Venice High School acknowledged its Centennial tonight with a screening of the 1978 film Grease, starring John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, Stockard Channing and the late Jeff Conaway. The unmistakable significance of both the high school’s longevity and its place in Grease history was a special energy in the air that brought out Venice neighbors and alums and friends of friends with blankets to the football field. We waited for the sun to go down so we could all sing “Hopelessly Devoted To You” and wonder after the accomplishments of Travolta and Newton-John amid the peak of innocence of the salad days of 1978. The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf and Jamba Juice had a presence at the back of the field, but the sheer idea behind a road stove notoriously entitled “The Greasy Wiener” went hand-in-hand with its parental advisory change to PG-13, mostly to the chagrin of those who blushed at Greased Lightning being called a Pussywagon and other things parents probably didn’t remember. But hey… Grease is the word. I had no idea the bleachers on the northwest end of the field are where Danny Zuko and the T-Birds sing “Summer Nights”, but thanks to the Class of ’11, a clearly-marked photo-op is what they were tonight. The establishing shot of “Rydell High” could not have been any more obvious to alums and students, and all gave a spirited round o’ applause for VHS upon first sight of the landmarks.

»continue reading “Grease” Sing-A-Long at Venice High, June 24, 2011

Madeleine Peyroux made it to Cal State L.A.

Notwithstanding Angelino “here we are now entertain us” impassiveness, or the non-intimacy of big venue jazz, we audience members weren’t digging her enough. At least she thought so. Ms. Peyroux began sometime after 8:15pm, moving into position with her band, and most immediately not liking the separation between herself and her audience. It was a few songs into the set before she convinced us, by both her performance and her sound mix, one time even asking us if we could hear ok, that the show had started and we needed to be involved. Some people might have said we were just quiet between songs, and it would have been a tad indulgent for us to put on airs, as we applauded warmly when she won us over, but it can also be argued that her banter wasn’t gratified enough. She wanted something we didn’t know how to give.

In her voice, which you can turn in your mind long after exposure, is the love and pain of a colorful life. Her pure tone wraps its legs around truly witty, inspired lyrics, combative insight and a burdensome happiness, as in “Don’t Wait Too Long” or “Dance Me To The End of Love”. Somewhere between Billie Holiday and Norah Jones is Madeleine Peyroux telling us to cheer up or not get too excited, her coffee house vox populi glazed in smoke and rain, a mezzo soprano from the Great Depression crooning love songs, Bob Dylan covers, even “Martha, My Dear”.

»continue reading Madeleine Peyroux at The Luckman, April 9, 2011

Just a few words. Why so little? I haven’t the heart.

This is my first show at The Conga Room near the NYC/Vegas wannabe bright light sector of the new Downtown across from the Staples Center. I kill time before the show eating, uh, “chicken lollipops” at Wolfgang Puck. Then suffer a modest wait. I’d say 75 were in line for will call. Some, ahem, idiot tries to enter with an expired license, and to the bouncers credit he all but makes jokes until the tension dissolves. Upstairs in the main hall are one, two, three bars, a variety of couchified soft areas for non-VIP, and a general admission little white chairs area thirty rows deep. Plenty of time for jalapeno popcorn.

It opens. Momo Loudiyi and his all-star band from everywhere perform “Loud Oasis”, which is like Berber music with Arab overtones. Momo is a friendly, very spiritually outspoken guitarist with a soft, gravelly, rather underwhelming voice. I’m sorry, Momo. Your voice isn’t really “enough” for Arabic music. I feel the energy and heart, and appreciate your most excellent rapport. But they raise a mightier roar, the ones you chose from across North Africa and beyond to back you up. Band member Miles Jay, for example. Opens this show with a truly somber, well executed bass solo, haunted strange tuning, intense trills, the soulful vibratos of Arab bowing technique. Then a lively and confident Algerian woman named Fella plays the greatest live doumbek I’ve ever seen live, and sings an Arabic wail called “Oum Kulthoum” that rouses cries and ululations from the gathering world music crowd. We want more from her.

After intermission, KCRW introduces Natacha Atlas, and she sits down with her band under the hot lights looking like she’s seventy years old. I’m waiting for the belly-dancing, Horus eyeliner goddess to become the thing… and it never happens. She’s nervous. She shoots the band looks that could kill, adjusts her mic obsessively, fumbles her sheet music, confers with the gaffer. Sings perfectly but unconvincingly, like a woman getting through it with a broken heart. And she doesn’t get off that little chair until the very last song. All we hope for, the energetic Middle Eastern chanteuse that defines her repertoire and her career with her emotive and unrestrained outpourings, is lost to this awkward, rambling lounge performance that sucks energy out of the room. At one point, she shushes us. 250 people begin a slow trickle out. Those that stay talk loudly and defiantly about what could be gong wrong. I couldn’t bear it, but I stayed until the end.

