In anticipation of their upcoming exhibit Under the Big Black Sun: California Art 1974-1981, MOCA has this gem posted on their blog:

Ruscha’s Back of Hollywood will be part of the exhibit, which opens 1 October at MoCA’s Geffen Contemporary, along with 500-some other pieces “including documentary, staged, and conceptual photographs; abstract and representational paintings; freestanding sculptures, installations, and environments; performances and public demonstrations; narrative and documentary films and videos; zines and posters; ceramics and models; works on paper; decorative crafts and design objects; and ephemera.” Well okay then! I guess the last sensory overload at the Geffen, the street art exhibit, was so successful why not overstimulate us again, right?

If October 1 seems too long to wait, you can whet your appetite with the Ruscha exhibit at the Hammer. I haven’t been yet, but it’s on my short list. It a small show with just six large Ruscha canvases that all use text from Kerouac’s On the Road in front of snow capped mountains.

“This town is magic to me and it hasn’t grown old, and I love the colors and the layout and the mountains and the ocean and desert,” says Anthony Kiedis to Edward Ruscha as they drive down Sunset Boulevard.

Amen to that, say I.

Rafael Tovar's photo used through Creative Commons license

It’s hard to believe it’s been more than 30 years since Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures (1979) and Closer (1980) were released. For those of us whose formative years were the 80s, Joy Division was emblematic of a dark, introspective aesthetic that was, at the time, almost self-parodic. Even now, the quality of the music itself can be eclipsed by the specter of hipster couples with matching skinny jeans and “Love Will Tear Us Apart” tattoos in script on their forearms. Nonetheless, if you can look past the silliest of the fans, and give them a fair listen, it’s hard to argue with the fact that Joy Division’s music is just damn good. Closer and Unknown Pleasures are among the very best post-punk albums ever.

And guess what, kids? You have the chance to hear Peter Hook, who once upon a time was Joy Division’s bassist and backing vocalist, and the Light perform either Closer at the Music Box on Wednesday the 14th or Unknown Pleasures at the El Rey on Friday the 16th. And, to make it even more special, Moby will be singing a couple of Joy Division songs at both shows. I have a free pair of tickets to the show of your choice to one lucky reader. All you have to do is leave a comment below telling me which show you’d prefer to see. A winner will be chosen randomly by the end of the day Monday. Please be sure to leave a current email address when you comment and watch your email Monday night/Tuesday morning. Enjoy (or something).

Arthur Adams at Sunset Junction '08. Courtesy our own Burns!

In the end, even Live Nation couldn’t use its deep pockets to bail a lil’ ol’ community-oriented street festival out: an apparent $100,000 loan from the conglomerate notwithstanding and a ridiculous attempt to raise more money from the community – on top of the $25 it already charges for entry – it looks like Sunset Junction is cancelled.  The organizers apparently failed to solidify their permitting situation before selling tickets to the public, renting space out to the vendors, and booking the bands:  according to the city, some $141,000 in fees were past due, and have been for the past year.  Like that time your parents forgot one too many times to pay the electricity bill, the Board of Public Works finally just turned off the festival’s lights this morning.

But, as this is the Festival That Just Won’t Die Gracefully, the organizer’s attorney told LA Weekly soon after the Board’s decision: “Were gonna go back and review our options.”  That said, the organizers have indicated that there will be refunds (a recent tweet: “Lets not lose our faith, web site is down & Tickets $ will be re inverse to all of fans who supported, please do not panic (vendors,fans etc)”), but still are decrying the injustice of it all on their Facebook page and in a press release.

In spite of the cancellation, there may be a few performances this weekend yet.  LA Weekly also reports that El Cid’s stage will remain open “because they never received – and thus never signed – official contracts from the festival.  They’re also opening another free stage for displaced bands at nearby sister club Los Globos.”

