Echo Park Rising and Chinatown Summer Nights

Beginners

It was a busy weekend for me -- that's last weekend. I guess not as busy as for some local music lovers who probably caught a plethora of bands, but still busy. I jumped from Echo Park Rising to Chinatown Summer Nights and then back to Echo Park Rising. Of course, not in one day. It was Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

On Friday, I caught Beca and Disco Shrine. I went to this small cafe called Trencher. It took FOREVER to find parking. I'm addicted to free parking so I was driving all over Echo Park, trying to find free parking. I think I probably made it over to Angelino Heights for a bit. I actually saw both Beca and Disco Shrine previously. I saw Beca a couple years back at Make Music Pasadena. I saw Disco Shrine at this year's Broke LA. And well, I tend to run into Jessica (of Disco Shrine) every once in awhile at other music festivals.

On Saturday, it was off to see Night Talks opening up at Chinatown Summer Nights. I saw them previously at the Bootleg Theater and wanted to catch them again. So someone probably doesn't want this to be mentioned, but one reason Night Talks opened their set up a few minutes late was because someone accidentally put their batteries in the wrong way. I stuck around and caught three other bands: Lone Kodiak, Dream Club and Beginners. Lone Kodiak had the most interesting lyrics, "Have you crossed the Indian Ocean? Now you're lost on the Indian Ocean." Dream Club's music is influenced by Native American spiritual sounds. And two of the band members have the cutest son. During the final couple songs, the son kept on trying to get his dad's attention. He wanted permission to use the party popper. After the set, the kid tried to set off the popper, but just couldn't do it. He would struggle and end up pointing the popper directly at his friends who would then quickly point the popper directly back towards the sky. My night ended with the Beginners who reminded me of an old favorite local band of mine called The Randies. Well, Beginners are now on my list of favorite bands.

Closing out the crazy weekend of music was a run back to Echo Park Rising where I was able to find parking in a much easier fashion. I got to see Minnow and The Controversy. This time, I was at The Lost Room. Minnow had one energetic set. So energetic that the keyboardist lost his balance and had to jump off the stage in order not to fall over. The Controversy is a band that I've seen a number of times. Their music, of course, is awesome.


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