Estelle (& John Legend) - On the Hush, hush, hush

For some reason, no one (by no one, I mean no one in the L.A. media who writes about music) is commenting much on the fact that Estelle is performing on May 1 at The Temple Bar in Santa Monica. http://www.templebarlive.com/

What blows me away is that she is a British pseudo-pop star and her music is great. She's got that single backed by Kanye that is sprinkled on the radio now - "American Boy." AND, to top it off, John Legend is allegedly hosting the night. Tickets are only $12. I haven't purchased mine yet...but come on.

Anyhow, if you see any media postings regarding the performance...please let me know, cause I have not seen them.

Cody Hudock

Just saw Cody Hudock perform at The Foundation Room @ The House of Blues on the Sunset Strip. Him and his band had a nice groove. It sounds like something that could be on indie college radio. Maybe we'll hear his name soon on the radio?

In the meantime, you can check him out at

http://myspace.com/codyhudockmusic

Skerik and Mike D are coming tooooooo town!

Los Angeles - wake up and smell the funk this weekend and as L.A. is about to get a heavy dosage of the nasty. I CAN NOT BELIEVE IT!

Skerik and Mike Dillon, of Garage A Trois (my favorite band) and Critters Buggin will be at the Knitting Factory on Thursday performing is Illuminasti along with James Singleton of the Astral Project. I can promise it will be funky avant garde jazz. Brace yourself.

Than Friday, Skerik and Mike D will be taking the stage with Les Claypool at the Wiltern for a paired down version of the Frog Brigade. I am very interested to see how this trio plays out on stage without some of the stage antics and theatrics of the Frog Brigade. I imagine it can only be better...but some of the scenesters may hate.

For the uninitiated, Skerik is one of the best saxophonists currently recording. Skerik is a shortened version of Scary Erik. I believe that is his real name, although I may be mistaken. Nonetheless Skerik hails from the Seattle area and has a storied history in the music scene. His current recording outfits include playing sax in Skerik's Syncopated Septet, as well as Garage A Trois, Les Claypool's Frog Brigade, Critter's Buggin', Robert Walter's Super Heavy Organ and several other groupings of musicians. Mike D, in addition to the above mentioned bands, records with Mike Dillon's Go-Go Jungle, Hairy Apes BMX and the Polyphonic Spree.

To top it all off, Dirty Dozen Brass Band is playing the Mint on Tuesday the 8th. That is the end of the funk dosage...at least for now.

Steely Dan Cover Band

Dr. Wu, a Steely Dan cover band is coming to the Malibu Inn on Thursday March 27th. I'm going despite the fact that I've never heard of them. If you want to, check em out. Doors open around 8 pm. Band probably won't go on until around 8:45-9.

WEEKEND FOR L.A. HIP HOP

It is rare that Los Angeles gets blessed with a plethora of Hip-Hop shows over a short span of time. Even though there is love for hip-hop here, it is just harder to tour the West for hip-hop artists because there is more distance between venues which costs more money and the regional differences in taste are potentially more extreme for hip-hop. Although MC Chris is rolling thru the Avalon on Thursday February 21st for some nerdcore hip-hop of the Adult Swim genre...the rest of the artists hitting town this weekend are West coast residents.

Tonight, in Long Beach, CA at the Vault is one of my personal favorites Del Tha Funky Homosapien. A member of Heiroglyphics, and MC on the original Gorillaz record, and 1/2 of Deltron...Del is simply awesome in concert. He has great stage presence and energy and his rhymes are so unique. He's got great diction on the microphone and he delivers with flavor.

Friday, at Crash Mansion L.A. is Los Angeles residents and Cleveland natives Bone Thugs N Harmony are going ghetto downtown. Some of Bone's recent albums, like STRENGTH & LOYALTY have had some good pop material, like "I Tried (feat Akon)", while maintaining their thug signature "9 mm" and their light singing-type flow ("Flow Motion") . I hope they drop the classic E. 99 & ETERNAL cuts, or even better - "No Surrender" from CREEPIN' ON AH COME-UP. Jupiter Rising will be playing support, and from what I hear they have a good live vibe.

