The Cahuenga Strut

Ah, Cahuenga Blvd. Once upon a time, it was just a street whose name baffled out-of-towners ("How do you say that? Ka-hoo-en-ga?" "Uh, no, its Ka-wang-uh"). Now it's the heart of everything a true local hates about the city-- traffic, overpriced parking, people who cite Lindsay Lohan as a "hero" on their MySpace pages.

We usually avoid this part of town, it's not worth the expense and frustration. But last night, Martin Landsky, of Poker Flat, played his first gig in L.A. (for a party hosted by Droog) and, you know, now that the Germans are finally making their way out to our city, we have to support.

So we drove across Selma, down Wilcox, around Hollywood and up Cahuenga for what seemed like an hour, trying to cut through alleyways that were actually the secret parking spots of valets. And then, when we finally found a lot with space available, we paid $15 for the privilege.

Weekends on Cahuenga means sweeping down the boulevard as part of a humid swarm of bodies, most of whom you could live a life without ever wanting to meet.

"What is this, douchebags on parade?" I asked Carlos.

"Geez, say it a little louder, Liz," he answered.

"Oh, I don't care."

On Cahuenga, the girls all look the same-- barely dressed and in varying stages of drunk, clutching on to their friends as they stumble in between cars on too-high heels, trying to live the West Coast version of Sex and the City. The guys fall into two camps, those who fancy themselves rock stars or actors and those who will tell you that they are producers, probably because they lent money to a cousin shooting a student film at CSUN. The musician/actor guys are scruffy, with unwashed hair, faux-shabby clothing, essentially a high priced version of the dudes who hang out at Spaceland. The producer types are clean-cut to a point that borders on parody. Their hair is slicked back, their clothes are obviously expensive and most likely of European design, and the scent of their aftershave preceeds them by half a city block. These are people living the L.A. life without any clue of what that life actually is, driving out from the suburbs or moving here from somewhere else because Entourage makes it look so damn fun.

And somewhere in the middle of this mess was The Room, a destination marked by a line of people who looked completely unconcerned with being cool. We chatted up the two guys in front of us. They were DJs, of course, and one was British, again, of course, and they were here not because of some hype surrounding the venue or even the promotion, but because of Landsky. Inside, the club was packed and the sound-- primarily minimal techno-- was pristine, comparable to that of a mega-club in terms of clarity and volume (this, I should note, is a bit unsual for a small space in L.A., where distortion and too-low volume is common). It was a proper club with great music and people who were more interested in dancing than taking shots of bottle service vodka while discussing what they do for a living. In a neighborhood where L.A. Bullshit is a selling point, this was something real.

George Michael in the Times

Last week, Ann Powers wrote a very interesting piece on George Michael. It was the sort of story that leaves the reader, or at least left this reader, wanting more. And so, there was more, including a photo gallery with Michael's thoughts on ten of songs and daily blog posts featuring outtakes from the interviews transcript. The problem, though, is that it's horribly organized.

Essentially, if you read the feature, you can link to the photo gallery, but it doesn't link to the blog. Then, if you find one of the posts, you might be able to catch a link to the story or the photo stream or maybe one other blog post, but not all of them.

Here are all of the related blog posts I found.

June 25
June 24
June 23
June 19

I'm not sure if I found all of the outtakes. Quite frankly, it was a pain in the ass to find what I did, scrolling through days of posts that I didn't feel like reading.

It's quite odd that while mainstream media outlets are attempting to boost their online presence, they can't manage to do it right. On the sidebar of the Soundboard blog, there is a list of categories, none of which involve a series of related posts regarding on interview with one subject. It's like running a print story with a page jump that leads nowhere.

As much as print papers want to get into the blogging game, I think that perhaps some people have misunderstood the popularity of blogs. The success of the medium isn't just the frequency with which one can publish, nor is it the fact that one can write as much or as little as necessary without working around word counts. One of the major attractions of the blog is the ease with which readers can follow a story told in installments.

