Living Room Concerts
Omar Rodríguez-López Of The Mars Volta Outside Sargent House
If true, this would explain why it's such a surreal Epcot Center of style, where a Greco-Roman villa appears to have landed like a spaceship next to a quaint New England cottage. The house across the street (inhabited by renowned corpse photographer Paul Koudounaris) resembles a castle designed by Gaudi on a mescaline binge.
Paul Koudounaris In His Home Across The Street
I originally started a concert series in my living room because I thought this creatively fertile environment would provide a more intimate and memorable setting than traditional venues for all my friends in bands when they came through the city on tour. It made sense: bands were frequently crashing at my house or making albums in my bedroom, which sometimes doubled as a recording studio.
WATCH: The Dodos (Live)
One of the first living room concerts was The Dodos, probably one of my favorite live bands of all time. We met playing shows together in LA.
Over time the living room concerts became just one vibrant nexus point of a much larger musical community that makes Echo Park such a special place to be in this ephemeral and shapeshifting city.Cathy Pellow Working With Swedish Hardcore Band Refused
Music is everywhere. My neighbor Cathy Pellow runs the legendary record label Sargent House out of her home across the street. Cathy has been described as an Andy Warhol figure for the southern California art rock scene, and a centripetal force in the so-called math-rock world that was a reservoir of inspiration for the musicians I grew up with: a lineage that includes Ruins, Slint, Zeni Geva, Drive Like Jehu, Shellac, Gastr Del Sol, Fugazi, Don Caballero, Massacre, Roadside Monument, Unwed Sailor, a slew of bands from Dischord Records, and one of my personal favorites: Hella.
WATCH: Some Incredible Hella Performances
Fed up with male-centered, bureaucratic record companies, Cathy started Sargent House to promote bands she loves (Hella, Botch, These Arms Are Snakes, Russian Circles, Maps & Atlases) while ensuring their artistic freedom. The artists she promotes live and work at her house for extended periods of time, using it as a production studio to make records and music videos. Which means that almost any day of the week, you can hear inspiring bands at work by simply walking out my front door (The Mars Volta, RX Bandits, Death Grips, and The Dillinger Escape Plan).
In other words, I've had the rare fortune of meeting many of my musical heroes in front of my house when I take out the trash.Another Neighbor: Artist Caitlyn Wylde
Over the years, a perplexing assortment of people came and went from Sargent House, including Vincent Gallo, Danny DeVito, one of the German nihilists from The Big Labowski, and various kingpins of Sacramento's burgeoning "math-rock" scene. They often had to use my driveway due to lack of parking on the street, which led to some fascinating collisions between our worlds.
The Sound Of Animals Fighting
Eventually the living room concerts became a cross-pollination of the musical activity going on at both our houses. Our friends began forming side projects with Sargent House bands, giving birth to "supergroups" like The Sound Of Animals Fighting. A few of my favorite Sargent House bands can be heard below.
WATCH: The Widow Babies — "Harp Of 1000 Strings" (Live)
The legendary Mike Watt of Minutemen and The Stooges was signed to Sargent House at the time. He performed with our friends The Widow Babies on "The Mike Watt EP": a concept album which told the story of Watt fighting a vampire Abe Lincoln, featuring songs such as "Mike Watt Created The Universe With A Bass Solo."
WATCH: Jónsi of Sigur Rós + Florence And The Machine (Live At Origami Vinyl, 2010)
Some of our living room shows are satellite performances of the ones taking place a short walk down Sunset Boulevard at Origami Vinyl, where my childhood friend Neil Schield hosts intimate surprise concerts from the likes of Jónsi of Sigur Rós, Father John Misty, Youth Lagoon, and Florence + The Machine.
Jessica Dobson (Deep Sea Diver, Beck, The Shins) + Kim Free Performing At The House With An Orchestra
More recently, the living room concerts have become an extension of my work serving on the Board of Advisors for the Society for the Activation of Social Space Through Art and Sound (SASSAS), a catalyst for the creation and presentation of experimental music in the greater Los Angeles area.
