In its 2011 season, First Fridays at the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles, has featured such distinguished acts as Sister Crayon, Little Dragon, Wild Nothing, Abe Vigoda, The Fresh & Onlys and Crystal Stilts. This Friday June 3rd witnessed a rare live performance by the stunning retro-pop/nouveau soul collective Gayngs. In a slightly surreal setting, which saw the artists flanked by lifesize figures of antelopes, elephants and such, and preceded by DJs and a lecture on dinosaurs, support came from the highly touted one man band known as Dirty Beaches, but your correspondent was less than impressed, feeling that his sound was highly derivative of Suicide and lacking in any melodic thrust.
The main event got underway at 9pm, and Gayngs took to the stage and launched into ‘The Gaudy Side Of Town’, a slice of chart bound pop in any sane world. A seventy five minute set saw several members of this ever evolving line up take the lead at various times, and covers of songs by Sade, George Michael and Godley & Crème were all played straight, and with more than a degree of panache. Legendary ladykiller Har Mar Superstar appears to have joined the band, and his powerful, soulful vocals provided the sets highlights. A strange and enchanting evening.
Saturday began with a blistering performance by The Globes, who performed to a handful of customers at Origami, a superb record store in the Echo Park district. The quirky nature of a Saturday afternoon instore was made even odder by the fact that the band played high above the clientele on a cramped makeshift stage in what looked suspiciously like an upstairs stockroom. This was my first encounter with the band but I was very impressed by the 20 minute set, which preceded a gig later in the day supporting Archers Of Loaf at the more conventional Troubadour club. Highlights of the set was an original song entitled ‘Stay Awake’, and a cover of the Yes classic ‘Long Distance Runaround’. We’ll be keeping an eye on these boys.
We hightailed it over to the Rhino Pop-up store on Santa Monica Boulevard for an evening performance by TVD faves Avi Buffalo. Since seeing the band play a stellar set at Hoxton Bar & Kitchen last summer, keyboardist Rebecca Coleman and bassist Arin Fazio have departed, to be replaced by a bass player and guitarist who alternate on one another’s instruments. The thirty minute set was notable for its sheer velocity, and several new songs which displayed the trademark Avi heartbreak, sublime melodicism and blistering guitar solos. Fresh to the mix was a nod to Todd Rundgren at his quirkiest and most progressive, and a song that saw Avi adopt a voice a couple of octaves below his normal pitch. ‘What’s In It For’ was the only song played from last year’s marvellous debut album, illustrating that this is an artist who is not standing still.
