There’s always room for another music festival in Los Angeles, especially if said festival is masterminded by none other than Rene Contreras. The young visionary behind the Viva Pomona Festival will introduce the first ever Viva El Ley showcase this Sunday, January 25th at The Wells.
Like its larger Pomona sibling, the event will host a number of independent up-and-comers from the area and abroad on two stages. Before you freak out on who to watch, here’s a list of five artists we recommend. Feel free to freak out afterwards!
Prettiest Eyes
Oh look, it’s the L.A. trio we’ve been raving about for the past couple of months. Marco, Paco, and Pachy reprise their role on a Viva stage having also performed at Viva Pomona last year. Expect to hear songs from their highly-anticipated (at least by us!) debut album due out next month, which we expect to feature more of the Suicide-meets-DFA1979-bilingual antics that we love so much.
Vaya Futuro
Not all that booms in Tijuana is ruidosón or another offshoot of Nortec Collective. The boys in Vaya Futuro (formerly known as Celofán until some assholes in Acapulco hired a lawyer) have spent the past near-decade perfecting their own wall-of-sound shoegaze, which can be heard on their full-length debut Ideas A Medias, an album for anyone who loves guitars stacked atop one another (in a musical sense) in the style of My Bloody Valentine and Dinosaur Jr.
https://soundcloud.com/vayafuturo/sets/ideas-a-medias
Froth
Froth are four dudes from Los Angeles whose tunes exemplify the stereotypical Southern California “lazy summer” lifestyle: lounging/chilling in hot weather at the beach, skating, sippin’ a brew or two, etc., thanks to their ’60s garage rock sound filled with jangly guitars and bits of pop, psychedelic rock, and shoegaze. The quartet released its debut album in 2013 and were hand-picked by Hedi Slimane to score one of Saint Laurent’s menswear collection runway shows. Not bad for a band that started off as a joke!
https://soundcloud.com/froth-bandito/chillwave-christmas
Slutever
This isn’t the same Slutever that doles out sex tips and dishes on the history of sex in Vice. This Slutever is Nicole Snyder and Rachel Gagliardi who are “friends first, band second.” The punk/grunge duo has a few singles and an EP available, which have earned praise from websites such as Stereogum and The Guardian.
No-Fi
We end with yet another garage/psych band from L.A. No-Fi, a.k.a. Spencer Hartling, Caster Black, Elliott Bulard, & Quinn Gilmer, have a four-track EP of “acid punk,” as they like to call it, to their name. It’s a small but impressive collection of searing, jangly guitars and gut-punching bass lines.