‘PIONEER TO THE FALLS’ – MEET MICHELLE MARINI (PART I of II)
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(photos of Michelle Marini inside of the Woods by Jessy Plume for TRAffIK- click on images to enlarge)
Fresh from the grand opening of her new Downtown Los Angeles lounge, The Falls (626 S. Spring St. L.A, CA 90014), eternally youthful and fashion savvy Michelle Marini (co-owner of the Woods 1533 N. La Brea Blvd. Hollywood, CA 90028) has demonstrated time and time again to the “City of Angels” that she has staying power.
In a city where good-looking people can be found on every corner, it’s just as easy to write them off as it is to notice them. Why should we? They’ll be replaced by at least dozens more in just a few months or even weeks. San Francisco Bay area native Marini, is an exception to that rule. Possessing both good looks along with business savvy and an inclination towards the arts and creative expression (which she’s incorporated in some form or another into all of her ventures), Marini is anything but dismissible and has demonstrated that she can hang with the big boys without giving up her high-heeled shoes.
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Fashion is a “manifestation of my mood, changing every day, likely three times a day.”–Michelle Marini
On the surface, Marini may appear as just another typical Hollywood socialite type as she could rival many of those that appear on the covers, pages, and segments of “those” magazines and shows that plague the city with paparazzi. One of the first things you’ll notice about her is her fashion-forward attire. Although we would definitely agree that Marini, hands down has a much better fashion sense than most of those socialites (who more often than not count on the aide of stylists). Citing Rachel Zoe as someone whose style she admires, “I’d watch her show, Rachel Zoe Project, over and over, just drooling. Her vintage pieces captivated me the most.” Marini describes her fashion style as, “seeing fashion as a manifestation of my mood, changing every day, likely three times a day. I love the 60’s and 70’s eras most.”
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Her love for those eras was further exemplified after revealing that she would love it if moustaches (which she describes as so “70’s cheesy/sexy”) on men and big huge top hat sized bee hive fall type wigs (“60’s glam at it’s height”) made a comeback.
When asked if she felt there was anything lacking in the world of fashion this day in age, Marini stated, “The only thing I miss is that it’s impossible to make a defining statement with fashion. I was a teenage punker, really put some people off, which is exactly what I set out to do. You can’t accomplish that easily now, everything is accepted by the mainstream.”
Although a trendsetter from the womb and yet despite that “young punker” desire to be an individual, even her “How I Got to L.A.” story is actually quite relatable and typical of many of those that make up this city’s population. “[I] was at UCB [as] a Biology major, changed to Art and transferred to UCLA. Plus, I was dating the guitar player from SoCal Punk band TSOL, so that was a bit of the draw,” states Marini.
It was the following that solidified Marini as a rare individual, who walked the walk and not just talked the talk.
“I used to hang out at Three Clubs Bar an inordinate amount of time. Then, in 1992, there was hardly anywhere else to go. I figured Hollywood needed another bar and I’d be the gal to do it. And, no, I did not have an inch of experience at the time.”
A short time later the Lava Lounge was born (which a few years ago she turned into the Woods, but we’ll get to that), the friendly little tiki bar, which most Angelenos and visitors to the city will know this unassuming blonde from best.
Initially, the Lava Lounge was to be a haven for Marini’s expansive circle of friends, or as Marini describes “an 
intimate clubhouse,” however, due to it’s prime location in Hollywood (located off of Sunset Blvd. and La Brea Blvd.) “later, when it caught on, we had to have Gold Cards made with people’s names on them to make sure they could get in front of the throng,” Marini revealed.
Lava Lounge was an oddity among the surrounding establishments that made up the pretentious Hollywood nightlife, which inadvertently at times did become a “haven” to Hollywood celebrities who wanted to go somewhere where they could fly under the radar and have a drink. (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…)
SIRIA’S AUGUST PLAYLIST
You may notice there are a lot of songs from the 90’s on this month’s playlist. I may have been born in the 80’s, but it’s the 90’s music I clearly remember. The ironic thing is most of the music I would be fine with never hearing again is from the 90’s. This is the decade where record labels seemed to have handed out record deals like candy. I can’t even begin to tell you how many musicians I’ve met who were part of those signed bands. Some were hot for a minute or two, while others seemed to have gotten shelved and no promotion. Others are still getting paychecks from their 90’s fame.
