Echo Park’s Week In Music

For the week of Monday, July 30 through Sunday, August 5

Monday
KXLU and Echo Present: Screening of Pass the Music followed by performances with Seasons, Manhattan Murder Mystery, Torches, Body Parts @ The Echoplex
Monday Night Residency: American Royalty, Jesse Woods, The Franks, The Miracals, Hit City USA DJs @ The Echo
Sean Carnage presents: Treasure Mammal, Clipping, Ezra Buchla/Corey Fogel, Essay, IE, Andrew Tholl with DJ sets from Vice Cooler, Kyle Mabson, and Jacob Cooper @ Pehrspace
JMSN, All Eyes West, Broadcaster, Astronautica (DJ) @ Bootleg Theater
Motown Mondays: Ghetto Blaster vs. Mom LA, special guest DJs Antwone, JPOE, Expo, Phatrick @ The Short Stop
Indians @ Origami Vinyl
Pam Shaffer, Tara Busch, The Singularity @ Lot 1 Café

Tuesday
International Pop Overthrow w/Jason Falkner + Cannoneers, New Maximum Donkey, The Hunting Accident, Lovers Drugs, SUNKEN SHIPS, King Washington @ The Echoplex
Origami Vinyl and KXLU Present: HOTT MT “Never Hate Again” Release Party with Oh Boy Les Mecs, Evrika, Cosmonauts plus very special guests
Oh Boy Les Mecs, Evrika, Cosmonauts @ The Echo
Lucy Michelle and the Velvet Lapelles, Natalie Angiuli @ Bootleg Theater
Southeast Engine, The Wild Reeds, Ethan Gold @ Bootleg Bar
Kraut Hop 3, Ben Cassorla (Belle Brigade), Denny Weston Jr @ Lot 1 Café

Wednesday
Alt J with Erika Spring (Au Revoir Simone), Something Died In Memphis @ The Echo
DUB CLUB @ The Echoplex
Mike Andrews, Nik Freitas @ Bootleg Bar
Open Mic Night with Victoria @ Tribal Café
Kevin Hull @ Taix Lounge
Brother, Pink Slime (PDX), release of Folk Owl Zine featuring readings by Chan Plet, Folk Owl Folk Zine Launch Party @ Lot 1 Café

Thursday
ONRA, Free The Robots, Matthewdavid, MNDSGN, Knxwledge @ The Echo
David Lynch hosts an evening with Chrysta Bell @ Bootleg Theater
Man Your Horse @ Origami Vinyl
Lila Lilamayi, Claire Cronin, Brandi Emma @ Taix Lounge
The Sensitive Side with Virginia Reed & TBA @ Lot 1 Café

Friday
89.9 KCRW Presents: New LA Folk Fest Kick Off Party with Beachwood Sparks, Tomorrows Tulips, DJ Kave-In (Kevin Fitzgerald) @ The Echo
Diamond in the Rough: – A tribute to Neil Diamond’s “Hot August Nights” @ The Echoplex
Skyline Pigeons, Ocean Grove, C O L O R @ Bootleg Bar
Carolyn Edwards Band, Adam Marslands Chaos Band @ Taix Lounge
First Friday by ORG @ Lot 1 Café

Saturday
Bootie LA Michael Jackson Mashup Night @ The Echoplex
Funky Sole @ The Echo
The Colourist, Kiev, Monsters Calling Home @ Bootleg Bar
Blonde Summer @ Origami Vinyl
DJ Thergood, Open Mic @ Tribal Café
Charles Ezell, Brian Spence @ Taix Lounge
Feed Your Head presents Saint Sea Hat, The WildBunch, John Seasons, Ryan Ellis @ Lot 1 Café
LA Folk Fest sponsored by Echo Country Outpost @ Zorthian Ranch

Sunday
Grand Ole Echo  with Henry Wagons, The Hi-Ho’s, Stephen Sowan @ The Echo
The Drive Tour, College, Anoraak, Electric Youth @ The Echoplex
Part Time Punks Presents: DIIV, Part Time, Melted Toys @ The Echo
Warm Weather, Go West Young Man, Drug Cabin @ Bootleg Bar
Super Soul Sunday @ The Short Stop
French Toast Comedy @ Taix Lounge
Mimosapalooza: Ugly, Ugly Words, Lou Jane, Isabella Brent, Jayson Landon Marcus @ Lot 1 Café

Visit the venue websites for more information on the cost and times of shows. Feel free to add more events in the comment section. All events listed are subject to change at any time, and new events announced for the week after this posting may not be included. Visit our Weekly Events page for more neighborhood events, shows and specials.

