When it comes to photography, sometimes the joke is on me. I went to Rocknite at Zebulon to catch a favorite band, Valley Queen. I reach into my camera bag to pull out my RF 15-35mm so that I could shoot a wide angle shot (to take a photo of the full band). Instead of pulling out my RF 15-35mm, I pulled out my RF 28-70mm. I had packed the wrong lens. That happens on occasion. For me, the two lenses are hard to tell apart when just picking them up. This is where the joke is on me. I went home after the set and took out the RF 28-70mm from my bag and put in the RF 15-35mm. The next day, there was another Rocknite, but this time it was at The Airliner Bar. I went home after work and my mind flashed back to Zebulon and I was thinking, "I better pack my RF 15-35mm." So I went and switched out the lenses (totally forgetting what I had done at around 11:30 p.m. the night before). Up first at the The Airliner Bar was Intercurrent. At some point during their set, I switched my lenses and I pulled out what I thought was my RF 15-35mm. I put the camera viewfinder up to my eye and was like, "I am so stupid."
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| Intercurrent at The Airliner Bar |
From what I can tell, Intercurrent is a relatively new shoegaze band that hit the Los Angeles music scene about a year ago. The band is fronted by Sarah Margaret Wilkey and at this point in time, they've released just two songs. They've cut their teeth at
The Escondite and
The Redwood Bar, two venues that I always tell myself I should visit, but don't do so enough. Recently, after way more than I year, I went to The Redwood Bar to catch a singer that I had a tangential awareness of and when I walked into the venue I was in total shock that the stage had been redone. At least they hadn't removed the painting that was made famous in
(500) Days of Summer (that painting was there way before the movie).
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| Intercurrent at The Airliner Bar |
Moment of the set: Wilkey was doing some guitar tuning that was taking a little bit of time so the bassist called out, "How's everyone doing?" Still tuning, she reached out to the microphone and turned it towards the bassist's direction, "He's the talker, not me." He didn't take the opportunity to be the front person for a few beats.
The band's music has dreamy shoegaze sounds with just the right touches of reverb and their sizable pedal boards. Guitar strings are plucked with care for those airy moments and then are struck harder for the moments of intensity.
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| Intercurrent at The Airliner Bar |
The two song's they have released are "Arrow" and "Fall Asleep." "Fall Asleep" has an alt rock feel while "Arrow" leans more shoegaze. Since I've always had a soft spot for shoegaze throughout my time in the Los Angeles music scene, I'll go with "Arrow" as the song spotlight. For me, a song especially hits the spot when I can imagine it being played at the Twin Peaks bar. There's a holiday waiting for the songwriter in Rome, but real world drama takes hold before a period of relaxation can arrive.
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| Intercurrent at The Airliner Bar |
Arrows run through me, the blood drips slow
Setlist: Intro, Take Me Away, Shining Light, Bloom, Fall Asleep, A Shout in the Street, Arrows.
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