Death On The Radio, Million Kids and Theadora Kelly Project
The Redwood Bar, Los Angeles, CA
Friday, December 28, 2012
Time: 9:00 PM

After being missing in action for about a year and a half, my old buddy Jay is back in town. And like all us old punks, the first thing he asked about was shows, when are the shows, where are the shows and last, but not least when are we going. So, I thought of taking him to see Death On The Radio. At this point no other bands were on the bill. And if you haven’t seen them you need to check out their new single, good stuff.

Anyway, we get there a bit early, get parked in the lot on Hill St., and as we’re paying the five bucks I notice two or three sleeping bags and shopping carts against the far wall of the lot. I ask the attendant if the homeless slept there, he nodded, kind of like he was nervous, I told that it was cool that they did that, there aren’t a lot of safe places to sleep in L.A., he said, “Yeah, somebody has to care.”

We get inside, get a couple of Diet Cokes (yep, I party hard), and say a quick, “Hi” to the bands and then find a place to hang out and watch the bands.

The first band up was called Theadora Kelly Project. The guitarist was really good as was the drummer. The problem I had was the pre-song banter from the vocalist. There was a lot of “Fuck hipsters” talk and songs with titles or lyrics like “Death to Zombies,” “Shut The Fuck Up” and “Fuck That Shit.” It started to feel a bit too put on. Maybe I’m too old to get this zombie hipster stuff.

The second band of the night was Death On The Radio. 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 small clubs and the band was tight, they are like a freight train behind her.

On a side note, I think Mary Powers should be commended for sticking to her guns and singing with her band DOTR. As a season nine contestant on American Idol it would be so easy for her do the “circuit.” Collect a grand for singing at the opening of an Ace Hardware in Boise, Idaho. But instead she is banging it out in these clubs in L.A., far from any legit media. That says something about a person. The opportunity to sell-out is there, but she is following what means something to her.

The third band of the night was one of the coolest bands around Million Kids! After years of listening hundreds of albums, and writing hundreds of reviews of bands trying to out-scream each other, it is very refreshing to come across a band that is playing honest to god punk rock. Just honest music.

Now I have seen the Kids four or five times over the last year or so, and they have always delivered a great show. But something must’ve been in the water on this particular Friday night (or in the over-sized beer cans in this case), because Million Kids destroyed the joint. Let’s put it this way, I’ll offer up a pop culture reference for you. If this was an episode of OZ, Million Kids would be the newly imprisoned alpha male, and the stage would be the “fish” that was turned out and forced to wear a mini-skirt and pig-tails for the remainder of its sentence. Did I take it too far there? The whole set was great. Go see them soon.

So, on the walk back to the car Jay and I were comparing notes, who was the best, who had the best guitarist, etc. when we turned the corner on Hill St. we hear this loud over the top yelling/moaning, we look up and some couple are banging out a deal and making sure everybody knows it. We glance up, look at each other, shrug and go back to talking about the bands. Fucking zombie hipsters.

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