Death On The Radio/Legs of Cake/Red Roses/Beggars & School Shootings
The Redwood Bar, Los Angeles, CA
Saturday, September 22, 2012

Back in July or August Danny Dorman, guitarist for Death on The Radio, came by my place to drop off DOTR’s new single. We got to talking and found out we knew many of the same people, went to the same places, live within 5 or 10 miles of each other, etc. Anyway, I listened to the single, it was really good, and really different than most of the stuff I am subjected to nowadays.

Shortly after Danny left and I finished listening to the single I decided I needed to interview him, so in August and September of 2012 Strange Reaction ran a two-part interview. After reviewing them and interviewing him I had to see them live.

As it turns out DOTR were booked at everyone’s favorite Pirate bar, The Redwood. The place was in a pretty festive mood, the band had reserved a couple of table to celebrate their drummer’s, Roger DeLong, birthday. Nice guy, by the way.

The first band of the night was an all girl band called Legs of Cake. Really good up-tempo band, some definite power and noise behind them.

Second act of the night (or second act I remember), Death On The Radio. I won’t bore you with all the details, but vocalist Mary Powers was on Season 9 of American Idol, and sang her ass off, unfortunately for them and fortunately for us she went on to form DOTR with her husband Evol (real name?), and the rest is history.

As soon as DOTR takes the stage I move to the front of the room, and the band starts blowing through their songs, covering all the material from the single (Life On The Line and Pleasure & Pain) and much more. Midway through the first song I notice that the closer to the stage I am the less I can hear the vocals. So, I keep having to go to the front of the club to hear Mary, and then to the back to hear the band, etc.

In a nutshell here’s my review, Mary’s vocals are so much better than 90% of the people out there that she shouldn’t be playing clubs that can’t mike her vocals, and the band was tight, they are like a freight train behind her. They need the right people behind them; they are bigger than the club scene.

One of the times I went to the back of the club to check out Danny’s playing some middle-aged house wife type comes out of the bathroom stands next to me, looks over at me then at Mary performing, and says, “Damn, she’s hot.” That sums it up. It was hot.

LAST ONE TO DIE is officially out, order at: https://www.createspace.com/3669330.