Concert Review: Rademacher w/ Eagle and Talon, Wrong Way Driver, and the Transmissions @ the Echo (10.13.08)

By Travis Woods

Whether it was a response to this and the discourse it helped raise, or simply the momentum generated by a band as it not only finds its footing but starts running with it, Rademacher’s second performance for their Echo residency was that of a band fully confident in its newer (smaller) lineup. Whereas the first week wasn’t the new lineup’s official premiere (they’d played at least two L.A. shows previously), there seemed to be a hesitancy to the performance as the band searched for its comfort level in a newer sound that was stripped of it original spirals of indie eclectica. Last Monday, Rademacher found that comfort level in a blistering swirl of bluesy, punkish minimalism that, however spare, maintained a massive depth of sound (and lyricism)—it’s as if the band time-traveled backwards from Brighten the Corners to Slanted and Enchanted.

Openers Wrong Way Driver began their set as a vocal-folk duo with the kind of music easily (and politely) described as ‘pastoral’ and ‘relaxed’—it was as inoffensive as it was pretty, and as polished as it was fairly uninteresting. A few songs later they were joined by a drummer and added instrumentation, which filled out the sound considerably—crunchy guitar rock, woozy waves of textured sound, and clever lyrics married to headbobbing melodies. This thespian/writer posits that the lackluster beginning can be attributed to the band attempting to bait and switch the audience…I’m not sure if that’s the case, and it seems a bit misguided of the band to do so (openers need to warm the crowd up, not create listlessness). Whatever the reasons, one half of Wrong Way Driver’s set was an excellent example of lyrical and drifting indie pop, and the other half was just drifting.

Eagle and Talon returned to live performance after a five-month absence (spent finishing up the upcoming Thracian LP), with an expanded lineup (at its fullest, five—including a theramin player). The expanded lineup helped Eagle and Talon’s sound—their edgy, sensuous art-rock demands a larger palette at times, and on Monday that’s exactly what it received as it leapt forward into jazzy, guitar-torn sprawls of breathy, knowing vocals (Kim Talon is like Brigitte Bardot blown back into a furiously Casio’d nebula of jagged, gorgeous indie rock) and sideways rhythms (Alice Talon’s hyperactive, machine-gun drumming is ridiculously propulsive). “Hot Caught,” one of my favorite tracks of the year, made an appearance in all its stop-start guitar slithers and half-lidded wailing, and the audience swooned appropriately to the band’s smart and visceral songwriting.

As mentioned, Rademacher rose to the occasion and played their best set as a three-piece I’ve seen so far. Malcolm Sosa and Co. turned in a fiery, pummeling performance that leapt from stripped-down indie to a swaggering blues minimalism, as Sosa sang, spoke, and shouted his poetic story-songs with a conviction that seethed with mischievous intensity. Rademacher seems to be exploring a new arena for their sound, one that meshes cavernous blues-based stark-rock with their more adventurous leanings towards indie-based weirdness. And on Monday night they leapt into that arena with a searchlight concentration that left eyebrows cocked, feet tapping, and expectations raised.

Unfortunately, I missed the Transmissions’ set, which was apparently an implosion of gargantuan guitar rock and hook-barbed melodicism. Being that this was the Transmission, I find that not at all surprising.

October 16, 2008 | Filed Under Concert Reviews, Exclusive Features 

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