Continuing our romp through local talent, I ran across the Oohlas from a friend of mine in Spain. Makes perfect sense; you hear about a band located less than a half mile away from you from somebody who lives 5,000 miles away from you. The Oohlas are an L.A. band (proudly proclaiming the Miracle Mile district as home base) and have been around since 2004. Currently releasing material themselves, they have a great EP just out (Chinchilla) from which tonight's track Adventures comes from.

I really think we're past that point in time where the success or failure of a band is predicated on getting a label deal. Several months ago I played a track issued off an earlier ep of their which was issued via the Stolen Transmission label (who were affiliated with Def Jam/Island/Universal: loosely translated: lost in the shuffle) and frankly, their new stuff has better production going into it.

But the caveat with all this newly discovered DIY way of making records is it needs support. And that means going to the Oohlas MySpace page, looking around and seeing that Chinchilla is available via iTunes and popping for the tracks. It also means seeing them when they're playing around town or around your town. Following them on Twitter and basically supporting them any way you can.

It's really about the only way anything new is going to survive. The Oohlas have lucked out in that Small Parts (the track I played a few months ago) wound up in a movie. And for a band that's good news because that means a chunk of change in order to live, eat and record new material. As much as some people piss and moan about bands "selling out" and having their music in Volkswagen commercials - it means they get to eat. If you're going to take yourself seriously as a musician, you have to go where you get the support and doing what you can in order to feed your craft. The garret lifestyle is cute, quaint and romantic and the stuff of bad books and terrible movies - it bears no resemblance to reality.

All that said - here's another band from L.A.