Kevin Bronson on February 27th, 2009

1

By Michael Bauer

The Smell crew invaded the Echo on Thursday night and converted the Echo Park indie-rock club into a packed and sweaty house party. The crowd at the all-ages show was noticeably more energetic than any crowd in recent memory. (Formula: All-ages shows = more energy. More energy = more fun. More fun = better shows.)

Here, three acts who have graduated from playing the downtown all-ages venue showed they could energize a bigger room. Electro-pop duo Captain Ahab kicked-started the night with a steamy 30-minute set that included crowd surfing, moshing and one of the members stripping down to his turquoise briefs. Imagine that a clever member of Hell’s Angels, heavily influenced by hip-hop, bought a laptop filled with electronic beats, wrote funny lyrics about having sex with various people/things, and then enlisted the human version of the Energizer bunny to dance madly beside him, and you have arrived at Captain Ahab. These guys coulde make one hell of an aerobics video.

Abe Vigoda played a set that showed why they’ve been the recipients of so much hype over the past year.”  Michael Vidal and Juan Velazquez lulled the crowd into a dreamy/subdued state with their spacey vocals and reverb-laced guitars while the rhythm section comprised of David Reichardt on bass and Dane Chadwick on drums kept the pulse of the songs upbeat and the heads in the crowd nodding. There were moments when I detected a tinge of Talking Heads, but with that said, Abe Vigoda’s eclectic, tropical take on indie-rock is a testament to the fact that there are still bands in 2009 that are creating their own sound while ignoring everybody else’s lead.

Health is as chaotic as it gets. By the time the quartet hit the stage, the Echo was packed to the gills, and they delivered a bomb blast of a noise-rock set.”  Besides unleashing their already classic “Crimewave,” Health debuted new material that hints the foursome will pick up where their debut left off – expect an onslaught screeching guitars, violent percussion and buried-beneath-the-noise vocal lines, although I could have sworn I heard a shockingly catchy vocal hook somewhere in the wall of noise of one of the new songs. Performance-wise, Health did not disappoint. Flinging themselves across the stage with abandon while simultaneously maintaining a tight sound is Health’s trademark, and they did it exceptionally well Thursday.

The common denominator with the Smell bands seems to be their intense passion for their own music. Rarely do you see a band that completely lacks self-awareness on stage, let alone 3 bands in one night.”  Let’s hope this recent rise of The Smell bands spreads, if anything, a heightened sense of sincerity and passion in the Los Angeles music community.

Photo from Health’s MySpace. Michael Bauer is a writer and frontman of the band Useless Keys.