Creedle and El Ten Eleven at Silverlake Lounge

Thursday night, January 22, 2009, I went to see Pinback's Rob Crow play with another San Diego band, Creedle, as well as check out El Ten Eleven at the Silverlake Lounge.

An audience of straightforward rock and roll fans turned out for the fairly aggressive instrumental rock of El Ten Eleven, who are a local L.A. band who call their music "post rock disco". Kristian Dunn plays a double neck guitar, and with Tim Fogarty on drums and a bass player they craft an infectious blend of avant-jazz/rock and roll, propelled by a heavy dance beat.

For me, instrumental rock of this nature requires strong melody and structure and fortunately, El Ten Eleven, possess impressive melodic instincts. As experimental as the music got, the melody was always there and they never meandered for self-indulgent excess.

I was glad I had listened to a sample track at Isgoodmusic, so I was familiar with the third song they played and was aware of their overall style. The music is loud, but not to the point of melting brain tissue.

I'm never sure what kind of band Rob Crow will show up in next. I manage to see him 4 or 5 times a year, either in Pinback or as Rob Crow in the satirical heavy metal band, Goblin Cock (February 27 at Spaceland). I've never seen Heavy Vegetable.

Just last week I heard he was coming to town with a band called Creedle, who I'd never heard of. I listened to samples and knew it was loud and noisy, so I said, "What the hell" and decided to go.

Here he gets to indulge his garage band/punk/jazz rock tendencies. Creedle is a noisy modern jazz/rock outfit that blasted the Silverlake audience with its enormous sound. It's like every cubic inch of space was filled with sound and it was all aimed right at you.

Rob Crow was on keyboard and added the appropriate yells when needed and it was fun to watch him fold himself into yet another band seamlessly. It's not a style I gravitate to but it's always interesting to see another side of a favorite musician.

whrabbit