On August 12, 2016 I headed to Junior High in Hollywood, CA to hear young singer-songwriters Matt Minigell and Annabelle Lord-Patey perform. Matt and Annabelle, who hail from Boston, were on their first ever tour of the West Coast, with Los Angeles being their final destination. Junior High is a non-profit that promotes “artistic pursuits of marginalized voices through events and arts education.” It’s a small space, but provides an opportunity for new musicians to polish their live acts in a supportive place. The space had good sound quality and the audience attending that evening was respectful and quiet. One thing
Tag: Indie Folk
I’m In a Los Angeles Cathedral
After seeing The Lone Bellow at the Bluegrass Situation Festival last October, it was exciting to attend another one of their shows, this time as they opened for The National at The Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, California on July 28, 2016. It was a little disheartening to see so many seats still open at a sold out show as the band took the stage, but early start times at the Greek compounded with L.A. traffic seem to make this a regular occurrence at this venue. Nevertheless, the band played as if every seat was full. The Greek also has
Put Down the Laptop and Get Outta That House
Some musicians are so much fun you have to see them more than once. Bass player, jazz scatting pro, and former American Idol contestant Casey Abrams is one of those guys. It just so happens that I was also already familiar with the two gentlemen opening for him on the night of October 7, 2015 at Saint Rocke in Hermosa Beach, CA. First on stage for the night was alt-country singer Danny Hamilton. I’d seen Danny a few months earlier at the same venue opening for Dana Fuchs and picked up one of his self-recorded albums. I like the quality
Would You Stop and Hear What I Would Say? (Part 1, BGS)
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I agreed to attend The Bluegrass Situation Festival at the Greek Theater on October 3, 2015 (follow the link for a thorough summary of the event on their web site, with gorgeous professional photos). My main goal for attending was to see the Punch Brothers, those incredible musicians and innovators of progressive bluegrass, and secondarily to see Dawes, an L.A.-based band that all my concert-going friends seems to know about, but I just discovered this year. The concert was really one of two halves — the first, which this blog entry covers, was
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