the echo and echoplex

Dominic Bakewell

Dominic Bakewell, a stay-at-home dad, has been playing music and writing songs for over 30 years and recently turned to writing children’s songs after the birth of his son. His alternative rock pop style has been carried into his children’s music. The multi-instrumentalist began playing at house parties as a teenager with his friends and then played the Los Angeles club scene in various bands. At the age of 50 he finally released his first album, Monkey Shoes, which many say is sure to be a classic. The CD has catchy, melodic and smart songs with great beats that kids and parents will love.

Come see Dominic, backed by a great band, perform his children’s music of catchy, melodic and smart songs with great beats that kids and parents love. No cover charge.

3pm / FREE / All ages

Rock for Renter’s Rights
Eviction Defense Network’s 5th Anniversary Benefit

with:
Holloys
Mayaztek
We Are Good Friends
Weba Garretson & Ralph Gorodetsky
& Special Guests

Pre-sale Tickets available by phone!

For more info, call 213.385.8112 or email info@evictiondefensenetwork.org

FMI: www.evictiondefensenetwork.com

7:30pm / $15 / 21+

with:
No Age
Negative Approach
Matt & Kim
Fucked Up
Best Fwends
Abe Vigoda
Two Gallants
David Vandervelde
Glass Candy
High Places
Mika Miko
Monotonix
The Strange Boys
Mannequin Men
Crystal Antlers
Ladyhawk
War Tapes
Frank Fairfield
Graham Forest

& Many More!

Save Money when you order tickets by mobile phone
text Fyeah5 to 467467

2:30pm / $16 / All ages

Justin Townes Earle

Justin Townes Earle has some pretty big shoes to fill, considering that he shares his name with two of American music’s best songwriters: Townes Van Zandt, and his father, Steve Earle. However, the younger Earle shies away from the musical styles of these two men, creating his own sound that is an amalgam of Depression-Era folk, classic country, pre-War blues, and early rock ‘n’ roll. On his first full length record, The Good Life, Justin Townes Earle delivers the best debut roots music has seen since Old Crow Medicine Show hit the big time with OCMS in 2004. The album somehow manages to sound like Earle looks on the cover: street urchin skinny and rocker tattooed, fixing you with both an all-knowing stare and smartass smirk.

The album opens with “Hard Livin’”, an uptempo, Paul Burch meets Langhorne Slim number that features the old standby of country music: pain in the ass womenfolk. Catchy, clever, and highly danceable for those who do that sort of thing, it sets the stage for the rest of the record, an amazing collection of songs that flow from one to the other, something that is sadly lacking in many of the albums released in the age of iPod shuffling. - Popmatters

with:
Sarah Gayle Meech

8:30pm / $8adv, $10dos / 18+

Polvo

One of the most popular and accomplished bands in the arty, noisy indie rock offshoot dubbed math rock, Polvo touched on many of the style’s hallmarks: dissonant, intricately layered guitars that often employed alternate tunings; odd, off-kilter rhythms; an emphasis on dense sonic texture; and unorthodox song structures that, nonetheless, were often unconventionally melodic. Additionally, their music had a pronounced Eastern feel that came not only from the Indian and Middle Eastern-style drones in their compositions, but actual Asian instruments as well; that helped set them apart from other post-Sonic Youth/Slint guitar experimentalists. - VH1

with: Trans Am
The Drones

@ Echoplex
enter at
1154 Glendale Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026

8pm / $15 adv, $17 dos / all ages

Silver Jews || Listen

Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea is the sixth, and best, full-length release by Silver Jews, Berman’s two-decade-long project, which he’s gradually transformed from a Pavement-infused guitar band (Stephen Malkmus was an early member) to a crystal-clear country-rock concern, with twang and torch, piano flourishes, the occasional church organ and an ever-present drive. It was produced in Nashville, Berman’s home, by Mark Nevers, who himself has carved out a secret little corner of the country-music capital by overseeing beautiful albums by Lambchop, Bonnie “Prince” Billy and Calexico — as well as engineering everyone from Marie Osmond and Etta James to George Jones and Johnny Cash.

