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NOV 25 - DEC 1
As 2003 enters its twilight, it's time to take stock of our blessings. We thank the heavens for German techno, the scratchy timelessness of vinyl, quirky troubadours and rockers, buttery popcorn at the movies (down to the last crumb), and this free land of ours in general. We're not asking for you to make a mental list and check it twice — just find the gracious vibe and spread it. |
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Take another slice of ABSOLUT ingenuity. The Heavyweight artist group worked all night and into the morning brewing up this treat at Times Square in front of a live audience. The pieces of 1979 NYC are coming together. Get the picture. |
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This week's flavor:
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| | Two parts dark + two parts erotic + one part violent viscera X the disturbingly surreal = the films of Japanese enfant terrible director Takashi Miike. You may know Miike, an even more twisted David Lynch, from films such as his carnal, fever dream art-house hits Audition, Ichi The Killer, or Dead or Alive — and you may have left the theatre before the end credits. We haven't seen his latest, Gozu, as this is the film's LA premiere, but advance critical word from Cannes (where it quickly gained infamy) deems it Miike's greatest achievement, and his strangest. Considering his oeuvre to date, that's an achievement in itself. (MD)
  
 Where in Japan is Takashi Miike from? The first correct answer wins a pair of tickets to this event.
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| | Listening to Robyn Hitchcock you veer between thinking he's the wackiest guy on the planet and the only one making sense. His songs — droll stories about life, death, and love set to catchy melodies — are at once light and dark, sage and childlike. Although Hitchcock plans a major-label release for next year, since the early '90s this delightfully eccentric UK rocker has preferred to remain comfortably underground, making limited editions for a core of ardent fans savvy enough to find him on the Internet. For the lucky ones who catch him with his guitar in a small venue, it feels like an intimate musical chat with a favorite uncle who is slightly barmy, charming, and impossibly cool. (CD)
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| | American Splendor, though acclaimed upon its release this year, still feels unsung enough to merit another screening. This interpretation of real-life underground comic icon Harvey Pekar brilliantly balances documentary footage with acted sequences while bringing his images to surprisingly affecting life. Similarly, Crumb documents the storied life of maverick underground comix forefather Robert Crumb — the big daddy to Pekar, if a lot more twisted. Idiosyncratic to a fault, Crumb catalogs his obsessions, perversions, and delusions with shocking honesty. The film pulls no punches, especially when it comes to his disturbing family relations, which begin to explain Crumb's eccentricity. (MD)
Note: These films also play on Fri 11.28 and Sat 11.29
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| | Arab Strap combine the folk stylings of Belle and Sebastian with the moodiness of Mogwai, but their sound is neither as breezy as the former or layered as the latter. This is music for the melancholy — the duo sing of failed relationships, empty sex, and bleak realities. And like any good Scots, these blokes love getting wasted — their most recent release, Monday at the Hug & Pint, pays tribute to the highs and lows of a night at the pub with your mates. The album spices up their stark sound with a few electro-dance beats and a string section, which accompanies them on this tour. (JS)
Who did the artwork for Arab Strap's The Red Thread album? The first two correct answers each win a pair of tickets to this event.
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| | St. Gregory — aka Twilight Singers main man Greg Dulli — swings through his adopted hometown with a shot of soulful liquor to give you a pre-Thanksgiving hangover. With guests on the melancholy and intricate Blackberry Belle (this year's tribute to a friend, the late director Ted Demme) ranging from Mark Lanegan to Apollonia, don't be surprised by a Hollywood infusion. But highlighted by engineer and producer Mathias Schneeberger on keys and the multifaceted Dulli on guitar, the Twilight Singers groove, cameo or not. (JH)
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DJ
Garth w/ Rithma and Lillyanne
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| when: | Wed 11.26 (9pm-3am) |
| where: | Hollywood Canteen (1006 Seward St, 323.465.0961) |
| price: | $5 before 11pm / $10 |
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Event Info |
| | System, your midweek staple for a colorful spectrum of house beats, hosts yet another special event. On the eve of Turkey Day, give thanks for music as British expat Garth shakes things up with his always-eclectic and fantastically funky Wicked thing. Local fave and young production wiz Rithma, fresh from recent travels around the globe in support of his debut full-length, Music Fiction on Om Records, shares his intimate side out on the patio. While you await your libations at the bar, revel in the rarities on display by Hotlips (DJ Lillyanne) and Hawkeye. (CFM)
What was Om Records' very first CD release? The first five correct answers each win a pair of tickets to this event and a CD.
