SHOW REVIEW
Desert Daze
April 11th- 21st
North Palm Springs, CA.
If I had to sum up
Desert Daze, an 11 day, 200 band spectacle that ran parallel to the Coachella
Arts & Music Festival this year, I would refer the reader to the scene in
Blues Brothers when they pull up to a Road House to play a fake gig and the
woman says, “We have both kinds of music here, Country and Western.” Except the woman is replaced by an LA area
promoter guy and he’s saying, “We have both kinds of music here, Psych and
Rock.”
I learned a few tricks
in a decade of attendance at the annual Coachella Arts & Music
Festival, main one being the "MAGIC
HOUR" concept, which is to say that the time between dusk and sunset is a
"MAGIC HOUR": The hot sun receding behind the mountains but still
spreading life-giving warmth, the light possessing a particularly magical
quality- it's is a god damn magical time, and what I've learned is that almost
any band playing during the MAGIC HOUR is going to sound amazing, and the crowd
will be into that band, because it is the MAGIC HOUR.
I planned my first visit to take full advantage of the MAGIC
HOUR, going so far as to check the sunset/dusk times online prior to departure.
Spanning 11 days- April 12th to April 22th, Desert Daze was a DIY epic. So epic
that by choosing Day 5 as my first visit I had already missed the following
Artists: Weight, Corners, Waxy, Mr. Elevator, Slipping Int Darkness, Old
Testament, The Soft Pack, Dengue Fever, Deap Vally, Juju, Highlands, Blackfeet
Braves, Chad & The Meatbodies, Haunted Tiger, Business Cats, Forever baby,
Blue Junle Death Hymn Number 9, The Audacity, Wyatt Blair, Summer Twins, The
Lovely Bad Things, Pangea, Bleached, Zodiac Death Valley, Owenstone, Stab City,
Sandy Pussy, Drug Cabin, Kind Hearts & The Coronets, Sister Ruby Band,
Lilac, String Fellow Hwaks, RT & The 44's, Gangi, Vanaprasta, Dante vs.
Zombies, Moving Units, Tomorrow's Tulips, Pilots, Pool Honeys, Hindu Pirates,
Wet Illustrated, The Shrine, Rumspringa, Sean Wheeler & Zander Schloss,
Mayfly Dance, The Abigrails, Feeding People, Driftwood Singer, Allah-las.
PHEW! That is only 4
days worth of bands for an 11 day festival, over 200 bands over the 11 days,
and let me tell you it was quite an impressive logistical accomplishment. In fact, the aplomb with which the Moon Block
Party entity managed 200 different bands and what must have been in excess of
2500 people over close to two weeks signals their arrival as an impressive DIY
phenomenon in their own right, taking their place against other Southern
California DIY entities of the last decade.
You could compare the
Moon Block Party Crew to Fuck Yeah Entity.
The venue, Dillon's
Road House, was easy enough to find. Start in central Palm Springs and take
Indian Canyon Road North for 20 minutes, over the 10 freeway, past the
brand-new Western Wear outlet on the other side of the freeway, take a right
and drive three blocks- boom. The venue/festival had ample parking behind the
bar, in a dirt lot with broken glass scattered about, to be perfectly accurate,
but it was off-street which was welcome, because Desert Hot Springs has a Mad
Max/post-Apocalyptic feeling even during the day.
The promotional
information had promised both and in-door and out-door stage with art and food
trucks to accompany the bands and all was as described. The food trucks on duty
on the 16th were REFRESH TRUCK and TORNADO POTATO and then there was an ORGANIC
POPCORN. Dillon's Road House is not some kind of hipster take on the desert
Road House bar environment- it's an actually Desert Road House located in an
area with lots of local color, so the crowd was a mixture of young and old,
hipster and non-hipster. Buying my first beer of the evening (Budweiser in a
bottle) I listened to a local gush over the presence of so many young people
and how awesome it was to see everyone. Bear in mind it was about 5:30 PM and
the local was clearly hammered in a way I recognized from going to dive bars in
the Tenderloin district in San Francisco in the mid 1990s.