Anyhow, I turned August into a “let’s listen to 90’s rock and alternative during the day” month, mainly because I am driving a Volvo from the 90’s until my car is ready (at this point it better be getting an overhaul and come back as a freakin’ Murcielago or Aston Martin) so I decided to fully embrace this decade. I went as far as to question my sanity and ask myself can I really just listen to 90’s music for a whole month?
Well I did it and there was a lot of good music I hadn’t listened to in forever and some I’d never even heard. This playlist may not be reflective of my last statement as it doesn’t necessarily show the cream of the crop and includes many mainstream acts, but it’s what played at 2:05 pm.
Sponge – “Molly (Sixteen Candles)”
Since this is Sponge’s second appearance on one of my playlists it may seem like I’m a huge fan. In reality aside from this song and “Plowed,” I’m not sure I know any more of their songs. I do like both of those a lot, so maybe I should re-visit some Sponge.
Dirty Filthy Mugs – “Tony and Vinny”
This is a local band. I saw this band play at Blue Star Cafe. I noticed Notes From Vivace also had one of their songs on his list, as well as another band they played with A Pretty Mess. These bands shared the stage with our friends of Pu$$y-Cow. It was a great show. I love my punk rock and these guys definitely knew how to bring it reminding me of Swingin’ Utters (with whom they’ve shared band members apparently). A bunch of us girls were overdue at another party and figured we’d stay for just a song or two, but after one song decided to catch a whole set. If you can get a bunch of drunk non-groupie type girls to stick around for your set as well as a bunch of guys who either play in punk rock bands or are used to seeing quality bands play, you’ve definitely got something.
On a side note: The bands on this bill are all owed big kudos as “dysfunctinal” was the theme of the evening, beginning with a no-show from the promoter who initially put the line-up together. None of these bands knew each other prior to this show, yet showed no hesitation to help each other with sound (there was no sound guy as well), mic stand malfunctions, and stood in the audience for each other’s sets. Seeing this happen is what makes me want to continue putting on music shows as time allows me. I hope seeing and experiencing stuff like this makes bands realize they don’t need promoters to put shows together for them. DIY people.
Seven Mary Three – “Cumbersome”
I actually really like this song and the lyrics
Barefoot Bride – “Swallowed”
A very common question that I received in the year 2005 and I’m sure bookers across LA did as well was “There’s these A&R people coming to check us out and we need to put on a showcase, can you help us?” I would like to see how much money was “expensed” by record label people in ‘05. Bands were being sweet talked, boozed, and shmoozed left and right. Record label execs would show up in limos and towncars to check out the bands packing the clubs. It was a fun year, but also a telling sign of the implosion that was coming. Few of those bands that were constantly asked to put on these “showcases” got record deals. I saw many a frustrated band dealing with this. Some did and were shelved.
Anyhow, this band featuring some nice OC guys had some of the biggest underground hype among A&R from various labels, they worked hard as did their management just like many other bands. They usually packed their shows and had cute girls showing up at all of their shows. Anytime, I hear one of their songs or other bands that I’m friends with that were getting all of this kind of attention it makes me think back to that crazy year. A year when everyone was having more fun than maybe we should’ve and bands were working hard at changing their own destiny.
