New Mike Doughty Video

Getting ready for the AATMF?
Check out Mike Doughty's new video for Looking At The World From The Bottom Of A Well.

LA Music

I attended a Public Radio conference on Development , Membership, Underwriting and Marketing in LA last week. Naturally I squeezed in some music. There are a multitude of musicians living in LA and which translate into a number of early week jam sessions. I took one in at a terrific intimate (that means small) club, "The Mint". It's been around for a long time and is definitely a musicians hangout. I believe the core band's name is Soul Serenade (I will update this in a later posting) and they had a number of special guests including bassist Blondie Chaplain, a rapper named Rubella, and vocalist extraordinaire Bernard Fowler. Blondie has been involved with a number of projects and I believe even sang the Rick Danko parts with The Band for a while. Bernard Fowler is amazing. He is best known for Back-up vocals on just about everything the Rolling Stones have recorded since 1988 including the Jagger and Charlie Watts solo projects. It was, as jam sessions inevitably tend to be, a night of covers and terrific funk. This group was the perfect Funky Friday band on a tuesday night in LA.

The next night, I went to check out a cool Santa Monica club called, "the Temple Bar." Despite the fact that my friend and I were the only two people over 25, the opening act just didn't cut it for me, and the headliner was a hip-hop act, we hung in. We were very glad we did. Veteran artist "Medusa" is a powerful performer in total control of her material and her audience who packed the place. The highlight for me was her ramping up of the Beatles classic, which she called "Come Together Over Me, Oh Sh*t". She apparently has some acting chops as well, appearing in an HBO Black Panther movie and even an episode of Moesha.

Finally, my last night in town, I headed out with two friends to see John Hiatt with The North Mississippi All-Stars at the House of Blues on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood.. Oh my goodness. the All-Stars played a short opening set. The rest of the evening, they backed Hiatt in a spirited array of Hiatt material new and old. As a huge Sonny Landreth fan, I arrived with some trepidation. Not to worry. Luther Dickinson energizes Hiatt and his catalog with tasteful rocking guitar work. Hiatt, recently recovered from back surgery, seems to have fully recovered his vitality giving us a little soft shoe (dedicated to his surgeon who was in the house) and upbeat readings of some his classics ranging from "Cry Love" to "Memphis in the Meantime." The band gave an edge to the new single "Master of Disaster" which isn't quite there on the CD. He played the keyboards once in his only turn without the band, "Have a little Faith." I encourage you to see the show when it hits the Keswick in August.

As you can tell, I found plenty worth listening to in LA.