Re-Discovering the Sunset Strip: Viper Room, Trip Two (Part 2 of 3)
Second trip to the Sunset Strip. Viper Room.
Re-Experience. This is part two of the Sunset Strip re-experience.
Off to See: Tommy Peacock, Automatique, The Mulhollands, The Shakers.
For Super Bowl Sunday I hung out with some friends. Most of us were cheering for the New Orleans Saints. I’m a Pittsburgh Steelers fan so I wasn’t cheering for the Saints because I was all happy to see them win the Super Bowl. Obviously, I’d so much rather see the Steelers winning the Super Bowl. But there is a reason why I decided to cheer for the Saints: Drew Brees. (Yes, it has nothing to do with Hurricane Katrina.) Earlier in the season, the Steelers were playing the Chargers and after the game I noticed all these anti-Steelers comments up on Facebook being made by all my friends who are San Diego fans. Now the Steelers and San Diego have a bit of a rivalry, having met in the play-offs a number of times throughout the years. Drew Brees used to play for San Diego. In his last season there, he got injured during the last drive of the season and soon thereafter San Diego decided to ditch him in favor of Philip Rivers. What can I say; I wanted a knife to go into the backs of all those San Diego fans. Many, I’m sure, had to wonder if San Diego should have stuck with Drew Brees.
Parking. Sunday nights equals free parking on the Sunset Strip – at least until the City of Los Angeles decides they need more money and make the meters 24-7.
Missing Friends. I was talking with one of my friends at the Viper Room. We don’t see each other that often. We lamented the demise of one of our favorite local bands, Automatic Music Explosion. She mentioned how she hadn’t seen some of us for six months. The world of the local music scene: we form friendships with fans of various bands and then a band breaks up and our ties with each other are stretched. I had a similar conversation with someone else while hanging out at Club Moscow. I wouldn’t necessarily call her a friend, more of an acquaintance. I would see her around once a month or so at various Automatic Music Explosion sets. She came over to me during a break at Club Moscow and said, “It’s been so long since I last saw you.”
The Viper Room was rather empty when I first got there. Folks missed a good band called Vas Defrans. I have to admit I only caught their last two songs. I don’t believe they sang during those songs, just went on a long jam session. Next up was Tommy Peacock (pictured left). At this point, the Viper Room started to fill up. (more…)
NOTES FROM VIVACE – WHAT I LISTENED TO IN JANUARY…
The Mo-odds: “Bop Shu Bop”
Matt Kollar and the Angry Mob: “Cartwheels”
High Life Cavaliers: ” No Dead Set Plans Yet” (more…)
Notes From Vivace’s December Playlist
Finn Riggins - ”Hraka”
Casxio - “Boiling Point”
Widow Babies - ”Episode 1″
Black Gold – “Plans & Reveries” (more…)
OUT TO SEE: The Pixies
The First No. Before tickets went on sale, I learned via Facebook that many of my friends were excited about heading to the Palladium to see The Pixies. A friend asked me if I wanted to go to one of the shows. I declined. I feared that I wouldn’t be able to go, because I had an important work deadline scheduled for the first week of November.
The Second No. With a couple days before the Palladium dates, another friend asked if I was going to see The Pixies. I responded in the negative. I stated that I just didn’t want to spend the money purchasing a ticket to an event I wasn’t sure I’d get to attend.
Maybe. Of course, with the date closing in, I was starting to feel this urge to just go. Perhaps if I just got ahead of my work, it would work out, I thought. Around this time frame, I sent an e-mail to a friend asking how Monday night at the El Rey went. She responded back by saying that she didn’t know why I was asking that question. I was a little bewildered as she had told me how excited she was to head out to the El Rey to see the White Rabbits. It dawned on her that she’d totally forgotten about the concert and demanded to know why I hadn’t reminded her about it. I was like, Is it my responsibility to remind you about a concert you were planning on attending? After our brief e-mail argument about who was responsible for remembering that Monday date, she asked if I wanted an extra ticket to see The Pixies.
