Last time I went to the Make Music Pasadena Festival was in 2008 to see L.A. faves Dengue Fever. I trekked back to the event this year to see another amazing local act called Warpaint. There are many others who accurately describe the band’s sound, so I will refrain from doing so in detail here, but I will say that Warpaint manages to capture an authentic Southern California sound, but not by trying to blow life into the corpse of west coast alt metal or raw-veggie-eating folk rock. And that last sentence may make little sense until you check out their recent EP, ironically titled Exquisite Corpse (don’t let the Emo name fool you). In the video below, I was regrettably a little too close to the speakers to capture distortion-free sound (there’s much to be desired from my camera’s auto gain control — you hear me Panasonic?), but I caught great interviews with all members of the band, asking them about their recent experience playing in Europe and how they would change the indie music scene.
State of the Independent Music Scene
Posts Tagged ‘L.A. Bands’
The Deadlies
New L.A. band The Deadlies played a set at Boardner’s in Hollywood recently. The group has a unique sound that fuses power pop with 8 bit keyboards and melodic vocals. I spoke with the band about the one thing they’d like to see change in the indie music scene. And as you’ll notice, they were very complimentary to the interviewer toward the end of the video.
Moonrats
Caught L.A. band Moonrats at The Smell Friday evening. The ‘rats sound is an edgey guitar pop with melodic vocals and great use (not over-use) of keyboards. A lot of well-produced tracks on the band’s MySpace page, particularly “Sleepwalk” and “Blue, White and Red.” The video below contains clips from the show and a short interview with lead singer Nathan Thelen, in which he mentions that indie bands could use more venues like Vera in the Netherlands. Sounds like a cool place.
Chasing Kings
I caught a show by L.A. band Chasing Kings a couple of weeks ago. They play a piano rock jive I found comparable to The Fray and James Blunt. And yes, I do mean that in a good way. Below are stage clips and a short interview with lead singer Matt Schwartz. The on-stage background artwork painted during the show is by Norton Wisdom.
The Christopher Walk-ins
I’ve been trying to catch up with The Christopher Walk-ins for a couple of months now, and I finally did on June 5, when they played a show as part of Weatherground’s residency at Second Street Jazz (and no, neither band plays jazz). The energy that The Walk-ins fuse to their catchy, melodic tunes is very much present in their live show. There was a sizeable crowd at the downtown gig, so you may want to catch these guys while they still play smaller venues. Below are stage clips spliced with short interviews with the band, in which lead singer Leonard Tucker provides some of the more eccentric answers I’ve heard about how to change the indie music scene. Check it out:
