Change Your Heart, Look Around You – Jon Brion

August 25, 2017 — Another Friday at the end of the month, must be time for Jon Brion‘s show at Largo at the Coronet. Owner Mark Flanagan came on stage and greeted the audience, remarking “It does feel like when you’re in this room…fuck everything else! Everything’s gonna be alright.” Then he introduced special guest Zach Galifianakis to open the show with a set of stand-up comedy. Stand-up is not my area of expertise, but Zach had me laughing with his down-played, nervous-looking delivery and exaggerated life commentary and observations (at one moment opening the door to the Largo alley

Sweeter Each Season – Toad the Wet Sprocket

For my summer vacation I decided to follow two of my favorite bands around California. I’ve been loving Toad the Wet Sprocket since the early 1990s and their opening band Beta Play for the past three years, since I first saw them open for Toad at an unforgettable show in Fresno under their former band name Tommy and the High Pilots. This post covers four shows that I attended and will be a little more personal than my usual posts — part travelogue, part recap. The first show I saw on this road trip was at the Crest Theatre in

The Way It Went – Jon Brion

Summer had arrived in Los Angeles and with the ushering in of higher temperatures and extended sunny evenings, I was once again at Largo at the Coronet for Jon Brion‘s show on Friday, June 30, 2017. While the weather couldn’t have been better, I sure could have been, having suddenly come down with something that was making my eyes and nose operate like a faucet someone forgot to shut off. So prior to the show I had taken multiple cold remedies, off the shelf and homeopathic, and eaten a bunch of foods with antihistamine properties. I was feeling a little

I Am in Paradise

I can’t stay away from Largo at the Coronet for very long and so I was back there on Friday, April 28, 2017 to see Jon Brion. After a brief welcoming of the audience and introduction from Largo-owner Mark Flanagan, Jon strode onto the stage wearing fuchsia trousers, carrying a notebook, and clearing his throat. He sat down to talk to the audience. He had rapidly eaten some Japanese food right before the show and was feeling the burn of doing so. There was a lot of equipment set up on the stage that night: a rack of guitars, with

Rise Up and See for Yourself

I spent a few days mulling over the idea of going to see Foxygen at the Fonda Theatre in Hollywood (Saturday, April 8, 2017). Obviously, since I’m writing a post about it, I eventually decided to go! I’m not particularly familiar with their music, though I remember checking out a couple of their songs on YouTube after the album We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic came out they were being hyped in the music press. More recently, I’ve been impressed by Foxygen multi-instrumentalist Jonathan Rado producing Do Hollywood, a fantastic debut album by my latest favorite find,