The first band I
watched was
YELLOW RED SPARKS(ORANGE COUNTY, CA.): Yellow Red Sparks is three piece: guy on
drums/backing vocals, guy singing playing acoustic guitar/singing and girl
playing her cello sometimes as a stand up bass, sometimes as a cello and once
playing a ukelele/backing vocals. I was impressed by the general level of
put-togetherness from a band playing the 6 PM outside slot at a first-year
festival in the middle of the California desert. The singer has a voice that
puts him in the general category of Jeff Magnum or the guy from the
Decemberists- readers from my blog will know that this isn't to my personal
taste, but it was clear that they drew and held the attention of those present.
The cellist/bassist really worked the instrument and drew interest from the
Security Staff- I was standing by myself near a Security Guard and he leaned
over and said "Her guitar, it is too big." The only criticism I would
offer is that they should abandon the Audience involvement stuff and just blaze
through the set- the songs are strong enough that they don't need to do the
Audience solicitation material.
Right before YELLOW
RED SPARKS ended their set I went inside to watch the next band:
BLACK
FLAMINGO (LOS ANGELES, CA.):
Black Flamingos is an LA area six piece featuring Miss Ammo (ex-Teenage
Talking Cars) on vocals and
guitar, two more women, one playing key boards and one playing bass. Then there
is a lead guitarist and not one but two drummers. Later in the evening I
learned that Neil from Origami Records is their manager. As I watched them I thought to myself, "This sounds like a cross between
Warpaint and Dum Dum Girls." I suppose you could have less commercially
viable influences, but I was struck, again, by the level of professionalism and
the actual quality of the music. It also seemed like Black Flamingos brought an
appreciative Audience with them to the desert- Always a plus. Considering that
Manimal Vinyl just put out that Chains of Love record, they seem like an
appropriate label home for Black Flamingos and then after that- I would say
fire one of two drummers- just to thin the travelling band out a bit. I frankly
question why the drumming I heard couldn't be replaced by a machine- the appeal
of Black Flamingo lies in the combination of the matched female vocals and the
guitar work of the lead guitarist.
Next I went back
outside and watched
GOTHIC TROPIC(LOS ANGELES,
CA): Gothic Tropic is an LA area three piece: female singer/guitarist, male
drummer, male bassist. The way I interpret the name is that "TROPIC"
is a reference to tropicalia being a musical influence. Another influence in
the sound was 90s era Dischord Records stuff- jazzy time signatures, etc.
Considering Abe Vigoda actually DID play Coachella this year, and the fact that they
have a female singer/guitarists fronting the band, it seems like this is a band
that could make some headway- there being so much room at the margins. This is clearly a band that is in the sonic
and cultural lineage of the Smell scene, and they seem like the kind of band
that PPM would put out.
Then I had a Korean
Cheese Steak from REFRESH TRUCK which was delicious.
Then I went back
inside and watched.
DARK THIRTY(Los
Angeles, CA.) : Dark Thirty is a three piece- all boys, very much in the mold
of a Dead Meadow. Although I personally like Dead Meadow and am looking forward
to seeing them at this festival, I don't know if that is a real viable path to
a national career as a touring musician. LA area rock projects- whatever their
take on "rock" have so much prejudice to overcome at the national
level, vs. LA area Art type bands. If you are in something that can fairly be
described as a "Rock Band From Los Angeles" you are going to have to
win over so many haters, it's either the big leagues or bust. I personally
though, liked this band and plan on looking for physical products. It would be
interesting if the new record label run by Permanent Records put these guys
out.
Then I went back
outside and watched.
