Bonobo/Tokimonsta on Black Friday

On Friday night big names were glowing on the marquees of Los Angeles. Dawes was back in town at the El Rey. Pretty Lights was rolling hard at the Wiltern, and Bonobo assembled an orchestra for his show at the Music Box. You can only imagine the struggle I went through to decide which one of these events to attend. Thanks to SUPERGOODMUSIC, no blood was lost during my internal battle.

Friday, 9:15 PM rolls around. I arrive at the Music Box and the line has reached around the building. The "think before you print" mantra saves the earth but wastes my time. Not having a hard copy of my ticket set me back 40 minutes due to will call moving slower than my lazy brother. (love you!) I shouldn't even be complaining - I was on guest list. Ha!

Once inside I was greeted with straight up noise. Tokimonsta was rocking her groove and, despite technical difficulties, she kept the crowd warm. Her transitions kept you on your toes; some of her mashups came from left field – but the shakers loved it. Its nice to see a girl DJ every once in a while. Represent.

However, every damn person in that theatre was there to see one man and one man only, Simon Green. You know him better as Bonobo. Correction - you had Bonobo (a full band + then some). A keyboardist/synthesist, drummer, vocalist, harpist, saxophonist and other wind instruments I won't even attempt to name, all enveloped the stage and made sweet music like it was nobody's business. This guy has been jamming for a decade; you can hear his soul hasn't aged a beat.

His sound is fresh and clean. SO fresh and so clean. Bonobo manipulated live instruments while people would walk on & off stage depending on whether or not a song required their talent. Every so often he came out and played his acoustic & the crowd would go nuts. The man conducted hue musicians & your emotions to give you a beautiful - never to be forgotten - Bonobo experience.

- post submitted by Sheida Mohammed (@ohsheida); THANKS SHEIDA

The BV Ramble is TONIGHT!

It is technically "holiday season" and Los Angeles is already getting its fair share of presents in the form of music. Sure, Roger Waters is performing tonight - but if you aren't already committed to that - look no further than the Bag of Vagabonds Ramble going down in Santa Monica.

Local favorites of mine Risers are hitting The Basement at 2640 Main Street (also known as The Victorian) and are joined by Gamble House, Hi Ho Silver Oh, The Drakes, LA Font, Fatty Dearest and Gentle Hands. Oh yeah, and Voxhaul Broadcast was just added!

Its rare that such a smoking line-up of rising indie graces a westside stage, but maybe this Midnight Ramble spells a changing of the times....or maybe it is just a special present for the westside. Who knows?

What I do know is that you shouldn't miss The BV Ramble. Its free with RSVP (hit up sirfrancisdrake@bagavagabonds.com), drinks will be cheap and the festivities run from 7 pm - 1 am. There will be food trucks and live art, screen printing and even an area to donate clothing and shoes to benefit the Tashirat Orphanage.

You can found out even more about the event here - http://www.bagavagabonds.com/art-explosions/

AND, just for the sake of being a historian, The BV Ramble derives its name from Levon Helm's famed series of "Midnight Ramble" sit ins where the famous member of The Band would invite musicians old and new to to sit in and get dirty with music, jokes and dancing. The sessions would turn out cool takes on standards as well as originals from the participating musicians. In tune with the tradition of the rock legends midnight parties, Bag of Vagabonds has adopted the format for their very own party - The BV Ramble.

'Tis The Season...

We hope you all had fantastic Thanksgiving weekends. Since its not yet Hannukah or Christmas, you may not have gotten the gifts you were hoping for yet.....and we're here to help with the gift of music. FREE MUSIC.

FREE MUSIC can come in the form of concert tickets or free downloads or just a free CD or a free flashdrive with music loaded on it. There are definitely more than a handful of other ways to get FREE MUSIC that I haven't even mentioned. Mention another way you can get FREE MUSIC in the comments section, or on our facebook page or mention us in a tweet on twitter (@supergoodmusic) and you could get some FREE MUSIC just for being part of the SUPERGOODMUSIC family.

We've got tickets for:

Taylor Locke & The Roughs at The Mint on Tuesday November 30th - Adam Bones, The Trews and The Wellingtons support.

John Butler Trio at The Wiltern on December 2nd.

Charlie Hunter Trio at The Mint on December 3rd and 4th.

Marco Benevento at The Mint on December 5th with support from Kashmere and Rami Dearist.

We've also got giveaways coming up for Reckless Kelly, The Bad Plus, Iration, Tomorrow's Bad Seeds and more - so check back soon!

Electro Jump Off Tonight in LA

There are some wild, wild, wild electronic/dance themed music events going on tonight in Los Angeles - but two that are in contention for hottest ticket of the night (IMO).

