Review: Brassroots District LA'74

Things are going down at the funk band’s record launch party and concert.  Let’s hope it’s not Brassroots District themselves before the eventful night is through.

Immersive Scene Los Angeles 2026 review

Brassroots District (publicity photo courtesy of For the People Records)

In case you didn’t hear it from Wolfman Jack on the Mighty 1090 AM or read about it on the back page of LA Weekly, rising funk collective Brassroots District is gracing our fair city with their much-anticipated ‘74 kick-off album debut and live shows.  The nine-piece outfit grooves smooth with their soul-funk sound, and they’re hoping you’ll catch them at Catch One--maybe the coolest venue in town that you probably haven’t been to yet.  Forget Sunset Blvd, players of the night, the real action is on Pico.  And good news: you still have time to throw on your platform shoes, wider than wide bellbottoms and get down with this mid-‘70s musical party. 

Immersive Scene L.A. did just that by attending last week’s show--and, in the spirit of full interactivity, we brought along Cristan C., our semi-fictional ‘70s music correspondent from Funk-O-Matic Magazine.  The dude passed up shows by Sly Stone,  and Earth, Wind & Fire to join us at this gig, that’s how fired up he is about this new band.  Good thing too, because our man knows the scene, and dig this, there was plenty of scene to be seen – onstage and off - at this live, intriguing experience. 

Before our official review, here’s C’s dispatch from the groove-fest.

“It all kicked off smooth as silk as we negotiated a tasty cocktail at Catch One’s outdoor bar before the doors opened to the venue.  We sipped our 7&7’s and vibed with a bunch of cool cats connected with the band.  We dug chatting with Cassie the Brassie, the bubbly President of the Brassroots District fan club, flanked by her two equally-enchanting cohorts, Lola and Suzie. Want to know about the band’s history?  Get some face time with these foxy ambassadors.  Then Gil Jenkins rolled in, the upbeat founder of “For the People” Records and brother to the band's soulful co-leader Ursa Major.  Gil has clearly poured his whole life into making this launch blast off sweet.  After he split, someone slipped a bug in my ear – talk about a buzz kill – about there being some serious tension with Gil and the band’s manager, Nancy Parker.  And right on cue, Nancy appeared.  She’s cool, a sort of all-business type, and assures me she’s focused only on the group’s best interests.  Whatever was going on with her and the Gil could wait; tonight was all about spreading the jam, not stirring the pot.  And speaking of the jam, here came the band.  Frontman Copper Jones and knockout co-singer Ursa Major led the parade in, and the whispers around here say they share more than just harmonies. The way they lock eyes? It's like staring right into each other’s souls.  The horn section, drummer, guitarist, bassist, and keyboardist followed, all lookin’  fine in their sharp velvet threads. If the sound is half as hot as the looks, it’s gonna’ be one out-a-sight night!

When the doors finally swung open, we were sized up by Gem herself, the no-nonsense owner of the establishment.  Word on the street is she pays the band twice as much as any other club, that’s how much she digs this act.  And I hear she and Nancy are pretty tight too.  Gem laid down the house rules for the night and then Cooper and his sparkling soulmate Ursa pulled us in for a little meet-and-greet circle of love. Nice. Then it was down the stairs we floated, into the performance hall where the air was already humming with anticipation.  While we waited for the tunes to kick in, Cassie and the fan club were teaching people near the stage some righteous dance moves, and there was this roving writer from Creem, tape-recorder and all, chatting with others in the crowd.  And get this, on opposite sides of the room stood Gil and Nancy doing their best to just avoid each other.  I was picking up some real tension there.  A little bird confirmed that something really weird was going down tonight, maybe tied to that fast-talking A&R slickster Donny from Columbia Records who was struttin' around bragging openly about his plans to poach the band from Gil’s label just as they’re about to break big.  Say it aint so, man.  Anyway, show’s about to start, and there’s my seat.  End dispatch.  - C.”

With the crowd now gathered in the concert hall and the show’s characters already introduced seamlessly into the mix, Brassroots District LA ‘74 - the high-energy immersive and interactive trip currently running in Mid-City - has suitably set the table for what’s to come.  And if you’ve been listening, watching, and - better yet - playing along before the first note hits, many of the clues, conflicts and character actions have quickly gotten you up to speed for the eventful night ahead. 

Questions were already forming in the collective headspace of our 70’s-immersed audience. 

Will the group’s bond, shared history and hard-won struggles be strong enough to hold them together as their small family-run label squares off against the temptations of powerhouse Columbia Records?  Will the loving relationship of the band’s two leads be able to handle this growing tension?  Can Gil and Nancy put aside their differences in the best interest of the music?   In the end, will loyalty and family withstand the outside forces trying to pull everything apart?  Will Brassroots District survive? 

Over the next ninety-minutes plus, you’ll learn the answers as the story unfolds around you.

