There really aren’t enough opportunities to go out in your bathrobe and get hammered on White Russians.

Enter Lebowskifest 2009. A two-day celebration of “The Big Lebowski” — a movie about the ultimate slacker hero and his bowling buddies on a mission to recover a stolen rug and the Lebowski namesake’s trophy wife. (For a more fitting summary of the movie, watch “The Big Lebowski – The F*cking Short Version” on youtube, here.)

Lebowskifest day one took place at the Wiltern, with the night centered around special guest appearances and a screening of the 1998 cult classic. Dude. Can you believe the Coen brothers made this movie in 1998? Still fresh after all these years.

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“Let me explain something to you. Um, I am not ‘Mr. Lebowski.’ You’re Mr. Lebowski. I’m the Dude. So that’s what you call me. You know, that or, uh, His Dudeness, or uh, Duder, or El Duderino if you’re not into the whole brevity thing.
…

To dress the part, I personally spent a couple of days searching for a purple outfit a-la Jesus Quintana. I showed up at the Wiltern in a purple collared shirt and purple track pants and a nametag that said, “Hello My Name is Jesus.” I was a little put off that every one else was in their regular clothes, save the odd bathrobe here and there. I guess they were all saving up for the next night’s installment of Lebowskifest. Day two would be a costume contest, trivia, and unlimited bowling at Cal-Bowl in Carson. Oh well.

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“Nobody fucks with the Jesus.”
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Second disappointment of the night: How on earth could the front bar be out of Kahlua?! Amateurs.

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“Hey, careful, man, there’s a beverage here!”
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The opening act before the movie was a child prodigy guitarist. He was a mini shredder – a nine-year-old Japanese boy named Yuto Miyazawa who played a full-sized polka dotted flying-V guitar like Randy Rhoads used to play with Ozzy. He imitated all the classics, like “Crazy Train,” the Jimi Hendrixized Star Spangled Banner, and “Purple Haze.” Knocking them all off pretty impressively, it was only freaky when he sang along in his chipmunk vocals.

I guess even though a mini guitar hero is irrelevant to the movie, he is the idea of fun and fuck-it and not acting your age and taking advantage of a random opportunity, which is what the Big Lebowski is all about-ski.

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“That rug really tied the room together.”
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Following Yuto, a variety of special guests came out to greet the crowd. I was hoping for Flea (who played one of the Nihilists) or Tara Reid (who played Bunny Lebowski). Gutter ball. But, this capacity crowd of “Achievers” was so die-hard they would have revered even an extra from a deleted scene as if it were the Dude himself. The best appearances were a guy who imitated the landlord’s crazy interpretive dance and Jeff “the Dude” Dowd (the man who inspired the character The Dude). The O.G. Dude was ramblin’, mentioning hitchhiking and other righteous stuff, so I knew he was authentic.

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“Fuck it, Dude, let’s go bowling.”
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When the movie came on, it all came back to me. The soundtrack, the dialogue, the Dude. This movie is absolutely a cult classic. It’s a quote generator. It’s a viral video inspirer. It makes you feel like Bob Dylan song in the movie when he sings, “Oh what a wonderful feeling.”

The Wiltern isn’t typically a movie house, so their screen and audio quality weren’t tops. Not that you would have been able to hear the sound anyway over the crowd. No line from the script went by without scream-along style audience participation.

Is “The Big Lebowski” our “Rocky Horror Picture Show?” More movies should get the Lebowskifest treatment. I’d go. Especially if I could drink White Russians the whole time, which are basically adult milkshakes.

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“I told those fucks down at the league office a thousand times that I don’t roll on Shabbos!”
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I drank too many White Russians on day one and never made it down the 405 for Lebowskifest day two in Carson.

Sorry, dudes.

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“The Dude abides.”

That’s the feeling of Cut Copy, except it’s 2009. Happy, high energy, synth-pop, post-hipster, new new wave, whatever you want to call it – the Australian threesome brought their flavor of dance and pop beats to a sold out crowd on Wednesday, March 11, at Club Nokia in downtown LA. The throw-back, flash-forward music had the crowd moving tirelessly, and no fire marshal could tell them no…

…which was exactly what happened the night before. The Wednesday show was the second of two sold out LA shows, both originally scheduled for the Henry Fonda Theater. On March 10, their show was cut short by the LA Fire Department due to being over capacity.

Dan Whitford, Cut Copy’s singer/guitarist/keyboardist, apologized to the crowd for the incident before going into “Saturdays” off their first release Bright Like Neon Love.

There is a feeling in me
and I don’t know why.
Is there a feeling in you
that you can’t deny?

Most of the material played was off their most recent album In Ghost Colours, however. They started the night with “Hearts on Fire,” and encored with their biggest hit, “Lights and Music,” which sent the crowd into one final frenzy.

Their stage backdrop looked bright like neon love. The hypercolor fluorescent tube neon equalizer, pulsed up and down and flashed like a rainbow. It seemed like Club Nokia was a better setting for their whole neon vibe, since the décor in the club almost matched seamlessly, and the venue itself is situated in the giant, electronic flashing epicenter that is the Staples Center / LA Live.

My one bone to pick: even though the gig was moved there because of its greater crowd capacity, you couldn’t get down to the lowest level right in front of the stage unless you had a wristband (presumably requiring early arrival). So that bottom level was raucous bodies bouncing around and raising their plastic cups. Then the people just behind them were dancing a little more subdued through their jealous pangs and/or smoking weed.

I spent the first few songs standing down there watching the bouncer bounce people away from that inner circle before I went up to the balcony. It was an awesome view and nearly everyone was on their feet dancing to the synth anthems, even from the distance.