Seeking intel on what was up. Please advise.

Live reference photo from previous performance from Rhapsody

The Whisky a Go-Go had 300 people mulling on the sidewalk filling out sheets with little pencils, and a few lookers, a few weirdoes and a few spectators. The majority of the audience were members of 123 local bands and singers envying the wealthier bands windmilling the shit out of their Stratocasters. In and out of the entrance, one stamp per hand, their musical equipment somewhat unceremoniously dumped in front of the ticket window, went many who hoped to ace this contest and win a grand prize of $50,000 of free tickets to the Red Carpet event at the Paramount Theater on November 18.

No one at losanjealous gives too much in the shit department. The overwhelming consensus is that LAMA is a SCAM-MA. Perhaps it’s because of how the Los Angeles Music Awards work. The voting contest is designed to vet by popular decision the 123 gifted local talents previously vetted from 11,000 entries. Once you pay the cover, you’re given a sheet with categories like Best Male Singer-Songwriter or Best Country Single. Then you scribble a bubble next to a person’s name in each category and hand it back at the end of the night. It’s not a perfect science. Kinko’s Copies made a printing mistake that cut a few people off the list. Efforts were made to ridicule Kinkos at every turn, and Promoter Al Bowman tried to get the folks written back in, but seriously, some nominees were nice and screwed.

Alright, so I’m watching a group of five people on stage. They sing a few bars to remind us how good they are. And this pretty girl keeps smiling at me. That never happens so I ask her if she’s being considered for a category and sure enough, the answer is yes. Now I see why the LAMA has the reputation it does. Without even hearing her performance, she and I begin to make deals. Vote for me for “Best Pop Act” and I’ll vote for you for “Best Jug Band Vocalist”. Done and done. Just like in Middle School. Ironically I end up voting for bands I don’t like, and I am gullible to think people have any sense of fidelity. They tell me they voted for Michael but scratch him out and vote for somebody else. Oh, the humanity.

»continue reading The 20th Annual Los Angeles Music Awards Voting Party

Uncle Darrow’s Cajun Eatery is a restaurant near the corner of Washington and Lincoln Boulevard that you might want to frequent this week. Uncle Darrow’s did everything they could to move ninety tons of supplies from Los Angeles to Houston after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina five years ago, all on a volunteer basis.

One might miscategorize the deep frier pedigree and modest floorspace for fast food but this establishment is a scotch more bigger on the insides of your mouth than between the walls. Let me cut and paste a portion of a five star write-up: “rich, complex jambalaya, savory gumbo, delicious red beans and rice as well as fried catfish, po’ boys, cobbler, sweet potato pies and everything else you’d expect from a Cajun/Creole restaurant.”

»continue reading Uncle Darrow’s–A Chat with Norwood Clarke, Chef Owner of the Westside Cajun Eatery

My neighbor is writer and guitarist Jeremy Simon of Dylan Trees. One night, never having said boo to the guy, I crash his birthday bash with ten slices of Abbott’s pizza to make first contact. Soon we’re catching up on LA bands, footnotes and influences, Brian Wilson’s “Smile” and Nick Drake. Jeremy’s from London, closed and yet endless. I like his positive impression of Los Angeles and didn’t think Londoners left King Henry VIII and the Daleks behind for our music scene.

He invites me to review Dylan Trees at The Airliner.

THE AIRLINER

The Airliner is off the 405 to the 10 to the 5 North, exit Broadway. Go a few blocks down the boulevard and you’ll see it. Tonight the sign says, “Go Folk Yourself”.

Inside is a three story doll house with separate stages and self-contained atmospheres. Lowest, a small barroom nook run by Gordy the Barkeep. A brash young man observes me riffing into my digital recorder and says, “Nothing wrong with folk.” No there ain’t. I ain’t no post-punk skeleton gone trick-or-treating. I listen to Steeleye Span, John Renbourn, The Incredible String Band, Donovan, Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, The Indigo Girls, Beck, Michelle Shocked, Elliott Smith, Freedy Johnston, Lach’s Antihoot Night at The Sidewalk Cafe… And I know the theme to “Bumblebee Tuna”.

I walk up a spiral staircase to a large unused kick-ass outdoor stage. Beneath the nighttime sky, the staircase empties into a market where a woman sells clothes and oils. I look for Jeremy on the top level. There’s a blonde in her early twenties playing the small stage, xylophone with her right hand and harpsichord with her left, Bach-like fugues on the organ, impassioned piano, singing a bit like Julee Cruise. A crowd gathers.

