Bereft of sleep and common sense, we made our way into the fire.When LA burns, it really burns. Smoke billowed from the foothills of the northern Los Angeles and the air was dense with the scent of burning brush. Hollywood in itself is a planet, and driving through ash strewn streets made the resident freaks and geeks that much more colorful. We started our Ripple field trip packed with anticipation, on Sunset Boulevard in the heart of Hollywood. The temperature was a balmy ninety plus degrees, fire raging in the hills, and the clock had yet to strike 10:00am. Believe us, hell hath no fury like Racer with no A/C!
It felt hotter than it was and the mushroom cloud from the adjacent fire (see pic to left) made it feel like we were at the threshold of some hellish Armageddon.
Oh . . . Hollywood always looks like this? Huh.
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First surprise of the day was a pleasant one. Whoever is out there saying that no one is buying music anymore obviously never stood outside of Amoeba Records mere minutes before the opening bell. Thirty plus people patiently milled outside of the air conditioned heaven of plastic and vinyl musical oddities. That has to mean something! No one had bags or boxes of returns or things to sell, and there was no big release or promotion going on this Saturday morning. All indicators point towards music lovers taking the time to go spend their hard earned money in a down economy at the record store. Awesome! No music had been punched up on the P.A. system as of yet, so we were welcomed by the strange and mesmerizing cicadae chirp of plastic CD cases clicking against each other in rhythmic fashion. Normally, this clickity-clack would transform us into CD sniffing zombies, but we were lured by the scent of another format this swelter morning. We stiff leg stumbled our way to the low cost vinyl section of the store and proceeded to lose about three hours of our day.With bags of unwanted and, at times, unloved vinyl in hand, we made our way back to the Pope-mobile to meet up with our long standing chums from Petty Crux. We’ve talked much about these guys over the past two years and their wonderfully addicting debut disc entitled All Who Survived the Crash. En route to our meeting, we witnessed what could only be described as an L.A. paradox and a forever lasting image of what makes LA such a unique place in this world. Dead asleep, in a sitting position on a street corner, legs stretched straight out from his parka encased form was a homeless man. Piles of his personal belongings were bundled in plastic shopping bags, neatly aligned on the curb. No shoes, bottoms of his feet black from the grime of unknown years of hard travel without footwear. Clutched firmly in his right hand was a cell phone. A cell phone? Racer turned and looked at the Pope with a look of amused bewilderment and mouthed, “A cell phone?” All I could do was shake my head and smile.
After driving across all of L.A., we realized that we had no idea where we were. Yeah, we were in Venice Beach, but what does that really mean? So were what appeared to be a half million other southern Californians who were trying to beat the summer time heat. We had made a tactical error by not referring to our maps earlier on and plotting out our routes for systematic entry and extraction. It was a truly novice moment in our travels and we should have known better. But after a quick phone call to get our bearings, all was good and we approached the bar where the band had taken up residence.
After a few pints and lively conversations with the guys about music and the scoring of soccer being calculated in miles (thanks for that one, Clemente,) we were invited to watch the band jam out in the rehearsal space a few miles away. Well, hot damn! We weren’t going to pass up an offer like that, so we caravanned with the band to your typical SoCal alleyway where we were allowed access to the practice facility with secretive nods, shifty eye movements, and a complex array of hand gestures. And there we were, we'd gained access to the hallowed halls of the Petty Crux Fortress of Solitude! Once we crammed eight bodies into a room designed for four, the band got down to what they do best and rocked out like they were performing for an arena filled with Cruxheads! My God! We loved the music before, but to watch these guys perform is an experience all unto itself! Incredibly tight, stunningly focused, they didn’t dick around and throw insults at one another, drag their feet before kicking into songs . . . one member of the band would call out the song title and a quick four count later, the band was powering through one of their deliciously melodic rock epics. If one of the guys wasn’t ready, too bad! They had to catch up. But that was never the case. Petty Crux knows what they’re doing. They’re pro all the way! And live it showed like never before. Each punchy song was infused with stunning new energy, rolling through us like a sonic wave. New bass player perfectly in tow, guitar effects wailing, sticks making mincemeat of drums, new keyboard player training his fingers across the keys, and vocals burst out with unwavering conviction. Hell yeah, that's what we're talking about!
