Amoeba Music Film Night

I am going to this indie music film tonight with a colleague:

http://www.amoeba.com/content/amoeba-music-space15twenty-present-monday-movie-nights.html

It's about a local L.A. band, and it sounds pretty awesome. I'll give a review shortly.

The Big Apple

At last, I have a music-related topic to post about. I finally found a good enough deal on the MacBook Pro I need to record my songs, and I bought it recently. I found it online, at MacMall, an authorized reseller you can link through to from the Apple website. They had last year’s model at a discount with additional rebates that totaled $180.00 for the notebook and software, all of which brought the price down nearly $500.00 from retail. I paid for it on a Friday and it was delivered the next Monday before noon. I set it up that night with antivirus software, iWork and iLife. I also installed my digital camera upload software, transferred all of my photos into the new machine and started posting more photos to my Flickr account. I also have huge amounts of poetry, lyrics, research and other written material that I need to dump into the machine and organize. I ordered a black plastic cover for it, too, and my friend is going to refer me to a design shop that can etch the case with my FLEUR D’AMOUR logo, sweet. I still need MIDI equipment, more memory, an external drive, renter’s insurance, and a better waterproof laptop bag, but this is real progress. I plan to take classes at the Apple Store and UCLA this summer to maximize my Logic Pro investment.

Benign Neglect

I've been absolutely horrible about updating this blog lately. The only real reason is that I have been tired. I also haven't done as much music stuff lately as I was doing for a while - this economy is so wretched I am just working on my own books and not writing for any magazines. I did go to one show recently, and it fizzled out early - I tried to see modwheelmood once more at Spaceland, and once again, it did not work out. I give up. mwm was billed with the headliner, Sara Lov, who was doing a residency, so you would think that she would be the final act of the evening, am I right? Well, I was wrong, and I had to give up at 11 pm, because I had to get up really early the next day. At least the food at Leela Thai was good. I am cursed with mwm, and I really do give up trying to make a live show. Some things are not meant to be in this lifetime. Three strikes and it's over.

I have been making progress in the realm of moving forward with my own music. I have finally narrowed down exactly the kind of Apple laptop I need. I plan to get a MacBook pro, the 15 inch model, 2.4 GHz and soup it up with 4GB memory and the 320 GB hard drive. I talked to three different Apple reps, two via the chat function on the website, and one via phone, and they all recommended the same schematic. Awesome. Now all I've gotta do is save the money. I have some put back, hopefully I can get it in a month or so. I bought a little Acer netbook for my writing projects, but there is no way it will work for memory. It's basically like an electronic spiral notebook. It's good for email and book edits, which is what I wanted it for, but I need vast amounts of memory for music.

I am getting ready to rev up again on my Etsy craft and vintage site, too - I took lots of photos last night for new merchandise that I need to list on it. I sort of gave up on it lately; the economy is so bad that I've hardly sold anything, even over Christmas, so it did not feel worth the effort when I had plenty of other things to do, but now I am getting back into it. I set up a corner of our artspace in the warehouse attached to where I live as an interesting backdrop and took pictures last night. My housemate, viedo artist Robb Pope, was hanging out in his office up there, too, and had a constant stream of great electronic music going the whole time. It felt more like play than work, always a good sign. Check the Etsy link soon if you want to see what I will be adding - some nice vintage stuff will be going up soon.

Divisadero/Marvelous Toy/One Trick Pony

I went out as promised last Friday night and attended a dual CD release party for two local bands, Marvelous Toy and Divisadero, with special guests One Trick Pony. The show was at Pehrspace, a non-profit venue and art space in Historic Filipinotown (just south of Echo Park). It’s BYOB with friendly habitués, the kind of place where the bands sell their music out of suitcases after the show, and it has an awesome artist-friendly policy: with $5 cover, 60% of their proceeds go directly to the musicians that play and the rest goes to pay rent, utilities, etc. The crowd was near capacity all night and the music-loving audience was truly appreciative of all of the performers. The first act One Trick Pony performed as a three-piece, with guitar, violin, percussion and textured vocal harmonies. Randolph Williams III formed the band in 2003 and his former manager Jenny Teixeira joined later as drummer. Williams' voice is soulful and his lead vocal meshes well with Teixeira's soprano backing; violinist Charlene Huang provided haunting strings to the core duo for this show. There is poetry in One Trick Pony's lyrics and a quality of longing that's very touching. They played a short set, intended to end with the one-two gut-punch of "Children I" and "II", but their audience wheedled more, and the band gladly obliged with an encore song (with Huang in an aside to Williams, "I really like this place!).

The second band Marvelous Toy was on board to celebrate the release of their second collection, All Is Quiet. Founder Jordan Hudock fronts the band on vocals, guitar and keys and also writes the songs, flanked by his brother Cody Hudock on keys and sleigh bells, Franck Fiser on drums and percussion and Ny Lee on backing vocals, piano and glockenspiel. Bassist Justin Fields pitched in for the Pehrspace show, with Hudock saying, "He makes us sound like a good band!" They played a mix of music from the new CD and older songs - one highlight was "You Were Brighter," a song from The Disappearing Heart (the group’s first CD) that has a memorable video, viewable on their MySpace page. One Trick Pony played only a handful of songs due to time constraints, but Marvelous Toy delivered a longer set of nine tunes, closing with two great numbers from the new EP: "The City is a Washing Machine," a love-hate song to Los Angeles, and what may be their strongest track to date, "Waiting for the Fire." This song has settled into me for a long run since the show, and I told Jordan that he needs to get it into a movie - it's very dramatic and melodic and would lend itself really well to film. Marvelous Toy manages to combine modern indie pop with a Western sound to make something that is truly unique.

The final band Divisadero opted for a full-on orchestral effect, bringing nine people to the stage for an epic set. They were debuting their new release Lefty, a concept album about the life of a boxer during the Dust Bowl era. With influences ranging from Woody Guthrie to Sonic Youth, the lineup included everything from saw and spoons to churning bass, heavy guitar, a cello and another guest appearance by Charlene Huang on violin. A loop of atmospheric black and white film imagery was projected onto the wall behind them throughout, elevating the show to the level of performance art. I have to say, I was absolutely entranced. The combination of the moving images and the wall of sound created an effect like a cascading waterfall of energy. I sat on the floor right in front and absorbed the spectacle for over an hour, and when I left I still felt tingly from all of the sensory input.

It's easy to see the motivation for each of these groups - these performers threw themselves into their music heart and soul like mad, passionate lovers. It was beautiful to see, and I found it all very inspiring. I also love Pehrspace and plan to go back as soon as possible - it's exactly the kind of place I want to support.

Check out the following MySpace profiles for more info on these bands:

One Trick Pony: http://www.myspace.com/onetrickpony

Marvelous Toy: http://www.myspace.com/marveloustoy

Divisadero: http://www.myspace.com/soundsofdivisadero

And last but not least, Pehrspace: http://www.myspace.com/pehrspace

Marvelous Toy at Pehrspace - New Music Release Party

I am going to Pehrspace tonight in Echo Park for the CD release party for this band:

http://www.myspace.com/marveloustoy

I reviewed their first CD for Performer Magazine (quoted on their website, here: http://www.marveloustoy.net/press.html) but have never made it to a live show. There's a bar-b-q in the parking lot beforehand - this should be fun. I'll do a followup review of the show.

All I See Is Darkness

This is so funny.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/18/fashion/18GOTH.html?_r=1&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin

I may be grown up, but I am still Goth-identified.

Music Industry Self-Destruct Mode Continues

Here's an interesting music-related article:

http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=130766

I especially like the description of the business as "delusional." That's just spot-on.