The Silver Lake Chorus is a cover band, but a special one. They perform indie songs or less indie songs (they have sung George Michael’s ‘Freedom’) with choral arrangements, and the 25 of them have described themselves as the Glee of Silver Lake. They have already interpreted tunes from Beck, Muse, Sia (who has submitted an original song), Regina Spektor, and Ben Lee is supposed to produce their debut album.
However, it is very different from Glee because they do not dance and there is no backing band, every song is just sung a cappella.
The Chorus was founded by the daughter of sitcom actress Sally Struthers (‘All in the Family’, ‘Gilmore Girls’) Sam Rader, who declared to musiczeitgeist.com:
‘I wanted to marry my dreamy high school choral experience with my grownup (think: indie) music sensibilities.’
Mikey Wells, who also heads the CalArts chorale, directs the chorus, and they can be heard singing the theme song in the opening credits of SNL’s film MacGruber.
On a side note, I think it is funny they have taken Elliott Smith’s Memorial wall as their logo, the same wall he used for his ‘Figure 8’ album cover.
It’s true it represents some kind of Silver Lake landmark, too bad that it is now unrecognizable, covered by awful graffiti.
Listen to them interpreting Muse’s ‘Starlight’ on Good Day LA, or covering Beck’s ‘Lonesome Tears’ like it were a Gregorian chant:
They are of course playing at the Sunset Junction Fair at 1 pm (Fold stage) on Saturday.