasn’t very surprised that they even got a review in the LA Weekly the following day! Good for them and totally deserved, but I have seen this story many times before, I see a band in a small club, find them fantastic, and before I realize it, they are everywhere, soon the LA Times and Rolling Stone? Who knows?
Kera is not your average frontgirl, she is so dynamic, so full of life, looking like a little happy volcano always ready to explode at any moment with her songs, that the show was pure joy and fun. The band may have found the right description to fit their cute songs bursting at your face in repeat, ‘bipolar folk’, but frontman Kera Armendariz is anything by bipolar, she commands her troupe on stage like a real pro, effortlessly dancing, jumping, bouncing with her guitar, she is the joie-de-vivre incarnated and everyone seemed to have a great time. At the top of her natural charisma, she also has some terribly androgynous charm and I spotted a large number of girls in the room, who surely hadn’t come for the good looks of the male crowd… On Monday night, Kera had a Joe Strummer’s haircut, was holding her guitar like Chuck Berry while side-dancing, and had a few gypsy-cabaret songs that still reminded me Gogol Bordello. There is something a bit antic and classic in her emotional croon, whereas her humorous way to serenade or burst on stage is totally wild and unexpected.
The expressive music navigates through gypsy rhythms, exotic and wiggly moves, almost tango-like dances, noir muted trumpet and emotional moment. This is a girl who easily reconciles humor and goofiness with melancholic tunes and this is certainly not an easy thing to do. Kera and the Lesbians’ vibrant performance was short (they need to save something for each Monday of February), but there was a lot going on and their buoyant music was a sort of amalgam of melancholia, old-time blues, manic folk, gypsy jazz with a humorous punk attitude. Their debut EP ‘Year 23’ has dropped on January 28th via Lollipop Records, and I am almost certain all the people at the Echo will be back the following Mondays. Kera can sure make you develop a taste for some intense obsession.
Set List:
Gypsy song
Green Apples
Ball & Bundle
Witches Tit
Cold Wind Blows
Snakes
Year Past 23