Trashcan Sinatras at The Troubadour

Brookville singer Andy Chase (one third of Ivy) produced the last two Trashcan Sinatras albums, so it's no great surprise that Brookville sound like a more abrasive TCS. They had some catchy songs and you could imagine them getting a track on 'The OC' or whatever TV show currently plays indie music for people that don't like indie. Unfortunately, despite having some good songs Chase isn't a great singer and this is what lets the band down...

The sound wasn't great for Trashcan Sinatras - a few minor technical issues over the first half-dozen songs and then everything was just too loud for my liking. The Trashcans aren't a band you need to hear at full volume, where much of the lightness and subtlety are lost - indeed some of the vocals were too low in a guitar heavy mix. Perhaps if Frank Reader had shown up for the soundcheck things may have been different (I have my spies!) Having said that, an average sounding Trashcan Sinatras is better than most other bands... Similar set to the Coach House a couple of weeks ago...

Jarvis Cocker & Little Joy at The Wiltern Theater

I didn't pay too much attention to last winters eponymous Little Joy LP - after all, who needs another Strokes spin-off group that sounded a little like, well, The Strokes... Anyways, fast forward to summer and the band have been getting a lot of plays on SiriusXM U channel. The music does have quite a summery feel - the lazy vocal delivery of The Strokes but with a Brazilian flavor (singer Rodrigo Amarante was previously with the band Los Hermanos.) They sounded great live and the set included songs from their LP and a cover of an Os Mutantes/Gilberto Gil collaboration...



Jarvis was brilliant... After seeing him at Coachella after his first solo LP, I knew the new album would sound better live and so it proved... It's not that 'Further Complications' is a bad album but I'm not the biggest fan of this 60's garage rock revival that seems to be quite in vogue at the moment. Also, songs like 'Angela' sell one of the pop musics best lyricists more than a little short... Highlights were the two epic centerpieces from the solo LP's: 'Big Julie' and 'You're In My Eyes (Discosong)'. Discosong was a fitting last number - Steve Mackey and the rest of the excellent backing band ending with a crescendo of feedback more fitting of a MBV concert. Jarvis was on great form as usual, cracking jokes and turning back the years with his John Cleese/Kung Fu dance moves!

I wanna live like corona people... Jarvis handed his beer to Laura during the encore...

Grace Jones & Of Montreal at The Hollywood Bowl...

Dengue Fever, the Los Angeles/Cambodia band, were a typical KCRW World Festival opening act - world music with a chill-out vibe... Pleasant enough background music to uncork the wine to, although occasionally it sounded like a cross between a horror film soundtrack and music from The Water Margin. Oh well, I guess one should 'not despise the snake for having no horns, for who is to say it will not become a dragon?'

I'm not sure how Of Montreal got booked on 'World Festival' unless KCRW thought they were Canadian... However, their theatrical stage show was perfect for the wide expanses of The Hollywood Bowl stage. Indeed, any set containing an impecable cover of Bowies 'Moonage Daydream' and a wedding proposal between a dancer wearing a tiger mask and the bands keyboard player is well worth the admission fee!

Grace Jones was amazing! Or as some of the crowd would say "fierce"... A fantastic backing band; numerous costume changes each more fantastical than the previous and some great music! Particularly good were tracks off last years 'Hurricane' cd (criminally still unreleased in the US) which owed more than a passing nod to her Meltdown Festival cohorts Massive Attack, and even Serge Gainsbourg in places... More familiar were 'Love is the drug', 'My Jamaican Boy' and the epic closer 'Pull up to the bumper', although the house lights came on before Ms Jones could treat us to 'Slave to the rhythmn'...

Deconstruction 22

Coming soon to an iTunes near you! Episode 22 of Deconstruction features:

01 Intro
02 Great Northern - Snakes
03 Grizzly Bear - Two Weeks
04 The Duckworth Lewis Method - The Sweet Spot
05 The Protagonist! - Theme from The Protagonist!
06 El Michels Affair - C.R.E.A.M.
07 Neon Indian - Deadbeat Summer
08 Bad Veins - Go Home
09 The Rhone Occupation - A Place
10 Godspeed you black emperor - Life your skinny fists like antennas to heaven
11 Brookline - The fountain
12 Blur - Strange news from another star
13 Amadou & Miriam - Sabali
14 Matteah Baim - Wounded Whale
15 Philip Jeays - London
16 Blur - Sing

For you ears only...

Trashcan Sinatras at The Coach House

The Coach House in San Juan Capistrano is an unusual venue (for Southern California at least) - its trestle tables running perpendicular right up to the wide stage probably more suited to the country music circuit... Inappropriately, (for the venue and Trashcan Sinatras) the support band was an appalling goth trio called Normandie, which featured a girl on drums who came from the school of thought that loud = good. There is nothing more depressing than a crap sounding drum kit (note the band also had no bass player) played incredibly loud. Anyway, at least the drums drowned out some pretty average vocals and Cure/Cult flanged guitar...

Trashcan Sinatras were predictably brilliant as always. I haven't really listed to the new CD 'In the music' much (I found it a little boring) but the songs sounded really good live. Indeed, they played most (if not all) of the new cd, plus three or four from 'Weightlifting' and a few oldies such as 'The Safecracker', 'Earlies', 'Easy Read', 'I've seen everything' and 'How can I apply'. Looking forward to seeing them again in a few weeks when they return from Japan...

Brookline/SLR/Railroad to Alaska at Detroit Bar

SLR started the evening with a cool set. Sean was joined by regular cohort Justin (Railroad to Alaska, Honeypie) on guitar for the excellent 'Spanish Boots' and shared vocals on a brilliant version of 'Demolition 45'... Other highlights in the set were the perennial crowd pleaser 'We still love them' and the glam/rave anthem 'Venus de milo'...

SLR


Next up were Railroad to Alaska, featuring the aformentioned Justin, plus Derek (Honeypie, SLR sax player) and Vince (Brookline, Honeypie and sometimes SLR bass player.) RRTA were excellent - some Zeppelin riffs with a hint of Jeff Buckley in the chord structures and Justins vocal. If this is rock music for hipsters then sign me up...

Railroad to Alaska


Brookline were great too. They played a couple of catchy new songs at the beginning of the set and then played through most of their new EP... The sound for all the bands was really great - props to the sound guy at Detroit Bar...

Brookline

RIP Dash Snow

Dash Snow, New York Artist, Dies at 27...

Snow, grandson of Christophe de Menil and great grandson of Dominique de Menil, came to prominence in the 2007 New York magazine article Warhol's Children...

Ryan McGinley's famous photo 'Dash Bombing' featured a tagging Snow: