“Hi, we’re an unsigned band from Los Angeles,” introduces The Airborne Toxic Event singer/guitarist, Mikel Jollett, to the frisky and diverse sold-out crowd at the Troub.
Two songs into the set, you would have been hard-pressed to believe that this Los Feliz quintet wasn’t signed by a Major or Major Indie (your Merges and Sub-Pops of the world), much less completely unsigned. Joined on stage by Noah Harmon (bass), Steven Chen (guitar/keyboard), Anna Bulbrook (viola), and Daren Taylor (drums), the soft-spoken Jollett crooned with his Morrissey-esque baritone and we soaked it in. The band members weren’t just going through the motions like so many other typical indie-xerox bands. They were playing with stage presence, with exuberance, with gracefulness.
This was not your ordinary hype-band.
I have to admit, I wasn’t an early rider on Airborne’s gravy train with biscuit wheels. I didn’t make it out to the Eastside to see them in years past, nor did I attend their now-legendary residency at Spaceland in January. This was mainly because I had only heard the new single, “Sometime Around Midnight,” less than a month ago. I instantly fell in love with it, though, and made it a personal crusade to attend the next local show which just so happened to be at the venerable West Hollywood venue.
Being relatively late to the party meant I had to deal with the fact that it was a show presented by KROQ. Fortunately, the crowd seemed affable enough to me. I didn’t record any egregious mouth-breathing moments from the peanut gallery at all. There was no pretentious stage banter/guitar tech shenanigans, no Jed The Fish introducing the band with his insufferable laugh. If it weren’t for the KROQ banners on the balcony, you would have thought it was a typical local band Monday night at the Troub…except with a crowd that was a mix of Silverlake hipsters, KROQ teens, tall supermodel-esque women, and short,bald super-guitarists (Tom Morello in the house!).
I didn’t know what to expect from the band after only hearing the single and their three-song EP. The show could have been either very subdued or very energetic. It turned out to be the latter. From the opening song, the band had the crowd dancing and bobbing along in no time.
And dance we did.
Maybe it was because we were smack dab in the middle of the venue surrounded by super-fans, but the eminently danceable sounds coming from the stage enticed, nay, cajoled, us to tastefully move our bodies. Not in a Sexyback badonkadonk grinding way, but in a more say… tasteful way. Kind of like a cross between the unabashed happy energy of a night with The Hold Steady mixed with the soulful contemplation of a night with Morrissey and a dash of Franz Ferdinand for chutzpah. It was basically the antithesis of entry #67 on the Stuff White People Like blog.
As the set progressed, we saw Mikel, Steven, and Anna play musical chairs with the keyboard on various songs, Arcade Fire style. We saw Noah take a page (ha) from Jimmy Page’s repertoire and use a (viola?) bow to play his electronic bass.
Midway through the show, the band played Sometime Around Midnight. By the time Mikel screamed out the climax of the song, I was having vivid flashbacks of Win Butler transcendently belting out Intervention.
I chatted briefly with Mikel after the show about their upcoming SXSW appearances and whether that would mean they would leave Austin with a shiny new label contract. He just shrugged his shoulders. Apparently he had been fielding calls from multitudes of interested labels recently and was eminently wary of them all. He has every right to be as the role of the record label is rapidly fading. However, they do still have their uses, especially for distribution. We’ll see if the band remains unsigned for long. Who knows, maybe they’ll get along just fine without a label. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least.
Appropriately enough, the show ended with an encore consisting of “Missy,” an infectiously poppy song about coming home to LA. The band even threw out these cute plastic tambourines to the crowd which complemented the song perfectly.
Remember how I said no gimmicky shenanigans earlier?
I lied.
But I’ll be damned if that stunt didn’t leave cheshire-sized grins with the 500 faces at the Troubadour that night.
(Thanks to my neighbor, Gina, for the photos)
this band isn’t real, they choreograph everything, they are industry kids themselves and if you fall for them you are being fooled.
they’re songs are identical to all of those around them.
sometime around midnight, is lazy eye by silversun and all my friends my lcd soundsystem combined into one.
they remind you of franz ferd and arcade fire and morrisey because it is done on purpose, they literally copy and mimic these artists among many others.
they are the milli vanilli of “indie” dont have to believe me but it’s true.
this band isn’t real, they choreograph everything, they are industry kids themselves and if you fall for them you are being fooled.
they’re songs are identical to all of those around them.
sometime around midnight, is lazy eye by silversun and all my friends my lcd soundsystem combined into one.
they remind you of franz ferd and arcade fire and morrisey because it is done on purpose, they literally copy and mimic these artists among many others.
they are the milli vanilli of “indie” dont have to believe me but it’s true.
well “betty” (otherwise known as “Airborne’s creepy stalker”) that just doesn’t make any sense.
it’s really sad that you follow them around the internet, posting bullshit comments.
Mikel was never in the “industry.” He was a broke music journalist (he quit three years ago). (He’s a damn good writer by the way. He’s in McSweeney’s this month).
You seem to think that this makes him connected. As a music journo myself, let me tell you, NOBODY at labels cares about writers. Evidence of this is the fact that the Airborne Toxic Event are on KROQ and INdie, have done a UK tour, have an enormous fan base and THEY ARE UNSIGNED. dipshit, if they were connected or something they would have been signed by now.
Franz Ferdinand copied a lot of other artists. the Arcade Fire are constantly accused of copying Bruce Springsteen. James Murphy of LCD openly admits to copying just abotu everybody.
the point is that this is all just talk. it’s meaningless. this is you sitting in a chair somewhere taking shots. You have no band, no fans, no music, and you talk shit about the ATE, a band that has written so much great msuic, played so many great shows, as if music can be reduced to a sum of influences. what you’re doign is cheap and pathetic.
they are simply a great band. great musicians, great songwriters. and you would probably have a greater cause in your endless-shit-talking-crusade, if they weren’t also such incredibly kind people.
they are going to be huge and they deserve it. by the way, they have no idea who you are. and they don’t care.
well “betty” (otherwise known as “Airborne’s creepy stalker”) that just doesn’t make any sense.
it’s really sad that you follow them around the internet, posting bullshit comments.
Mikel was never in the “industry.” He was a broke music journalist (he quit three years ago). (He’s a damn good writer by the way. He’s in McSweeney’s this month).
You seem to think that this makes him connected. As a music journo myself, let me tell you, NOBODY at labels cares about writers. Evidence of this is the fact that the Airborne Toxic Event are on KROQ and INdie, have done a UK tour, have an enormous fan base and THEY ARE UNSIGNED. dipshit, if they were connected or something they would have been signed by now.
Franz Ferdinand copied a lot of other artists. the Arcade Fire are constantly accused of copying Bruce Springsteen. James Murphy of LCD openly admits to copying just abotu everybody.
the point is that this is all just talk. it’s meaningless. this is you sitting in a chair somewhere taking shots. You have no band, no fans, no music, and you talk shit about the ATE, a band that has written so much great msuic, played so many great shows, as if music can be reduced to a sum of influences. what you’re doign is cheap and pathetic.
they are simply a great band. great musicians, great songwriters. and you would probably have a greater cause in your endless-shit-talking-crusade, if they weren’t also such incredibly kind people.
they are going to be huge and they deserve it. by the way, they have no idea who you are. and they don’t care.
Dear Brainiac,
People who so-call “mimic” other artists are called influences. Stay in school Bettie.
(Kudos to TATE getting signed! – Yay!)
Dear Brainiac,
People who so-call “mimic” other artists are called influences. Stay in school Bettie.
(Kudos to TATE getting signed! – Yay!)