LIVING THINGS: Living
Things, hoo-booy. Five pieces- singer/guitarist, bassist and drummer and two
"back-up" singers. I literally knew nothing about Living Things
before watching them perform, but according to their very, very, very well written Wikipedia entry, Living Things (band) are an American
punk-rock band from St. Louis, Missouri. Living Things is a band of three
brothers: Isiah, Yves and Bosh. The lead singer, Isiah, did the sound track for
the Runaways movie. Also they signed
to Dreamworks in 2004? Did I not mention that? In 2009 they released an LP on
Jive Records.
"As pissed-off polemics go, the
hot-potato debut from these St. Louis misfits lays the gripes on thick while
styill managing to rock you like a Category 5. Calling out God (and his son)
while bitching about bombs, health maintenance organizations, and the police.
Lillian Berlin and his three bros (two biological, one just a bud) attack their
never-less-than-Nevermind-catchy songs with roiling, sophisticated
righteousness, not to mention chops, tempering their resentment with a palpable
lust for life.”
This brings to mind
Rise Against in my mind, but what I saw last night was straight up
Rock-A-Billy/50s rock. Living Things can not, in their present state, be
described as anything other than a Rockabilly Style Rock Band. They seem to be
aiming for combining elements of Jack White's thing with Misfits era posturing.
It's a principle of mine not to Judge a band for changing artistically, and
given my ignorance of their back catalog I can't even honestly say whether they
have changed their sound or not. I do find it extraordinary that I'd never
heard of them before they played this show. It seems like I should have.
After that I missed
RACES, THE BLACK APPLES, NO & THE HENRY CLAY PEOPLE because I wanted to see
Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh do some solo jams at the Ace Hotel, but I must have
been minutes late, since I watched him talk to appreciative Audience members
for an hour and then leave- obviously AFTER the concert.
Day 2, April 17th was what we
Coachella Valley local's call "a hot one," 95 degrees at 430 PM as I
drove up Indian Canyon Road to Dillon's Road House. This time I detoured from
the main route to take in the nearby community of North Palm Springs, CA. a six block
community of trailers and double wide trailers that is legitimate in that it
has its own Post Office and Zip Code. Dillon's Road House is technically in the
city of Desert Hot Springs, but only just- the main area of Desert Hot Springs
being miles away. According to stories in the local paper, the owners of Dillon's Road House have been
trying to do a live music festival for some time but were stymied by the city
until this year. I can't possibly imagine why a trashy little town like Desert
Hot Springs would bother trying to PREVENT live music in their community when
they can't even PREVENT drive-by shootings and drug-related murders, both of
which are semi-frequent occurrences according to the local paper, but what do I
know?
I arrived at 445 PM in
time to see the first inside band called
LISTEN: This was a
three piece that played indistinct garagey-psych-rock- two guys and a lady on
drums. This was the most "local" sounding band I had heard thus far
at the festival, and I wondered if they might not be from the Palm Springs
area, rather than from Los Angeles. Other then the female drummer, there was
not much to distinguish Listen from other bands that work the same area of the
rock spectrum.
I couldn’t obtain any
information about their releases or upcoming shows.
Then I went outside
and watched
MOTHERS
OF GUT: Mothers of Gut was a
four-piece band- all guys- standard rock band four piece set up, with the
exception that the singer/guitarist had a keyboard in front of him. Jazzy time
signatures and distorted voxs put Mothers of Gut further on the experimental
side of the psych-rock spectrum, but
experimental in a way that is familiar to anyone who has ever listened to
Captain Beefheart or the many bands since influenced by Captain Beefheart.
Mothers of Gut had better than average stage
presence, in particular the bassist, who looked like he was wearing a Kurt
Cobain costume, was writhing around on stage to the point where the security
guard came up and asked my if he was "OK" or perhaps in need of some
medical attention.
They have a show
coming up at Pehrspace in Los Angeles, CA on April 28th,
2012.
