An Interesting Night of Music: the Monolators, Repeater, Amateurs, and Shiloe @ the Scene May 8, 2007

Tonight's show was attended because Radio Free Silver Lake suggested it as a line up of interesting bands (Oh, and I happened to like the Monolators anyway). So I headed on up to Glendale and by the end of the night found myself quite pleased with the show, and slightly tipsy too.

Shiloe went on first, to a very sparse crowd, and I found myself wondering if they were a Sonic Youth cover band- the lead singer even sounded like Moore. Except, after few songs in I realized that they weren't playing covers. I have nothing unkind words to say about them. Their music was fun to listen to and they weren't bad to watch. I did pay more attention to the game of pool I was playing towards the end of their set, however, I'd give them a second go see if they're playing around here again.

The second band up, Amateurs, I found myself pretty impressed with. They had dual guitars and a girl on the violin, but not in that weird way. They were a mix of 70's glam rock, jam and dreamy indie pop but were able to pull it off as a nice blend of all three without sounding disjointed and choppy. I wish they would have turned the violin up a bit more (on the album it compliments the guitars really well), but alas, it's the Scene after all. Oh, and they were all really nice to talk to as well.

Repeater was third. I feel like I've heard this name thrown around before, but I could be mistaking them for someone else. However, their music also sounded like stuff I'd heard before, so I wasn't so impressed. It was kinda light indie pop with some electronic thrown in for good measure. They weren't "bad", but I wandered off mid-set and didn't return till the Monolators came on.

The Monolators list Television as an influence in their music and I find that to be dead on correct, which is probably why I instantly warmed to them. I heard of them as a two piece outfit but tonight they played as a three piece. They play an interesting blend of late 70's new wave, british pop, and garage rock that is well put together. Their whole set rocked and I'm scouring listings to go see them again. I actually took photos of the Monolators, but they're on someone else's camera right now, so please be patient, I'll put them up soon.

One thing that I'm going to rant about real quick is this weird obsession that the media has with automatically boxing in a two piece band as akin to the White Stripes. I find that there seems to be a complete lack of knowledge about other duos that is rather distressing when these are the people who are speaking about music and that readers go to for knowledge. Here are a few two pieces that I like, in no particular order: the Black Keys, the Spires, Giant Drag, Mates of State, Matt and Kim, Death from Above 1979, and yes, I like the White Stripes too.