Here is their video for “So Bad”
(click on the link for the rest of the playlist) (more…)
The Dollyrots and The Action Design
Introduction. Let’s start this off by talking about books. I am currently reading a book titled “House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street” by William D. Cohan. This book describes the events surrounding the collapse of Bear Stearns – a Wall Street firm. It is 450 pages long and I am currently on page 131. I’m slowly reading through the book and hopefully as soon as the Lakers-Magic Championship Series ends, I’ll speed through the rest of the book rather quickly because it has grabbed my attention. I recently read a book titled “Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism” by Kevin Phillips. This book also looks at our financial system. Kevin Phillips looks at the beginnings of our current economic crisis from a high level perspective while William D. Cohan focuses squarely on a specific Wall Street bank. Now why would I find reading books about our economic collapse so interesting? If you read my bio, you’ll notice I have a degree in economics so I rather enjoy reading about financial collapses and such. I can’t possibly spend all my reading time; however, reading about how depressing our current economic state is so I recently squeezed in Michael Crichton’s “Airframe,” a quick to read techno-thriller that he was so well known for – he also wrote books such as “Jurassic Park,” “Timeline.” (I use “was,” as Michael Crichton recently passed away.)
The Knitting Factory. The Knitting Factory holds a special place in my heart. I first got introduced to a number of cool local Los Angeles bands at this location: Bang Sugar Bang, Underwater City People, The Randies, Midway and Silver Needle to name just a few. (more…)
Tour Food! Part 1
Touring these days, for a band that’s not U2, is more or less a constant battle against the scent of people who haven’t showered in weeks, rapidly encroaching facial hair, diffident or non-existent audiences, and wracking doubt as to where the next tank of gas is going to come from. One thing that’s always made it nearly worthwhile for me, though, is getting to eat food at lots of different places across the country. Between three national tours (often accompanied by our good friends, rock and roll powerhouse New MaximumDonkey) and a number of smaller west-coast tours, we in Get Set Go have pretty much nailed down our favorite places to eat in most of the cities into which we roll, smelly, sleep-deprived, and unshaven. I will make the caveat that I am by no means any kind of food critic—in fact, thousands upon thousands of cigarettes have basically turned my palate into an ashtray. But it’s still an ashtray that likes Philly Cheesesteaks, and often I’m able to gauge whether something is tasty by how unhealthy it is. If I was the kind of guy who made maps, I’d make a map of America with these restaurants marked on it, but what the hell…nobody needs maps anymore, what with the internet and all. Oh, one last thing: for a nanosecond I considered putting links to these restaurants’ entries on yelp.com, but I don’t like most of the people who post comments on yelp.com. As with any other place on the internet where groups of people are asked to provide an opinion, around 85% of people posting on Yelp are an annoying mess of execrable grammar and noisy self-righteousness. Those are attributes that should be the exclusive domain of people who have their very own weekly columns.
TRAffIK Stopper – Heather Ellis
We love fashion. We love people. Most importantly we love and applaud the creativity that YOU people have. Being “fashionable” has many definitiions and manifests itself in many varied appearances and we want to see and share it all!
So every month we TRAffIK peeps will pick a new FASHIONISTA to feature. We might see ya out at one our favorite LA spots, at the super market, or just walkin’ down the street, and if we take notice of you stopping TRAffik with your “oh-so-rad” threads and sense of fashion then we’ll want to take that and throw you up on our site and learn more about you through a Q&A.
On these streets, we know there are all walks of life on display and we want share what you got goin’ on with all the other Angelinos who are in TRAffIK.
This month’s FASHIONISTA is San Francisco Native Heather Ellis. In this Q & A she gives us a brief overview on her sense of style, days as a punk-rocker, favorite designers, and where fashion stands today.
TRAffIK: Where are you from originally?
Heather Ellis: I am originally from SF, I moved to LA in 1999 to work in the music industry.
TRAffIK: What is your occupation?
Heather Ellis: I am a sales agent for a fashion showroom and a stylist.
TRAffIK: How would you describe your personal style?
Heather Ellis: My personal style is a mix of everything I love really, bits and pieces of my favorite fashion. I love Scandinavian fashion, especially Danish…and there’s always a little 80’s in there. Some people think the 80’s was a bad time in fashion but I think it was a very creative time in general, in fashion, music and art. Actually I think much of the fashion from the 80’s, especially street fashion, paved the way for so much of what we see today.