These photos are from a concert I attended at Saint Rocke, a live music venue in Hermosa Beach, on Wednesday night. The photos begin with Saint Rocke’s Bluegrass Happy Hour, which featured the band, Pompous Highmen. The main show featured Hang Dog Expression, The Curly Wolf and starred Dustbowl Revival.
A week or so ago I won a contest on the Saint Rocke Facebook page; as a prize I won a couple passes to an upcoming event. I let Tanya look through the Saint Rocke calendar of upcoming events and she suggested we see Dustbowl Revival, an old school bluegrass, gospel, jug-band that had been recently named Best Live Band in LA. I listened to a couple songs I found online and agreed this would be a good show to attend; I really had no idea how good it would be.
Saint Rocke has a happy hour most days, and last night it featured Pompous Highmen, a local group made up of three South Bay natives. We got there at the end of their act, but enjoyed what we heard. Since I had not looked at the calendar of events myself, I did not realize there would be two more acts before Dustbowl Revival came on. The first was Hang Dog Expression, a band that we had the pleasure of seeing when I covered the Froth Awards last March. You probably noticed that their vocalist, Kate, has a set of knitting needles and a work in progress. I noticed this the first time I saw them, so I decided to ask her a little about it. During every show, she knits throughout. To be more specific, she knits scarves. She then donates the scarves to homeless shelters. Excuse me if the next part is not dead on, but she has four sisters and sisters-in-law and they are all knitting these scarves. I guess they set a goal of knitting 250 of them, but a sister decided they would do 1,000 scarves to donate. Maybe it was that each would knit 250 for a total of 1,000. It is not that important, what is important is the work they are doing. I asked if other people could help them reach their goal and Kate excitedly said, “Yes!”
If you knit, or knows someone that knits or crochets and want to be included you should visit the Hang Dog Expression Facebook page and leave a message on the page and someone will contact you.
The next act was The Curly Wolf, kind of a Hank Williams meets Sid Vicious; they were very good. They are another local group and their drummer is the owner of Gasser Lounge. Seemed like nice guys. The closing act was Dustbowl Revival. The variety of musical instrument they use, from a bass violin to a kazoo and washboard. They were fun to watch and listen too; they ended the evening by leading everyone out the front door of Saint Rocke and finishing their performance outside. It was a really good time.
Saint Rocke is located at 142 Pacific Coast Highway in Hermosa Beach.