Let's look at Perez Hilton, for example. Today, he posted that Madonna was spotted sans wedding ring. Now, if you just stumbled on this and you didn't know about anything about the rumored split between Madonna and Guy Ritchie, you might be curious for more. So you click on the label that reads "Madonna" and it brings up all this.

I know I'm preaching to the choir when I say this, but the thing about Internet reporting is that it's typically read when people are at work. The stories need to be as easy to access as possible because you're dealing with an audience that is clicking between a Word document and your story while trying not to let the boss see. Easy navigation is key.

Think of it like the tried and true inverted pyramid. You put the who, what, when, where and why in the top paragraph to grab the reader. You follow it with the most crucial information and leave the least important information at the bottom either for editing purposes or because readers often don't follow the jump. Your main story is equivalent to the 5 Ws, the lead if you will, everything else is for those willing to read the entire story. Put it together and you have a cohesive read. Seperate the parts of the story and scatter them around the site without any correlation and you have a missed opportunity.

Stumble Along

I stumbled into this bar in Hollywood because I forgot to go to the ATM and owed the parking attendant $10 (wtf?) and even though the surcharge on bar ATMs is ridiculous, I had no other options as there wasn't a stand alone bank-affiliated machine in sight and I wasn't going to walk around Hollywood by myself after dark in search of cash.

That's how I ended up in a half-empty, but still raucous bar, where I think I might have been the only girl. And I was standing at the ATM and all I could hear around me was laughter and this guy slurring "I hate [insert name of famous klub kid here]" and "I want to run over [said klub kid]" over and over again. And for a minute, I thought I might actually know the guys talking, just because I knew a lot of the club kid (or klub kid) crowd back when I was a wee Wednesday Addams lookalike. So I turned around and I saw the guys and they were far older than anyone I would know. I'm talking gray hair and big bear beards and I couldn't help but wonder what the hell was the connection here.

Maybe they just watch a lot of reality tv.

RIP SWFT WNGS

Chris from SWFT WNGS live @ M/R/X, May 3, 2008

Photo by Liz Ohanesian

On June 16, local noise group SWFT WNGS, who were featured in my piece on the ongoing influence of Rozz Williams in Los Angeles, announced its split.

I had the chance to see SWFT WNGS at M/R/X when the band opened for Nervous Gender and it was one massive wall of noise. Thought we were going to go deaf in the most punk rock way possible. The band will be missed, but fortunately, the music will continue. Abraham Jay has gone on to form White Breath, which you can hear via the following link. Meanwhile, I have it under good authority that Chris and Lynette will be revealing a new musical endeavor soon.

Bad Music. Bad Radio.

I'm not sure why Feel My Heat, the radio show hosted by Danny Masterson and Brent Bolthouse, exists.  Maybe people like feeling connected to an overhyped, overpriced Hollywood club scene where they have virtually no chance of crossing the red rope and they choose to live vicariously through the constant back-patting of this twosome.

Regardless, I catch the show every once in a while when I'm in the car and every time I am overcome by a sensation of disgust.  The last instance involved Bolthouse hyping up this live set from DJ AM as the "best ever."  Said set began with a lousy Rage Against the Machine remix and proceeded to slide downhill from there.

Tonight, I stumbled upon a few minutes of the show while on route to pick up some allergy pills.  Naturally, they were talking about themselves instead of playing music.  Then one of them, I believe it was Bolthouse, started yapping about how he was the first person to play 30 Seconds to Mars.

Who the hell brags about that?

I really try not to be hater.  It isn't easy because I am both passionate by nature and possess an extremely low tolerance for bullshit.  But, I try.  I tried to give 30 Seconds to Mars a fair shot, just like I tried to give the aforementioned radio program a chance.

Two years ago, I went to a 30 Seconds to Mars show.  I was actually there to cover the opening band, but Carlos and I stuck around for the main act just to see why there were so many kids dressed up in blood-and-guts costumes.  The band was at least a half-hour behind schedule.  I remember this because the Cure's Disintegration was playing on the house PA.  Then 30 Seconds to Mars had the nerve to come on stage during the album's title track, thus ruining the best song off the best album ever.  

