Not many people can say that they are able to combine business with pleasure but that is very much the case for Molly Atkinson, owner of Echo Park based Pins and Needles. Molly collects vintage pinball games and also makes a living as a seamstress. After finding a prime space above Bedrock Studios that would house her massive twenty game and growing collection as well as accommodate her tailoring business, Molly decided to set up shop and thus Pins and Needles was born.
AWOLNATION crashed on Wilshire Blvd on Wednesday night, their spacey dance-punk and multi-genre madness a perfect foil for the El Rey’s decadent ballroom elegance: chandeliers and wine glasses shook to the pounding rhythms of “MF” and “Burn it Down” as the quintet — dressed down in some seriously dapper duds (and braving some wicked feedback early in the set) – took to the stage performing their first big hit, “Sail.”
Jukebox The Ghost hasn’t played in Los Angeles in a year and a half, so when the guys took the stage at the Echo last Thursday, they had a full house of eager followers. Fans packed into the modest venue, clogging the dance floor, and spilling out into the doorway to watch the rock-solid chemistry of Ben Thornewill, Tommy Siegel, and Jesse Kristin as they performed songs off their new album, Everything Under the Sun, like the dance initiating Schizophrenia, as well as favorites such as Hold it in, Under my Skin, and Good Day. Ben kept the crowd captivated with his animated facial expressions that acted out his keystrokes, while Jesse held it all together on drums. Tommy rocked out so hard that during the song Mistletoe, he hit the mic stand and it swung around and nailed him in the face, to which he replied, “Wow! Did you all see that? I thought that was an earthquake!”
Before the show, I sat down with the guys backstage. As always, when you snag a band for some quality Q&A time, you never know where the conversation might lead. This time it was all about gum, cows, and tornadoes…never a dull moment when you are in a room full of musicians who were born with an impressive amount of the creative gene.
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Sunday I sun screened, loaded up my ‘concert purse,’ stocked up on carbs and headed to the Sunset Junction. As I walked through the gates, I stumbled right into a mini techno fest with DJs spinning and girls dancing on the Electro Stage. After bouncing from stage to stage, I settled in at the Bates Stage for Girl in a Coma. I’d never seen them play before but was intrigued by a mixture of things I have heard about the trio and the fact that they are named after a Smith’s song. It was a bit angry chick rock at times but I liked it overall. The singer has powerful vocals and it was refreshing to see female guitar players rock out on stage. They played Static Mind, which was a catchy tune and then chose Femme Fatale for the encore. The crowd was filled with stylish-haired hipsters, many proudly equipped with Girl in a Coma merch. After the set, a festival attendee turned to her friend and said, “Wow! That was tight.”
Saturday and Sunday, the streets of Silver Lake were filled with hipsters, carnies, corn dogs, oversized stuffed animals, rides, and the sounds of ear-pleasing bands. This year’s 30th annual Sunset Junction Street Festival recruited tens of thousands of Angelinos to brave the heat, impossible parking, and intense crowds with the mission of shoving their way into the front of one of the 5 music stages. The must see acts were: Ghostland Observatory, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Big Daddy Kane, Sam Sparro, Mayer Hawthorne, Fishbone, Shiny Toy Guns Hybrid Digital, Ohio Players, The Whisperers, Bad Brains, and Lee Scratch Perry…just to name a few.
Hidden among the food trucks on Santa Monica Boulevard last Saturday and Sunday was a yellow truck of mystery. The first day I walked by it. I was hurriedly trying to get to a stage and didn’t stop to check it out. I did, however, notice some great tunes blasting out of its speaker system and a crowd of people dancing. I woke up Sunday morning and had this yellow truck on the brain, so I made a point to swing by for a look-see later that afternoon. When I went to investigate, it was blasting Latin music and a group of people had collaborated to dance some serious salsa in front of it. There were bongo drums and people were playing along. Next to the van was a bar where they were selling CDs and music merch. On of the yellow truck were Ethiopia Rasta flags. The front of the truck had “sound,” “word,” and “power” written on red stars accenting the mustard background. I ran into a gentleman with a ying-yang bandana on his head who led me around the back of the truck where the operators were hanging out. The side door was open and there was a Persian rug with lions on it laid out on the floor below. Inside sat a guy next to a mini soundboard system and mixing station that boasted a sticker that read, “Listen to Bob Marley.”
If you managed to take your eyes off of the music stages, carnie games, explosion of food trucks, and vendors, you couldn’t help but miss the hipster haven that was Sunset Junction 2010. Saturday and Sunday at the Sunset Junction Street Fair, a fashion show took place, and the runway models were the Los Angeles hipsters. I am by no means a hipster, I’m not cool enough to keep that up with trends, but walking around the festival I was taking notes (literally for my article but also for my next shopping trip). I’ve seen hipsters before and been in many hipster hangout areas, but I don’t think I can say I’ve ever been in an area so saturated with them. By pure observation and a few crazy conversations on the patios of bars, I learned all about what is currently trendy, what is over the top, and what I definitely would not be able to pull off.
Looking around at Sunset Junction, the majority of the crowd was the young, trendy music fanatic. There were a huge variety of bands covering a wide array of genres like indie, rock, reggae, and electronica, but most of them seemed to cater to a modern generation of concertgoers. There were however, two exceptions, the Ohio players and Lee Scratch Perry.
Saturday was the first day of Sunset Junction and I couldn’t have been more excited to get there. After a near impossible search for parking, it was decided that I’d park at Sidney’s and we’d make the half-mile hoof down the hill to the junction. On the way, we ran into some excited hipsters who clothed us in glow bracelets and geared us up for the evening ahead. When we finally arrived, we ran right to the Sanborn Stage to catch Fishbone. We walked up during the “All Together Free” chant that they had engaged the crowd in. It was a fun show and really feel-good music…well at least until the “Let Dem Ho’s Fight” song which seemed to be a favorite of the ornery members of the audience. Shortly after, the mood was back to jolly as the guys covered “Date Rape” by Sublime, which definitely went over well with the crowd. Fishbone poked fun at the parking situation in Silver Lake and complained of parking tickets before continuing on with the set.
Hip-hop was center stage Thursday night at Red Bull’s Big Tune Los Angeles competition as 12 of Los Angeles’ brightest up-and-coming beat makers went head-to-head in a single-elimination competition judged by audience applause. The winner and runner-up from the competition earned a ticket to the Chicago Big Tune finals where they will battle other producers for an opportunity to collaborate with a hip-hop legend. Previous Big Tune winners married their beats to lyrics by Nas, Young Buck, and most recently Ghost Face Killah.
The event, held at the world famous El Rey theater, raised over $3700 and all proceeds will go towards buying music production equipment for select LAUSD after school programs.