After that it was back
inside for
KILL KILL KILL: This
band was a four piece- all guys- with a drummer/guitar/bass/keyboard line up,
playing sludgey psych rock. They showed an ability to move from soft to loud,
but the loud setting was very loud indeed. There was less blues and more psych
influence in Kill Kill Kill then their predecessors on the inside stage
displayed, and instrumentally I felt like Kill Kill Kill was a step or two up
on the ladder of professionalism from Listen.
I couldn’t find any upcoming shows or physical releases on line.
Outside next was:
RACHEL FANNAN: Rachel
Fannan is certainly my discovery out of the first two days of the festival. By
this time Fresh & Only's had arrived and I was talking to F&O singer
Tim Cohen (who I've known for 15 years.) He knew Rachel from her time in the
Bay Area (now in LA.) After watching the performance, I later learned that she
was formerly in ATP released San Francisco via Santa Cruz CA Sleepy
Sun
She performed at Desert Daze as a solo,
playing electric guitar with no drum machine. Her performance combined killer
country influenced vocals (think the new Best Coast album) with a wry wit and
stage presence that reminded me of Colleen Green. I shared the Colleen Green
comparison with Tim and he agreed that were some similarities- but only
stylistically, not musically. Absence of
a drum machine being one of them.
Rachel Fannan is
playing the Soda Bar in San Diego, CA. on May 25th, 2012.
After Rachel Fannan I
took a break to walk around the grounds- Dillon's Road House basically backs up
onto the empty desert, with enormous power lines running in a double set
diagonally off to the north and south. Someone had built a tire pyramid and I
watched the sun set behind the power lines and the tire pyramid. It was
glorious.
Upon my return I
watched
HABITS: play inside.
Habits was a dance rock three piece who had a fairly enthusiastic audience for
their brand of standard issues dance rock. While Habits was a welcome change of
pace from the pysch/sludge/rock of the two earlier bands, I couldn't find
anything to distinguish Habits performance in my mind, likely due to the fact
that I am not a huge dance rock fan. The drummer did shift between a drum pad
and real drums- which I thought was interesting. Their performance very much
brought to mind the DIM MAK led Silver Lake "scene" and certainly the
singer seemed attractive and energetic enough to make a go of it- but they need
some catchier songs, for realz. The vocals were very indistinct.
Back outside
FARMER
DAVE SCHER: performed solo with
guitar. I understand that he is a West Side LA DIY fixture- Tim Cohen of
F&O's indicated that he had recently played his night in Venice (and that
Colleen Green was in the house for said performance.) I also talked to a woman
who was selling leather cuffs and purses who said that Farmer Dave is a DIY
stalwart on the west side of LA, so it seems to me he deserves respect for
that. His set was far, far beyond what you might expect- he showed both stage
presence and was a guitar virtuoso- some of his solos left me breathless, mouth
a-gape. I will def. be doing additional research on his Venice Beach DIY night.
From his online
biography, it looks like he has done production and session work for a variety
of respectable Artists, so the talent makes sense.
Inside,
YOUNG
PRISMS: took to the outdoor
stage the crowd had filled in. It was a beautiful night. They played a number
of songs from their new LP on Kanine Records- which i need to purchase, and
showed how they have earned the reputation as one of the hardest working indie
bands on the West Coast. Young Prisms is a good example of how long it can take
a rock band to "come together" but I, for one, feel like they are
headed in the right direction, provided they can stay together in the mean
time.
Young Prisms have a
new record out on Kanine Records and are touring California with Dum Dum Girls.
Young Prisms were
followed outside by
FRESH & ONLY'S: A band at the top of their game, album of Mexican Summer
coming out in September. Fresh & Only's is another SF area band with a terrific
work ethic and they are seasoned pros on the road. The crowd seemed inspired by
their set and wanted them to keep at it after their time window had elapsed. I
doubt anyone who reads IMPOSE or my blog is unfamiliar with the sound of Fresh
& Only's, so I will spare you the details.
After Fresh &
Only's played I left, missing Crystal Antlers, Raw Geronimo and Blank Tapes in
a futile attempt to catch Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein do a comedy show
at the Ace Hotel. I didn't even get in the door. I bet it was cool, though.
