The Second To Last Night of The Year...Where's that Pre-NYE Party At/

Tons of people scramble to figure out what to do as they go out with the old and into the new, but the reality is that a ton of talent packs into Los Angeles to get well paid on New Years EVE and some of that talent also performs the day before.

Take advantage of the quality entertainment and much more reasonable pricing by checking out any of the following:

1. Asher Roth at The Viper Room w/ special guests Midnite Theory, Rob Roy, Luke Christoher and Kosha Dillz.

Asher Roth will be performing as part of a promotional run to support his Pabst & Jazz mix tape that highlights the maturation of the former "College" loving MC. It is the precursor to his 2012 Def Jam release and he's recruited some other lyrically talented individuals to join him on the Sunset Strip stage. Local artist and Dim Mak act, Rob Roy, may still have fur in his cap. Haven't heard a ton from him since he blazed trails on the internet with the "Fur In My Cap" video. Young buck Luke Christopher also joins the party. You might remember him from his Asher Roth collabo "Roof Tops."

World touring, Jersey born Kosha Dillz is also supposed to join the party as a surprise guest. He is performing on New Years Eve at Viper Room, but will probably join Asher to spit some of his "West Coast Flavor" as well as cuts from his 2011 release Gina & The Garage Sale.

Midnite Theory opens up the whole damn thing.

We've got a pair of tickets to give away for this one so shout us out on twitter (@supergoodmusic) or e-mail contest@supergoodmusic.com to enter the contest.

2. Beats Antique, Random Rab, Emancipator & Lynx @ Club Nokia

Get your fulfillment of booty shaking beats and bass at Club Nokia with this awesome line up put together by The Do Lab. For those that acquired a bit too many party supplies to close out 2011, get after it early with this pseudo-festival line up.

Emancipator compose electronic sonicscapes with the best of them. Entirely instrumental - with orchestral elements layered on some tracks (including "Nevergreen" below) - Emancipator music is organic, beautiful and relaxing.

Random Rab composes bass-strumentals himself. His sonic textures differ from Emancipator's; less of an orchestrated feel with Rab, who seems to be driven much more by beat (although his tunes have great melody). Check out "Jewel of Now" below:

Beats Antique will get you in the festive mode before NYE even starts with their belly-dancing, costumed, beat-enthused performance. They always make sure things get a little weird - in the drugged out, hippie-esque good sort of weird way. Check them out at Bonnaroo -

3. The Growlers, Allah-Las, TRMRS @ The Echo

The raspy, folky/blues-like indie rock from The Growlers ends its series of end of 2011 shows at The Echo with a stellar support group of Allah-Las and TRMRS.

The former are high on lots of local bloggers lists of LA bands to watch for. This video of an earlier performance at The Echo gives you an idea of the soundtrack they'd be providing. Nostalgic feeling indie rock jams.....filled with shakers.

TRMRS are the act on the bill I know too little about. I can't say much about them other than that they use cool color filters in their "One Foot" video (see below), but my guess is they are a suitable musical hors'douvres for this bill.

Growlers are the veteran act here - with a honed and tasteful grit to their indie rock. Clearly a favorite of someone important at The Echo - its not hard to understand why. There is an undeniable charm to their music. A charm that hopefully sets the mood right as you close out your 2011.

4. Caspa & Dillon Francis @ Avalon

Why would you want to go to this show? Probably cause Dillon Francis is a bad ass whose name won't be going anywhere for a really long time. Just check out this video for "I.D.G.A.F.O.S." Don't know what that means? Check your urban dictionary, because I don't give a fuck or shit enough to tell you....

Dillon is a rising star - a darling artist for many more established in the electronic game. You can expect a lot more from Mr. Francis, including great supporting artists because he won't be joined by just anyone either. He'll be joined by bad ass dub stepper Caspa. Check out Caspa with Mr. Hudson - "Love Never Dies (Back for the First Time)."

5. Tim Reynolds @ The Mint

If you like guitar play - see Tim. That's all I have to say - this video says the rest.

Rookie Festival Makes Splash - Pacific Festival a Relative Success

EC Twins

Mike Tunney - Pacific Festival Organizer

SUPERGOODMUSIC.com spent part of this past holiday weekend in the slightly warmer Orange County for the 1st ever Pacific Festival. Put together by Mike Tunney and friends and featuring two distinctly different days of music, one electro and one reggae-dub soul, I thought it was well worth my time.

Day 1 definitely caught the attention of more Los Angelenos. This should come as no surprise as it was headlined by Dim Mak's Steve Aoki, hosted by Mark The Cobransake, and featured a host of rising talent from the indie-electro-dance scene. From Classixx to Miami Horror to Dan Sena to EC Twins to all the fellas from Guns in The Sun - there was something new to be turned on to. The performances of Rob Roy and Chiddy Bang also brought in some much needed hip-hop downtime when the performances transitioned from outside to inside at the Sutra Lounge. In addition to Aoki, there were also heavyweights The Sounds and Alan Braxe, as well as a planned SILENT DISCO to ensure fans stayed until the end of the night.

