Two Turntables and a Microphone

I love Los Angeles! I don't make a secret of it. I adore this place. I frequently call myself blessed. I mean who wouldn't? I have grown up amongst poetry ridden coffeehouses, mall fashion shows, street performers, NASA scientists, children's book authors and copious community theater productions.

I love and sponge it all up - but the one thing that I have here that I love so much that I pity everyone that doesn't live here is the music scene. Not just the Rock and Roll - its just the loudest of the genres, so it gets the most attention. The classical scene is also gorgeous so precious to me that I'll save it for another blog...

No matter where you go here music is somehow involved. Even random Chinese restaurants have a stage and theater that seats like 25 that has a constant rotation of keyboards and mandolins. If there is a stage there is someone playing. I remember waiting for La Boheme to start at the Music Center once and on every side of the crowd there was an A Capella group going for it, not even needing a stage. One of my personal favorites was this one guy that set up on 3rd street in Santa Monica and he must have been a synth protege. He opened up the back of his down-by-the-riveresque van and just had a speaker, a sound board, and a MAC and the break dancers rejoiced. It was an awesome sight. It almost upstaged the psychic cats...

Since Sunset was only 15 min away from where I grew up when we were looking for something to do on an open Friday night we would pop over to the Roxy or Whiskey and see who what playing. Just like going to Denny's or the movies. Awesome live music was so available that I think that I took it for granted. It was totally reflected in my high school's social psyche too now that I really think about it. Everyone was in band or planning one. I even sang for one for a few months. We were called Jubal. I thought we were awesome. Like if Buffalo Springfield and Johnny Rotten ran at each other really fast - that was us. :D The school had a talent show every other month and no BBQ came to pass without some one's guitar cords and a drum set popping out of a garage. There was a pretty passionate Hip-Hop scene too but we rarely ended up there.

And all this preamble leads me to the point of this particular blog:

An Ode to the Glory of Live Music

I can think of little else that gives me a bigger rush or relaxes me more. The euphoria last for days and you can't possibly articulately explain to someone how awesome a show was because its not just about a performance I think, its an experience. Music is an art form because it supplies more than something to pass the time. It's something that it gets inside you - it changes things around, surfaces feelings or amplifies ones already there. Or it ignites some kind of new feeling that you don't have a name for yet. Live music is like a 2 hour soul massage or the best kind of internal pep rally, or insta-catharsis ever. Depending on what show you're at obviously.

I think that, honestly, I'm just really excited for one of my favorite new bands to play tomorrow night and I'm on the list. GLISS - they rock. The last time I saw them my cousin and I were buzzing for days and we found them totally by accident. They and Mellowdrone were opening for Monsters are Waiting but we just wanted to see Mellowdrone. But after GLISS finished we felt like we had already gotten our ticket's worth. They opened up for the Smashing Pumpkins the next week in North Carolina too. They're playing at Vertigo's and I'm var var excited. Dress code is "FIERCE" - I'm still trying to figure out what that means... do I need some red lipstick and some spiky stuff? Cause all I've got is some boots and some sass. I think I'll be just fine.