Dan Deacon. Photos by Amy Darling.

For the 6^th anniversary of Sean Carnage Mondays, the crowd was the most packed I’d ever witnessed at Pehrspace, with lines circling the parking lot and some people waiting for hours to get in for a taste of special guests Dan Deacon and Future Islands. While it was great to see so many new faces, I have to admit relief at the sight of all of the regulars in the crowd, the people who week after week return to Pehrspace loyally on Monday nights for the eclectic and exciting programming that is Sean Carnage Mondays. The “TGIMers.” Even self-appointed announcer Karen Centerfold managed her way in somehow, but tonight Val Kilmer was the guest host, interacting with DJ Kyle Mabson’s mix of television themes and Tim Allen grunt samples. Jon Barba emerged on the stage bedecked in a silvery cobweb cape for a homecoming set, having established himself musically as “Nicole Kidman” among smaller crowds at Pehrspace and similar D.I.Y. venues over the years. Kevin Greenspon joined Barba on stage with guitar on Southpaw, and finale track Thirst for God, a dancey, biblically based track from Jon’s days of attempting to woo a Jehovah’s Witness. The first time I saw Lucky Dragons I half-expected a fawn to prance into the room and nibble from the stage, and I’ve felt that way at nearly every subsequent performance, tonight’s being no exception. It really is just that magical. With a slow build on a rhythmic journey composed on laptops, employing heavily reverberated vocals in a way that is vaguely tribal and raw.

Before Future Islands took the stage Mr. Kilmer led everyone in a chant of what I think may have been “pancake warp state,” at least that’s what the people next to me were chanting. Future Islands have been quickly gaining traction with powerful emotional performances highlighted by vocalist Sam Herring, alternating between a melodic soulful tone and Danzig-esque growls and howls. They treated the audience to some new tracks as part of a tight set driven by heavy bass lines complementing synthesized beats that occasionally veer into tropical territory. Dan Deacon took to the stage with a green flashing skull light display, and a computerized chipmunk falsetto, bursting into a high energy set like a demented children’s chorus. Deacon led the crowd through a variety of exercises, Jurassic Park vs. Big (the movie) dance contests, and a cathartic head touching interaction, all culminating in a “Wham City!” sing-a-long. Of course, no Sean Carnage Monday would be complete without the subsequent Kyle Mabson-led dance party to a variety of pop jams from the 90s onward, mixed with post-ironic nümetal riffs. Emerging from the space, steam rolling off of my shoulders, my fingers were pruned as though I’d been bathing for hours, and indeed I had been. Bathing in sweat, and filth , and pure joy.

For more on Sean Carnage Mondays please visit www.seancarnage.com

-Walt! Gorecki

[View with PicLens]

The 2nd annual Folktale Fest, and the triumphant return of Sean Carnage Monday nights at Pehrspace after a very brief hiatus, made for a packed crowd on a warm summer night. As I entered I found Sacramento performance artist/musician Mom dancing away, half-clothed and squeaking in a cutesy pitch-modified falsetto to novelty type music in a classic Mouseketeer hat. Surrounded by streamers and balloons and dim red lighting the whole experience was very surreal. Mom has a reputation for being quite messy (think blood, urine, and cake) but she toned it down to simply rubbing squids on the audience and covering herself with milk while a giant man-baby breastfed from her in what seemed like an animatronic Disney tableau gone awry. Next up Knight Rider took to the stage with dreamy synth-pop that devolved into creepy Lynchian territory at times, but was unfortunately cut short due to some technical difficulties. Thundersnail played an epicly haunted set involving a Chinese dulcimer, which just might be one of the most beautiful instruments I’ve ever seen. Folktale Records’ founder Chris Payne followed as Whitman, this time backed by a cavalcade of local musicians–former Mae Shi members Ezra Buchla and Corey Fogel on viola and percussion respectively, and Rich Seymour of Clark 8 on cello. Even with that full of a band, Whitman maintained a very sparse, personal sound with a power that packed the room. LA expatriate Jon Barba (formerly known as Nicole Kidman whilst performing) followed up with a set that alternated between upbeat keyboard tracks and completely acoustic guitar performances. A natural performer who manages to transfer his own awkwardness and vulnerability into something that can command devoted silence from the most raucous crowds, Jon’s power as a musician only increases over time. Finally the monstrous Bay Area free-jazz-meets-noise-punk quintet No Babies kicked into a set that rivaled their already infamously epic live performances culminating in a feverish mosh pit that had a new year’s feel as people ripped apart the streamers and popped the balloons prior to the closing soundblast, “Be the Best.” Of course a Monday night at Pehrspace wouldn’t be complete without a dance party to a set of DJ Kyle Mabson playing pop jams and 90s guilty pleasures. If tonight is any evidence, Folktale Records seems to be successfully establishing a new auditory narrative based not on genre but on context and personal expression.

