Parenthetical Girls show Hollywood it's OK to be nice

June 7, 2008, at the Troubadour

By Melissa Bobbitt
Published: June 8th, 2008 | 8:05pm

Hollywood isn’t “nice.” It’s the city of fallen angels, dreams that turned to dust (and then got snorted up some has-been’s nose.) It’s the city that brought us hair metal, a genre that was nice neither to our eardrums, nor to the environment. And in the confines of the historic Troubadour, pictures of decidedly not-nice bands like Dokken and Guns N' Roses glare down from their frames, silently judging the occasional dude who dares to buy a girly drink. Axel doesn’t do cosmos! Come on, man up and get the Maker’s Mark!

So what a shock it would be to the area’s denizens to find the cutesy-poo Welsh rockers Los Campesinos! and theatrical Northwesterners Parenthetical Girls infiltrating their haunt. It must have been like the Grinch cupping his ear from atop his lonely mountain and being flabbergasted by hearing the Whos sing jovially in the direst of times. “The bathrooms are raunchy and there are hookers roaming the streets, and these guys are tooting melodicas and playing xylophones?! The insanity!”

Both bands brought their own brand of nice to the Troub: Los Campesinos! piled on the cuddly playground rapport, but the Girls (who lacked any actual female members, despite their MySpace page's claim) ran the gamut from big-top barker to smarmy soda endorser.

Much like another truly nice guy, singer and multi-instrumentalist Zac Pennington’s distinctive warble and friendly demeanor could disarm the toughest of L.A. badasses. He would conduct their songs with nimble flailing and whimsical spins, traipsing through the audience like an excited puppy. His determined climb continued up to the VIP loft of the venue, but he did a 180 and dejectedly mused, “I can’t even get into the VIP section with my microphone!”

As lovely and engaging as the songs were — sprawling things warm with Matthew Carlson’s Moog flourishes, Edward Crichton’s brushed drumming and titles like “Young Eucharist” — it was Pennington’s patter that really allowed the Girls to shine. He thanked the evening’s headliners for providing him with the appropriately named Go Girl energy drink as he took an enthusiastic gulp. And when some mid-set retuning visibly slowed the show’s pace, he funnily and fiercely demanded a “show of hands” from the audience for who was “pumped for Los Campesinos!” The band would not begin its final song until the entire venue complied, but when it did, Pennington took to beating on wood blocks while lying on his stomach and kicking his heels like a giddy child.

Their performance concluded with the four members banging and clattering on the drum kit together, making a luscious cacophony. With that, Pennington proclaimed, “We are North America’s most moving and reverent group!” Maybe not yet, but it’s a nice place to start.