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| | DJ Ender hails from the musical collective Nuspirit Helsinki, a kind of Scandinavian variation on Cinematic Orchestra. Like their cinema-inspired peers, Nuspirit deliver big-canvas, downtempo nu-jazz hot-wired for metaphysical mood elevation. Despite his band's tendency toward couch-potato spaceouts, Ender likes to start a party on the dancefloor as well as in the mind. Best of all, he does so while engaging not just one rhythm or tempo — in an Ender set, deep 'n funky house might rub up against dusty breakbeats or sultry bossa nova, but it always gets you shimmying. (MD)
With a member of which DJ duo did DJ Ender first start spinning? The first three correct answers each win a pair of tickets to this event.
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| | Carole Lombard isn't just for drag queens anymore. Tonight's double feature focuses on two of the '30s screen icon's signature roles, each highlighting her capacity for screwball farce. Twentieth Century (1934) comes from salty American auteur Howard Hawks, and features John Barrymore as a pickled-drunk producer pursuing his clever muse, Lombard, in a performance that's hardly a stretch, though perfectly pitched. Nothing Sacred (1937) is a Preston Sturges-esque satire about a publicity-craving young lady who fakes a terminal illness for media attention. Ripped from today's headlines! (MD)
How old was Carole Lombard when she made her screen debut? The third correct answer wins a pair of tickets to this event.
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DJ
Popcorn
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| when: | Fri 11.28 (10pm-2am) |
| where: | El Cid (4212 Sunset Blvd, Silverlake, 323.668.0318) |
| price: |  FREE before 11pm / $5 |
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Event Info |
| | Get out the mirror, practice your b-boy stance, and head east to Popcorn, a twice-monthly ode to hip hop wax featuring the sounds of resident DJs Marvski, Haul, Doctor J, and Redbeef. For fans of the Stones Throw sound and the eclectic beats of Cut Chemist and Z-Trip with a South Bronx inflection, this party is for you. A dedicated crowd has built up a steady roster of guest breakbeaters and a high-energy vibe circa 1978, and tonight should be no different. (JF)
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| | World music gets a heady, sensual rewiring as Juana Molina comes to town. The Argentine native gets lumped in with Bebel Gilberto due to their shared penchant for combining native South American rhythms and luxe electronics. But on her brilliant Domino debut, Segundo, Molina goes a little deeper, a little darker, a little dreamier, and a little more techy in her sonics, without sacrificing any of her ethereal beauty or lilt. Instead, Molina brings her own spin, rendering what could be incredibly predictable incredibly appealing. (MD)
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| | Ben Watt is something of an elder statesman in the world of poptronica — he's held up half of Everything But the Girl (with singer Tracey Thorn) since the '80s, hosts a regular DJ event in London called Lazy Dog, produces and remixes regularly, and survived a near-fatal bout with a rare auto-immune disease, from which he bore inspiration for his memoir, Patient: The History of a Rare Illness. KCRW's Jason Bentley, long a fan of Watt's work, hosts the UK DJ for a night of very deep house at the Larchmont, which is deservedly gaining a reputation as one of the best intimate venues in LA. (SE)
Who's your favorite poptronica elder statesperson? The 15 most convincing answers each win a pair of tickets to this event.
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DJ
Adam Freeland w/ Uberzone and K-Swing
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| when: | Sat 11.29 (9:30pm-5am) |
| where: | Avalon (1735 N. Vine St, 323.464.7373) |
| price: | $15 advance |
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Event Info |
| | Internationally celebrated UK DJ Adam Freeland brings his dancefloor mastery to LA in support of his latest studio production, Now & Them, the first from Freeland, his new band. Joining Adam with a drummer, a singer, and some freaks from Chile, the group scored an underground hit with their first single, "We Want Your Soul." Before his collaborative turn, Adam's pioneering 1996 album Coastal Breaks put the breakbeat movement up front and center. His DJ sets serve up electro, techno, hip hop, and house with a dash of drum 'n bass and world on three turntables augmented with samplers and some tripped-out effect units. Helping him are Cali breakbeat guru Uberzone, who's so hot he's collaborated with old-school don Afrika Bambaataa, and new spinner K-Swing, who brings her own distinctive, hypnotic warmth to the nu-school state of mind. (SN)
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| | To technophiles with a minimalist slant — fans not of the banging, speed-and-glowsticks stuff, but of more nuanced tunes tinged with dub, pop, and ambient bliss — Cologne, Germany, is musical Mecca and Kompakt Records its most sacred institution. For five years, the organization — combining a label, record shop, and distribution arm — has set the underground dancefloor standard by releasing a stream of projects as varied as Speicher's off-kilter tunes, Auftreib's rave revisionism, and Kompakt Pop's luscious new romanticism. Representing the label tonight are Reinhard Voigt (aka Kron, Pentax, Sturm) and Michael Mayer. The latter's recent mix CDs Fabric 13 and Immer may make you reconsider everything you thought you knew about techno; live, the effect is even more dramatic. (PS)
Can you think of a better genre name for the Kompakt sound than microhouse? Our three favorite answers each win a pair of tickets to this event.
