My neighbor is writer and guitarist Jeremy Simon of Dylan Trees. One night, never having said boo to the guy, I crash his birthday bash with ten slices of Abbott’s pizza to make first contact. Soon we’re catching up on LA bands, footnotes and influences, Brian Wilson’s “Smile” and Nick Drake. Jeremy’s from London, closed and yet endless. I like his positive impression of Los Angeles and didn’t think Londoners left King Henry VIII and the Daleks behind for our music scene.
He invites me to review Dylan Trees at The Airliner.
THE AIRLINER
The Airliner is off the 405 to the 10 to the 5 North, exit Broadway. Go a few blocks down the boulevard and you’ll see it. Tonight the sign says, “Go Folk Yourself”.
Inside is a three story doll house with separate stages and self-contained atmospheres. Lowest, a small barroom nook run by Gordy the Barkeep. A brash young man observes me riffing into my digital recorder and says, “Nothing wrong with folk.” No there ain’t. I ain’t no post-punk skeleton gone trick-or-treating. I listen to Steeleye Span, John Renbourn, The Incredible String Band, Donovan, Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, The Indigo Girls, Beck, Michelle Shocked, Elliott Smith, Freedy Johnston, Lach’s Antihoot Night at The Sidewalk Cafe… And I know the theme to “Bumblebee Tuna”.
I walk up a spiral staircase to a large unused kick-ass outdoor stage. Beneath the nighttime sky, the staircase empties into a market where a woman sells clothes and oils. I look for Jeremy on the top level. There’s a blonde in her early twenties playing the small stage, xylophone with her right hand and harpsichord with her left, Bach-like fugues on the organ, impassioned piano, singing a bit like Julee Cruise. A crowd gathers.
Monica Olive, singer for Dylan Trees, finds me in the corner grooving. She’s happy to remind me that she, being vegetarian, welcomed the mushroom slices I brought over. She’s dolled up in very dramatic evening make up. Quite fashionable. Jeremy’s wearing a white evening jacket, white pants and a shirt that says “I Like Acid”. He introduces me to Rob Fanter, the band’s watchful and philosophic programmer, bassist and drummer.
Tonight’s all screwed up, Jeremy relates. Dylan Trees were supposed to go on at 11 but the second stage is closed, so it’s closer to 12:30 downstairs.
So we’ve got some time.
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