Tag: the echo

Take This: Win Two Tickets to Horrendous at the Echo

Janky Smooth Central Command April 2, 2019

84 is the new promoter on the block and so far their booking has been flawless. Bringing some of the gnarliest bands in underground music to the right venues, their latest show is Horrendous and Feather and Bone playing the Echo. Hailing from Philadelphia, Horrendous makes some of the most brutal, gnarliest extreme metal bands bringing together grind, prog, and doom into one blackened musical abomination. YOU CAN BUY TICKETS HERE OR. ENTER TO WIN 2 TICKETS TO HORRENDOUS APRIL 17TH AT THE ECHO Step 1- Join Our Newsletter (look for pop up every time you arrive at jankysmooth.com) Step 2- Tag a Friend in the comment section of our Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook Horrendous Posts WINNER WILL BE WILL BE SELECTED ON MONDAY APRIL 8TH AT 11AM PST VIA EMAIL CONFIRMATION

Trip-hopping into 2019: Tigercide at the Echo

Aria Silva-Espinosa January 10, 2019

It takes a day or two to get your bearings in a new year. It was hard to find the motivation to leave the comfort of my heated apartment but we headed out to The Echo on the second day of 2019, drawn by the allure of some dark, brooding electronic music to match the early sundown city vibe I’ve been feeling lately. Something about the residual Christmas lights still adorning a few random houses and the dying pine trees collecting on the sidewalks reminds me that the festivities are over and it’s time to come back to the usual grind. I needed a good show to start the year off right so the ethereal, trip-hop duo Tigercide seemed like an obvious choice for my first show of the new year. related content: Los Angeles On Mushrooms: Infected Mushroom At Exchange LA Before the show, vocalist Shexist and accompanist Saint Brended chatted amicably with us on the green room couches. Optimistic about the upcoming year but still feeling the pre-show jitters, Shexist inquired about the audience size. It’s hard to draw people out of hiding after the holiday season and even the biggest bands have trouble filling a venue when

The Legend of Magic Sword at the Echo

Dillon Vaughn January 7, 2019

Los Angeles has no shortage of synth-wave acts rolling through the city: venue calendars are littered with events hosting artists both well known and up and coming, but the quality is sometimes questionable in a genre that so easily falls into one-note nostalgia. Not too long ago, I didn’t care for the sub-genre much but I’ve since seen the light and witnessed quite a few acts that truly blew me away. I’d heard quite a bit about Magic Sword from (mostly metalhead) friends who praised their intense live show and use of live instruments and knew this would be an event I had to see for myself. related content: The Protomen: Mega Men on a Mission at the Echoplex The night began with a set by one of the most surprising acts I’d seen all year: the local one woman project Death Hags. Self described as “hypnotic art-pop,” Lola Jean’s act beautifully mixed elements of trip-hop with synth-wave through a gentle minimalist lens. Shifting from synths to bass guitar and more all while singing in both english and french, it’s hard to believe Death Hags isn’t yet a household name in the city. related content: Decibel Metal & Beet Fest After Party: Ghoul At El

Dead Moon Night: A Tribute to Fred Cole at the Echo

Audrey Kemp August 31, 2018

Metal-heads, goths, rock-n-rollers and cowboys young and old packed in like sardines before a stage festooned in funerary flowers and a dead man in the moon under a dim red haze. The chemistry that bonded them? A common love and appreciation for Dead Moon and the late Frederick Lee Cole. Toody Cole, co-founder and bassist of DIY rock-n-roll band Dead Moon, hand-picked her entourage of unique L.A. musicians, including former guitarist of Cat Power Gregg Foreman, Warren Thomas of The Abigails, Zumi Rosow and Cole Alexander of the Black Lips, Cheap Tissue, Sons of the Southwest, Sharif Dumani of the Alice Bag band and others, for a special night at the Echo in Los Angeles to honor Fred Cole and to commemorate the release of the new Dead Moon art book on his would-have-been 70th birthday. related content: Berserktown II: Music Fringe Binge At The Observatory The groups covered some highlights from Fred’s vast repertoire of work, including that from bands such as The Lollipop Shoppe and Dead Moon. The festivities began with a screening of Kate Fix and Jason Summer’s documentary, Unknown Passage: the Dead Moon Story (2004), a story Warren Thomas of the satanic Outlaw Country band the