And even though they committed that kind of sacrilege (you just don't stop Disintegration, it must play start to finish), I still gave them a shot.  But then, four songs into the set, Carlos and I couldn't take it anymore.  The songs, and I use that term lightly, were lacking in such necessities as rhythm and melody.  I do not believe this to be an exaggeration.  It was, essentially, noise to which Jared Leto could stand around looking like a blood-and-guts covered messiah.  

It was, I dare to say, the worst show I had ever seen (or, at least second to Mindless Self Indulgence, that's a really tough call).  Maybe then it's fitting that Feel My Heat would take the credit for it.

Corporate Schoolyard

David Kravets at Wired wrote this interesting news piece regarding musicFIRST on behalf of the recording industry versus the National Association of Broadcasters.  (Read the article before the rest of this post if you have the chance.)

Now I find it hard to believe that an industry so reliant on publicists actually pulled this stunt.  Hasn't anyone advised them that if your industry on the whole has already pissed off the bulk of the U.S. by a) releasing overpriced albums with one good song; b) suing kids for downloading said crappy albums for free and c) not properly compensating artists with settlement money (that's just the short list), it probably isn't a good idea to go after the radio stations for "a form of piracy"?  

This isn't to say that I'm on the side of the NAB.  Certainly, that organization has it's own agenda.  And, after spending three years studying the history of radio for my M.A., I have come to learn that the NAB is responsible for a myriad shady dealings as well.  Basically, what we have here are two umbrellas for various corporate entities fighting like schoolchildren until big daddy government steps in to try and make things all better.

On the one hand, you have the record industry, which is clearly suffering from a soon-to-be-fatal case hubris, the latest symptom of which is denying the promotional aspect of radio.  As you are probably aware, the people who supply music to the radio stations are called "promoters."  That's their job title and their job description includes sending albums to the music director and program director and checking in with the two to see if their stuff will be played.  These are also the people who arrange for live performances at the station, interview sessions, radio contests, etc.  All of this is done to ensure that Band X's album is played as frequently as possible on the grounds that the more popular it is on the air, the more popular it will be in the store.

While the relevance of terrestrial radio has waned over the past decade, there is no doubt that is has traditionally been crucial to breaking a band.  Those of us who grew up in L.A. can tell anyone willing to listen that the reason why Depeche Mode was able to sell out the Rose Bowl back in the '80s and the reason why it still has an incredible following here is because of the heavy airplay the band received on KROQ for years.  More recently, and on a smaller scale, Silversun Pickups' popularity outside of Silver Lake could also be attributed to frequent spins on Indie 103.1.

On the other hand, though, you have the radio industry, which has done increasingly little to help promote music in recent years.  Sure, you have a handful of stations, mostly of the non-commercial variety, whose reputation relies on breaking artists.  Those stations, however, are in the minority.  If the radio industry did really see itself as a source of record promotion, it probably wouldn't rely so heavily on computer-generated playlists consisting of songs that have been market-tested for a narrow demographic.  In other words, if promotion were key to the game, you wouldn't have to hear all of greatest hits from your cousins' weddings humming in the background at work.  Add to this the fact that other media must pay royalties to the artist and label, while the NAB doesn't, and one might be inclined to-- gasp-- side with the record industry for a split second.

So who is right and who is wrong in this situation?  I don't have an answer for that and, perhaps, an answer isn't necessary.  After all, both record labels and terrestrial radio stations are losing in the new media game. Maybe the two entities should stop fighting with each other (and dragging our policy makers, who should have better things to do than referee this round of bickering, into it) and start working on creative solutions that will benefit both business and art.  That might be a bit too mature for corporate America, though.

Photos

I posted a smattering of previously unpublished photos from the BIRTH!/Jellowaste show on Flickr.  Check them out if you wish.