Saturday THE COUP is headlining at Crash Mansion L.A. and it will be dope, I promise. Boots Riley (MC) has recently been on tour with Galactic, perfecting his live flow. I've seen him 6 times in the last two years and he gets better every time. If you want some live funky ass hip-hop, sort of Roots-esque...I would check out THE COUP.

If you are not on the hip-hop tip...check out LIONS at Spaceland on Saturday February 23rd.

Black Keys New Album

If you didn't know, the Black Keys are coming out with a new album produced by Danger Mouse (Gnarls Barkley; The Good, The Bad & The Queen; Dangerdoom; etc.). Black Keys hail from Akron, OH and are bad-ass, blues-like rockers. I am very excited to see how their sound changes with the influences of Danger Mouse and also how material produced by Danger Mouse translates to live performance.

Black Keys are performing in Los Angeles at the Wiltern on April 1, 2008. Tickets are currently on sale.

Vince Gill is a bad ass.

So, yeah, I admittedly watched the Grammy's a day late. BUT, I was skiing.

Anyhow, I thought the performances ranged from half decent to absolutely bad ass. But, most bad ass of all had to be Vince Gill snagging his award and asking Kanye if he'd ever accepted one from a Beatle?

Kanye's performance was easily the best. Despite the fact that I think his egotistical awards speeches make him look immature, impatient and douche-baggy, he absolutely stole the show on Sunday. "Stronger" was dope. I really dig the illuminated outfit and the illuminated specs. Kanye could use some work on his robot, but I'll cut him some slack cause he was rhyming too. The lights and Daft Punk pyramid looked kick ass, and once Daft Punk was pushing buttons....I was straight bananas. I liked how the cameras gave an aerial view of the Daft Punk guys. Kanye's orchestral/accapella version of "Mama" was obviously heart felt. He seemed a bit shaken at the beginning, but I thought he pulled it together.

Beyonce and Tina were cute together, especially when they did Rollin' On A River. Doesn't Tina Turner look kind of funny when she cocks her head to the side? I swear Beyonce was lip synching when she did that history of females in music though.

I liked that The Time did their Jungle Love dance, and that Rihanna joined in at the end too. But, what the fuck was Rihanna wearing? She reminded me of Bjork, in a bad way. Nonetheless, Rihanna can wail. Any hating I may have done on Rihanna in the past, I take it back. She was adorable when she won her Grammy. I thought it was comical (but also a little egotistical and douche-baggy) when Jay-Z repackaged what Rihanna was trying to say.

Alicia Keys also was straight gangsta. I really liked the interposed video of Frank Sinatra over her piano on the opening number. Her version of "No One" was better though. The orchestral add on was a nice touch, and Alicia was looking dope in that black outfit. When she walked out singing and then started playing keyboard one handed - she owned it. John Mayer was an interesting touch...but I didn't think the guitar sounded that great.

Foo Fighters were great, but Grohl was trying to hard to get the crowd fired up. The Beatles number was nice to watch, although "Love" is 20 times better in person. I was actually a little disappointed with Cirque De Soleil's adaptation for the Grammys. The gospel number though was stunning. The lead female could fucking wail. Her eyes were crazy buggy though - she looked a little like those dolls you squeeze where the eyes pop out.

I didn't listen to the country cuts.

What was that Black Eyed Peas weird mash-up performance at the end? I really didn't get it. It just seemed like a generically bad Black Eyed Peas rap...I write better rhymes than that in my sleep.

What the hell was Chris Brown talking about when he referenced DJ Jazzy Jeff and Fresh Prince? I guess anything you say when you are wearing a white and red suit sounds ludicrous.

Herbie Hancock appeared genuinely surprised at winning his award. I liked that. I'll have to check out that album...

Congratulations to all the victors. Oh yeah, and Vince Gill is a bad ass.