Click for Attribution

It’s the 2nd Annual Health Awareness Benefit Concert
Featuring live performances by Snoop Dogg with Tank, New Boyz, Uneek Music All Stars and special guest DJ Greg Streets

Want Tickets?
Send an email to blacontests@gmail.com and winners will be picked at random. Email must contain your full, legal name as it appears on the ID you will show at the Will Call Booth when you win!

Hurry! I need winners by tonight!

Oh, you know the Eels.  Well, unless you somehow missed the last decade of television and movies, you know them.  They’ve popped up when angst required background music (Chuck, Shrek, probably too many Grey’s Anatomy episodes to count).  It’s angst with a beat, though, and Mr. E’s wonderfully gritty, woeful voice.

The Eels are playing a show next Friday, August 12, at the El Rey, and we’ve got some tickets to give away.  The Submarines - a local band that you may recognize from their many residences at The Echo, or maybe from their anti-capitalist anthem that made it unironically into a few iPhone commercials – will open.   To win tickets to this great show, leave a comment with your favorite Eels song.  Major bonus points if you can name your favorite Eels song used in a movie or television show.  Good luck!

You would not believe your eyes, if ten million fireflies, lit up the world as I fell asleep…

Addictingly catchy, Owl City is a great band to see in concert & they’re on tour with their new CD “All Things Bright and Beautiful.” Adam Young tells us that…

The music and lyrics conspire to make listeners feel as if they were stepping into another world — a verdant musical dreamland where “reality is a lovely place, but I wouldn’t want to live there,” as [he] sings on the opening track “The Real World.” Images of abundance, like a backyard of butterflies (“Honey and the Bee”), blossoms filling a room (“Hospital Flowers”), and “sunsets that dazzle in the dusk” (“Dreams Don’t Turn To Dust”) unfold alongside starry-eyed imaginings of cherry bombs staining blackbirds red (“Kamikaze”) and dipping one’s toes in the galaxy (“Alligator Sky”).

They’re playing two shows!!
7/21 || Owl City with Mat Kearney, Breanne Duren @ Club Nokia
7/23 || Owl City with Unwed Sailor @ Fox Theater Pomona

Thanks to our friends at Goldenvoice, I have a bunch of tickets to give away to lucky Blogging.LA Readers! Please leave your comments below (and specify which concert you’d like to attend) and I will pick some lucky winners Tuesday July 19th @ 12PM PST. **Update** Winners picked.  Still have a pair for FOX Pomona, if anyone still wants!

You can also buy tickets here: http://www.goldenvoice.com/shows/details/?id=31090

Sure, it’s no Cinnabon, but Soundgarden’s show at The Forum next Friday is bound to be rockin.

Soundgarden was one of my favorite bands as a teenager. I plagiarized some of their lyrics in one of the first poems I ever wrote. The first band t-shirt I ever wore, which I stole from my older brother, was from their Superunknown tour circa ’94/95. I felt like a rock star when all the other kids in the 8th grade kept asking what the logo—a superman symbol with a ‘?’ in place of the ‘S’—meant. A couple years later, the song “Pretty Noose” was on repeat in my head the first time I ever ate mushrooms.

Now blogging.la has the chance to make one lucky reader feel like a rock star with a free pair of tickets (mushrooms not included) to see Soundgarden and The Mars Volta play next week here in LA:

KROQ presents
Soundgarden
The Mars Volta
Friday July 22, 2011
The Forum
Show time: 8:00pm
Door time: 6:30pm
Age: All Ages+
Complete Details | Buy tickets

For a chance to win, tell us about a Soundgarden (or The Mars Volta) memory in the comments section by 12noon on Tuesday, July 19th. Bonus points if you’ve plagiarized any of their lyrics for bad teenage poetry.

I have no problem at all admitting that Fucked Up is one the few bands that have surfaced in the last few years that have really caught my attention. Beyond that, they’ve got a strangle hold on it. Seriously, just watch the video above for “Queen of Hearts” from their newest album and just try to tell me there isn’t something seriously awesome going on. When was the last time you saw a music video with actual actors?

