[contextly_auto_sidebar id="MSKRrA0yUeF2He6kLUhFxQKSROhnm7wv"] OVER the last two weeks I've been speaking about tradition with a number of accomplished women. My final installment includes a bit of a twist: The essayist Meghan Daum told me about a tradition she considers dangerous. Overuse of the "I" in storytelling is crowding out the larger world, she says. ...I feel like 70 percent of what … [Read more...]
Artists and the Cost of Living
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="32NG0O50Xp95O5D44s23SJZqusoP0VKy"] WE see it again and again: A marginal -- rough, industrial or just boring -- neighborhood attracts artists and musicians and generates an "edgy" reputation. For a few years, good things happen. But after a while -- and, often, a benign explosion of coffee shops and bike paths and cheese stores -- the artists and musicians and fellow … [Read more...]
Aimee Mann: Roots of a Songwriter
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="5wVQPpeXfr5y5GvZGvwRO9ZOy20krZOV"] DESPITE our relentlessly gloomy attitude about the world of music and the arts, we CultureCrashers are major fans of Aimee Mann. We spoke to the LA-based singer-songwriter about artists who taught her something about songcraft -- Dylan, Elton John, Gilbert O'Sullivan, about her first steps into writing, and the importance of song … [Read more...]
Real Estate (the Band) on Tour
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="wRRw3JLQoSxprdFO5k1TrAn3nktFHxu3"] LAST night I had the pleasure of seeing of my favorite current indie-rock groups play at the Belasco Theater in downtown Los Angeles. They remind me of several bands of past and present -- The Velvet Underground, the Feelies, Luna, the Clientele -- and have these gently transporting guitar harmonies. It will be hard to hear on a … [Read more...]
“Dido” and “Bluebeard” at LA Opera
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="AkwrwxM6eGKNL3GVzj0NAKOSml0rfK6D"] YOUR humble blogger came out of a performance of Duke Bluebeard's Castle yesterday reminded of what a bloody genius Bela Bartok was -- and I mean that just about literally. The production at Los Angeles Opera is brutally sharp, filled with sexual menace. The swelling, at times astringent music itself offered a dark kind of beauty to … [Read more...]
Slowcore with Bell Gardens
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="9vD3GSedRH3Lhfh77m4o9JwPwkkIwNAN"] A FEW years ago I went to the LA club I still think of as Spaceland to see an indie rock band; I think it was Army Navy. The opening band seemed to have a lot of people, and they opened very slowwwly... but by the end of their set I'd been transported. They're somewhere between Radar Bros and Sigur Ros. That group -- LA's own … [Read more...]
Saariaho: Finnish Composer
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="CRRqStIBmpYdmSguLgIo8y1dooOQBZsV"] ONE of the several nice things about conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen being back more solidly in Los Angeles, where he has a post with the LA Phil, is the steady infusion of strong new or modern music from Scandinavia, a region which has been on a roll for the last few decades. Last night I saw a Salonen-conducted concert at Walt … [Read more...]
Drummer Brian Blade
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="dpPxWyWkL9K8V1VG4SfF8hwPukC2yYjM"] THE other night I was invited to the Silver Lake home of producer Daniel Lanois, who (best known for his work with Dylan, U2 and Emmylou Harris) has a new record of his own coming. I went partly because of the involvement of Brian Blade, mostly known as a jazz drummer. Blade played with Wayne Shorter's group at Disney Hall … [Read more...]
Belle & Sebastian at the Ace Hotel
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="xC6gkwoxkwKwvRaOHnXwiWWd8B0gSpwd"] FOR a band known early on for playing downbeat folk songs and spending a lot of time onstage tuning their instruments, Glasgow's Belle & Sebastian have become one of the most reliably engaging, even restorative, live bands on the planet. Last night's show at the theater at LA's newish Ace Hotel was so full of joy and great music … [Read more...]
The Pixies and Cat Power at the Hollywood Bowl
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="nc1kP0QNXqToOtKKMBYEWF1PA492NXRw"] WELL, the Bowl's 2014 season ends with a show a lot of us had looked forward to for a long time. The Pixies are a band from the George H.W. Bush administration -- from before the indie-rock boom inaugurated by Nirvana's Nevermind -- and they've been tighter and more taught since their reunion. Their Bowl debut, then, did not take … [Read more...]