The Little Ones at the Orange County Museum Of Art

Justin Timberlake has been trying to bring sexy back. The Little Ones are trying to bring the Mellotron back and that is what I consider sexy. For those unaware, the mellotron is a primitive sampler that used tapes that contained recordings of strings, flutes and other musical instruments. The classic example of a mellotron song is the Beatles "Strawberry Fields Forever". Speaking of the Beatles, I noticed some other examples of Beatles influence including a Hohner Bass, and a Rickenbacker guitar in the Little Ones setup. I missed the Little Ones at the Echo recently and now I regret it in retrospect. They put on a great set at the Orange County Museum of Art that rocked the house and had everyone singing and clapping along. They had an assortment of instruments littered all over the stage and even recruited some "Little Little Ones" for some shaker help during their songs. They managed to channel The Hold Steady in that it looked like they were having more fun on stage then everyone else which became infectious. Their guitarist was rocking the Korg Kaoss Pad using it to add some rhythmic effects to his guitar sounds as well as a Z.Vex Super Hard On pedal (Overdrive). The keyboard setup involved a Nord Electro and a USB keyboard controller hooked up to Apple Powerbook running Reason for Mellotron sounds. The lead singer/guitarist had a nice collection of pedals as pictured above. Their 7 song EP Sing Song is a great little sampler of what is to come. The album art looks very similar to that of The Shins "Chutes Too Narrow" which is fitting given that they right great pop '60s influenced songs. I highly recommend "Oh, MJ!", and "Cha Cha Cha". They will be touring the U.K. in January and will continue to win over new fans. Hopefully they will tack on some U.S. dates later.