What 2006 Meant to LA Indie Music

So, yeah. I thought I’d take a look at the last year by focusing on what it meant to a handful of great LA bands...

Indie pop all-stars Irving released their second full-length album, Death in the Garden, Blood on the Flowers, and toured with Austin’s Voxtrot and Sound Team in support of it. They also produced three videos for the cd and generally got a good deal of attention.

Former Irving member Shana Levy’s band Let’s Go Sailing played a residency at Spaceland and released their first album Chaos In Order, five years worth of pop music goodness.

Current Irving member Alex Church’s other group Sea Wolf also had a residency at Spaceland and it was damn good. They came out with handmade EPs for fans at shows and word about a deal with a label filtered in at the end of the year.

Indie rock stalwarts Earlimart finished recording a new album … one song from it come out on a vinyl single and cd compilation … it and three others were released for free online (here, here, here, and here) and offer a glimpse at what might be the band’s best work yet.

Great Northern (who have two former members of Earlimart in their group) became one of the strongest live acts in town … one of their highlights was a residency at The Echo … They were signed to Eenie Meanie and recorded an album that’s due early next year.

The Little Ones were another band that turned into an amazing live act over the course of ’06. They self-released their Sing Song EP, were picked up by Astralwerks (who re-released the EP), and began touring extensively.

Indie rock fantasticos Division Day also self-released an album, Beartrap Island, right around the time of their residency at The Echo. They were signed to new label Mercy Records and played, like, all over the place.

Soul-blues-rock band Cold War Kids simultaneously self-released two EPs worth of material, which was then combined into the album Robbers & Cowards by Gnarls Barkley’s label Downtown Recordings. They started out the year touring with Austin’s Tapes N Tapes, then began selling out shows on their own, and recently tore it up on David Letterman.

And finally, The Silversun Pickups – LA’s best and brightest – had a great year. They released the album Carnavas on Dangerbird, produced two videos for songs off of it, also played on Letterman, began selling out shows at venues like The Troubadour, and started getting more and more radio airplay.

Yeah, it’s been quite a year for Los Angeles’ incredible independent music scene. More soon on what it looks like ’07 holds in store for us…

Great Northern pic by Blkhrtmdr.