Festival earns high marks, though one bouncer gets an F

[Colleague Liam Gowing sends me this little narrative from Saturday's opening night of the F-Yeah Fest in Echo Park:]

It was an evening of treble-heavy highs and one deep low at the first night of F-Yeah Fest 2007.

The Echoplex was the spot to be for the “traditional” punk bands: Toys That Kill tore it up with thrashy pop-punk imbued with Bro-down choruses that seem to go hand in hand with a South Bay ZIP Code. Likewise, the Fleshies, who added a glam edge to their gobbing-and-spitting anthems.

The real weirdness, however, was upstairs at the Echo, where Bobby Birdman was doing his thing -- crooning mellifluously over gloppy, canned digitalisms -- with an endlessly oddball approach that evoked Bjork fronting 8-Bit. Love it or hate it, it was, in a word, singular. I for one, was down with it.

Up next at the Echo were the Mae Shi, who were explosive and fun as usual. Powered by the magical, funk-a-licious Omnichord -- yes, the children’s toy -- “Run to Your Grave” was just one of the sing-a-long, clap-your-hands and-stomp-your-feet standouts. The crowd really went nuts for the anarchic closer, “HLLLYH,” however. There was crowd-surfing -- like legitimate, triumphal, festival-style crowd-surfing -- which was a quite a thrill to see at the Echo.

Leaving the Echo behind in a race to see Greg Ashley -- he of the giant pop obfuscation that is “Medicine F* Dream” -- I was waylaid by an iconic act of guerilla rock 'n' roll that goes back as least as far as the Beatles’ “Let It Be”: A sloppy, scrappy little quartet from Garden Grove called AM, which had neither applied for nor been invited to play the festival, set up on the sidewalk two doors down from the Echo and began to play an impromptu set of good-times garage-rock. Explaining the tactic, co-lead singer Fonzie said, “[Heck with] venues, [heck with] shows. We’ve got a portable generator!”

But what should have been a nice little diversion became an ugly little incident when two bouncers from the Echo decided that the foursome posed a clear and present danger to the festival and attempted to shut it down. Taking a cue from Ringo, the kids kept playing despite some unnecessarily aggressive alpha-male posturing. Instead of waiting for the end of the song to issue his decree, however, one of the muscle-bound bouncers actually tackled singer-guitarist Felipe mid-riff, railroading the skinny non-threat against the iron security gates along Sunset, knocking his guitar -- and probably his spine -- right out of tune. That was the end of that.

Shame on you, F-Yeah Fest. Of all fests, you should know better.

Oddly enough, there was more sidewalk fun taking place simultaneously, just down the street at Local 1710. Secure in his scheduled place in the festival and tethered to his band by a very long microphone extension chord, Mr. Free -- of Mr. Free and the Satellite Freakout -- wandered outside in his caveman-style bathing costume and treated all assembled to an entertaining show that recalled Jim Morrison (and perhaps a touch of G.G. Allin) at his best. Standing tall atop an unfortunate Saturn station wagon, Steel Reserve 10-percent-alcohol beer in hand, Mr. Free really went for it, offering up some tasty belt-it-out vocals over The Satellite Freakout’s metal-tinged-but-melodic psych-rock, which was surprisingly tight considering band and singer were about forty feet apart.

Truly, Mr. Free and the Satellite Freakout is a group to look out for. Even if you can’t stand the music, you have to appreciate their style. This is a band that drove from its native Tucson, you see, in a biodiesel-fueled, 48-seat school bus, all decked out in Halloween-style black and orange. Partridge Family ain’t got nothing on Mr. Free.

After Mr. Free, I managed to catch the last song of Imaad Wasif’s set at Jensen Rec Center -- a droning, sitar-laden rendition of his own “Coil” -- which sounded like Nusrat Fateh Buckley or something. The kids were into it too, sitting around Elliott-Smith-style, i.e. all hush-hush and reverential.

It was beautiful, but still coming to grips with the ugliness directed at AM earlier, I forsook seeing headliners Lavender Diamond and Busdriver, and got the F out of the F-Yeah Fest.