Or The Whale, Olin & The Moon, Leslie & The Badgers @ Silverlake Lounge ( 5/20/2009)

Or, the Whale

It was a folk-rock/alt-country night at Silverlake Lounge this Wednesday, and the show was well worth the trip.

I walked in for the last song and a half from Pilot Speed. They's from Toronto, play a variety of modern rock, and are on Wind-Up Records (none of which I knew before I saw them). I liked what I heard.

Leslie & The Badgers played next, and covered the twangy country spectrum. Leslie is sweet and has a great voice, and the band was in sync. Nashville should be all over this; they would make a good crossover band.

Or, the Whale followed. Before tonight I knew nothing about this band besides their name. They absolutely stole the show. Or, the Whale is from San Francisco and they simply have it together. Great folk/americana. Vocal harmonies (both male and female), a very talented keyboard player, and a lot of energy. They're releasing a new album in September, and hopefully that will coincide with playing some more LA shows. This is a band I will be seeing again.

Here's a video clip:



Olin & the Moon closed out the night. The entire show was very off schedule, so while Olin was supposed to be on at 11 they didn't take the stage until 11:40, and by then Silverlake Lounge was mostly empty. You can probably see where I'm going with this: it wasn't their best set and they knew it.

Pictures:

Or, The Whale


Leslie & The Badgers


Olin & The Moon

Hello Dragon at Silverlake Lounge (5/13/2009)

It was great being back at Silverlake Lounge last week; it had been almost three months since the Local Natives residency. Even better was that the place wasn't packed like it is during residency shows.

Hello Dragon was scheduled to go on at 10 but started more towards 10:40 because Divisible had a really long sound check. I liked their set, although I was a bit bored during some of it. Overall their power-pop/pop-rock sound is pleasant to the ears. They have both a male and female singer, but the female vocals are rarely anything but backup, which is unfortunate. They were offering free CDs at their merch table and I picked up The Quantum Explorers. My favorite tracks off the album are "Birds of Prey" and "Stephen Hawking."

CER Featured Band #1: Local Natives

It only makes sense that CER's first featured band is Local Natives, since their December 8, 2008 show catapulted me into LA's local music "scene." It was 1) my first ever Silverlake/Echo Park show, 2) my first time at the Silverlake Lounge, 3) the first time I had gone to see a band after hearing them on Indie 103.1's local music show "Check One Two . . ." (R.I.P.), and 4) quite a performance. I was lucky enough to catch two of their February residency shows at the Silverlake Lounge, and they're not the secret that they were back in December; their last residency show hit capacity just minutes after their set began. I'm looking forward to seeing them play at SXSW before a foreign crowd.

At the top right of the blog (in the "gadgets" section) are four of their songs, courtesy of iLike. Embedded below are tracks posted by Matt Frazier, the band's drummer, on iMeem, including three songs that have never appeared on LN's Myspace. After hearing "Camera Talk" on Check One Two on December 7, it was these iMeem songs that convinced me to head out to Silverlake the next night to see them. Glad I did.

Pictures from each of the three LN shows I've seen are courtesy of the mediocre camera on my aging AT&T Tilt.

Local Natives