And it’s Cash’s voice that Berman’s most closely resembles. Except Berman’s is flatter, and any extended rave on his lyrical expertise must contain this proverbial asterisk: His is a punctured tire of a voice, with a sad-sack style that suggests an insurance salesman with a stuffy nose more than it does the Man in Black. It’s droll and it’s rough, but it pushes, it moves, it travels where Berman wants it to, or nearly. It’s singing as necessity, and God bless him for putting it out there. The good thing is that Berman’s wife, Cassie Berman, is the perfect foil, and her harmonies on “Open Field” and “Suffering Jukebox” help balance the tones. - LA Weekly

@ Echoplex
Enter at
1154 Glendale Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026

Save Money when you order tickets by mobile phone
text Musicbox to 467467

8pm / $20 / 18+

Flosstradamus || Listen

Chicago’s Flosstradamus are the perfect DJs for impatient Web surfers accustomed to having the entire history of recorded music at their cursor-tips. “We’re like MP3 bloggers, but with skills,” says twenty-six year-old Curt Cameruchi (a.k.a. Autobot). Armed with four turntables, two laptops, two mixers, two sequencer/samplers, a Serato MP3 “scratcher” and more than 5,000 tracks, Cameruchi and twenty-four-year-old Josh “J2K” Young craft brain-frying live sets that fuse jiggly Windy City club music, gritty crunk, cheesed-out R&B and the occasional indie-rock remix: a Flosstradamus gig features blends of Michael Jackson and Justice, Full Force and Bloc Party, Daft Punk and Jay-Z.

Flosstradamus distinguish themselves not just with track selection, but with the way they tweak, fiddle,and freak every cut — it sounds like the songs are being ripped up and sewn back together again in real time. “In the blog era of DJing, everyone has everything,” says Young, whose older sister is underground rapper Kid Sister. “Now, you have to set yourself apart with your performance, and by creating your own stuff.” - Rolling Stone

with:
N.A.S.A || Listen (Squeak E. Clean and DJ Zegon)
Troublemaker
DJ Kid Lightning
Plus More TBA!

@ Echoplex
enter at
1154 Glendale Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026

Save Money when you order tickets by mobile phone
text Ohyeah to 467467

9pm / $15 / 18+

Le Switch || Listen

Aaron Kyle sings as if he’s never five minutes from his last whiskey, or five minutes from his next, occasionally lurching into a down-deep growl you wouldn’t think could come from an angular white dude in a collared shirt and old browline spectacles.

But it’s that voice, and the woeful tales it conveys, that have endeared L.A. fans to the distinctly vintage soul-pop of Le Switch. “We’re not the fashion police,” Kyle says. “I think if you write a good song, people are going to respond, no matter whether it’s gonna end up in Vice magazine. Besides, I’d trade soul for cool any day.”

Le Switch’s sound, which nods to the likes of Leon Russell, Dr. John and Randy Newman, first began to take shape when Kyle fell in with drummer Joe Napolitano in 2005. Maria DeLuca (trumpet, viola, vocals) joined next, and by the time keyboardist Josh Charney and bassist Christopher Harrison had come on board, Kyle was eager to “make the Leon Russell or Harry Nilsson album we wanted to make,” he says. “Everybody in this band listens to a huge assortment of ’60s and ’70s music — there’s not a lot of new music I can drive with.” - LA Times

with:
Nico Stai
Les blanks
The World Record

8:30 pm / $5 / 18+

Gil Mantera’s Party Dream || Listen

This is one of those left of center records that you might start off scratching your head over, but then find yourself completely in love with. Here we have another duo inspired by early ’80s synth-pop and danceable new wave. I might be dating myself here, but do you remember Q-Feel’s “Dancing In Heaven (Orbital Be-Bop)” from 1982? Well, take that track, throw in some squiggly vocoder effects a la Daft Punk, spritz it with some angular guitar solos, and you’ll arrive with a plus one for this Party Dream…All of this smile-inducing, Casio disco-punk brings to mind Devo meets Kraftwerk — on uppers. Wrapping this package with a nice bow is singer Ultimate Donny’s strong pipes, and he’s got one of those voices that reminds you of other people you can’t quite place. Apparently, their live shows feature over-the-top antics like burning their pubic hair, wrestling in spandex and donning fake moustaches. Somehow, that makes perfect sense. - IN Los Angeles Magazine

