Kristen’s Playlist

The British Are Invading

I returned to the Hollywood Bowl recently to enjoy the LA Philharmonic play cool Britanica music. I didn’t know the genre existied but sure enough, it’s pretty cool to listen to a live orchestra play various scores from James Bond movies. They also performed some tunes from Austin Powers but the other tunes were a bit more sleepy than cool.

The big draw for the night was Jamie Cullem. I love him and he played with the orchestra. He sounded brilliant! He wasn’t as crazy as he usually is when it’s just his band but he did a good job showing off his talents to the somewhat older crowd.

What a cool night.

Picnics & Music

People have been enjoying picnics at parks for centuries. It is a sure sign of summer when you’re packing up some chicken, salads, cakes, and cold bubbly drinks.  I’ve been to some great parks that attract people to pull up a blanket and unwind with food. Parks like Austin’s Zilker Park (home of ACL Festival), Washington DC’s National Mall or Manhattan’s Central Park (of course).

Well, LA has a few great parks too, one of them being the Arboretum in Santa Anita (and even though I’m a native of LA, this was my first visit). An estate of open land originally owned by Elias “Lucky” Baldwin and converted to a park in 1947. The park has developed into a beautiful collection of trees and botantical plants.  For several summers now, the California Philharmonic has offered a summer series of thematic musical adventures. It’s a great show and pretty inexpensive to get general seating in the park area ($20 for the lawn, seen above). Bring your own eats and enjoy the view.

What’s your favorite park to picnic at? I’m hoping to check out as many as I can before the summer ends.

Summer Time: Santa Monica Pier Concerts

Santa Monica kicked off it’s 23rd year for the Summer Dance Series. I snapped a photo of Brandy Shearer who opend for David Lindley. Though we got a little fog that night, the rest of the summer should be full of beautiful sunset performances. If you’re in the LA area, the Santa Monica pier is not that far away.  Plus, it’s a free show and definitely a “must-see” event.  Other performances this summer will include Patti Smith, Arrested Development and Los Lobos.

John Mayer in the Open Air

It wasn’t my first time seeing John Mayer, but it was my first time listening to him at the Hollywood Bowl. There’s something magical about the Bowl. Not only is the sound amazing but your nestled in with the crowd and tucked in with swaying tall trees. You forget that your in the heart of Hollywood and its just you and the music.

As people were still arriving and the sun was slowly setting, Rocco De Luca and Ben Folds took the stage. They were entertaining, I preferred Rocco’s sound though. He has one of those rough, early Bruce Springsteen voices. Ben had a fun piano beat but sounded kind of like he was just trying to jam on nursury rhymes. His magic was lost on me.

Then the stage changed its look. Rugs were rolled out.  Extra instruments were set up. And then there was anticipation. One thing you can count on with John, he’s always late. When he finally arrived, you forgot about the wait and just enjoyed the music. His new album Continum is awesome. Some blues, some guitar, some slow and some fast tunes. But they’re all good. He mixed up his last few albums in the set and talked for a few stretches with the crowd. He joked at one point that he has a theory that love is on the way but had no clear evidence of it yet (I guess a nod to his recent break up with Jessica?)…hmmm. You can guess, it was an intro to his song “Love Is on the Way.”

In his encore, he did an accoustic set. And he sounded perfect. He is such a talent he even blogs!. You have to see him once. Dont’ be threatened that chicks love him, who doesn’t want to be around a bunch of hot ladies on a night with drinkind and dancing? Come back soon, I’m seeing the Police this weekend. YEAH!!!

Triple Door- Seattle

My first time to Seattle was a couple weeks ago, with Tommy, and we took the city by storm. Maybe not really by storm but we walked all over downtown, ate our way through many restaurants (love Tom Douglas), scoured the fish market, witnessed the underground, sailed the lakes, rode the monorail, skyrocketed to the Space Needle and slipped into the Triple Door.  The hard part about visiting a new place is having to find the cool gems of the city.  The Triple Door is one of Seattle’s gems. In looking over their acts, you can tell they don’t really book main stream artists but the scene and stage are such an artistic vision itself that you don’t really need an amazing singers or bands to enjoy it. 

I especially love that the Triple Door was inexpensive to get into and there weren’t any drink minimums even though they seat everyone in these cool, old school half-moon booths.  You step into the basement of this old hotel and step back into time.  I half expected a crooner to come on stage. It’s a sight to see.

The night we were there, we watched Sean Nelson (in Nelson Performs Nilsson). Talk about a random act! But he has a great voice and he is actually quite entertaining. He has great stories and he’s funny as hell. If he comes to your town, check him out or just check out his MySpace page.