Hating to leave the amazing scene inside Petty Crux's studio, we had a date to keep. All week, we'd been buzzing over our offer to cover Bigelf at the ProgNation tour. Now was our time. Departing the studio, we once again found ourselves horribly lost in the mire of LA, smoke filling the air around us, the glow of the fires glaring in the darkening sky. Finally, (and we do mean finally) we found the Greek Theater, stunned to find the parking lot already full, the road empty and music playing. Due to a "clerical error" on the Bigelf's website, we arrived at the concert en media res, surprised to learn that the posted 8 pm start time was in some alternate dimension, not at the Greek Theater where the concert started at 5:30. Good thing we at the Ripple make it a point to arrive at each concert nice and early. Securing our Press badges, we entered the Theater too late to catch Scale the Summit, but fortunately, we didn't miss the boys that mattered. Immediately upon walking in, there they were, Bigelf.
And let me tell you, Damon and the crew look as fantastic as they sound. Instantly recognizable, these cats know the concept of image and theatrics. None of this walking out on stage in some jeans and a t-shirt like you just stepped out of a laundromat. With long flowing hair, dreaded or straight, adorned with ornamentation, dark suits at the ready, these cats look the part, bringing their darkly sinister, deeply macabre brand of bombastic prog rock to the stage in a way that clearly frightened the uninitiated. Needless to say, we ate it up.And by all measures, the boys tore it up that night. Featuring a sound that filled the theater like no other band that night, guitars wailed, bass rumbled and organs wailed as if being tortured by the best. Their sound is pulverizingly heavy, densely foreboding. A sound of power and authority that is solely lacking in the prog world these days. The audience response summed it up best, the unprepared retreating initially in fear, then slowly adjusting their sense of right and wrong before fully embracing the band. Big, big, and bigger, Bigelf is way too big to be contained as an opening act for any band these days. Their hearts are way too big, their sound too huge, the amount of soul and passion they inject--no, live-- in their music is way too colossal for them to be anyone's warm-up band.
Then after the show, the fans who came to see the other bands learned what we at the Ripple had known all along, Damon Fox and the Bigelf boys are some of the most down-to-earth, sincerest rock musicians out there today -- meeting with the fans after their set, sitting for autographs and photos. True showmen who give back as much as they can.
Needing to get some sustenance for ourselves, we missed out on most of the Zappa Plays Zappa set, but could still hear the remarkable virtuosity the band brought to the stage. Virtuosity with soul, which is much more important than virtuosity for the sake of hitting notes as fast as one can. Which brings us to Dream Theater. Perhaps, the fact that Racer entered the concert wearing a Motorhead t-shirt was a good indication that we might not be in step with the other fans there that night. More than once, as the band took the stage and launched into their set, we looked around, dumbstruck at the headbanging reception they received from their fans. In fact, at one point, as Racer watched some little bald man throwing up "the horns" and smashing his head in an air guitar fury, he leaned over to the Pope, asking what music this little man was listening to, cause it clearly wasn't the nonsense coming from the stage.
Still, it took until the fourth song and the embarrassing spectacle of DT's drummer jumping off his stool to pretend to tackle a Stormtrooper during a frightfully humiliating costumed Star Wars light saber battle, for us to realize that Dream Theater were no Bigelf. Not in our minds anyways.
And with that, we declared our Dream Theater experience over, departing the theater amongst the glaring eyes of DT fans, to face the tragic situation that The Greek Theater calls a parking lot. But that story will have to wait for another day, suffice it to say, neither the Pope or Racer will ever attend another show at the Greek unless they're traveling in the band's bus or ferried back and forth in a glorious stretch limousine.
Exhausted, we finally fought our way through Hollywood Blvd club traffic back to our flop house off Sunset Blvd, collapsed into bed, exhausted, satisfied, and dreamy with anticipation of the next Ripple Field Trip to come.
--The Ripple Effect
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