with:
Anavan || Listen
The Swords of Fatima

8:30pm / $10 / 18+

Beachwood Sparks || Listen

Beachwood Sparks have come to represent a certain part of California–they are the music of the trees, the hills, the valleys, the canyons and the streams that were all part of this great state before any of us were here. Embodying all that we know now as canyon music, their light, ethereal and sometimes morose psychedelic California-country rock picks up where the Notorious Byrd Brothers left off, and is crafted to convey an appreciation for all that natural beauty cast away from our urban enclaves. - LA Record

with:
Winter Flowers || Listen
Mia Doi Todd || Listen
The Movies
Blank Blue || Listen
DJ Nobody

@ Echoplex
enter at
1154 Glendale Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026

8pm / $14 / 18+

OFFICIAL SUNSET JUNCTION AFTERPARTY

with:
DJ Amanda Jones (Das Bunker, Perversion, Malediction Society)
DJ Robert Lockerby (Clockwork Orange)

spinning the best in Electro, Indie, and ’80s.

The last Saturday of every month!

Come and check out our SUICIDE GIRL GO-GO DANCERS!

@ Echoplex
enter at
1154 Glendale Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026

10pm / $5 all night with Sunset Junction Wristband / 18+

Gary Wilson || Listen

In 1977, a 24-year-old musician from Endicott, N.Y., released a wonderful, odd album called “You Think You Really Know Me.” Combining elements of pop, proto new wave, jazz, avant-garde composition and electronic music, Gary Wilson delivered sincere lyrics, alternately sweet and angst ridden, about the women in his life and his fantasies, most notably in the pleading, quixotically titled “6.4 = Make-Out.”

The album, which he released himself, quickly found a cult following, which over the years included the punk band Husker Du, the avant-garde group the Residents and the “Simpsons” cartoonist Matt Groening. It earned the status of a favored vanity-label obscurity among record collectors, and Beck, in his single “Where It’s At,” even sang about how Mr. Wilson “rocks the most.” - NY Times

with:
Jason Grier || Listen
Julia Holter
Crooked Cowboy & The Freshwater Indians

8:30 pm / $7 / 18+

Or, the Whale || Listen

A reference to Moby Dick and a testament to the roots of what making music is all about, San Francisco seven-piece Or, the Whale, is kicking up dust along the West Coast and spreading the gospel of honest music. Writing songs with a country heart and a scope that encompasses the entire country, Or, the Whale’s sound embodies a friendly front-porch gathering, a rollicking jubilee, and a painful lament. From gospel to roots, Or, the Whale’s songs preserve a warm, organic feeling that transcends age and musical disposition. - Performer Mag

with:
Idaho Falls
Leslie & the Badgers

8 pm / $7 / all ages

The New Year || Listen

The New Year has emerged from the studio with 10 songs that will comprise their upcoming self-titled album, to be released September 9, 2008.

The Brothers Kadane, along w/ the rest of the group, have been making music for the last 17 years - in the 1990s with Bedhead and for the last decade with The New Year. They take their time making records, and this is only their third, and the first since 2004’s The End is Near.

Lyrically, these ten songs address the interlocked themes of lost time, frustrated desire, and the need for others. Although musically these may be the band’s most varied songs — for a band that made innovative use of three guitars, almost half the songs here are built around the piano — it is the careful sequence of these songs that brings the story the lyrics tell together.

Save Money when you order tickets by mobile phone
text Gasoline to 467467

8:30pm / $10 adv, $12 dos / 18+

Ra Ra Riot || Listen

The band played and sang with completely unself-conscious abandon. I know that this is what we expect of all bands, especially bands that project Ra Ra Riot’s brand of catchy rockness, but here genuine excitement and genuine gratefulness shined through the players’ faces. They rampaged around the stage, knocking into each, dancing around, hugging, singing. They looked like an amoeba stuck under glass, constantly pushing out and reshaping itself at its periphery but always remaining stuck together. Or a less ridiculous metaphor: it was a living room dance party with really close friends and family. They presented themselves as a model for the kind of life we’d all like to have: togetherness, happiness, and boundless energy. - Loose Record