-Walt! Gorecki

—Daiana Feuer

SHLOHMO, BIRTHDAYS, EMPEROR X, NICOLE KIDMAN, VACATION DAD, BACK TO THE FUTURE THE RIDE, TRUMAN PEYOTE, CRAFT SPELLS, EMILY REO, JEANS WILDER, M31, AND GHOST ANIMAL ON SUNDAY DEC. 26TH AT BACCHUS, 4159 WEST PICO BOULEVARD, LOS ANGELES. 4:00PM/ $5/ ALL AGES.

Girlhouse illustration by Morgan Lee Gerstmar

DREW DENNY

Midway through the night, I was wandering around Girlhouse when I heard a noise behind one of the girls’ doors. I impishly cracked it open and saw Drew and Morgan with their backs turned, rehearsing a song. The haunting melody seemed to seal them off from the rest of the party, blowing a bubble around them, like the bubbles they’d blown around Geoff Geis earlier in the night as he sang the love-sick ballads of his youth. I closed the door again without being noticed.

 Minutes later, Drew opened the door and invited everyone in. It was a relief to see the room that had felt that lonely music fill up. Luckily, I got a great seat on Drew’s bed with about ten other people (and the rest sat on the floor) because I don’t think the whole party was able to fit inside. The twilight blue color of Drew’s walls and her green plants were a soothing contrast to the Obama porn collages and strobing Christmas lights in the living room. 

Drew wore a vibrant orange dress and a hat that made her look Russian (but I’m not a clothes expert). She apologized for her first song, saying it was the first song she’d ever written. But it was pretty and dreamy, and no one would have ever guessed that. We only felt more privileged to be sitting in her room listening to it. She sang into the mouth of a stuffed pink unicorn with golden wings that hid her microphone. 

The second song was the one I’d heard before, a new Big Whup song called “No Mommy,” with that optimistic yet fragile melody. Morgan played slow notes and plucked her viola, holding onto the emotion. Then Drew’s keyboard picked up with this groovy Charlie Brown jazz riff that was fun and came out of nowhere.

For the last song, Drew requested that the lights be turned off and sang alone. It made the crowd invisible, and gave me that eerie feeling of being alone with the music again. When the lights came back on, and she sincerely thanked everyone for listening, I understood why.

—Pablo Capra, Brass Tacks Press

LOLA LOSHKEY

This was the first party of the cold season, and everything seemed darker than normal. A strange feeling of sickness permeated the house (thanks Whitman!).  The performers all played sad and honest music, and one even broke down violently while playing. Porchfest II was, above all else, a celebration of epic catharsis. And at the end of it all, in the smallest bedroom of the house, Lola Loshkey sucked all of that palpable emotion out of the air and spit a bizarre and distilled version of it back at us—a total throbbing mess, collecting all the little pieces of the night and reconfiguring them into a terrifying and alluring package. Mixing burlesque fantasy with energetic self-flagellation, the singing skeleton writhed on the bed and humped a pink pegasus while yelping and muttering through a phaser pedal. Sitting below the singer, a saw-playing skeleton kept her head fixed at a creepy forty-five degree angle—providing a eerily still counterpoint to her flailing compatriot. Sonically, they created a weird whirring soup of gibberish.

It’s easy to dismiss avant-noise as a tired genre. Most of the time it seems like a pointless exercise, made lazily by uninspired people. But Lola Loshkey has the proper sense of spectacle. More importantly, they have the proper sense of purpose. As stark and punishing as they are, they’re also deeply humorous and hopeful. Near the end of their ten-minute orgasm of improvisation, the singing skeleton got really low to the bed and broke down laughing. That was the best part.

