Madonna night at Spaceland

Madonna night at Spaceland was not always like a prayer, with only two bands (Mountain Party and The Chapin Sisters) delivering the True Blue goods.

Many ladies in the audience had dressed up to cause a commotion (will this punning ever cease?) in black and lace and rubber bangles, clearly expecting some kind of Madonna explosion to go off on stage. What they got instead was a massive dose of Eastside psych-folk, and a rather lite dusting of Ciccione.

Most bands played two or three of their own songs before performing their Madonna cover. Some, like Winter Flowers, didn't even get around to playing any Madonna. "We couldn't get it together in time," they told the audience before launching into another Laurel Canyon-invoking melody.

The whole night was to celebrate the Madonna compliation CD Through the Wilderness being put out by freak folk label Manimal vinyl. On it, Silverlake's finest--including Giant Drag, Lavender Diamond, Bat for Lashes, Lion of Panjshir and Winter Flowers--give Madonna the full-on Eastside treatment.

We saw Mountain Party, led by the awesome Erica Garcia, gave Material Girl the dreamy, psychedelic once-over it has always deserved. Erica, who repurposes thrift store clothing better than anyone I know, was rocking the full-on peasant girl look.
 

When I saw her the next night she was wearing an Eddie Vedder woodcutters shirt with a silhouette of Christiane F. (notorious teen drug addict and prostitute from 1980's Berlin) screened on to the shirt pocket.

Erica, a former Latin Grammy-nominated singer from Argentina, now lives in Echo Park and has her own clothing line, La Luz, as well as running the New High gallery in Chinatown. Oh, and she dated my boyfriend for a year, before I met him. Now we're all one big happy family.

Back to Madonna...so, the Chapin Sisters closed the night with a formidable and highly-polished rendition of Borderline. As my friend Steffie Nelson, an L.A. Times writer, commented "they made the whole night worth it".

The blond Chapin was wearing an awesome Grace Jone-esque jumpsuit with pumps. Coincidentally, she used to date one of the members of Mountain Party and things didn't end well, so it was a little tense backstage.

Brunette Chapin, unfortumately, got it all wrong with her uber-folky and somewhat weird sequined mini skirt that reminded me of old Hungarian accordion players. And, as we all know, it is only OK to look like an old Eastern European accordion player if you are actually playing an accordion, preferably with some kind of monkey on your shoulder. Not when you're prenteding to be Madonna at Spaceland.