SASSAS has organized concerts for more than 500 artists including Glenn Branca, Nels Cline, members of Black Flag, Aaron Dilloway of Wolf Eyes, Extended Organ with Mike Kelley & Raymond Pettibon, Petra Haden, James Tenney, Jason Lescalleet (Erstwhile), John Wiese (No Age, Merzbow, Sun )))), Cattle Decapitation, Sissy Spacek), and more.Steve Elkins (Living Room Concert) + Friends On The Back Patio
Other memorable concerts include Wrack performing music inspired by Thomas Pynchon's first three novels (The Crying Of Lot 49, Gravity's Rainbow, and V.), in which characters, skin cells, and sub-atomic particles often break out into song, as if the cosmos were a musical. Also, the LA premiere of Alvin Lucier's "Glacier", which makes audible a graph of 30 glaciers melting on cello, and "Maritime Rites," performed on boats passing each other in Echo Park Lake.
Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth), Kira Roessler (Black Flag), And Aaron Dilloway (Wolf Eyes)
We launched a radical concert series for children, introducing them to emerging experimental musicians the first Saturday of each month at the West Hollywood Library, featuring panel discussions with Dead Kennedys drummer D.H. Peligro, legendary director of "The Exorcist" William Friedkin, and "Singin' In The Rain" star Debbie Reynolds. Among other projects, we released a limited edition series of quarterly vinyl releases by Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth), Aaron Dilloway (Wolf Eyes), Nels Cline (Geraldine Fibbers, Wilco), and Julia Holter, featuring a B-side selected from the SASSAS archive by the A-side artist, with beautiful custom covers.
Silian Rail Living Room Concert (March 30, 2012)
Silian Rail was one of the best bands to come out of the San Francisco bay area during this time. They frequently played shows with our friends. Below, you can hear their intimate invite-only concert at my home, recorded by Sean Foye.
Silian Rail is:
Robin Landy: Guitar
Eric Kuhn: DrumsLISTEN: Silian Rail (Living Room Concert) Part 2
The second half of the same set can be heard above.
Set List:
1.) Young Moon
2.) C
3.) Or The Northern Lights
4.) "I" Is Somebody Else
The full recording is available on Silian Rail's Bandcamp page: https://silianrail.bandcamp.com/album/live-at-sargent-manorJosh T. Pearson Living Room Concert (2014)
Josh T. Pearson was the frontman of the legendary Lift To Experience. On this very magical night, he performed his first solo record "The Last Of The Country Gentlemen." No recording was made of his living room concert, but excerpts from the album can be heard below.
For more on Josh: https://www.steveelkins.net/Music/The-Autumns/Memories/Jim McAuley (Guitarist For Frank Sinatra and Nels Cline)
Jim McAuley, one of LA's most unsung musical treasures whose collaborators range from Frank Sinatra to Nels Cline, came over to record guitar tracks in August 2011 for a solo album, which was named one of the "Best Albums of 2012" by Acoustic Guitar Magazine. Below is a brief sample from the album.
WATCH: Parlor (Living Room Concert)
Parlor was one of the best bands in early 2000s LA, and one of the least appreciated bands on Capitol Records. Evan is still one of my favorite singers of that era. He opened up his magical loft in LA's skid row as a performance space for so many bands at that time (including my own), where we could perform illuminated by a constellation of trash can fires from the local homeless — though one always risked getting car jacked or murdered while unloading gear into the lift. It was an honor to open up my home to Evan this time around. Excerpts from his concert can be watched above.
LISTEN: Black English
Friends in Black English (at this time known as "NO") performing acoustic on December 18, 2011. No recordings were made of the performance, but you can hear excerpts from their first EP (which they recorded at this time) above.
In the very short span of their existence, NO ranked in the top 25 on NME’s “Best New Bands from Outside the UK” and top 5 on LA Weekly’s “Five Bands Who Will Be Huge in 2012.” KCRW’s Chuck P listed NO as a top 10 band to follow in 2012 and countless other followed suit.