Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Wednesday

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Indie 103.1 presents CLUB NME:
POP LEVI / FRENCH MIAMI / THE NEW REGIME
Spaceland



Pop Levi || Listen || Watch

Nobody is putting out music like Pop Levi’s right now. Levi calls his sound astral rock ‘n’ roll-much catchier than the more descriptive psych-glam-garage-blues-rock fusion. If you need an artistic point of reference, think Prince meets Marc Bolan mixed with probably a bit too much Syd Barrett for his own good. It’s not the most unusual group of influences, but Levi works them into a sound all his own.

Infectious up-tempo numbers like “Sugar Assault Me Now” and “Pick-Me-Up Uppercut” show that Levi has some ready-for-primetime swish in his step, especially the latter, with its overt sexuality. He seems equally comfortable with his acoustic, strumming some contemplative tearjerkers like “Skip Ghetto” and “From the Day That You Were Born,” and he has enough soul to pull off blues-funk tracks like “Blue Honey” and “Hades’ Lady.” This is to say that Pop Levi can do it all, and do it all well. - Prefix Mag

with:
French Miami
The New Regime || Listen

8:30pm / $8 / 21+



EL TEN ELEVEN
Hotel Cafe




El Ten Eleven’s electrifying instrumental trip

by kevin bronson (Buzzbands.LA)



M83: Thanks for the good times, America

by kevin bronson (Buzzbands.LA)

[Some Very Bad Person made off with Morgan Kibby's digital camera at the recent Los Angeles show. So instead of her behind-the-scenes photographs, the shot below is one of our indefatigable M83 tour diarist during the show. Meanwhile, if you have any information about that camera ...]


Dear Friends and Family,

Just a small note to let you know that I am writing a tour blog for the next three months while I am traveling and playing with M83 throughout Europe and the US. The blog will be hosted by Kevin Bronson who was a senior music writer and editor for the LA Times. I am thrilled and honored that he asked me to do this. Should you have the time and the inclination to check it out, the link is as follows:

BUZZ BANDS

I hope this email finds you all healthy and happy, and hopefully i will see you while I'm on the road.

Lots of love,
Morgan


WINTER FORMAL
Special Edition of Twilight at the Club LIVE
Featuring: Rumspringa




Fusing powerful guitar riffs with rhythmic lyrics, Los Angeles twosome Rumspringa create a refreshingly original mixture of Americana and crunk. The band's secret is "Little Lupe," a memory pedal that allows its members to experiment with intricate combinations of guitars, strings, drums, and cosmic effects. Lead singer Joey Stevens makes his way through the tracks with a timely stutter, a fair measure of hissing, and just enough whisper. Tonight, Rumspringa crashes the first annual Twilight at the Club Winter Formal, proving that the only thing better than a rock show is a rock show with golf clubs and evening dresses.

– Phil Kropoth

Start looking for a date to the Ghettogloss Winter Formal....
because Rumspringa is playing live at the Griffith Park Clubhouse and one of our rad staff photographers will be set up with a seamless to shoot the Winter Formal portraits of you and your date for the Twilight at the Club Yearbook.

Yes, some lucky couple will be named the Ghettogloss
King and Queen for the year and will have their pictures featured on all of the Ghettogloss emails for one whole month.

Rumspringa will be playing LIVE at the Ghettogloss Winter Formal at the Griffith Park Clubhouse for our very special edition of Twilight at the Club.

Twilight at the Club is an event produced and hosted by Ghettogloss
on the outside patio of the Griffith Park Golf Clubhouse.

In addition, Ghettogloss will be taking over the connecting banquet room as a dance hall for the Winter Formal!!

7:30 - 11pm ++ But you have to get there before 10pm or you wont get in!!
The holiday light show will be happening during the park at this time, so the earlier you arrive the better. We love you.

BACK ROUTE- MAY BE A BETTER WAY TO GO FELLAS....
From the 134-
Exit Forest Lawn
Enter the park on Forest Lawn
Go left at the 1st stop light.
Then, go right at the first stop sign (either Crystal Springs or Griffith Park Dr)
Follow this road until you see the driving range come up on your left.
You will see the Clubhouse and parking lot ahead. PARK in this lot.
Walk to the patio in the back of the Clubhouse.
YOU ARE THERE.





Tonight is the infamous Margarita Wednesday in Echo Park at the Barragan's. That means tasty margs for 2.50 all night and complimentary chips and salsa. And to sweeten the deal FREE nachos bar B4 7:30. SO come early. and rumor has it there will be free margarita tickets given away all night. Hump Day never tasted so sweet.

See ya tonight in the Park

-the Barragan's




The Gold Room is an attitude-free oasis of cantilevered-breasted waitresses, cheap drinks, hard men escaping the ball n’ chain (you see no women here except what the hipsters drag in), as well as banda blasting from the juke. Free food is often on the agenda as well, with free peanuts, popcorn, and sometimes even tacos being slung along with your Pacifico.

