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The night air buzzed around The Echo Thursday evening as a celebration of Johnny O’Donnell’s EP release “Masquerade” on White Noise was about to kick off. The evening held an eclectic line up of unique bands with different sounds. Die hard music lovers stayed the whole night and the short attention span LA crowd floated in and out like flies throughout the night. Head bopping and cat calls gave the bands some deserved appreciation throughout the night.

The room slowly began to fill as John Carpenter took stage as the opener. Commanding the room this east coast trio slammed into a tight set. Carpenter’s songs tend to be moody and smooth, with a powerful background punch melodically speaking. The Echo could barely contain the energy that oozed out of the live rendition of “I can give you time” as the band digressed into a trippy jam that rolled into the unreleased closing number “Cleaner Country, Higher Land”. The prog, Euro rock feel of these numbers takes you into the future of the music scene.

Corridor put the word “experimental” into music. Taking the stage with instruments and laptop, this appeared to be a stellar set, and it was in a completely different way than the other bands. Playful sounds coming from samples, drums, keys, bass, and guitar was plenty to create this vibrant wall of sound layering. The textures creating by Corridor’s complex audio fills sends one’s ears into another galaxy. Just when you think you’ve adjusted they pull out an electric cello. This mixture of sound creates anything but playful sounds, hedging on a Dali-esque brilliance.

Johnny O’Donnell took center stage and blew the packed crowd wide open with “The Gothic Singer.” O’Donnell and the band have a unique ability to take you into a masterful amalgamation of Irish, country-twang, folk rock. If Loretta Lynn, Van Morrison, and Bob Dylan had a baby, it would be O’Donnell. It’s scientifically possible…isn’t it? If not, it is musically speaking. John Carpenter joined in with electrifying guitar on “Loose Cannons” and “Roaming Thing” mid set to spice things up. The communal energy continued after Carpenter left. A lovely painter, who much like in Feist’s “Look at what the light did now”, created art to the music in the background. It lent to a tremendous overall creative energy vibe that permeated throughout the night.

Residual Echoes closed out the evening with a sharp acid rock vibe took things to a higher velocity. This three piece played hard and fast, backs to audience on occasion while speaking through their music. The thinned crowd of die hard music lovers shredded along with guitar riffs and a mosh pit defiantly could have been in effect if it had been at The Smell instead of hipster heaven. Echoes don’t play punk, because their songs are far too long, but the ethos is there even if the length isn’t. The final number summed the set up best. The band shredded the hell out of a cover of “Helter Skelter” and then destroyed their instrument set up at the end. A great display of hard core playing evaporating back into the evening’s late twinkling skylight.

—Michele McManmon

Download: Dead Models “Dead Models” E.P. out now on White Noise

Dead Models is the outcome of a songwriting session that took place between Paul Orwell and Nathan Clarke in a smokey little flat in East London. The pair, of previous bands “Junior Victor” and “The Void”, respectively, were drawn together just at the right time and found they had an affinity for writing that was born out of a mutual love and passion for 50’s and 60’s style songwriting and melody along with a shared experience of growing up in the London and Essex scene. With the addition of Clarke’s longtime collaboration partner, Mark Brown on bass and Clarke’s younger boroher, James on drums, they had the perfect band to provide the outlet for their songs. Within days of this first session a handful of demos were recorded in a warehouse in the middle of a London forest providing the foundation for this debut E.P. from this exciting young group.

Photos from Jail Weddings Music Video Shoot for ‘I Thought You Were Someone I Knew’

Via: White Noise

Photos by Lauren Everett from the Jail Weddings music video shoot for “I Thought You Were Someone I Knew” (stream it on their MySpace page), the first single from their upcoming full length release, Love Is Lawless, that will be released in October on White Noise. Read More…

Via: White Noise

Sandra Sarra comes walking out of the Florida panhandle with songs so fine and sharp that they’d cut you if she pushed them any harder, and the kind of spare barely-there guitar that comes from writing songs as if you’re looking out a window. Leonard Cohen did this plenty; so do John Prine and Alison Krauss and even sometimes Dolly Parton. And now Sandra Sarra on her debut, too, with ten songs quiet and understated enough to be folk but with enough honesty and heartbreak inside to draw tears toward beers at the planet’s last honky tonks.

The Blank Tapes’ new album “Home Away From Home” is finally available on CD and they’re touring down the California coast to promote it! Here’s the info…

June 17 @ Fort Gallery – Oakland
June 18 @ Biko – Isla Vista
June 19 @ HM157 – Los Angeles
June 20 @ McCabe’s – Santa Monica
June 21 @ Tin Can Ale House – San Diego
June 22 @ La Cave – Costa Mesa
June 23 @ Angel’s Road House #2 – Apple Valley
June 24 @ Division 9 Gallery – Riverside
June 25 @ SF MOMA – San Francisco
June 26 @ 924 Gilman St – Berkeley
June 27 @ Makeout Room – San Francisco

Amanda Jo Williams tends to play this one fast when she does it live, so a raucous, beer-fueled, basketball game seems a fitting theme for “All The Mountains.” The song comes from her 2006 album Yes I Will, Mr. Man, recently put back in digital print by White Noise. It’s a love song, complete with strings and a country fried steak sizzling on its heart.

Bonus!: Anyone who attends her May 13 show, 7 PM at Hotel Cafe (early one!), will receive a free download of the album. Also tune in to KXLU on May 18 at 5 pm for a live in-studio Amanda Jo Williams session.

After the 25-song double-plus-album Daydreams, Matt Adams and the Blank Tapes return with the all-roaring no-boring full-length Home Away From Home—ten songs of full-band Kinks-plus-Creedence roots-rock ‘n’ roll that sounds like it came out of a roadhouse in Luckenbach, Texas, even though it was recorded on Matt’s very own 8-track in a bedroom in Oakland, California.

Download For Free Here: http://bit.ly/dt3Y01

Visit: http://theblanktapes.com

Learn: http://playwhitenoise.com

Download: Amanda Jo Williams “Ohio”

(from Yes I Will Mr. Man out Mar. 17 on White Noise)

Amanda Jo is a real-life force of nature and so is this little Holy Modal Rounders/Michael Hurley/Henry Flynt-style song that will make you wanna watch a Saturn V launch from between the palm fronds over your back porch! Have moicy!