Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Did anyone catch the opening set by rising star Ceci Bastida at The Echo on Monday? Because she kind of blew our minds with that performance. It's been a few months since we saw her and by the look of things, those countless hours she's spent reworking her sound with the likes of The Gifted, XXXChange, and David Garza have certainly made the difference. Old school fans of Tijuana No! are going to shit their pants... Tuesday, we checked in on an early early set by milady Brandi Emma at Crane's. If her lovely new songs weren't enough to draw us to the Cahuenga corridor on a night when The Decemberists were playing a block away (hence, no parking for 15 miles), then her new sexy Alex Owens look was (picture above). Plus, the girl has some of the best stage banter (mostly with herself) ever. She's working on a new record now. And she performs with her new project The Smart Set at the L.A. Pride Festival on 6/14. By the way, this year's Pride Fest has a great lineup including Berlin, Taxi Doll, Audra Mae, among others.
Tonight, the wonderful Pilar Díaz begins her residency at La Cita. Does anyone outside of the Mucho Wednesdays circle realize how great she is? You should see her on this residency if you don't know what's up... Also, Useless Keys were just added the Club NME lineup tonight at Spaceland opening for New York's BM LINX. Message them on MySpace to get on the list for free... Downtown/Union continues their residency at Mr. T's Bowl tonight with Marvelous Toy, Odd Modern, and a rare performance by The Natural Disasters. Downtown/Union recently released their new record Aurora Ahora, available now on iTunes and CDBaby.
On Thursday, Jim Hanft continues his residency at the Hotel Cafe with Susie Suh (who we haven't seen in a few years). Ms. Susie gets her own residency next month with Butterfly Boucher (who we haven't seen in more than a few years)... Also, on Thursday, there's a good lineup at the Roxy with Funeral Party, Venus Infers, The Tender Box, and Star Parts. All those bands are getting lots of love from radio, bloggers, and the like... And, down in Long Beach, The Valley Arena celebrates the release of their new record We Died out on JAXART.
Complete listings here.
In other news: The official Jeff Buckley Grace Around the World DVD release will be held at Largo at the Coronet on 6/9 with very special guests performing. Tickets are on sale now through Largo with proceeds going to the Silverlake Conservatory of Music... The Beggars Group (Matador/XL/4AD) is coming to town, setting up a new L.A. office in July. We think we just heard the opening of a thousand Microsoft Word's searching for that generic résumé template... Local awesome punk trio NON+ have changed their name to Woah Hunx. Update your They perform at pehrspace on 5/29 with The Monolators, Audacity, Okie Dokie, and UV Lights... Don't know if we'll be able to do this Friday's update thing we usually do since one of us is getting married in Vegas and we're all headed out there tonight. But we're sure you're up on what's going on. We love you.
