Live music review: Local Natives at Walt Disney Concert Hall [Updated]

Local Natives are front and center, if not a bit awestruck, in collaboration with a chamber orchestra.

“This is the first time I’ve ever gotten to play a real piano live,” said Local Natives’ keyboardist Kelcey Ayer toward the end of the Silver Lake indie band’s raucous debut with a chamber orchestra on Saturday. He then pointed at his usual instrument, a relatively humble Nord synthesizer. “I hate that thing. But this is like....” He hugged the breadth of Walt Disney Concert Hall’s grand piano and grinned, content.

Even on their 2010 debut album, “Gorilla Manor,” Local Natives seemed to want to go bigger. The band plays a pretty, traditional take on guitar-based indie pop, but the five-piece laces each song with four-part harmonies as intricate and crystalline as a stained-glass window. Their percussion-mad performances show they clearly love being in a band, an easy task after a buzzed-over Coachella set and two sold-out nights at the Music Box last year.

An orchestral collaborative set is a daunting opportunity for musicians still in their early 20s. But in their world of guitars, drums and voices, Local Natives already thought like an orchestra. To add an actual one only underlined the many things they do well.

The first half of the set, a campfire take on half a dozen singles with a string quartet, served mostly as a showcase for those voices. Ayer, guitarists Ryan Hahn and Taylor Rice, and bassist Andy Hamm suggest Crosby, Stills & Nash in the way they approach melody, less as something on top of an arrangement than as a space for the whole band to work. Confined to acoustic instrumentation, songs like “Eyes Wide” and a cover of Television’s “Careful” felt intriguingly democratic. Rice is ostensibly the lead singer, but mostly because he’s in the middle of the stage.

Local Natives rising: Appearances on 'Late Night With Jimmy Fallon' and Disney Hall

 
Surprise, surprise, 2011 begins with the Local Natives moving up in the world. With no signs of stopping on their exhilarating rise to national consciousness, L.A.'s favorite five-part harmonizers are turning their amps on for a massive televised audience as the featured musical act on NBC's "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon" airing Tuesday night / Wednesday morning at 12:35 a.m.

This televised opportunity comes less than a year after their percussive prowess and soaring vocals had their late-night initiation on CBS' "Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson" in May 2010. Although the release of their Frenchkiss label debut, "Gorilla Manor," is fading gradually in their rearview, live performances of songs such as "World News" continue to gain world interest. Not to mention the fact that L.A. is touting them highly as well, judging by their upcoming performance at the Walt Disney Concert Hall on Feb. 26.

The Natives aren't the only L.A. band that will get to meet Fallon house band the Roots. On Monday night, another surging L.A. act, Best Coast, performs on the show.

-- Nate Jackson

 Photo: Local Natives. Credit: Tom Oxley

Live review: Despite failures, FYF Fest gives crowds a lot to cheer about

The annual FYF Fest, now in its seventh year, experienced serious growing pains Saturday at the Los Angeles State Historic Park downtown, even if the music onstage offered gratifying highs. The daylong concert featured 35 buzzing bands, a combination of rising, boundary-pushing underground acts and seasoned rock stalwarts, and drew an enthusiastic crowd estimated to be 20,000.

But just as last year, those arriving early to catch the first roster of bands were left stranded in interminable lines. Although the musicians onstage played to eager enthusiasts, the behind-the-scenes organization was visibly lacking throughout the day and night, as evidenced by overflowing trashcans, lack of water dispensaries and endless queues.

Festival-goers are nothing if not a dedicated bunch, though, and despite the many problems, the patient and the persistent experienced a hefty offering of musical joy. Here are highlights and lowlights:

Best costumes: The Dead Man's Bones children's choir was called Warm Glass of Milk, and it arrived decked in period costumes. The kids, ranging in age from preschoolers to teenagers, came portraying (among others) Charlie Chaplin, Audrey Hepburn, Janis Joplin and Ludwig van Beethoven, stood behind Bones' founders Ryan Gosling (yes, the actor) and Zach Shields and belted out a wonderful array of couplets, the best of which was "I raise my flag up into your heart / You let the winds come tear it apart."

Best singalong: It's hard to imagine that one year ago Local Natives were hustling the Eastside residency circuit. Because if the crowd's instant, rapturous reaction to the boozy piano intro to "Airplanes" was any indication, they were born to play to fields of thousands. It takes a special skill to make a line like "Every question, you took the time to sit and look it up in the encyclopedia" into a lighters-up moment, but the Natives' crystalline harmonies could make a cookbook feel anthemic.