What’s your favorite live music venue in Seattle? I’ll be sure to check out it out on the next trip.

Work Life Imbalance & New Artists

As you can see between my two posts below I let over a month pass before blogging! My bad.

I guess my work/life balance is a little off. It’s been pretty much all work with some life. I’ve been on and off planes from LA to NYC to SF and was supposed to get to Chicago but due to bad weather cancelled the flight and therefore my entire 48hr trip.

As I was walking off my Jetblue flight from NYC, I thought it was a pretty crazy image to see all these TVs running various shows set by passengers. There is so much media surrounding us everyday…there I am watching some show about America’s Next Top Designer Model Idol then on commercials tuning into my iPOD for my quick song before going back to the show.  Then as soon as we land, turning on my Treo to download my emails and check messages from friends and family asking me where I am today. I walk past all the ads in the airport to arrive at baggage claim where Disney has paid to create an illuminated faux luggage ad telling me that the magic is all at Disneyland! And the truth is, I wanted to go to Disneyland where I feel happy and carefree. Then it just made me mad that I was stuck in frickin baggage claim waiting for my dopey bag to come down the shute.

You may be asking, “Wait a minute, so what songs were you listening to on your iPOD?”…oh yes, back to the music my friends. Well, what got me through all the travels are some cool new artists that I’ve become big fans of…

Amy Winehouse- You Know I’m No Good (favorite song)

James Morrison - Undiscovered (inspirational song)

John Legend - Save Room (reminder that some things are worth the risk)

Check them out if you haven’t already. They’re not NEW NEW but pretty new to me

And BTW- I have tickets to see the Police and John Mayer in June so stay tuned for reviews!

The Ring of Fire

Like Jonny Cash sang, it burns…the ring of fire. I was thinking about that as I drove home last night from work. I had heard about a fire at Griffith Park (I work about 20min away from it). I didn’t know what started it or how bad it was…apparently it’s bad since they were still trying to contain it 24hrs later.

I snapped this image of the smoke blowing from the flames off the top of the hillside as I approached the freeway on ramp to head home. A home that was safely far away from these flames… 

Though I try to connect my life experiences to music, I’m not sure what song would best describe this scene but i can tell you that I happen to have been listening to MatisYahu.

Maroon 5 Private Jam

Here is your sneak peek at an upcoming Yahoo Music/Nissan Live Set with Maroon 5. See image above.  Ok so it’s just a photo but let me tell you- it’s worth a thousand words, so here goes.

-First time they played new music live (Fox Studios in Century City, CA)

-Fans are still loving the band

-Adam Levine sounds even better than last time

-Their new song, I think it’s called The Reason, will catch on like wild fire

-The other few new tracks they played were just as good, get the CD when it’s released

Not Too Late for Norah To Become Famous

I was watching 60 Minutes interview with Norah Jones recently. I learned some interesting things about her, like the fact her estranged father is a famous sitar player who she didn’t really have relationship with until she was an adult.  I also heard that she is now 27 and would rather remain an under the radar type of artist and didn’t like the fast celebrity that hit her almost a decade ago. That said, she’s still been releasing albums featuring her famous whispered lyrics.  I give her credit, she seems to have escaped the crazy splotlight that celebrity brings.

To respect her wishes, I won’t oversell her new album “Not Too Late.”  I’ll just say that it lives up to her standard of being a mellow collection of some okay songs. Check out Thinking About You, Broken and Be My Somebody.  

My Austin Education: SXSW 2007

I was at SXSW Interactive in the City of Live Music- Austin! It was a fun show. I had to be there for work, but it’s hardly work to hang out in a party town for weekend.

Coincidentally, Chris Pierce was playing in town that weekend. Naturally, I had to check him out. He played at the Lucky Lounge, which I highly recommend visiting. It’s a really cool venue with swanky lighting, cushioned chairs and couches for performances and a great bar!   Chris was rocking as usual. He should have a new album out before summer, so check back here for that review.

I finally got to see a live performance at Stubbs in their backyard stage. Lucinda Williams played there and she was awesome. Unfortunately, their sound system seemed a little quiet, so we had to move closer to really hear everything (and it’s not that big of an area).  She performed songs from her new album West. If you haven’t listened to Lucinda before, let this be the album that brings you into her world of blues. The songs are beautiful and bewildering.

I had a blast, though I forgot to bring a camera you can check out all the photos tagged with “SXSW 2007” on flickr to get the picture.