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Posted by
KELP August 31, 2008 -
1,184 views
All the way from the planet Earth's little toe, Belgium, comes one of the most interesting sounding Surf bands to hit the scene in a long time. I'm talking about Los Venturas. KELP had the good fortune of playing a show with these young lads last night at the Mercury Lounge in Goleta, CA. It turned out to be one of the most entertaining gigs we've played in a very long time.
KELP has played many shows at The Merc over the years. We always do something different to entertain the crowd. This time we didn't disappoint. This is a very small stage so we usually set up our amps and the drum kit on stage and guitar and bass on the floor. Sam our beat keeper is always willing and eager to do something that is out of the ordinary. So, he dressed in standard issue Kelp creature mask and gear. We sealed him off from the rest of the club with a wall of translucent plastic, filled the stage with fog, water FX lighting and strobes. This reflected off of the plastic wall and presented a very creepy and weird image. Paul and I dressed in lab coats and armed with theremin, guitar, bass guitar and samples on my Ipod of B movie clips from awful sci fi and horror flicks, played a fast paced set of 15 songs, stopping only to make an occasional announcement on the bullhorn.
Next came Los Venturas. Four young guys and a gal pal on the side selling CDs and taking pics. These guys played a most satisfying set of gypsy surf...I don't know how else to describe it. Sometimes Ska, a little punk. But ultimately and surf and ultimately incredible. Their drummer borrow our drum kit and put a hole in one of the drums by the 2nd song. Fortunately, we carry a spare and they quickly returned to filling the club with European reverb. At one point the bass player got behind the drum kit and played the drums with their drummer, sorf of like something out of a Dick Dale show. Great stuff!
After the show they headed over to Paul's house where they would spend the night. Quite a full house as Paul has a wife and three kids. I grabbed some junk food from the 7-11 across the street and proceeded home. No pictures yet however we do have video which we will post soon. The rest of September is filled with local parties and a performance at the Santa Barbara Sandcastle Festival. We will also be playing a show in Los Angeles on what we refer to as October 32nd. Stay tuned!
