Let’s hear it for Percussion!

It’s been a good weekend for the drums. Not just for the kicks and the snares of a kit but for percussion in general -for bongos and djembes and things that can be beaten and shaken.  Saturday night at The Satellite in Silverlake (alliteration incidental) was a blue and red disco lit evening of female led bands with kickass drummers.

Karmic was having an album and music video debut of their song ‘You Put My Feet on the Ground’ – a sweet girly song that’s totally sing alongable but actually wasn’t their greatest track. The flowery two piece wearing singer had an appealing more-ish voice but there wasn’t much that was entirely memorable except perhaps for the super keen bassist and the cool percussionist hammering away in the background.

They were followed by Little Red Lung who was an ensemble of a whirly swirly hipped  guitarist who would tango back and forth with the speakers to create psychedelic feedback; a limping snazzy dressed bassist; the long haired siren voiced lead singer and the drummer rattling and booming bouncing his bald and bearded head in the back. One song was like a rifle assault of quick sticks and tainted a Jefferson Airplane like hue that suggested that tripping balls wouldn’t be completely out of order. Their set was short though it didn’t really feel that way and the thinned out crowed was happily hypnotized for however long the trip lasted.

Then on the other end of the trip spectrum there was Sunday’s weekly drum circle in Venice Beach that’s a collective of locals bringing their piece of percussion to make spontaneously tribal beats with each other. It’s fun to watching this monster grow from the couple few who start it out with their giant brightly colored djembe drums to the thumping rhythms thundering down the beach.

There was a little blonde kid called Atticus with his own miniature drum to bang and the adults he was with had tambourines, a djembe and the red snare from a set. There was the old man who was there from the beginning with his silvering ropes of dreadlocks and a big red drum that was keeping the rhythm. There were shakers and a cheese grater looking thing and whistles and sexy girls swinging their hips and an American flag between two blue bikinied breasts. The simple hand held drums played with the four piece sets that some had hauled from their corner of the beach and it became really, really hard not to get up and put your feet in the sand and dance.

It’s been a brilliant weekend for banging – so this one’s for the underrated keepers of the rhythm: the Ringos and the random Sunday drummers and the little kids and the big kids who can’t stop hitting things.  And though I’m not a banger yet, I think I’d like to be when I grow up.