 

FYF Fest: The must-see acts and the maybes, an hour-by-hour guide

The FYF Fest marks the unofficial close of the outdoor rock 'n' roll festival season in Southern California, bringing it to an end with dissonant guitars, vocal yelps, disaffected beach-bum punks and even a song or two inspired by the Civil War. Thirty bands and three stages, the all-day affair at the L.A. State Historic Park falls somewhere between a neighborhood block party and Chicago's Pitchfork Music Festival, taking a smaller, more targeted approach to the multi-act bill.

Plenty of it is adventurous, and some of it is even a bit tuneless. Yet the celebration of the underground, the niche and the weird is also a bargain. Tickets started at $20 for early-bird buyers, and in the days leading up to the fest, now in its second year in Chinatown, have risen only to $30. 

Rare, indeed, is an affordable all-day fest that is as pridefully left-of-center as FYF. With a bill built for discovery -- as well as one that contains plenty of local heroes -- Pop & Hiss breaks down the must-see-acts and those you may want to investigate, time permitting. The hour-by-hour guide is below.

Producer Lewis Pesacov helms L.A.'s sounds of summer

Inside Lewis Pesacov's recording space, on the first floor of the Bedrock rehearsal complex in a dodgy stretch of Echo Park near the 2 Freeway, there is an oil portrait of the entire team of his production company Black Iris. The mostly bedraggled-looking staff is depicted with mock-Victorian splendor. It's hung next to a gigantic mounted marlin. The decor is a hilarious vision of winking, masculine mock-self regard.

And yet it might not be wholly unwarranted for the Fool's Gold and Foreign Born guitarist to begin preparing wall space for accolades.

In the last few weeks, his work behind the boards for Best Coast’s excellent upcoming debut, "Crazy For You," and a trunk-rattling rap remix of Local Natives' "Wide Eyes" have unexpectedly vaulted him to the center of L.A.'s 2010 summer-sound zeitgeist. 

Local Natives unveil 'Wide Eyes'(Fool's Gold Remix)'*

Despite its sunny-day-in-California sound, "Wide Eyes,"* by Local Natives, tackles sinister and spiritual terrain. Lyrics about evil spirits, fear and questions of faith balance the celestial harmonies of the Silver Lake-based band.

Yet on his "Wide Eyes" remix, Lewis Pesacov of the Black Iris collective finds a way to mirror the song's uneasy subject matter, burying the Natives' pretty boy coos under an industrial coat of grime.

Crafting a beat reminiscent of El-P, buzzing with claustrophobic synths and snapping drums, Pesacov displays his versatility, having been previously best known for the Afro-pop-infused guitar lines in Foreign Born and Fool's Gold.

Enlisting rapper Aristotle Pop a Bottle to jump-start the track with a 16-bar rap, the new version fulfills the old-school definition of a remix: something that provides a fresh twist on the original, rather than just blank-check raps from big names. 

The "Wide Eyes" remix is the A side of the limited-edition 7" vinyl that Pesacov's Black Iris imprint will be releasing in the near future. A track from Philadelphia's Free Energy will be on the B-Side. In the meantime, it's summer and this jams.

-- Jeff Weiss

Download:
MP3: Local Natives -- "Wide Eyes (Fool's Gold Remix)"

*Correction: The original version of this post got the name of the Local Natives song wrong. It's called "Wide Eyes," not "Eyes Wide." We have fixed it above.

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Local Natives release the hounds in their new 'World News' video

There are so many little things to like about Local Natives' new video for "World News." For example: In addition to being a lovely and charming clip in its own right, it could double as a four-minute checklist for essential supplies on any forthcoming summer picnic. Dogs in scarves catching frisbees ? Impromptu orange soda wars in inflatable pools? Small children with Lil Wayne teardrop tattoos lip-syncing in pilot uniforms? This is necessary stuff folks. Take notes.

Extra kudos to director Matthew Lessner (he of "Stillness Is the Move" renown), who has cornered the market on gorgeous, deadpan shots of bands doing half-endearing, half-unsettling things in wilderness vistas.

-- August Brown

Day 3 of music at SXSW: Is Austin prepared for Hole and Gwar?

The unsinkable Courtney Love comes to South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, with a re-jiggered Hole. They headline the Spin@Stubbs showcase on Red River at 5 p.m.

