HEADS UP
Arts at the Park After Dark: Brian White, Chris Pierce, Audible Mainframe, Warpaint, KCRW DJ Jeremy Sole @ Barnsdall Art Park Wed Jun 10 (hosted by Eric Garcetti)

Join me next Wednesday, June 10, when I’ll be hosting Arts at the Park After Dark, an event in partnership with Generation Obama Los Angeles at Barnsdall Art Park (4800 Hollywood Blvd.) to benefit the Summer Night Lights Gang Reduction and Youth Development Program.

The event will be emceed by Brian White, and special guests will include Chris Pierce, Audible Mainframe, Warpaint, and KCRW DJ Jeremy Sole.

Summer Night Lights is an innovative gang reduction and youth development program that provides arts and recreational programming at city parks throughout Los Angeles during the times when young people are most likely to be involved in or victims of gang violence. Last summer, crime was down in the areas around the parks with this program. We need your help to make it happen again.

Arts at the Park after Dark will run from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. General Admission tickets are $25 and VIP tickets are $150. All donations are tax deductible. To RSVP, send an email to summernightlightsevent@gmail.com or call my Hollywood office at 323-957-4500.

Hope to see you there!

Eric Garcetti is Councilman for District 13 and City Council President.

» Arts in the Park After Dark (show flyer)

Ok, people. The mighty gurgitators of the LA Metblogs are having a Hot Dog Death March to the Death on June 13 (week from Saturday). Information is here. They’ll be eating at Oki-Dog, Pink’s and Skooby’s, all during the same afternoon. Maybe you join them, let us know how you fare. Me, I’m steering clear. In fact in no way and at no time do I recommend you join this event. No, I must advise against it. For reasons to remain unblogged at present I no longer condone any sort of social experiment regarding Oki-Dog, Hollywood Toll Booth, Day-glo Bastion of Toothlessness, North Fairfax, Willoughby, Tinseltown USA. I will not be at this event; I will not be at the Oki-Dog. I will be nowhere anywhere near this event, at all. Do not let this stop you.

LA Metblogs Leads the “Los Angeles Hot Dog Death March” To Sample 3 Eateries in 1 Afternoon

Calling all hot dog lovers & pop culture fans! LA Metblogs (la.metblogs.com), obsessed with covering everything quintessentially “LA,” is gathering for a mass “meat-up” over three of LA’s best-loved hot dog stands.

»continue reading Under $10 And In No Way Advised: “Hot Dog Death March” (LA Metblogs)

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.)

»continue reading Lebowski Fest, Wiltern, May 7, 2009

PHOTO: Eric J Lawrence Pumas the Crowd, World Folktronic Jazz Lounge, KCRW RadioActive @ Park Plaza.
Photo by Salvador Farfan.

Saturday
11 April 2009
KCRW Presents RadioActive: A Spring Dance Party at the Legendary Park Plaza Hotel

(The) Park Plaza was built in 1925 by the Elks to be used as lodge number 99. The building, done in the Neo-Gothic style, was created by renowned art deco architect Claud Beelman… Eventually, the Elks sold the building, and the building ended up being transformed into a luxury hotel, set perfectly then on the shores of what was a very glamorous MacArthur Park. (source)

Excitement in the elevator. We’ve parked on the sixth floor in a garage off Carondolet. The time is 925pm. Elevator fills. “Everybody ready for Schnabel?” I try valiently to work the crowd into something other than a sort of anticipatory silence. “It’s all about the T. See you guys there. I’ll be there!” A few giggles and clever remarks are thrown about and suddenly we are inside the gates, here, now, for RadioActive, the dance party being thrown by KCRW this evening featuring damn near every DJ on the Santa Monica station’s roster. The event is long sold out. And hey – even Kogi’s here! (OG; not Roja.)

»continue reading KCRW’s RadioActive Dance Party, Park Plaza Hotel, April 11, 2009

HEADS UP
KXLU Fundrazor @ Regent Theatre Sat Apr 11

KXLU, our very own Loyola-Marymount-based bastion of independent radio, needs your help now more than ever. Times are tough, sure, but your donation means more than you realize. This Saturday you’ll get the chance to have an absolute blast downtown, all while donating $10 to the station.