with:
Tussle || Listen
Walter Meego || Listen
Lemonade

8:30 pm / $10 / 18+

Bodies of Water || Listen

Bodies of Water may have waited barely a year to release a follow-up to their hand-clapping, head-nodding, heaven-looking debut, but musically, they take their time. “Under the Pines”, a mostly instrumental track from their upcoming A Certain Feeling, takes a while to get to its verse, instead carefully establishing a theatrical organ-and-power-chords overture with all the rock-opera oomph of a homespun Jim Steinman. They project toward the rafters, but build the song carefully, bringing in David Metcalf’s snaky guitar line and letting their wordless harmonies comment on the earthly action of music. The first verse doesn’t kick in until after the two-minute mark, but the chorus sets the song loose: “Under and under and under and under the pines!” they shout in unison, alluding to Leadbelly or Nirvana or those 40 days in the wilderness. Here’s hoping they never make just a three-minute pop song. - Pitchfork

with:
Throw Me The Statue
Princeton || Listen

7:30pm / $10 / All ages

Love Grenades || Watch

We’ve fallen in love with Liz Wight and her Love Grenades. It’s easy to do, given her sultry good looks and sleek, dance-poppy tunes than sound like a glorious cross between Ivy’s urban indie rock and the melodic electronic attitude of Robyn. - Metromix

with:
The Pacific

plus resident DJs spinning the best in Brit / Indie / Soul / Twee / Madchester / Punk / Glam

FMI: ClubUnderground.net

11pm / $5 if 21+, $7 under 21 / 18+

With resident DJs spinning the best in Brit / Indie / Soul / Twee / Madchester / Punk / Glam

FMI: ClubUnderground.net

11pm / $5 if 21+, $7 under 21 / 18+

¡Descarga! is a monthly Afro-Latin music gathering for the people. This event is an alternative to the commercial salsa nights that have dominated the LA scene for years. Resident DJs Sloe Poke, Mando, Bobby Soul, Loslito, and Mexican Dubwiser spin classic salsa and cumbia; plus merengue, punta and reggaeton. With live bands gracing the stage at midnight at nearly every show, it has become the taste-making New York to L.A. soiree, running over 5 years strong.

FMI:
www.descargaclub.com
Descarga on Myspace

9pm / $7 before 11pm, $10 after / 21+

Pop Levi

Nobody is putting out music like Pop Levi’s right now. Levi calls his sound astral rock ‘n’ roll-much catchier than the more descriptive psych-glam-garage-blues-rock fusion. If you need an artistic point of reference, think Prince meets Marc Bolan mixed with probably a bit too much Syd Barrett for his own good. It’s not the most unusual group of influences, but Levi works them into a sound all his own.

Infectious up-tempo numbers like “Sugar Assault Me Now” and “Pick-Me-Up Uppercut” show that Levi has some ready-for-primetime swish in his step, especially the latter, with its overt sexuality. He seems equally comfortable with his acoustic, strumming some contemplative tearjerkers like “Skip Ghetto” and “From the Day That You Were Born,” and he has enough soul to pull off blues-funk tracks like “Blue Honey” and “Hades’ Lady.” This is to say that Pop Levi can do it all, and do it all well. - Prefix Mag

with:
The Parson Red Heads || Listen

plus Club Underground DJs spinning the best in Brit / Indie / Soul / Twee / Madchester / Punk / Glam

9pm / $5 / 18+

Pop Levi

Nobody is putting out music like Pop Levi’s right now. Levi calls his sound astral rock ‘n’ roll-much catchier than the more descriptive psych-glam-garage-blues-rock fusion. If you need an artistic point of reference, think Prince meets Marc Bolan mixed with probably a bit too much Syd Barrett for his own good. It’s not the most unusual group of influences, but Levi works them into a sound all his own.

Infectious up-tempo numbers like “Sugar Assault Me Now” and “Pick-Me-Up Uppercut” show that Levi has some ready-for-primetime swish in his step, especially the latter, with its overt sexuality. He seems equally comfortable with his acoustic, strumming some contemplative tearjerkers like “Skip Ghetto” and “From the Day That You Were Born,” and he has enough soul to pull off blues-funk tracks like “Blue Honey” and “Hades’ Lady.” This is to say that Pop Levi can do it all, and do it all well. - Prefix Mag

with:
The Filthy Souls || Listen

plus Club Underground DJs spinning the best in Brit / Indie / Soul / Twee / Madchester / Punk / Glam

9pm / $5 / 18+

Xiu Xiu || Listen || Watch

The San Francisco outfit, led by Jamie Stewart, are one of the most unique musical acts currently making music. Their brand of challenging and extremely personal music is distinctive and something that only Stewart and co. can do. And with Women as Lovers they have created one of their more accessible and cohesive albums to date.

