Rival Sons, Love and a .38, The Binges

Viper Room , West Hollywood, CA

By Victoria Joyce
(SugarBuzz Hollywood)

SugarBuzz Magazine

Who needs SXSW? OK, we get it. Big Indie Fest. Methinks the term “Indie” just might be oxymoronic when combined with “Big.” But that’s me, thinking. Here’s the up side,locally, with so many people out of town, there is a holiday-ish, summer vacation kinda feeling. You can find parking. And there was absolutely NO shortage of great bands playing in clubs on the Sunset Strip. NONE.

On this particular evening, we went for headliner, loved the middle and just about had thrombosis for the opener. Once in a while it happens. You walk into a club to hear a band you’ve heard before and dig, and the opening band that you’ve never heard of blows the roof off the place. Multiply that by one thousand and that’s what happened at the Viper Room on the Saturday night pre-Mardi Gras 2011 thanks in part to Rival Sons. OMF’ingG.

Rival Sons local and lovely. So good, in fact, I was angry I’d never seen them before. The music is precision driven, like a racecar - with amazing clarity and color. Good old fashioned Blues Rock sent through a crystalline time portal from 1968 to now. Ten Years After plus 40. The Drums sound like gunfire with jazzy, R&B’ed up guitars that bend the beat. And Oh, the pipes on that lead singer, Jay Buchanan, are akin to Rush or, dare I say it, Robert Plant in his hey day. Squeeze this lemon, by all means. The rest of this excellent quartet is: Scott Holiday on guitar, Robin Everhart playing bass and Michael Miley with drums. I repeat, OMF’ingG.

Next up, the reliable Love and a .38 delivered their muscled-metal, glam-slam with grace and grit. The perfect blend of hairspray and chains, ripped tees and tatts. Lead singer, Ryan Hudson has mastered the controlled snarl and slither-snake moves. He could teach classes in “Lead Singer” at Rock and Roll University. Working men Krishna on guitar and Justin Emord on bass bookend their front man perfectly. They are all business. Drummer Danny Excess (great name!) is very Tommy Lee’ish on the skins with lot of flash and fury. Seriously, a template band.

Fans and friends of the .38 flew in to town for the gig. Fellow musician and superfan, John Reile gave us, “…the performance was an assault to the heart with a deadly weapon! It was a direct hit; the pounding drums from the back of the stage that ended up right in your face; the beast-like posture of the guitarist, who was practically aiming sizzling guitar screaming to the audience; the huge bass growling underneath the skanky but authoritative vocal - all comprised the most convincing and genuine roots-rock show that I have seen in 2011!” Simmer down, my brother, we agree!

And the evening’s headliner, The Binges are just too cute for words. The Okai Sisters on guitars bookend their lead singer again, in a perfect rock pyramid. This band was put together by an Art Director filming a futuristic Sci Fi thing or Video Game. Visually modern, mad and candy-colored. Garage with a twist of Pop and a smidgen of Surf. Very Pacific Rim. And lots of hair flipping.

The B’s are coming up in the world. Their white-hot rocker “Motorcycle Song” was used on the TV Show “House.” Classy. The recording really caught the lead singer cat-like growl purr-fectly. (Now if they would only list band member’s names on their Facebook page, we’d cut and paste it here for you.)

Seriously, you don’t have to fly to Austin for excellent rock and roll bands. They walk among us every day, like the aliens, angels and ghosts.

www.viperroom.com
www.rivalsons.com
www.facebook.com/rivalsons
www.facebook.com/Loveanda.38
www.myspace.com/loveanda38
www.thebinges.com
www.facebook.com/thebinges
SugarBuzz Magazine