I wound up at the Echoplex instead, getting the joy of seeing one of L.A.’s wondrous little surprises, He’s My Brother, She’s My Sister. Cali country is something I love with the fervor of a late convert, since even Buck Owens was little more than some jackass on TV until I moved my Dixie-fried ears out here for an accidental steeping in the Bakersfield Sound and its many variants. Robert Kolar and Felipe Ceballos from tough indie wide-boys Lemon Sun contribute heavily to Brother/Sister, with the whole, shifting, multi-piece concatenation in the great line of Gram Rabbit and the Parson Red Heads in the insistence on coupling the High with the Lonesome.

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Elaine’s Hella Hipster Hoedown has become a welcome quarterly distraction—I’d be happy if she staged one every weekend. An indie-rock barn dance held the first Saturday this month at Pehrspace in hella non-bucolic South Echo Park, this happening was packed to the paint with veal-eyed darlings of the Eastside rock scene. I could scarce wedge my lean geezer’s carcass into the room, much less commandeer one of the authentic hay bales strewn about the room as bovine bric-a-brac, so I tarried outside and talked to the hostess. Being a Dixie lady herself, she was pretty impressed to meet a (half) authentic Tazewell Co., VA, hillbilly and I found myself unaccustomedly bashful. (About in the only other social advantage my heritage is usually good for is informing the occasional obnoxious fuck he owns a real purdy mouf’ with just the right inflection, so this kind of approval is unusual.)

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