The Key Club – Hollywood, CA
Live Review: 1/31/10

Hours after presenting the Grammy for best rap/sung collaboration to Jay-Z, Rihanna and an absent Kanye West for “Run This Town,” Mos Def found himself in a familiar place on the Sunset Strip. Four days after The Boogie Man and The Roots had one of the most talked about pre-Grammy jam sessions, Mos Def was back on stage at the Key Club for his post-Grammy party. →

The Cinefamily – Los Angeles, CA
Live Review: 1/16/10

It’s no secret that Edan is well-versed in hip-hop history, but imagine seeing him in-person with photographer Ricky Powell, who’s no stranger to some of the culture’s most seminal moments. This past Saturday, Edan and Powell, fresh off a U.K. tour, stopped by The Cinefamily for a special premiere event for “Echo Party,” a found film mix to the DJ’s latest record. →

Hammer Museum – Los Angeles, CA
Live Review: 12/17/09

The crowd at the Hammer Museum this Thursday night were audience to some of the year’s best music videos, including the latest by directors Michel Gondry and Keith Schofield. The FLUX event represented award-winning filmmakers from the francophone world, along with two directors from Brazil–Didiu Rio Branco and Robson Minghini–and one from Spain, Jesus Hernandez. Videos represented here ranged from the highly technical to the inventively simple. →

The Hotel Cafe – Hollywood, CA
Live review: 11/30/2009
***
Deep in the heart of Hollywood, The Hotel Cafe with its unassuming alleyway entrance and max capacity of what seems like 50 people (it actually seats 164), has a reputation for establishing the careers of new or emerging singer-songwriters since it first opened its doors in 2000.  If you happened to be one of John Mayer’s 2,000,000+ followers on Twitter, you know that at the strike of midnight on any given day, this intimate venue transforms into a space for impromptu listening sessions.  Just as Meiko, a fellow Hotel Cafe graduate, simply stated: “it is a listening room.” →

The Echo – Echo Park, CA
Live Review: 11/12/09
***
I’m standing in the middle of a packed crowd at LA’s Echo. Electronic music is blasting from the stage, but no one appears to be dancing. At first glance, this could seem like a problem, a doomed prognosis for the careers of the two energetic, intensely riveted young men on stage. But then again, this isn’t just any electronic music.

A closer look reveals that the audience is in fact dancing, though the movements are subtler than you might expect given the deafening, fast washes of sound coming from the speakers. More importantly, however, most people are facing the stage with their eyes closed, grinning widely as if warming themselves in the sun after a long winter. →

Treasure Island Music Festival – San Francisco, CA
Live Review: 10/18/09
***
The weather turned for Day 2 of our festival, and what seemed like the usual San Francisco fog was actually just clouds. Tank tops and cut-off jean shorts turned into slick leather bombers and halfway-on beanies. The line for iced lemonade migrated to the coffee stand. That’s life in San Francisco—you just have to roll with it. I wish I’d packed a thicker jacket, though… →

Treasure Island Music Festival – San Francisco, CA
Live Review: 10/17/09
***
The Treasure Island Festival kicked off with a sunny un-San Francisco feel to it.  The weather was slightly warm, and the sun glistened across the bay.  Excitement was in the air from the moment I stepped into line to board the bus, and was only furthered by the electric atmosphere of the festival-goers upon arrival.

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Treasure Island Music Festival – San Francisco, CA
Live Review: 10/17 – 10/18/09
***
Treasure Island, not only a book by Robert Louis Stevenson, is a bizarre little spit of fill in between San Francisco and Oakland, next to the anchor point for the Bay Bridge. A former naval base built out of soil dragged out of the Bay, it’s the legacy of an overfunded Army Corps of Engineers, who, if they had their way, would probably filled in the entire San Francisco Bay. Now students and government workers mostly live in the post-war tract housing that used to house Navy officers. It’s a little slice of suburban wilderness in the middle of a bay of commuters. →

Spaceland – Silverlake, CA
Live Review: 10/13/09
***
It’s 8pm on a Tuesday, but if you live in Los Angeles, that doesn’t sentence you to a night on the couch with Seinfeld and a TV dinner. There’s plenty to do, you just have to go out and find it. At Spaceland, for instance, a small, hip venue in Silverlake, a crowd is forming at the base of the stage. The air is buzzing—literally, and if you look around you’ll notice why. Most members of the audience are equipped not only with 20 oz cans of PBR, but also with a musical instrument of some kind. →

Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever, California
Live Review: 10/6/09
***
You drive past the cemetery gates and ask the uniformed man where the Masonic Lodge is, and he points to the ornate building with the nicely manicured grass lawn and open courtyard. It’s an imposing building in a part of West Hollywood that is otherwise full of warehouses and residential homes. For a band like Fool’s Gold and their “tropical soul,” the Hollywood Forever seems like a gloomy, morbid choice for a venue. →