Young People, Get Hustle, Mummers at Anthony & Dan’s loft, November 2002


Editor’s note: This post has been updated since its original publication. New info in brackets. Some friendly L.A. music scene folks shared information I was missing (or, as a newb, never knew in the first place). Thanks, all!

So here I am—fall / winter 2002—newly relocated to Los Angeles, having arrived from Cleveland, Ohio mere weeks prior and I’m feeling pretty good about my new city and its underground music scene.

Read all about my multi-month adventure moving to Los Angeles

Why? Well, I’m already getting invited to private loft parties with fringy Noise Rock bands and people, that’s why!

These are intimate events that aren’t easy to worm your way into if you’re not an insider.

READ: 20 years ago I became an Angeleno; Cobra Verde welcomed me—& Falling James got me a job!

Take for example this ultra-fun loft party with Young People, Get Hustle and Mummers on Saturday November 9, 2002.

Now, in 2022 as I’m retrospectively posting the few photos I have of the event, I’m wondering… whose loft was this anyway?

It’s slightly embarrassing to not remember all the details, but it has been twenty years.

Fortunately I have my trusty L.A. concert diary—let’s look:

The Get Hustle, Young People, The Mummers at Anthony & Dan's loft Downtown Los Angeles November 2002

Photo: Carnage.

[Turns out this was at Anthony Berryman and Daniel Banales’ loft in the Canadian Building, at 432 S. Main Street in Los Angeles, not far from The Smell. Jim Smith helped with this info. Turns out the Canadian Building was actually Canadian—as in the Canadian Consulate. Then in the 1960s and ’70s it was abandoned for many years until the mid-1980s when it became an early experiment in loft-oriented living (now widespread in DTLA). Read all about the Canadian Building’s fascinating history here.]

Please contact me if you have a flier, video or photos from the show

I do recall that 2002 was a time period when crucial all-ages hub The Smell, freshly re-homed to Downtown L.A. from the Valley, was closed because of fire code violations. It was a shock to arrive in L.A. and not have The Smell—where we had partied so successfully with 9 Shocks Terror in the spring of 2002—to replace Speak In Tongues in my life.

READ: 9 Shocks Terror’s SoCal tour with Tony Erba & Jim Konya changed my life

Being Smell-less was not in anyone’s plan. Everyone on the underground and punk scenes were upset, and there was a swirl of gossip about the situation everywhere I went. [No-spoiler alert: Jim Smith got everything up and running again, and The Smell survives to this day in DTLA.]

Fortunately the D.I.Y. scene—true to its name—was unstoppable. Various Smell-associated folks took up the mantle and hosted shows in their living spaces, much like we did at our Cleveland loft / recording studio, The Invisible City.

See all great bands we hosted at The Invisible City

Thus early Oughties L.A.—instead of being some hostile alien landscape that many newcomers  lamented—felt a lot like the hostile landscape I was already used to in Ohio. You know, dark scary abandoned downtown streets (this was right before the wave of DTLA gentrification), sprawling homeless encampments / tent cities, buying liquor in brown paper bags at bodegas before the show, every concert at some weird, barely adequate location we were grateful existed—but were paranoid the entire time the cops would show up to drag us out and beat us to death on the sidewalk.

The best part of this very early L.A. experience for me was the people I met. Like these two folks in the foreground, who were so generous to me and pointed me toward so many great house parties. I believe I met this couple through 9 Shocks… Now I’m the asshole who can’t remember their names. Help?

The Get Hustle, Young People, The Mummers at Anthony & Dan's loft Downtown Los Angeles November 2002

Help! I can’t remember the name of the folks with the brown-bagged forties in the foreground. Captured randomly in the background, dear Jasmine Bazzi & Creekbird—not friends at this time, but they would be soon… All photos: Sean Carnage.

What’s absolutely remarkable about this photo is the couple standing in the background.

I did not know them yet, but we soon became good friends: the late great Jasmine Bazzi and the inimitable Creekbird who performed at and collaborated on bookings with me for so many great bills, and appeared on The Queer Edge with Jack E. Jett (probably the best episode we ever filmed starring Sandra Bernhard, Keegan Michael Key and Pamela Des Barres among others) and who is still a friend today.

Learn all about Jack E. Jett & The Queer Edge

Old photos… they reveal such interesting hidden details decades later.

The Get Hustle, Young People, The Mummers at Anthony & Dan's loft Downtown Los Angeles November 2002

Mummers. Who dat? Photo: Carnage.

The next band was called Mummers and, wow, they look really Y2K don’t they? Ties, face paint, Clockwork Orange-y vibes… it definitely was a moment in time when sensibilities from diverse places like San Diego and Williamsburg, Brooklyn came together—and all the rockers got a wardrobe ‘upgrade.’

