It seems to be already a long time ago, but it actually happened last month, Echo Park Rising was all the rage for three full days of music, and since it was totally impossible to see all the bands playing at too many venues, the Echo/Echoplex is resuscitating bits of the festival with Echo Park rEPRising, and more free music. Once again, there were too many bands I could handle for a Monday night, but I managed to catch two of them at the Echo, not too bad and reasonable enough for a week day.
La Lenguas was about to start their set when I arrived and although I knew nothing about the quartet, their dynamic and oh-so-catchy pop tunes captured my attention right away. They sounded very familiar with rushing melodies often sung at the top of their lungs and lots of vocal harmonies. Frontman Christopher Stoudt was not the only one singing and overall their great melodies unloaded a real sweetness, tainted of 60’s harmonies and some surf-pop psychedelia of the 70’s. There was a real urgency in their songs that they have labeled ‘dirty doo-wop’, and the spirit ran high all set long with killer bass lines, fast-excited strumming guitars and an inescapable foot tapping. It was difficult to not think about ‘Cherry Bomb’ during their ‘Cherry Girl’, which is never a bad thing, and overall, the frenetic energy of their garage pop was marrying a retro feeling with a tense and frenzied tempo.
La Lenguas, a band ‘born in the New Orleans swamps and baked in the Los Angeles sun’, have a EP, ‘Tears in My Milkshake’, out on Burger Records (where else?), and I may have captured on video one of their hit songs ‘Love you all the time’, a real earworm.
The energy didn’t come down with the next band, Charlie Overbey And The Broken Arrows, whose all members seemed to be veterans of the LA scene… and they were. I first should say that country music is well and alive in Echo Park, especially country with a punchy side. Wearing Willie Nelson’s braids, holding his guitar very low and approaching his songs with some Springsteen muscles, Charlie Overbey and his Broken Arrows gave us a very energetic ballet of layered guitars, as they were a lot on stage and constantly moving around. They were all playing with the assurance of pros, like old schools rockers whose lives had been filled with plenty of heartbreaks, setbacks, whiskey, tattoos and of course a lot of music. They were an intense force to watch, with heavy foot tapping around the lap steel sound, and their arm gesture and moves were way too skillful for not being intrigued… who were these guys?
So I did look up their names and it turns out that Charlie Overbey played in many LA bands, from Sunset Strip Glam Metal band Big Bang Babies (which got very successful in the early 90’s), to Custom Made Scare, Deadbolt, Charlie and The Valentine Killers, before writing ‘The California Kid’, which became the Broken Arrows’ first EP. Interestingly, the record was mixed by Grammy Award-winner Ted Hutt (Old Crow Medicine Show, Gaslight Anthem, Chuck Ragan, Dropkick Murphys), and Paul Kilmister (Lemmy’s son). The rest of the band featured Jimmy James (Hangmen, Masons) and Dave James (Superbees) on guitars, Jordan Shapiro (Supersuckers) on pedal steel guitar, Joe Ginsberg (Chuck Ragan) on bass and Charlie Nice on drums… A nice bunch of old-school musicians, with a sort of classic-country hard-rocking sound, a bit of twang on the side and soulful lyrics, a winning combination that should not leave anyone cold. Watch for them around.
Many more pictures of the show here.
