Street Food Cinema: Dream Phases

Dream Phases hit the stage for the first time in over a year. Their set was played to start off Street Food Cinema, which was showing "Raiders of the Lost Ark" at LA State Historic Park. (I think the last time I shot a band at the LA State Historic Park was way back when FYF was holding their festival at the park.) To celebrate the showing of the movie, an Indiana Jones impersonator with whip was seen hanging out in the crowd. 

The band mentioned that they were nervous about playing their first set in such a long stretch of time, but it didn't sound like it. To help with the nerves, they started the set cracking a joke about how those who were unvaccinated in the crowd were having the time of their lives while the vaccinated appeared to be playing it extra safe. I could hear someone in the crowd say, "That's so true." 

The band then kicked off a 45 minute set of their psychedelic rock tunes. It was a nice setting with DTLA off in the distance and the crowds in their COVID-19 pods. The band's "Almost Famous" styling fit in perfectly as the golden hour of sunsets approached.

New Music Alert: Dream Phases' "Helen Highway"

Dream Phases is out with a new video for their song "Helen Highway." Lyrics go:

So you were proud / of a simple life / complication proof / overjoyed by / rain in your eyes / your smile shines through . . . / now you are bored / what will you do / all your friends are asleep / count the stars/ name each one / someone you'd like to be . . .

Does it speak to the idea that life should be complex? Not exactly. The video starts with a vehicle calmly going through up a curved road. Then it switches to Helen who texts with a significant other about a party and is looking into plastic surgery. Then an e-mail arrives, she is being let go from her job. Later that day, a text from the significant other saying that the relationship is over. Dream Phases takes you on a psychedelic rock ride through the ups and downs of life and having to redefine your self at unexpected moments.    

Photo taken at The Echo

Quarantine Online Sets: Version 8

April 17th thru April 19th was spent watching a couple of online festivals. The whole weekend was spent watching sets here and there of the Couch LA festival. The one cool thing about this particular festival was that half of the money raised would get donated to The Satellite and The Hi Hat. On Friday night, I was only able to catch Egg Drop Soup. The band played from their 3 homes. Three cameras tracked the band members. I have to say they did a solid playing their punk music from unknown distances from each other.

Egg Drop Soup

Saturday was spent catching The Gooms and Lauren Ruth Ward. The Gooms was a one person show with the other three band members taped to the wall of the shower. I've seen a handful of online sets played in bathrooms. I believe that Early Evil, who played on Saturday, was also in the bathroom. Is it something to do with the acoustics of a bathroom or the best place to play and not disturb the next door neighbors? Lauren Ruth Ward was the last band for Saturday night. Lauren played it up to the camera throughout the set. Amazing music, as always.

The Gooms

Lauren Ruth Ward

On Sunday, many of the bands took it up a notch. Easy Friend is hanging out in the desert. I guess he's officially moved to the desert and out of Los Angeles. He owns property out there and plans to live on around $6,000 a year. That's some minimalist living. His set includes a few minutes of just looking out into the desert as the wind whipped past. Then you could hear the noise of a motorcycle. He road up and started his set. SLUGS did Egg Drop Soup by one. Egg Drop Soup had 3 members playing from 3 locations. SLUGS had 4 members playing from various locations. I can't believe over a year has passed since I last saw that band at the Moroccan Lounge. Dream Phases is writing some new music while in isolation. And played his set in the dark confines of his apartment. Holy Wars really outdid everyone that I caught during this festival. They didn't play live (honestly, not sure if Egg Drop Soup or SLUGS were playing live, either). They put on this great long form music video with a couple cameras and inserted TV shows from the 1950s or 1960s. During the video, they interacted with those watching online via the comments section. It was just super awesome.

Easy Friend

Early Evil

SLUGS

Dream Phases

Holy Wars

Before heading over to Couch LA on Sunday, I spent the afternoon watching bands playing the Live From Quarantine festival put on by Magic Giant. I actually tuned in to catch Meg Myers, but she had technical difficulties and wasn't able to play the festival. The second reason I tuned in was to catch Glen Hansard. I so remember catching the movie "Once" back in 2007. So long ago, but I loved that movie and fell in love with the music. During his short set, he played a few lines of "Falling Slowly." Beautiful. Filling in for Meg Myers was Max who shifted his set forward. He was totally cool with it and did a great job at it. Closing out my time with Live From Quarantine was Shaed. I totally didn't realize that this band sings the song "Trampoline." I swear at times when I hear this song on the radio I figure it is a song by Lorde.

Magic Giant

Glen Hansard

Max

Shaed

Weekend Adventures: The Smell, Permanent Records, Casey's Irish Pub

It was a fun Friday and Saturday to catch bands. I was also tempted to go out Sunday afternoon, but decided I needed to just relax.

Suzie True

Nightgown

Friday night started out with an invite by Dum Dum Zine to catch their event at The Smell. I jumped at the opportunity as I recognized most of the bands and they're all solid: Nightgown, Slugs, Spare Parts for Broken Hearts and Taleen Kali. The one band I didn't recognize was Suzie True. Their set had a youthful joy to it. There were songs about randomly sleeping with co-workers at a coffee house that isn't a great place to work.

Slugs

Taleen Kali

Dum Dum Zine knew how to get the Echo Park music crowd to show up to The Smell. The way is to bring Echo Park bands to The Smell. The most memorable of the bands were Slugs. They had an acoustic set with some fun banter. They didn't have a drummer for the night. Instead, they had a computerized system that they called Xander. Xander didn't always work upon request and the band had a lot of fun poking fun at the troubles Xander was causing them. When they kept saying Xander, I had to think: Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Spare Parts for Broken Hearts

One important note is that Kaleen Kali is the founder of Dum Dum Zine.

Bogan Villa

Jane Church

Saturday early evening was spent at Permanent Records. I'm pretty sure I haven't seen any bands there since the time the location was Origami Vinyl. It was Dream Phases record release. Bogan Villa and Jane Church opened. It was a psychedelic early evening of music. There was free beer for those who came. Some folks slipped in to grab a beer and then slipped out. Eventually, the store manager hid the beer and handed it out to those he knew were there to catch Dream Phases.

Dream Phases

I closed out the night by heading to Casey's Irish Pub to catch Pu$$y Cow and Maniac with some solid punk. One thing I noticed: Casey's had a brake for the bass drum. It was just a cut 2x4. What I noticed was that nails were sticking out of the wood by perhaps 1/4 inch. I pointed it out, but I guess I was the only one concerned that a musician might accidentally step on it. I'm pretty sure that someday a musician is going to make the mistake of stepping on one of those nails. Both bands have similar fans so there were a number of friends of the bands hanging out in the audience. And there was a lot of mosh pit dancing. And well, a lot of paper streamers that got caught in the ceiling fans.

Pu$$y Cow

Maniac

Quick Hit Band Interview: Dream Phases

Dream Phases at The Hi Hat

Q&A time with the band (via Brandon). Enjoy:

How would you describe your sound? Petty + Sativa, Young + a Kaleidoscope, Harrison + Liquid Lights

What’s your favorite Dream Phases' song and what makes it the favorite? I think my favorite song(s) to play are the medley we do with the first four songs, Maybe Tomorrow > Easy Love > Frightened Man > Promise of Promise. We've been working on transitions between each song to make them seamless and appear as one long song.