The Answer is Yes. (more…)
The Eagle Rock Music Festival
by Notes from Vivace
Eagle Rock Music Festival. I came across the Eagle Rock Music Festival three years ago. Since that time, I’ve placed it on my calendar as one of those yearly Los Angeles events I like to attend – such as the LA Times Book Festival and the International Tamale Festival (November 13-15, 2009, by the way). This year, I had a heightened excitement for the festival, because last year I skipped it. If I recall correctly, I thought it was going to rain and so I discounted it as a possible evening outing. When the weather turned out to be perfect a sense of disappointment swept over me, because I’d already made other plans with some friends – I know, somewhat pathetic since it is just a music festival.
When the band list came out on myspace I immediately took a look. I quickly realized that I was going to have a different experience this year versus my first year at the festival. This year was going to be fabulous, because I knew so many of the bands playing. The first time I’d gone, I hadn’t heard of any of the bands and it was a night of exploration. Exploration versus familiarity.
As the night of the festival came closer, I checked in with one of my friends to see if she planned on going. She was a go and gave me the name of the first band to see: Leslie and the Badgers. They were on at 6 p.m.
I spent Saturday afternoon hanging with some friends at Barnsdall Park. When 5 p.m. rolled around I said my good-byes and told a handful of them where I’d be if they wanted to hang out later in the day. All declined except for two friends who seemed rather excited about heading out. I told them where to find me and off I headed to Eagle Rock. (I never ran into them at the festival so I just assumed that they had decided not to come, but a week later one of them came up and told me how awesome the night was.) I parked at the Eagle Rock Shopping Mall where there was a free shuttle to the festival. Being a bit naïve about this since I’d always just parked closer to the event in previous years, I stood near the bus stop looking for a shuttle. I didn’t see anyone else hanging around for a shuttle so I just took off on foot.
I arrived at the Emerging Stage a little after 6 p.m., but the bands were a tad behind schedule so I got to see Leslie and the Badgers’ full set. I ran into my friend as well as a couple other friends during the set. After Leslie and the Badgers ended their set, we roamed around for awhile. During our roaming, we ran into another couple friends. This was suddenly becoming an awesome night of not only listening to bands, but also getting to hang with friends. A smaller group of us decided that we needed to get something to eat so the group split up with some of us crossing the street to Oinkster. Oinkster was crowded and I was concerned that we’d miss seeing some bands that we wanted to see, but the service was fast and the Oinkster staff was great.
We next headed over to the Razorcake Stage, but got sidetracked briefly at the Pep Boys stage where French Semester was playing. They sounded great, but we didn’t stick around too long as we wanted to continue up to the Razorcake Stage. (I have to say that I want to catch the French Semester sometime, because they really did sound good.) We then got sidetracked a second time at the Welcome Inn where Bonne Musique Zydeco played on the second floor walkway of the inn. There was a nice dance crowd in the parking lot. This is also where I found myself temporarily separated from my friends. I sent off a text message. I figured that perhaps they had continued on over to the Razorcake Stage, but when I got there none of them were there. I checked my phone and still hadn’t gotten a response back. So I circled back down and found them at the Welcome Inn. They were dancing away. Stupid me for not doing a full exploration of the Welcome Inn parking lot before heading off to the Razorcake Stage. (more…)
NOTES FROM VIVACE: (15) Days of Summer
The Upfront. Yes, I’m playing off of (500) Days of Summer,but we here at TRAffIK really liked that movie.
What’s going on here. Now TRAffIK did technically kill off summer with the following blog, but hey, I had a nice summer and wish to do my own summer exit. This blog is going to take a trip from Highland Park to the Sunset Strip and various other locations between these two music spots.
Aaron Beaumont. So my (15) Days of Summer launched with seeing my friend playing at Life on Wilshire. There was a nice group of supporters there, many being mutual friends of ours. This was my first time at Life on Wilshire. Life on Wilshire has a nice set-up that for some reason reminded me of the set-up at Cinespace, but a bit classier. His set included various friends joining him on stage such as Shane Alexander. This was the kick-off for his tour, which ends Oct 8th at Hotel Café.