(07.29.07) Recommends:

Meiko's CD Release Show, Hotel Cafe, Hollywood, Calif. July 26, 2007.

Since I was stuck in a Costco-like structure in San Mateo all of last Thursday, it was impossible for me to make it down for this show. Luckily, however, reader Alexa was in attendance and dutifully reported back! Check it:

Oh man, what a show! there had to be like 300 people there -- hot, sweaty, and wonderful! Meiko is adorable and her band is amazing -- she plays with a trumpet player, mandolin, standup bass, and on some songs piano and drums...the stories Meiko tells between songs are hysterical -- I hope she's always this down to earth -- there's no doubt this girl's gonna be famous...at the end of her set, after people begged for an encore, she played a song called "You Gotta Fuckin Tip" -- she wrote it after some guy didn't tip her (I guess she also is a bartender at the Hotel Cafe) -- SUCH a funny song and a great way to end a fabulous set. I bought her CD immediately following the show. She might have it for sale online soon, but she also mentioned that she's doing a residency at the Hotel Cafe all August long. I've got a new favorite singer and her name is Meiko!!

Sounds awesome! So awesome, in fact, that it's been decided: I must get to one of these shows. She's playing the Hotel Cafe Aug. 8, 15, 22, 29. So, heads up those of you in LA: let's meet up at a Meiko show.

(10.15.08) Recommends:

Wild Sweet Orange at the Hotel Cafe.

We're lifting our head above water here to let people know that tomorrow a blog fave band, Wild Sweet Orange, plays at a blog fave venue, Hotel Cafe.

Here's some WSO tunes to get you in the mood.

Wild Sweet Orange -- Ten Dead Dogs -- mp3.

Wild Sweet Orange -- Either/Or -- mp3.

---

Previous write-ups on the band can be found here and here.

Previous write-ups of Hotel Cafe can be found here and here.

(08.24.07) Recommends:

A Meiko Update.

So I headed down to Los Angeles earlier this week to take in two Meiko shows. I've posted about her here and here. She is in the midst of a Wednesday residency at the Hotel Cafe. And this week, she also had an early Tuesday show. Early like 6pm. And with traffic the way it is in Los Angeles, there were probably 25 people at her Tuesday show. But that didn't hold her back at all. Meiko was meant for the stage; she's a natural born rock star. She is so at ease up there. She is very warm, and funny, and tells funny stories, and comes up with funny nicknames (example: calling her trumpet player Donald Trump-et). She has such a distinct voice: she's from Georgia, and the way she plays with the Southern accent just kills.

At this point, I should also gush about the Hotel Cafe. It is one of the coolest venues I've been to. It is what I picture of a music club in LA: a totally non-nondescript front, you have to enter through a back alley, to get into the club you have to walk through heavy curtains, inside there is a front bar room, then a door that leads to a very intimate music room that comfortably fits probably 300.

I wish I had pictures to share of the shows, but they requested no flash photography, and it was just too dark for me get anything worth posting.

Anyway, both shows were fantastic. If you are in or around LA this Wednesday, she has her final Wednesday date before she embarks on a month long tour across the country opening for Brett Dennen.

Finally, I've been getting a ton of hits from people looking for a "reasons to love you" mp3. I briefly thought about putting my copy of her CD up on yousendit, but I quickly realized that I couldn't do that even if I wanted to, because free music is cool and all, but making somebody else's music free isn't up to me. At any rate, Meiko is streaming her whole album (minus an awesome hidden song), at her website. So all of you looking for here stuff click here immediately.

(04.20.08) Recommends:

The LA64.

(explanation of series here.)

This entry is going to be an LA64 Blast! as we go through a bunch of our favorite things super-quick style (because it will take us a hundred years to get through 64 things if we continue writing such long blog posts about each topic).

#50: Intelligentsia Coffee.
3920 W. Sunset Blvd.


This is probably our favorite picture we've taken since we've been here. There's the awesome medieval style Cheese Store of Silverlake sign in the foreground. There's the awesome Sunset Junction sign in the midground. In the far right background you can see the Griffith Park Observatory. And a little further to the left you can see the Hollywood sign, framed by palm trees. And there is nothing but crystal clear blue skies all around. Coffee at Intelligentsia on a morning like this is why people will always desire to move to Los Angeles.

#49: The Hotel Cafe.
1623 1/2 N. Cahuenga Blvd.


This is one of the more intimate music venues -- but neither a hotel nor a cafe -- we've been to in LA. We've blogged about it previously. We've seen Meiko perform here probably a half dozen times. We've seen Ben Lee perform here -- he only played about three songs, including the finale which he labeled "a march against apathy" and during which he completely lost his shit, playing into the crowd and on top of tables. That single song was one of the most amazing live performances we've ever witnessed. And we've also seen Mandy Moore -- whowhatwhenwherewhy? -- perform here. We don't know if the mix of those acts reveals something secret about us, but we'll continue coming back.

#48: The Franklin Strip.
Franklin Ave. between Tamarind Ave. and N. Bronson Ave.


The Franklin Strip is a one block section of Franklin Village. For only one block it has an impressive array of shops, bars, restaurants, bookstore/record shop/art space, coffee shops, and comedy clubs.

#47: Prizzi's Piazza.
5923 Franklin Ave.



Prizzi's is located on the Franklin Strip and is far and away the tastiest pizza we've had in Los Angeles, and rivals any pizza we've had anywhere. We were a bit skeptical when we first entered because all of the best pizzeria's to which we've previously been are low key, unpretentious, hole in the way, neighborhood dives. And this place has really arty decor and comes off as a touch fancy. But if we can all agree that the mark of worthy pizza is if it tastes equally as good when you have it as leftovers as when you have it at the restaurant, than there's not much better than Prizzi's. Luckily for us, it's within walking distance. If you live reasonably near by this is a must must must try.

