Saint Motel Checks Into Hammer Museum

July opened up with a bang like fireworks when Saint Motel tore down the gallery for the capacity crowd at Hammer Museum last night. Gathered for the first installment of KCRW's "Also I Like To Rock" series, presented in conjunction with fellow music aficionado, Kevin Bronson, and his Buzzbands LA, the crowd was treated to one of the finer performance groups to mature out of Los Angeles recently.

We say performance group because Saint Motel is not just a band; Saint Motel is a fucking experience. Armed with the forces of a charming front man with a killer smile and vocals to boot (A/J Jackson), a funky Vietnamese base maestro (Dak), a porno-mustached guitar wizard (Sharp) and the drum general himself (Greg) - this quartet is going to be a household brand name soon if not already. With an educational background in film, these guys not only play instruments but also put on a multimedia extravaganza at each performance.




Thursday's party was no different - as A/J had a camera on his mic, Sharp had a camera down the neck of his guitar and one of the band mate's mothers paraded around the crowd with a portable camera. Shove all that footage into a blender and splice in some random old movies, blank screens and the occasional SAINT MOTEL word image and it becomes a constantly changing piece of artwork. Although the band did not wear their typical themed attire, which adds to the spectacle because their costumes are also part of the experience, the band was dressed to well in button downs, the occasional suspenders and some hipster shoes. Beyond the visuals and dress, being in the setting of the Hammer's courtyard made the show feel almost magical.




Opening with my personal favorite "Do Everything Now", the band wasted no time in piquing the interest of newcomers who'd only heard of the band as part of KCRW's recent push of the performance and the song "Butch", which was KCRW's download of the day earlier in the week.
After playing a non ForPlay song as #2, whose title I don't yet know, the band returned to their stellar EP material rifling off "Pity Party" and "Dear Dictator" with relative ease. Side note, you can check out their video for the Sam Sparro remix of Dear Dictator exclusively on Filter here.




Despite having already gone through my favorites (Now and Dictator), I could tell that there was an energy in the crowd that wasn't going to erupt until the boys delivered "Butch." When they dropped the KCRW trending song, the crowd exploded and, as usual, the quartet exceeded expectations - their enthusiasm and energy permeating the crowd from their perched point on the stage, even pulling some participation from the balcony level.

I chatted it up with the insider and fan based crowd before trying to squeeze my way into the packed merchandise area to acquire the sexy Saint Motel V-Neck. In addition to the tee, I tried my best to get some Saint Motel Herbie Hancock's on my breasts, but the scores of fans waiting for their photo opportunity ultimately wore on my patience and I decided I'd give A/J, Sharp, Dak and Greg the honor of sharpie-ing my chesticles some other day....perhaps at Sunset Junction, their next Los Angeles performance (as of now).

Silverlake Indie Surfing

Tonight and tomorrow night I will find myself doing a back to back Silverlake Lounge trip. Like the frequency in which I go surfing, it is rare that I find myself wanting to hit up Silverlake Lounge two nights in a row over other LA offerings. But, I have good reason this week as both Hotel St. George and Chasing Kings will be showcasing their talents on the small eastside stage.

Hotel St. George, whom hail from San Diego, are making the drive up tonight for a FREE performance on the heels of their recent video release which features outdoor wizard back rubs and robots with guns and whiskey. As of this writing, it has been viewed a mere 41 times, but with that sort of ridiculousness, it ought to be viewed more.



You can see Hotel St. George (and maybe even the robot?) play tonight at Silverlake Lounge.

Chasing Kings reign on the stage tomorrow night at 10 pm. The quartet plays cool, classic-rock, indie-rock and surf-rock inspired grooves with stellar vocals that will have you pining for more at the end of their show. I had the privilege of catching up with the band in their living/rehearsal space a few weeks back where we talked about everything from first dates to music festivals to Stop Making Sense. Any questions? Just check out some of the footage from our hilarious conversations here...

Explosion of Dirty Detroit Rock at The Echo

Last night I had the pleasure of seeing one of my favorite Detroit rock bands - The Dirtbombs - (check out their various pages here, here and here) at the echo. On this Thursday night in LA, they were not victims of the Dirtbombs Curse, as they were the headliner. The band from the 248 and 313 did not disappoint - they delivered a riveting hour long set of the garage bluesy-soulful rock they've been perfecting over the years - including a handful of material from The Sermon's album "Articles of War" (The Sermon is a side project featuring many Dirtbombs members).

Mick Collins killed it as usual - fronting the quintet with his soulful, Richie Havens-ish voice. As the night progressed the vocals only seemed to improve - either Mick was getting more comfortable with the sound in the room or I was getting more intoxicated and not paying as close attention. Either way - he just kept getting better in my eyes.

Backing him up was the awesome stylings of Ko Melina, their cute, perky little asian bassist. She is a perfect example of how having a girl in a band can totally enhance your stage appeal and dynamic. She is good at her craft, but by no means is she Les Claypool. Nonetheless, she breaks it down, head bangs, plays slap and looks like she is having a good time. She gets Detroit dirty on that bass and I think I may have fallen in love with her. The other bassist, Zachary Weedon, is good himself - but, my attention was totally on Ko.

The dueling drums of Ben Blackwell and Pat Pantano also kicked ass. Beating away through most of the set - when it came time for the encore - one drummer brought his whole kit to the dance floor, played a song, only to be followed by the other drummer joining the floor frenzy. I've seen artists jump into the crowd and perform before - but this was better than average. It didn't seem choreographed, but they moved pretty seamlessly from one song to the next, despite moving their drums from the stage without stopping playing (I guess that is one of the many benefits of having two drummers). As the drummers rained down on their snares and kicked their respective bass drums, the mostly middle aged crowd swarmed around the beat duo and partied until the band called it quits....