THIS weekend would been the 100th birthday of the man who may be my favorite architect -- he was voted runner up, just below Neutra, in this blog's Favorite California Modernist poll not long ago.Lautner's Chemosphere house, above the treesNot long after wild-man publisher Benedikt Taschen restored the Hollywood Hills-sited Chemosphere House, which had fallen into very serious disrepair, I wrote a … [Read more...]
Retro rock with LA’s Dawes
ONE of my favorite newish West Coast bands is the LA quartet Dawes, who both draw from the classical canyon rock of the 60s and 70s and work to carve their individual place in the tradition. The voices of Jackson Browne, the Byrds, Neil Young and others echo through their songs.HERE is my profile of the band in today's LA Times.I really enjoyed talking to singer/guitarist Taylor Goldsmith: We … [Read more...]
Two Weeks in Indie Rock
OVER the last few weeks I've seen a bunch of bands and gotten some good new albums by groups on tour; three of the four are from the Golden State. I'll have to be brief here, but I want to sign the praises of a few of them.The bands are:The Bixby Knolls:I've been hearing about these guys for a while now, so was happy to stumble into them at a show at the Silverlake Lounge about a week ago. There's … [Read more...]
Kickass swimmer Diana Nyad
NOT often do I venture far from my music-film-authors obsession to write about sports, but I could not resist the chance to speak to Diana Nyad, the record-breaking swimmer and NPR commentator who has decided, in her 60s, to swim more than 100 miles between Cuba and Florida.We spoke about regrets, physical endurance, killer sharks, nasty jellyfish and the importance of Neil Young for the site … [Read more...]
Rockin in 1970
ON Friday I have a New York Times review of an interesting if imperfect new book called Fire and Rain, which looks at the year 1970 and the making of four hugely popular records -- The Beatles' Let it Be, CSNY's Deja Vu, James Taylor's Sweet Baby James and Simon and Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water.If you love all these artists, by all means pick up David Browne's book. Otherwise -- as I get … [Read more...]
Downtown LA Bookstore for Sale
JUST shy of five years ago, I went to visit a sharp new bookstore in downtown Los Angeles. It arrived at a time when downtown, and particularly the Old Bank district, seemed to be sparking: Pete's had opened recently, and a video store and (if memory serves) good new Vietnamese place were a few steps away.The sudden appearance of Metropolis Books startled so many locals that some thought it was a … [Read more...]
New Music Festival in Venice
PLEASE NOTE: This is a post that went up last month; Blogger has misdated it. Trying to fix. Don't go to First Lutheran this weekend unless your aim is to praise the Lord.The Calder QuartetTHIS Saturday sees two programs of contemporary music, by composers well known and obscure, that tries to take the measure of the classical scene in 21st century Los Angeles. It's called Hear Now and includes … [Read more...]
MOCA’s "Art in the Streets"
THE other day I belatedly made it over to the Museum of Contemporary Art for its celebrated -- and blockbuster -- Art in the Streets show. I can't remember longer lines for a museum show; maybe Murakami or something.Overall, this seemed to me a strong and engaging show. If anything it was perhaps too large and complete, in its commandeering of the entire Geffen Contemporary space and aiming to … [Read more...]
Choreographer Meg Wolfe
A DARING and musically radical dance piece is coming to REDCAT next week. I imagine there is so much avant-garde work coming regularly through this little performance spaced nudged into the corner of Walt Disney Concert Hall that many of us tend to take it for granted. But this piece -- trembler.SHIFTER -- sounds truly rad, as the kids say.I had the chance to correspond with the piece's … [Read more...]
Neil Young Poll
Over here at The Misread City we've been spending a lot of time lately mulling on what makes West Coast music distinctive. We were hoping to launch a poll of best West Coast rock album (Forever Changes? Pet Sounds? Sweetheart of the Rodeo? Wild Gift?) but realized that for some artists there's no obvious best album.Neil Young may be the most extreme case of this. The Canadian associated with … [Read more...]