Chilling w/ Kenya from Guns in the Sun

Chiddy Bang

And fans did stay. I exited shortly after Them Jeans came on at 1 am to a packed lounge of people barely capable of standing. The 21+ festival crowd was definitely in effect, especially in the VIP section, where the bar was all you can drink. For a mere $45, you could upgrade from regular admission to the inspiring black-out extravaganza that was VIP. While that unbridled access to alcohol may not have been the best way for the organizers to make money, it certainly gave the fans something to be excited about in addition to the music......and excited they were. The sloppiness went from about a 4 to a 9 or 10 between five and eight pm.

Intoxicated Concert Goers

Having agreed to provide press coverage (like this post), SUPERGOODMUSIC was able to catch some dope performances and snap some choice pics, all starting with Classixx on the main stage. The rising LA duo, who have released material on Dim Mak records, treated the crowd to a host of remixes including their excellent version of Listzomania which, in our opinion, should have been featured on the Wolfgang Amadeus Remix album (it is not).

Classixx

Miami Horror

After Classixx, Miami Horror made what I believe is their first festival appearance for a live band, or at least their first festival appearance anywhere remotely close to LA. The quartet brought a lot more energy to the stage than Classixx, in no small part because they play live instruments as opposed to computers. Benjamin Plant, the major brains behind Miami Horror, was all over the place - from playing wooden blocks to climbing the support beams and hanging off the side of the stage. They played their recognizable songs and then some other tunes that I'm hoping are on their album, Illumination, which was released on August 20th.

The Sounds followed before Aoki took stage, but I didn't catch much of their performance. I was scrambling around trying to figure out where other stages were, chopping it up with the Guns in The Sun crew and figuring out that press access did not include VIP admission. Although organization was not the festival's forte, at least they did realize that allowing press to get knee deep in booze probably wouldn't facilitate coherent or accurate feedback.

Steve Aoki

Nonetheless, SUPERGOODMUSIC negotiated their way into some free libations and took in Aoki's dance party from afar before moving in close for pictures and a potential champagne shower. With his mom and friends on stage, Aoki sprayed bottles of bubbly, facilitated crowd surfing and tossed around his signature long hair from behind the boards. Sporting a typical Aoki outfit of tanktop and hipster shoes - he paraded back and forth across stage inviting up a few carefully selected guests for their minute of festival fame, including this girl:

After Steve Aoki, the expected Skull Candy sponsored Silent Disco just never manifested. While that was extremely disappointing (silent discos are really f'ing cool), I was pleasantly surprised to find the Guys and Dollas party animals, EC Twins, throwing down in the Sutra Lounge. Their on stage excitement and enthusiasm definitely infected the crowd, and before you knew it, the room was at capacity for their blended dance anthems. The night continued with performances from Rob Roy, Chiddy Bang, Alan Braxe and Them Jeans, whose set we unfortunately missed.

Chiddy Bang

Unlike most Day 1 attendees, we returned for Day 2. The paradigm shift from indie-electro to reggae-dub-soul certainly did not offend SUPERGOODMUSIC's sensibilities because the headlining act for Day 2, Rebelution, is one of the hottest items on the reggae-dub soul scene. Although we didn't come down as early - we certainly were not going to miss Rebelution.

Boasting a tight young nucleus of talent (the band consists of four young to mid 20's charmers who met at UCSB), Rebelution has been putting on amazing performances long before and ever since their second album, Bright Side of Life, dropped in August 2009. Avoiding the sophomore slump, Bright Side of Life reached #1 on Billboard's reggae charts and obtained a #3 spot on i-tunes top albums downloaded, and has provided the fuel necessary to oil this band's touring machine. With spots at almost every festival this summer, from Summer Camp to Wakarusa to All Good to Lollapalooza, Pacific Festival was lucky to score them at the end of the tiresome run.

Eric from Rebelution

Expendables

The band (Rebelution) definitely delivered on their hype - bringing their dub-soul fire for almost 100 minutes on Sunday night when they took the stage after Expendables (who were good - but not quite as good as their Sunset Strip Music Festival performance at The Roxy). Rory (keys) and Wesley (drums) played cleanly from behind their respective instruments, while Eric (vocals, guitar) and Marley (bass) provided the eye candy, energy and lyrics up front. The quartet served up crowd pleasers from both Bright Side of Life and their first release, Courage to Grow, to close down the festival, inviting pseudo-rastas to spark it up on songs like "Green to Black," before smashing it with their bass heavy encore of "Safe and Sound" (Marley brought it on SaS).

Eric & Marley of Rebelution

As most festivals due in their earliest years, Pacific Festival probably lost money. In a tough economy - it would be hard to expect major returns from a first foray into multi-day event production. The absence of massive corporate sponsors (no major brand sponsor although Skull Candy and a few other companies did appear to sponsor the event at some level) and the presence of unlimited drinks for VIP, also probably did not help the Festival's bottom line.

All that said, Pacific Festival has a lot of positives to take from their rookie year, including a good foundation to build on and a client base that seemed pleased with their experience.

We had a great time and hope the festival is back for year 2 :D

You can see more pictures of our experience here - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=498751&id=255784860346&ref=mf