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Late-night Metro rail service starts tonight

We can now count on a the city’s Metro rail service until 2:00 am starting tonight, giving non-drivers and alcohol drinkers a chance to hang out and explore Los Angeles a bit longer.

The extended hours will keep trains running every 20 minutes on Friday and Saturday nights on the Red/Purple, Blue, Expo, Green, and Gold lines. Additionally, the Orange bus line will continue until 2:40 am.

This means us Echo Parkians can go dine in Hollywood and catch the train back to Union Station after 11:30 pm. Or even from Long Beach, Culver City, and Pasadena. Our favorite train ride takes us from the Chinatown Station near Echo Park and up to Pasadena, just down the street from our favorite pub, Lucky Baldwin, where they serve some really strong beer and driving is not an option.

Blogdowntown quoted councilman José Huizar, saying, “In Downtown Los Angeles, Metro’s extended Friday, Saturday evening hours will allow more customers to enjoy the many exciting late-night venues we offer, as well encourage more people to use public transportation.”

The late-night rail hours will run on a trial basis, and may continue indefinitely depending on ridership numbers.

Click here for more information about the routes on the Metro website.

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Chinatown Summer Nights kicks off Saturday

Another way to keep cool this summer and enjoy some family-friendly activities is not far from Echo Park in nearby Chinatown. Chinatown Summer Nights starts this weekend, July 28, and will continue for just two more Saturdays in August.

The event showcases food trucks, neighborhood shops, restaurants, bars and art galleries, along with cooking demonstrations and other cultural activities.

It’s a pretty easy bicycle commute from where I live in Echo Park, and they even offer free bike valet courtesy of Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition. This weekend, there’s a cooking demonstration, family workshop with Chinese calligraphy, food trucks (including B Sweet Mobile, Crepe N Around, Flying Pig, Jogasaki Burrito, Munchie Machine, Pigs Feet Under, Tabom Truck, Trailer Park Truck, and Tropical Shave Ice), dancing and DJs.

And what’s a celebration of summer without beer? A craft beer garden on the corner of Meiling Way and Jung Jing Road will have Eagle Rock Brewery on deck with its Solidarity & Umlaut Kolsch brews, along with Golden Road Brewery featuring IPA and Hefe, and El Segundo Brewing Company featuring Blue House Pale Ale and White Dog IPA.

Click here for the Chinatown Summer Nights website to view the event map and full schedule.

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The Warehouse store remodel party on Saturday

Put this on your list of to-dos for Saturday: The Warehouse, located on the East (and up-and-coming) end of Echo Park, is throwing a remodel party!

Starting at 4:00 pm, there will be a huge sale on items in the store, music, food, drinks, and a demo class by sister store The Classroom LA. Stick around for a fashion show, store giveaways and a raffle starting at 7:00 pm.

The store will close starting August 1, with the plan to reopen with a new focus on unique items like estate vintage, local designers, high-end collections for stylists and rentals, and even an art gallery and event space.

Owner Justin Warwick and staff are very involved in the community, not to mention they throw great parties. They were also featured in a recent Echo Park Patch story about Echo Park’s East end, saying, “I feel like we’ve been really well received in Echo Park. I still have people that shop with me that shopped in my first store, three years ago here, that was a hole in the wall that was literally 500 square feet. Now we’re in 3,200 square feet and it’s exciting to have those same people still come back. They’re the reason we’re still open we couldn’t do this without the community.”

And we were one of those shoppers back in the day, so it’s great to see the store grow.

Click here for the event page and for more info. See you there!

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Echo Park Filmmobile screening: A Salute to Sennett

 

The Echo Park Film Center kicks off its Filmmobile Summer Screening Series on Friday with a silent film tribute to Mack Sennett in honor of the 100th anniversary of Keystone Studios. The Studios, which was located where the Thriftee Storage is now on Glendale Boulevard and in what was then called Edendale, was the first silent film studio in Los Angeles. The Filmmobile will project a total of six silent films throughout the summer, so what better way to kick it off than at the actual location?

Tomorrow nights “A Solute to Sennett” includes special guest Brent E. Walker, author of Mack Sennett’s Fun Factory, and features The Hollywood Kid, Mabel’s Dramatic Career and Edendale Follies. The screening starts at 8:00 pm at 1710 Glendale Boulevard (across the street from the Jack in the Box). Food, free, and open to all!

