MAXIMUM BALLOON

Dave Sitek of TV on the Radio's solo album Maximum Balloon has been out for well over a year now but I still keep it on steady rotation. Each song is uniquely awesome & the list of contributing artists includes some of my all-time faves.

Communion featuring Karen O


Groove Me featuring Theophilus London


Apartment Hunting featuring David Byrne


If You Return featuring Little Dragon

Chali 2na @ Central in Santa Monica - 11/19/11

Despite the fact I had spent 10+ hours drinking, watching football & stuffing my face with an incredible & HUGE pre-Thanksgiving (aka Friendsgiving feast) in Echo Park, I am SO happy I rallied to trek all the way back to Santa Monica late Saturday night to catch Chali 2na of Jurassic 5 & Ozomatli's midnight set at Central S.A.P.C.

Chali 2na is the fuckin man!!



Quality Control

Holy Ghost! @ The Music Box - 11/11/11

I was particularly enjoying Holy Ghost! at 11:11pm on 11/11/11 :-)

Do It Again


Closing Encore

M83 @ The Music Box - 11/9/11 = Show I WISH I'd Seen!

And why didn't I get to see M83 at The Music Box on Wednesday night?? Because scalpers are the devil. Bad people on Craigslist were trying to sell $30-35/ticket face value tickets for as much as $150 a pop! That then lead to many enraged ticket seekers posting their own ads on Craigslist just to say, "Fuck you, scalpers! I'm just gonna end up snagging a $20 ticket from 1 of you delusional & suddenly desperate dicks the moment M83 starts his set. You have no choice but to sell it for something versus not selling it at all & getting exactly what you deserve...fucked." Or something like that...haha. People, including myself, were PISSED. In the end, if I had made the effort to trek all the way to Hollywood at 10pm on a Wednesday in the hopes I might get lucky & find a reasonably priced ticket at the very last minute, I think it probably would've worked out but I was too exhausted to rally basely solely on a chance.

Of course, the next time M83 will be playing in the LA area is on 1/13/12 at Club Nokia when I'll be on my 10 year Semester at Sea reunion cruise to the Bahamas (tough life, I know) so I'm just going to have to wait a little longer to see him. I'm keeping my fingers crossed he'll be on the 2012 festival circuit & I'm optimistic I'll get to see him in the not too distant future. From what I can tell from the Youtube footage from Wednesday night's Music Box show, it's pretty much necessary to see M83 live.

Lykke Li & First Aid Kit @ The Fox Theatre in Pomona - 11/7/11

After waking up at 2:45am PST time last Monday morning to catch a 6:15am flight back to LA from Phoenix (last weekend’s time change set Arizona 1 hour ahead of Cali) then working a hectic & full 10 hour day at the office, I somehow managed to muster the energy to trek all the way out to The Fox Theatre in Pomona to see Lykke Li & First Aid Kit. All 3 of these beautiful & extremely talented Swedish women were more than worth the effort. I’d never heard of First Aid Kit before seeing them & now they’re a new favorite. I swear, sometimes I know don’t know how I do it…but, man, I’m SO happy I DO do it!!! J

First Aid Kit

LYKKE LI – Dance Dance Dance

LYKKE LI – Silent My Song featuring First Aid Kit

LYKKE LI – Little Bit

LYKKE LI – 1^st minute of Get Some

Days by The Drums

And our days go by & I never needed you...

Phantogram @ The Music Box - 11/4/11

You Are The Ocean <3

tUnE-yArDs & Cut Chemist @ The Music Box - 11/2/11

On the 1st Friday of January 2010 when I attended my very 1st First Friday event at The Natural History Museum at USC in Los Angeles, I had never before heard of tUnE-yArDs who was opening for Atlas Sound that night. Atlas Sound is Bradford Cox's (the lead singer of Deerhunter) solo project &, fittingly enough, his next album Parallax comes out tomorrow 11/8! Back then, I had NO idea what an incredible night of music I was about to experience.

Before tUnE-yArDs (aka East coast native Merrill Garbus) actually stepped out onto stage in The North American Mammal Hall where the crowd was surrounded by dioramas of animals in their natural habitats, all you could hear was a woman yodeling from an unknown location. Then Merrill took her place at the microphone (still yodeling) & started looping her own voice. Next came the ukulele & the drums & this one woman wonder just blew everyone away.

Fast forward almost 2 years (22 months to be exact)…after seeing tUnE-yArDs for my 2nd time at Sasquatch 2010, last Wednesday night, I saw Merrill for my 3rd time headlining her own show at The Music Box in Hollywood & she TOTALLY brought it!

Real Live Flesh (one of my TOP favorites...ESPECIALLY live!!!)

Trentemoller @ The Music Box - 10/27/11

Omg...I am SO behind on my shows from the past week! I saw Trentemoller last Thursday then tUnE-yArDs & Cut Chemist on Wednesday & now I'm about to rush out the door to see Reptar & Phantogram! P.S. ALL of these shows have been at The Music Box which is kinda crazy. Luckily, I love the old Fonda :-)

Anyway, I don't have time to say enough about Trentemoller but I can assure you he's an artist you MUST SEE live. I saw him at Coachella back in April thinking he was just your average, run of the mill DJ who'd be spinning some cool tracks on a couple turntables with perhaps a little pretty lighting. Boy was I wrong! Trentemoller performs with a live band & runs around the stage playing all kinds of different & unique instruments. He isn't a DJ. He's a fuckin MUSICIAN. Check it out...

Shades of Marble