From Vancouver With Love (10/09)

while on my visit to vancouver british columbia, canada here are a few bands visiting the area:
-Gossip
-Dragonette
-The Airborne Toxic Event
-Florence + the Machine
-Fanfarlo
-Metric
-Regina Spektor
-The Blue Violets
with music venues like The Venue, The Orpheum Theater, and The Commodore..i'd probably maybe someday come back to vancouver for a destination concert.

enjoy the music.

Ladyhawke @ The Avalon (10/03/09)

its a far distance from new zealand. so what does an american to do? watch the lord of the rings trilogy? i can't even get through the first one. watch jurassic park (sam neil is from new zealand)? my only copy is on vhs. watch true blood (anna paquin is from new zealand)? i don't have cable. knit a wool sweater? knitting?!? that's what the mall is for but i'm typing this late in the evening hours. i've been fortunate to have met a few new zealanders through my travels who have tried to get me to visit new zealand for some time now. obliged graciously however i've had to decline. probably far too many times the invitations have been limited to nonexistent. wah wah wah. in any event new zealand just got a little closer. Ladyhawke is a singer-songwriter with only one album on her table but from the looks of the size of the audience they can't get enough of her. to be honest my main purpose was to see ida maria for perez hilton presents. but due to unforeseen circumstance ida maria canceled. which left ladyhawke as well as semi precious weapons (who are doing very well in their own rite..opening for the sounds...you go boy! girl? definitely boy!!) and Julian Christian Perretta to their own. which was fine. the entire tour was screwed up. but it was fine i was there for the music. by the time ladyhawke was on stage it was good in the hood because i had a wonderful time. with such songs, "Paris is Buring," "My Delirium," "Another Runaway," oh who am i kidding the entire album is fantastic. it's still on my playlist called, "daily breath of fresh air" and to my surprise and those in the audience who don't subscribe to perez hilton's sms text messages/blog The Gossip was set to perform as a "surprise guest" i was surprised. i was blown away by The Gossip (Beth Ditto, lead singer of The Gossip is a fellow Razorback) from the lead singer to the drums to everything about the gossip captivated me. so much that i went to see them again at the henry fonda theater (entry will follow). in any event it was ladyhawke's show. caveat: destiny will find you even if you're not looking.

enjoy the music.

The Get Up Kids @ The Avalon (09/24/09)

apparently they were emo before what i think emo is today. Emo History Lesson The Get Up Kids are a far cry from what i'm use to mainstream emo of today kinda scares me. so i'll be listening to the original emo..broaden my horizons and follow the rainbow..sorry for the short entry but if you read the wiki entry that's probably enough information for this evening. but hey, now you can say you've learned something new..at least i did.

enjoy the music.

Soko @ The Bootleg Theater (09/22/09)

well, there it is..the list of musicians i want to see live is dwindling down slowly but surely. SOKO was one of those artists. i had heard of her a couple years ago (I'll kill her, i will never love you more) and since then i wanted to see her live. her voice is raspy/real. nothing produced about it. which only gets better towards the end of the show no matter how early in the morning it became. along the lines of ida maria without all the problems. in any event i've wanted to see her live and dreams do come true if you wait long enough. she played in what seemed like a makeshift theater turned music venue called bootleg theater. i was hoping for my first taste of moonshine but they only served beer and wine. its small but not crowded. imagine this: philip glass mid to late 60s everyone's trippin and feeling the music. bootleg theater was that kind of place. believe it or not i only had beer. the carne asada burrito before the show was not sitting to well. in any event it was intimate and comfortable. its safe to say probably one of the only places in los(t) angeles that you'll find the pre-spaceland crowd. the two acts before soko had a fantastic show (Chris Garneau, Penelope Fortier) definitely noteworthy. but it all came down to soko. the actress turned singer turned actress turned singer/songwriter was a bit late due to technical difficulties of garneau but it was worth the wait. some new/some old songs well into the next morning. if you couldn't guess the theme of the evening: french infused folk..which is probably one of my favorites of the genres. i've attempted to learn the french language but between the laziness and attention deficit problem probably not going to happen..unless, however, my french friend from paris visits sometime soon it might just happen...wink wink nod nod smile smile. btw soko still waiting for an actual album to be released. i don't know if it was the intimacy of the venue but she was really there w/ her audience. she acknowledged our presence more so than any other artist/band that just says, "thank you for coming out" with no set setlist it was like she was just jamming out with friends and you too were a friend of hers as well...which is refreshing. her songs are like a paul laurence dunbar poem:
"O burning doubt and long regret
O tears with which our eyes are wet,
Heart-throbs, heart-aches, the glut of pain,
The somber cloud, the bitter rain,"
but again thats real.
http://www.myspace.com/mysoko
i just checked and checked again she's playing at the henry fonda theater October 24th. fantastic! more room to enjoy.

enjoy the music.

Phoenix @ The Greek Theater (09/16/09)

I file this one under **NEW TO ME.** at The Greek Theater and with Metric opening for them how bad can this band be? French disco-pop never sounded so good (if i ever heard it nothing really comes to mind so late in the afternoon/early in the evening). more and more as the days go by since i've heard of phoenix they're everywhere!! i didn't realize how out of the loop i'm in on pop culture from tv commercials/films/tv shows. i had a fantastic time w/ friends and the thai food was yummy yummy. not necessarily considered a french band since they sing in english. but i'm waiting for their swan song french acoustic folk. it's somewhere out there. on the heels of their new studio album Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix they're physically everywhere. mostly on the european side of the atlantic i'm glad i saw them on this side of the pond.

enjoy the music.