In many ways, Xiu Xiu has been able to maintain its steady stance as being part of the indie-rock/pop genre and the avant-garde stylists. While this line is often blurred, even by Xiu Xiu themselves, their songs are carefully crafted pop songs with beautiful intimate touches all around. - Delusions of Adequacy

Carla Bozulich || Listen

7:30pm / $12 / ALL AGES

Shearwater || Listen
“Shearwater evokes washed-out swimming holes full of corroded batteries and bad dreams. The group’s haunting Palo Santo lopes around guitar, piano, banjo, and the voice of a singer who sounds unduly poised even when he’s on the brink of losing it. Portentous atmospheres and patient pacing recall the ornate movements of late-period Talk Talk, but flashes of fuzz and brusque indie-rock urgency make the rarified moods bristlingly real. It’s the kind of album that can steal a breath and pay it back, with interest, after the debt is long forgotten…Grade: A” - The Onion AV Club

with:
Wye Oak || Listen
Neil Morgan

Save Money when you order tickets by mobile phone
text Rooks to 467467

8:30pm / $12 / 18+

The Muslims

Assured-beyond-their-years San Diego quartet the Muslims will definitely get a lot of attention for their name, but we’re much more interested in the band’s catchy, sorta sloppy and stark post-punk-infused rock ‘n’ roll. They mix a kind of Strokes-y, and therefore VU, detachment and something that bumps in the night like Hell and his Voidoids (or, better yet, Hell and the Heartbreakers doing “Love Comes In Spurts”). You can also hear a bit of the Stooges — not just because the band cites ‘em, along with the Replacements, as an inspiration — and early Jonathan Richman & the Modern Lovers (see “Future Rock,” “On My Time,” etc). Whatever the mix of forerunners, the Muslims find a way to make it their own — it’s kinda uncanny. - Stereogum

with:
The Blood Arm || Listen
The Wallburds
The Franks

and DJs:
Paulie (L Train/Coup D’etat)
Christopher (Get Yer Rocks Off!)

8:30pm / $7 / 18+

The Wombats || Listen
Let’s be honest, how could an album that contains Let’s Dance To Joy Division possibly fail? It just can’t, can it? Singles like this come along about once every five years, if not once a decade. This one song alone would have ensured The Wombats a glowing review.

That’s not all the lads from 2008’s European City of Culture have to offer, though. From the opening acapella harmonising of Tales Of Girls, Boys and Marsupials, which also kicks off their near-perfect live performances, A Guide To Love, Loss And Desperation is a wonderful musical experience, easily one of the albums of the year and one of those irritating debuts that are so good they should be illegal.

The Wombats are a rare gem. Catchy enough for the charts, indie enough for the music press, sarcastic enough for the miserable sods who moan that music was better when it came on slabs of black plastic, fresh enough for the kids who are getting a bit fed up with Arctic Monkeys and, best of all, clever enough to get Joy Division fans onto the dancefloor in a more original way than Bernard Sumner ever thought of. And with better tunes. - Music OMH

Pop Noir || Listen

@ Echoplex
enter at
1154 Glendale Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026

Save Money when you order tickets by mobile phone
text Happy to 467467

7:30 pm / $15 advance; $17 day of show / All Ages

The Night Marchers

John “Speedo” Reis is, without a doubt, one of underground music’s finest showmen, and it could also be argued that he’s the most underappreciated frontman from the alt-rock ’90s. Not to dismiss his work with Pitchfork, Drive Like Jehu, Hot Snakes, Sultans, etc., but Reis always seemed to put his best foot forward with Rocket From The Crypt, and he’s injected The Night Marchers with a similarly ecstatic mix of ferocious garage-rock and populist pop. As always, this stuff is better suited for the stage, and it would be foolish not to assume that horns could make The Night Marchers even better, but with the assistance of a band that includes a couple of fellow ex-Snakes, Reis has made his best record since Rocket’s Scream, Dracula, Scream! heyday. Simple certainly doesn’t equal thin on See You In Magic, a 47-minute blitzkrieg bop that balances punky stompers with perfectly subdued moments like “Panther In Crime” and “We’re Goin’ Down.” The latter even finds Reis’ rough croon somehow making Armageddon sound truly wonderful. - The Onion AV Club

