Live Notes: Earlimart, Afternoons and Red Cortez @ the Echoplex (11.11.08)

Live Notes are quick and dirty observations scribbled upon the crinkled and crumpled mental napkins littering my brain at various local shows, notes that (hopefully) stand on their own enough to stand alone, without the hyperbolic adjectivery of a full concert review.

By Travis Woods

  • As also noted by Mr. Bronson, throughout the Echoplex there were remnants of posters and signage from the filming of Rockville, CA, a TheWB.com internet series produced by Josh Schwartz, creator of The O.C. and Gossip Girl, about the east-L.A. music scene. Not to over-slur Schwartz or the show before the series is even released—and because Web in Front is a big believer in Chrismukkah (and Festivus, now that we think about it)—is anyone else concerned that Schwartz’s style (hyperslick, overstylized exaggerations of reality and celebrations of privilege) might serve to perpetuate the tired “Sunset Strip” stigma that seems to dog most local bands successful enough to be heard on a worldwide scale?

    • Or perhaps, like the first season of The O.C., it will be a runaway success and help sell a lot of records until everyone starts to hate it a year later, and The Happy Hollows, Bronson and the Silverlake Lounge are given inoperable brain tumors and written off the show.

  • Red Cortez seemed a bit reserved on the expansive Echoplex stage compared to their combustive, vein-bursting performance at the Silverlake Lounge last month, when they debuted the new lineup, band name and gorgeously furious (or maybe it’s the other way around) new songs. That said, a “reserved” Red Cortez show is any other band’s reputation-making one, as the band’s rock musicianship and songwriting continues to tickle stratospheric heights just as their roll continues to drive and sway parts of the body closer to the earth’s surface—something the early-evening crowd hadn’t received the memo on, as their legs remained lock-knee’d and rooted to the Jack-and-Coke-stuck floor. Someone give this band a headlining slot already. Oh, and a record deal.

  • It remains to be seen if the weekly Check One Twosdays concerts can continue to fill the Echoplex as well as it eventually did Tuesday night, but kudos to Mr. Shovel and Indie 103.1 for their ambition and for bringing back a favorite concert series.

  • The chamber/ orchestral/ lysergic/ oompah (pick one) rock of Afternoons built upon Red Cortez’s nerve-whipped momentum and an exponentially growing crowd, exploding from the first song onward with their increasingly varied and woozily detailed big top popscapes. “Say Yes” may be the poster-marketed darling, but the heart-swollen and anthemic cascades of howling multi-vocals that make up the goosebumped surge of “Western World” were enough to easily make Afternoons one our top 5 bands to make it in ’09 (more on that later).

  • Message to the Echoplex: when one advertises a free 21+ show, it’s probably best not to charge an unadvertised entry fee after 10:30 pm. The idea is to not piss off the people you want to return in order to keep the room full, the bands happy and the bars busy.

  • Earlimart headlined at 11, and while they’ve earned their headlining slot—as a friend of mine, who happens to assuredly be the authority on all things local, said to me, “They’re royalty, and you treat royalty like…royalty”—last Tuesday wasn’t the lineup for them. Following Red Cortez and Afternoons’ alternately (and increasingly) frenzied and bombastic performances, the stage was literally set for a band to arrive and, in the words of George Clinton and Bootsy Collins, tear the roof off the sucker. Instead, Earlimart’s exquisite and gently expansive rock/pop simply nudged the ceiling. That’s not to say it was a bad set; on the contrary, it was near pristine, punctuated by the occasional ear-slice of stunning guitar-rock. It just wasn’t the right sound to capitalize on the preceding band’s energy and the night’s sense of celebration.

November 13, 2008 | Filed Under Concert Reviews, Exclusive Features 

Comments

One Response to “Live Notes: Earlimart, Afternoons and Red Cortez @ the Echoplex (11.11.08)”

  1. mark on November 13th, 2008 10:23 am

    the fee after 10:30 was advertised. even at $5 it was nominal.
    get there early and there was no need to leave at this show




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