Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Another amazing night at pehrspace on Monday (pictured above). Other pictures are posted here but we apologize in advance for the poor photo representation of the show. We've been experimenting with the new XSI and Canon tech support has been extremely unhelpful in finding the Koga-ize button.
In other news...
For those not going out this week, check out some late night talk shows with locals Beck on the Tonight Show (11/12), Sia (whose band features Gus Seyffert aka Willoughby on bass) on the Late Show (11/13), Cold War Kids on the Late Late Show (11/13), and Joshua Radin on Conan O'Brien (11/13). Also, a special mention for Charlie Haden who performs with the entire Haden musical family on Letterman tonight (11/12). Yes, that includes Ruth, Petra, Rachel, Tanya, and Josh and they'll all be singing Josh's contribution to the recently released album Rambling Boy, which incidentally is our favorite album of the year...
Also making the talk show circuit is our old friend Dido who recorded her new album in Los Angeles while attending music classes at UCLA. Her first show in Los Angeles was at Largo like in 1998. There were five or so people in the room including us and Jon Brion. Jon asked us who she was and all we knew at the time was that we were given a demo of Rollo's little sister six months prior and we liked it enough to see her live. Fast forward ten years later to her new album Safe Trip Home, due 11/18, and co-produced by none other than Jon Brion. It's by far the most mature record she's done and you can definitely hear the Brion influence in her phrasing on songs like "Let's Do the Things We Normally Do", our favorite track. The lead single "Don't Believe in Love" is probably the weakest of the bunch but we don't exactly hear a lot of radio hits on it anyway -- which might be the reason why the album was delayed for so long. Label people are probably begging Eminem to throw her another bone right now. Oh, and "The Day Before the Day" is particularly very pretty.
Speaking of Dido, in response to Nic Harcourt (who a lot of people say "discovered" her) leaving KCRW, we feel it's probably time. His predecessors Tom Schnabel and Chris Douridas both hosted the show for about ten years themselves and that's about the right amount of time to keep the show fresh for listeners. That said, we know Nic and worked with him during the Douridas handoff. He was a nervous wreck those first few shows but eventually came into his own bringing a variety of good music both internationally and homegrown while occassionally adding a bit of Brit humor to an otherwise formulaic industry-driven program. Years later, we caught up with him at the Hotel Cafe and we couldn't help but praise him for being one of the few supporters of our mutual friend Lisa Germano who we were both there to see that night. In any case, our vote is for Chris Checkman to take over as host although he'd probably shoot himself in the face if he had to be around Ruth Seymour for longer than five seconds.
Gary Jules returns with a new-old album Birds on 11/25. It was recorded prior to 2006's self-titled album and only recently he has decided to put it out. He'll be at his old stomping grounds the Hotel Cafe every Tuesday through the month of December and appears on "Morning Becomes Eclectic" on 11/21.
Greg Behrendt is following us... on Twitter.
The divine miss Inger Lorre has had to cancel tomorrow's appearance at the Knitting Factory due to serious illness. We were very much looking forward to this rare appearance by the former Nymphs goddess. Let's hope she makes a speedy recovery.
The Deadly Syndrome will announce the lineup and details of their 12/13 holiday benefit show at Echoplex on Monday although most might be able to guess it will include bands in their Top 8.
Happy birthdays this week to brothers from another Mother, Tenlons Fort and Aaron Embry, who we hear might be recording together again very soon. Like today even.
Finally, in response to Elaine Layabout's cease and desist from Spaceland Productions... It's unfortunate when anything becomes corporatized but especially when it's a well-respected promoter like Spaceland Productions. We understand the reasoning now but what's going to happen when mobiles... wristwatches... eyeglasses are able to record 1080p which we aren't too far from? So it really doesn't make any sense... But more importantly, we really think it's a bad idea to not allow fans be fans. A good example is from a recent trip we took in Europe. From London to Stockholm to Paris, kids were asking us about The Smell. They had seen videos of No Age, HEALTH, and Mika Miko play there and to them it seemed like some mythical fantasyland. Intentional or not, the club has single-handedly reinvigorated L.A.'s punk scene to the masses while branding The Smell as its epicenter. Stick that in your business model restructuring, Live Nation. Another case in point, of course, is blog coverage. We really don't cover any shows that require photo passes or any type of credential that separates us from just beings music fans. And one quick Technorati search for coverage of this month's residencies indicates we're not the only ones. Moreover, we feel this hurts the whole prospect of being a fan in today's world of Web 3.0, of which Ms. Elaine is of the highest calibre. So in support of "Yes on Prop Layabout" we're going to be marching in Silver Lake. We don't where yet, but probably somewhere we won't get arrested for possession of an illegal point-and-shoot.
Speaking of videos, here's a new feature we're going to call "Videos from Shows at Venues Currently Allowing Point-and-Shoot Video Recording":
