Sunset Junction | ChinaShop

Gallery Music Eye to Eye with Butch Walker

September 7, 2011 - 7:45 am

Butch Walker was supposed to be one of the headlining artists at this year’s Sunset Junction Music Fest but due to some pesky street fines and fine print on contracts, the festival was cancelled. That didn’t stop Butch and his army of Black Widows from performing, however. “We were all dressed up and nowhere to go when they canned it,” joked Butch. The guys made the best of it, with plan B being a 30-minute set in the courtyard of their new label, Dangerbird Records. The show consisted of the band performing the entire track list off of the latest and greatest Butch Walker and the Black Widows release, The Spade. A giant crowd packed into the outdoor courtyard and even Justin Kirk (Andy Botwin on Weeds) came out for the soiree.

Prior to the performance, Butch sat down with ChinaShop to discuss the new album, embarrassing tattoos, and his distaste for synthesizer music.

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Contributors The Best of 2010… according to Nicole Pajer

by Nicole Pajer

December 28, 2010 - 11:18 am

2010 was a great year! A plethora of music, festivals, exotic art, discovering new bands, overcoming hatred of public transit, behind-the-scenes tours of freak shows and hanging out with 3-legged creatures, and meeting lots of great folks along the way. Check out the year’s highlights as seen by ChinaShop contributor Nicole Pajer after the jump.

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Music Sunday Night in Silver Lake: SSJ 2010

by Nicole Pajer

August 26, 2010 - 3:22 pm

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.”

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Music Welcome to Sunset Junction

by Nicole Pajer and Sidney Bensimon

August 26, 2010 - 2:54 pm

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.

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Music The I & I Dance Machine

by Nicole Pajer and Sidney Bensimon

August 26, 2010 - 2:48 pm

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.”

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Music Hipster Haven: The People of Sunset Junction

by Nicole Pajer and Sidney Bensimon

August 25, 2010 - 4:44 pm

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.

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Music The Oldies: Lee Scratch & Ohio Players

by Nicole Pajer and Sidney Bensimon

August 25, 2010 - 1:21 pm

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.

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Music Sat Night Show Hopping at SSJ 2010

by Nicole Pajer and Sidney Bensimon

August 25, 2010 - 1:17 pm

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.

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Music “Bitches Brew” Re-invented at Sunset Junction

by Shop Keeper

August 12, 2010 - 12:52 pm

If Miles Davis‘ “Kind of Blue” is the gateway drug to Jazz music, than Bitches Brew is the overdose. If you’ve heard the album than you know what I’m talking about, and if you have not yet experienced this rule-braking genre-bending dark odyssey, you’re probably not ready yet… 40 years ago, Bitches Brew transcended the genre known as jazz (transcended is too soft a work) and blew peoples minds. In honor of this landmark album, Sunset Junction Festival will host a remix/re-creation live performance featuring J.Rocc from Beat Junkies, Miles’ nephew/drummer Vince Wilburn Jr. and other special guests. ChinaShop Got the inside scoop from Vince himself and here is what he had to say.

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