I took the next two days to recuperate and reflect
on the festival experience and what it reminded me most of were the Little
Radio New Year’s Eve parties in 2006 and 2007,
and some of the renewal I might have experienced at Coachella itself
through perhaps 2008. There is of
course, no comparison when you consider the respective sizes of the two
festivals, but when it comes to considering the spirit, Desert Daze is put on
by a volunteer collective from the Pomona area, and Coachella is wholly owned
by entertainment conglomerate AEG. So, take you pick, I guess.
At the very, very least, Coachella is an enormous
pain in the ass and will cost you about 750 all in, and Desert Daze was 5 bucks
a day. Looking at it that way the comparison
is unfair to Coachella.
I returned refreshed and relaxed for Day 10 of the
Desert Daze Festival. I’d spent the
intervening days pool side conducting experiments on the length of the cooling
effect that you get from taking a dip in the pool during periods of extreme
heat.
Friday, April 20st, 2012
I
arrived early and caught the first outside band,
ELECTRIC BUFFALO(???): Blues rock influenced four piece, all
guys. Guitarist wore a fringed leather
vest and a hat with a feather in it, to give you an idea.
Then
inside for,
THE GOLDEN GHOSTS(Los Angeles, CA.): All male three piece- kind of a 90s rock
throwback, like an updated version of Candlebox. Their “Reverbnation” profile references Black
Keys, White Stripes, Kings of Leon and the Strokes, but I’d stick with
Candlebox. They weren’t untalented, and
rolled up in a sweet Dodge Sprinter van that looked pretty big league.
Back
again outside,
WAR
DRUM(Palm
Springs, CA.): All male four piece from
Palm Springs which makes them pretty legit as far as desert psych goes, though
not as legit as being from Desert Hot Springs or Yucca Valley. This was very much on psych side of the
psych/rock continuum, with proggy keyboard/organ and big jammy breakdowns in
the middle of each song.
Returning
inside,
MILO GONZALEZ:
Milo Gonzalez is the guitar/sitar player of festival-mates Insects vs Robots. He played solo guitar, but with lots of
flourishes- he is obviously a very talented guitarist. Sample banter with crowd, “This song is half
complete and it’s about an enchanted forest.”
Outside,
JUJU: Juju
was another band that was a bit of a revelation. Juju is a two piece, and the main guy is was
one of the festival promoters. He played
both guitar and bass and would loop them both, swap instruments and sing. Juju obviously has an ear for hooks, the
songs were so catchy that I was put in mind of Ratatat, while the looping and
instrument switching reminded me of Alex from Dirty Beaches. If this guy is both a promoter and plays in
this band, he’s likely to make significant headway. Couldn’t find any information on-line- kind
of bummed. I would go see this band
locally if they came to town.
Inside,
CHUCK
DUKOWSKI SEXTET:
Chuck Dukowski was the bassist and some-times songwriter for seminal
punk outfit Black Flag and this is his “family band” project, in that it
literally contains the members of his immediate family: his wife sings, his
sons drum and play keyboards. I think
they added Milo Gonzalez-at least according to their website they did- he
really shredded in this set, and when I say shredded I mean “played like he was
in an 80s speed metal band.”
My
final band that evening was:
ELECTRIC
FLOWER: Two piece
band fronted by former Folk Implosionista Imaad Wasif. I’m not sure if this band is a for-real
thing, or if it’s something Wasif does when he’s not doing something else, but
they rather reminded me of Japandroids in that they successfully combined
wistful, affecting vocals with the dynamic mechanics of guitar/drum two piece.
The
last day for me was Saturday April 21st. Dead Meadow was headlining and I was excited
for an epic conclusion to my Desert Daze experience. I had already judged it a rousing success, a
judgment confirmed by the fact that the promoters simply ran out of wrist bands
by day 9 due to overwhelming demand for said wrist bands. Was there room for improvement? Of course there was- there always is. Was Desert Daze a financial success?
