L.A. ART BAR SCENE
Trio of Quartets
Rocks The Smell

by Thom White

LOS ANGELES -- November 20, 2003 -- Tucked away behind an unassuming little Mexican gay bar in the historic center of Los Angeles, one finds a hidden gem of L.A. night life, The Smell. The Smell is no ordinary nightspot, for it is an art bar. Mind you, at the Smell, no alcohol is for sale. In fact, you are lucky (as I was) if they are serving chilled water and homemade spaghetti sauce "chili" for the economical price of two bucks like on this particular Thursday evening.

The exact address of the Smell is a bit uncertain. The main entrance faces a well-lit alley aside the sparklingly renovated Higgins Building (2nd & Los Angeles St.). If you drive down this alley, there is parking for a charge that's fenced around and protected from the 'sketchiness' of that part of town.

The Smell is a main hangout for CalArts kids. And tonight, those kids got to hear badass music from three totally hardcore grrrlrock pop-punk '77-style rock 'n' roll action punk bands: Boy Skout, The Distraction, and The Spits.

Boy Skout is a girl band composed of three womyn and one wo-man. They totally hypnotized the crowd with their guitar/bass power hooks and mad hypo-beats from the girl drummer. I'll say it: Boy Skout was impressive.

The next quartet, Huntington Beach's The Distraction, kicked even more ass. Guitarist Chris played pop music games up and down his guitar neck with a rock 'n' roll style influenced by The Undertones, New Bomb Turks, and Chuck Berry. These guys play pop-punk but put together something new -- a sound with familiar chord patterns, but unexpected combinations, and solid bass and drum support that keep each song running smooth like a locomotive.

After The Distraction came the main attraction: The Spits. The Spits dressed up in real crazy attire, with blue denim vests and black ski masks covering their faces. The music was straight ahead rock with a keyboard added in to spice things up. The Spits now hail from Seattle, Wa., but the two Wood brothers who sing and play bass and guitar are originally from Michigan. After a few songs of straight New York '77 style four-chord punk, one could reasonably assume that The Spits' name was a mere play on that of their idols and prime source of inspiration, The (Mi)Spits of Glenn Danzig.

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