THOUGHTS: When I picked up my pass for the festival, I bumped into an old friend. I asked him if there were any bands I should check out. He suggested Fartbarf … what?!?! LOL. At first I thought he was kidding, but when I checked the artist schedule, I saw that there was a band called Fartbarf and I was already in the venue where they were performing, so I decided to stick around and check them out. When they took the stage, there were wearing matching NASA astronaut jumpsuits and wore odd, creepy masks. I initally had my doubts about the band because of the costume gimmick, but as soon as they started playing, my opinion changed immediately. Their synthpunk was adrenaline stirring, and I couldn’t help but groove to their sound. I think they could do without the masks, but as long as their music rocks out, I’ll keep my mouth shut.
PHOTOS: Just got a new 50mm prime lens, and still learning how to use it, so some of these pictures could have been better in focus, but I ain’t complaining.
THOUGHTS:Though I wasn’t able to stick around for their entire set, I was able to get a sense of what The Men were all about. Mixing elements of punk, psychadelic and classic rock into their music, the brief glimpse of them that I got made me think of a laid back The Stooges or Lou Reed. Now, take my impression with a grain of salt … I was only there for about 15-20 minutes. I really wish I could have stuck around to truly absorb their entire set … but thank god for the Internet. I’ll be logging on soon enough.
FEA (pronounced FAY-ah) is the feminine form of the Spanish word for “ugly”. It’s also the name of a Riot Grrrl, side project of some bad ass rockers from Texas.
Back in 2012, I discovered the music of a band from Texas named Girl In A Coma. It was love first listen. The trio consisting of Jenn Alva and sisters Nina and Phanie Diaz steamrolled my ear drums with their brand of San Antonio flavored indie rock.
The venue they played at, AMPLYFi, seemed to be the perfect setting for their Riot Grrrl music. It was a small, unassuming venue that seemed to be on par with the “do it yourself” Riot Grrrl mentality of the 90s. Their set was relatively short but it was as aggressive and shredding. They even threw in a little rockabilly flavor covering Wanda Jackson’s “Fujiyama Mama”.
Only time will tell whether Phanie and Jenn keep this musical incarnation going; I’m just glad I got to see them do their thing.
I’ll have to admit, I had a difficult getting any real quality shots at this venue. I used my DSRL, but lacking true proficiency at adjusting settings to accommodate for the quickly change lighting and the low light, and not having the greatest aperture, I’m thinking I probably could have snapped better pics with my point and shoot. C’est la vie. Practice, practice, practice … I’m hoping, will lead to perfect.
Formed the year I was born, 1976, The Damned are a rock band from London, England. I was particularly interested in checking out there set as they are known to be one of the forerunners of the “gothic” music genre: a music style that is a mix of post-punk and alternative rock. I was especially excited that they were playing Ink-N-Iron because I couldn’t recall the last time they toured the United States.
Though their line-up has changed up over the course of their existence, three of their original members performed on this night on the Queen Mary: lead singer Dave Vanian, guitarist Captain Sensible and keyboardist Monty Oxymoron.
Dave Vanian’s performance was particularly impressive. His dark (dressed in black, with sunglasses and gloves) and mysterious stage presence was quite a contrast from Lee Ving’s performance. He performance demonstrated an understated bravado that really demonstrated, to me, a terrific command of the stage.
The audience, who had just before been moshing with reckless, and violent, abandon the set before, was now bouncing about with more fun and freedom. 37 years after they had formed, it appeared to me that they still had plenty in the tank, with their classically punk attitude in full form.
I couldn’t find a setlist of their set online, so if you attended the event and know what their setlist was, please post it in the comments, and I’ll add it to the post.
Immediately below are some videos I found of The Briefs performing at the festival and also the Ink-N-Iron pre-party. If you know of any other videos that are online, please post the link below in the comments so that I can add it to the playlist.
