My UCLA class in "DIY Music Marketing" is presenting this free concert at the Key Club's Plush Lounge next Friday, June 4th. Fifteen acts from seven different countries, and it's a benefit for a charity called GINA for the Missing. Please show up. I'd really like an "A" in this class.
Shooter Jennngs (yes, the son of THAT Jennings) performing at the Troubadour in Hollywood Saturday night. He performed his new psychedelic rock album "Black Ribbons" in its entirety, and then half a dozen songs from his previous albums as an encore.
I took a mini-roadtrip to Bakersfield yesterday for the Reckless Kelly show at the Crystal Palace. Before the show, I had the opportunity to visit the legendary KUZZ radio station, owned by Buck Owens before his passing. The station is HUGE, has several production and news studios, an in-house research team, its own print department, AND a full gym, complete with co-ed sauna. Buck's office remains exactly the way he left it, a shrine to the legend.
The crowd at the Palace didn't exactly seem to know what to make of the boys from Austin (the show was promoted as a KUZZ free listener-appreciation show, so much of the audience was unfamiliar with RK), but after three or four songs, they went CRAZY about the band - couples dancing, fathers dancing with their small daughters, and one little girl who was having a terrible time dragging her little boy friend out onto the dance floor. Just one more night to remind me why I love this music.
No trip to Seattle is complete without some live music, so when I got offered the chance to see Greg Laswell's sold-out show at the Tractor Tavern last night, I jumped at it. In the left foreground, you'll see his guitarist Brian Wright, who opened the show, and is someone to keep an eye on.
Tonight, Stephen Kellogg and the S6xers opened for a band called Need to Breathe at the Glass House in Pomona. I went as a guest of the S6xers, and left an uber-fan of both them and Need to Breathe (I wound up buying the first six albums from Stephen, as I already have his current one). Do yourself a favor and make your way to either the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles on Saturday, May 1st or the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach on Sunday, May 2nd. I'm going to the El Rey show, and if I wasn't working until 11pm on Sunday, I'd so be at the Belly Up Show, too. It's worth the trip. I PROMISE.
The inside of the door to the ladies' restroom at the Cinema Bar. Yay for our friends The Cheatin' Kind!