Unclear. I noticed that by the last day
of the festival the “suggested donation” of five dollars had become “five
dollar admission.” If I was running that
Festival it would have been like that on day one. Ten dollars even.
Before
Dead Meadow I watched,
SLEEPY OWL: play inside. Sleepy Owl is a six piece “pure psych” outfit
in the manner of Animal Collective, Deerhunter, ETC. The lead singer (male) performed in a dress a
la Devendra. Sleepy Owl had two female
back-up singers arrayed to one side of the stage. Not really my cup of tea, but I thought they
were effective at integrating their influences and pairing it with capable song
writing- uneven song writing- but capable.
Outside:
JOY(San Diego, CA.):
Joy was a real discovery- a true entrant for the San Diego area in the
hipster metal sweepstakes that seems to be engulfing the blogosphere. They were also the only band that achieved a
level of “killing it”- no small feat considering I watched 30 bands over four
days. I’m puzzled, though, by
their bandcamp profile, where the songs sound completely different. They should stick with the fast stuff I heard
at Desert Daze- it was winning.Joy has a 7” available via Thirsty Moon Records in
San Diego, CA.
Their LP is being released by Cave Punk Records,
also of San Diego, CA.
Back inside, but still in daylight,
SILVER CHORDS(Los Angeles, CA.): This band is made up of LA psych scene
veterans. In
their own words, The Silver Chords performance/studio roster features
members who hold or have held tenure in such bands as Warlocks, Psychic TV, The
Black Angels, The Black Keys, Cat Power, Brian Jonestown Massacre, Entrance
Band, The Meek, Gong, Sky Parade, Black Ryder, Yahowha 13, and Jon Spencer
Blues Explosion. Silver Chords shared a
female singer with Spindrift. They
certainly suffered from their proximity to Joy in the line-up, certainly they
would have been better at night.
STRANGERS FAMILY BAND(???): This was a conventional rock four piece with
a keyboardist, all men, they played jammy psych rock that reminded me most
specifically of the Doors. Also their
keyboardist sort of resembled Jim Morrison, which I suppose is a plus.
POOR SONS(San
Francisco, CA.): This was an all male
four piece that veered more towards garage rock then psych rock. They showed a lot of energy and some
promising song writing and vocals underneath the garage rock fuzziness. I left their set early to watch Spindrift,
and it was the only “move” that I made during Desert Daze that I later
regretted. I think it’s kind of in the
same general category as FIDLAR in being post-Wavves garage rock with pop punk
influences. You have to tread lightly
with the pop-punk influence, but it’s something that can carry a local band to
national prominence. They are a band on
this list to keep an eye on.
SPINDRIFT (Los Angeles, CA.): Spindrift is touring with Dead Meadow as
support. They currently play what they
call “spaghetti psych” i.e. psych rock influenced by the soundtracks to Sergio
Leone Westerns. Their set actually bore
some relationship to the road house venue as they tossed out instrumental
western hit after instrumental western hit with originals in between. Spindrift has been around in some form since
the early 1990s, their bio on
their website, I gained an
appreciation for their endurance. The
packed house certainly loved them.
Spindrift is on tour with Dead Meadow.
BAREFOOT SHRUB: This was one guy doing IDM’ey type stuff.
Final act of the festival was
DEAD MEADOW: If you’ve never seen Dead Meadow play a
roadhouse in the Desert in April, you darn well should before you die. Just once.
That’s
28 bands reviewed for you. Most of them
can be seen as “local” bands in Southern California, so I encourage you to
support some of them. Congratulations to
the Moon Block Party group of Pomona, CA.
Desert Days was a DIY logistical accomplishment that ranks among those
for the ages. 200 bands, 12 days, 100
degree temperatures. Quite an
accomplishment indeed.
photo by Rachelle
