Gram Rabbit says that it makes music to join a cult to. Last night, I think I was initiated into the cult.
Megan the Water Moccasin and I headed down to the Echo last night to see Gram Rabbit. That in itself says something, as I try to avoid clubs in the Silverlake/Echo Park area. Megan has been a bit more successful at avoiding hipster hell as last night marked her first experience at the Echo.
"Hey, Liz," she said to me over the phone. "I think I'm driving in front of the club, but there is no sign."
"Oh, yeah," I answered. "There is no sign. It's cooler that way."
I got the doorgirl to let me out of the club for a minute so that I could flag down Megan on Sunset, hop into her car and look for a parking spot. By the time we got back to the club, the line was almost all the way down the block, indicating that the show had already sold out. However, we already had our tickets, so we got to bypass the hours of watching cars speed around the bend of Sunset.
Inside, the club was packed with an odd mix of a crowd. Gram Rabbit is from Joshua Tree, which I think automatically makes for a large stoner following. However, the group's last two albums were championed by KCRW, the latest single is now being played on Indie 103.1 and they won the Best New Artist award from the LA Weekly last year. That said, amidst the stoners were assorted hipsters and NPR subscribers.
Gram Rabbit is definitely not a hipster band, though. My best guess is that you probably won't see this band listed next to Giant Drag and Moving Units on every LA My Space profile featuring a ridiculous, angular shag haircut. Gram Rabbit just is what it is and it's pretty damn near impossible to compare the band to anyone else. At times, the band leans towards electronic pop "Bloody Bunnies" and sometimes get a little acid-house sounding. Then the band will pull together something like "Angel Song," which is heavy on the California psyche sound and is reminiscent of that feeling lifelong LA residents get when driving around the desert at night for the first time (Q: What are those things in the sky? A: Stars). The band can do this, though, without missing a step. Even when they closed the set with a ho-down number, it still sounds like Gram Rabbit.
The fans, otherwise known as the Royal Order of Rabbits, are intense. Many showed up sporting rabbit ears. Most who didn't ended up with a pair by the end of the night, as the go-go dancers (dressed like scary, Donnie Darko bunnies) tossed handfuls out into the crowd. For the duration of the set, people were hopping around while staring all rabid rabbit-like at the stage. After the show ended, folks either stood around or paced, like they couldn't figure out what to do with themselves now that the show was over. In all honesty, I actually wished the set was a little longer. The band has such a diverse range of songs and is so entertaining onstage that the 45-minute (rough estimate of time) set seemed to pass by too quickly.