The Minutes That Escaped Me, the Guilty Minutes Hate Me...

Remember last week, when I had seen the error of my lazy ways and was all set to change them? Well, um about that...

I got home last night with the best intentions, stay in, write concert calendar, go to sleep by one A.M. at the very latest. However sometimes your best intentions fail you, and a 9 P.M. viewing of Sixteen Candles demands your full undivided attention, and then you wake up sometime around two A.M. wondering, "Where did it all go wrong?"

So in order to compromise, here are your options for tonight with the promise of a full run down of the rest of the weeks shows tomorrow so you at least have the option to plan ahead. For those of you that are into that sort of thing.

By the way, did anyone make it to any good shows over the weekend? I hate to say it, but my weekend was delightfully low key aside from St. Vincent at the Echoplex which was amazing. Did I miss anything that I will be kicking myself over when I read about them in your comments? Please share...



Here are your options for tonight MONDAY 2/18:



Dave Newton Showcase w/ The Henry Clay People, The Happy Hollows, Death To Anders, and Kissing Tigers at The Echo

Robert Francis at The Silver Lake Lounge

KCRW presents: Rickie Lee Jones at The Echoplex

Casket Salesmen, Auditory Aphasia, Mongoloid, Mythmaker, and The Feelings Mutual at The Troubadour

Indie 103.1 Presents Check One... Two... The Flying Tourbillion Orchestra, Dengue Fever, and Colorforms at The Viper Room

Bust Magazine Presents: The Pity Party, Film School, Ladies & Gents, and What Made Milwaukee Famous at Spaceland


Ah the age old battle over how to split your time between the Echo and Spaceland for the free Monday night residencies, and the increasingly great line-ups that come with each. I think I'll wander over to the Echo tonight myself. You've got the Henry Clay People who are on the third night of their residency at this point, and whose show last week was apparently so good I rightfully shouldn't be able to show my face at this one because I missed it without much of a valid excuse. You've also got Death to Anders who rock about as much live as their new album Fictitious Business rocks your ipod, that is to say A LOT. Kissing Tigers who I've not yet seen, but adore their recordings to pieces, and The Happy Hollows who I liked a lot when I saw them two years ago.

The night is also being referred to as the Dave Newton showcase as he produced records for all of the bands in question. So in honor of that, posted below is a video of Dave Newton covering his former band The Mighty Lemon Drops with his all too short lived band The C86 All Stars at Spaceland in 2006. You really should have known that I would never pass up a perfect opportunity to reference anything having to do with the history of indiepop...

Top of the Pops!

Art Brut may very well be my new favorite live band. They rocked through their catalouge last night at the Henry Fonda with exactly the kind of energy and sense of fun that you would expect to see from Art Brut. I've missed them almost too many times to count now, and I was beginning to think that they might turn into a band that I would never see perform. Due to this, I'd been imagining Eddie Argos' stage banter as the stuff of legend, I was not disappointed. My personal favorite line of the night came when he introduced "Good Weekend:" "It was number one, in Narnia... Aslan bought the first copy." Am I going to hell for thinking that is hilarious? Excellent local band Kissing tigers got um, a shout out later in the song. So did the Mighty Lemon Drops. This resulted in a good ammount of celebration where we were standing, with members of both of those bands in attendance. Makes sense as Dave Newton (the Mighty Lemon Drops) produced albums for openers the Blood Arm (who I sadly missed due to Santa Monica traffic,) and Kissing Tigers. He is producing the new album for the Henry Clay People as well. I'm going to take a wild guess that it will be fantastic, because they are fantastic. And since I attended this show with Joey from the Henry Clay People, I was introduced to Dave. Amazingly, I managed to make it through the evening without asking him a single nerdy C86 question.

Then of course "America's number 1 bar band" the Hold Steady are always a good time, I can't descibe what it is that makes me love this band so much. Something about the way Craig Finn presents his stories of kids and "killer parties," mixed in with a fair ammount of religious imagery is completely endearing (he even tends to act out moments of dialougue in the songs.) Everyone else in the band the band knows how to put on a good show, and it is near impossible to watch them without smiling. I can't imagine ever getting tired of watching them, and I really can't believe that I almost talked myself out of this one because I was feeling anti-social. No longer, the upcoming week brings me back to my usual schedule of a show nearly every night culminating with the Radio Free Silver Lake/Rock Insider/Squaregirls (!) presented night with the Valley Arena/the Forms/the Bentleys/Signal Hill on Wednesday the 14 at the Scene Bar in Glendale (ahem.) The Hold Steady/Art Brut was just the thing to get me back on track!

Check out Art Brut performing a similar rendition of "Good Weekend" to the one I saw last night posted below.