While all this sounds too good to be true, The Gold Room is actually a well-oiled machine with an interesting and innovative way to deal with gentrification. Everyone is welcome to dine, drink, and make good friends with the friendly regulars, but unwritten bar policy has it that only two small tables of punky invaders is allowed at a time. Sure enough, the second this policy is violated by some messy-haired too-cool-for-school guitar hero, every regular in the joint gets one free sock to the stomach of said interloper. It is a very nice, efficient system for keeping gentrification in check and The Gold Room in the hands of those who need it and love it. – L.A. TACO


¡¡¡ MARK YOUR CALENDARS !!!

Screening: THE WRESTLER
LACMA
December 12 | 7:30 pm | Bing Theater




Mickey Rourke stars as Randy "The Ram" Robinson, a onetime superstar of the mat. Now battered and estranged from his daughter (Wood), he ekes out a living getting beaten bloody in high school gyms and community centers around New Jersey as part of a tight-knit community of wrestling buffs. But when a violent heart attack and invasive surgery forces him into retirement, his sense of identity starts to slip away. He begins to evaluate the state of his lonesome life and his relationship with an exotic dancer (Tomei). Winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice film festival, the film is nominated for Male Lead and Best Feature at the 2009 Independent Spirit Awards. "A triumph from start to finish... Rourke gives the kind of performance that caps, redefines and reinvents careers." –Scott Foundas, LA Weekly. Special guest: Director Darren Aronofsky.

*No one under 18 admitted. This film is rated R by the MPAA for violence, sexuality/nudity, language and some drug use.

Tickets

Watch a clip of the film. >>

View full schedule of films. >>
















Does MOCA Need New Leadership?



MOCA's Geffen Contemporary is leased from the City for $1 a year | Photo by pink_fish13 via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr

MOCA's grim financial outlook is no secret, and although there has been public mobilization to help raise the profile of the museum's plight and show whoever will pay attention that Angelenos want their art, some see the changes that need to come as being more fundamental.

This weekend's LA Times featured an opinion piece by Tim Rutten, calling for officials from the City of Los Angeles to step in and for MOCA's board and top execs to be replaced. Calling the museum "one of the essential windows on the restless, searching, cosmopolitan creativity of this city's 21st century spirit," Rutten says that because MOCA's Geffen Contemporary sits on land leased from the City ("for $1 a year" no less) and that the City brokered the deal for their Grand Avenue facility, Los Angeles proper "has played a crucial role in MOCA since its inception 30 years ago." - LAisth (more after the image jump)



M. Ward announces tour and pre-sale tickets


Singer-songwriter and modern-day troubadour M. Ward announces plans to hit the road this winter and bring audiences on both sides of the Atlantic tracks from his highly-anticipated release, Hold Time (February 17th, Merge Records). Amidst producing and arranging Zooey Deschanel's indie pop gems and being the "Him" of She & Him'scritically-acclaimed Volume One this past year, M. wrote and recorded Hold Time, the fully realized follow up to the internationally praised Post-War. It features stunning guest performances by Lucinda Williams, Jason Lytle (ex Grandaddy) and Zooey Deschanel.

Fans will have the opportunity to purchase tickets in advance. Pre-sale for the US shows begins Tuesday, December 9 and ends Thursday, December 11. Tickets for all shows in the US, UK, and EU will go on-sale to the public beginning Friday, December 12.

Password for pre-sale: holdtime

For more information and to purchase tickets, please visit www.mwardmusic.com

M. Ward tour dates in full:

Wednesday, February 18 Boston, MA @ Somerville Theater
Thursday, February 19 New York, NY @ The Apollo Theatre
Friday, February 20 Philadelphia, PA @ Trocadero Theatre
Saturday, February 21 Washington, DC @ Sixth and I Synagogue
Wednesday February 25 London, UK @ Borderline
Thursday February 26 Paris, FR @ Café de la Danse
Friday, February 27 Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso
Wednesday March 4 Los Angeles, CA @ Music Box at Fonda
Thursday, March 5 San Francisco, CA @ Palace of Fine Arts
Friday, March 6 Seattle, WA @ Showbox At The Market
Saturday, March 7 Portland, OR @ Aladdin Theater




The Western States Motel's Top Ten of 2008


Picture via the Western States Motel's Myspace

December is list-making season. And for us music journalists, it is a time to look back on scores of albums, reflect upon the music and recapitulate our favorites. But this year, just like the last, we took this opportunity to flip that tradition upside down, asking the artists that influenced us what influenced them. The prompt was not limited to albums that came out in 2008.

The Western States Motel

Black Keys - Attack And Release
MGMT - Oracular Spectacular
Blitzen Trapper - Furr
TV On The Radio - Dear Science
Ratatat - LP3
Creedence Clearwater Revival - Self Titled Reissue
Brightblack Morning Light - Motion To Rejoin
Happy Hollows - Imaginary EP
Dr. Dog - Fate
Tobacco - Fucked Up Friends

The Western States Motel - "Oh World"

--
This last year LAist's Molly Bergen not only saw the band perform, but interviewed them as well.