—Geoff Geis

NICOLE KIDMAN

His fingers were tarantulas deciding whether they’d walk out of the shadows or stay in the dark kicking the dirt, watching dust collect on their shoes. Nicole Kidman is one man on giant old keyboard. His voice cracks as it climbs a glass staircase out of his throat. Suffering sums it up, but there’s more to disarm and put back together. When he stopped playing, pushed his hair from his face, shuffled his feet, and yanked on his jacket—it seemed the whole room wanted to hold him, make him feel better. He asked for money for his tour, people gave him money. Shoot, I even bought a shirt, which I then lost somewhere in Girlhouse (rumors claim it’s still there…). His unique fragile power pulls heartstrings and makes you want to reassure him kindly, and, by default, might reinvigorate your own faith—or at least makes you a caring liar.

—Daiana Feuer

Download: Sean Carnage’s Mondays mega-mix

(full tracklist with liner notes here!)

Sean Carnage has done so much for L.A. music that there had to be a movie made to help document it—40 Bands 80 Minutes!, now recognizable as early home to much of the most vital actives still performing in the city. He’ll be celebrating four years of DIY shows (across six venues!) all this month at Women during his traditional Monday night residencies, and he’ll have the official Sean Carnage birthdayversary spectacular on July 27. This interview by Drew Denny.

