Anna Webber – Los Angeles Photographer

April 21, 2009 by Anna Webber

She’s what Stevie Ray Vaughan would look like without a soul patch and the Texasflooder Manny Gammage hat. That was a certain likeness – and the first immediate good sign. She could have a wailing match on par with Caleb Followill, and her cracking pitchy snarling voice would surely win. If she wasn’t wearing little heels, she could probably jump around a little more, but dirty blues woman Erika Wennerstrom packs a punch and holds no mercy.

The Heartless Bastards took the stage and needless to say, the shimmery blue sequined bandstand disappeared and the crowd was slammed into what could have been Townes Van Zandt’s Hole in the Wall in Austin, TX, Wennerstrom’s hometown. Her little physique was no foolin’, and her strapping bronchial tubes tore through all the lonely ones out there saluting their Shiner Bocks dry. The Heartless Bastards are a bare-bones band, whose sound may possibly be as timeless as the music genre they’ve landed in. Keep an eye out, they’ve got a hot US tour rolling through, as well as a short bit in Europe, then back for some big shows at ACL Music Festival, Bonnaroo in Nashville, and SF Outside Lands.

Erika Wennerstom of The Heartless Bastards - photo: Anna Webber

Following his performance at Coachella, Paolo played an intimate showcase luncheon Tuesday at the Viper Room in Hollywood to debut his upcoming release, Sunny Side Up.

The Viper Room and Atlantic Records supplied the Open Bar and luncheon – however – it didn’t matter how drunk they got the guests, the music was phenomenal. By the first song, enough honest sweat was flowing out of his pores to mean he would not be letting up anytime soon – he’d done this before. Paolo has got the same Johnny Lang elated, scathing, rasp and quiver, mixed with Jeff Buckley moans and lingering “ooo’s” during the sultry ballads that were to die for. The timelessness of his music would throw a smile across anyone’s face and a chill down their spine as his boyish sincerity dabbled in motown and blues, reggae and barbershop bebop. As he picked up what appeared to be a watered down whiskey, smiling, he says “It’s the first one I’ve done of these things where everybody’s listening.” Not because he’s not extraordinary, but because he can be seen most often playing at big music halls, bigger concert venues, and music festivals like Coachella and Bonnaroo. And his giddy Scottish accent would sometimes sound more like a thick island one. It was adorable. In fact, all but one of the 6 piece band is from Scotland, and his 2007 record went platinum in the UK, and sold about 2 million copies. He played the single off of his last record, “New Shoes”, which Paolo is most notably known for. Keeping an eye on Paolo and awating the release of his next record out in June, he showed no deficit of talent Tuesday, no elevated ego.

Paolo Nutini @ Viper Room showcase (photo: anna webber)

Even though the Ventura Theater is located about an hour short of both L.A. and Santa Barbara, the crowd filled it in for TV on the Radio’s high-octane set Thursday. Three black guys and four white guys comprise the band whose sound is a detailed mix between afro-beat breakdown, funk delicacies, flattening punk rock, and electro-synth reverberations. They put on (with no pun intended) an intrinsically colorful show that slung the crowd through rainbows and gouged them from doldrums with decadent neon textures. Not really anyone wasn’t dancing and sweating, and I’d say it might have been the first time leaving the photo pit actually carrying the scent of the band’s body odor – even Damian Marley’s tour bus left me unscathed in that area. Frontman Tunde Adebimpe danced like a fish out of water while Kyp Malone (vocals, guitar, loops) killed it with a voice sometimes reaching frequencies of Al Green heights, possibly even upwards, but with less gospel gradation. The most crowd response came from songs like Wolf Like Me and Staring at the Sun, and the die-hards hardly missed a word dead on. The Ventura show was the second of 2 shows surrounding L.A. county before they hit the Coachella mainstage Saturday, which they also dominated.

TV on the Radio - Tunde Adebimpe (photo: Anna Webber)

TV on the Radio - Tunde Adebimpe (photo: Anna Webber)

TV on the Radio - Kyp Malone (photo: Anna Webber)

Reviewing Teddy Thompson – Live – opening at the Largo L.A. for Jayhawks’ Gary Louris and Mark Olsen

The sound systems in L.A. usually have a tweeter out or other some such ear jerking clamor rattle out of from its speakers. I have never in my life heard a sound so clear, so full and so ranging, than from British Folk singer’s Teddy Thompson’s acoustic guitar and honeyed voice, as I did Saturday at the Largo.

I drove past the Largo three times, even with my gps suggesting its coordinates were not far, at which point I’d pass it. One sign flashes vertically, blinking “Theater” and another small sign without lights some ways beneath – “Largo”. This place rules.

Red velvet everywhere with burgundy walls and no bar, the Largo is fundamentally one of the last traces of class leeched from the old jazz theater days we can find here in L.A. And for British folk-blues singer/songwriter Teddy Thompson, all seats were occupied. The house filled up absolutely with people that came to hear the music, which can be a pretty novel purpose these days on a Saturday night in the city.

Thompson’s voice resounded with a rhythm that only comes from a practiced musician devoted to his addiction – to melody, to harmony, and sound. His voice is comparable to that of Jackson Brown, or notably, Chris Isaac, Buddy Holly. But that night it was Thompson alone with his guitar, belting it out with lights in his eyes to a pitch black room of a hundred people or so, with chills that could call a storm.

Teddy Thompson