Since it opened up in 2000, Los Angeles’ Hotel Café has been a hotbed of singer/songwriter activity, routinely turning out quality shows for audiences of no more than 200 people. With a super intimate floor plan, great lighting and sound, and $9 glasses of Knob Creek, it’s one of my favorite venues in the city, and like Largo or Spaceland (R.I.P.), one of the few spots that curates consistently amazing lineups. Last Friday night the Making Friends Tour rolled in, featuring a trio of West Coast talent in Jenny O (LA), Holcombe Waller (SF) and Barcelona (Seattle). Since I got there early enough to cop one of the few candlelit tables—complete with waitress service—you know the Knob Creek was flowing.

Holcombe was the first to go on, taking the stage with his group, The Healers; five other players brandishing, among other things, a cello, a violin and a French horn. Though his publicist had sent me a download link to Holcombe’s soon-to-be-rereleased fourth album, Into The Dark Unknown, I neglected to listen to it. Not sure why. Just felt like being surprised, I guess. It did not take long to realize, if I do say so myself, that I had made a fantastic decision. Here’s why. It’s one thing to throw down dollars and see a band you love. You get to anticipate the setlist. You get to sing along. You get to relive moments that have been inextricably linked to certain songs. It’s about as close as you can get to time travel. When you gamble on an unknown sound and it comes up aces, it’s like discovering buried treasure in slow motion, and unlike a record, you can’t rewind it. You just have to run alongside every note and keep up with every lyric.

With a 7:30pm start time, the crowd was meager, and Holcombe joking referred to his audience as “early adopters,” but that’s what it felt like. I can tell you that he played “Baby Blue,” a song about falling in love with two different roommates. I can tell you he played “Risk Of Change,” which you can download here. I can tell you he opened with the new album’s title track. But those are about all the specifics I can give you. He’s got 13 shows left to do this month. (Check his calendar here.) It would behoove you to attend one, preferably with a few glasses of Knob Creek in tow.

Jenny O, on the other hand, I was familiar with. She’d been featured on this site back in January, shortly after her Home EP debuted. Where Holcombe and his band played delicately and beguilingly, Jenny and her band were fully plugged in, belting out twangy, loose fitting rock that towed the line between contemporary folk and good old honkey tonk. Switching from her Telecaster to an upright piano, Jenny performed a selection of old and new songs, including “Well, OK Honey,” “Home” and “Earth Has Won.” Shy and demure between tunes, Jenny is a pitch-perfect beast when she’s going for broke. When she dials it down, on a track like “Opposite Island,” she sucks you in like a vacuum, and her blues has the power to haunt your eardrums. Word is she’s working on a full-length follow-up to her EP. Can’t come soon enough.

By the time Barcelona were up, the crowd had swelled to capacity. I was first exposed to this band through a YouTube video of Japan’s Kuroshio Sea aquarium that featured “Please Don’t Go,” a track off their flawless Absolutes LP, as its soundtrack. (To date, that video has nearly 8 million views. If you haven’t see it, watch it immediately.) They too had new material to play, and put on their own hit parade that took the energy Jenny had injected into the building and turned it up full blast. For the life of me I can’t understand why these guys don’t have every modern rock radio station in American fawning over their every release. Their songs are beautifully crafted, highly emotive pop masterpieces, and they know how to deliver the goods on stage. As if their original music wasn’t impressive enough, they busted out a cover of the Beatles’ “Across The Universe” mid-set that could only be described as disarming. It was a fitting crescendo to a lively night of music that couldn’t have been curated any better, and I’m sure all three bands made their fair share of friends.

Word by Rich Thomas. Photos by Dustin Downing.