Entrance

I first saw Entrance on the night that I wrote about them for LA Record, having come to see my lovely boys/soul brothers/friends in Grand Elegance. They blew. Me. Away. My fucking jaw was on the floor. I couldn't take my eyes off of them and there wasn't a single insincere moment or musical mis-step the whole set. This band is tighter than a James Brown backing band, no shit. They blew me away. And still do, and every time I get to see them. They seem to get better and crazier and, just, better. I really do love and dig and admire most every band I've ever written about for the Record (not all, for sure, and I pull no punches when I don't) , because those are the shows I see and want to be at, but there is something truly deeply unhinged and powerful and possessed about the particular kind of Rock n Roll that The Entrance Band play so damn well. If you haven't had the chance to see them or don't live in LA, now's your chance.

They will be releasing their self-titled album on September 1st (Pitchfork news and album stream here) and will begin their tour today starting off with a stop in the impossibly gorgeous Santa Cruz and then on to Big Sur to play the (in)famous Henry Miller (get it? cus he shagged a boatload of laydees, or at least he claims to have) Library. That show should be pure off the hook psychic energy, for realz.

Entrance Band myspace with artwork, pix, and tour dates here.

OH, and here is an interview with the unbelievably good bassist Paz for Long Beach's The District by fellow LA Record cohort Alex Roman. She describes guitarist Guy Blakeslee's playing as 'like a punk rock flamenco guitarist.' Perfect.

Blonde Redhead

Blonde Redhead are currently writing and recording their latest music / inspiration, and all Good Love willing, we'll hear it soon as it's ready. In the means times, it just feels appropriate to post something for them. I wrote the below in March 2006 and the above was of course rewritten on a bit of a less personal note for the Weekly. I thought I'd republish the personal one here, now. Here it is.

Blonde Redhead have been there for me literally through every love, every breakup, every crush, and every crushing time I thought I wouldn't make it through and did somehow. The album Mi Via Vida Violenta sang me thru a love I could never have, In An Expression of the Inexpressable was my first, and I'd never heard anything like it. It blew me away. That one got me through, I think, myriad others, Fake Can be Just as Good is just plain great and always will be, and I can't even listen to Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons because it was an album that sang to me through the darkness of hell, watching someone I loved get sucked away from me and become unrecognizable in their drug use. When Misery is a Butterfly came out I was in Portland and was already living with enough ghosts. Blonde Redhead came through town and I went, by myself as usual, down to the Crystal Ballroom on 13th & Burnside. I saw Kazu through the second story window and she saw me, and we looked at each other in mutual solitude and thoughtfulness for a long few moments before someone called her inside the room and I had the light to cross the street.

Portlanders were their usual passive aggressive not hip enough to actually just be cool, trying so hard not to care while furtive eyes dart around at one another without words, and I got a Jameson and looked at the albums while kazu, simone, and amodeo tuned and warmed up onstage, checked their connections and setup one last time, and went and changed. I hadn't listened to the album because some part of me felt that there was a lot that needed to be left behind, and Blonde Redhead are about memories, to me. But the music started and I heard these songs that have sang me through so much, when they played 'Misery is a Butterfly' I realized at that moment that these ghosts are MY ghosts, and that if I had made it this far, I had nothing to fear looking back on. And as the three of them looked at each other and connected with each other, making some of the most beautiful music I've ever heard, I hung my head a little and started to tear up because I knew that even though I was a stranger in a room full of people I didn't like, because of these three and what they have given me, because of all the amazing art that has been given to me, I was not alone, and never would be again.

A love song, for Frankie

I called him my bit of messican golden sunshine. And he was. I think we both infused each other with so much joy, so much happiness, it became a white star. Some thrive on the dragging down, the mutual destruction and misery, and we laughed and loved with every fiber of our being. Everything was funny to us. Everything, we shared. I ruined every surprise he tried to arrange for me, and he would shake his head as if he could barely tolerate me and we would laugh like hell because we adored each other. It had never occurred to me that someone might go out of their way to plan something for me, nobody ever had, and there he would sit in his Armani suit and shake his head. And instead of driving one another crazy with 'why can't you just ----' we laughed and understood and brought each other gifts and had amazing times and loved each other with the tending burning ferocity of two people who genuinely care about one another.

He had been going out of town for business, Japan a lot, calling me at the office in four in the afternoon quietly going 'woooo!' drunk as hell at what must have been 3am, in his hotel room as I tried to keep my composure at my desk and giggling my ass off. He bought me a body cuddler and then laughed with his amazing joy when I wouldn't let it go. I kept it forever. He ran like a baseball player, on his tippy toes, and cycled like a maniac. You couldn't rip him away from the seat on Saturdays. He thought I was the most beautiful, amazing thing, and while he felt that and thought that, when I felt like it was time to leave, because I was 22, and needed to go out into this great world, on my own, he let me go with such tenderness and tears, that I still can feel the love to this day.

When my Dad died, he was there. I can't tell you what you go through. He pulled me in and I tried to process it, because you get confused. You're so angry and confused. And he walked me through it, and gently put me through the airport and called and said if you need me to come out, I will. I didn't know that this was a thing you could do for another person. I didn't even know that you could say 'yes. i need you. please come out.' And then he did. He showed up with no hesitation, just to sit with me. He cried at the funeral. I was out of my mind and he sat, and just gave me support. When we were arranging for my father's funeral, my brother and sisters, and I, were at the mortuary. I went to go to the bathroom and got blocked, in the doorway by the undertaker. He said "you have your father's height." His body was below. This is what I was dealing with.

We will always have that house made from a tree struck by lightning, we will always have bagles and lox. We will always have those times, those incredible times. New York with Perrier and Baileys and cafe con leche. Central Park. We will always have that time we rented a pedaler bike in Santa Barbara and you fucking wanted to take it, and of course we did, offroading back to the hotel for you to pick up something. You were my golden sunshine, and I was your good time girl. And we loved each other something crazy.

I'm forgetting what it feels like to be that loved. That adored. That understood and forgiven.

So Frankie, my darling darling wonderful you, wherever you are, I hope that you have happiness. Because you have given me more than I ever thought I could possibly deserve.