Redwood Bar & Grill Los Angeles, CA
Contact: laslumlords@gmail.com
Players: Patty Hearse, vocals; James Kross, guitar; Dirty Paul Sanchez, guitar; Stevo Brown, bass; Spontaneous Combustion, drums
The Los Angeles punk scene is unfathomably rich with talent. Like any scene, there were the original bands that rose to the top and remain genre favorites to this day (Germs, X, Black Flag, etc.). But there have been countless other groups that remain on the fringes of cult adoration. Band such as Eyes, the Alleycats, Tex & the Horseheads, and more recently, LA Slum Lords.
The band’s story is an odd yet familiar one. Forming in 1998, the LA Slum Lords split just one year later. Founding members James Kross (aka Krossbones) and the perfectly named Patty Hearse had just started to get the band going, a healthy fanbase was developing, and then it all went to crap. Here’s where it gets weird though. In 2004, the pair reformed the band with a new lineup, and they recorded two songs for the ’07 video game Guitar Hero III.
Then it went quiet again, until 2023 when the band reformed with a new lineup yet again and started playing shows for the first time in years. So that brings us up to now. LA Slum Lords is now a full-on, lean, mean, performing machine.
A Saturday night towards the end of February saw the Slum Lords perform on a bill with fellow Los Angeles rockers the Streetwalkin’ Cheetahs and burlesque troupe Tease & Sleaze. That made for a heady brew, but one that felt perfectly appropriate. The good people at the Redwood Bar & Grill recently installed a proper stage, so it no longer feels like the band is performing among folks who are eating their dinner. That meant that both bands and the dancers had a proper platform from which to showcase their wares.
The Slum Lords looked and sounded magnificent. The current lineup is as tight as you’d want a punk band to be, and Hearse’s voice is absolutely on-point. There’s a lot to be angry about with the world right now, so we need a band like this—groups that channel all the cynicism and nihilism and recycle it as artistic energy.
It really feels like the band has never been away. We can only hope that, this time, the Slum Lords stick around.
