Waterhouse has been on this planet for a mere 25 years but his homage to vintage soul feels like that of a lively octogenarian. He has gone the fully monty with his tribute that feels mostly authentic, even coming from a Southern California white boy. That said, Waterhouse may at times be a little stiff (this writer chalks it up to humility) and seems to not quite fit into his tailored suit.

Surrounded by a packed stage, any lack of rock lawlessness, however, was salvaged by the nine fun-times having band members, especially Waterhouse’ female back-up vocalists, who shimmied and shook the vibes till they all got loose.

Waterhouse and gang hit their stride on “Some Place,” from the May 1, 2012, Innovative Leisure release, Times All Gone. The packed venue rumbled with bouncing heads and adulation. Couples in plaid made space to dance to the final moments of the crooner’s set, where he took a brief, humble bow and snuck off back stage. The show’s last quarter was its peak where Waterhouse and crew had just gained momentum.

—Angel Baker

official video “Some Place”

OFF!’s record release party at the historic Whisky A Go Go could not have been better placed. Frontman Keith Morris’ (initially of Black Flag and Circle Jerks fame) uncle-like story telling of shows he saw in the ’70s, and times he got drunk with other hardcore legends and rolled dumpsters down hills, fit perfectly in the packed house of early punk rock. The venue is a home to history and where history this night was made.

Following Morris’ brief opening remarks, OFF! unleashed an all out frenzy. Old school punk was resurrected. Faces smiled ear to ear before some went nuts in the pit or floated to get a closer glimpse or a high five from one of the guys on stage. Dudes in hoodies hollered “Mario Speedwagon!” to drummer, Mario Rubalcaba, and “PUNK ROCK!” to anyone who would listen, getting laughs from the band, whose 17 songs melted faces.

In response to the adulation, Morris joked, “Do you really consider us a punk rock band? I’m just a member of the human race, and I’m really pissed off. Can’t a guy just play really hardcore fast paced-music?” Naturally, the predominantly all dude audience proclaimed, “YES!” and OFF! was back at it with more loud, hardcore, punk rock.

The 40 minute set included four new songs from the Vice Records May 8, 2012, release, and at least one broken nose from a nasty spill in the pit. Writer plea: Do NOT miss a live OFF! show if you can help it.

—Angel Baker

Official Video for  “Wiped Out”

Openers Turbo Fruits, which is ex-Be Your Own Pet’s guitarist-now-frontman Jonas Stein, rocked fast and heavy. The song “Mama’s Mad Cos I Fried My Brain” from the band’s first 7-inch had every member and some of the crowd belting out the “whoa-oh-oh” chorus that steadily brought more people to the front, interested in the four-piece from Nashville.

Proud residents of the state of Rhode Island, Deer Tick started its set with a few tracks off its newest album Divine Providence.

Deer Tick’s sound comes from a vast array of influences and as each member of the band took a turn singing, different musical genres were introduced—if only for a song. On “Main Street,” which is a slow blast of alt-country, blues and rock ‘n’ roll, you can almost see the Black Lips lighting the fuse to that song, mischievously hiding in the wings of the theater.

After a song with a gratuitous saxophone solo, main Tick John McCauley slowed down the evening with a few solo acoustic songs, including a cover of Warren Zevon’s “Carmelita” sung in the key of Dwight Yokam. It’s a song that would make Elliot Smith cry, about a man strung out on heroin in Echo Park.

Next, Deer Tick kicked-it by bringing the Turbo Fruits onstage for “(You Gotta) Fight for your Right (To Party),” a tribute to MCA, who passed away Friday. In a gesture of hip-hop solidarity, he even poured out some beer on the stage.

As the crowd’s cheers increased, Deer Tick reciprocated with its single “Miss K” and then a fairly standard yet timely rendition of “La Bamba.” Last but not least the band played a Dropkick Murphys-esque anthem, “Let’s All Go to the Bar,” which brought the members of Turbo Fruits back onstage with a bottle of whiskey. It was time to party.

—Dan Shapiro

The much-deserved hype for the self-proclaimed skate rat from San Francisco comes on the tail end of a whirlwind road to increasing fame. His name became all the buzz before his first record was even released less than a year ago. The reason for the buzz: his music is tight. It’s tight in all senses of the word. His songs are direct, straightforward, to the point. His first record runs a quick 35 minutes. And his live performances are, without hyperbole, downright bananas.