I’ve been pretty obsessed by these guys for quite some time and after I saw them play a while back all of my suspicions of their greatness were confirmed 10x. And now they are coming back, and I have a pair of tickets to give away. They are playing at The El Rey on July 26th with Trash Talk and FIDLAR. If I were you I’d just say screw this risk and go buy tickets right away. But if you are feeling gambley and want to try and convince me why I should give you these tickets free then do it in the comments below. Sometime in the next day or two or three I’ll scream “THAT’S IT!” and people around me will think I’m nuts, but what it will mean is no more comments and then I’ll pick whoever makes the best case. Or makes me laugh. Go for it.
photo by Daniel Boud

Bobby McFerrin

Give or take a couple hundredths of a percent, about 97.7526% of the world’s ears were introduced for better or worse to Bobby McFerrin by way of his unlikely 1988 No. 1 poptart Don’t Worry, Be Happy. But thankfully my pair met the a capella fella two years earlier when I went to see the 1986 film ‘Round Midnight, albeit unknowingly. I say unknowingly because Herbie Hancock’s version of the movie’s title track featured what my wondrous ears thought was an awesome trumpeter named Bobby McFerrin, and subsequent plays of the cut on LA’s then-jazz station KKGO made me go out and by the album. It was only when surveying its liner notes, which listed McFerrin as a vocalist, that it dawned on me that Bobby played himself and not a piece of brass. Blown away, I immediately went out and bought his 1984 album The Voice, an amaaaaaazing solo jazz vocal recorded with no accompaniment or overdubbing. To date I have listened to it 867 times.

But back around its 91st spin on my turntable in the summer of 1987 I luckily stumbled on the information that McFerrin was to be part of an upcoming night of jazz at the Hollywood Bowl, along with Sarah Vaughn and Modern Jazz Quartet, and I scraped the money together for cheap seats for me and my then-fiancee to be present.

Read the rest of this entry →

4th of July 2007 by Jodi

We are giving away tickets to the Hollywood Bowl’s 4th of July Fireworks Spectacular!

This year’s extravaganza features America’s favorite blue-eyed soul duo, Daryl Hall & John Oates, performing with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, led by Principle Guest Conductor Thomas Wilkins (he’s wonderful!)

The evening will be capped off by the always impressive Hollywood Bowl fireworks. I’ve been to many, many fireworks shows at the Bowl and have been amazed and delighted every time. Every Angeleno should experience it at least once!

Leave a comment below and you might be the lucky reader chosen to win a pair of tickets to this year’s Hollywood Bowl 4th of July Fireworks Spectacular!

Congrats Edgar Ybarra! I hope you enjoy the show! It should be fantastic!

I have a bunch of Tickets to give away for The Dropkick Murphy show July 1st at the Fox theatre in Pomona!

Yeah, Pomona. Yeah, I know. But it’s Dropkick! With The Tossers, She’s A Kreeper and The Parkington Sisters!

Plus, and I don’t KNOW yet, but MAYBE, I might have some tickets to see them at The Hootenanny, with The Reverend Horton Heat and The Murder City Devils, July 2nd!! Now THAT is going to be an Awesome show!

Now here’s the thing: I really don’t know if I have the Hootenanny tickets to give away. If I do, you don’t get to choose, you might get one show, you might get the other, you may very well get both. Enter by leaving a comment on this post.

But understand this, and I’m serious here, anyone who posts that they are only interested in one show or the other is immediately disqualified. You makes your post, you takes yer chances. All entries must be in by Thursday, which happens to be my Birthday.

So, post in the comments to enter the contest and GOOD LUCK!

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, popular LA-based Umami Burger has certainly generated some buzz for themselves in the last couple years in their mission to raise awareness of the oft-overlooked “Fifth Taste.” While I humbly admit that I have certainly not done anything remotely resembling a comprehensive search for the best burger in LA—no I have not tried Five Guys or the Hamburger Habit yet—when I’m craving a burger, Umami and the Counter stand about equal chances of getting my business.

