The genesis of San Francisco-based photographer Jay Blakesberg’s storied career goes all the way back to the late seventies, when he started to shoot concerts with his father’s 35mm camera
In the mid-sixties, a New York kid named Leslie West was making his first dent on the music scene as the guitar player and singer of the Vagrants, a Long
Since 1959, the annual Newport Folk Festival has been a showcase and a springboard for many of the biggest names in folk and folk-influenced music, and on October 5th and
Despite an unusual amount of overcast on the coastal shores of Southern California this summer, the sun shined brightly for the first day of the Beach Ball Festival on the
Since 1993, Spaceland Presents has gone from hosting events (under the moniker Club Spaceland) out of a small Silverlake pub (which currently operates independently as the Satellite) to becoming one
From the pummeling bash-and-groove of “The Real Me” to the dramatic conclusion of “Love Reign O’er Me,”the performance was surreal, vibrant, and fantastic. Bright lights dazzled and big screen images complimented the musical storytelling. The hypnotic sound of crashing waves crept in and out between songs, connecting them all as one as Daltrey and Townshend took no chat breaks. Aside from some typical arena/big room echo that occasionally made the vocals hard to understand and muddled some of the music, it was a smooth production. At the end of the night, Townshend said he played “a few bum notes,” but if he did, they were hard to catch.
One the key figures in those revolutionary times was Ray Davies, the chief songwriter and front-man for the Kinks, and on July 21st, he could be found onstage at the Wiltern in Los Angeles, playing a set that consisted mostly of songs by his former band. Davies tackled select gems from his vast songbook over the course of an hour and forty minutes, opening the show with a handful of barebones acoustic numbers and wrapping things up with an electric band.
In the midst of the band’s busy schedule, Nelson found the time to pen brand new songs, which he then brought to the band to help with the arrangements and sounds. Once the songs were fleshed out, the band left their home base in Venice, California and headed to Nashville, where the band recorded this new album, Wasted, live in the studio.
Once again, this year booked some of the biggest names in the blues universe, from established legends to the best of the up-and-comers. The event also continued their tradition of embracing folk, funk, rock, jazz, R&B, gospel and world music acts that incorporate the blues into their sound. The following is an account of this year’s highlights.
It was early April when Prince called-in to George Lopez’s late night talk show and announced that he would be playing a 21-night run in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, and over the course of the next month and a half, the region would be under what you could only call a “Purple Reign.”