The kick-off show to the Highway Man Tour was no different. The singer added a keyboard to what had been a simple singer-drummer duo, and the effect gave HEK a rounder feel to his typically stark and raw air. Not that the addition of a third member to the outfit made the show any less real. HEK and crew shell out seriously sweaty, low cuts with grimy, alley cat authority.

HEK gave us 12 of the dirtiest, whiskey-laden songs we’ve seen in a minute. He’s steadily growing more and more polished (vocally, especially) but his passion and force continue to be ruthless. Highlights were the Funkadelic cover, “I Got A Thing,” and the super Sabbath sound-alike, “F*ck It. You Win.”

—Angel Baker

NSFW:

Killer whales and stenciled birds (Portlandia would be proud) moved with Oliver Newell’s painted upright bass, as he kicked a sparkling bass drum behind him that matched his rainbow converse shoes. The locomotive percussion was reinforced by tap-dancing drummer Lauren Brown, who played the drums with all her limbs like a rock n’ roll Fred Astaire atop a bass drum on its side. Cellist (and Scott Pilgrim VS The World cast member) Satya Bhabha also joined the band on a few songs, weaving his silky strings into the swaying sound.

As the moon rose along with the bar tabs, the audience became more and more a part of the band, as they clapped, sang, shouted and counted off with Rachel and Robert—one girl even held up a lighter. As Aaron Robinson sipped on a straw through his giraffe mask, he commented on the liquid sociability: “It’s almost cocktail hour!” After the encore of Velvet Underground’s “What Goes On,” the band packed up their gear in bags and vintage suitcases and lingered to converse with friends and fans.

—Shannon Cosgrove

Perched on a stage-within-a-stage that looked like a pile of old luggage, Allen’s cavalry was made up of the sort of dusty older gentlemen you see on stoops or in parks, waving canes at each others’ chess moves. Throughout the night they whispered among themselves, shared lead vocal duties and switched instruments like they’d known each other for millions of years. Everything between them was gentle and funny, completely in sync—it was only the audience, at points, that seemed out of place. The band had no set lists—when a song ended, the banjo player would usually bark out another one and it would launch without fanfare. Allen often appeared sullen, pensive, but every time he played, especially during the bouncier clarinet solos, he knocked it out of the park. Over the course of two hours, the inflections of the band’s calls-and-responses started to sound like punchlines to private jokes. This, and the wistful, studied nostalgia that’s part of Allen’s  stock-in-trade, resulted in a performance characterized by effortless charm. It was a nice contrast to Allen’s persona, which also banks on formidable charm, but the sort that’s enhanced by the weight of the perceived effort—deliberately clumsy, painfully self-aware—that he pours into it.

Songs like “Swinging On A Star” and “Slow Boat To China” amped the charm up to a comical degree. Long before the encores, large crowds left their seats to press against the stage. The band looked bewildered, but happy enough. I was hoping to hear them take a crack at “Dippermouth Blues” (a.k.a. “Sugarfoot Stomp”) tonight, a 1923 smash by King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band. It is mischievous and delighted with itself like no other song, and in its insistent, unapologetic, joy it sums up the genre nicely. There are about 40 versions of it you can hear on Spotify right now—the best is arguably by Fletcher Henderson and Rex Stewart, but the sweetest is the version Allen and company released on the soundtrack to Wild Man Blues, the 1997 documentary that provided a window into his musical compulsions.

Partly because we were a stone’s throw from Hollywood, it was interesting to see a person do something creative purely for the pleasure of it. When a creative pursuit is generated from pleasure and the result objectively sucks, the pursuit is usually called self-indulgent. But when the result gives pleasure to others, the pursuit is a rare, generous thing. Allen is 76. His last film grossed over $50 million. He doesn’t seem too thrilled to be around a lot of humans, with their pointy haircuts and phone cameras probably stabbing his personal space all the damn time. He does not need to leave the house. But he likes to play. He likes to spread the word about this lovely thing. There’s tremendous pleasure to mine in New Orleans Jazz, if tonight was any proof. At least a few thousand more people know about it now, because this codgery icon tossed it into their heads. That first set of applause might have been for Allen’s films, but the last, to his credit, was for his music. 

—Amalia Levari (words + photo)

Like much of DeLong’s output, “Happy” is a paradox in and of itself. This is melodic pop EDM that really makes you want to dance yet there lurks a sense of melancholy, not at the edges but deep in the bass and in lyrics like, “I see everything quite clear … I see life outside of time, but I don’t feel it.” DeLong’s version of dance music is far subtler than even your most club-hardened DJ might imagine; to say there are “multiple layers” would be an understatement comparable to saying that three or four months ago there were “a few” Republican candidates running for president. When he’s belting out the refrain “Yeah, we’re gonna die!” in “Basically, I” the music is swelling and any number of loops he’s set in motion are all coming together at one time, and everyone on the floor is dancing ecstatically, certainly not gazing down at their feet in a morose sense of apathy.

