Hip Hop Hike

Grieves and Budo are in California this week.  Before their show at the Troubadour Budo and Micah (their excellent sound man) headed out to the observatory with me for a hike.

Budo runs 7 miles a morning while on tour.  By this point up the hill I had already sweat through my shirt.  He was wearing a long sleeve denim shirt and didn’t even get the armpits sweaty.  That bastard.

A picture of a picture being taken.

More meta flicks.

The smoggy downtown cityscape.

Hollywoooooood.

After the hike we headed to lunch and met up with Sol and Dj Infared.

Then it was off to the show.  This is my old pal Murj and his pal Karen.

You guys were an awesome crowd.

Sol killing it.

Grieves Killing it.

In closing Budo is a rockstar.  We’re doing it all over again tonight in Santa Ana at the Constellation Room.  See you there!

–Lee

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Grieves, Budo, Sol & Me…

Hi guys.  Sorry I haven’t been updating, been traveling a lot to work and pay rent.  A lot of you asking about new music…it’s coming, I’m just not that guy that tweets about how hard he’s working in the studio and such.  Hope to see you at one of these gigs!

–Lee

Allen Stone @ The Troubadour

Finally got to see my dude Allen Stone perform last night.  Ever since inviting him and the band to do THIS a few months ago, I’ve been patiently waiting to catch a full set.  It didn’t disappoint.  Allen absolutely wails and his stage presence is energetic, funky, soulful, and commanding.  The band rips and the fans respond appropriately (particularly during the dance off session during the middle of the set).  Catch this man in your area, but be quick because his shows sell out fast.

–Lee

Lana Del Rey @ Amoeba

The ever controversial Lana Del Rey played a free in-store at Amoeba Records yesterday.  I’ll admit despite following her blossoming career for a quite sometime, I’ve not heard her record, I’ve watched her awkward TV appearances, and I wanted to experience the hype in person.

The line was really long (I got there at 3:30 and it was literally around the block) and filled with people that looked like this.

During my tenure in Los Angeles I’d yet to see an in-store at Amoeba.  Didn’t know what to expect, but certainly didn’t expect assigned standing-room-only according to where you were at in line.  After waiting outside for 2.5 hours I got inside only to be stuck in the “Reggae 45’s” section with a curious Bob Marley pondering why there were so many smelly hipsters in his aisle.

Lana started her set with “Born To Die“.  She was accompanied by a solitary piano for her whole set (5 songs, including “Video Games” and “Blue Jeans“, that all ended up sounding pretty similar due to the stripped down music).  Despite all the criticism she currently receives, her voice was pretty strong.  I don’t know if it’s “Golden Ticket to Hollywood in American Idol” strong, but there were some notes that made me want to cheer along with the crowd.  She nervously mumbled through banter between songs.  The whole shindig lasted about 17 minutes.

When she started singing the camera phones came out in droves.

This guy was double fisting.

Just to give you some perspective of how disappointingly far away I was.  That’s her…the little white dot in the middle-ish.

–Lee

Danny Brown @ Echoplex

The good folks at Check Yo Ponytail brought the “Adderall Admiral”, Danny Brown, to the Echoplex last night.  Danny might literally your favorite rapper’s favorite rapper.  The Hybrid brought him to everyone’s attention in 2010 while his follow up  XXX ended up in everyone’s rap top 10 lists in 2011.  The Detroit native murdered the show last night with a concise set that saw him powering through a raucous playlist the crowd knew word for word.  Mini mosh pits, stage diving, and chin checks galore.

I only posted the above picture because the little dude with glasses jumped on stage, got way too friendly with Mr. Brown, eventually tried to snatch something out of Danny’s pocket and got socked and / or elbowed in the face before getting dragged off stage by his collar.  Fans:  be cooler.

The crowd looks kinda bored during Kid Sister‘s set.  Sorry Kid Sister, I thought you were pretty cool and I like your song about toenails.

Main Attrakionz are an up and coming group from Oakland.  I haven’t peeped much of their music yet but the blogosphere seems to like them.  Their set was energetic enough that I will check for them in the near future.

My favorite part of Main Attrakionz set was the (all male) group of overzealous fans that jumped on stage towards the end of the set.  There’s something heartwarming about goofy white dudes awkwardly dancing and singing along with every word while trying to simultaneously censor the N-word on the fly.

–Lee