[Albert Ortega says: “That was Mummers in duo mode. I remember that show!”

Our old friend John Thill contributes info as well: “Guy with top hat is Bobby Sell (find him on IG)—played in Los Cincos, Volume 11 (which included the late great ‘AmericanGil Loera!), and later Caroliner. The blond guys was in Los Cincos too, but I don’t know his name off the top of my head.” That’s probably Dave Seward Lewis. -SC

Another legend, Ryan Jencks, weighs in: “It was Loachfillet (aka Bobby Sell, see above) who moved up to West Oakland shortly after this and was in Caroliner, Diatric Puds, Pigs In The Ground etc. and was a part of the Bay Area Noise scene for years.”

Bobby Sell remembers: “That was at the Canadian Building … in Anthony’s room. He lived with Andrew and Daniel Banales there. Dave from Mummers and I lived next door but I think I had just moved to the Bay Area a couple months before. We threw parties there every six months or so. Chromatics played there, Very Be Careful, Los Cincos, maybe Centimeters…” Unfortunately there’s no Mummers music online currently as Bobby says that it “was released on tape and CDR.” Here hoping they rectify that and get Mummers tunes online soon!]

Please let me know if you have more details about Mummers

The Get Hustle, Young People, The Mummers at Anthony & Dan's loft Downtown Los Angeles November 2002

Young People (L-R): Jeff Rosenberg, Jarrett Silberman & Katie Eastburn. Photo: Carnage.

Young People were the shit when I moved to L.A. but they confused my Cleveland brain, and I’m not ashamed to admit that now.

I knew Jeff Rosenberg from Noise Rock icons, Pink and Brown. Young People—noise meets Country meets Northwestern Post-Grunge punk—did not sound anything like the shredding, mathematical, Dada-esque Pink and Brown.

Thus major cognitive dissonance…

The Get Hustle, Young People, The Mummers at Anthony & Dan's loft Downtown Los Angeles November 2002

Bang a gong, get it on—it’s Young People. Photo: Carnage.

…but I was intrigued. Unlike Mummers, Young People had rejected the spiffy (now dated) Y2K clone look and were just themselves. You can’t ever go wrong with that!

Musically, they projected a hippie-punk / intellectual / very-important-personal-statement vibe that was quite captivating and left us all on the edge of our seats.

What would Young People do next? Bang an upside down pot like a gong, that’s what!

The Get Hustle, Young People, The Mummers at Anthony & Dan's loft Downtown Los Angeles November 2002

The Get Hustle’s Valentine. Photo: Carnage.

Get Hustle—I had seen them at Speak In Tongues (they are listed in the official archive) and they had been touring in 2002 with the bands that made up the best—and last—damn concert I saw in Cleveland. But I knew little about them.

Now, of course, with the internet I can see the group goes all the way back to 1995 with connections to Antioch Arrow, Mackie Osbourne, GSL, David Scott Stone—important names from my past, present and future.

[Get Hustle drummer Maxamillion Avila was kind enough to chime in: “We lived in Portland by that time, this would be a tour jaunt, most likely Anthony and/or Jarrett put it together for us. Anthony played in Soddamn Inssein (with legends Jessica Espeleta, Marcus Savino, and Jackson Baugh!) … Good times.”]

All I remember is that the Get Hustle’s Weimar Republic punk cabaret was super emotional and effective. At the end I was sweaty and exhausted—no moshing required.

[Fellow early Oughties D.I.Y. archivist Adam Grimord-Isham (and Hustler White singer) writes: “[This was] the lineup we saw in Chicago with Mark Evan Burden of Silentist/Glass Candy etc. on keys.”]

In retrospect, their music was probably better than we deserved on the underground scene. This was adult musical entertainment. I, despite being of age (31), wasn’t ready to grow up. I loved the artistry but… it all felt kind mannered at the time.

Now that I really am old and adult, I’m listening again and I really like what I’m hearing. Here’s a contemporaneous live video from San Francisco:

Get Hustle were certainly ahead of their time. I’m so grateful I got to see this amazing band.

This show was just the first of many nexii of L.A. talent that I experienced in 2002-04. Very inspiring.

Listen: No Wave icon Lydia Lunch & Sean Carnage talk music, sex and life on the underground scene

9 Shocks Terror’s SoCal tour with Tony Erba & Jim Konya changed my life

“Trying to convey an acid trip with mere words”: Speak In Tongues lives again in a wild new book

Noise Rock shows its Pride: Japanther, Early Humans & Black Eyes in DC, 2002

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