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| | Rhino Records has been serving LA music maniacs since 1973, specializing in all kinds of adventurous sounds (and seemingly carrying everything else to boot). Their parking-lot sales are legendary urban rituals for collectors of rare and beloved music — you never know what might turn up in the crates. Today's parking-lot sale is all about the vinyl — over 40,000 pieces of delicious black-licorice pizza, to be exact, much of it recently acquired from an estate. With those kind of numbers, be you a hip hop beatmaker or just a lover of the obscure and anachronistic, Rhino's bound to have something for you in its wax horn of plenty. (MD)
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ART
Torrey Bridgman and Sara Bridgman: Stepping Out
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| when: | Sun 11.30 (11am-4pm) |
| where: | Sponto Gallery (7 Dudley Ave, Venice, 310.399.2078) |
| price: | FREE |
| | Stepping Out marks the first public showing of both Torrey and Sara Bridgman's work, even though the brother and sister have painted for most of their lives. On the surface, the two seem different in every way (she figurative, narrative, and literary; he abstract, conceptual, and optical), yet an instinctive, compelling connection exists between the two bodies of work when viewed more closely. Either artist could carry a gallery alone; together they provide us with a rare opportunity to examine the diverse paths taken by members of an unusually talented family. Think The Royal Tenenbaums without the unpleasantness. (SND)
Note: The opening reception takes place Sat 11.29 (7-11pm).
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ART
La Mano Press Studio Sale
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| when: | Sat 11.29 & Sun 11.30 (1-7pm) |
| where: | Avenue 50 Studio (131 N Avenue 50, Highland Park, 323.258.1435) |
| price: | FREE |
| links: |
Event Info |
| | La Mano Press is the brainchild of local printmaker Artemio Rodriguez. Dedicated in style and technique to celebrating and modernizing traditional wood-block and linoleum printing processes, he and the other artists involved in La Mano introduce contemporary subjects, often political, into their powerful and beautiful compositions. An exhibition featuring the exotically familiar works of many La Mano artists inspires Medievalist fantasies of the Old World and the legends of Latin American literature. The studio's two-day print sale provides the perfect opportunity to give friends, family, and yourself the gift of culture this holiday season. (SND)
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| | Two great, eccentric artists collaborated on this, er, whale of an epic. The stubbornly individualistic director John Huston took on Melville's famously difficult novel with panache, and the result, while flawed, imbues the all-too-familiar lit classic with Huston's typically aesthetic imprimatur (his expressive use of color is particularly painterly). An unlikely choice for a screenwriter, the well-known (and equally idiosyncratic) author Ray Bradbury proved a pro at interpreting the psychology of the sea, though he's best known for his speculative fantasy/sci-fi fiction. In a rare appearance, Bradbury is on hand to discuss the sure-to-be-fascinating process of making Moby Dick. (MD)
What's the name of Ray Bradbury's scorching, best-known book? The third correct answer wins a pair of tickets to this event.
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| | On the heels of his second solo effort, Stephen Malkmus performs his jangling literati rock at the El Rey. The former frontman of Pavement, the founding fathers of lo-fi indie rock, Malkmus continues to preach the irreverent, meandering rock gospel that won his previous outfit their influential place in slacker history. Yet his latest release, Pig Lib, finds Malkmus laying down gratuitous guitar jams and circumventing his previously wry songwriting style. Joining Malkmus are melancholy pop rockers/sometime country crooners the Pernice Brothers. (LB)
Which grunge band did Pavement mockingly call "elegant bachelors" in "Range Life"? The fourth correct answer wins a pair of tickets to this event.