Having been at his month-long Monday night residency at Los Globos a couple times, I’d say it’s well worth the effort to catch his live act, and soon. Besides being a solid drummer playing at Modest Mouse levels of complexity, DeLong isn’t that guy sitting in the glow of his laptop. He’s the guy dancing around stage among three laptops, a couple MIDI-interfaces and drum pads, several pedals, a number of mics plugged into different inputs, a couple Wii-remote and Sega controllers, and oh yeah the full drum-kit he rocks out on. This is the music you want to hear when you hit the club, the music people 10+ years younger than me maybe haven’t heard of yet, but will be dancing to in the coming weeks and months.

—Mathew Timmons

Many folks have been following Milagres’ music since its members were prescient zygotes, so hearing the output of this latest incarnation has been especially exciting, because it follows some weird paradigm shifts in their approach to rocking out. The harmony-rich, orchestral quality suggested in previous releases now anchors their sound, which is a way to say, maybe, that they’re having fun up there, and making something pretty without sacrificing gravity or density. It’s never a surprise when a band’s sensibility coheres after years of playing together, but Milagres have gone a step further. They’ve coagulated into something seamless and vital.

The audience experienced some lovely collective vertigo during a reverb-chamber cover of Tom Petty’s adaptation of Alice in Wonderland, a.k.a. Don’t Come Around Here No More, which I’d post here if I could extract video from my brain. What Milagres has done (which only occurred once, I bet, in the brilliantly warped Japanese movie Funky Forest: First Contact) is set to music the precise feeling of sinking into a mossy clearing in the woods at 4 a.m., on purpose. It’s their ability to evoke something so specific that makes me curious to listen in on any future result of their promising evolution.

—Amalia Levari

The Drums

It was a full house at the Echoplex. A large ‘Drums’ banner hung on the stage. The excitement rose before the show even began, as loud new wave sounds bumped on the speakers. People had already set up shop at the front. I took my place and prepared for  fast drum beats and sexy bass.

Superhumanoids featured accompaniment from drummer Darren Weiss, who recently drummed for both Papa and Girls on tour. His drums fit in perfectly with loud guitar, complimentary keys, droned out bass, and solid vocals. The band transitioned perfectly between new wave, pop, and gunge sounds. When Sarah sang, she performed with an effortless voice and touch of her keys simultaneously. This revved up the audience for a night filled with songs we won’t be able to kick out of our heads for weeks.

Superhumanoids

Io Echo sounded like new wave Jefferson Airplane mixed with garage Annie Lennox. They dedicated their Palm Prix famed commercial song “Doorway” to Jonny, and it sounded fantastically loud. Singer Ioanna Gika playfully shook her voice similarly to the way Grace Slick does. Guitarist Leopold Ross is modestly multi-talented, and he has accompanied a shit ton of bands and films musically. Io Echo previously opened for famed acts Florence & the Machine and The Big Pink, and has once again snagged a great gig, touring with the Drums.

Io Echo

The Drums bounced on stage with a wildly passionate crowd shouting for them. I was pleased to hear many tracks off the Drums’ new album, Portamento, and a few hits from Summertime. The new album is much less poppy and happy compared to the first. The songs are unique unto themselves but yet fit in with 80′s bands like New Order and Smiths.—like “Money,” probably the most listened-to song off the new album, which  made the audience jump and sing crazily. I was ecstatic to hear “I Need A Doctor,” a song that describes nearly every relationship with the lyrics, “But you torture me, and you ruin me, I need a doctor, you know I love you, but I wanna kill you.” Singing along passionately to this song is almost therapeutic. The band introduced its next song as one that they hadn’t played in a long time. “I Felt Stupid” reminded us how much the Drums have grown with the new album. It sounded amazing, but it had much less depth and maturity than the new songs from Portamento. The Drums’ sophomore album has been getting harsh press, but the energetic fans filling the Echoplex would back me when I say that the band’s sound has matured, and there are much more keepers on this album rather than just “Let’s Go Surfing.” Jonny appreciated that the audience stayed late on a Tuesday night. The way people screamed for an encore revealed they were far from tired.

—Alyssa Holland (words + photo)