Monica Olive, singer for Dylan Trees, finds me in the corner grooving. She’s happy to remind me that she, being vegetarian, welcomed the mushroom slices I brought over. She’s dolled up in very dramatic evening make up. Quite fashionable. Jeremy’s wearing a white evening jacket, white pants and a shirt that says “I Like Acid”. He introduces me to Rob Fanter, the band’s watchful and philosophic programmer, bassist and drummer.

Tonight’s all screwed up, Jeremy relates. Dylan Trees were supposed to go on at 11 but the second stage is closed, so it’s closer to 12:30 downstairs.

So we’ve got some time.

»continue reading Dylan Trees at The Airliner

Van Dyke Parks takes his piano bench. He’s friendly-looking, wears a neatly trimmed mustache and Country Time Lemonade suspenders. He looks to the untrained eye like the gentleman smart-ass Samuel Clemens or Tennessee Williams was, a piano-playing Brer Rabbit. And so does his first bit. There’s no question he’s a marksman of piano: each time he throws his fingers down on the ivory, a black quarter note on his sheet music gets a hole blasted through it. He cries out “Now!” and the whole song turns madcap, or falls apart, with a nod to high society and true ragtime authorship. The Reasons (who back him up on violin, cello, and bass) move right there in formation with Grant Geissman, his favorite guitarist (and author of two hardbound books on the history of Mad magazine).

»continue reading Valentine’s Day At McCabe’s Guitar Shop II — Van Dyke Parks

McCabe’s, I love you, I really love you! Josh Mease, Clare and the Reasons, and Van Dyke Parks on Valentine’s Day was wonderful. I’d buy $2804.00 worth of really, really good guitar at a 20% markup just because Clare Muldaur played it. If I had the scratch.

Beginning with a short opening set with Josh Mease on guitar, in which he tries valiantly to spin the dreaminess of his oeuvre into a short set, I ready myself for an evening of wistful sighs with my Valentine’s head on my shoulder. Mease, to be fair, has a soft and pretty-like-the-Beatles second tenor range, and strums whimsically. I think he needs his barbershop backing tracks and his glockenspiel throughout to be the man we want him to be. His solo experience is like a ukulele breezily intoning the specifics of cream-in-coffee second chance romance, as opposed to sopping up misplaced childhood a la Neil Gaiman’s A Game of You evidenced in this video for “Eleanor.” I shall give Sir Mease second listen when he supports “Wilderness” on a forthcoming tour.

Clare and the Reasons is Clare Muldaur Manchon and her three polymaths. Hubby violinist Olivier Manchon also plays a gigantic snail of a French horn and a two-headed mini drum upon the sides of which he smacks polyrhythms. An unknown player intones upon cello and guitar, and Bob Hart is a bassist who plays keyboards and I’m guessing a soprano trumpet. I’m terribly sorry not to get the name of the cellist in the backing group; names are never announced (to my satisfaction).

Like Canada’s Sloan, the band members switch off instruments during concert. I want to tell you more about them individually but let me say this about the collective. Watching Clare and her accomplices play together is like watching someone produce a record at Abbey Road Studios. They’re very professional, and it’s a privilege to listen to their flawless performances, the little bigness of the quartet. Cross the intimate atmosphere of McCabe’s with the high standards of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, or a palace with a trailer park. I don’t know. Cross you fingers and cross your eyes. When is the last time you saw something like this? Brian Wilson doing Smile at the Hollywood Bowl?

»continue reading Valentine’s Day At McCabe’s Guitar Shop I–Clare and the Reasons

Thomas Wolfe said (maybe I’m paraphrasing) that you can’t bring candy and gum into the Troubadour again. That’s because they sell it inside. My emphasis is on sweet, sweet Haim. They’re as good as Mean Mister Mustard, and I can’t fawn enough. These girls have a precocious talent for rock. Guitars hang off their shoulders as if to say, “We’re not anyone’s opening act.” Maybe they won’t be for long.

Following the bold and unapologetic opener “Figure It Out”, Haim plays selections from their myspace page and a few from the Haim conservatory. “The Wire” is the pièce de résistance, a tough pop song fed by precision dynamics and driven entirely by Danielle’s upstrokes and guitar accents. I may as well talk about gourmet food. We’ll wait for them to finish up their record with former Blondie/The Knack producer Mike Chapman later this year.

