Author Archives: Niran Somasundaram

“DaddyO Dies Well” begins innocently enough, with the prospect of tea party between a man, Gary (Casey Sullivan), and his aging hipster stepfather, DaddyO (Hugh Dane). However, what follows is the strangest excuse for a tea party since the Mad Hatter invited Alice over for tea.

“DaddyO Dies Well” is the fifth installment in a series of plays written by Murray Mednick, all of which chronicle the life of Gary, a down-on-his-luck failed actor who lives in Los Angeles.

Fittingly set in the “now,” the play presents two characters who are suffering, but for two entirely different reasons.

I am not built to handle the cold. I lived in Southern California all my life, so I’m equipped to survive in sunny 70-degree weather. The 40-degree weather I encountered Saturday night while waiting outside the Roxy to see Young the Giant headline a show was nothing short of torture for me, so by the time I got to the door, I was more than willing to pay the extra $3 I was charged because I do not meet this country’s ridiculous standard of drinking age.

I got into the show just in time to defrost to the sounds of the first opener: Kitten, a young Los Angeles-based quintet led by 16-year-old singer/guitarist Chloe Chaidez. There’s nothing quite like seeing a girl who is three years younger than I am rock the stage at The Roxy to remind me how little I have accomplished in life.

My first impression of Kitten was that it would make a perfect American Apparel or Urban Outfitters advertisement. After it launched into the first two gritty and powerful songs of its set, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was nothing more than a Yeah Yeah Yeahs cover band. However, Chaidez went on to prove that she could channel not only the screeching of Karen O but also the sultry vocals of Cat Power and the raw intensity of Bikini Kill’s Kathleen Hanna. When combined with her spastic and somewhat terrifying stage presence, she made for a pretty good front woman. Kitten’s hard-hitting dirty rock was balanced by the constant presence of synth lines, creating a sound that was both energetically driving and undeniably catchy. The highlight of its set was a stellar cover of The Cure’s “Boys Don’t Cry,” which I liked just as much, if not more, than the original.

Before Wednesday night, I had no idea who John Waters was.

Yuck’s self-titled debut plays like the record collection of a mid-’90s indie rock aficionado. The London-based quintet lies somewhere in between the noise rock of Sonic Youth, the gritty haze of Dinosaur Jr., the blatant lo-fi recording of Pavement and, at times, the unrelenting distortion of My Bloody Valentine.