I finally had an opportunity to catch a show at the American Legion Hall in Highland Park for The Cobra Lillies vinyl EP release of In The Key Of Bicycle Bell. Upon entering the Hall I was immediately transported to another city and an earlier decade—the Hall was seen in the film La Bamba, and I felt as if my recently shaved hair might be ready for another retro ’50s buzz cut. It’s not like a club at all. It’s a Hall that you would go to in the suburban town that you lived in before moving to L.A. to see your local bands or a Sweet 16 party. The room is large and they have a nice-size stage. The lighting is casual auditorium, and the sound is surprisingly good. The event was produced by Elaine Layabout, and her shows have an extremely high hit rate for me that it was worth leaving my comfort zone of Echo Park.

I only caught the last two songs of the opener Tommy Santee Klaws, but they were enjoyable. The band has a multi-vocal harmony sound, reminiscent of CSN or more recently Fleet Foxes. The mesmerizing Amanda Jo Williams came up next. Her eerily delightful gothic-tinged indie country folk would sound just as fine at a campfire as it does at an indie club or an American Legion Hall. She was joined by Crooked Cowboy on the Moog and guitarist 5-track, and she took the show off of the stage (and the lights) to set the band on the floor. The set was weird, because I couldn’t see Williams, since she was essentially sitting in the dark with the rest of us. The songs sound great. She has a slightly childish, voice with a major-league drawl and a high vocal range that subtly increases into higher octaves when the lyrics call for it like on “Keep The Animals.” She’s firmly placed among my favorite local acts.

Cobra Lillies are a free-for-all freak folk band made up of several Eastside bands. The band began as a side project for The Monolators, and every time I see them they have new members and routines, which have included stomp dancing, cheerleaders, and tonight a flamboyant fashion show sketch to open the show. There were bicycle bells ringing throughout the night and all sorts of weird, down-homey folksy instruments. Eli Chartkoff (Male sacrifice/Banjo) will always sound like The Monolators when he sings, but he is more a mellow strummer and plucker with the Lillies compared to the hyper-physical performer he is with his main band. The lineup fluctuates a lot—anywhere from 8 to the teens—but they are typically mostly all women. They have a high energy, and the songs are fun, a little campy and not too removed from B-52s, minus the surf riffs. Eli and Mary’s toddler son joined them on stage, and it was funny to watch a kid playing air guitar and sucking his thumb at the same time. His banter between songs (he used the tap dancer floor mic) was funny also and fit in with the evening’s casual setting. I’ve seen them a few times at the dorm-room sized Pehrspace, and I felt that the size of the venue took away from the set’s chaos. They sprawled into the crowd like they always do (and really have to), but at the spacious Hall, the crowd was able to avoid the sprawl by pulling their metal fold-out chairs back, where at the smaller Pehrspace, they litterally absorb you into their band like a euphoric blob.

I like The American Legion Hall, and I hope they have more shows there, since it has the potential to be a great and valuable venue for the music scene on the other side of the tracks. One thing to be aware of is that the venue is run by veterans, and the audience needs to respect that. They will check your pockets if you try to enter while exhaling pit smoke, and it’s not the proper venue for anti-war statements.

—Scott Schultz