Feb 02, 2016 Save Music in Chinatown 8 recap with The Crowd, Bad Cop/Bad Cop, FourEyedFour, and Bombón
Only a crazy person would have left the house last Sunday. Newscasters warned us that it would be pouring rain, super windy, and colder than hell. But isn’t seeing a bunch of great bands worth it? Eating homemade ginger snaps and espresso brownies and drinking good coffee? What about doing all that to raise money for the defunded music program at an inner-city elementary school? We got so much help from the bands in the getting the word out that I shouldn’t have been worrying about it being a just a roomful of family and friends. I should have known that Save Music in Chinatown 8 would fill up early and stay comfortably packed until the end.
Bombón went on first and how awesome was it to see Eloise and other little girls totally rocking out to the Pedro trio’s badass indie-punk surf tunes. It was a lot like seeing the Peanuts gang dancing, but in real life! It was super cool to see our friends’ daughter Ameneh’s killer dance moves–as if driving all the way from West L.A. to deliver gourmet treats made with fresh ginger for our bake sale wasn’t enough. Angela, Jerico, and Paloma are the most fun combo around and also the nicest–they set aside a kitty T-shirt for Eloise, their biggest fan!
FourEyedFour went on next and they are masters of dark pop with killer hooks who happen to have some roots that go all the way back to Chinatown’s punk days. Three of them were in The Flyboys, who played the Hong Kong Café often back in the day. I already loved their well-crafted songs on CD but, holy crap, they sound even better live. Dennis (who drums for FourEyedFour and The Crowd) and I talked about it afterward and he wondered if it was their best set ever…
Bad Cop/Bad Cop are a band that I usually catch at bars (Alex’s, The Redwood…) so it was excellent to see them not only play an all-ages show but one with a lot of little kids. They gotta see women in bands, and Bad Cop/Bad Cop are extraordinary with their harmonies as well as their general shredding. Eloise introduced the band before “Nightmare,” they played a cover of The Crowd’s “Run for the Money,” and “Support” was the closer. Of course. Great album, great singles, and a great set here from beginning to end.
The Crowd. How do we get bands like this to play our shows? Their appearances on Posh Boy’s Beach Blvd. compilation and the first Rodney on the Roq collection are legendary, signaling the arrival of Orange County punk. And like the Adolescents, Channel Three, The Gears, Mike Watt from the Minutemen, Chuck Dukowski from Black Flag, Hector Penalosa from The Zeros, the guys from the Flyboys, and a lot of other musicians that have played for us, they fondly recall going to the Hong Kong Café right around the corner from the Grand Star. How amazing was it to have them play “Modern Machine” and “Right Time” for us? To see Tony Adolescent jump in onstage and add vocals to “Liberty”? And how many drinks did singer Jimmy Trash have anyway? I’m not counting. Our shows are all ages but I’ve never wanted a music show for kiddies.
Props to the Grand Star for having us, everyone who played (and Nate Pottker who handles sound but does so much more), donated to the raffle (Krk Dominguez’s photo of Nirvana, Greg Jacob’s portrait of John Doe, and Mike Magrann’s metal art were especially jaw-dropping contributions, and of course I will always appreciate our crew of Scoops Chinatown, Donut Friend, Berndt Offerings, Frontier Records, and Kumquat), contributed the bake sale (including Julia Huang giving us coffee every time), and helped in any way (Aaron Brown who painted a bonus flyer, friends at KXLU, KCHUNG, and RazorCake who provide our only media support), as well as anyone who drove out in the rain to spend time with us. Thanks for supporting music education, exposing DIY culture to kids, and making an awesome afternoon in Chinatown and hope to see you in the spring!
Join the Save Music in Chinatown group on Facebook for information on the next show, and follow Imprint on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook as well.