ONE of my favorite indie rockers is Ted Leo, a man of great integrity who channels The Jam, the Clash, King Tubby and Thin Lizzy. He usually records and tours with backup band the Pharmacists, but this weekend he makes a rare West Coast solo appearanceHERE is my interview with Leo; the piece runs in Friday's LA Times.We talked about his interest in Celtic music, the way he approaches melodies, how … [Read more...]
New Beer Shop in Echo Park
ONE of the Misread City's favorite LA hangouts in Colorado Wine Company in Eagle Rock: It opened shortly before we moved to the Eastside and has been a sort of neighborhood bar. Fans of the dedication to low prices and high quality -- as well as eccentric and small-batch wines -- this place serves up will be as excited as your humble blogger about the latest news.John and Jen Nugent, who own the … [Read more...]
Green Shoots — Eagle Rock
Neighborhood are complicated organisms – like a marriage or a human body, they can get better and worse at the same time as some aspects wax, others wane. That seems to be the case with Eagle Rock, the Northeast LA hood I’ve written about a few times, most controversially with this 2009 New York Times piece about the impact of the recession.Overall, of course, the Los Angeles economy has remained … [Read more...]
Eagle Rock and Small Business
TONIGHT I go to a wake of sorts for Paper, a shop on Eagle Rock's Colorado Boulevard. The shop sold cool books, smart gifts, letterpress printed cards, and leather journals -- exactly the kind of combination that signals the arrival of a neighborhood into bobo heaven.The closing of the store -- done in by the recession, of course -- is especially poignant because owner Shannon Bedell lost another … [Read more...]
"The Naked Pint"
AFTER years as a wine drinker, I've begun to reorient slightly back to beer -- I think this is happening to a lot of people, especially in LA. so I was delighted to come across the new book, "The Naked Pint: An Unadulterated Guide to Craft Beer." Author Christine Perozzi is a celebrated beer sommelier who founded beerforchicks.com and Hallie Beune helped manage Father's Office and taught at the … [Read more...]
Birth of a Wine Shop
ANYONE interested in wine, or how a small business gets off the ground, should check out this series of youtube videos about the birth of colorado wine company -- conceived as the dream of a restless young couple in brooklyn who left everything they had in new york to drive to eagle rock, LA, to build it from the ground up.HERE is the first of the four little segments of the show "radical … [Read more...]
Eagle Rock and Bourgeois Bohemia Imperiled
ON a crisp winter day, with snow glinting on the san gabriel mountains, air cleansed by a recent rain, and mighty oak trees looming over the quiet streets above colorado blvd, eagle rock can seem like the kind of place '60s bands used to write songs about. but these days, people aren't singing -- or if they are, it's in a bittersweet key.over the last few years northeast LA has become a kind of … [Read more...]