Sabrosa Purr

Silver Lake Lounge - October 12, 2005

Live Review by Daniel Brody

Glam and shoegaze are two styles of rock that seem in conflict.  Glam pancakes itself in make-up, struts and preens in a controversially androgynous manner, and usually boasts a chorus that can make a soccer stadium wail in unison.  Shoegaze, meanwhile, consists of bands uncomfortably gazing hellward and hiding any sign of tunefulness under heavy layers of feedback.  Since this concert took place in Los Angeles rather than some cloudy factory town in Scotland, you can already see how the conflict played out in a Sabrosa Purr performance: Glam beat shoegaze into submission.  The only time this band looked at the floor was when the bassist played a floor-positioned keyboard with his argyle-shod feet.

Dressed to the nines in pinstriped bellbottoms, vests, ties, and T-shirts with sparkly messages, Sabrosa Purr looked ready for world media domination.  A local TV crew was even on hand at the Silver Lake Lounge, seemingly ready to sell the tapes on eBay once the band cuts a major label debut.  The band had some nice touches, like playing guitar with a bow; if you strained really hard, you could hear a faint glaze of Luna or My Bloody Valentine lurking.  But mostly the band played it slick, sounding a bit like Placebo: all empty, if pretty catchy, anthems.  A cover of PJ Harvey's "To Bring You My Love" sounded well-rehearsed, but also lacked the moaning intensity of the original.

Let me put it this way.  At the show, a gorgeous, voluptuous blonde sat on a stool down in front of the stage, and got more and more comfortable as the band played, even picking up the mic stand once when it got knocked over.  As she wriggled towards the bathroom after the set ended, she looked ready to pounce on somebody in Sabrosa Purr.  Groupies in search of a band might want to follow her example and get in there early, as these guys might be living it up on Sunset Strip any second.