LA RECORD.COM


HI HO SILVER OH + SHAKEY GRAVES + SUPERHUMANOIDS @ EL CID
December 3rd, 2009 · 2 Comments



photos: danny o’malley

Tuesday night local indie folk guys Hi Ho Silver Oh threw an album release party at El Cid with their friends Shakey Graves and Superhumanoids and just some regular people who aren’t in bands. I was lucky enough to go along as part of that regular people group.

Shakey Graves, contrary to the plural nomenclature, is native-Texan Alejandro Rose-Garcia. He took stage as friends trickled in, but played with the heart of a guy who sold out the venue. After some manual difficulties involving an untunable guitar, Rose-Garcia showed us what he’s made of. This guy is straight from the past, complete with picturesque lyrics, a pure folksy voice dotted with oohs and hums, and some talented banjo picking. He was utterly charming in his quiet nervousness, and had the growing audience listening to every note from beginning to end.

Superhumanoids followed and once they got settled into their instruments on stage, shared their good spirits with us. Frontman Cameron tickled the audience with a few jokes and sang next to the adorable keyboardist/vocalist, Sarah. The moment I thought to myself, “They should give this girl more spotlight,” she took over with two ethereal numbers that—I’m just gonna put this out there—sounded like Bends-era Radiohead, with a female vocalist, played underwater. Yeah.

Then came the party hosts, Hi Ho Silver Oh. Listen, I try not to give much attention to the god-given physical appearance of a band because that’s just not fair to a band whose members, say, have really nice personalities. However, HHSO is one good-looking getup. They looked especially snazzy that night in their slacks and tucked in shirts. You could tell this was a special occasion for them, which, as a person who has worn a dress on her birthday for 28 years now, I can appreciate.

Hi Ho Silver Oh is primarily North Carolinian frontman Casey Trela’s project, but in LA has grown to include a Phil, a Jon, and a Wil. This show, though, was a celebration of all the people who have helped Trela create this album, Put It All In One Place And Burn It. That meant the four gents, plus a backup choir of four ladies, plus a violinist, plus (yay!) adorable Sarah from Superhumanoids on the 2nd drums. Seriously, a party.

“Communion” was easily the catchiest song of the evening (until the end… wait for it). With the added touch of violin played by Daniel Hart (The Physics of Meaning), this one made me draw a little heart next to the song title in my notes.

There were a few songs that started out with just Trela, the other 9 members staring dreamily at points on stage and occasionally mouthing along to a line. But just when you started to wonder “Wait, what are these other guys doing here?” you’d hear a tsk tsk tsk on the cymbal or a delicate whine from the violin, and you knew this was about to turn into something big. Then all the sounds would ball up tighter and tighter until they’d explode into a 10-piece sonic rush that made your hair blow back a little bit from your face.

Now about that end: after dismissing the rest of the band, Trela hopped down to the middle of the room and invited us all to an acoustic sing-along of “Perjury.” I don’t know how many people in the audience knew the song—some, I suppose—but an almost unrealistic number of people sang along. It was strange, and kind of thrilling. I guess we all just wanted to be part of the party.

—Amber Hollingsworth





some other keepers from that night

Nice pics! Did you mess with the colours, they look different?
What lense do you use?

Yeah, The venue was really red, so I CC'd a lot of the red out. Crushed the blacks when it needed it. It was a Canon EFS 10-22mm

Pedalboard shots are always awesome. Nice work.

10-22 mm? You must've been really fucking close

actually that was only for some of them, i had a 28-135mm too.

it's a crop frame camera so 10mm is really 16mm, 22 is really 29mm



thanks... yeah i had to get one in. something about knobs and stage floors.

This might be a stupid question, but what's CC'ing? :p
Yeah I though to have seen in some of the pics you used a wide angle lens.

CC = color correcting

cool stuff

You kick ass, O'Malley.

i approve of this post
congrats Danny.

thanks guys.