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.