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| | If Kafka had been spurned by a lover instead of a father, his books might lend insight into what makes American Music Club lead singer Mark Eitzel so damn sad. AMC's masterful major-label debut, Mercury (1991), trumped the multiplatinum anguish of the era with beautiful arrangements, exceptional musicianship, and Eitzel's lyrical voice — so hungry that it reached right into your gut in search of sustenance. The whole affair was a bit too intense for mainstream audiences: AMC quietly faded away after San Francisco (1993), and now return a decade later with a similarly low level of fanfare. It's just as well. Misery loves company, but not too much. (JSS)
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| | The new exhibition by Philadelphia artists Jim Houser and Rebecca Wolcott is just about the opposite of minimalism. Wolcott's portraits can be reserved — often presented on nearly empty backgrounds and built with semi-transparent layers — yet they convey intimate ideas about their sitters' personalities and psyches. Houser, by turn, boasts a rich, deep sense of surface texture and a feel for describing cartoonish figures and environments with large fields of color. Featuring murals, sculptures, paintings, drawings, and installations, these two share a horror vacui of immense proportions. Let's call it maximalism instead. (SND)
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| | The show's title refers to the website of the same name run by a consortium of female artists from around the world who operate in diverse media under a common cause. These feminist thinkers embrace sexuality as a source of power in society, and dedicate themselves to an independent and spirited exploration of these ideas in visual art. Sharing a willingness, even an eagerness, to use the female body as a sexual object, these women acknowledge its function as sign, symbol, and fetish in order to reclaim for themselves the terms of engagement. Because the project operates online, this exhibition provides a rare chance to view many of the works in the flesh — no pun intended. (SND)
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| | Foregoing the kid's eye-catching bright color palette and simplistic dialogue in favor of silent film-style exposition through animations both sophisticated and highly exaggerated, director Sylvain Chomet attains a curious kind of seriously silly reverie. After Madame Souza discovers her miserable grandson's true love of bike riding and trains him into a racing machine, he's kidnapped from the Tour de France by a mysterious bunch of men in black. She stumbles upon unlikely assistance from a down-and-out defunct musical trio, and they embark on a transcontinental rescue mission. From the film's reserved, sepia-toned umbers and laconics to its aunti-heroes, three old ladies who sleep in the same bed, Triplets takes typical expectations and flips them around — the seemingly depressing becomes the redemptive, and the seemingly archaic freshly iconic. (JKG)
Note: On Wed 11.26, Thur 11.27, Saturdays, and Sundays, there will be additional screenings at 1pm and 3pm.
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| CD REVIEW: Various, Superlongevity 3 |
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Perlon
Released November 2003
$16.99 (Other Music)
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Voices critical of Perlon's recent output of singles, take heed — the German label was holding back some gems for the third installment of its Superlongevity series. Here, at their best, Perlon's tracks are efficient and tidy, with sparse vocals that never overpower the tinks and twonks. Akufen's latest incarnation, Horror Inc., offers "A Dream Within a Dream," a track with lurching vocal samples over a stalking beat. The Matthew Dear (under his Jabberjaw moniker) cut "Maybe This Ain't Right" zips with the mellow tonality that's
a pleasant
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mainstay in his productions. But leave it to stud Ricardo Villalobos and vocalist Nina to craft a perfect microdisco track in the snappy and stripped-down "Mr. Big Star." Perlon's microhouse clique has succeeded at a tough task — corralling disparate producers to create a succinct and recognizable sound. (NP)
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| ADHESIVE ART: Sticker Nation |
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Use "sticker" as a verb and increase your cool factor at Sticker Nation, an amazing compendium of downloadable sticker art for underground artists and the people who love them. Sticker artists from nations large and small post their designs in PDF format, ready for you to print, peel, and stick in your own iteration of guerilla art. Photographers capture their urban works and upload sightings to a gallery of more than 5,000 images from around the globe, turning urban surfaces into virtual museum walls, and making the streets safe for free expression. (JF)
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| STREAMS: dublab |
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Have you ever run a lap around the Moon, flipped a set of sit-ups on the Sun's surface, or jumping-jacked your way to the Earth's core? Does this all sound too strange to believe? Well, turn that searching frown upside down. dublab has found a way to dream the impossible dreams. Merely listen three times a day, and you'll start to feel empowered to do anything your heart desires. (The Labrats are not responsible for injuries caused by audience stunts.)(Frosty)
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| CREDITS |
| Header Design: |
| Inspired art | Heavyweight | | |
| Staff: |
| The Twilight Singers | Matt Diehl | | Email | Sascha Lewis | | Sanity | Mark Mangan | | Copyeditors | Yancey Strickler | | |
ABOUT US
flavorpill LA is a free weekly mailer covering music, arts, and cultural events in Los Angeles. All listings are pure editorial, researched and written based on what we think has flavor. No money is accepted from venues, artists, or promoters. As always, feel free to send in any and all feedback — comments, questions, ideas, or rants. Spread the flavor...
EVENT SUBMISSIONS
Please send all interesting event information (press releases, links, etc.) to events. |
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| Contributors: |
| Luis Lopez | Jen Bachman | | Google | Paul Laster | | Family | Jay Belin | | Language | Jocelyn K. Glei | | Health | Christopher Hampton | | Wealth | Emily A. Welsch | | Canvases | Shana Nys Dambrot | | Happiness | Lisa Rosman | | Turntables | Philip Sherburne | | Sneakers | Elizabeth L. McDonald | | Casual Fridays | Sander-Martijn Milks | | Yoga | Anjuli Ayer | | Airplanes | Frosty | | House music | Carly F. Miller | | Sensory perception | Jonathan Heit | | Meditation | Suzanne Ely |
| Rock 'n roll | Lindsay Baker | | Cars | David Morrow | | Paul Laffoley | Steve Nalepa | | LA son | Carol Diehl | | Money | Nick Parish | | Spray paint | Jeremy Sampson | | ATMs | Amanda M | | Post-it notes | Jeff S. Safran | | Good health | Jennifer Fader | | iPods | Jason Sattler |
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