We also have a free ticket to give out. Yes, just one ticket, since this is a FUNDRAZOR. Fourth person to email me right here wins this ticket, a $10 value which should make you feel only slightly guilty for waltzing into a fundraising event absolutely free of charge. At the very least, go find Matt Strasser, KXLU’s Music Director, and put a quarter in his pocket you lousy cheapskate. (Just kidding about the lousy part.) Event details follow.

KXLU FUNDRAZOR
HELP KEEP FREE-FORM RADIO ALIVE!

Saturday, April 11th, from 5:00 pm until 2:00 am
The Regent Theatre
448 S. Main St. downtown
$10

What to expect:

• Live sets by Rainbow Arabia, Foot Village, vOICESvOICES, The Happy Hollows, Kill Kill Kill, Devon Williams, Meho Plaza, Blank Blue and Combat!
• DJ sets by Jimmy Tamborello of Dntel, Professor Cantoloupe, Fred of Demolisten and Michael Stock of Part time Punks
• Artwork
• Raffles
• Food and merchandise sold by independent vendors
• Record swap and sale. Bring 5-10 records to swap (for your own benefit) and get 5 free raffle tickets!

All that and much more. Keep eyes tuned to KXLU.com for updates, and we’ll see you there.

So what did you do last Friday eve, dear benighted homies? Let me guess: it was another joyless attempt at something like merriment, with the ingesting of the lite beer and the watching of low-end entertainments. Well, that’s all well and good for you hoi polloi, but DF is—as all well know—a class act all the way, and he prefers pursuits of a more refined order come the week-end.

And what, you are doubtlessly tearing your hair out wondering, is the high-brow divertissement of choice for DF? Well, I’ll let you Joe Six-packs and Sally Housecoats in on the secret just this once, in the limited hope of bringing some modicum of culture to your beer-besotted, clock-punching, watching-reruns-of-Roseanne-without-a-shred-of-irony lives.

To wit, DF spent last Friday at the Los Angeles Natural History Museum (NB, ignoramuses: “history” is the study of the past, and a “museum” is a place where the past is stored upon being extensively taxidermied) for the NHM’s “First Fridays” series. The LA NHM’s FFs are a feast for the enlightened gourmand, a gut-busting smorgasbord of heady lectures, edifying tours of the collection, and live music-related fun-havery. Here are the facts, in all their intellectually sophistimacated glory.

»continue reading Getcha Freaky Friday On: First Fridays @ Natural History Museum, 4/3/2009

International Pillow Fight Day ‘09 – Los Angeles

Holy flying feathers, Batman. Sean O’Brien effectively captured last Saturday’s melee @ Pershing Square with aplomb, and then set the whole thing to an appropriate cut by Does It Offend You, Yeah?
Watch for yourself and check out more of Sean’s work here.

» International Pillow Fight Day (official site)
» Does it Offend You, Yeah? + Yo Majesty @ El Rey Thursday May 2 2008

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

FRIDAY APRIL 17
TICKETS

A Place To Bury Strangers, Alberta Cross, Bajofondo, Beirut, Buraka Som Sistema, Cage the Elephant, Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band, Craze and Klever, Crystal Castles, Dear and the Headlights, Felix da Housecat, Franz Ferdinand, Genghis Tron, Ghostland Observatory, Girl Talk, Gui Boratto, Leonard Cohen, Los Campesinos!, M. Ward, Molotov, Morrissey, N.A.S.A., Noah and the Whale, Patton & Rahzel , Paul McCartney, Peanut Butter Wolf, People Under the Stairs, Ryan Bingham, Silversun Pickups, Steve Aoki, Switch, The Crystal Method, The Aggrolites, The Airborne Toxic Event, The Black Keys, The Bug, The Courteeners, The Hold Steady, The Knux, The Presets, The Ting Tings, We Are Scientists, White Lies