Just as fascinating as Mrs. Cobain, maybe more, metal gods Gwar will be interviewed for an hour in Room 18abc of the Austin Convention Center, starting at 5 p.m. "You think you've got it tough in the music business? Try establishing a career when you're from another planet!" the SXSW music book asks. Maybe that's their secret.

Feeling something completely different? Folkie Victoria Williams takes part in a 15-minute set at Jovita's (1619 S. 1st St.) at 5:45 p.m.

Sonic Youth shredder Thurston Moore (above) returns to Austin for a solo performance at 8 p.m. at the Red 7.

Local Natives are getting some excellent -- and much-deserved -- buzz here. They play the Galaxy Room on 6th Street tonight at 9.

Several blocks away, She & Him play the Lustre Pearl at 10 p.m. M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel are hard to miss here. Not only are they playing several shows, but Deschanel's eyes also peer from magazine covers all over the dirty streets of Austin.

Canada's answer to both Billy Bragg and Ryan Adams, Matthew Good, plays the cozy basement of Prague just south of Congress on 5th Street at 11 p.m. Good doesn't tour the States often, so if you missed him at the Troubadour earlier this week, this might be your last chance to see him in the U.S.

Mimicking the Beatles in a weird way, sorta, Sum 41 will bring its pop punk to the roof of Maggie Mae's at midnight.

Then, finally, if you couldn't get into the Spin party, Hole is playing a late-night (1 a.m.) show at the Dirty Dog Bar on 6th Street. If you don't want to end your night with some celebrity skin, you're missing the point of this grand melange of excess. Go rock.

-- Tony Pierce from Austin

Photo of Thurston Moore at the Mohawk in 2008. Credit: Tony Pierce / Los Angeles Times

Album review: Local Natives' 'Gorilla Manor'

Sometimes a band is defined not by a singer, a look or a genre. Sometimes it can be summed up in a single sound. For the L.A indie rock quintet Local Natives, it all comes down to voices. Sometimes they're up front, gliding over a haunting little Saharan-blues guitar lick; often they flit about in the margins, lighting up a song like a pulled curtain. 

Local Natives' three singers -- keyboardist Kelcey Ayer and guitarists Ryan Hahn and Taylor Rice -- have done away with the idea of the frontman and created something else entirely: a band led by its harmonies.

That's not to slight the strength of Local Natives' songwriting or arrangement prowess. The tipsy saloon piano that buoys lead single "Airplanes" and the coy, restrained fuzz of "Camera Talk" prove the Natives can wring evocative sounds from traditional instruments. Drummer Matt Frazier has an ambitious knack for accenting a song with bursts of clatter.

But the band always comes back to the spectacle and possibilities of those vocals. There's a bit of Broadway, a touch of Motown and a tang of choir nerd to them, but Local Natives avoid the preciousness of Grizzly Bear or the gang-chorus rapture of Arcade Fire. It's a rare band that can use its chemistry as its own instrument. But the young, frightfully accomplished Local Natives are a rare L.A. band indeed. 

-- August Brown

Local Natives
"Gorilla Manor" 
(Frenchkiss Records)
Three stars (Out of four)

Local Natives Sign to Frenchkiss, Go Global

In this era of blog-built bands and online celebrity, the Local Natives’ ascent seems almost anachronistic. Sure, only a year after moving to Silver Lake from Orange County, the band signed a deal to release its debut album, "Gorilla Manor," on well-respected indie Frenchkiss Records (The Dodos, Passion Pit, Antlers, The Hold Steady). But back in March when they arrived in Austin for the South By Southwest festival, they were just another largely unknown act making a sleepless two-day trek to Texas in the hopes of impressing industry tastemakers and power players.

“We were really nothing when we showed up to South By Southwest, but it took off from there,” guitarist Taylor Rice said. “We’re proud of our album, but we’re at our best when we’re live.”

They left, four days and nine shows later, one of the event’s most ballyhooed bands, thanks to breathless raves from the British print press and other traditional media. The accolades didn’t stem from a savvy publicity campaign, slick sartorial style or a high-powered label, but from the band’s transfixing live show, which combines crisp drums, celestial three-part harmonies, superb songwriting and inexorable energy. Of course, people tend to take you more seriously when your manager is Phil Costello, the co-founder of TBD Records (a sub label of ATO) and a former Capitol Records executive who was instrumental to Radiohead’s development during their early years at the label.