with:
Colour Revolt || Listen
Slang Chickens

Save Money when you order tickets by mobile phone
text Magic to 467467

8:30pm / $12 adv, $14 dos / 18+

Dan Le Sac v. Scroobius Pip

Pip, the man with the densest, most imposing beard in UK rap, has a similarly formidable set of rhymes that delight throughout Angles. On Development, Scroobius praises Mos Def for rhyming the alphabet, before a mid-song switching of beat sees him rap the periodic table to hilarious and exhilarating effect.

This smart spitting, redolent of a suburban Skinny Man or more long-in-the-tooth Mike Skinner, is used to effectively elicit poignancy on Tommy and most notably on Magician’s Assistant. While a moody soundscape sounds like a scary stagger away from consciousness, Pip chats about self-harm. The result is a better anti-suicide ode than REM’s Everybody Hurts.

Le Sac’s production highlights include cutting Dizzee Rascal grime beats into Fixed, meaty trance throbs on the malevolent shoplifting tale of the title track and his inspired use of a sample from Radiohead’s Planet Telex on Letter From God To Man. It’s to his credit there’s as much deft imagination in the music as there is in the lyrics. - BBC

Save Money when you order tickets by mobile phone
text Navigate to 467467

9pm / $10 / 18+

Why? || Listen

Answering the question, nay, even making an attempt at answering “So, what do they sound like?” is deserving of a gold star. WHY? is a three-piece from Oakland, composed of beat- and word-smith Yoni Wolf, his brother Josiah, and Doug McDiarmid, joined on Alopecia by bassist Mark Erickson and Fog’s Andrew Broder. They’re really less of a black hole and more of a modified vacuum cleaner. They suck up everything along with the dirt: experimental hip-hop, indie rock, sugar-loaded pop, minimalist balladry, etc. And then, once the components are all bundled together, they flip the switch and send it all tumbling back out again and into the recording studio. More plainly, WHY? is the alphabet soup of independent music. Clever, biting, creative, intense, storied, and lurid. There’s really nothing else like it.

Alopecia, their third full-length release and second as a full band, is a darkly tinged juggernaut. 2005’s supremely wonderful but admittedly melancholic Elephant Eyelash is downright cheery in relation. The songs of Alopecia find a renewed interest from Yoni Wolf in delivering straight-up beats and rhymes alongside his more sing-songy efforts. Unsurprisingly, his styles of old and new fit together like it ain’t no joke. - Tiny Mix Tapes

@ Echoplex
enter at
1154 Glendale Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026

Save Money when you order tickets by mobile phone
text Alopecia to 467467

7pm / $13 adv, $15 dos / All Ages

Matthew Sweet || Listen

His popularity heyday may have been in the early ’90s, but alterna-rocker Matthew Sweet is still around and kicking out the jams. A whole new batch of those will arrive on Sunshine Lies, Sweet’s new album, which is slated for a July 22 release via Shout! Factory. Sunshine Lies was recorded in that city so known for its sunshine and its lies, Los Angeles. Sweet’s long-time pal Susanna Hoffs (of Bangles fame), who Sweet was last heard with on the 2006 covers collection Under the Covers Vol. 1, provides backing vocals for the title track. Sweet calls the album “very direct, but seen through the eyes of nature, or rather modeled on its beauty, chaos and freedom, something like a stab at sonic art nouveau.” - Prefix Mag

with:
Greg Laswell

Save Money when you order tickets by mobile phone
text Flying to 467467

8pm / $15adv, $18dos / 18+

Platinum Pied Pipers

Slowly but surely carving out the sounds and styles they’ll unveil on their sophomore LP, Abundance, coming this fall on Ubiquity, Platinum Pied Pipers and th