Capri has a youthful enthusiasm that served her well at Hotel Ziggy during her WFNM set. The singer has an interesting background. Prior to writing on this blog about singers and bands that I've never seen before, I'll do a little Internet search on them to provide me with some writing material. Results popped up without much effort.
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| Capri at Hotel Ziggy |
Menea, the shortened moniker for Menea Kefalov, provided the WFNM crowd at Hotel Ziggy with an enchanting performance. It was in support of her March 5th EP release paint me green. She started off her set with "that familiar place." There was just something about her vocals that immediately caught my attention. She wasn't trying to always sing in a smooth and melodic manner. She sang at times like she was tuning her guitar, just going slightly off-tune for just a moment before veering back. Was it an inability to keep a tune? No, it was done on purpose. Other times, she just let her vocals switch time signatures on a dime. It hit me shortly that there was a touch of Basia in those vocals.
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| Menea at Hotel Ziggy |
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| Dirtydom & The Vibe at Hotel Ziggy |
A Handful of Show Alerts
I first came across Alice Sandahl at the Sage Brews stage at Echo Park Rising last year. I only caught a song or two. For those who don't know, I rush around Echo Park Rising like a wild man, shooting as many bands and artists as possible. I don't particularly remember a whole lot about her singing, but I do remember one thing specifically. There were three children hanging out next to the outdoor stage. Prior to her set, they had their hands and ears pressed against the stage monitors, feeling the vibrations of the DJ music. I almost went over to them and told them that putting their ears next to the monitors would damage their hearing, but then I didn't want to be the old person who basically was lecturing kids when their parents were only a few feet away.
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| Alice Sandahl at Permanent Records Roadhouse |
BIG NOTE: The band announced a farewell show for April 5th at the Cinema Bar. See additional details here.
Phil Stancil of The Morning Yells recently played a set at Harvard & Stone. Though he was playing a solo set, he was still playing songs from The Morning Yells catalog. The set started off with "Hummingbird." That song hasn't been officially released, but there is a Youtube video that you can view here that was filmed in Mount Washington last year. It is a song not about a living hummingbird, but a Gibson Hummingbird guitar. It caught my attention at the Americana West Fest that I covered for US Rocker Music that you can read about here. "Oh sweet Hummingbird where are you now . . . once I held you safe in my arms . . . searched every pawn shop . . . Oh sweet Hummingbird, wherever you go, you know . . . your songs will stay with me forever and never grow old."
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| Phil Stancil of The Morning Yells at Harvard & Stone |
Take a teaspoon of Arrow De Wilde and give it an Americana twist and Meels emerges. Meels is the moniker for Amelia Einhorn who recently played a WFNM night at Bar Lubitsch. Einhorn is from Mill Valley and a recent graduate from NYU. Based on the Bar Lubitsch performance, I'd say that the Los Angeles Americana-country music scene is lucky that she decided to unpack her bags in the city and nto Nashville.
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| Meels at Bar Lubitsch |
Heading to Zebulon for a Super Bowl after party has become my three year tradition: a time to see singers again for who-knows-how-many-times-this-particular-night makes it. In 2023, Ryan Pollie played the after party. I first came across Ryan Pollie in 2017 via a band called Los Angeles Police Department. In 2024, it was Sally Spitz. I first came across Sally Spitz in 2016 via a band called French Vanilla. Come 2025, it was Mercedes Kilmer playing the after party. I first came across her in 2023. Now this blog post isn't focused on Mercedes Kilmer. If interested, you can read my recent review of her set at El Cid with Gold Star here.
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| John Errol at Zebulon |
A Handful of Show Alerts
Sunday, Mar 30th: Emily Rose & the Rounders, Eugene Edwards, Los Rock Angeles, and Tone Slingers at The Regent Theater. Doors at 3:30 p.m.It was off to Permanent Records Roadhouse to see a Shannon Lay set for the first time since 2021. Of course, I made sure I saw the full line-up. The headliner was someone named Devon Williams. I figured this was the first time I'd ever seen Devon Williams perform live on stage. As I was getting ready to write up this blog post, I decided on a whim to see if that was true or not. Since I'm writing about this whim, the answer is that I obviously saw a prior set. One has to dial back the clock all the way to Dec 27th, 2010 when I hung out at The Smell. Back then (unless my camera time stamps were seriously off), The Smell had bands going on past the midnight hour.
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| Devon Williams at Permanent Records Roadhouse |
I've been following Shannon Lay since 2011 when she was in a band fronted by Laena Myers called Raw Geronimo (name later changed to Feels). She started to do solo gigs and I saw my first set at the Bootleg Theater (since closed) in 2017. I wrote the following about it:
"Shannon Lay from Feels started the night off. It reminded me of my first night during my New Zealand vacation. I was walking around and came across this music venue where folks were in a circle, singing. Her set was such a unique difference from Feels."
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| Shannon Lay at Permanent Records Roadhouse |
I'll be honest, I have not seen Lo Moon all that often. I first saw the band in 2016 at The Echo and didn't run across them again until their Zebulon residency in 2023. With that acknowledgement, I can't say that I'm a super fan, but I am a fan.
Even though that is a long stretch of time, that first performance stuck with me. I wrote this brief little comment about the band at the time:
"First up was LO MOON. They're dark and moody with pulsating drums and guitars. And then there was the hair toss and cracked smile when things went perfectly with a song."
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| Lo Moon at The Roxy |
I first came across Shi La Rosa via her band Drugs Cosmetics. It was 2022 and it was a WFNM night at the Black Rose. Almost three years in the past. Time flies. I was still shooting shows with my Canon 5D Mark IV. I've since upgraded to a Canon R5. And the Black Rose shined bright and then shut down. We had a very hot hot summer in 2022 and would you know it, the air conditioning went out. They had portable power fans blasting air through the venue for the summer, but that didn't really help matters. I felt super old on those particularly hot summer nights. I usually have no problem standing around throughout a music night, but on those nights I would find myself needing to sit during the middle of a set. Anyways, the venue shut down shortly afterwards. I was told that the Black Rose would have needed to shell out six figures to fix the air conditioning and they just didn't have that type of money.
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| Shi La Rosa at Bar Lubitsch |
