Quick Hit Artist Interview: Sam Marine

Sam Marine at Highland Park Bowl

Interview with the artist. Enjoy:

What’s the story behind when you knew you wanted to be a musician? I knew I wanted to be a musician when I was about 9. I had already been fascinated with music on the radio and men and women singing and playing guitar on MTV, VH1, and all the records, tapes, cd’s music docs, and movies about musicians my music obsessed young parents had. My teenage neighbors played me the guitar solo intro to Dinosaur Jr’s song “Out There” when I was 9 or 10......after that I asked for a guitar, thought about guitars, drew guitars on paper (drum kits too) everyday till I had one.

Do you have a message or objective behind your music? If so, what is it? I don’t believe I have a direct or specific message behind my music. If I anything, I’d say I hope my music makes people feel like things can get tough but sooner or later everything is gonna be alright. Also, to look out for people, be generous when you can with your time, money, ideas, etc and treat people kindly.

Own final thoughts. I was born in Gainesville, FL. Yes, I’m a MASSIVE TOM PETTY fan. However, I grew up in Vero Beach, FL. It’s a little beach town in south east Florida. Oddly enough a lot of somewhat famous people come from there. Alison Mosshart of The Kills and Dead Weather is from there. Jake Owen (country singer) is from there. My very own brother plays drums for Phosphorescent (Nashville based band). Marty Fish (tennis player) is from there as well as a handful of other athletes, writers, musicians, visual artists etc. It’s a somewhat natural progression to end up in Gainesville where the music was if you’re from Vero Beach. So I moved back to my birthplace to play rock n roll the second I was old enough. I didn’t even wait to finish high school (I got my GED later). And oddly enough, once you’ve lived in Gainesville a while another natural “next step” for most of the musicians I knew was to move to BROOKLYN!!! So I did just that. I played music around NYC for nearly 9 years before I moved to LA 5 years ago. I love LA and here I’ll stay. Thanks again.

Quick Hit Band Interview: little DNGR

little DNGR at The Hi Hat

Interview with the band (via Lisa). Enjoy:

What's the story behind how your band started? We've been working behind the scenes as a songwriting/production team for other artists and tv/film for about 5 years, but the idea of being in a band together was always in the back of our minds. I have a background as a sound designer, keyboard player/performer with the Smashing Pumpkins and others and Joshua is a badass multi-instrumentalist with this powerful, Jeff Buckley-esque type voice. It's amazing to sing with him. We love writing together and both of us started out as artists so littleDNGR really feels like a natural next step for us.

Where is your favorite spot to write music? And why the spot? Josh and I love to write whenever and wherever we can. On a plane, in the car, at a crowded party. Wherever we find the inspiration, really. And sometimes it hits us when we're actually in our studio. Which is ideal. I guess we don't necessarily have a fav spot to write so much as we are each other's favorite person to write with.

Bootleg Theater: Polartropica with The Colour Coast and Holander

The colorful Polartropica residency continued at the Bootleg Theater. Lights were bright, which is unusual for the Bootleg Theater. Of course, it helped that Polartropica brought floor lights along with reflective panels that were on both sides of the stage. And the fashion of the musicians emphasized the colorful, as well.

The Colour Coast opened the night with their Latin dance music. Their music had their lead singer Marley dancing away. She did so much dancing that she tripped and stumbled at one point. She recovered quickly and replied, "That's the first time I've ever fallen on stage." Well, hey, there's a first for everything. It is always nice to catch this band's dance tunes. The band is always in action, which makes for some fun photography.

The Colour Coast

This was my first time seeing Holander. I was previously invited to catch her set a couple weeks earlier at the Moroccan Lounge, but had other plans that night. One has to love her energy on stage. Her 30 minutes were spend putting on a stage performance worthy of praise. And that pink stretch outfit of hers reflected the stage floor lights, turning her into a bright star.

Holander

Polartropica mixes in Asian sounds with Western pop. And kept the pink fashion going. There was an amusing moment in the set that came in the very first song. Ihui came up on stage with a trumpet. Now she was using it as a prop for the back-up sounds. Well, during the song she put the trumpet down. As the song was coming to an end, she picked it up just a split second too late. She was going to do a prop blast of the trumpet, but the back-up sounds beat her too it. You could tell from her facial expression that she was thinking, "I missed the beat." But hey, onward and upward.

Polartropica

Quick Hit Band Interview: BELLSAINT

BELLSAINT at The Hi Hat

Interview with the artist. Enjoy:

How would you describe your sound? Alternative pop; Nancy Sinatra meets The Black Keys

Do you find greater enjoyment writing a great song or performing a great song? Why the choice? I find greater enjoyment performing a great song. It feels magical to connect with people and tell a story in that way. Writing a great song can be exciting too, but it's mostly hard work. A labor of love, but still labor.

Own final thoughts: before I started taking piano and voice lessons as a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut.

