“Everyone’s been here before / Cocaine would’ve picked you up, but your friends won’t anymore.”
Eli & The Itches
Throughout the debut single from Eli & The Itches, it feels almost instinctual to picture flickering, half-burned out neon signs of deserted L.A. streets. Following a character as they journey from place to place, not completely certain of the events that led to where they currently find themselves, the song traces a pilgrimage that has no clear destination or starting point. Although just like the faded storefronts that it recalls, “What A Funny Feeling” chips away at the fuzzy memories, adding steady guitar and a touch of irreverence to our character’s gut feeling that better days have surely come and gone.
The solo project of former bandleader and session guitarist Eli Pearl, Eli & The Itches recently completed work on a full-length record. Produced by Luther Russell of Those Pretty Wrongs and engineered by Jason Hiller, it is described on the artist’s website as “somewhat of a concept-based album and the stories it tells are inspired by the less celebrated residents of L.A.’s underbelly including a few bad cops, some good girls who might be boys, a sci-fi femme fatale, and a paranormal mistress thrown in for good measure.”
The last song tracked for an album that was recorded in just fifteen days, “What A Funny Feeling” was written after a night out in which Pearl became sick and separated from his friends, passed out and woke up the next morning on the floor of his bathroom, with no memory of how he got there. Composing around that idea, he places the song’s character in different locations as the story unfolds. And in keeping with the record’s theme of life in Los Angeles after the sun goes down, the first single from Eli & The Itches chugs along like a train, adding instruments with every verse before giving way to a chorus that feels like a hearty, drunken sing-a-long with characters that could derail at any moment.
Don’t Miss L.A.’s “What A Funny Feeling” release show from Eli & The Itches: Friday February 26th at El Cid 4212 Sunset Blvd at 9:00pm
Article: Caitlin Phillips
