Monday night was the last week of Corners’ July residency at the Echo, and the big finale started with Debt and Adult Book’s which played interesting sets before a rowdy and enthusiastic crowd celebrated the awesome Corners quartet once again.
Debt had an interesting presence, the guitars were loud, but frontman Spencer Lewin traded his for a synth (decorated with a new-age-y ball) during one song and it was suddenly all about swirls and soaring vocals… He had a nerd-looking appearance – and I am just saying this because he was wearing glasses – but he soon transformed himself into a punk rocker, losing his glasses and carelessly stepping on them while rocking hard. If the majority of the songs had a very fast punk-post-punk tempo, there had often some abrupt changes of rhythms going from slow to fast to slow, while the trio could play aggressive, noise-building, explosive songs and still have some ooo-ooos vocal harmonies. However, they were not your average surf-punk-rock band, they were not very surfy as a matter of fact, they were also playing adventurous songs sprawling with a grungy dissonance and influences that escaped me at the time. ‘DEBT is a group of childhood friends who like music. DEBT is an acronym,’ I have read somewhere ‘but they haven’t decided what it means yet. We’ll figure something out.’ This is a bit what I am thinking right now, just listen to their music, I will figure it out later.
Adult Books was next and had (almost) Ramones-y melodies, ready to make your foot tap and your head bang at the first notes. Singer-guitarist Nick Winfrey was doing a cute dancing with his guitar, undulating his legs and sometimes his whole body, while all the fast songs sounded upbeat and quite catchy, with an eventual febrile-anxious tempo or a retro sweetness in the vocals. The trio sure made the crowd happy with sunny harmonies, some people even started to mosh, and it was just the beginning of a very sticky evening. A month ago, I saw Adult Books at Lolipalooza (however very very briefly as there were so many bands at this event) but this time, I was able to totally appreciate their beachy garage-y-lo-fi vibe.
The cool thing with these residencies is that the crowd is full of musicians enjoying the set of other bands (I recognized at least one of the Mystic Braves), and my Silver Lake-Echo Park neighborhood looks like a big family of musicians packed inside the Echo, right? At least, I believe they appreciate each other if they attend each other’s shows. Anyway, I heard one of them yell after Corners’s set, ‘Corners, the sexiest band in Echo Park!’ And I agree, after having seen these guys many times, they sure have a sexy presence on stage, with the right amount of danger and seduction. This is a bit crazy because I have written about Corners here, here, here, here and here, so it’s reaching the crazy fan level, but you will hear about their unique punk-dark-vibe again soon, I promise. Their set started a crowd-surfing, crowd moshing madness, which, I am sure, continued with Santoros, the last band of the night – again I couldn’t stay and I regret it! I hope to catch them at Echo Park Rising because these guys know how to fuel an ongoing party till the wee hours.
More pictures of the show here.