What sets Brassroots District ‘74 apart from most other immersives is that it’s really two shows in one: a genuine full-blown concert and a character-driven interactive storyline woven together into one entertaining inter-mersive package.  If someone wandered in off the street unaware they’d stepped into a participatory theatrical experience, they might think they’d arrived at a polished, ‘70s – style funk concert—and they wouldn’t be wrong. But that onstage musical firepower is just half the total adventure.  It’s the storyline intrigue unfolding before, after, and even during the band’s sets that keeps you leaning in to learn more. 

Now, there’s the real 70’s and the imagined 70’s, and speaking as someone that has experienced both, I can say that the production nails the zeitgeist of that era with aplomb – not overdoing it but capturing the feel, look and sound of that memorable time ably. 

Creators Andrew Lieb and Ari Herstand (who also plays Copper), and director DeMone Seraphin do those years justice without falling into traps that feel forced or kitschy as some period productions fall prey to.  The book and story by Chris Porter and Lauren Ludwig, Lieb, and Herstand is satisfying throughout as it leads to the inevitable ending most will root for.  Music by Herstand and Brett Nolan ably captures the soulful genre that flourished in the earlier part of the decade before battling it out with harder rock and the disco onslaught yet to come. Two numbers, "Them Feet Ain't Got Nobody," and the band's unofficial anthem "Together" are the musical highlights.

The briskly-paced show didn’t falter in keeping things humming along while also ensuring its main characters were visible and easily accessible during the entire performance.  This means that if you want to play along – and you really should for maximum enjoyment -  there are plenty of opportunities to sidle up to a character with questions or a comment or just to listen in to what they’re gossiping about with each other and the guests.  We did that several times and found each player committed to their era-authentic personas.  Not a one doesn’t play their cards well, each walking the walk and talking the talk without overdoing.  There are no caricatures here, which levels this show’s authenticity up several degrees.   We enjoyed everyone in the talented cast, but standouts on the night we attended were Marquell Edward Clayton as Gil, Kayah Alexandra Bullock playing Nancy, and Bryan Daniel Porter as Donnie.  The band members were solid in their musicianship and also handled the acting chores just fine when called upon.

Production values are also high.  Catch One, with its rich history and timeless vibe is really the perfect home for the show.  Set design, sound mix and lighting are evocative of the 1970’s, and the concert hall sound is full, tight and right.  And credit to the team for coming up with a simple yet elegant method of eliminating the nuisance of cell phone intrusion from interfering with the timeframe too.  

By the end of the night Immersive Scene LA had witnessed it all – okay, most of it anyway.

Multi-room--and in this case, multi-floor--immersives can sometimes prove a bit tricky.  You simply can’t be everywhere at once, and while we did our best to track the action, the immense space of Catch One made that a bit of a challenge at the mid-point of the night.  We’d met most of the characters and understood the central questions, but a few answers might have slipped past when the band’s set was abruptly interrupted. 

Although we’d been told earlier that we could roam freely, it wasn’t obvious when to do just that. So when the music stopped, we and a nearby couple stayed put. One person even asked “I think that’s the end of the show, right?”  I assured him it wasn’t - we were only one-hour in -  but the suddenly half-empty hall made it a bit perplexing.  Clearly others had gone off exploring, having gotten a memo we missed.   

With the fan club members taking over the stage in the band’s absence, it seemed like we were in the right spot….or maybe not.  Soon enough though, the room filled again and Brassroots retook the stage for the pivotal second set, where the story’s conflicts finally peaked and resolved.  A small improvement would be offering the crowd a real-time nudge when it’s time to explore the environment – something as simple as a cast member tossing off,  “Hey, I hear something’s going down upstairs” would’ve sent us truckin’ baby. 

Having only missed perhaps ten-minutes of other-room activity didn’t diminish our overall enjoyment much at all.  Hey, that’s kind of the beauty immersive in a nutshell:  it’s a living, fluid show and on any given night no two people experience it in exactly the same way.   Rest assured, though, wherever you physically are in the environment, the key points in the narrative are revisited often in the main stage presentation during the concert-phases of the show when everyone in attendance is together. 

All that’s left to do is to dance--and the show literally does just that, getting the entire audience involved in the largest line dance-send off you’re ever likely to experience.  As you boogie out of the laid-back ‘70s into the reality of the hyper-connected 2020s – another buzzkill, as Christian C would say - you’ll take with you a bit of nostalgia, a catchy song or two looping in your head and the happy realization that you stayed off your damn cell phone for a full two hours without even realizing it. 

In the end, Brassroots District prevail because their ample heart is as full and hopeful as the show’s message:  Love wins. It has to--it’s the 1970’s.  You have just a handful of shows left to find out for yourself.

Brassroots District LA '74

Mid-City/Los Angeles

Feb 28, March 7, 14, 20 & 28

Saturdays

Tickets: $61.00 GA

$118.00 + VIP

onsite parking: $30.00

Adults 21+only