Rolling Back the Clock

The Rolling Blackouts warp the space-time continuum.
by Lucinda Michele Knapp

The Rolling Blackouts are not a time machine per se. An actual time machine takes passengers into the past, or transports them forward into the future. But the Rolling Blackouts still qualify, because what they’ve brought to the Here and Now is a reminder of the brilliant, salad days of rock in L.A. before 9/11 (oddly, things did seem to change after that). The Blackouts have scooped up the glory days of L.A.’s best post-punk, tucked it down by the floorboards near the brass gear shifter marked with 2001-2002-2003-etc. in ascending order, and hit the gas to 2006. So if, as everybody always says, it was so much cooler back then, well-then is now.

Er-except it’s in Lomita.

You do always have to leave to come back home. For Daniel Holden and Gabriel Garnica (vocals/guitar and drums for the band, respectively) who’ve traveled the world with a recent tour to Australia (”They always seem like they’re on Ecstasy, but they’re just genuinely happy people,” mused Garnica. “Like Steve Irwin.”), little Lomita is home sweet home-not just to them but to guitarist Jarrod Stiles and bassist Mike Peralta as well.

“Back when we were kids here in Lomita we were into punk rock: Dead Kennedys, Subhumans, Rudimentary Peni,” says Garnica. “At the time, we’d never heard stuff like that. And we’d secretly listen to Dark Side of the Moon.”

“And the Cure,” laughs Holden.

The Blackouts’ current sound is a colorful hybrid of early post-punk explosiveness-Television Personalities, Wire, the Birthday Party-and exuberant, retro melody, as easy on the ears as a late-summer drive up PCH bopping to the Beach Boys’ “Catch A Wave.” With their debut album on Record Collection, Black Is Beautiful, the Blackouts interspersed stabs of rusty thrashes and distorted, panning, competing guitars with sudden slides into do-the-twist melodies. Light, winding curves of harmony lead the way through a field of punk-rock deconstruction with sawing guitars and growling lead vocals.

In their latest recordings, though, they buff the rusted surfaces, paint them powder blue, and hit the road with a cleaner, blues-rock swagger in their step. Here, the time machine that is the Blackouts gets a tune-up for the road ahead: because in L.A.’s current glut of hypothermic slush, heroin-nod drone and crushing walls of space-rock, the Rolling Blackouts transport a welcome energy and ebullient sense of joy to the present. It’s the way the scene was back in the early ‘oughts, between 1998 and 2002.

“There was an interest in rock ‘n’ roll music at that time, that isn’t there quite so much now,” says Garnica. “And then all that disco punk came out, it became more about haircuts…less coming from the streets.” He gestures out the door, where the tiny main drag of Lomita is stacked with aisles of low-slung buildings, an old town center circa 1920, and tiny brick walk-ups still housing the original tenants from the middle of last century. “L.A. is fun to visit, but here I’m closer to family, friends-this is home.”

And if you agree that L.A. has lost a bit of its sheen, the Blackouts know why.

“Juvee was the home base. We were 22, 23, and it was DIY. Our first show there was with 400 Blows and Bluebird,” says Holden of the seminal all-ages venue-cum-skate-park that hosted their early shows. “That place was the best place to play in L.A.,” agrees Garnica. “There hasn’t been a place like that since-a warehouse, they had a half pipe in there, it was all ages, you could bring your own beer.”

When Juvee was closed in 2004, it broke the hearts of music lovers citywide. “With venues like Juvee not being around, it altered the whole atmosphere in L.A., ’cause now you only have those established places to play-Spaceland, Silverlake Lounge, back at bars again. When you play bars all the time, people don’t get into it. They’re just there to make the scene. But at Juvee you played to young kids and 30 year olds, you’re giving off energy, they’re throwing it back at you-I always felt I played my best there. Now it’s torn down.”

But the journey through time’s not over, and by bringing that spirit of inclusion and passion back into today’s Los Angeles, the Rolling Blackouts offer an impetus for a less dispassionate, more rollicking scene to kick off again in the city. And they’re also growing closer to their own goals as a band: well, sorta. For the Blackouts, the journey is the destination. “We’re almost there,” says Garnica, “but hopefully we never reach it. Because if we do, then what else are we gonna do?” LAA

The Rolling Blackouts play with Thee L.A. Gentleman Callers at the Scene Saturday, Sept. 16.