The Shakers

The Roxy ~ Sunset Strip

West Hollywood, California

By Victoria Joyce
(SugarBuzz Hollywood)

SugarBuzz Magazine

First off, a great big “atta boy” to The Shakers for choosing an excellent band name. Are you as tired as we are of the sleazy-adjective+gruesome-noun combo that has become the formula for bands without talent or imagination? Bleeding Battery anyone? Yuck.

The Shakers! A great name for a band! Not to mention the historical relationship “shake” has with rock and roll music going back to the Stone Age and I ain’t talking Mick Jagger. “Shake, Rattle and Roll” by Bill Haley and The Comets is one of the first hit records that forged this new and dangerous category of music, mid 20th Century. I saw it on the History Channel so it’s gotta be true.

And we can’t count how many great rock songs - “Whole Lot of Shaking Going On” by Jerry Lee Lewis, “Shake it Up” by The Cars, “Shake” by Sam Cook, etc. etc., ad infinitum. Further back (19th Century USA), The Shakers are a group of religious zealots who make cool furniture and dance crazy. Ken Burns made a doc about them. But that’s enough of a tangent. Back to the music.

LA –based, The Shakers self-identify as “a cross between AC/DC and the Supremes.” Close. We’d call ‘em Blondie meets The Chambers Brothers. Lots of sweet rock, grounded in 60s white boy blues smushed with 80s punk and blown out with personality, cute outfits and hair flips.

Lead singer Jodie Schell channels Janis Joplin with soul and sass while lead guitar, Chris Lee is the living conduit for Alvin Lee of Ten Years After. Goin’ home to see my baby.

So The Shakers shook The Roxy as the opener for the First Friday in June 2011. Set time 8:30p? Are you kidding me? At that hour, most self-respecting rockers haven’t had their morning coffee yet for Christ’s sake.

Big surprise! The Roxy was half filled at the start of their set and packed solid by the finish. With good reason. The Shakers have been doing the local and regional club scene for over a year, playing freaking great music, Facebooking and building buzz. Or should we say tremors. Ha, ha, get it? Shakers? Tremors? Never mind.

Lots of loyal fans spawning new ones every day. Tonight’s show is a CD single party. We love those. The first 100 fans were gifted with “Hey Little Darlin,” a featured track off the soon-to-be-released “Oh So Loud.”

The rest of the band shakes out like this (heh, heh!) brother to Chris, Brad Lee plays bass and drummer Nick Woods sits behind them. Immediately after this show, The Shakers headed to a couple of gigs in Utah for the weekend and then back to Hollywood. Upcoming shows in June include San Francisco on the 24th and San Luis Obispo on the 25th.

Oh yeah, one more - “Shaking All Over” by the Who. Can you think of any more? List ‘em on our FB page. Maybe we will send you a tee shirt or something.

www.facebook.com/ilovetheshakers

www.pbs.org/kenburns/shakers

SugarBuzz Magazine