2/18/2011 Power Axe, Marnie Stern, Tera Melos

It was a Friday.  Los Angeles. Marnie Stern and Tera Melos at the Echo.  The desire to proceed was unprecedented and undeniably real.  Into the great wide peerless sky catapulted like dead skin born and freed from the lays and attachment of body, accompaniment, response and responsibility;  three approached a new kindle of aural magnitude unseen.

Blistered in rain the journey began.   Smog skies waved us onward.  A blind vestige of impenetrable waves batted again and again.  Streaking and streaking by and by. Pavement gripped at cautious speed. Danger ever present,  weaving through cascading downpours and shitty drivers. A dense ball, liquid to the touch,  impossible to trek without the weathered assault on high,  pulsating droplets unceasing, Los Angeles shifting endlessly like a homeless man in high mental failure.  The streets held no meaning.  Narrow corridors threatened to swallow us whole.  But beyond all reason we arrived…

At the gay bear’s night? What the hell is this shit? Unforeseen circumstances.  The show was not at the Echoplex but at the echo upstairs. Fuck. We all enumerate our frustrations vividly and loudly. fuck fuck fuck. The rain continues like a cold shower set to “no where to hide.” Making our way up a hobo piss staircase we race drenched but spirited.

The Echo at last.  Recovering as we make our way in tickets in hand,  the familiar bursting bass of a live show pounds the air molecules.  We enter.  Pretentious, righteous, musical, ridiculous, nerdy, random, intelligent. The crowd shares many shades of fandom.  An air of smugness.  My kind of crowd.  At the center of bar/ venue, the tiny stage would meld both musician and listener into one.

POWER AXE.  Only half way into their set but they had something unreal about them. Having only seen and heard poor recorded videos of them, I could only expect the least of anything.  Instead, an internal combustion engine of a band thumping at the burrows nerding within greeted.  Reminiscent of an NES dungeon hulking out of an old wooden 80’s television to destroy the world of man, Power Axe kicked all sorts of ass.

MARNIE STERN. Holy shit. What amazing talent. What soul. What beauty.  I have always loved Marnie Stern’s music every since I heard

This Is It and I Am It and You Are It and So Is That and He Is It and She Is It and It Is It and That Is That.

Yes. Fucking awesome album. Anyways.  What could be said about this performance can hardly be said because well you had to be there.

TERA MELOS. The concluding band.  Firstly I have to say, Tera Melos is unlike anything I’ve previously heard.  This band is a like a group of lost time travelers, far beyond the scope and worth of this age.  Seriously its like listening to something so constantly ahead of the mental process it immerses and permeates the neuro kinetic barriers trying to sway the hypnotic delivery that surgically stalks the brainial hemispheres; striding towards the cortex.  A virus. subliminally unstoppable.  Only the clinically unresolved invalid capsule of humanity wonders “what?”

Akin to a million childhoods, reruns, and wierd moments, Tera Melos has no comparative equal.

And thus ended our night.  Astoundingly wet.  But gratified by what was. what will come. A paradox circling like wolves ready. hungry. Wide eyed without thought, driven by instinct. Running on pure adrenaline.

music and real food… daily

january 29, deerhoof, the echoplex.

we head out in the afternoon, making sure we have enough time to grab lunch. we aren’t sure if we’ll still have our hunger with us after having to sit in pat’s car the whole drive (little microbial forests grow inside the cupholders) but we somehow manage. an average amount of traffic later, we find a parking a bit away and walk over to real food daily. it’s not too busy in there, and the crowd seems a bit more down to earth than the last time we stopped here. the locals must have other things to do on a saturday night?

regardless, we had our expectations set high after experiencing the wonder of their pooh bear and christopher robin last time around; another amazing monthly special salad.

boasting curry sauce, baby greens, cashews, spiced tofu, currants, apples, and basmati rice, the road to new delhi seemed like the obvious choice. we got the 10-piece nori maki for the three of us to share, and pat got the burger with the works. (they took no chances with misnomers on this burger.)

our drinks are up first; pat gets a rootbeer and kevin and cameron get the house blend kukicha tea. mmm… starting the meal off right.

next up… eats! food is brought over in a timely manner, and it looks amazing. pat assembled his burger, and kevin and cameron start with a roll of nori maki.

then jump to the salad.

then comes the food-ADD, when everything is so incredibly and unfathomably flavorful that you aren’t sure what to eat next, so you just jump from one to another, too determined to talk about it, but sharing lots of “mmm”-noises, because one can still make those without ceasing chewing.

pat becomes territorial of his aptly named burger, and denies cameron a picture…

but she manages. really, it’s under there… somewhere. this is just a pat-sized potion of food.

surprisingly, we actually made the meal last, and it was delicious. we paid, and tipped, and drank the rest of our tea, and were off. the rest of the evening involved periodical reminiscing about dinner while strolling around awaiting the doors to open for the show. a little after 8:30, they open the doors, and we enter, cameraless. (denied our press passes)

regardless, the show was awesome; ben butler and mousepad opened, a synth and drum duo, which ended up being pretty crazy. deerhoof followed, and it turned out to be a very awesome show, and a very awesome night, all in all.