Meaningless Before We’d Seen Them Together

Largo at the Coronet is my favorite venue in Los Angeles. It is just about the perfect sized theater and there is not a bad seat in the house for viewing or hearing a concert.  This place has near perfect sound; I rarely find it too loud and all the instruments are well balanced.  They also have a fantastic monthly line-up of musicians and popular comedians. Many of these people perform at Largo on a monthly basis. Friday night I was there to see the phenomenal multi-instrumentalist Jon Brion. The special guests for the night were Sean and Sara Watkins,

We’re Sharing this Night That’ll Soon Be a Blur

What a privilege to spend Friday, September 18 at the Troubadour seeing one of my favorite bands, Old 97’s, perform. They’ve been around for “20 good years of about 25” as Rhett sings in their song “Longer than You’ve Been Alive,” but I only jumped on the bandwagon almost exactly one year ago. (I also borrowed the title for this post from that song.) I’ve made up for lost time since then, buying all of their albums and nearly all of lead singer Rhett Miller’s solo albums. In the past several months, I’ve managed to see Rhett perform solo five

You Are Everything

There are some musicians whose work becomes a part of your life story. You latch onto their words to find the meaning in your life; they help you navigate the rough parts and celebrate the high points. I think everyone who likes music has a singer or a band that fills this role and for me that person is Glen Phillips. Glen is the lead singer of the band Toad the Wet Sprocket, whose hits in the 1990s included “Walk on the Ocean” and “All I Want” (I just heard the latter at my local grocery store on Thursday).  Glen later

And Just Be Who You Are

On Saturday night I headed to Amplyfi in Hollywood, CA to see my friend Kapali Long play a short set. This is a small, all ages venue with platinum records and music-themed posters on the walls, band stickers plastered all over an inner door, and an eclectic choice of chairs to sit on. This would be an ideal space for budding artists to play or perhaps for an intimate secret show. Kapali performed with his usual level of passion and obvious love for music. He started the show with his sweet song, “Double Tall Non-Fat Latte,” a story of love

Love to Hear the Robin Go Tweet, Tweet, Tweet

“You Make My World Rock” is on Twitter too! Follow along at @YouMMWRock. Watch out for the following daily hashtags: #SundaySongDay — focusing on songs by singer/songwriters, those guys and gals creating music with their guitars or pianos (or ukuleles) to guide them. #MiseryLovesMonday — get all your sad songs here. The weekend is over and heaven knows we are miserable now. #TuesdayFanDay — I’ll highlight a song suggested by a follower. Are you a fan of a musician you want to share with the world? Let me know and I’ll give them a shout out. #WiseWordsWednesday — there are