SATURDAY APRIL 18
TICKETS

Amanda Palmer, Amy Winehouse, Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, Atmosphere, Band Of Horses, Billy Talent, Blitzen Trapper, Bob Mould Band, Booker T, Calexico, Cloud Cult, Crookers, Dr. Dog, Drive By Truckers, Drop The Lime, Electric Touch, Fleet Foxes, Gang Gang Dance, Glass Candy, Glasvegas, Henry Rollins, Hercules and Love Affair, Ida Maria, James Morrison, Liars, Mastodon, Michael Franti & Spearhead, MSTRKRFT, Surkin, Para One (Live), Superchunk, The Bloody Beetroots, The Killers, Thenewno2, Thievery Corporation, Tinariwen, TRAV$DJ-AM, Turbonegro, TV On The Radio, Zane Lowe, Zizek

SUNDAY APRIL 19
TICKETS

Antony and the Johnsons, Brian Jonestown Massacre, Christopher Lawrence, Clipse, Friendly Fires, Fucked Up, Gaslight Anthem, Groove Armada (DJ Set), Jenny Lewis, Junior Boys, K’naan, Late of the Pier, Lupe Fiasco, Lykke Li, M.A.N.D.Y., Marshall Barnes, Mexican Institute of Sound, My Bloody Valentine, No Age, Okkervil River, Paolo Nutini, Paul Weller, Perry Farrell, Peter Bjorn and John, Public Enemy, Roni Size, Sebastien Tellier, Shepard Fairey, Supermayer, The Cure, The Horrors, The Kills, The Night Marchers, Themselves, Throbbing Gristle, Vivian Girls, X, Yeah Yeah Yeahs

3-DAY PASS TICKETS

CAMPING TICKETS

Official Festival Site

Today’s federal holiday honors the January 15, 1929 birth of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Those of you stuck in an office with access to a computer, please do feel free to set 15 minutes aside to watch the famous speech video. You can also read it – transcript here – but you really do need his delivery for the full effect.

» “I Have a Dream” (youtube)
» “I Have a Dream” (google)

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

HEADS UP
Dengue Fever @ Scripps College Performing Arts Center Fri Dec 5

Hail, Claremont! Free performance & screening of band documentary Sleepwalking Through The Mekong at Scripps College Performing Arts Center this evening. Huzzah! If you haven’t seen it yet, you do need to check it out. In the immortal words of (arguably) Los Angeles’ Favorite Beard Zac Holtzman:

In Phenom Phen we were afraid the whole stage setup was going to fall into the river.

Dengue Fever’s Chhom Nimol @ Knitting Factory by Sung

» Three Questions for Dengue Fever
» Dengue Fever @ Knitting Factory, 8/14/07

REMINDER
The Sea and Cake w/The Uglysuit @ Troubadour Thu Dec 4

This has been on the calendar for months; just thought I’d remind you. Of the numerous Chicago projects Prekop, Prewitt, McEntire and Claridge find themselves immersed in, The Sea and Cake is still my favorite of the lot. This time ’round they’re supporting their eighth full-length Car Alarm, released October 21 on Thrilljockey. Predictably, I’m fully digging the album. But Jesus! Let John Corbett (!?) tell you about the album if for some fool reason you haven’t dipped your feet into the water yet: »continue reading The Sea and Cake Return to the Troubadour Thursday

Tuesday night’s first filmic performance by the band ADULT. (for there were two back-to-back performances) was full of familiar faces as well as just plain full.  Local electronic intelligentsia, from theremin players (Kevin Li of Seksu Roba) to  three-year-old impressers (DJ Lance Rock from Yo! Gabba! Gabba!) sat captivated as the Brian Eno prelude faded away, the Silent Movie Theater went dark, and images of a woman’s legs and pant suit skirt stood starkly on the screen, motionless, even as ricocheted sounds of electronic knocks and phlangers bubbled up from either side of the stage.  Nicola Kuperus’s horror film “DECAMPMENT” had begun.

 
DECAMPMENT from ADULT. on Vimeo.

»continue reading ADULT. at the Silent Movie Theater – live DECAMPMENT

PICK OF THE WEEK

PART TIME PUNKS FESTIVAL
A Certain Ratio, Pylon, Love is All (pictured), Medium Medium, Savage Republic, Vivian Girls, Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, Warpaint, The Muslims, Mika Miko & many more
Sun 11/16 | Echo & Echoplex
Info | [ENTER TO WIN]
Contest closed.

