Full Value Review - Madlins 1-8-2005 - Keenwild

MADLINS 1/8/05 SATURDAY NIGHT SHOW

The early crowd saunters in composed entirely of females, brought out on this rainy night in ‘sunny’ (ha-hah) Southern California by ‘myspace’ news of the appearance of THE BROBECKS, a band out of Utah. With six bands scheduled to perform, this Saturday night line-up is intended to induce new music fans to venture out in spite of ‘The Pineapple Express’ roaring through California. Madlins is warm and dry as the first group takes the stage.

SET 1 – KEENWILD

Named after a mighty stand of trees up in Idyllwild, CA, Bill Gould (acoustic guitar/back-up vocals)and Jeney Kingsberry (lead vocals) aka KEENWILD open their set with both members standing for a change. Though the set seems rushed and they only do four songs, Bill’s vocals on ‘Rivers’ are the best he’s ever done and the chart topper, Australia’s ‘Mr. Pete’, is greeted with warm applause. Even after the four songs, Jeney looks like she is ready go for a few more, but the next band is already set up behind KW, who only take up the space for two mikes and the amp for Bill’s acoustic guitar. With six bands on tap there isn’t much time ‘one more’.

SET 2 – HAZZLE

Back from Petaluma, CA, a town north of San Francisco, came HAZZLE, making their second appearance at Madlins. After a fine impromptu solo piece by Collin Donnell (guitar/vocals) while Brian Sennello (bass/backup vocals) and Justin Silva (drums) finished fine tuning drum adjustments, the boys at first got off to a rough start, but then settled in to some nice tunage. Explaining that they had played a show last night in Davis, CA, and had ‘forgotten’ their second guitarist, HAZZLE soon found their groove in songs like ‘Where The Movies Make Their Money’, a very commercial sounding tune and the song about taking a ‘southward journey’ down on a girl had Devin tossing his hair. I suppose Snapple isn’t the only thing made of the ‘best stuff on earth’. Utilizing an array of guitars, a different one for each song, the mood turned serious as they dedicated their song ‘Obligation’ to a friend who passed away recently, and gave the audience a different look as the drummer played acoustic and the singer the tambourine. Meanwhile the rain had stopped and the crowd filled in. www.hazzle.net

SET 3 – THE BROBECKS

Making their Madlins debut the last stop on the current tour, THE BROBECKS rolled in on the way back to Salt Lake City. Although the twenty’s something band informed the crowd that we’re ‘making up this set as we go’, you couldn’t tell it in the smooth stage presence exhibited by Michael Gross (vocals/guitar), Matthew Glass (drums), Bryan Szymanski (keyboards), and Dallon Weekes (vocals/bass). The two singers, one more tenor and the other more baritone, set a fine pace with the first song ‘She’s A Robot’, the last track on their CD titled ‘Happiest Nuclear Winter’. The good danceable indie rock ditties with a beat and versatile keyboard refrains drew generous applause and all the songs featured polished endings, a sign of true band sophistication. Saying that ‘Temecula (Pechanga Casino) is our Las Vegas’ didn’t hurt the boys with the local crowd garnered in by the myspace buzz.

SET 4 – STRIKE TWELVE

This local three piece from Temecula, always a ‘hoot’ to watch, stayed as badass as usual, opening with ‘No Place To Hide’, a song that Apryl Lynn head banged to. (If you don’t know how cute it is to see a little 4-year old headbanging, come to a show and look back at the counter she’s perched up on like a mini go-go girl). The boys haven’t played a public show since November but showed little rust as they dove into ‘Magician’, their second song. There was no shock at the mike this time for Matt (vocals/guitar) and the vocals were stronger this time on all songs. With adult tunes like ‘3 Foot 3’, about the short dream girl with a flat spot to sat your beer, they closed out the set with a guest rapper (for their ‘rap’ song) amid a flurry of broken drumsticks (there was wood everywhere) but didn’t do ‘The Booby Song’ (I was heartbroken). Also on myspace.

SET 5 – THE AMERICAN HERITAGE/HOLLYWOOD CHEEKBONES

The two piece group THE AMERICAN HERITAGE, made up of Kyle (ex-DARK HAVEN) on acoustic guitar and Casey on electric guitar morphed in a new three piece featuring Kyle (guitar/keyboards/vocals), a new drummer, and a new bass player with Casey in the audience cheering everyone on. Starting out on keys with the first song, a quiet number, Kyle ripped into the second song, a freestyle jam with a bluesy rock bottom and nice ‘guitar hero’ riffs. The third song and things slowed down again, nestled in by some righteous bass licks and the last song featured great percussion work.

SET 6 – HOLLYWOOD ENDINGS

Hardening it up with two stakes through the heart was HOLLYWOOD ENDINGS, a band from the Costa Mesa/Irvine area of the OC. Made up of guitar, guitar/backup vocals/screams, drums, keys/vocals, and a frontman, members Brett, Casey, Justin, Devin, Joe, Matt, and the band MoM Ron, opened the set with the song ‘Catch Me’, a suitable request for the band playing harder indie rock with punk edges all dressed in black. Besides a cover of a song by FAR, the boys did a birthday song for an audience member. You can catch all this talent coming up to places like The Roxy, House of Blues, and SOMA in the near future as they blaze through LA-LA land (L.A. for the out-of-towners). Again all info leads to their space on myspace. Cool band T-shirts too.

– PT ROTHSCHILD