Tuesday, June 23, 2009

the blood arm, art brut, and chairlift

On the topic of French, I saw the trailer for Girl from Monaco, looks good, plus it's in French! (with English subtitles)

Alright, new topic.

Music!

Last weekend I went to see Art Brut Friday at the Echo (near Echo Park) and Chairlift Saturday at the Getty (Oh man! So many links, I can't even handle it).

Friday at the Echo, the Blood Arm opened for Art Brut. Their song "Suspicious Characters" is fun, so is "Attention" which is half in French! They have a lot of energy on stage, primarily because their lead singer, Nathaniel Fregoso, who hopped off the stage a few times, into the crowd to sing to us individually before jumping on top of the bar.

You have to look a little closely, but he's there atop the bar (below).

Then back off the bar and into the crowd to give me a big ol' sweaty kiss on the cheek.



However, it was Art Brut that I went to see and Art Brut delivered. They'd been in LA for 4 nights and I guess a lot of the people at the Echo had gone to the previous nights' shows at Spaceland. After 3 nights of stayin up late and gettin deaf, the crowd was a little lackluster, and a little older than I expected, a pretty even spread of 18-40+, and pretty mellow for the most part. But that didn't stop those of us up front from dancing! Most of Art Brut's music sounds more or less the same, but I love it, as I told my friend Maggie that night while walking back to the car (excuse me, as I yelled to her, as neither of us could hear a darn thing), they're one of the few bands that make me want to dance around AND genuinely laugh out loud.

Ready Art Brut?

I was milling around online Saturday afternoon, still trying to recover my ability to hear properly, when I stumbled upon a blog that mentioned Saturdays Off the 405 at the Getty. I'd heard that the Getty had a summer concert series but I hadn't really looked into it. It recently moved from Fridays to Saturdays, so that now every Saturday evening, the Getty hosts a free outdoor concert. FREE! That was enough to sell me. Although it helped that Chairlift was playing. They are responsible for the tune that accompanies one of the iPod Nano commercials, "Bruises." Like the Blood Arm, they've got a well-dressed woman rocking the keyboard (although these days, who doesn't?), but Chairlift's Caroline is the lead vocalist with a lovely voice and pretty, light brown eyes. They opened with an original song, followed by a cover of Snoop Dogg's "Sensual Seduction" which was alternately very steamy and very amusing.

I went with Stephanie and after the concert we wandered the Getty gardens at sunset; I don't think I'd ever been there that late in the day, it was absolutely lovely.

The effect is a weaker in a small picture as opposed to being there in person, but look closely at the chairs in the windows below.


It was a good weekend. Plus, about mid-day Sunday I realized I could hear properly again, so it was a really good weekend.

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