KAISER CHIEFS
w/ Hockey
Tues 11/11 | Henry Fonda
Info | [ENTER TO WIN]
Contest closed.

JOHN DOE
w/ Kathleen Edwards
Thurs 11/13 | El Rey
Info | [ENTER TO WIN]
Contest closed

DEERHOOF
w/ Experimental Dental School
Fri 11/14 | Echoplex
Info | [ENTER TO WIN]
Contest closed.

MUDHONEY
w/ Japanese Motors
Fri 11/14 | El Rey
Info | [ENTER TO WIN]
Contest closed.

GANG GANG DANCE &
MARNIE STERN
Sat 11/15 | El Rey
Info
[ENTER TO WIN]

ADULT.
w/ Pop Noir
Sat 11/15 | Echoplex
Info | [ENTER TO WIN]
Contest closed.

ELLIS MARSALIS QUARTET
McCoy Tyner Trio & Brad Mehldau
Sun 11/16 | Greek Theater
Info
[ENTER TO WIN]
 
 

Stella @ Orpheum Theatre Sat 12/13
Stone Temple Pilots @ Club Nokia Wed 12/31
Animal Collective @ Henry Fonda Fri 1/23
Moving Units @ Glass House Sat 1/24

MONDAY
Beck @ Club Nokia
King Khan & BBQ Show @ The Echo
Vic Chesnutt w/ Elf Power @ Echoplex

TUESDAY
Earlimart w/ Afternoons, Red Cortez & Dazzler @ Echoplex (Indie 103.1 Check One Tuesday)
Bishop Allen @ The Echo
Kaiser Chiefs @ Henry Fonda
Pit Er Pat @ The Smell
Travis @ Troubadour

»continue reading Losanjealous Concert Picks: Nov. 10 – 16

“THE DARKNESS COMPELS YOU AND BINDS YOU!”

Looking for something to top off your Day of the Dead? Head to Chinatown; Betalevel will be seating for a second Ambient Darkness presentation at midnight (the first one is starting right about….now). Pitch black room. Soothing, warm sounds. Maybe a cocktail in tow. Take it from me: the only place in the universe that might even come close to being as dark as Betalevel during one of these performances would be my front staircase, when the bulb on the landing burns out. Read the disclaimer and get prepared for the midnight seating – and what will doubtless be one of the more interesting (and oddly soothing) 1/2 hours of your Halloween weekend. Highly recommended.

Refreshments at 11pm; seating at 11:30.
Darkness promptly at Midnight! (No late arrivals).
Cost: FREE
» Betalevel presents Darkness…of the Dead!

Doubtless you knew I was referring to November 9, which is the cutoff date for adding a wish to one of Yoko Ono’s wish trees currently choking the entrance patio of Gordon Biersch in Old Town Pasadena. In a nutshell:

• You have until November 9 to go to Pasadena, make a wish and tie it to one of the (at this point) heavily-taxed, overburdened Crape myrtle (Lagerstroemia indica) shrub trees
• Your wish will be removed from the Lagerstroemia indica to which it was previously affixed
• Your wish will be exported to Iceland
• Your wish will be inserted into a space-age capsule
• Using a top-of-the-line Nupla™ drain spade shovel (presumed), Yoko Ono will dig a hole and bury your wish near the Imagine Peace Tower on Videy Island, off the coast of Reykjavík, Iceland
• Somehow, by way of it being buried near the Luxor-aping tower of light, your wish will then be “broadcast” up to the heavens with all of the other wishes

Further:

The tower, a column of light emanating from a stone base with a radius of about 10 meters, is lit for two months each year starting on October 9, John Lennon’s birthday, and ending on December 9, the anniversary of his death. (source)

The once-in-a-life historic November date approaches rapidly; don’t delay.

OH! YOKO
» Myspace Explanatory Page
» One Colorado Official Explanatory Page
» Imagine Peace: Official Site (feat. YoCleavage-Inclusive Video) (You may also email wishes here if for some reason you have an aversion or hatred towards Old Town Pasadena, Gordon Biersch and/or you have an allergic reaction to Lagerstroemia indica)