Olin and the Moon finds its way, and audience, in L.A.
Kevin Bronson on
5
There’s no Olin in Olin and the Moon, but there’s plenty of good-natured lunacy. Cherubic frontman David LaBrel, 22, moved to L.A. over three years ago from Sun Valley, Idaho, and older brother Travis, along with drummer Marshall Vore, soon followed. But it took a while for the newbies to find bassist Kyle Vicioso and slide guitarist Brian McGinnis and get serious about making music – as well as discovering there was life outside Hollywood.
“I’d never been to the city before; it was overwhelming,” says David LaBrel, who admits to having lived in L.A. more than a year before discovering the Silver Lake/Echo Park scene. “I remember going to the Roxy and thinking, ‘Nobody here is playing our kind of music.’ The Eastside scene is more indie, grunge-ified kind of stuff. I think we just recently started getting people adjusted to it.”
- ||| Download: The new track “Friend of Feelin’ Good”
That they did. The quintet’s crisp, winsome folk music went over big during its January residency at the Silverlake Lounge, and now the LaBrels and their bandmates have already finished recording “Terrible Town,” the follow-up to their 2008 album “40 Miles of Bad Road.” Its dusty-road charm – they call it “Mom rock” – puts it on par with other leading L.A. purveyors of twang such as Leslie & the Badgers and I See Hawks in L.A. And the LaBrel brothers owe a big part of it to their parents, James and Jeneane.
“They’re old hippies,” Travis says. “My dad buys guitars like candy bars at a gas station. They’re the kind that play the local scene – Mom sings, Dad plays guitar at open mikes. The last time we went went home, there was a stage in the living room. … We were like, ‘Mom, where’s the TV?'”
Even stranger, David says, was when the older LaBrels started covering Olin and the Moon songs. “Our parents are starting to ask us for the chords and lyrics, which is weird, because there are some things you don’t want your parents know,” he says. “The last album was about drugs and a girl.”
Since they hit L.A., there have been a lot of hard-fought victories and harder lessons. David LaBrel says the band “got down to brass tacks once we got Kyle in the band,” and since the frontman was working at a recording studio, “I figured I have all these tools at my disposal, so let’s use them.”
Of course, there was the time the band toured to Austin – where they will be again this month for SXSW – and LaBrel ended up having to call work to say he wouldn’t make it back in time for his shift. “We went there to play one show,” he says. “I don’t know why we thought Texas was one day’s drive.”
||| Live: Olin and the Moon plays at Home restaurant in Silver Lake on Saturday, and April 27 at the Silverlake Lounge with Leslie & the Badgers and Dusty Rhodes and the River Band.
This is awesome! Thank you for posting
Thanks for the tip and tune, KB. Might want to specify for anyone who isn’t used to the idea that there are now two Homes that you mean the one at the corner of Riverside and Fletcher. (Or is there regularly music down the street that I’ve been missing?)
Well, one Home is in Silver Lake (where the shows are) and one Home is in Los Feliz. Thanks.
I really like your style of music folk takes on many version I like your style and songs. I do acoustic gigs and do 3 of your songs each time I play. Kudos for keep folk new and fresh. Be waiting for more albums stay safe and keep singing
I really like the style of music. I do acoustic gigs and do 3 of your songs I real crowd pleaser. Keep that style going its great for us folk singer as. Kodos!!