Robert Francis might write the songs of an old soul, but he is still just 21 — and maybe feeling it, when it comes to his next step musically. “Thing are kinda moving slower than I want them to,” he says.

It was back in August 2007 when his critically lauded debut, “One by One,” was released on local imprint Aeronaut Records, earning comparisons to the likes of Jeff Buckley, M. Ward and Conor Oberst. After assembling a live band and touring behind the album, he got to work on another. “I started a second record with the idea it would come out on Aeronaut too,” he says. “Then all these [bigger] labels got interested.”

It’s premature to talk about a signing, his management says, but while the business [click to continue...



Maeghan Reid
Chung King Project



Maeghan Reid’s solo debut at Chung King Project — one of the strongest in recent memory — revolves around the figure of the drifter, the gypsy, the nomad or the outsider. Solitary silhouettes roam her collages with walking sticks in hand and bags slung over their shoulders. Small groups gather in makeshift camps; buildings loom in vast isolation, on the peaks of hills or surrounded by plains. There is a prevailing sense of both alienation and freedom, exclusion and liberation.

This spirit is less palpable in the imagery, however, than in the materials themselves, which look as though they could have been gathered by the very characters Reid is assembling. Old photographs, discarded bits of linoleum and cardboard, toothpicks, strips of satin, velvet, corduroy and upholstery — all are fragments drawn from the world at large, once the fabric of another picture, another story. Every surface exudes a sense of history.

Collage is a widely practiced and seldom dazzling genre, but Reid approaches it with a rare degree of concentration and sensitivity, assembling and manipulating her materials with the same care that she shows in choosing them. The works range from letter-size to poster-size, and Reid is equally adept at either end of the scale.

The smaller compositions are tight, intimate and jewel-like; the larger, assuredly expansive and monumental. No inch of surface area is squandered or overlooked. The fastidiousness with which Reid treats these once discarded materials invests them with a kind of opulence that seems an extension of her reverence for her subjects. Whether by choice or necessity, her vagabonds have set about living life by their own systems of value.

In Friday's paper, look for reviews of David McDonald, Annie Wharton and Jason David at Jail Gallery; Lillian Bassman at Peter Fetterman; and Peter Sudar at Mihai Nicodim.

-- Holly Myers


new SMASHING PUMPKINS video
Produced by our good friend Miss Megan Duffy!


G.L.O.W.



KCRW Music Director Jason Bentley's Top 10 Albums of '08




1. M83 - Saturday's = Youth (Mute)
2. Santogold - Santogold (Downtown)
3. Jamie Lidell - Jim (Warp Records)
4. Adele - 19 (XL Recordings/Colombia)
5. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend (XL Recordings)
6. Juana Molina - Un Dia (Domino)
7. Little Dragon - Little Dragon (Peacefrog)
8. The Black Ghosts - The Black Ghosts (IAMSOUND Records)
9. Portishead - Third (Mercury Records)
10. Jazzanova - Of All the Things (Verve)



Barragan's mixes it up for Echo Park hipsters




It's Wednesday night at Barragan's and, as usual, packs of twentysomethings jam into the shoebox-sized bar, the dark-paneled restaurant booths, the upstairs banquet room and rooftop patio. They shout to be heard over the throbbing sounds coming from a D.J. spinning records as weary waitresses and bus boys bring free nachos. But the big draw at this Echo Park Mexican restaurant on Wednesday is not the music or the food. It's the $2.50 margaritas. On a good "Margarita Wednesday" the restaurant pours about 1,500 drinks... (read more after the jump).


Help the Fire Victims




Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is encouraging residents and businesses to help support the hundreds of displaced families due to the Sayre Fire by donating to the Red Cross of Greater Los Angeles, the organizations that is acting as the lead agency on shelter management and the current relief effort.
"Overnight, hundreds of families have found themselves homeless and relying on the care of their community," Villaraigosa said. "Just ten days before Thanksgiving, I encourage all Angelenos and businesses to come to their neighbor's aid and pitch in what they can." They are accepting cash donations and in-kind gifts.
Looking to do more? Help the community-at-large in other ways: check out the latest PhiLAnthropist column.


Here's some video I shot of Soko the other night

Photobucket


Industry Insiders: Alexis Rivera, Pied Piper



How did you got your start in Los Angeles, and how did you became such a heavy in Echo Park?
Read the BlackBook article


Echo Park Named One of Top 10 Great Neighborhoods




And when you hear that, you might find yourself asking which Realtor came up with that ranking. Luckily, this time there is some creditability behind the designation: the American Planning Association. They "singled out Echo Park because of its breathtaking topography set in the hills above downtown, historic architecture, pedestrian-oriented streets and stairways, and engaged residents who, over the years, have gone to great lengths to protect and preserve their community," according to an APA release (add: their website has more info and history on why EP was chosen) .... more after you click on the image!



SUBMIT YOUR PICTURES!!!


THE MAE-SHI @ Spaceland



THE MOVIES @ Spaceland



DENGUE FEVER @ Viper Room

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