Mama Haim actually won “The Gong Show” back in the day, so maybe this is where they get their stage banter. EXAMPLE OF BANTER: Alana says to Este, “You got it.” Este points a finger gun at Alana and says, “You got it, Toyota”. Alana doesn’t get Twitter. “MySpacian” is a modifier.

Danielle sports a striped French sailor shirt and little denim shorts over full-length black stockings. Bass-playing Este wears the white cotton dress, thin black nylon tights and combat boots in the family. However, youngest sibling Alana, Alex Fischel and drummer Stephen dress too conservatively. I don’t give a damn. To Melrose with you!

DONNA HAIM (“MAMA HAIM”, Mama and founding member of ROCKING HAIM, their family band.)

So when did you realize the girls wanted to go on their own?

»continue reading Haim at the Troubadour

iPHOTO by the author.

6:20p

Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band. A good place to fellowship with losanjealous.

6:40p

Free cigarettes.

6:50p

Franz Ferdinand. Damn, what a band to watch as the sun goes down. Jeanette shows off her Mr. T doll.

7:25p

After sunset, lasers point into the sky to form a pyramid, its apex miles high. All manners of light, fire and psychedelic projection give Coachella a fairy tale, theme park atmosphere.

7:45p

While V eats a steak sandwich, I smoke and we watch Leonard Cohen from far away, the low power talking from “The Future” what we take with us:

»continue reading Friday at Coachella: MFV Final Chunk

9a

V’s house.

11:30a

Made it to Palm Springs ahead of schedule. Scarf down some damn good eats at Panera Bread.

12:15p

Back on the 111.

1:30p

Coachella! Unfortunately, Coachella parking is not anywhere nearby. We lose the cars in lot Pink Five with a long and winding road before us.

1:50p

Sunscreen protects us. V gets the tickets and bracelets. We get in the frisking line.

2:30p

A false frisk line pathology: if you follow the stampede to a new line, thinking a new checkpoint is legitimate, you get to the front of a false line, are told something like “aw, we’re just bullshitting”, and have to go to the back of the real line. This happens several times.

2:50p

Once in, We Are Scientists on the main stage flies frantic and harmonic. I’m into the installation art to the right, the pallets and water wheels, a ring of bamboo that shoot fire, a gigantic hand, a monster. On a tent-less stage sequestered with the wood, dance tracks on a Mac energize shower elves to spray mist onto a grateful throng of dancers.

»continue reading Friday at Coachella: MFV Chunk One

I’m happy to report the smashing success of The Bird and The Bee, Haim, The Damn Sons, and [Post-foetus] at the Tricot Showroom. The Fire Marshall almost shut it down, but FMLY came to the rescue. Out of respect to FMLY members Cameron Rath and Cody Silberfein, I wave my awkward pre-show experience walking up and down the winding staircase, wristbands, everybody wait outside, form two lines on the side, keep this middle area clear, one hour delay thing to just say thank you. Fuck the paddy wagon, rock the house.

I learned about FMLY that evening, described by Gray on the staircase as “a music collective, an art collective, basically throws shows, dedicates itself to bringing music back into prominence and is for the people.” Anonymous people found this show through your own Losanjealous, LA Weekly, KCRW, The Onion, Santa Monica something or other, The Bird and The Bee MySpace page, and THEFMLY.COM. The mostly under 21 audience came to honor their local band favorites, not necessarily The Bird and The Bee. Elijah said of Haim, “They’re very good. They’re like a girl pop band with testicles.” Most people to whom I spoke said that they’re REALLY good. Someone else said he did not know much about the Bird and The Bee, that he had one of their albums, “the, um, laser one” (Ray Guns Are Not Just The Future), and he was there to support [Post-foetus]. “I don’t really know them that well. I don’t really know them,” said another.

The next thing I knew, I was striking up a rapport with Serena of Serena Interiors. We discussed her Eastern positive outlook, meditation, new journeys… and then we were friends. This is something that happens at FMLY events, but how was I to know.

Inside, I appreciated the large loft Tricot: loud as hell, bricks for walls, open bar left, juice cage right, and up front, everyone around a ground level stage. The Tricot slowly filled with people. I tried to find out the name of the first band. No one knew it was [Post-foetus]. I noticed a Macbook Pro running noises and keyboard drops, a cellist with three guitar pedals near her chair, drums, two guitarists, a bassist, and front man Will Wiesenfeld. This singer, writer and recordist performed syncopated hand claps while uttering primal screams and chants over the six piece accompaniment.

