SOUR NOTES AT THE OSCARS
OSCARS MADE ME A GROUCH They were noteworthy for some of the groundbreaking nominees and winners, but kinda stunk for production decisions. We do have to cut them some slack. It was an impossible task,...
View ArticleNoteworthy – DISTANCE, MASK — MUSIC!!
SO CLOSE I CAN ALMOST HEAR IT Live music. My lifeblood. The passion I have been writing, talking, radio, television and podcasting (coming soon) about since college. I am an evangelist, for its...
View ArticleOPERA LEADS THE WAY BACK
I WAS RIGHT LAST WEEK! About live music coming back. That light at the end of the tunnel is a spotlight, and the band, the dancers and the actors are getting ready to hit the stage. Not tonight, not...
View ArticleTHE BEST TIMES OF MY LIFE
WHO KNOWS? For sure when we will be enjoying music in person again as we used to. In the Good Old Days. — only 15 months ago? Seems like a much longer home-confinement prison sentence. My cell block...
View ArticleTHE WORLD CAN SING AGAIN
WITH MUSIC IN THE AIR SAM FIRST — “O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!” (“Jabberwocky,” Carroll), “HUZZAH!” (Albert Alligator, or mebbe Howland Owl, from the uniquely precious Pogo cartoon strips by Walt...
View ArticleMUSIC IS WORTH IT
VAX, LAX, ERSKINE A magician’s wand might look like drumsticks, if in the hands of Santa Monica’s shaman of the skins, Peter Erskine. I’ll go way out of my way any time to see him stroke finely-drawn...
View ArticleTales of Two Daughters
ON STAGE, PUBLIC SCRUTINY I have always encouraged everyone to pursue their art. But as soon as you put it on a stage, it will be judged, and you have to be okay with that. I put my young musician butt...
View ArticleDRUMS, VIOLAS & IMPROV
DON’T MISS! I’m not going to wax poetic about concerts by our own Santa Monica jazz legend, drummer Peter Erskine. I just did, two weeks ago. So here’s the simple announcement. He will be playing again...
View ArticleI HAD A SHOT AT JONI
50 YEARS OLD, AND…LIVE! I’ve been praying for it, foreshadowing it, hinting at it, calling it forward, using incantations — all in the proper, safe time — and now, with only a few restrictions: live...
View ArticleA FEVER FOR MUSIC
REMEMBER THE OLD NOTEWORTHY? I hope so. The pre-COVID one, where every week I would scour the listings and my contacts to find the best, don’t-miss shows of all sorts (mostly music, but also theater, a...
View ArticleMUSIC FEEDS THE SOUL
STILL NOT ENOUGH NOTEWORTHY Shows to go back to the endless delectable listings of the week’s must-see live performances — soon come — but here are a couple I do recommend. I usually don’t go on...
View ArticleGO! PERFORMERS ARE JAZZED!
SITTING HERE IN LIMBOWaiting for the tide to flow. Like a bird without a song. (Jimmy Cliff, from “The Harder They Come,” the essential reggae movie, Jamaican-made.)Everything in its time, I believe....
View ArticleTHANKS, GUIDO, FOR IT ALL
LIFE IS STRANGE And doesn’t death define it, in the end? Puts the frame on the picture, rolls the end credits that tell you this movie is done, now what did you think of it? Strange, and filled with...
View ArticleA STAR IS BORN!
IN SANTA MONICA! I keep waiting, and anticipating in this column, prematurely, the full blown return of live music. For all those months I thought it would come in a tsunami, all venue doors finally...
View ArticleFEAST / FAMINE, A MUSIC SCOURGE
WHAT CAN I TELL YOU? That I didn’t last week, about how the anti-science idiots have ruined things for us all with their needless, reckless pandemic of the unvaccinated, that requires us to wear masks...
View ArticleTHEATER, JAZZ, RNR…
THE LIVE MUSIC FEAST EXPANDS Is it good to come out of this music desert we’ve endured slowly? Like someone fasting coming back to the table with a small bowl of broth and crackers, which at that point...
View ArticleDOES THIS LOOK FAMILIAR?
YES! YE OLDE NOTEWORTHY FORMAT Finally, there is enough in the way of live music (barely) to go back to the listings format. But this deadly virus has taught us never to become complacent, and there’s...
View ArticleGUNS-FIGHT ON MAIN STREET
MUSIC TOPS POLITICS Every time. Duh. But I mean, in real importance in life. I am drawn to both, but one is a fascination and a compulsion to know, like staring at a burning building, and the other is...
View ArticleDISBAND THE STONES!
OF COURSE I knew it, I just knew it. That when I acknowledged local activist Judy Abdo’s objection to putting LA Guns on my impromptu list of worst bands, suitable only for torture, because LAG is her...
View ArticleEM IS THE MASTER
AND SANTA MONICA HAS HER HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: EM THE MASTER — Yes, she is officially upgraded from RECOMMENDED to the lofty pedestal of HIGHLY RECOMMENDED (make room, Dudamel). I figured this day would...
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