CG Roxanne, Flat Worms, Feels At The Echo, Monday July 11th 2016
Feels
C.G. Roxanne and the Nightmares opened the night at the Echo, and they killed it with their fast blend of rock-blues-punk and a badass attitude. This trio had plenty of style and an unapologetic attitude, especially during a song called ‘I Hate New York’,… ‘I fucking hate New York’ was singing frontman singer Marlon Rabenreither with the right amount of irreverence in the shouted vocals. I had already had a glimpse of these west coast rockers during one of these numerous music festivals last year, but it was good to watch an entire set of the very energetic trio. It was an explosive and dynamic set with distortion and thunderous drumming, the ultimate garage rock power played with the right amount of aggression and bluesy guitars. They reminded me a bit about Hanni El Katib, another LA rocker with a punk attitude although their set could go from the Velvet Underground inspiration (‘Normandie Blvd’), to the Stooges (‘Soul Power’)… and with the songs titles you would even see these ones coming. They played a series of foot-tapping short-bullets songs and it’s always great to see kids fully invested in guitar-oriented rock ‘n’ roll.
The next band, Flat Worms, was a great surprise too, a brand new trio on the market but not totally new as guitarist/vocalist Will Ivy was in Dream Boys, Wet Illustrated, bassist Tim Hellman also played with Thee Oh Sees and Ty Segall, and drummer Justin Sullivan played with Kevin Morby and the Babies. I didn’t know any of this when I saw them but got immediately captivated by their loud distortion and head-banging noise. It was awesome punk rock, with half-spoken shouted vocals and songs going into infinite layers of distortion … just listen to ‘Red Hot Sand’ their debut EP freshly released on Volar Records about a month ago. They had a very dense and raw sound, as abrasive and raw as they could get, they were trashing the stage with a fast punk attitude and seething numbers, as if Thee Oh Sees were trying to sound like the most distorted piece of the Pixies. I was asking for more (and I was not the only one) when it was already over.
It was Feels’ residency, they are playing the Echo every Monday night this month of July, and the three girls and a guy didn’t let the aggressiveness and the fuzz go down. Once again it was a dense fog with strong guitar licks and sharp harmonies, but they were alternating songs with a punk anger and others with a smoother hair-flying psychedelia, going from slow burn to mad punk reverb, and the whole set smelt danger like a psychedelic girl riot. Formerly known as Raw Geronimo, named after frontgirl Laena Geronimo, they changed their name a little while ago, and their sound has evolved into raw, combative fuzz-rock, harsh but still melodic. Beside the residency, Feels has played a lot of shows lately and I should probably add that the tireless Ty Segall produced their self-titled debut LP last February via Castle Face Records. Being Segall’s protégées, and the progeny of rock royalty (Leana is the daughter of Alan Myers of Devo) you don’t have to look very far to find the origin of all these rock ‘n’ roll fibers.
CG Roxanne
Flat Worms
