Featured Image Photo Credit: Raymond Flotat
When I was contacted to cover this show I tried my best to stay calm and maintain composure, responding by text “yes sure I’ll go” and “can I get a +1?” In truth, I grew up listening to Teen Babes from Monsanto (1984), Neurotica (1987), Born Innocent (1982) and Phaseshifter (1993), not necessarily in that order, just my dad’s preference. Redd Kross has always been talked about in my household as one of the best and most underrated bands to come out of 1980s Southern California.
Is it biased to write this review, maybe just a little, so I’ll try to be as objective as possible. The current lineup consists of juggernaut brothers Jeff McDonald (guitar and vocals) and Steven McDonald (bass and vocals), along with Dale Crover (drums) and Jason Shapiro (lead guitar). Redd Kross has been doing rock and roll for other kids and young adults since my dad was one himself, and reading through their collaborations feels like tracking two specific blood cells, Jeff and Steven, moving through an entire arterial system, or the punk and rock scene. It’s a lot.
I didn’t know what to expect last night, really. I had only made their music part of my own experiences and always heard their live performances were close to, if not better than, their studio recordings, which is the real mark of genuine musicians. I was not disappointed.
To start, Jeff and Steven’s stage presence was pure rock star. Syncopated rhythms, oscillating vocals, bass and guitar riffs all came together in tight harmonies driven by pounding drums, elevated even more by shifting guitar angles and performance postures straight out of old heavy metal magazines. There’s no doubt Jeff, whose vocals and almost Dada-esque movements kept everyone on edge, and Steven, who played bass like rock and roll royalty, are the core of Redd Kross. At the same time, Jason Shapiro played like some wild hybrid of Don Rich from Buck Owens and the Buckeroos and Randy Rhoads from Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of a Madman, or maybe just Don Rich and Blind Marky Felchtone from Zeke.
All of that energy unfolding in real time, grounded by Dale Crover’s controlled but powerful drumming, built into an experience shaped by Jeff and Steven’s body of work. It even made that old 1990s Seattle term “buttrock” feel redefined, because everyone in that room was moving. “We ain’t fakin’ a whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on.”
I’m not gonna lie, the audience was mostly the latchkey kid generation, first and second generation LA punk, with some third generation mixed in, and maybe ten Gen Z kids including me. While newer bands are finding their own paths, Redd Kross is its own force and probably always will be, at least according to half of my household.
Gen Z might have newer projects like King Khan and Mark Sultan, Shannon and the Clams, Erika Wennerstrom and others, but Redd Kross and their peers pulled from everything, from KISS to the Velvet Underground to the Partridge Family. Stuff that feels like it’s come and gone. Still, Jeff and Steven pushed through the LA underground scene in a way few others did. Like any group of musicians, a house divided will not stand.
Because of that, they remain woven into the fabric of Southern California art and Americana, the way the Beach Boys did for another generation, maybe even more so by staying parallel to the mainstream rather than fully inside it, like Love and Arthur Lee.
Even though they came out of the early LA punk scene, Redd Kross doesn’t push some big revolutionary message beyond the human condition, to love. That’s not a small thing. You hear it in their ballads about romance, memory and everything in between. It’s about songwriting, growing up in the 1970s, searching for meaning within the systems that shape us and surviving the chaos that comes with playing rock and roll. Like Lux Interior and Poison Ivy from The Cramps once said in an interview, how much more political can you get than just playing rock and roll. Music is how we heal, process and go after what inspires us.
The evening itself was clear, with that classic Southwest sky, lit by the orange glow of streetlights and passing traffic. The venue, the Lodge Room in Northeast LA, lives up to its name, originally serving as a gathering place for Masonic Lodge No. 382. You can still feel that history in the space.
At 104 N Ave 56, second floor, Los Angeles, it sits across from the original office used for Fatima Records. The venue itself is an intimate, enclosed performance space with high ceilings that make the acoustics hit just right. Once a private hall that probably hosted countless events is now a standout live music venue with an open stage, easy going GA, two full bars and just enough space for merch tables along the walls.
Depending on the crowd, people either come in through the back alley for that grittier, more underground feel or walk in through the main entrance on Figueroa. Either way, it’s a quick climb upstairs into a space that feels removed from everything else, where you can actually experience live music without staring at your phone or watching from a distant screen.
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