Then go watch some of these songs performed live at the Outpost tonight by the likes of Dick and Jane, Gabriel Hart (Jail Weddings), Bloody Death Skull, John Carpenter, Betty White, Olentangy John, Donna Suppipat (Tommy Santee Klaws), RT N The 44s, Sabrina Lawrie, Matt Taylor, Ghiant, Bikos, Chris Hajek, Alex Lilly (Touche), Chris Frias (Random Patterns), and MORE!

It was the LAST EVER JAIL WEDDINGS GIG (at least until the next one in a couple months)! And lordy, if I wasn’t at Harvard & Stone yet again. This place, for good or ill, douche lair or no, has been hosting some amazing bands lately—and their classy cocktails are pretty fucking solid too, cheaper than you’d find downtown at places like Cole’s, though still more expensive than most L.A. RECORD readers can afford. Luckily us L.A. RECORD writers have pens that make Benjamins, and we can afford as many Manhattans as we please. To paraphrase Steve Rubell of Studio 54, “Only the mafia makes more money!”

But I hadn’t had quite enough to drink to enjoy the Herbert Bail Orchestra, who started later than even Jail Weddings had been scheduled, and then played a set that seemed to slow down time itself, with songs that had great instrumentation (especially on the part of Andrew Katz, the accordionist/trombone boy) but nothing in the way of song craft.

That said, these guys do know how to start a set. Their first song was pretty good—and for about 30 seconds I pitied Jail Weddings, who would have to follow this band that even had a singer (Anthony Frattolillo) who sounded quite a bit like Jail Weddings’ Gabe Hart, but maybe even slightly stronger.

But there was a certain lack of bite, and by about the fourth song, even Frattolillo’s voice had receded from a glorious pub rock ripple into an ocean of 90s masculinity, somewhere closer to Stone Temple Pilots than to the speakeasy blues they seemed desperate to attempt. Or maybe they switched vocalists, I dunno—I had already drifted out to the smoke hole in back, where I stayed for the entire duration of my friends’ two cigarettes. When I came back, I was astonished to see the Herbert Bail Orchestra STILL PLAYING! Were they ever going to let Jail Weddings take the stage?

Eventually all nine members of Jail Weddings did get their chance, and I got my first chance to scope out their revamped 2012 lineup. Brian Waters had disappeared, but Jill-of-all-trades Jada Wagensomer was still up front as a backup/duet vocalist in a shimmery dress. And this time round, L.A. RECORD’s very own Kristina Benson was in the chorus line as well, along with Mary Animaux, newly of White Murder (her co-singer in that band, Hannah Blumenfeld, was across the stage playing violin).

God, is this band filthy with talented folks. Sometimes I get the feeling that there’s a secret collective going on, with members that rotate between Jail Weddings and Dante vs. Zombies and Raw Geronimo and Swahili Blonde and Johnny O’Donnell and White Murder, and that when “Jail Weddings” plays, it just means it’s Gabe Hart’s turn to conduct the collective.

And he was conducting, masterfully leading the charge even while swaggering around as if in a stupor. I suspect his drunkenness was faked, or at least exaggerated. The man hit all his queues on time, and was able to get his band to follow his lead on every song, even when he ended one song by groveling face down on the floor and didn’t get up in time for the next one. Every little move by the audience, or extra ounce of boogie by his band, was an excuse for ol’ Gabe to jump down off the stage and saunter amongst us. And when Luis Arriaga, i.e. Luis of the Wildfires, magically appeared in the audience, it brought down the house! Hart dedicated a song to him, and there was hugging and dancing and mirth that can only happen when you’re playing songs with names like “What Did You Do With My Gun?”

The gals’ harmonies were great, Wagensomer’s vocals being particularly lovely, and the show’s climax was punctuated by an audibly shattered glass right at the foot of the stage. Can’t wait till they come out of hibernation.

-D. M. Collins

WHITE MURDER
“Harold’s Place” 7”
Tru-Vow

This is a super-group made up of members from some already awesome bands: Jail Weddings, Death Hymn Number 9, the Red Onions, the Commotions, even This Moment in Black History!?! And maybe I’m just a sucker for the simplicity and the dueling female lead singers, but White Murder might just turn out to be better than all of them. Anchored by Mike D’Amico’s fucking solid basslines, singers Hannah Blumenfeld and Mary Animal are free to roam around the songs. Singing in unison, their feminine, insistent vocals are framed well by the guitars and drums, especially on the B-side, “The Tell-All,” where the somewhat inconsequential lyrics are rammed into submission with sheer volume. But I prefer “Harold’s Place,” where the vocals remind me of what Patty Donahue of the Waitresses might have gotten up to if she’d joined a Riot Grrrl band in the 90s instead of dying of cancer.

—D.M. Collins

Get a little appetizer by listening to the bands or watching some videos.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR--xZltoAE

Jail Weddings is making a video for each of the 13 songs on its album, Love Is Lawless. This first one was directed by Kyle Safieh and all the fancy editing comes from Ryan Andrus. Download the song for free here. “I Thought You Were Someone I Knew” makes us want to be drunk and kind of upset and confused about love. It goes well with their other one about the gun…

—Daiana Feuer

Nick Waterhouse and the Turn-Keys “Some Place”
(from “Some Place” 7″ out now on Pres)

FUCK YEAH TO THIS, I say with grateful gusto. Back with Ty Segall’s Epsilons down in Orange County, there was also Nick Waterhouse’s Intelligista,  high school kids from HB smashing out Animals-style maximum R&B. Intelligista broke up—college robs us again—but now Nick has a new band.  A-side “Some Place” is risen-from-the-crypt Savage Kick early ’60s R&B. Wild or Norton or Jail Weddings or Hanni el Khatib fans, get this now because it will roll you over and kick you down a hill. Prime Kings of Rhythm Ike Turner or Andre Williams vibe from note one, and Nick stomps in with a primal “W-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-l-l-l-l-l-l …” peeled off Lux and Ivy’s Favorites. It’s like nourishment and medicine at once: barely-there back-ups, honk-honk sax, a fall-down-the-back-stairs guitar solo and a single-finger piano line that pokes a hole in the back of your head. You’ve gotta be one kind of maniac to produce like this and a whole other kind to shout like this and an even more frightening kind to make the first two maniacs work together. Nick pulling this all off simultaneously means preternatural powers in play. B-side “That Place” is the instrumental, sounding here like something off a Cobra R&B 45. Side A for staying up till sunrise; side B for trying to get to sleep afterward. Killer 45.

—Chris Ziegler

Download: L.A. RECORD x DUBLAB HOLIDAY SPECTACULAR

Here are some behind the scenes pictures…

[View with PicLens]

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