Moments: The Soft White Sixties, Natalie Carol and Rachel Goodrich

The Lyric LA is an awesome venue. The black building covered in a gold script hides an awesome space inside its doors. The entire venue is quirky cool – from rooms covered in artificial grass to hallways lined with newspapers. The detail in the ambiance carries over to the care taken to the stage area with fantastic lighting and a room built for great sound.

Rachel Goodrich and the Grrrls started the evening off. Rachel has a voice like velvet, it is soothingly beautiful and she is backed by the sounds of quirky 50’s rockabilly stuffed with pop. The music makes you grin. The vibe is whimsical and happy with an almost vaudeville sense of sarcasm that lets the audience know that the punchline is coming. They leave the listener smiling with cotton candy colored glasses on where the world is fun and hopeful, with a little wink.

Go have a listen, I know you are going to dig it.

Next up was Natalie Carol with her guitar and her voice. Rich and strong vocals full of longing with stories weaved of the hopefulness of life and love with a sensitivity to the struggle for life and love. The music has a rawness about it, a bluesy 70’s sound. She captured the room by herself, save for a lone dancer that she had accompany her with movement on a few tunes. Fluid, soulful and beautiful.

& then the reason that I had found myself at The Lyric LA that evening, The Soft White Sixties. TSWS were one of my fave bands from my summer tour, The Rock & Roll Highway, and I was more than psyched that the universe sought fit to put us in the same town on the same night! They are awesome. They are a funky, groovy, sexy sound and show. They are rock, 70’s rock. Real rock. I’ve been playing their cd on repeat for the past few months and I was excited to see them live again, I had to know if they would hold true to the memory of that show at The Zoo Bar back in July, the show that blew me away.

And booyah, they did it. The entire band is tight. You can see that they are giving their all, delivering a rough around the edges throwback sound. The hard hitting drums and driving guitars are the perfect backdrop to Ocatavio’s never slow down persona. Octavio is badass. He commands the crowd with his slick dance moves and inclusive way of making every person in the room feel like he is singing just to them. His excitement bolsters the crowds excitement and that just keeps growing every moment of the show. This band has ‘it,’ whatever ‘it’ is..that ‘it’ that makes you move on the dance floor, that ‘it’ that makes you grin in the dark, that ‘it’ that makes you sing along and know that you and every person in that room are getting an ‘it’ show from an ‘it’ band that is clearly making ‘it’ happen.