The first time I attended a Sean Carnage night was at Il Corral—Is that where it all began?
That’s cool that you were there! Il Corral was really special, and that’s where Monday Nights began—on August 1st, 2005. I covered the back story of the Il Corral and the atmosphere of the times in my movie 40 Bands 80 Minutes!, so I’d recommend checking that out. Il Corral was everything a Rust Belt kid like me hoped California would be—wild (but still innocent) punk rock fun. Stane (Il Corral co-founder) installed a rope swing in the music area, so that gives you an idea of the venue’s play zone atmosphere. I was really lucky to be able to host shows there. A high proportion of the performers who played there were bona fide geniuses, and for once in my life, I realized what was going down as it was happening and turned on the video camera. People doubted my selection of performers for 40 Bands 80 Minutes! when it came out over two years ago. (Including L.A. RECORD—LOL!) [LOL @ us—ed.] But damn near every person who appears on the screen in my movie has gone on to do important stuff. The Los Angeles artistic and musical community is something to be proud of.
How did you get started?
I love underground music as a style and as a craft, and I had been involved as a musician, promoter, writer and fan for about thirteen years in Cleveland, Ohio. I moved to L.A. to retire, but couldn’t shake the music. So I started booking again after taking about three years off.
Did you know when you began that it would last this long and be so loved?
Derek Hess did Mondays at the Euclid Tavern for 8 years. Speak In Tongues also lasted 8 years. I knew if I could bring regularly scheduled music into the D.I.Y. and all-ages realm, it would work.
What was Speak in Tongues? I’m researching Pentecostalism and speaking in tongues for my thesis right now, so I have to ask…
Speak In Tongues—and the guys who lived there—changed my life. It was all-ages D.I.Y. for eight years—an amazing run. I learned that you don’t need to do shows in bars. You can strip away another layer of mediation and do it yourself. Not an original concept, but it was new for me in the mid and late 1990s, and it informs everything I’ve aspired to since. (SIT hibernates at speakintongues.com)
It seems that at any location—Il Corral, Pehrspace, the Smell—you create a space that fosters a family of bands that might not have otherwise had any place to play, or at least not any other place where they’d feel quite so at home. Was this always a goal of yours?
I was seeing a ton of excellent shows around L.A. in the early 2000s and that was tremendously inspiring. So I just started asking bands if they wanted to play my night. All the attendees of those initial Mondays were way turned on by the energy of it all. When we moved to Pehrspace in 2007, it only got better.
Which bands did you start out with?
The first show was Haircut Mountain Transit, FM Bats, Buko, Ugly Shyla, Szandora… and Jell-O shots. Jon San Nicolas and my boyfriend at that time, Richmond Tan, helped me so much. We were noisy and gay right from the start! Now Mikhai Tran helps me tons with the shows—taking photos and weaving our distinctive bracelets, which are unique for every show.
How political is your programming process? By that I mean, how much—if at all—do you concern yourself with representing or attracting a certain group?
A lot of the people behind Mondays’ success are gay, and I’m proud of that. It’s emblematic of a new non-political phase of the gay rights movement. Young people can now be themselves and not worry what people think about their sexuality. That said, I bring up sexual orientation because with the passing of Prop 8, we still have so far to go. I suppose this is preaching to the choir—musicians are usually pretty progressive—but Mondays have been my modest way of saying ‘we’re here, we’re queer,’ and building something positive and constructive that every music fan can enjoy.
Is there is a unifying factor among the Sean Carnage bands—in terms of genre, style, or scene? If not, what is it that you consider when choosing bands to book?
I’m looking for the best music. I don’t pay particular attention to style. I listen more for general musicality. And the execution is important. I really cherish the Monday audiences so I am always trying to find new ways to thrill them. What’s nice is that most of the bands are already friends, but because they operate in different areas of the music scene, my shows bring them together—often for the first time. The other unifying factor is the between-sets music of Kyle H. Mabson. Kyle’s become my partner in the shows since I met him fall of 2005. I feel like Kyle’s really changed how underground music is experienced. He brings the dance party and that amps everything up.
Who are some of your favorites right now?
I love the new Amazements album. I like American Gil and the Major Dudes a lot. Certain performers like Billygoat, Birth!, D. Bene Tleilax, I.E., Whitman, Nicole Kidman, Moment Trigger… they’re all Monday superstars.
My best friend and band-mate, Geoff—Pizza! and Big Whup—and I just made a compilation that includes tracks from both American Gil and Nicole Kidman. We love them! What is it about those Inland Empire kids that makes them so amazing?
Haha—good question! It astounds and humbles me the people from the I.E. drive so far to attend shows like mine. I don’t 100% understand the local culture there, but I’ve always gotten a good feeling from both the music and the personalities of the Inland Empire folks. Maybe there’s something about living in the 909 that is similar to living along Lake Erie? I’ve always related to people with backgrounds that are similar to mine, but for lack of scientific evidence, I can’t really say much else except: I like what I hear.
Tell me the craziest-best-worst-funniest-most-miraculous-most-tragic Sean Carnage night story. Please?
This past Monday, people were freaking and beating each other with pool noodles on Women’s front lawn for 20 minutes after the music ended—that was pretty crazy!
I heard the police came a few weeks back and threatened to shut down Pehrspace—have there been any recent developments in that story?
I don’t have anything new to report, but Pehr is continuing to host a small number of weekend shows, so please support them every chance you get.
How are you getting by in the meantime?
I’m proud to be hosting at Women. They’ve given me the space to do some really ambitious programming, like the four-week 60 Watt Kid residency in July which features a ton of new bands.
Is there anything we—as Sean Carnage and Pehrspace fans—can do to help in this struggle?
No matter what venue you see live music at, be mindful of the neighbors when you are outside the space. It’s hard—I’m trying to inspire people to be free, but on the street you have to be low key.
What will you do if you can’t continue booking there?
I’ve been lucky to have done Mondays at Il Corral, Pehrspace, the Smell, Zamakibo, House of Vermont and Women, so if I have to find a new home I will. I figure that after 200+ shows in a row, I’ve earned some vacation. So I’m taking this August off to prepare the new Monday home and I’ll be back the first Monday in September.
Sounds like a good plan… And finally, I’d like to say CONGRATULATIONS! What are you doing to celebrate your anniversary?!
On Monday, July 27th I am hosting some truly amazing bands—60 Watt Kid, Shirley Rolls, the Seizure, Mikki and the Mauses and Single Mothers. Then I’m going to take August off and figure out where the heck Mondays are gonna live in the fall. Then I’ll be back on Monday, September 7th with… I.E.! I will be keeping everyone updated through facebook.com/seancarnage and seancarnage.com.

SEAN CARNAGE’S ANNIVERSARY MONTH BEGINS WITH 60 WATT KID, HIGH CASTLE, ITALIC INDIAN, SKULL KISS AND GARRETT PIERCE ON MON., JULY 6, AT WOMEN, 1852 CRENSHAW BLVD., LOS ANGELES. 9:30 PM / $5 / ALL AGES. SEANCARNAGE.COM. 60 WATT KID WILL BE IN RESIDENCY EVERY MONDAY IN JULY. FOR COMPLETE LINE-UP AND MORE INFORMATION VISIT SEANCARNAGE.COM.