The Satellite: Badtooth, Deaf Dance, Ever So Android, GLAARE

This night was about the lights. Okay, that's just what I focused on for some reason. Badtooth played under red lights. Deaf Dance played under the bright greens and blues that The Satellite stage is known for. Ever So Android brought their own strobe lights, which made photography all about timing of the click. GLAARE attempted to use strobe lights, but they had mechanical issues and so asked for stage lights. As for GLAARE, their guitarist was having problems throughout the set due to the low lights. I could hear her begging for the stage lights, but her band mates couldn't hear her and so didn't inform the light guy to turn on the stage lights earlier in the set. At one point, she was down on her knees trying to figure out what buttons/pedals to push. I was feeling really bad for her.

Badtooth brought some shoegaze sounds. Dressed in black and under the red lights, they set up a gloomy atmosphere. Gloomy, but thrilling.

Badtooth

Deaf Dance had me thinking this one thought throughout the set: we have MacGyver (original) on guitars teaming up with a Goth Vampire playing keys and dancing on stage. I'm not going to lie, I found the dancing on stage weirdly robotic and fascinating.

Deaf Dance

This is my third time catching Ever So Android as a full band. Their punk sounds are fuller now, but that doesn't mean that lead singer Hope isn't still doing her onstage performances. One moment, she's doing a curtsy and the next she's pulling up her dress to flash her undergarments. It's like the ballerina that pops out of the music box going adult.

Ever So Android

Closing out the night was GLAARE. This was my first times seeing the band. Yet, some of the members of the band looked so familiar. Perhaps I've run across them in the scene. Hair flings and dark wave sounds drive this band. As mentioned above, they had to deal with some obstacles, but I'm more than wanting to catch this band again.

GLAARE

Redwood Bar: Vigil of War with Chump, The Great Sadness and The Dead Coats

I caught Vigil of War for the first time last year. I saw them twice in 2018, but the last time was way back in June. That meant over a year had gone by since I last saw the band. About a month ago, I ran into Alicia, lead singer, at The Satellite. She mentioned to me that she was playing the Redwood Bar. I looked up the date on the Redwood Bar's website and immediately entered it into my phone calendar.

This band brought their metal rock to the tiny Redwood Bar stage. I just love Alicia's vocals. At one point, those vocals snarl and at another you get a power vocal that ranks up there with the the best '80s metal bands' power ballads. My experience seeing them on the Sunset Strip is that this band loves to move, which was restricted by the small stage of the Redwood Bar. They did their best with their lead guitarist busting some knees on the wood stage.

The band has replaced one of their guitarists with another, Kiki Wong. I'm not sure when exactly this occurred, but obviously within the last year.

There were a number of photographers in the audience. All of us; however, were the old guard. I wonder when the young guard of photographers will discover this band.

Vigil of War

Opening the night was Chump. I caught perhaps half of their set. Their Instagram indicated that this was going to be their last set ever. If so, they killed it. Their bassist/lead singer sprawled himself across the floor, putting on some Dr Jekyll shifts to Mr Hyde like moves. Or maybe I should say he was going from Banner to The Hulk. What I did find interesting is how he played the bass for part of a song. He grabbed it by the neck and then tossed it in the air a few times, grabbing it by the neck again while making sure he shook those strings. 

Chump

The Great Sadness is a band I've come across a few times. They're a band that seems to play with many of the bands I follow. I've seen them do some art-type shows. Other times, I've seen them go with just some straight up desert psychedelic rock. On this specific night, they went with the desert psychedelic rock. As always, they had some devoted fans in the crowd. And I do believe they won some converts, as well.

The Great Sadness

The Dead Coats was closing out their west coast tour. This is a band from Austin, Texas. This band loved to tell the jokes and actually explain the idea behind each of their song titles. It was actually pretty cool. For example, they have a song called "Coke." They mentioned that every band has to have at least one song about cocaine even if they'd never used cocaine themselves. Yeah, as they mentioned, they were stand-up comedians. I couldn't help, but notice how excited their lead singer came across. There was a sparkle in her eye throughout the set. She was playing one of the smaller venues in Los Angeles, but she looked so thrilled by the fact she was playing the Redwood Bar.

The Dead Coats

Quick Hit Band Interview: The Gooms

The Gooms at The Satellite

Interview with the band. Enjoy:

What are some things that are currently influencing your music? Our influences include, but are not limited to: Danny Elfman, No Doubt, our quaint rehearsal space, The Strokes, Bananagrams, Mendocino Farms, and laughter.

What’s your favorite The Gooms' song and what makes it the favorite? We can’t just choose our favorite child, but "Squeep Fleep" is the middle kid of our EP and could definitely use some attention. We love the song because it’s fun to play live. The verses bop, the chorus becomes a live sing along, and the bridge is a powerful and vocally commanding build. The whole song tells an intriguing story through a unique melody and we all remember smiling a lot when it was being written.

Own Q&A: Right now, our dream Q&A is to be asked to play The Troubadour, The Echo, a fun festival like Desert Daze, or SXSW, to which we would answer: yes!