Electric Children, White Flag Down, Demerit, Inazuma, Threeway, The Hi Z?s, Raul, Dirty Eyes, A Pretty Mess, Brainspoon, Ghetto Pussy, Million Kids, Sassafras, Gary 84, Caustic Cause, Symbol Six
The Redwood, Los Angeles, CA
Saturday, August 27, 2011
This show was supposed to be part of the Sunset Junction festival, a festival that has gone one every year for the past 34 to 35 years. At the last minute Los Angeles City Council vetoed the permits, thus cancelling the entire festival. Who can blame them right? In this economy who needs basic things like entertainment? Not only was it cancelled, it was cancelled just days before the start of the festival. Big surprise, as local government always goes out of its way to help the local citizens.
So Wednesday or Thursday prior to the show the information of Sunset Junction?s cancellation hits the web like a bomb. Aside from the Spark Plug Magazine show I?m about to review, there were hundreds of other bands that were left with their nuts swinging in the wind.
This might have happened if anybody else was organizing this thing, but Mr. Billy Caldwell (of Million Kids) Editor In Chief (aka HNIC) at Spark Plug Magazine decided that ?No show? didn?t mean shit to him. So he made some calls (and possibly some threats) and the show moved a few miles, but otherwise didn?t miss a beat.
When this show was first announced there were a couple of bands that I was interested in seeing right off the bat and they are: White Flag Down, Brainspoon, A Pretty Mess, Million Kids and the Los Angeles steamroller known as Symbol Six.
A few days before the show I find out my wife has a family baby shower that she already RSVP?d to. Way the hell out in Castaic Lake. Well, fuck me in the goat ass! So after a bit of poking around (like how I worked goat ass and poking around into the same paragraph?) I found out that Symbol Six wasn?t going on until 6:00. My wife?s baby shower starts at 12:00 and ends at 4:00. I?m starting to freak, do I take my 7-year-old or be a responsible dad and wait until she gets home? Well, I caved in and was responsible. An old friend from up north offered to car pool and wasn?t available to hit the show until 4:00ish. So I bug the wife and tell her to get back home before 4:00. She gets home at 3:45, I leave at 4:00 and luckily the show started an hour or two late, so I walk in catch A Pretty Mess starting their set.
Here?s the thing with A Pretty Mess, they are just a little bit screamyier than I normally care for, but vocalist/guitarist Dee Skusting is one of the most charismatic front people I?ve seen in a long time. I saw them back in January of 2011, and they are very polished and very professional. They?re going to be big.
Next band up was Brainspoon, with the always fun to watch Michelle Balderrama. Balderrama is the hottest female to pick up a guitar since I went through puberty watching Nancy Wilson of Heart. Brainspoon was tight and had a pretty cool 70?s rock vibe going.
Million Kids with Billy Caldwell came on after Brainspoon. I?ve seen Million Kids two other times and have to say each time they get better and better. This time was no different. Good stuff. Highlight of the show is their balls out version of Wild In The Streets and .Boom Goes The Bomb or Summertime from their new album Don?t Threaten Me with A Good Time!
Sassafras was next. Not my cup of tea just noise. Much like an ADD kid hopped up on sugar then shown where the pots and pans are kept.
Black Beverly Heels were a no show.
Gary 84 came on and did a decent set, nothing super, super memorable, but good.
Next up were Barrio Tiger who did a real good tight set, and then Caustic Cause. Remember how I mention the ADD kid? Well, Caustic Cause is an ADHD kid.
Doggystyle was supposed to play, but the rumor floating around was the singer and bass player beat the hell out of each other and canceled their appearance. Oh well.
Almost a year to the date, give or take a week, was the first time I ever saw Symbol Six live (September 3, 2010). It just so happens to be the same exact venue. And It just so happens that ended up being the twelfth time I?ve seen them in the past year (you do the math).
To say Symbol Six gets better every time I see them would be putting it lightly. To put it bluntly, they don?t belong in clubs. They?ve outgrown most of the venues in L.A. Where do I predict the next step on the musical cog for them? I?m not sure, but over the years I?ve seen many bands from the early Los Angles punk scene come back and many of them are just decent nostalgia acts. As nostalgia bands they are no longer, truly, functioning. No new material, no nothing other than collecting, sometimes, a bigger paycheck than they did the first time around.
The sad thing is some of these original L.A. punk bands are not the original band, everyone is dead and the new drummer is the third cousin of the second drummer. It?s sad, but the younger generation getting into punk doesn?t know the details, they download some ?obscure? single and go see the band and they?re happy.
The huge difference with Symbol Six is the music. Shortly after they came back, they wrote twenty or thirty new tracks, recorded a new album and after a year of seeing them I still haven?t heard all of their music.
At this particular show there were two or three kids that were going ape-shit from the second Symbol Six struck their first chord. Then they went into a, previously mentioned, unreleased song called Viva and the crow lost their shit. If you were in the front of the stage you were either slamming or you got slammed into. It was wild. Billy Caldwell did some fine slamming with the crowd, made my old-ass consider jumping in for a minute.
The dual guitar assault of Taz Rudd and Mark Conway is like the punk rock equivalent of K. K. Downing and Glenn Tipton, just a complete wall of noise. Now, never make light of Symbol Six?s rhythm section. Phil George on drums is amazing, he has to be one of the best drummers I?ve ever seen. And keeping that back-rhythm tight with Phil is bassist Evan Shanks (no not a prison reference). Last, but not least is Eric Leach, man of a hundred voices. You think you know a singers capabilities after seeing them so many times, but I heard a snippet of a new recording Symbol Six is doing and honestly, it sounds like a different guy.
The show got started a bit late so by the time Symbol Six was done it was close to 9:00. Kind of funny, considering I?m usually arriving at clubs at around 9:00.
If you were there you had fun, if you weren?t there ? you wish you were.
Only regret was I missed White Flag Down. I?m bound to catch them soon.
Source: http://strangereaction.com/2011/09/16/pirate-palooza/
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