 

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Not all Echo Park girls are contemptible

 

Thanks to LAist for circulating this online gem: Some dude’s rant that, though hilarious and fairly well-written, describes Echo Park and Silver Lake (note the spelling on the latter) as self-absorbed tomboys without brains. And by well-written, we mean compared to all the other non-nonsensical, misspelled and downright bat-shit crazy stuff that comes to us via the Internets.

Here’s what he thinks us Echo Park girls are all about:

I used to have crushes on arty girls, like those that are in abundance in Silverlake and Echo Park. Those girls with their slender, tomboyish figures. Until realizing that this subgroup I refer to as “indie kids” are not like the people I met in college at all. It is painful to sit in a coffeeshop and listen to these sorts of people as they continually spout out cliche hipster nonsense that they seem to think is intellectual thought, but isn’t. It’s like the entire generation that these late-20s, early-30s come from are completely emotionally detached, intellectually stunted, and politically and socially disengaged — but they somehow remain completely self-absorbed. I mean, self-absorption was once solely the domain of the intellectual and artistic elite — Einstein and Picasso, for instance — but has now filtered down to those who don’t even have a reason to be self-absorbed. Hell, with the seeming nonexistence of rational thought, pragmatism, emotional maturity, or any sense of the world outside, I’m not even convinced there is a self to be absorbed in.

After seeing places in this world where people live in tin shacks with no electricity or running water and literally eat the sun-baked gravel for survival of the barest degree, I find the lifestyle and values of this group of people reprehensible. And the fact that there are so many publications and facets of the media — like the LA Weekly, for instance — that seem to not only cater to this subgroup, but lionize and proselytize about the shitty music and faux-art that they produce must be sure sign of the impending downfall of the U.S., if not the Western world as a whole.

We here have been given everything, there is no excuse for ignorance and apathy. None. Take your shitty music with no balls, your mumblecore films and sub-Warhol pop art bullshit and go back to Oregon, Washington or Minnesota. And tell your hipster douche bag boyfriends to buy a razor, a comb, and some pants that didn’t come off the girl’s rack – you fucktards. I’ll be laughing my ass off when you’re working in the mines for your Chinese overlords. Thanks for pissing an entire generation away.

So, Mr. “To The Girls of Echo Park”: Not all Echo Park girls are “emotionally detached, intellectually stunted, and politically and socially disengaged.” In fact, it sounds like that’s what you’re attracting with your negative attitude, so perk up and get over it. If you think too hard about what other people are doing with their lives, your brain will explode.

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Images of the “fire cloud” seen over Echo Park

For those of you lucky enough to be outdoors today, the “rainbow in the clouds” event produced some impressive photos all over the social media networks. A savvy Facebook fan pointed out that the phenomenon is known as a “circumhorizontal arc,” or “fire clouds.”

A Wikipedia article has educated us on the phenomenon: Taking place usually when the sun is at its highest point in the sky, producing not fire nor a rainbow, but reflections from ice crystals in high cirrus clouds. This one wasn’t a full arc, but just a small, patchy fragment.

Check out the photos collected from various sources and followers below!

Near Chango. Instagram photo via fcvc

From the LA Dodgers Facebook fan page.

Twitter photo via @yyys0

Instagram photo via elphcstl

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DUI checkpoint in Echo Park tonight

Flickr photo via funkgab

Tonight, the LAPD is having a sobriety checkpoint on Sunset Boulevard at the corner of Reservoir from 8:00 pm to 2:00 am. In addition to checking for those driving under the influence, they will be making sure each driver has a valid driver’s license.

There will be an increased amount of traffic because the Dodgers play the Padres starting at 6:10 pm.

Stay safe, leave the car at home if you plan on drinking!

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New Grand Theft Auto video game features Echo Park Lake

If you’re a fan of video games (and you’re lucky enough to have time to play them these days), the release of Grand Theft Auto 5 has been on your radar. It came on ours with the release of some screenshots from the video game, which included a nice serene shot of the boat house and Echo Park Lake – pre-construction, that is.

It’s not clear whether or not Echo Park Lake is part of the gaming map, or if this is just a screenshot from part of a scene. The angle in the above picture does look a little strange, so it seems they’ve taken some liberties with the layout and the overall look (cherry blossom trees?). The exclusion of the little marsh islands and the fountain (at least in this shot) also make us doubt this is Echo Park Lake, but so far it seems like it is indeed our little lake!

We’ll have to wait a little longer to find out for sure – GTA 5 has no official release date, but there’s speculation it will be some time around the end of this year.

