This Friday, May 1, Klub Nocturno is back at Catch One with five rooms for dancing. I’ll be in the new wave vs. darkwave room this time around, which is also where you’ll find Joy Division Night. So, you’ll be getting a heavy dose of Joy Division (and New Order) in addition to the usual mix of darkwave, new wave and post-punk bangers. Tickets are available now on Dice for this 21+ bash.
As for the rest of this weekend and early next week, keep reading for my recommendations.
Album covers on view at Human Resources for Cumbia de mi Tierra. The exhibition closes this weekend. (Photo: Liz O.)
No DJ gigs for me this weekend, but I have some LA clubs, concert and movie recommendations for you, including Art Brut, Strange Boutique and The Cribs live, the Quay Brothers and rare Soviet animation in theaters and more. Keep reading for the details. (And, in case you’re wondering, my next gig is Friday, May 1 at Klub Nocturno.)
This Friday, April 17, is Darkwave Nite at Club Underground. Both rooms of Grand Star Jazz Club will be open with Larry G. playing indie Britpop and more in one room, while I’ll be spinning darkwave, synth, electro, post-punk, etc. in the other room. Will you dance to new Ladytron? Maybe some ADULT.? Sextile and Pixel Grip? Come down and find out. Advance tickets are available now.
This summer, a small handful of teens will have the opportunity to write and produce music in a collaborative, professional studio environment when the inaugural Amplify Arts Project x Push-Up Bra LA Writers Camp takes place in Los Angeles. The five-day intensive, open to 14 to 19-year-old girls and gender-expansive youth, includes songwriting sessions with professional mentors and workshops on subjects like music publishing and marketing.
“We want to give them a positive first impression of what it’s like to be in a recording studio,” says Devin Davis of Amplify Arts Project (and also of the band Ramonda Hammer), the organization that runs music and arts summer camps for girls. To do this, Amplify partnered with Push-Up Bra LA, a local non-profit working to empower women in music through writing camps, live performances and networking events. The goal of this summer’s teen Writers Camp is to function much in the same way a professional one would.
This Friday, April 10, is ‘90s Nite at Club Underground— think Britpop, Björk and Trainspotting— and both floors of Grand Star Jazz Club will be open. Larry G. and I will be your DJ for the night and it should be a good one. Advance tickets are available now, so get yours as soon as you can I’ll see you on the dance floor this Friday night. Party starts at 9:30 p.m. and it’s 21+.
As for the rest of the weekend and early next week, here are my recommendations.
Klub Nocturno is happening at Catch One this Friday, April 3, at Catch One. Five rooms for $5 and I’ll be DJing in the rock en Español vs. cumbia room this time around. Tickets are available now on Dice, so get yours asap.
Aside from my own DJ gig, I do have a few recommendations for this weekend and next week, so keep reading for the details.
This Friday, March 27, is The Strokes Night at Club Underground. Both rooms of Grand Star Jazz Club will be open, with Larry G. and I on the decks, so you’ll get a solid dose of The Strokes, plus the Underground mix of indie, post-punk, Britpop, synthpop, new wave, darkwave and more. Advance tickets are available now. See you on the dance floor this Friday night. Doors are at 9:30 p.m. and it’s 21+.
Keep reading for my recommendations for the rest of this weekend and early next week.
March is Women’s History Month and, this Friday, March 20, we’re celebrating at Club Underground with Girl Power Nite. Both floors of Grand Star Jazz Club will be open, with Larry G. and I will be DJing all night. I’m playing in the theme room, where you’ll hear everyone from Siouxsie and the Banshees to Elastica to Le Tigre to Boy Harsher to Wet Leg. A bonus: for those of you who are going to see Peaches and Pixel Grip at the Bellwether on Friday night, you can get into Underground for just $5 if you show your ticket at the door, so definitely plan to stop by after the show. Advance tickets are available now.
As for the rest of this weekend, and early next week, here are my recommendations.
Go see Sirât. It’s not widely screening in LA right now, but it is playing at Alamo Drafthouse, which is where I saw the Spanish film, through next Wednesday. The movie is about a Spanish man, his son and their dog traveling in Morocco to find his daughter, who has disappeared into the desert rave scene some months earlier. A war breaks out, the ravers decamp to the south of the country and the father and son follow them deeper into the desert.
There’s a lot going on in Sirât and I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, so the one thing that I will mention is that the sound design is exceptional. The score is frequently diegetic, meaning that it’s the music the characters in the film hear, and it interacts with their surroundings in both clever and realistic ways. For example, you can hear the crackle of techno pouring through busted speakers and the way a song fades into the wind when you’re driving in the middle of nowhere with the windows open. This all adds to the story, but you need to hear it for yourself.
Sirât is a beautiful, and heavy, film that will stick with you after you leave the theater. See it with someone else so that you can talk about it afterwards. Like I said, it looks like Alamo is the only place in L.A. showing Sirât this weekend and next week, but it’s right in the middle of downtown, literally above a Metro station where four trains converge, so it’s a fairly convenient for most people. Plus, they have half-priced screenings on Tuesday and bottomless popcorn, which is a plus even if you have to order from your phone now. In Orange County, Sirât is playing at The Frida, which is also an excellent movie theater and is walking distance from the Metrolink stop in Santa Ana. Plus, Metrolink has$10 day passes on the weekends, a good option if gas prices have you reconsidering plans right now.
I’ll be back in the new wave vs. darkwave room at Klub Nocturno this Friday, March 6. If you haven’t been to Nocturno before, it’s a five-room party at Catch One where you can dance to anything from Boy Harsher to Los Angeles Azules throughout the course of the night. It does tend to sell out in advance, so the sooner you get your tickets, the better. You can do that right now on Dice.
As for the rest of the weekend, plus early next week, keep reading for my recommendations.