Silver Linings to Sorrowful Tales: Laura Veirs at The Echo

Dillon Vaughn June 2, 2018

Touring in support of her new album The Lookout, Laura Veirs performed an intimate show at The Echo to a crowd composed of some of the most engaged fans I’ve seen for any artist at the venue; a level of energy not entirely surprising considering her previous performance in LA was with case/lang/veirs (the singer-songwriter supergroup consisting of Veirs, Neko Case, and K.D. Lang) at the Greek Theatre in 2016. Those in attendance this time around were treated to live performances of a bulk of the songs from The Lookout as well as fan favorites from July Flame, Year of Meteors and more. related content: Erika Wennerstrom Brings The Bootleg Closer To Nature A live setting for her work is an excellent opportunity to see how far Veirs’ strengths extend beyond her songwriting capabilities. Her vocal range easily exceeds the (already satisfying) levels reached in her recordings and viewers are given a glimpse of how technically proficient she is with both guitar and keys. Veirs can shred without hesitation but she knows what works for her music and how important the use of restraint really is. An additional highlight of the night was the performance by Alex Guy (of Led

Between Coachellas, Brazilian Boogarins At The Echo

Rob Shepyer April 24, 2018

As I continue my education in psych rock, I start seeing these shows as lectures and the artists as professors in preparation for my “thesis” at this year’s Desert Daze. That said, it was refreshing to get an international take on the genre with Boogarins, a band that hails from Brazil and played the Echo as an off-shoot show between their Coachella sets. They were actually the best psych band of the few I’ve seen and drew me closer to understanding and liking the genre more than the other shows I’ve been to. related content: Desert Daze 2016: Quantifying The Physics Of A Good Time The first band was another non-American band, Señor Kino, from Sonora, Mexico. Their songs are in Spanish, though that doesn’t deter anyone from reading the feel and joy and changes in tone in their songs. Señor Kino are a surf rock band with a pinch of 90’s alternative and I mean that as a total compliment, like the best kind of 90’s rock. Although the band is rather young, they seem to be emotionally intelligent beyond their years and I sense this solely from seeing them live and never talking to them or understanding their lyrics.

Echo Park Rising 2017: Long Lines Couldn’t Slow Fresh Faces In All Places

Aria Silva-Espinosa August 27, 2017

The 2017 Echo Park Rising lineup generated quite a bit of buzz this year, as it was absolutely stacked with old favorites, over a dozen unmissable acts and a number of up-and-coming artists. EPR veterans Gold Star, The Paranoyds, and Meatbodies graced this year’s lineup along with a significant number of newcomers. Coming Soon: Echo Park Rising Five Pointed Stars Twin Temple … related content: Echo Park Rising 2015: Rising and Rising and Rising… Enjoying immense popularity in the last few years, it’s nice to see events like this take off and be embraced by the community. However, lineups like these are a source of frustration for me since I have yet to conquer my overwhelming fear of missing out. Despite my best efforts to be in multiple locations at once, I feel like I’ve slighted a number of talented and deserving artists on the bill solely based on my inability to run quickly, my fear of jaywalking on Sunset Boulevard and my fractured internal clock. That being said, I purposely blocked the entire third weekend in August off on my calendar in order to enjoy the festival to the fullest possible extent. I hoped to see some old friends

FYF Presents: The Glorious Return Of CaP’n Jazz at the Echo

Dave Unbuckled July 27, 2017

It was 6:45 when I checked the time on my phone, as the clock in my car is no longer functioning. The chances of finding a parking spot on Sunset Blvd at the seven O’clock hour is nearly an impossible feat, but I had given myself a healthy amount of fuck-around time. To my surprise, I managed to squeak into a spot, right then, as the hipster coffee shop flipped their signs to ‘Closed’. I walked up the street as the sun began setting, and stopped in front of Permanent Records. This was not a night to get distracted with digging for vinyl, but like most addicts, I gave in and checked it out. Forty-nine minutes later, I was carrying a large box of records back to my car, ignoring the glares of the residents of Echo Park, who likely assumed I had robbed the store. RELATED CONTENT: DID THE MELVINS PLAY A FREE SHOW AT PERMANENT RECORDS TO SUPPORT BUZZ’S VINYL HABIT? When I entered the Echo, I was told The Cairo Gang was set to open in thirty-seven minutes, and CaP’n Jazz wouldn’t be taking the stage for several hours. I limped to the smoking patio, having rolled

