Photo by Miriam Brummel
LA Font, a Los Angeles garage rock outfit who just released their new album, Diving Man, is one of those bands you can’t escape if you’re keyed into the local scene. Somehow, I managed to escape for a long time. I hadn’t heard of them until they started working as the house band for Entitlement, a monthly comedy show I run with VICE contributors Megan Koester , Josh Androsky, Alison Stevenson, Grant Pardee, and Allen Strickland Williams. It was the kind of musical love at first sight that I thought only happened in really terrible movies like Garden State (I’m looking at you, the Shins). Through a magical stroke of Hollywood luck, they just might be the comedy show house band the world has been waiting for since Kevin Eubanks left the Tonight Show.
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Photo by Miriam Brummel
You might not be aware of this, but music and laughter go together like bagels and peanut butter (weird, but delicious, especially if you’re high). Comics like Reggie Watts make music an integral part of their act, and even the Roots can be funny, if their stint with Jimmy Fallon is any indication.
Like most comedy house bands, LA Font’s job at our show is playing off Mark Maron or Kurt Braunholer after their sets, and opening and closing the show. Unfortunately, we’ve never been able to give them enough time for a full set. The band had their album release party last night at the Echo, which was a perfect opportunity to finally see them in their element.
Photo by Sam Varela
Their live show is pretty much what you’d expect from their records: energetic, propulsive, and really fucking loud. They added a couple of girls in tight, gold jumpsuits from a performance troupe called R.A.I.D., which describes itself as “a radically inclusive and absurdly ambitious dance project.” I’m not sure what that means, but I’d say that wearing nothing but spandex in winter is certainly ambitious. It’s also a far cry from them performing after a bunch of beared comics slinging self-deprecating one-liners. I caught up with the guys after the Echo show to find out what makes them want to get out of their comfort zone and be funny.
“One of my favorite things about Entitlement is spontaneity. Being in a band, you’re always trying to play your songs as well as you can, so there’s a lot of repetition on the day-to-day grind of band practice and recording and shows and tours,” said bassist Greg Katz.
“Entitlement is like the complete opposite—we show up and we don’t know whether we’re going to be playing someone on for like two seconds like Laura Kightlinger, or if we’re going to be vamping for like five minutes while Josh Androsky hugs 100 people in the audience. Then sometimes in the middle of a comic’s set they’ll ask, ‘Play me something Italian’ while they do a bit, or maybe they’ll want a rimshot, or a guitar slide, or the theme from Jurassic Park, or they’ll just start talking to us and using us as their straight man. It’s just so different from what you’re usually doing as a band and it’s creative in a different way, especially because the comics on the show usually do super creative routines.”
Photo by Miriam Brummel
“Another one of my favorite things about doing Entitlement is, it’s just a fucking honor to play walk-on music for actual legends like Mark Maron, Maria Bamford, Kyle Kinane, the fucking Dadboner Twitter guy—not to mention every up-and-coming comic that matters in LA. But definitely my top, No. 1 favorite thing about Entitlement was being told we suck by Neil Hamburger. That’s like an all-time moment, for me at least.”
Lead singer Danny Bobbe added, “He cut into us for ten minutes and as a let up was like ‘No, but you guys are the best. You guys are the best of the shit bands.’”
I suggested they put, “Best of the Shit Bands” as a review quote on the back of the Diving Man record sleeve, but thus far, my advice has gone unheeded.
LA Font’s new album is available now from New Professor Music.
The next edition of Entitlement, featuring a full set from LA Font, plus Kyle Kinane and Henry Phillips, is tonight at Los Globos in Los Angeles. Tickets are $5 and can be purchased here.
