RFC adds West Coast affiliate

The Radio Free Chicago franchise has expanded to the West Coast with the launch of "Radio Free Silver Lake," a sister Blog covering the greater Los Angeles music scene. Leading the local coverage will be fellow live music junkie and fish taco aficionado Joe Fielder. Based in the hipster neighborhood of Silver Lake, Joe will be keeping tabs on the L.A. concert calendar and reviewing the best local bands and shows from the underground scene.

While in L.A. recently, I got to experience a couple of Joe recommendations first hand. At this strange flamenco bar/restaurant called El Cid, I saw this great band known as Sea Wolf. Turns out the band is just a side project of one of the members of local favorites Irving(live at The Bottle 4/15), but you'd never guess it from seeing them live. The band sounded better than most main projects and if Irving ever breaks up, Sea Wolf alpha male Alex Church will definitely still have a career as a solo artist.

The other Joe recommendation I checked out was Foreign Born. I checked out their songs on MySpace and almost instantly fell in love. Unfortunately their live show at The Echo turned out to be a bit anticlimactic. They didn't suck by any means, but I wasn't blown away by their live presence. Joe conferred that they were a bit off their game that night, so hopefully they'll embark on a Midwest tour sometime in the near future and I can give them another listen. In the meantime, I'd highly recommend checking out their recorded tracks "We Had Pleasure" and "Holy Splinter."