I'm talking about the return of Check Yo Ponytail at Echoplex and The Steves Birthday at Dim Mak Tuesdays at Cinespace.

Check Yo Ponytail 2 comes to Echoplex with Midnight Juggernauts, The Naked & Famous, Doorly and Diamond Rings for its very first installment. The event, being hosted by Franki Chan's IHEARTCOMIX and Danny United's Media Contender, is already slated to go down every other Tuesday - with some equally heavy line-ups to follow in the coming weeks.

That said - it is probably a safe bet that these two fun powerhouses won't disappoint their first night crowd. They likely have brought in some unspecified guest or guests for an appearance, not to mention their own banging crews.

Just a little bit West, you might expect Dim Mak to host just an ordinary DMT at Cinespace during the week that many L.A. transplants return home, BUT they are doing anything but - bringing in heavy hitter Etienne De Crecy at 11 pm to ignite Steve Aoki's birthday party. With a publicized statement from Dim Mak stating "you will probably never see these guests together in one night, so close" - it is kind of tough to not be curious who these special acts might be.

If curiosity is killing you, I highly recommend you rush to Cinespace and do whatever is necessary to get into the sold out event - if you are an LCD Soundsystem and/or James Murphy fan, you may just be happy you did it because there is a rumor circulating that James Murphy might actually be in the house at one of these events!

Not only are these two bad ass line-ups and some guaranteed parties, but if either includes an impromptu performance from Mr. Murphy somewhere tonight, I would literally steal your Thanksgiving dinner to be there....

East Coast Rappers Sell Out West Coast's The Roxy

On Friday November 12th, 2010, hip-hop veteran Ghostface Killah, hip-hop journeyman Sheek Louch and the up and coming Hebrew hip-hop hipster Kosha Dillz sold out The Roxy for a quintessential rap show.

With the crowd steadily lining up on Sunset Blvd. long before doors, and Kosha Dillz razzing people while they waited with incarceration stories and tales of how he became an NBA 2K11 character - you could anticipate something exciting to come.

Kosha, who'd been hopped up in a studio in Echo Park working on his second full length album, brought the excitement with the live debut of some new tracks and a handful of his freestyle antics. In addition to the performance premier of "Sweatpants Song" and a wicked out your pockets freestyle (video below) featuring shout outs to The Roxy, The Viper Room, Guru and even an L.A. Dodgers' Daryl Strawberry, Kosha Dillz dropped his first album hits "Doo Doo" and "L.A. Ish" for the growing crowd of Los Angelenos.

He closed it out with a brief sample of his recent song with RZA and Kool G Rap - and then joined a growing crew on stage for some of Frank Dukes beats. Chopping it up backstage and in VIP were a handful of Wu family - including Ol Dirty Bastard's cousin and Cappadonna, Sheek Louch's crew, young photographer/cinematographer Ron Polk and even Married With Children's David Faustino.

The crowd was certainly at capacity for Sheek Louch - who played new music, as well as old, like The Lox banger "Money, Power, Respect." A heavy hype-man, who very well could have been an accomplished MC whose name I don't know, also held things down. Sheek and his team had the crowd marinating on hard original hip-hop for over forty minutes, possibly to keep the crowd from losing interest during the delay that followed before Ghostface Killah took the stage.

In classic Wu Tang Clan and affiliates fashion, Mr. Ghostface took stage at 1:25 a.m. for a show whose doors technically close at 2. The crowd's impatience quickly turned to enthusiasm once Ghostface took the mic. Rocking the crowd, he shed his classic looking down jacket and proceeded to rip through classics (I wish I could remember which ones...).

The entourage was thick, and grew consistently throughout the set; women and Wu crew were paraded on stage with relative ease. At one point, Cappadonna joined him, dropping some devestating "Hot 97 Mentality," before the set wrapped up about thirty minutes after it began.

As the packed house spilled out of the venue, you could hear the rumblings of fans wishing they'd had just a bit more time with Tony Starks, but nonetheless happy they witnessed his magic.

When the fans want to see you do more cuts....you know you did a good job. Thanks to The Roxy, Ghostface Killah, Sheek and Kosha for a SUPERGOOD night.

Fallon Covers "Whip My Hair" w/ Bruce Springsteen

Sorry I missed this one live, but glad it buzzed enough in the blogosphere to reach my e-mailbox.

As always, Jimmy Fallon delivers an impressive impersonation of Neil Young, but the inclusion of The Boss really makes this cover a must see...

Coachella Rumors????

I really hope that someone from within Goldenvoice made this video, because that would be hilarious. I love it - viral video rumors about Daft Punk performing...