(12.01.08) Recommends:

WSO Update.

Holy moly it's been, like, years since we've updated here. So much has been going on in the world since September that the blog felt a little uncalled for. Plus, we've been cheating on Blogger and spending much of our online time spouting nonsense on Twitter and Tumblr. But now we've gotten over ourselves, and figured we could start sharing here again. It's the holiday seasons. Recommendations are needed. So last time we updated it was about the WSO show at the Hotel Cafe. Below are some of the sites and sounds we captured. (Note: we are on the verge of converting a bunch of .mpg files to .mp3 files, so the days of you having to click on a video that has little or no visible video and only sound are almost over. Recommended: patience.)

Some sites:









Some sounds:
Tilt



Ten Dead Dogs

(08.25.07) Recommends:

Remaining Professional While Flying Your "Indie" Flag.

Okay, so I've got a rant pent up in me. I don't like to use this space to be negative as I prefer to focus on things that inspire me. But today I had a pretty horrible experience, and because I presume that I was the target audience of the event, some constructive criticism might be useful.

So. Today I headed out to the 2007 Bay Area Indie Music Festival. The gist of the festival was simple and enticing: 20 up-and-coming Bay Area bands on two stages from noon to 10pm, all for ten bucks. Sounds great, right? That's what I thought, too.

I rolled up to the venue in Martinez a little after noon. No band anywhere in sight. Like one sound dude. I thought this looked awkward, but I gave it the benefit of the doubt, after all it was a beautiful day and I was thinking I was in for a cool afternoon of music. But the minutes kept passing without a noticeable sign of getting the festival started. So I went and used the journalism skills I gained in high school. What I found out wasn't hopeful: the sound crew had apparently quit the night before, and they were also now down to just one stage. By 1pm there was still no sign of progress, so I left to explore Martinez. The highlight of the afternoon was walking around downtown Martinez in a KU shirt and running into a KU alumni and chatting for about ten minutes about Lawrence.

I arrived back at the venue at about 2:15 to hear the last few songs of the first band of the day. Now, using the word "Indie Music" in the name of your festival is a gutsy move because if the music turns out to be crap then lots of people like me will think you've used the word to try to get people like me to give you my money. And that's pretty obnoxious, right? So, this first band was completely completely cheesy. Something I would expect to see playing at a barbeque joint in Kansas City on a Thursday night. Completely cheesy rock 'n roll blues blah blah blah music.

The second band had a lead singer who was desperately trying to look like Pete Wentz. Pete fucking Wentz? Give me a break. Consulting my show program, it looked like anywhere between 1/5 and 1/3 of the bands had lead singers desperate to look like Pete Wentz. My god. Is Fall Out Boy considered indie music? Last time I checked they were considered, er, "shitty music." That is, unless you're like a 16-year old girl. Attention Organizers of the Bay Area Indie Music Fest: are you trying to go after people like me, or 16-year old girls? Here's the thing: 16-year old girls have every right to have a music scene that they can get behind. But so many of the bands on the venue were billed as, e.g., selling out the Independent, or selling out Bottom of the Hill. These are 21+ venues, though, so it must be that you are catering to fans like me, right? So then, why all the FOB lead singers? I don't like FOB. None of my friends like FOB. Nobody with whom I've seen a show in the bay area likes FOB. So what was the point of the festival?

The organizers might say, well, if you go to so many indie shows in the bay area, then you have no doubt dealt with long delays before the headliner came on stage. And this is a valid point. But I'm not at a rock club. I'm at an amphitheater in Martinez. It's a hot Saturday. We live in the Bay Area, which means there are almost limitless opportunities to spend my day. So have the decency to get on the PA and explain to me the hold up.

Either way, if you are aiming for the teen crowd, or for me, couldn't you have been professional enough to get somebody on the PA to explain to the crowd why everything was so damn behind schedule?

So, after the second crappy band of the day I went exploring around the venue. I picked up a $5 plastic cup of Bud Lite, apparently the Official Beer of Indie Music. I tried to drown my sorrow over this experience in that 8 ounce cup of beer. Is "indie music" really this lame? Is it just "Bay Area" "indie music" that is this lame?

I consider "indie rock" to be the current musical epoch in which we find ourselves. It supplanted "alternative rock/grunge rock" which supplanted "hair metal" as the previously prevailing musical epochs. Now, the "alternative rock" epoch officially became irrelevant when bands like Stone Temple Pilots got big, because they were like knock-offs of the bands like Nirvana who defined "alternative rock." Nirvana itself knocked off a lot of music, but managed to be creative in its derivativeness. Meanwhile shitty bands like Stone Temple Pilots were just derivative without adding anything interesting to the mix.

Are we now at the tail end of the "indie rock" epoch? Because the bands I saw today were just rehashing played stuff, and it was kind of embarrassing and sad. I sat through one more band, some screamo, emocore, yadda yadda whatever stuff. By that time it was 4pm. Three bands had played by 4pm, and 20 were on the bill. Not wanting to camp out in Martinez until Wednesday afternoon, I left.

The whole ride home, I listened to my new Meiko CD, wishing I was back watching her play at the Hotel Cafe in Los Angeles. To recap this week's culture war:

Los Angeles: 1
Bay Area: 0

End Note: The festival organizers should not put on a 2nd Annual event until they (a) fully articulate the point of having this festival; and (b) are professional enough to pull off something like this.