Last summer, Los Angeles unveiled a brand-new downtown plaza called LA Live. Built around the Staples Center, it was billed as a bustling urban entertainment hub that featured an ESPN Zone, the Grammy Museum, the Nokia Theater, Club Nokia, several fine restaurants, a Lucky Strike bowling alley, and more. Although this grand plaza seemed like a great idea, the developers ignored one major weak point:
Nobody hangs out in downtown LA.
LA is such a decentralized city, and it's already got two big draws: Hollywood (for the night life) and the coast (for the beaches). Downtown is mostly known for its homeless bums and bodegas crammed with knock-off purses & cellphones. Yes, it's undergone a revitalization, and it houses some very cool boutique hotels, restaurants, and bars. But these places succeed by fostering an urban-chic vibe amidst a skyscrapers-and-sidewalks setting that recalls NYC or Chicago. LA Live feels more like a Vegas Strip knockoff, with three-story neon signs, towering billboards, and beat-you-over-the-head branding. But unlike the Strip, LA Live is almost totally devoid of foot traffic, making its moniker ironic -- it just feels dead. People may be going there for dinner or concerts, but they're certainly not milling about in the cavernous 40,000 sq. foot plaza.
One of LA Live's prominent attractions is the Grammy Museum, a three-story shrine to the Grammy Awards, the lamest and least-relevant arts award currently in existence. The Museum's permanent collection consists of assorted random memorabilia, some multimedia stations that barely scratch the surface of American music history, and of course, a crappy gift shop. Their rotating exhibits can be cool, like the "Elvis At 21" photography collection. But last night, I was fortunate to discover the gem of the Grammy Museum's entire complex: its 150-seat theater.
The Museum uses this cozy space to host performances and interviews with major artists. Yesterday's guests were the incredible acoustic duo Rodrigo y Gabriela, who, armed with nothing but twenty fingers and two guitars, brought the fucking house down. The pre-show Q&A gave them a chance to tell their story: an early love of thrash metal, rejection from the Music Institute of Mexico, busking on the streets of Dublin, getting discovered by Damien Rice, and building a rabid fan base & a string of worldwide performances. Gabriela illuminated the influence behind her unique rhythmic strumming style -- she nicked it from bodhran drummers in Ireland, which is both shockingly brilliant and deceptively simple.
Their on-stage chemistry was thrilling, and their energy kept everyone clapping from start to finish. I marveled at their ability to keep in-sync and on-tempo through challenging, fast-and-furious tunes. They incorporated some tasteful effects (wah-wah, reverb, and distortion) to add dashes of flavor, but the main course was their raw, unadulterated talent. In an age of click-tracks, computerized mixers, and the dreaded auto-tune, Rodrigo y Gabriela prove that pure musical ability, coupled with unbridled passion, is all that's needed to blow minds and rock crowds. Check this out:
Buy their new album, "11:11", and go see them if they come to your town. You won't regret it.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
Statement of Purpose / SXSW Regrets
"The journey of a thousand pages must start with a single blog". Or so a fortune cookie once told me.
There's a lot of crazy exciting stuff happening in the music business these days. I've started this blog as an attempt to keep track of interesting developments, express my opinions, share some worthwhile resources, and chronicle my own attempt at managing an independent artist.
I hate to start things off with a downer, but I must say, I'm bummed that I didn't make it to SXSW this year. I've regretted it every year I haven't attended, but this year's absence stung just a little worse. Maybe it was the stream of Twitter, Facebook, and Foursquare updates from all my music-biz friends constantly reminding me of the concerts, parties, and revelry I was missing. Each Tweet of my buddy's track-by-track coverage of the Metric/Muse show at Stubbs pricked me with little stabs of remorse. My sister's texts and pics from the 6th Street bar scene didn't help, either. And upon his return to the office Monday, my boss's stories of seeing 48 shows in one day made me green with envy.
Yet I wonder whether the experience could possibly live up to my perception. If I were there, would it be as awesome as the image I'd built based on the breathless Twitterings of my friends & colleagues? Or would I just end up overwhelmed and under-slept, wandering dazed among a sea of inebriated music "professionals"? Would I have paid much attention to the thousands of bands, most of which I'd never heard of? Would I remember any of them a week later? Would I have even gotten into the Muse show?
I guess the only way to answer those questions is to man up, grow a pair of balls, squirrel away $600 (or somehow convince my boss to foot the bill), and head on down to Austin next spring. In the meantime, at least I can see Muse and a ton of other SXSW standouts at Coachella next month.
There's a lot of crazy exciting stuff happening in the music business these days. I've started this blog as an attempt to keep track of interesting developments, express my opinions, share some worthwhile resources, and chronicle my own attempt at managing an independent artist.
I hate to start things off with a downer, but I must say, I'm bummed that I didn't make it to SXSW this year. I've regretted it every year I haven't attended, but this year's absence stung just a little worse. Maybe it was the stream of Twitter, Facebook, and Foursquare updates from all my music-biz friends constantly reminding me of the concerts, parties, and revelry I was missing. Each Tweet of my buddy's track-by-track coverage of the Metric/Muse show at Stubbs pricked me with little stabs of remorse. My sister's texts and pics from the 6th Street bar scene didn't help, either. And upon his return to the office Monday, my boss's stories of seeing 48 shows in one day made me green with envy.
Yet I wonder whether the experience could possibly live up to my perception. If I were there, would it be as awesome as the image I'd built based on the breathless Twitterings of my friends & colleagues? Or would I just end up overwhelmed and under-slept, wandering dazed among a sea of inebriated music "professionals"? Would I have paid much attention to the thousands of bands, most of which I'd never heard of? Would I remember any of them a week later? Would I have even gotten into the Muse show?
I guess the only way to answer those questions is to man up, grow a pair of balls, squirrel away $600 (or somehow convince my boss to foot the bill), and head on down to Austin next spring. In the meantime, at least I can see Muse and a ton of other SXSW standouts at Coachella next month.
Monday, March 1, 2010
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