I caught up with him after his set:

»continue reading The Bird and The Bee, Haim, The Damn Sons, and [Post-foetus] at the Tricot Showroom, March 14, 2009

HBO’s Rome is a richly layered, gloriously appointed drama set in antiquity, boasting a Cecil B. DeMille exactitude tradition, filmed in Italy, and upholding the historical context of its setting. When in HBO’s Rome, revenge is laudable, something like underwear is optional, and gods, dirt, graffiti, slaves and blood are everywhere. How respectfully did HBO add a sense of the real?

If you’ve watched the series (both seasons are now available on DVD), you’d remember Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo (Kevin McKidd and Ray Stevenpon) and the upstairs-downstairs bifurcations in the narrative that drove these two centurions through the downfall of the Republic to the rise of the dread Roman Empire. You’d also remember commendatory performances, resplendent cityscapes, a male slave with a bloated and gaudily decorated phallus (a single, unforgettable moment in which Atia of the Julii attempts to placate one of her enemies with the gift of big love), clay jars filled with ash, swagger, fire, aqueducts, death by garroting, fruits and meat hanging from hooks, smoke stains on the hearthstone, and sadistic and violent acts of pater familias.

Last Thursday, The Getty welcomed us to the Second Annual Villa Council Lecture made possible by the Villa Council, one of a triumvirate who rose to take bows (and rightly) for making this possible. At stake, nothing short of pushing the craft and creating glimpses of historical fiction from the point of view of the entertainment industry. Jonathan Stamp, historical consultant for Rome, geeky, gawky, spirited and British, took his seat next to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, author and commentator Patt Morrison for a go-round on whether accurate portrayals are even possible in Hollywood.

»continue reading Veni, Vidi, Veracity: HBO at the Getty Villa

“There is no hidden space program,” says Mayor Villaraigosa. But there is. We have uncovered photographic evidence of a secret space program hidden from us by the retirees and grumpy sea captains of Admiralty Park.

People’s Exhibit A: Suspicious Dumpster

This “dumpster” was discovered on a post-New Year’s walk down Admiralty Way.

Carefully concealed from street view, the metallic box bears the official stencil of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and no doubt shields a self-funded odyssey to the stars. There is much speculation that this very container is a working component of some unfathomably expensive space yacht affordable only to the local resident. The technology for self-funded flight exists in ever-increasing quantity, as does the drive to claim space for private use. Since the Ansari x-prize was taken by Scaled Composites in 2004, the latest challenge has been the Google Lunar X Prize, a 30 million dollar international competition to land an autonomous robot explorer on the moon no later than December 14, 2014, an autonomous robot that perhaps is like the fully functional “See-Threepio Jones” model now lining the sidewalks of Admiralty Park.

People’s Exhibit B: See-Threepio Jones

These “hydrantesque” golden automatons are denizens of the famous five star restaurant community, their silent and strangely complex mechanisms intelligible only to themselves and to their star-chambered constructors who have 30 million dollars to lavish on such advancements. Perhaps in 2009, we will see the endless seaside condominiums break open like voluminous, cement eggshells to let fly the first wave of Del Rey explorer fleets captained by these multifunctional, golden artificial men.

People’s Exhibit C: Spacecraft

»continue reading Secrets of the Hidden Space Program

They most certainly puppet up, sometimes they puppet out, sometimes they pup themselves into hoopy, poopy pieces of no-fun. It’s a hybridization of Whose Line Is It Anyway? and The Muppet Show, and once the shock wears off, it goes to hell but it comes back.

Not discounting the probable fiddly-bits of improv theater, anything, and I mean anything, can come from a drunken crowd of grown-up REM fans. Once host and creative director Patrick Bristow welcomes us, it’s time to get things started on the most sensational inspirational celebrational Puppetupational Puppet Up. Eight of Henson Alternative’s (HA!) master manipulators hold the funny-looking little buggers above their heads and commence zig-zagging before a camera mounted at the headline. Simultaneously, the “Muppet Show Effect” projects onto four screens throughout the theater. My eyes roam between the magic and the magicians, preferring the magic.

So here’s the thinking. Mr. Bristow gives the audience a scenario to fill in like a Madlib. “I need a person doing something.” A dentist! A guy licking his balls! A genie sitting in a bathtub! “Okay, and now I need a place where this happens.” Kuwait! Denny’s! My dick! “So, are you ready to watch a lost episode of 21 Jump Street featuring a guy licking his balls that takes place on my dick?” Yeah! Wooo! “Okay, Puppet Up!” And so begins an advance, stage-left, upon a massive, rectangular armoire filled with beautiful creatures. Sometimes they go two at a time, sometimes all eight of them suit up, or “Puppet Up”, for their improv routine. Once the lights dim, the troupe puppet-trates.

Sometimes they really do puppet up. »continue reading Puppet Up! Uncensored