Having received an invitation on Facebook, I went to a show at this new DIY, or rather Do It Together place in downtown LA, called LA Fort. I had never heard of it, but it’s brand new, located in the Arts District/industrial section of Los Angeles, inside a warehouse which has been transformed into a music venue, where I saw five bands for five bucks play in front of a young crowd on Friday night. I didn’t know what to expect, I rarely venture over there at night, this is really located outside of my usual Silver Lake Echo Park territory, it is a little ghetto and a little bleak, with no other venues or bars in the neighborhood, but I like adventure and the underground scene.
Inside, the space was large and inviting, with large armchairs and thrift shop furniture, people already making LA Fort t-shirts in a corner, and an ample room reserved for an improvised stage. There was no bar but nobody seemed depraved of beer and other stronger alcohols, and the last band even gave away a pack of free beer before playing. The crowd, which seemed to perfectly match the place with their Goodwill sweaters and unique punk-ish haircuts, became a little drunk around midnight when the fifth band began to play, but the atmosphere stayed rather familial till the end. Above everything, there was a lot of moshing going on during the whole evening, girls and boys having a good time with an evening of music with a clear punk dominance.
I arrived when Spaceships, a girl on guitar and vocals and a guy on drums, was in the middle of their set, giving a discordant punk performance with aggressive dirty riffs and female’ badass vocal attitude. The duo was kind of loud but there were some subjacent 60s lo-fi melodies behind all this loudness.
Next was Manhattan Murder Mystery, a band I have seen numerous times, but these guys never cease to make me smile! They played new (to me) and old tunes with the same belly rage and blend of raw emotions and beautiful mess, however it was the first time I was seeing them play with someone on keys. Matthew Teardrop, who had one of his leg jeans cut at mid calf, was using his harmonica more than I have seen him before, and he kept saying he wanted to go upstairs to do some coke after his set,… always count on him to start a party! He disappeared so fast in the crowd after the last song that he may have gone upstairs after all.
After some Lou Reed and Velvet Underground’s songs (coincidence?), it was M31’s turn, and these four guys and their fusion of grunge, psychedelia, punk hardcore, metal (and what else?) just impressed me. They were loud and bleak, noisy and thunderous and the best comparison I can find is Metz, except that the vocals were more distinct and detached, but considering that M31’s EP, ‘Infected Dreams’ (the only thing I have found on line) was released in 2009, you couldn’t accuse them of plagiarism. Two of them were alternating on gut-wrenching vocals and their furious sound made people move and moshing… Black Flag even crossed my mind during one of their songs, who are they exactly?
The Oakland trio Religious Girls was the band which attracted the larger crowd in the room, they turned off the lights and began their explosive and restless keyboard-crazy drumming fusion… they were hardly taking a break and the least I can say is that it was intense, viciously loud, like eardrum-splitting loud, and their set had an almost tribal and ferocious vibe. I was more surprised than anything and still don’t know exactly what to make of their experimental sweating-screaming-drumming-electronica, part exotic jungle, part hypnotic out-of-space enigma, but people loved them.
Another trio, Stab City, closed the night, and they were not decided to let us fall asleep despite the late hour, their fast and ferocious trash-punk songs, screamed at the top of the two singers lungs were fueled by the relentless drumming of their barefoot drummer who was wearing a Tina Turner tee and later a fake cobra around his neck. Many musicians joined the moshing crowd during their set, but at this time of the night, nobody was seeing clearly anymore, eyes were very red and minds were very confused, so that a guy knelt down in front of the drum set at one point as if he was about to pray the gods of punk rock.
LA Fort may well be the new place where all-music things are gonna happen soon, it is a cool membership-run project, which will even offer bedrooms for touring bands, and bookers and curators of shows are elected from the membership. It is organized by the grassroot movement FMLY, which will have its third FMLY fest, a music and arts festival with more than 45 bands, this December! Things are definitively happening!
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