The Lovin' Spoonful Said It Best

And so I quote the dad rock classic "Hot town, summer in the city/Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty."-- The Lovin' Spoonful "Summer in the City"

We're in the midst of a heat wave right now with temperatures reaching record highs for June (112 in the deathtrap I call home, the Valley, and not much better anywhere else in the city).  Whenever we have a heat wave in L.A., all conversations eventually center around the scorching weather and are peppered with lethargic moans of, "Oh my God, I just can't take this heat anymore."  It's as though none of us can remember the previous Labor Day Weekend (because the last holiday of the summer is always gruesome) when we were wilting in nightclubs whilst wondering if maybe Al Gore is onto something.

The hardest part about going out in Los Angeles during the summer months is getting out of the house.  At home, there is air conditioning, a supply of tap water and a freezer in which one can insert one's head if all else fails.  At home, you can sit around in underwear or, at the very least, a pair of cut-off jeans that have since developed ventilation holes in publicly inappropriate places.  Inside nightclubs, the air conditioning stops working once the club fills, water will cost you and you will spend much of your night fighting with someone over a spot in front of a rinky-dink fan.  Plus, you kind of have to wear clothes.  Well, maybe you don't need much in the clothing department if you're a looker, but for us ordinary people with flabby arms and legs that haven't seen a razor in a few days, shit needs to be covered.

At 10 p.m. or so, right after One Life to Live ended, we headed out to the Echo Curio in Echo Park to see the Tleilaxu Music Machine and friends.  It was ninety-five degrees in the car and far worse inside the tiny art gallery.  When we arrived at the venue, there was a massive crowd gathered on the sidewalk, leading us to believe that perhaps the show had sold out.  In fact, it was simply a matter of the fans' inability to cool down the venue that resulted in the crowd hanging out on Sunset Blvd. in between the live sets.  We caught Winners, a local electro-punk with a penchant for singing in falsetto and doing the macarena to songs of patriotism.  Tleilaxu followed with a short that was heavy on the gabber beats.  Dude's a madman, essentially turning this curiosity shop/art gallery into a sweaty mosh pit filled with PLUR.  After he finished, the room was schvitz-dank and smelled unsurprisingly like Sunday afternoon following the afterhours club.

We headed over to the Mountain Bar in Chinatown afterward, where our friend Cromdre co-promotes and DJs the party Pinche Way.  We got there just in time to catch Laco$te play and I think it's just better for everyone involved if we don't mention that performance again.  In the downstairs area, Icy Lytes played a live set that was glow-stick madness in the best way possible.  

And so the night ended with this pointless tale's two protagonists wandering around Chinatown until they ended up at Hop Woo, home of tasty steamed buns and massive bowls of duck soup. 

By 3 a.m., when I finally laid down to catch up on the sleep that has eluded me this past week, I thought about how a night that almost ended with me falling asleep in front of the TV turned out to be an evening of thrills, good and bad.  The hardest part of surviving summer in the city is getting out of the house.

Guerilla Gigs

BIRTH! and Jellowaste take it to the streets.

I was really excited to cover BIRTH! and Jellowaste's set on Hollywood and Highland for the LA Weekly, even though I am now going on three hours sleep (which is mostly because I had two stories to finish last night).  These two dudes are the real thing, simultaneously experimental and entertaining. 

Right now, I'm far too tired to say anything more about it.  I'll probably make up a Flickr set of the gig over the weekend.  In the meantime, you can check out some shots from their April gig on the Walk of Fame over here. 

Gabber Gabber Hey

My latest feature for the LA Weekly is now online.  I think the hard copies are out tomorrow.

I think what I liked best about working on this assignment was that it wasn't nostalgic, at least from my perspective.  I was not a fan of gabber or happy hardcore during the 1990s (in fact, I found it annoying), so I definitely wasn't looking back to some supposed glory day.  Instead, what I found interesting was that people are taking the influence of gabber and, to a lesser extent, happy hardcore and they aren't being ironic about it in the least.  They are taking a strain of an influence and making something that is a pretty radical departure from the source material.