L.A. RECORD » evan way

LEARNING MUSIC + FORT WIFE + EVAN WAY + BEERS AND BRATS AT BEDROCKTOBERFEST THIS AFTERNOON!

lar_import — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 19:26:15 +0000

We’ll be installed in the lobby of the brand-new Bedrock L.A. rehearsal and recording studio—home of the prototype Echoplex, one of John Lee Hooker’s guitars, vocal mics used by Bowie and a whole arsenal of insane vintage equipment—this afternoon, so come say hi if you’re going and go if you’re not already going! Learning Music, Evan Way (from Parson Redheads) and Fort Wife (with Avi Buffalo) will all be performing. And it’s free if you RSVP’d to rsvp@bedrockla.com! Bedrock is located at 1623 Alessandro which is near Glendale and Alvarado in Echo Park. Map here and more info here and hope to see you soon!

CONTEST: WIN A DIXON SNARE DRUM + MORE FROM BEDROCK!

lar_import — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 23:42:47 +0000

The folks at Bedrock—Echo Park’s newest rehearsal and recording studio and soon-to-be newest microbrewery!—have given us a brand new Dixon snare plus four Dixon t-shirts and four VIP passes to the Bedrock grand opening on Sunday, October 25! A lot of L.A. RECORD friends are helping out with this event, like IS GOOD radio and the folks from Learning Music, who will be performing along Fort Wife (with Avi Buffalo) and Evan Way from Parson Redheads.

If you’d like to enter to win—we’ll do a random drawing the day of the event!—just email us with the subject SNARE at fortherecord [at] larecord.com. If you’d just like to buy a Dixon snare, Bedrock is the exclusive L.A. dealer.

If you’d just like to attend Bedrock’s opening, which like a good Octoberfest—or in this case a Bedrocktoberfest—will have beer and sausages, just email rsvp [at] bedrockla.com. It’s free and you get a +1, too!

You can claim your new snare and sausages at Bedrock that Sunday, and they will be taking photos of you with the snare and the sausages if you would like them in the photo too. And there are coupons for guitar or bass repair and rehearsal at Bedrock in this month’s L.A. RECORD. For more information, visit Bedrock at bedrockla.com and best of luck!

J TILLMAN @ THE ECHO

lar_import — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 18:54:47 +0000

J Tillman’s everything you’d expect from a Fleet Foxes solo effort: a haunting voice, harmony-rich breakdowns, and quite an impressive hirsute face. He toured on his own for several years before joining the Foxes later in their recordings to play drums, but Tillman’s music had already felt like a natural extension of their Americana aesthetic. His is a more ’70s Neil Young-centric, introspective folk rock, one that’s musical vocabulary is just as expanding and all-inclusive as his better known group. A towering presence on stage, it was hard not to hang onto every note he sung and the somber lyrics they carried forth. One appreciated the Echo for finally living up to its name with Tillman’s seasoned voice filling up the entire room and the walls sending its best approximation back to our grateful ears. And what a voice, an uncanny combination of Jason Molina and Will Oldham’s vocal timbres, it’s probably at its most effective when Tillman would simply, wordlessly hum. Maybe it was all that hair covering his face that made some of his cries resound like a lone wolf howling in the darkness. Whatever it was, not a one spoke a word during such intimate moments. Most of the material revolved around slow tempo, forlorn ballads, which might not be the best choice in keeping an audience up past the midnight hour. Still, hiding underneath these songs was a slow-burning tension that threatened to break through. Tillman’s rhythm section made certain to accent this, the drummer practically chomping at the bit, crashing and thundering on skins and cymbals even at a snail’s pace, while the bassist’s rumblings provided a nice counterpoint to the frontman’s soft strumming and wandering words. Every once in a while the band gave right into this musical force they’d been holding back, and like first rain falling on a desert, Tillman would pick up a tambourine with the apparent intent of smashing it to pieces while the band let loose a storm of frenzied energy. Evan Way of Parson Redheads played the slot before, his band playing easily likable, upbeat folk songs in a Dylan vein. He seemed as excited to see the headliner as all of us were, settling into the crowd as soon as he was done to get a good view of the show.

—Greg Garabedian