Tuesday, June 15th
Echoplex
6pm
$10 advance, $12 day of show
18+
Real Estate
Woods
Kurt Vile
Abe Vigoda
Art Museums
The Mantles
Nodzzz
Sun Araw
All Saints Day (Katy from Vivian Girls + Greg from Cat Power)
The Baths
Buy tickets here.
He’s not actually gonna be there (he died 117 years ago), but starting tonight and continuing through this month Machine Project is going to be hosting some “Wagneriffic” events and installations. They are collectively entitled Basement Wagner: A Brief History of the Bayreuther Festspiele and include an installation by Liz Glynn and performances and workshops organized by her and Juliana Snapper. The opening reception is tonight (Saturday, June 5) from 6:00 to 10:00 pm. Here’s the full list of all the events:
Saturday June 5th, 6pm – 10pm:
Walking through Wagner
A step-by-step participatory walk-through of Wagner’s complete stage directions for all four operas. Opening night of installation.
Friday June 11th, 8pm:
We Sing the Ring
A Richard Wagner singalong lead by Juliana Snapper. Tone-deaf amateurs and aspiring professionals are welcome to come and learn the major leitmotifs in Wagner’s Ring Cycle.
Saturday June 12th, 8pm:
On the Operatic Origins of the American Space Program
Lecture by Jason Brown
Friday June 18th, 10am – 10pm:
Hojotoho!
Wagner’s song staged by a series of different artists acting as opera director, with Juliana Snapper as Brunhilde.
Saturday June 19th, 8pm:
the ing Cycle
A musical performance by ing. Closing night of installation.
Machine Project is located at 1200 N. Alvarado St.
From Orrin's Flickr
If you’ve lived in Echo Park for a couple of years, you probably remember seeing the above Skullphone poster perched atop a billboard overlooking Casablanca Furniture.
Skullphone has a new show at Subliminal Projects and the opening reception is tonight (Saturday, June 5) from 8:00 to 11:00 pm. The show is entitled Digital Media and it “examines the contradictions inherent in outdoor digital signage, demonstrating cause for both wonder and concern over the increasingly ubiquitous medium. The artist explores advertising, government and private enterprise signage, and the California landscape on which outdoor media proliferate, making permanent on panels what is removable and reprogrammable in outdoor space.”
The show will run through July 2. Subliminal Projects is located at 1331 W. Sunset Blvd.
Another Mishka L.A. Lunch Truck day this weekend! Sunday, June 6, from 12:00 noon – 4:00 pm.
This is a great opportunity to check out the Mishka store and try those mobile food trucks you never seem to get to. Dosa Truck (Indian sourdough crepes), Mandoline Grill (Vietnamese cuisine), Lomo Arigato (Japanese cuisine), and Coolhaus (ice cream sandwiches!) trucks will be parked outside Mishka.
Mishka L.A. is located at 1547 Echo Park Ave.
The 6th Annual Echo Park Film Center Youth Film Festival is tomorrow! There are two events, one in the early afternoon, and the other in the evening. Check out the details:
1:00 pm at The Smell (247 S. Main Street) in Downtown
Free, all ages welcome
EPFC will be screening youth films from around the world, plus video poems by King Middle School youth poets. There will also be an interactive video and musical performance, where audience members participate in some film loop making and musical improve (musical instruments encouraged!). In the final hour of the event, they will display the results of the interactive video/music-making.
Selected films, images and music will also be posted on EPFC ’s YouTube Channel here.
Potluck at 6:00 pm, screening at 7:00 pm followed by a Q&A with filmmakers and instructors
Downtown Independent Theater (251 S. Main Street)
Free, all ages welcome
The EPFC’s youth class will debut their films they’ve been working on for the past three months. The films explore work in our society, turning the cameras “on the worker and becoming craftsmen themselves.”
Visit the Echo Park Film Center website for contact information.
I've only found two pictures of Manewitz and they are both slightly creepy.
Big news! A suspected communist was arrested at his apartment at 1420 Echo Park Ave. and charged with “teaching and advocating overthrow of the U.S. government by violence”… on September 17, 1952.
Echo Park was home to a lot of communists and socialists during the couple of decades after the first Red Scare (in the 1920’s) and before the second Red Scare (in the 1950’s). However, it’s difficult to find information on the group’s activities as it is (understandably) not widely published. Most of the information we have are personal accounts and newspaper articles. That’s where the handy-dandy Los Angeles Times archive at the L.A. Public Library comes in!
I found an interesting little nugget of an article about a man named Robert Manewitz who was picked up by the FBI at his apartment in Echo Park. A long-time Communist Party member and the son of Russian immigrants, Manewitz first started organizing laborers and protests in the Midwest in the 1930’s. According to the article, he came to Los Angeles from Missouri in order to “take over the duties of some of California Communist Party leaders who had been arrested on similar charges of Smith Act violations.”
The Smith Act is a statute that basically says it’s illegal to do or say anything that could be seen as an attempt to overthrow the U.S. government. And you wanna know the really fun part? Although most of the cases under it were thrown out as unconstitutional, it’s still on the books today.
And what did Manewitz say to the press? “He refused to comment on the charges against him, saying only: ‘I don’t know what it is all about.'” Good man.
