Chicken Bone Drummin': Holly Golightly @ the Echo October 8, 2007

What a bizarre time setup the Echo had this night. When I looked at the scheduled line up there was a posting that it was free after 10:30pm. Wait, what? I just spent a crap load of money on ticket fees to make sure all my friends would have their tickets prior to arrival- not something I usual do, however I couldn't gage how packed it was going to be for Holly Golightly. Turns out that they pushed her forwards because Castledoor had a free residency this month. So, after her set you could get in for free. Which I guess makes more sense than having Castledoor go on and then make everyone stand outside or something to check tickets.

We showed up just as Holly started her first song. Which was around 9ish- thankfully we got a text that she was going on early or we probably would have missed half the set. After the first two songs she stated the audience needed to drink more cause it was starting to make her feel like she was in Utah. Saying this she downed some alcohol. I love the Brits.

It was just a duo tonight in support of her new album "You Can't Buy a Gun When You're Crying" which is her and Lawyer Dave as "Holly Golightly and the Brokeoffs". They played several tracks off this new record including the title track, "Jesus Don't Love Me" and either "Devil Do" or "Devil Don't", I forget. I also forgot the other songs cause I was busy fighting with the people in front of me to see the stage. Anyways, she has a funny way of talking with the audience that makes her seem so... well, I could picture her in 1800's England getting into a pub fight and cutting someone's nose off. The other neat thing was the percussion set up for Lawyer Dave- could NOT figure out how he was hitting everything while playing the guitar. I thought there was a metronome type thing but my friend thinks it may have been a chicken bone hitting a snare, which actually seems like a far better match for this pair. This also proves that you can get a lot of sound from just your feet and some drums (ahem... Mr. Bob...).

The show was not as packed as I might have thought. But then again, Holly has been with me for years since I first heard her with Billy Childish so I always assume more people know her and would go to see her (and it having nothing to do with her being on that White Stripes album). Somehow we drank a bit more than planned and ended up at Taco King or Burrito King or whatever is down the street and missed Castledoor (I'm still confused how the back of the Echo morphed into a taco stand). But I feel ok about it cause I've seen them before and can catch them again at the Echo this month. Which you all should do anyway.

Watch Where You Step: the Eagle Rock Music Festival, October 6, 2007

I don't think I'd ever seen so many kids with skateboards in one confined area in all my life as I did Saturday night at the Eagle Rock Music Festival. And I used to hang out in skateparks. A rather large chunk of Colorado Blvd. in Eagle Rock was closed off as bands took to playing on stages, in parking lots, and in several cases, behind chain-link fences up and down the street while teenagers and dogs scattered about your ankles. I got to see bits and pieces of bands as I tried to get a look at everything. However, I was a bit pissy cause they changed the times of some bands. Which meant I missed the Monolators set, which sucked, cause I've had their "You Look Good On the Train" song stuck on repeat in my head and I would have liked to have seen them again. Ah well.



So, let's talk about the mess that was parking and people who are inconsiderate and don't like to let you parallel park without trying to drive up into your trunk. Ugh. Had we just driven up all the way to Eagle Rock and Colorado, we probably would have seen the giant sign for the shuttle, but we didn't and ended up driving around for what seemed like at least 25 minutes until we found a spot far, far away. Walking down Colorado we could hear Bodies of Water starting their set and we began to sing along to I believe "These Are the Eyes", but I can't quite remember if that was it now or not. Not very long after we watched a couple bands we ended up at the Chalet for a couple drinks, so, you know- cloudy memory. Anyhoo, outdoor shows tend to have crappy sounding equipment, and such was the case tonight. Bodies of Water sounded, and looked, great, but the speakers were kinda crackly. In the background there was also playing the film "Westworld", although I'm not so cool to have figured this out for myself but had to be told what it was. Somehow the two meshed perfectly together. Anyone who reads this thing knows how much I like this band, however tonight we had to step away to catch up down the street with the Mormons.

So, I've been trying to catch a Mormons show for awhile now and I almost forgot they were playing tonight but remembered just in the nick of time. I've heard that this band puts on a show and is really fun to watch, and THEY WEAR HELMETS and have a whole uniform thing going on. And it so happened that every nice thing people have said about them is true. They play music that sits somewhere between Devo and Me First and the Gimmie Gimmies (who are a punk amalgam of a bunch of well known punk bands- oh and I guess minus the show tunes too), somewhere in that vein of punk music. There is a great stage presence to them, even if that stage is a parking lot outside a place called Panang. The lead singer jerks around the stage like a kid on too many pop rocks while the rest of the band looks they're at their happiest behind their respective instruments. Although, the one guy standing there with his arms crossed in the background-who was obviously one of the band due to the same stage uniform-was kinda intimidating looking, like he's the bully of the group. Although I think he pulled a t-shirt out of his backpack (yes, they wear backpacks too) so maybe he's just the mobile merch man, which would be kinda cool anyways.

It's funny though to take a band like this out of a club element and plop them down into a music festival like this where in front of me a five year old girl with a glow stick headband proceeded to dance harder and longer than any of the teenager punks. But I guess that could be said about many of the bands tonight. Music festival events always seem strange to me, and I think I'm glad they are pretty much all done for the season. I am very happy to be getting back into a club tonight, even if that increases the chances of beer getting spilled on me by about 1,000.