Kevin Bronson on September 7th, 2017

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The year 2007 seemed pretty good. At least, if I’m remembering.

It was the year a friend perfected the whistling part in Peter Bjorn & John’s “Young Folks.” It was the year Rodney Bingenheimer got a star on the Walk of Fame. It was the year I sprained something watching the Buzzcocks at Sunset Junction. It was the year a friend, assuring me it would be amazing, took me to see Jena Malone sing at the Echo.

In my role as author of the weekly Buzz Bands column in the Los Angeles Times, I witnessed bands come and bands go, and then more bands come. Some artists I thought would be huge never achieved success. Some artists I thought were forgettable blew up. At the end of the year when editors asked me to pick three bands who were on the verge, I chose the Airborne Toxic Event, the Deadly Syndrome and Castledoor. Unless you’ve been around a while, you probably only recognize one of those names.

So in recent weeks I’ve dug through the Times’ digital archives and old playlists from a show I did in those days on the internet outlet Little Radio. The Spotify playlist below is culled from that, although there are some nuggets from ’07 that apparently never made it to Spotify. And some of the music “released” in 2007 didn’t get formally released, or re-released, until later.

(And the things that jog the memory, crate-digging like this: “35 Assistants” by Berko is the work of Warpaint’s producer, Jake Bercovici. Emma Burgess’ “Big Break” was released on a label run by Mastin Kipp, now an inspirational speaker and founder of The Daily Love. And so on. Anyway, you might not recognize a lot of the names, but many are still making vital music in different incarnations.)

Other things I recall:

1) Silversun Pickups played the Silverlake Lounge and the main stage at Coachella in the same month. (It’s true, the former gig was a “secret show” in honor of promoter The Fold’s anniversary.) I watched one from side stage and one from the far corner.

2) I stayed up real late one night to catch Prince. (Wonder if the fan quoted in the story remembers the ticket price, 10 years later?)

3) I thought the Swerve Festival, high on the hilltop in Barnsdall Park, was a great idea. Plus, it was the first time I saw St. Vincent. The festival didn’t last.

4) I thought the Detour Festival, in the streets surrounding L.A. City Hall, was a great idea. Justice, after all, and Bloc Party. The festival didn’t last.

5) It was either Darker My Love or No Age, probably the former, who put me on the fast track to hearing loss at the second “F*ck Yeah Fest” (as the flyer says). The Mae Shi tore the place up. The Muslims played too, right before they changed their name to the Soft Pack.

6) Starbucks’ record label released an album by local guys Low Stars.

7) Beck played a secret show at the Echo, and Spoon played a secret show at the Little Radio warehouse downtown. I was fortunate enough to be there for both.

8) But I was just as happy that crisp night in January, sitting cross-legged on the floor of the Silverlake Lounge among maybe 20 people, watching Softlightes (whose ranks at the time included Kristian Dunn and Tim Fogarty of El Ten Eleven) perform “Heart Made of Sound,” which you will find below.

I could ramble on, but enjoy the playlist. And if you’ve got a memory from 2007, leave a comment …