CMZ

Show Review: House of Heroes, Ruth, Sleep For Sleepers and The Workday Release

I’m sick.  My wife is sick.  We’re doing absolutely nothing right now, but last night we beat back the obstacles to witness a couple of our favorite bands along with about a hundred other folk that weren’t too lazy to come out to the incredibly sketchy Hollywood Blvd. area (seriously, people are crazy).  We wasted a whole day in the area that is way overrated, but it was the worth the wait.  When we walked into The Knitting Factory, we were surprised to see a pretty laid back lounge area with people just chillin’ out on the couches, waiting for their favorite bands to play.  I took the down time as an opportunity to introduce myself to Dustin Ruth, who had previously done an email interview before this site was really even this site.  I am afraid that I might have thrown him into interview mode last night as I was asking question after question, but he couldn’t have been a nicer guy to me and my wife.  A few things that I picked up from him include the following:  They’re not playing their songs from The Covers EP yet, but they’ll probably end up playing either Everyday or Dream, despite my protests that I’m The One That Wants To Be With You is the best song on there.  They have two albums left on their current Tooth & Nail contract and they plan on going into the studio to record in November.  This tour just started, so they didn’t have anything bad to say about the current bands they are playing with, which is really too bad.  Of course I’m kidding, but if you ever go to a Ruth show go talk to Dustin and make a new friend.  Now let’s get to talking about the show…

The night started off with a local band, The Workday Release, an indie pop rock band from Brea, California.  I had purchased their mp3 album, To The Beginning, about a week ago, but I didn’t have the mental capacity to get into it enough to recognize more than one line that they sang the whole night, but it was an enjoyable 5 or 6 song set and I’d recommend checking them out.

Next up was Sleep For Sleepers, a band that recently signed to Facedown Records, but whom I had the pleasure of owning their independent release with the much better cover art.  I’m terrible with song names, but I know that they played the songs from “The Clearing” that I enjoy the most, which is all anyone can ask from a band as far as I’m concerned.  From what I remember, I believe they played “Bravery”, “Thieves and Bones”, “The Fearless”, “The Clearing”, “The Distance” and maybe one other song before capping their performance with a worship song, “Consuming Fire”.

It was pretty obvious by now that the whole show was going to be enjoyable, getting better with each band.  Ruth stepped up to the plate, starting with a song from their debut album, which I don’t have a clue to what the name of it is, so I’ll just try to remember what their next 5 or 6 songs were.  I’m absolutely sure that they played “Hibernation Pieces”, “Back to the Five” (my favorite, I believe) and “Rolling With The Punches”.  There were probably one or two more songs from Anorak, then they closed with the title track from Secondhand Dreaming.  This was definitely an enjoyable band to watch and much more energetic than they are on their latest album, which is more of a laid back piece of work.  Dustin asked me after the show if I enjoyed it, to which I responded “of course”, as my wife bought their shirt.  Naturally, it would have been pretty mean to say “it was pretty lame” if I didn’t enjoy it, but we honestly did enjoy it so I’m glad I could tell the truth without hesitation.

Finally, our night was reaching the pinnacle before we had to take that long drive home back to Oceanside.  House of Heroes came out absolutely on fire, with their high energy pop rock act, playing an amazing set that is all over the place, with everyone in the band adding vocals that make for an incredibly full sound.  They played about 8 or 10 songs, including “If”, “In The Valley Of The Dying Sun”, “Baby’s a Red” (to which they dedicated to the Communist Party) and a few others from The End Is Not The End (it is hard to keep them all straight right now).  They played two songs from Say No More, including my favorite HOH song, “Buckets for Bullet Wounds” (I might have died had they not played that song, no, not really, maybe just a coma) and “Serial Sleepers”, but surprisingly not “Mercedes Baby”.  I guess they are known for TEINTE, but some of their older songs are pretty great too, so at least they played a couple of older ones.  They also played their Beatles cover song, “Ob-la-dee Ob-la-da”, which my wife and I only know because of the hit TV show “Life Goes On”.

If anyone gets a chance to see these bands, just do it, it’ll be worth it even if you have to drive two hours each way, make a day of it, have fun, be young, just get on it.

Now look at some more pictures…

that is an intense face

I've been trying to figure out who that is on the shirt with no luck