This morning a post over at 8asians caught my attention, featuring the following video in which LA-based girl group Umamiya shills for the popular burger joint:

Coachella has announced that it will now take place over TWO SEPARATE WEEKENDS.

We will attempt to produce two identical festival weekends. That means same lineup, same art, same place, different people.

What could possibly go wrong?

Photo by Burns! Image gets bigger with a click; the tiny guitar doesn't.

Bruce Cockburn is coming to the El Rey in Los Angeles next week in support of his 31st studio album, Small Source of Comfort. Thanks to our friends at Goldenvoice, Blogging.LA has your free tickets. Read on…

Cockburn is one of my favorite recording artists, but when I mention him friends are often unfamiliar. He has a pretty solid fan base here in the U.S., but north of the border, in his native Canada, Cockburn is a legend.  In a career spanning four decades he has received 13 Junos (Canadian Grammys,) seven honorary doctorates, he’s in the Canadian Music Hall Of Fame, and next month will be featured on a postage stamp issued by Canada Post.

Cockburn often tours solo, but this time out his deep, soulful lyrics and virtuoso guitar playing will be backed up by a full band. Opening the show will be violinist Jenny Scheinman, also featured on Small Source of Comfort. (Samples of the new album can be heard at that link, by the way.)

It seems Bruce Cockburn only passes through Los Angeles every few years, so don’t miss this rare opportunity to see a truly fantastic performance.

Want to join me at the El Rey next Tuesday night? I’ve got a few pairs of tickets for lucky B.LA readers. Just leave a note in the comments section below telling me why you want to see this show. Winners will be chosen at my whim and notified via email.

What: Bruce Cockburn live
Where: The El Rey Theater
When: Tuesday, 31 May 2011. 8:00pm.
Win: Leave a comment below

Don’t want to wait for tickets? There are still some available for purchase here.

Yes, admitedly, “robot pianos” is a slightly hyperbolic description. Tomorrow night, Monday May 23, some friends of mine in the Ethnomusicology Archive at UCLA are hosting “Ethnickelodeon,” a really neat concert of vintage pianola music. The pianola is a player piano, the old-timey kind that play music off of paper rolls. Apparently, operating the controls of the pianola is a bit of an art-form: so Monday night’s event won’t just consist of a ghostly piano playing by itself on an empty stage, but will feature Bob Berkman, a master of the pianola genre and an expert on automated instruments,

operating the controls. Berkman recently donated a huge collection of folksongs on piano rolls to the Ethnomusicology Archive, and is coming down from Buffalo, NY to play some of those rolls.  You can see him in action, playing a Lithuanian tune, here .  Apparently there was a huge market for culturally-specific folk tune piano rolls during the early 20th century, as immigrants from abroad were moving to the US, so you can expect to hear Finnish, Jewish, Russian, Hungarian, Croatian, Ukrainian, Italian, Syrian, Greek, West Indian, Mexican, Argentinean, and Cuban music, as well as jazz, bluegrass, and classical. The concert is 7pm in Popper Theatre in Schoenberg Hall at UCLA, and admission is free.

After hearing about the concert, I was wondering if, given LA’s longstanding history as a center of the entertainment world, there was ever much of a pianola industry here. The all-knowing Wikipedia tells me that the Los Angeles Art Organ Company attempted to manufacture a pianola-like device, but was sued for copyright infringement by the Aeolian Company of New York. (The image of their factory, at left, is from the LA Public Library Photo Collection – I can’t track down an address for the building, unfortunately!) The Southern California Music Company, which is now based out of Glendale, and is one of the oldest operating stores in California (they opened in 1880), sold piano rolls and other related equipment – the ad above, from a 1911 edition of the California Outlook is for a pianola attachment that turns regular grand pianos into player pianos.

There are more details about Monday’s concert here, and you can find out more about the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive on their blog, the EAR.