Eagle Rock Music Festival – Los Angeles, CA

Festivals are dead!
COACHELLA! DEAD!
SUNSET JUNCTION! DEAD!
EAGLE ROCK MUSIC FESTIVAL….well hold on.  Don’t go too fast. 

The Eagle Rock Music Festival is the last fresh breath of the festival genre.

In fact, the Eagle Rock Music Festival has become what music festivals wish they were.  I hesitate even writing this little review for fear of having it become the disgusting pendejada that Sunset Junction has turned into. 

The Eagle Rock Music Festival has become an event I look forward to yearly.  I get to support some great acts that I’ve come to love (the Underground Railroad to Candyland) and finally get to check out the acts that I hear about all year (the Happy Hollows). This year had a few bonuses. 

The nonprofit music magazine, Razorcake, had their own booth and stage which would be featuring some of my favorite bands.  (Full Disclosure: I volunteer monthly at Razorcake Magazine).  As soon as I got there, I got to see That’s Incredible.  I had only heard of them up to this point.  That’s Incredible features Sean Cole from Toys That Kill on guitar and vocals and Susy Sharp from the Soviettes on Bass and Vocals.  I’m sure the other two dudes are also in some well known bands but I’m not sure.  (Deepest Apologies go out to the other two dudes for not knowing the full back story)

I really enjoyed them particularly this one song with a killer lead.  Lately my mp3 player’s shuffle function has been picking the songs by Toys That Kill that are sung by Sean so it was cool to hear that showcased more in That’s Incredible.  I plan to see them again real soon. 

After talking to the Razorcake volunteers a bit, I walked the entire length of the festival.  I stopped in the 7-11 to buy booze.  This year the rule the cops seemed to have was, we will pretend not to see the booze if you pretend to hide the booze.  I bought huge Big Gulp cups that I later used to drink a bunch of beer.  Several people had their own methods for booze hiding.

The local Eagle Rock businesses have their own booths along the main thoroughfare.  This is a far cry from other street festivals where a booth will sell 10 dollar lemonade in front of a closed restaurant that would have sold you the same lemonade for 3 bucks.  This year my favorite cheap alcohol soaker-upper was outside the Vietnamese restaurant, Lemongrass.  They had a bunch of different types of spring rolls being sold for a couple of bucks.  I walked back and forth the entire length of the festival grounds and stopped for another spring roll each time.  There was almost never a line.  I went back for a real meal a few weeks later and loved it.

We walked back to the Razorcake stage where the Underground Railroad to Candyland were ripping it up.  This was the high point of the festival for me.  People who knew the band were dancing and jumping.  People who never saw the band were dancing and jumping.  Parents and Kids were dancing and jumping.  I think this was probably the point that Razorcake gave away the last of their magazines.

After that, my friends went to the sports bar for legal booze and I went to see the bands I had heard about all year.  I checked out the Happy Hollows.  They were good but I didn’t think they were great.  Maybe they got better as their set went on but I couldn’t see what all the hype was about. 

Later, we all checked out No Age.  This is going to sound mean as hell but I thought they were tuning and sound checking when it turned out they had been playing a song.  At this point I started laughing maniacally and calling them the Emperor’s clothes.  I’m a jerk.  I know.

I think after the magical experience of URTC, everything else just wasn’t measuring up.  Sorry No Age and Happy Hollows.  I may owe you another chance.  I feel like it would be mean to write either of you off entirely. 

My friends and I looked at each other and decided to leave Eagle Rock and get some cocktails.


Other notable moments include:

This motel had a Zydeco band jamming from the second floor of motel rooms.  Later they had some blues bands too.

There was a kids stage that had local bands like Artichoke playing kids songs but also bands with little kids in them doing Ramones covers.

There was a booth that compared Obama to Hitler.  I see these signs all the time on TV but I never thought I’d see one in California.  I took a picture because I was so surprised.

Peanut Butter Wolf.  If you don’t know, you should.

There was an artist’s booth that had these beautiful blown up person-sized photographs of records on a shelf. 

See you there next year.
 

- Joe Dana -

 

More photos of the show can be seen HERE

 

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