Dec 22, 2015 Save Music in Chinatown 8 preview with The Crowd, Bad Cop/Bad Cop, FourEyedFour, and Bombón
With seven all-ages matinees under our belts, organizing benefits to raise dough for the defunded music program at our daughter’s elementary school in Chinatown should be getting old by now. But it isn’t. Having different awesome bands join our cause makes each one different, and it’s really amazing to see our circle of friends and supporters grow deeper. How cool is it to support a neighborhood and grow a community through loud music? To facilitate music education and foster a DIY attitude in kids as well? That plus a kickass bake sale with amazing treats and good coffee–not to mention a killer raffle with stuff from Frontier Records, Scoops, Donut Friend, etc.–sounds like a great afternoon to me.
Getting The Crowd to play has a been a dream ever since the drummer Dennis Walsh responded to one of our Facebook posts. Is it more impressive that the Hong Kong Café vets are on the first Rodney on the Roq collection or the Beach Blvd. comp? Who knows, but I was stoked when he commented, Why haven’t they been on one of our bills yet? Talk about being served with a silver platter. I’d seen the OG HB punks play a bunch of shows, from opening for X at the Whisky to playing Alex’s with Channel Three, The Gears, and other bands that have played our benefits, and it was really just a matter of time before the stars aligned.
I found out about Bad Cop/Bad Cop from my friend Aaron. I used to work with him on Sawtelle, and he told me about his girlfriend’s punk band. Of course, I dug their intense riffs and amazing harmonies and started tracking them, buying their singles and then their record, and seeing them whenever they played the Redwood or Alex’s as well. But I didn’t know the HB band was friends with Dennis and The Crowd. They even contributed to the recent Crowd tribute! To have them play a double header at our show is a perfect fit. (That’s my pal with the beard in the video, above.)
What, Dennis has a side project featuring two other members of the Flyboys? The latter band of power pop/proto punks from Arcadia recorded Frontier Records’ first release and were a key part of early L.A. punk, and how amazing would it be to have the new group play in Chinatown. Foureyedfour‘s self-released CD is a real masterpiece of dark, no-bullshit, roots-driven songwriting with perfect execution drawn from decades in the underground and I can’t wait to hear the songs live.
I didn’t know Bombón at all except for seeing them play a show during RazorCake‘s four-week stint at Pehrspace and telling them that they were rad. Then I invited the surf punk trio from San Pedro to our most recent show to hopefully get them interested in our cause and have have kept in touch with them ever since. It turns out that at least one of them works with kids and appreciates what we’re doing, they enjoy playing benefits, and guess what? Our lineup is complete and awesome–perhaps our most fun show yet.
Hope to see you on Sunday, January 31 at the Grand Star! Get more information about the cause and the bands on Facebook and tickets at Eventbrite.
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