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The Parson Red Heads - "Peace in the Valley"

little-videos.com

December 6, 2009

A good distance off the street, down a few staircases and a long, winding path (how they moved a bed or couch or dresser into this place is quite astonishing, actually), Brette and Evan share a quaint little apartment on an Echo Park hillside surrounded by enough trees you could almost forget you were in Los Angeles. With the two of them, plus Sam, two guitars, amps, cameras, mic's, and myself, the tiny (or "cozy") place was pretty much at capacity (and this was just the stripped down, acoustic incarnation of The Parson Redheads, imagine the full thing). It was a Sunday evening on an uncharacteristically frigid Southern California night, but the heater was going full bore, there was some kind of stew brewing on the stove, the wine had all been drunk by the time I showed up, and everyone was in generally merry spirits (although I can't think of I time I've run into any of these guys and they haven't been in generally merry spirits). They made tea (from an ostensibly large collection in the pantry -- I had Earl Grey), then sat down to play a few songs.

The Parson Redheads certainly aren't foreign to playing acoustic sets, in fact, the mostly cheerful and incessantly catchy brand of folk-rock pop they've so gracefully mastered lends itself brilliantly to a more stripped down feel, and they've played numerous venues as such. It all comes down to the strikingly poignant songwriting, careful, deliberate arrangements, and beautiful harmonies that act almost more as reinforcement, or an augmentation to the words, melody and mostly traditional folk compositions, rather than insisting on always bringing a wall of sound. The result is both enticing and endearing.

Find out more about The Parson Redheads @ www.myspace.com/redheads

Camera: Elliot Glass
Sound: Elliot Glass
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