the monolators

Prodigal Sons: I couldn’t help feeling a bit of the old Luke 15:32 as I lounged against a pillar at the House of Blues this Thursday last, having arrived late for the Sweet. I hadn’t been through its doors since Steve Earle had come through town with Jerusalem. I’d interviewed him before Amos Poe’s camera at the tag end of a period I’d become really serious about my alcoholism, only to quit cold turkey on Armistice Day. Friends who’ve seen Just an American Boy (2003) say I didn’t make the final cut and mine is the gratitude, since photographic evidence from the era makes me look like something already dead had wandered into camera range looking to beach itself. Steve Priest’s own pretty-boy vanity looks made of sterner stuff, as the founding bassist (and sole original member) sweated and mugged like a garden gnome, his band pumping slapping steroid muscle onto “Wig-Wam Bam” and “Blockbuster.” The house was chock well full of the Capt. Crunch generation as dug on the original 45s, all of us looking surprisingly well-preserved, plus a large leaven of the younger and even sightlier. One curvaceous brunette squirming in delight inside denim faded to abstraction sent me on a fleshly Proustian reverie, highly appropriate given the sonic stimulus. I left before committing any indiscretion, rang up the adorable Ruby Friedman and we drove distractedly through Hollywood, my goaty impulse dissipated in our usual impish wordplay. The Big Red One and her Orchestra play the Viper Room May 15th.

His Majesty the Fire Marshal Requests: Aboveground reports the underground warehouse party scene downtown is dead will likely want significant revision after my last weekend out. If the “old-school Burner” fundraiser I attended in far South Central and Sunday’s trippy day party in sweet home Boyle Heights are any indication, the solution to cop shutdowns is as simple as thinking outside the Artist District zip code. The last-named was spillover from the Spirit’s Fire beach bash the night before; an informal group whose capers I’ve covered for years and a nice bit of jetsam to have roll practically up to my doorstep. The venue—a soundproofed near-bunker blocks away from daytime habitation—calls itself the Warehouse and its governor hinted more such private pleasure domes were secreted nearby. That there are more stretches of Los Angeles than the cops are able to patrol is obvious to any Blue Line rider, so look for a revival of the underground party as the economy worsens and cash-strapped authorities begin to grapple with far worse menaces to civilization than *oontz* music and chix in bootie shorts.

Ye Olde Curio Shoppe: Echo Curio is one of my favorite venues and its dominant vibe of a warm cozy eve with one’s freak family was more pronounced than ever at the Monolators’ CD release on Monday night. Roman Candles are a fresh and funny duo, with one half buzzing away on accordion while the partner strums an acoustic guitar. They were like whimsical semi-pro buskers, complete with a whimsical Chapinesque ditty about 2012 and using the campfire classic “Show Me the Way to Go Home” as finale. Gumshoe was next, consisting of one frontlady and two ill-coordinated backup dancers, plus various bits of human and machine support for a sort of lounge-y trip-pop that probably sounded good back in the garage phase of development. Halloween Swim Team sounded fairly cacophonous through the storefront windows, but the Monolators insisted the door be shut for their aggressive psych-rock, lest blameless strollers on Sunset be caught in the fusillade and begin to yell for the cops. A onetime trio once shrunk to the husband-and-wife team of Eli and Mary Chartkoff but now swollen to a quintet, the band handed out cardboard keys to Thursday’s release of their digital EP Ruby I’m Changing My Number. The crowd, now rapt and judging from a whole new set of standards, were delighted all over again with this brief and forceful turn. The Monolators are now touring Cali with the Parson Red Heads, but play L.A. again at the Eagle Rock Bowling & Drinking Club on May 23.

—Ron Garmon