Soular, Poets & Pornstars and Crash

Can of Jam

The Joint

March 11, 2006

By Victoria Joyce

Photos by Victoria Joyce

It was freezing cold on Saturday night. Hell, it was snowing in San Francisco. So un-California. What ever happened to Global Warming? We needed some hot Rock and Roll, fast. Our friend Liz told us about Soular, a band from Albuquerque playing at the Joint, a nice club not too far off The Strip. The have TV's over the bar with looped footage of tropical fish and outer space. Trippy. AND our favorite band in the world was playing there too. Poets and Pornstars? We re so there!
The schedule got all smooshed, we got there late and so did everyone else. Met Soular's lead singer, Marsh Shaumburger, before their set. "Did anyone ever tell you that you look like Ray Davies?" (His sad pretty face, choppy hair and velvet jacket were dead nuts). "No," was his soft spoken answer, "I usually get Elliot Smith."
The club's stage was about 6 feet tall and about the size of two parking spaces. Hope the bands don't have trouble with heights or claustrophobia. Luckily these guys didn't't have a problem with anything they just play really fine music. Soular has played just about every other club in Hollywood, but this was their first Joint. Heh heh.
Marsh plays keyboards and sings like an angel. The rest of the band is Ian Byrd on drums, Jared Ashcraft plays bass and Brian Lee plays the guitars and does really trippy stuff on the Theremin. Everybody sings backup.
The set was short, eight songs in all. Very poppy beats, very Ray Davies, like "See My Friends," sad and sweet. A lot of very sophisticated musicianship; clear clean drums, melodic keyboards, very psychedelic guitars and all business. Kinda between Coldplay and Dandy Warhols. And the one song that included the Theremin, well, of course you know it was really trippy and spacey, called, guess what? "Time Space!"
Other songs were, "American Dream," "Take Me," "It's a Shame," Where do We Go," "So This is the Way it Feels," "Tomorrow" and "Over You." The writing is highly personal and dreamy, quiet and plain spoken working well against the modern music.
These guys are icy cool and coming back to LA for a record release party at the Viper Room on April 28th. GO.
Next up was Poets and Pornstars. This band gets better with every show. You get 100% from each member. They love what they do and it shows. Still glowing from opening for Bon Jovi at the Anaheim Pond before 13K screaming fans, they've been playing around town like crazy, here tonight, the Viper last week and Metal Skool on Monday.
But they are here tonight at the Joint for Can of Jam and again with the short set. Hal and friends delivered something special. We heard our faves, "Kicks," "Partners in Crime" (with the backup vocal from the audience "I won't be your alibi") and "War on Gravity." Mr. Ozan pulled a special song out of the book. "We haven't done this one in a long time. It's the first song I ever learned." Then tore into "House of the Rising Sun." Nothing less than stunning.
Why isn't this song in every show!!?? "We used to rehearse it all the time when I first joined the band" was the word from foxy bass player Sally Hope. OK, that's it. We are starting one of those on line petitions, Hal.
The past midnight band was Crash. (Didn't they just win an Oscar?) Very nice and currently on tour with Soular. We would have stayed for the whole set but our teeth were chattering. Catch ya next time, guys.
http://www.soular.us/
http://www.myspace.com/soular
http://www.poetsandpornstars.com/
http://www.myspace.com/poetspornstars
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