No plans to watch the Laker game tonight? Join your neighbors for the monthly Echo Park Improvement Association meeting to learn about what’s going on in the area.
On the agenda tonight, CD1 and CD13 council reps will update us on any district news (for instance, Alejandra Marroquin, Field Deputy for Garcetti’s office, usually provides updates on issues like the Echo Park Lake Rehab project, among others). Northeast and Rampart Division reps will also address the community on any police updates.
The featured speaker is a rep from Congressman Xavier Becerra’s office.
The meeting takes place from 7:00 – 9:00 pm in Williams Hall at Barlow Hospital (2000 Stadium Way). All are welcome!
Feeling in shape (or out of shape) these days? Maybe it’s your time to join your neighbors for a free two-day, 35 mile walk throughout Los Angeles from Saturday, June 12 through Sunday, June 13.
The Big Parade is a two-day walk through Los Angeles. It starts at the famous Angel’s Flight Stairs, downtown, and works its way west, through multiple neighborhoods, stopping at the famous Music Box Stairs in Silver Lake – named after Laurel & Hardy’s Oscar-winning 1932 short film – for an overnight campout. Then, we continue through the stairways of Silver Lake, on to the Franklin Hills and Los Feliz. We traverse Griffith Park, and then walk through the Beachwood Canyon/Hollywoodland neighborhood, all the way to the Hollywood Sign.
Anyone can come along – for an hour, a day, or the whole hike. The group had a couple of practice hikes at the end of May to get everyone geared up and in shape, but there may just be another one this weekend (June 5 or 6) before the big day. Visit The Big Parade website for more information on those practice hikes and the event.
We will post the route map as soon as the event organizers do (camping sites are also being finalized). For now, feel free to get yourself geared up on your own by taking a tour of some Echo Park stairways.
Click here to download the PDF flyer for the event.
Every Friday, Saturday and Sunday through June 20, The Oasis Theater Company will be performing Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard” in a private home in Angelino Heights. The play is interactive and is staged in different rooms throughout the house, with the audience sometimes sitting down to watch the action and other times following the actors from room to room. And if you get there an hour an hour early, you’ll be served some free borscht, bread, wine or vodka, and dessert!
Click here for more info and to buy tickets. Cost is $40 and show times are: Friday at 6:00 pm, and Saturday and Sunday at 8:00 pm.
Photo via gmazariego on TwitPic (Elysian Park gate)
Protesters gathered yesterday around Dodger Stadium protesting the Arizona’s immigration law during the first of three Dodgers vs. Diamondbacks series (LA Now reports there ended up being a few hundred). The Diamondbacks are being focused on because owner Ken Kendrick has been supposedly tied to the Republican party in Arizona, which spearheaded the current immigration law. Click here for a call-to-action posted on the KPFK website for yesterday’s protest.
The Dodgers play the Diamondbacks again tonight at 7:10 pm.
Tuesday, June 8th
8:00 pm
The Echoplex
$12 advance, $14 day of show, all ages
HEALTH presumably have a saying: if you do something right once, remix, remix again. They did it two years ago with HEALTH/DISCO, which included remixes of HEALTH tracks by Pictureplane, CFCF, Nosajthing, and of course Crystal Castles, whose version of “Crimewave” threatened to be more popular than HEALTH’s original for a short while. In keeping with this tradition, HEALTH have announced DISCO2, to be released June 22 on Lovepump United.
Like the previous remix album, DISCO2 collects reworkings of tracks from the studio album that preceded it (a little gem called GET COLOR [TMT Review]). Crystal Castles and a few of the same guys from HEALTH/DISCO are back for more, but there are also remixes by Javelin, Small Black, Gold Panda, Tobacco, and Salem. The album’s single and opening track, “USA BOYS,” was mixed by producer Alan Moulder (My Bloody Valentine, Nine Inch Nails, Depeche Mode). And the excitement just keeps coming: HEALTH are topping it off with a US tour, ending with Lollapalooza in Chicago. – Tiny Mix Tapes
with:
Best Coast
Indian Jewelry
Gold Panda
Buy tickets here.
Looks like GEPENC is back!
Last Tuesday (May 25), GEPENC board members were sworn in during a last minute meeting. The next Board of Governors meeting will be tomorrow, Wednesday, June 2 at 6:30 pm at its new community center on Echo Park Avenue (behind the Bank of America).
Here’s the agenda for the meeting:
Echo Park resident Karen Frimkess Wolff will be having an art opening at a Hollywood studio called Happy later this week.
While the Echo Park artist is known for her sculpture and installations, the artwork that will be displayed, shown above, are new graphite and pencil drawings. From the press release:
Using pure white gesso on press board as her surface, Karen’s landscapes convey a complex visual vocabulary that combine flora and fauna and a treasury of objects that sometimes soar, sometimes lay perfectly still, but always possess deep meaning. A brilliant draftsman and master storyteller, Karen returns to the simple act of drawing with a sense of aplomb, a hand that is always present and the soul of a gentle soothsayer.
Artist Carlos Ulloa will also be displaying his signature collage silhouettes.
The opening reception is on Friday, June 4 from 6-10:00 pm, and will continue through July 31.
Happy is located at 4675 Hollywood Blvd. Email Paul for more information: paul@happylosangeles.com