2010 was a great year! A plethora of music, festivals, exotic art, discovering new bands, overcoming hatred of public transit, behind-the-scenes tours of freak shows and hanging out with 3-legged creatures, and meeting lots of great folks along the way. Check out the year’s highlights as seen by ChinaShop contributor Nicole Pajer after the jump.
Sunday I sun screened, loaded up my ‘concert purse,’ stocked up on carbs and headed to the Sunset Junction. As I walked through the gates, I stumbled right into a mini techno fest with DJs spinning and girls dancing on the Electro Stage. After bouncing from stage to stage, I settled in at the Bates Stage for Girl in a Coma. I’d never seen them play before but was intrigued by a mixture of things I have heard about the trio and the fact that they are named after a Smith’s song. It was a bit angry chick rock at times but I liked it overall. The singer has powerful vocals and it was refreshing to see female guitar players rock out on stage. They played Static Mind, which was a catchy tune and then chose Femme Fatale for the encore. The crowd was filled with stylish-haired hipsters, many proudly equipped with Girl in a Coma merch. After the set, a festival attendee turned to her friend and said, “Wow! That was tight.”
Saturday and Sunday, the streets of Silver Lake were filled with hipsters, carnies, corn dogs, oversized stuffed animals, rides, and the sounds of ear-pleasing bands. This year’s 30th annual Sunset Junction Street Festival recruited tens of thousands of Angelinos to brave the heat, impossible parking, and intense crowds with the mission of shoving their way into the front of one of the 5 music stages. The must see acts were: Ghostland Observatory, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Big Daddy Kane, Sam Sparro, Mayer Hawthorne, Fishbone, Shiny Toy Guns Hybrid Digital, Ohio Players, The Whisperers, Bad Brains, and Lee Scratch Perry…just to name a few.
Los Angeles based, indie/new wave band Ima Robot have been through their fair share of music industry travails – most of the drama stemming from their involvement with the questionable politics of being signed to a major label contract. What is it that Q-Tip said again so prophetically on the track “Check the Rhyme”? Oh yeah, “Industry rule #4080, record company people are shady.”
All the label issues culminated in the band taking a break from their situation and stealing some time away to refocus and try new things. Ima Robot founding member, Timmy Anderson states it this way.
“We were all a bit tweaked from our last year or so in the major label game – I’ll leave it at that! Some life happened, a lot of work and side projects went down (Guns n Bombs, Edward Sharpe, Werewolf Heart records) and we all just went off exploring other musical endeavors and interests.”
It’s been a while since I got to photograph a band that I am enamored of and I had forgotten how thrilling it could be. I don’t even know how to write this review– I just want to squeal.
Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros are a band consisting of 10-ish members (they seem to float in and out) led by the charismatic Alex Ebert. Their hugely successful song ‘Home,’ off their first and only album, has granted them the adoration of music fans everywhere, including the masses that swarmed a sold out Webster Hall on Thursday, July 22.
Sunday’s concluding Noise Pop festivities took place at the legendary Bimbo’s 365 cafe, a complete departure from the comparatively run-down areas of ‘Frisco we’d been checking out the bands at thus far. It was there that two completely different kinds of folk bands squared off against one another: first, the Joni Mitchell-esque Watson Twins, with their docile harmonies, tambourine taps and strummed acoustic guitars. Their rivals were headliners Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, more of a Mamas and The Papas-type of family band who drove the crowd nothing short of koo-koo, Dizzy Balloon-style except with a lot more of the unwashed masses. For those who have never been, Bimbo’s looks a lot like the Overlook Hotel from The Shining; its decadent, roaring 20′s interior boasts a grand ballroom, red velvet everything and a bar that eerily resembles the one Jack Nicholson heard voices at. So…come play with us, Danny!
Standing in a small hallway surrounded by the members of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, I feel for a moment like we’re all skipping down the yellow brick road together (except instead of poppies, we’re in a field of something a little, shall we say, greener). They’re all just so damn happy.
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