California hardcore punk took shape in the late 70s and early 80s. Heavier and more abrasive than regular punk rock, bands like Black Flag, the Circle Jerks and Fear were the seminal bands that helped paved the way that particular sound and style. Fear’s music and live show is known to be aggressive and confrontational . Their performance on Saturday Night Live back in 1981 is the stuff of legend, as they invited a pack of skinhead slam-dancers on-stage resulting in costly studio damage and even on-mike profanity. That story alone was enough to make me curious enough to catch their set.
I got the stage after the band had already started, but I’m glad that I wasn’t up close to snap pictures. Mosh pits had formed and I’m assuming that either me, or my equipment, could have easily been broken. lol.
Fronting the band is Lee Ving; the only original member of band since its formation in the late 70s. His sharp tongue and vocal thrashing of the mic was still on par. For a man in his mid-60s, his band’s music elicited from the crowd a teenage abandon of angst and straight up punk. Just watching the swirling pits got my juices flowing.
I couldn’t find a setlist of their set online, so if you attended the event and know what their setlist was, please post it in the comments, and I’ll add it to the post.
Immediately below are some videos I found of The Briefs performing at the festival and also the Ink-N-Iron pre-party. If you know of any other videos that are online, please post the link below in the comments so that I can add it to the playlist.
The Briefs are a punk rock band from Seattle, Washington. Critics have described their brand of punk rock as a throwback to 70’s British punk and early 80’s L.A. bands. However you may want to classify them, their music rocks.
I tried doing some research about the band before the festival to learn more about them, but other than their Wikipedia entry and their Facebook Fan Page, there wasn’t much press I could find about them. Based on what I could glean, the band took a little hiatus sometime around 2007 as one of their members joined a new band.
Notwithstanding the little info I could find about them, and based on what I watched and listened to on youtube, I decided I’d check them out. I’m glad I did.
Rapid power chord progressions with catchy hooks, and performed with a cocksure attitude, these guys were a fun kind of punk that really got me ramped up. I may not have been keen on their lyrics (as I was basically being exposed to their music for the first time), but what I heard was good enough for me to make me want to check out there music some more.
I couldn’t find a setlist of their set online, so if you attended the event and know what their setlist was, please post it in the comments, and I’ll add it to the post.
Immediately below are some videos I found of The Briefs performing at the festival and also the Ink-N-Iron pre-party. If you know of any other videos that are online, please post the link below in the comments so that I can add it to the playlist.
After sleeping in to get get some much needed rest after two grueling days of “festivaling”, the first band I went to go see at Coachella on Sunday was Fishbone. Having recently seen Angelo Moore perform as Dr. Madd Vibe at the Troubadour, I knew that it was going to be a high-energy, positive set to kick the day off with.
Under the bright desert sun, Fishbone took to the main stage and played their brand of ska/punk/funk infused alternative rock to a raucous group of early festival arrivals. Angelo Moore’s energy was contagious, his stage presence easily filling the largest stage of the festival. He even abandoned the stage to sing to and greet those in the front of the audience. The definition of a showman.
The band was a well-oiled machine too. Horns, Bass, Keyboards … they all had there moment in the sun (no pun intended), and it was nothing short of wonderful. The third song they played summed up the overall feeling of their set, “Everyday Sunshine”, and from that moment on I knew it was going to be good day. The two highlights of the set, for me at least, were when (i) Angelo, Walter Kibby and John Norwood Fisher (the three founding members of the Fishbone who still play in the band) took center stage to perform, and (ii) when they covered Sublime’s “Date Rape”. Though I had been kicked out of the pit by that time, I felt that if there were another band that had the right to cover that classic tune, it would be Fishbone.
After The Record Company wrapped up their set, they told the crowd to hang out to catch their friend Rachel Goodrich play a set. I hadn’t intended on hanging out, but I decided I’d google her to see what she was all about before deciding whether to leave or not. Allmusic.com described her style as follows:
“Miami Beach-based singer/songwriter Rachel Goodrich‘s eclectic blend of vaudeville-inspired indie pop, swing-jazz and country-folk (the artist frequently describes her sound as “shake-a-billy”) is made all the more singular by the vast number of instruments at her command.”
