Honey, Honey: Re-Discovering the Sunset Strip – Viper Room, Trip One
Re-Experience. Here’s a brief quote about me in the intraffik.com contributors section: “. . . you’ll occasionally see him at music venues across Los Angeles – from Mr. T’s to The Key Club and various in between locations.” It occurred to me that I’ve given a lot of love to North-East Los Angeles recently. Now this is mainly driven by the fact that I live near the music venues in this area and so it is just easier for me to see bands at Spaceland versus say The Key Club. To provide some proof, here’s my column “What I Listened to in February” with venues assigned:
Seamonsters: Silverlake Lounge
Venus Illuminato: Silverlake Lounge
The Muddy Reds: Silverlake Lounge
Rich Podgur: Kibitz – the farthest west of the bunch
Open Hand: Spaceland
Year Long Disaster: Spaceland
Obi Best: Spaceland
Eastern Conference Champions: Spaceland
Asa Ransom: Spaceland
Hockey: Spaceland
My January list has a broader music venue scope, but it also has a high focus on bands playing in North-East Los Angeles. Kibitz was once again the farthest west I got. There was also Club Moscow at Boardners (Hollywood) and Fox and Hounds (Studio City), but then North-East Los Angeles popped up with regularity: Spaceland, El Cid, Echo Curio and the Bootleg Theatre.
Do you see where I’m going? It was time to head to the Sunset Strip.
Three years ago, I was heading to the Sunset Strip on a monthly basis. Those trips started to dwindle over the years, but recently I found myself there three times in a period of a week.
First Trip to the Sunset Strip. Viper Room
Off to see Honey Honey. (more…)
OUT TO SEE…YEAR LONG DISASTER
A friend recently returned to the United States from South Korea. She is teaching English across the Pacific and is on a two month long vacation. To celebrate her return, we decided we’d head off to check out the local music scene. Via e-mail, I suggested two places as possibilities: either Spaceland or Silverlake Lounge. I also gave her a couple myspace links so that she could listen to the residency bands at both locations and decide which she liked best. We ran into some immediate problems. I didn’t realize that her Internet access was spotty (she didn’t have a cell phone as she’d cancelled her cell phone plan when she left for South Korea). I started to feel some pressure when I got a text from another friend asking what the plan was.
After finally exchanging some e-mails (she headed off to the library), she said she wasn’t able to listen to any of the bands at the two venues and wanted me to make the decision. I replied back saying we’d go to Spaceland and if she’d just call me to determine an appropriate time to pick her up.
She called me up later, using her mother’s phone. Unfortunately, I was on my work phone with my boss when she called. So when I picked up my cell phone, I asked if she’d call me back in five minutes. She didn’t call back. After 30 minutes, I decided I better call her back. She didn’t answer. I waited another thirty minutes before calling again and got her mother who promptly hung up on me. Hmm . . . I called back. The phone was handed over to the daughter. All was settled and so I sent a verification of location and time to our other friends via text messages.
(The six hours or so that the above planning unfolded over made me feel like I was living in the aftermath of “2012” or in the middle of “Book of Eli” or “The Road.” Technology had taken a step back and I was at a total loss on how to function without it. If the post-apocalyptic world ends up anyway like “The Road” you surely don’t want to travel along side me because we’ll be fresh meat for the cannibals.)
I got to my friend’s house and was immediately offered something to eat. Do you want some dinner? – no, really, I think we should just head off to Spaceland. Have a brownie? – which was promptly put into a sandwich bag. How about some Korean candy? – I was given a handful and decided to have one. Nasty, and promptly returned the additional candies back into the bag, sorry for offending. Have some sweet bread? –no, seriously, we should go.
We got to Spaceland and a couple of our friends were already there. (more…)
Out to See…ZAZA
I like to take random individual day-offs throughout the year. In mid-December, I took my last random day off of 2009. What did I do on this day?
I started off doing some typical holiday shopping. I spent the morning shopping at the Citadel Outlet Mall, bought some clothes. I spent the longest amount of time looking at running shoes. I try to exercise four times a week. My current (old) running shoes were long past their replacement date so I looked around a handful of stores, looking at various pairs of shoes.
From there I headed off to Hollywood Park for horse racing. I’ve always been intrigued by horse racing. I grew up reading the Black Stallion books. Someday I’d love to see all the Triple Crown races in person. I placed some bets. I bet rather conservatively, at least in my opinion, attempting to keep losses/gains in a low range of plus or minus $20. During the first three races I didn’t place any winning bets. I decided to develop an on the fly mathematical formula to make future bets. It wasn’t anything exotic, just adding variables together. And amazingly my luck turned around. I’m convinced I’ve found the mathematical horse racing formula equivalent to card counting in Vegas. Okay, so this over-confidence is how the next time I head off to the tracks I’ll lose $50 dollars versus winning $10 this time around.
After all that fun, I got stuck in traffic for about an hour, which drained all my excitement about my winning $10 at the races. As soon as I got home I took an hour nap.
I wasted some time doing who knows what and then it was Spaceland time. ZAZA, a band from NY, was playing at Spaceland. I previously saw ZAZA opening up for IO Echo at the Echoplex in early 2009. (more…)
Notes From Vivace’s December Playlist
Finn Riggins - ”Hraka”
Casxio - “Boiling Point”
Widow Babies - ”Episode 1″
Black Gold – “Plans & Reveries” (more…)
Notes from Vivace’s October Playlist
The Belleville Outfit – “Caroline”
The Henry Clay People – “Something in the water”
Aushua - “Tuck (How it Feels Away)”
Happy Hollows - “Tambourine”
Pity Party – “Wanting Want”
The Boxing Lesson - “Dark Side of the Moog”
The Health Club – “Fragile”
The New Hotness - “Can You Feel Me”
The New Fidelity – “Right Track”
New Maximum Donkey – “Sting”
Random comments: Saw Happy Hollows at their Spaceland CD release party. It was an awesome set. Pity Party also played with them. They’re a two piece band. The New Hotness has these awesome riffs. Six of these ten bands I saw at Spaceland. Yes, I’ve spent a lot of time at Spaceland recently.
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.