Redd Kross & The Side Eyes: A Great Case For Nepotism at The Echo

Janky Smooth Central Command May 24, 2017

It was a packed house last Tuesday night at The Echo, as Redd Kross played the last show of a month long tour in their home base of Los Angeles, CA. They have been traveling the nation on their “Beneath the Valley of the Teen Babes of Monsanto” tour. related content: Redd Kross, Melvins & OFF! Commemorate Teen Babes From Monsanto Before Red Kross took the stage, the audience was treated to the high-energy tunes of local band The Side Eyes. They have been gaining much popularity with their punk sound that is somehow peppy and aggressive, catchy and beefy, all at the same time. They drew their own crowd of enthusiastic fans who were rocking out and showing the band tons of support. The band features lead singer, Astrid McDonald- a beautifully fierce front woman with dynamic vocals and an imposing stage presence. If you have yet to hear them, you’re missing out on something special. After powering through an upbeat set, they ended with “Don’t Talk to Me,” a cover from Astrid’s mother and Go-Go’s bassist, Charlotte Caffey’s OTHER band, the Eyes and the subject of a split single with her dad Jeff McDonald’s band, Redd Kross, released by In The Red

Take This: Win 2 Tix To See Ho99o9 at The Echo on Friday 5/19

Janky Smooth Central Command May 15, 2017

If we cover even just one more Ho99o9 live show in the pages of Janky Smooth, our readers might start to think that we are nothing but biased groupies. But we don’t care about that as much as being overly redundant since this publication makes no bones about the fact that our format is being fanboys/girls for 15 bands at one time, most of which are on the brink of a break out- and that’s exactly what the boys from Ho99o9 are experiencing right now with their first LP, United States of Horror– a break out. Rather than go too into yet another hyperbolic description of their sound or aesthetic, it would probably be better to just go through past coverage while we get to the point: The Ho99o9 ticket giveaway. You can cut to the chase and just Buy Tickets Now or you can: Enter to Win 2 Tickets to see Ho99o9 at The Echo on Friday, May 19th. There are only two requirements for you to enter to win. Join our newsletter- just fill out the three fields permission that pops up whenever you enter the JankySmooth.com website for us to send you more ticket giveaways, special

Folk Sensibilities w/ Larry and His Flask & Flatfoot 56 at The Echo

Jessica Moncrief April 28, 2017

Larry and His Flask recently embarked on a tour with Chicago natives Flatfoot 56. While both bands differ stylistically, the light-hearted attitudes and instrumental diversity of both bands have served as key components in their compatibility. This is one of those line-ups where you aren’t sure who should be headlining because they both have an equal amount of talent and clout. I had the chance to catch them on the Southern California leg of their tour at The Echo and I am certainly glad that I did. The show was an early one, and even though Flatfoot 56 had some serious issues with their tour van the day before, the show started promptly at 6pm, as scheduled. Generally speaking (from personal experience), when a gig starts that early, one could expect a light crowd for the opening bands. However, that was not the case for this show. I was pleasantly surprised upon arrival to see the ample amount of people that turned out early to catch their set; it speaks volumes for the fan base that Flatfoot 56 has built over the years. Flatfoot 56 incorporates instruments like the mandolin and bagpipes, giving them a distinct Celtic sound with a serious

FYF Presents: Two Nights of Fucked Up at The Echo in Los Angeles

Jesse Fox April 6, 2017

My lifelong battle with debilitating migraines has held me back from many things, but I could not allow the Fucked Up March 12th FYF Presents show at The Echo be one of them. Because of this affliction, I arrived to The Echo a bit out of sorts, but the energy filling the sold out venue quickly replaced the brain fog with excitement to finally watch this amazing Canadian punk band after years of wanting to. The crowd surfing began nearly as soon as Fucked Up hit the stage with “Crusades” off their 2006 album Hidden World and never really died down from there. The crowd and the band increasingly fed off each other’s energy and only a couple songs into the set, singer Damian Abraham disappeared into the center of the mosh pit for the duration of the song. Once he returned front and center, he shared the mic with many of those in the front row throughout the rest of the set, stopping only to thrash a bit on the floor and do some backwards somersaults. There are few times I attend a show wishing I had left my camera gear at home, but watching the mosh pit from