A few shots of Patron Silver, a couple beers and an hour or so of Cut Copy and I was cut-copy-pasted wasted.

I wish they had played “Time Stands Still.”

• People look like a cross between Mystery from “The Pickup Artist” and the Snuggle laundry detergent teddy bear.
• One of the early DJs at the Boom Wow stage: Imagika
  Hip hop trip hop MIA flutes black hair bangs glamazon in ewok tent.
• Marques wyatt in a dj booth surrounded by speaker parts and fronts and tweeters
  House music that draws people to Deep every Sunday.
  Slipped in some tweaked Gangstarr.
• The kind of music that I would want to rollerskate to.
• A guy with a gigantic bunny mascot head.
• That song that starts “this is a journey through sight and sound.”
• Finishes his set with classic rock song “talkin bout loooove sweet love.”
• “Without love, where would you be now?”
• Back over to Boom Wow stage for ztrip. Power keeps going out.
• Starts with “the loooooooove boat”
• Cruise
• Around the world daft punk
• Adam freeland closes the night at boom wow stage. Starts and ends with under control under control
• Obama song in the middle (adam freeland obama speak and spell song check youtube!)
• Crazy party bohemian princess women dancing in the dj booth with adam
• Patch around sleeve of leather jacket says “say yeah”
• A girl leans over to him and I can hear her say…
• “Do you have a valentine?”

Why is it that we want to punch that koala wearing glasses in the face? Is it so cute that it makes us violent?

Matt and Kim are that cute. Watching Matt and Kim perform at the Troubadour on Wednesday, February 4, was like watching skittles — a girl skittle in a cut up “Brooklyn” tanktop named Kim Schifino on the drums and a boy skittle in a striped t-shirt named Matt Johnson on keyboards and vocals.

This is going to sound unusual but their music is happy. No guns and broken hearts here. Matt and Kim are a happy couple from Brooklyn who make happy new-wave-ish rock, banging it out on drums and a synthesizer with the smiles and enthusiasm of a pep rally.

Their music is uncomplicated, like running for fun. Just a two-person band (like the White Stripes), their sound is big and energetic. The crowd knew every word, singing along and crowd surfing to the short anthems off their two albums “Grand” and “Matt and Kim.” The duo jumped up on their instruments, clapping along to songs like their first single “Daylight” and “Good Old Fashioned Nightmare.” They closed the show with a version of “Final Countdown” and Matt walked out onto the crowd’s shoulders.

The natural end to the night? Everyone meet down the street for a pizza party! Not even kidding.

Matt and Kim return to LA on March 10 and 11 to open for Cut Copy at Henry Fonda Theater.

They won’t let you forget their slick, shiny name. Nearly all of Chromeo’s songs have a shoutout to the band’s moniker — and their stage set sports a giant pink neon sign that reads “Chromeo Two Step.” The Montreal duo’s signature keyboard stands are pairs of lighted mannequin legs that look like the leg lamp from A Christmas Story.

Chromeo performed to a sold-out LA crowd at Key Club on Thursday, January 22, their last show before they disappear into the studio to record the much-awaited follow-up to 2007’s Fancy Footwork. There was not much room for footwork of any kind on Thursday though, as the club was completely packed shoulder to shoulder.

Are they a band? There are just two of them. Dave 1 is the slim guy in skinny jeans, skinny tie, and black cardigan. The larger of the pair, P-Thugg looks like Freeway with less pigment. He was in a red Phillies’ hat and a two-piece African print outfit. They passed a bass back and forth and shared a solo on cowbells and cymbals during “Tenderoni.” Dave 1 primarily sticks to his guitar and microphone, while P-Thugg stations himself at his synthesizers and talk box. The drums and beats presumably come out of an Apple laptop and sequencers.

But they are definitely a band. They are an Adrien Brody-esque hipster (Dave 1) and a big hip-hop teddy bear (P-Thugg) that are essentially Roger and Zapp mixed with Hall and Oates, but totally modern. (The Hall and Oates parallel is one they like to perpetuate, and the duo even appeared on Daryl Hall’s web reality show Live From Daryl’s House.)

Their signature funk grooves permeated the packed house. The whole set was designed to please the crowd and it didn’t fail. They announced they were going to play “everything” off Fancy Footwork. They got the whole crowd involved in singalongs of other familiar but Chromeo-ized tunes. P-Thugg looked like he was hitting a vaporizer as he sang “Ain’t No Fun (If the Homies Can’t Have None)” through a talkbox. Later, Dave 1 broke into the guitar riff from Dire Strait’s “Money for Nothing.” Instead of the ethereal Sting verse “I want my MTV,” they reprised “I want my… I want my… I want my Chromeo.” I guess it rhymes with self-promeo, but no one seemed to mind.

Since the lower level of Key Club was such a sardine can, we watched the show from the top balcony. This gave us a view of the less populated middle balcony, which seemed to have been reserved for people who had enjoyed some dinner before the show and other VIPs. One older guy — wearing a tour t-shirt of which the top two artists listed on the back were Neil Young and James Taylor – caught every groove and even did spin moves, in his eyeglasses and fluffy grey curls, to songs like “100%” and “Bonafide Lovin’.”

I’ll give you bonafied lovin’

The type that makes me feel old.

Equal opportunity electronic music.

Like the Sopranos, the performance couldn’t end without Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’.”

The night went on and on and on and onnnn….

Next door to the Roxy, for an after party where they would play a DJ set.

Watch Chromeo at Daryl’s House here. – ed