“Her first album, Tinker Toys, was self-released in 2008 to which the New York Times dubbed her as a “queen of the Miami indie rock scene”. The second, self-titled album was produced by Grammy-nominated music producer Greg Wells. Goodrich’s song, “Light Bulb”, was featured in an episode of the TV series Weeds[…] a Crayola commercial advertisement [and a] BT Infinity – “Light Streams” advert.”
Wanting to hear what her “shake-a-billy” was all about, I decided to stick around.
She took to the stage with her “grrls” and the trio (Rachel on guitar, a bassist and a drummer) started to jam out music that was a throwback to the 50’s era rockabilly with overtones of modern day pop sensibilities. At first, they reminded me of The 5 6 7 8’s … that all-female Japanese rock trio featured in Quentin Tarantino‘s “Kill Bill Volume 1“, but I quickly put that comparison to rest since Rachel Goodrich and the Grrrls vocals sounded much better.
A little bit honky-tonk and a little bit surf-rock with a bit of punk and western-swing sprinkled on top, Rachel’s wispy and subtle vocals enhanced the catchy hooks and had me shaking my groove thing. Ah … “shake-a-billy” … I get it. I enjoyed what I heard and liked her Facebook fan page after the set.
In my opinion, with a fuller repertoire and more exposure, I can easily this band getting booked for local festival spots at FYF Fest or Ink-N-Iron next year, and I’ll be keeping my ears to the web to see what else they have coming up.
As an aside, it was a shame that most of the packed crowd for The Record Company dispersed before catching Rachel and her band do their thing. It was a fun set that was a great night-cap to the blues rock show that The Record Company put on. C’est la vie en Los Angeles, I suppose. At least my view was unobstructed …
Unfortunately, the Flickr slideshow below is not available on mobile devices. If you are on a mobile device, please click THIS LINK to get redirected to the set of photos. If the slide show below isn’t working, the Flickr has disabled their embed option for WordPress and hasn’t yet updated their HTML code, which totally BLOWS! If you can see the slide show below, hooray!
I follow Thundercat on twitter, and I noticed a tweet he posted earlier this year stating that the guys in Bass Drum of Death were cool dudes. That piqued my curiosity. Them opening for Hanni El Khatib? I was excited to hear what they were all about.
Their set was as aggressive and as loud as their name would imply. There was almost a collective release of energy when they started playing as the crowd started to get as rowdy as the music. Head bangers started to open up a circle in front of the stage, and the playful shoving commenced.
Truth be told, I was actually more interested in watching the crowd than watching the band, partially to watch the peach-fuzzed kids climb onto and leap off of the stage, and partially to make sure I didn’t get a kick in the head from a stray leg. Security shut down the stage diving after about one song, but the mood and groove had been set.
Their music, like Tijuana Panthers before them, was a good warm up to the main act … I was just hoping that I wouldn’t have to loosen up my “concert elbows” to give myself some space for HEK.
Unfortunately, the Flickr slideshow below is not currently available on mobile devices. If you are on a mobile device, please click THIS LINK to get redirected to the set of photos.
To check out pictures of other bands I was able to catch at the festival, CLICK HERE.
No Age rocking the FYF Festival for the 7th time.
No Age is a two-person, lo-fi punk band based in Los Angeles. They performed earlier in the summer as part of Santa Monica Pier’s Twilight Concert series, but I wasn’t able to attend the free concert, so I figured I swing by their set at FYF to check them out.
No Age have the distinct honor of being the band who’s played the festival the most-seven times, with the festival being in its 10th year- and they played like it. I don’t have any of their albums, but they definitely played songs that I’ve heard before (a video snippet below of “Fever Dreaming” is a song that I’m sure you’ve heard before too).
Dean Allen Spunt of No Age.
They shred through their set with a vigor that translated well with the audience, as the crowd became of rolling mosh pit of raucous teens with bodies surfing left and right. I could see the security guards catching bodies falling from the railing up front. Lots of fun and a lot of energy. If you were looking for a nice little post-punk pick me up during the day, these guys were it.
#DKLPHOTOS 
