Huh?<\/p>\n
I was just doing a favor.\u00c2\u00a0 That was supposed to include a meal at legendary watering hole Dan Tana’s, which is the source of as much rock and roll lore as the Troubadour bar.\u00c2\u00a0 But we couldn’t get into Tana’s, so the boys went up the Boulevard to the Indian place.\u00c2\u00a0 And it was all boys, except for the woman at the end of the table, who’s a roller derby star, I shit you not.<\/p>\n
But winding the clock back…\u00c2\u00a0 In order to get to the Indian place I first had to walk by the Troubadour, at 8 PM, two hours before the headliner, Good Old War, who I hadn’t even heard of until two days previous, took the stage.\u00c2\u00a0 And there was a line!\u00c2\u00a0 All the way to Doheny!<\/p>\n
I looked up at the marquee…\u00c2\u00a0 No one special was appearing.<\/p>\n
So outside the restaurant, I quizzed Tom, Bill Silva’s guy.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re on SARGENT HOUSE!<\/p>\n
Huh?<\/p>\n
We have quite an interesting meal.\u00c2\u00a0 Both food and conversation-wise.\u00c2\u00a0 Didn’t Joey Ramone sing about eating chicken vindaloo?\u00c2\u00a0 Shit, that’s the first place I heard mention of the dish.<\/p>\n
And just before ten, we ambled down the Boulevard to the venue.<\/p>\n
And when the band came on, the place exploded.<\/p>\n
Mmm…\u00c2\u00a0 That’s giving you the wrong impression, you might think Ziggy Stardust took the stage.\u00c2\u00a0 Instead, what we found were three scraggly denizens, none of them pinup boys, although the drummer did look a bit like Russell Brand.\u00c2\u00a0 But they could play.\u00c2\u00a0 And sing.<\/p>\n
And the audience knew every word.<\/p>\n
And it wasn’t just geeks.\u00c2\u00a0 Males with no lives.\u00c2\u00a0 Half the audience was female.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, this was a crowd that could embrace the word "nerd".<\/p>\n
What the hell was going on here?<\/p>\n
I went to the Wikipedia.\u00c2\u00a0 I took to Twitter.<\/p>\n
Wikipedia told me the guys had backed up someone else I’d never heard of, it recited an entire history that was written in English, but was foreign to me.<\/p>\n
On Twitter, I said:<\/p>\n
"At this Good Old War show at the Troubadour. Anybody know ’em? Fan? Thumbs up or down?"<\/p>\n
Now normally when I tweet at a show, I get one or two responses. In this case, I expected nothing.\u00c2\u00a0 Especially on a Friday night.
But in minutes, I was filled in:<\/p>\n
@Whatsherbucket: @Lefsetz just checked them out the other day, pretty impressed. They can actually play.<\/p>\n
@kamikazedogwood: @Lefsetz Never seen them live but their debut record "Only Way To Be Alone" was great. Fav songs are "Tell Me" and "Coney Island"<\/p>\n
@drewshannon: @Lefsetz thumbs way up<\/p>\n
@bradenlee: @Lefsetz good old war: loved the last one. Only listened 2 new one once. Thumbs up to Cathy&label: good people actually trying to help bands<\/p>\n
@sargenthouse: @Lefsetz they are amazing and honesty is their policy and we back it so hard we put out their albums when no one else would listen<\/p>\n
@mengles: @Lefsetz Amazing band.<\/p>\n
@LOTUSLTD: @Lefsetz they are the hardest working band! They’re fucking amazing!<\/p>\n
@skippyd: @Lefsetz Really great. Trio with infectious harmonies and work ethic. A young CSN?<\/p>\n
@StevenLAMura: @Lefsetz up<\/p>\n
It was like I opened a door to an alien universe.\u00c2\u00a0 Everything the mainstream says was…irrelevant.\u00c2\u00a0 These were not untalented kids looking for fame, willing to do anything to make it, relatives of Snooki and the Situation, these were musicians barely different from when I went to school, performing, having a good time, getting high, getting laid…and even getting paid.<\/p>\n
Yes, I was in Los Angeles, but it was like being in backwater Vermont.\u00c2\u00a0 The rest of the world ceased to exist.\u00c2\u00a0 We were in our own special environment.<\/p>\n
And just when I’d think a song was mediocre, the next one would close me.<\/p>\n
And when it was all done, the boys came out for an encore, parked themselves in the middle of the audience and performed two numbers without mics.\u00c2\u00a0 But the audience was helping them.\u00c2\u00a0 It was like summer camp.\u00c2\u00a0 I expected them to start making s’mores at any moment.\u00c2\u00a0 And my only desire was to join the club, to be included.<\/p>\n
They weren’t doing it for fame, but for the sheer joy.<\/p>\n
Then again, in the lobby I met Cathy Pellow.\u00c2\u00a0 Majordomo at Sargent House.\u00c2\u00a0 A force of nature.<\/p>\n
She does video work for Atlantic, but her passion is her label.\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s more than a label, she manages all the acts, they’re in it together, 50\/50, she doesn’t want to ask permission to give away a track, if she feels like it, she does it.<\/p>\n
But Good Old War wanted to be the biggest band in the world, which was beyond her mission, so she brought in Bill, who she met making Jason Mraz videos.<\/p>\n
Can Good Old War (do some research to divine the meaning of the moniker) be the biggest band in the land?\u00c2\u00a0 Doubtful.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m actually surprised this is their desire, I didn’t get that vibe from their performance, they seemed to be all about the music.<\/p>\n
Then again, the biggest bands in the land used to be about the music!<\/p>\n
The tickets were ten bucks.\u00c2\u00a0 T-shirts fifteen.\u00c2\u00a0 Price wasn’t keeping anybody away, it was like going to a movie.<\/p>\n
But for so many damn shows, you’ve got to give the tickets away.<\/p>\n
But these people wanted to come, they needed to come.<\/p>\n
The night was invigorating, it put a smile on my face.\u00c2\u00a0 This is the future.\u00c2\u00a0 The doom and gloom of the major labels and Live Nation?\u00c2\u00a0 There’s no pulse there, it’s not about music, but money.<\/p>\n
And no one wants to hear Bon Jovi’s new material.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re going for nostalgia’s sake.<\/p>\n
But Good Old War played no covers.\u00c2\u00a0 They existed in their own bubble.<\/p>\n
How did everybody know?<\/p>\n
Cathy tried to explain it to me, but really, if something’s good today you can find it.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s the power of the Internet and cell phones and texting and social networking.<\/p>\n
People are looking for good, they want to rally around quality.<\/p>\n
They found Good Old War.<\/p>\n
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Huh? I was just doing a favor.\u00c2\u00a0 That was supposed to include a meal at legendary watering hole Dan Tana’s, which is the source of as much rock and roll lore as the Troubadour bar.\u00c2\u00a0 But we couldn’t get into Tana’s, so the boys went up the Boulevard to the Indian place.\u00c2\u00a0 And it was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-shows"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-N8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3046"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3046\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3047,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3046\/revisions\/3047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}