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Mishka to move out of Echo Park Avenue storefront

Mishka announced on its blog this week that it’s packing up its Echo Park store and moving to another, so far undisclosed, Los Angeles location.

The store opened up along the same strip as El Batey and Chango on Echo Park Avenue in February 2012. They plan to close the shop’s doors for good by the end of the summer. For now, go in and grab your Mishka goodies for 50% off.

We imagine it won’t take long to fill the storefront – what kind of store do you think will take over?

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Woody Guthrie tribute in Echo Park Saturday

The Trailer Trash Project (a Pasadena Arts Council’s EMERGE Fiscal Sponsorship Program) is celebrating the 100th birthday of folk artist Woody Guthrie. And because he was a resident of Echo Park, what better way to have a celebration in the neighborhood!

The celebration is an all-day event tomorrow, Saturday, July 14, 2011, with art, music, and other family-friendly activities. The schedule is as follows:

Children’s Concert and Storytelling + Sign Making + History Breakfast
Blues musicians S.S. Jones plays Lead Belly songs for children. Woody Guthrie greatly admired Lead Belly and valued his friendship. Other musicians will play some of Woody’s many children’s songs as well as some of their own compositions. Dancers help out with movement.

El Centro Del Pueblo
10:00 am – 12:00 noon

Afternoon Picnic + Street Art + Writing Session + Song Writing
El Centro Del Pueblo
12:30 pm – 4:00 pm

Concert / Art Activities
El Centro Del Pueblo
12:30 pm – 5:03 pm

Second Line Parade
El Centro Del Pueblo
5:30 pm – 6:00 pm

An Evening of Music, Dancing & Activism / Skid Row Fundraiser:
The Echo
6:00 pm – 9:00 pm
$10 suggested donation

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“High-Concept Coffee Bar” could land in Echo Park

Echo Park is on the radar for a new “high-concept coffee bar,” reports Eater LA. Behind the concept: Intelligentsia’s former VP of Strategy Kyle Glanville, and current lead trainer for the Intelligentsia Venice location.

The two told Eater LA that they “have a strong preference for the Eastside, in an underserved locale such as Echo Park.”

While the coffee bar doesn’t have a permanent location yet or even a name, it will focus on using NO disposables – including napkins, cups, coffee filters, etc. We certainly like that! And we really don’t mind the whole coffee trend Intelligentsia represents in the area – as a coffee snob myself (but a realistic and budget-conscious one), that coffee is really, really, really good and is a nice treat every once in a while.

For now, the duo will be soon opening a pop-up shop for a few months, but no indication of where as of yet.

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The 4th of July aftermath

The streets of Echo Park early this morning were quiet and calm – a drastic difference from last night’s 4th of July festivities. Just a few bits of the fireworks littered the street pictured here, along with some charred relics burned into the pavement.

We fared better than a vacant house on Fargo, which caught fire from the roof and may have been caused by a firework.

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Echo Park shows off its fireworks for the 4th

Having lived in the same place in Echo Park for just a few years now, we’ve seen the ups and downs of the 4th of July celebrations in the neighborhood. Echo Park Lake used to be the fireworks war zone, with roman candles, bottle rockets, spinners, even home-made bombs in this synchronized madness that’s hard to imagine now. And if you couldn’t tell from the loud booms and screeches and car alarms, this year has proven that the streets all over the neighborhood are just as crazy.

First up, chilling out with some beach chairs and our cameras at an Elysian Park road for views of the Dodger Stadium annual 4th of July fireworks. It’s one of few places in Echo Park where long-time families/neighbors and even hipsters come together to clap and cheer for the show.

A short walk around the corner and the best street fireworks are being set off every other minute. It’s easy to enjoy because, hey, they’re legal in some US state right?

It’s past 11 pm and things have quieted down, and the cats can relax a little bit. Hope everyone had a fun and safe 4th of July!

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Falafel night returns to Echo Park

Last February, the Hot Knives guys (the ones behind the super awesome Salad Daze cookbook) sold over 100 falafels in just three hours – and it was clear Los Angeles needed more falafels.

Tonight, the late-night falafel popup returns to Elf Café in Echo Park to serve the buzzed and hungry. In case you missed it last year, Hot Knives describes their falafels as the following:

Our falafel balls are crackly crunchity on the outside but moist inside thanks to a fresh handmade batter of chickpeas and chickpea flour studded with fresh parsley, mint and cilantro.

The warm pita and falafel comes with hot sauce, garlic-tahini, homemade smokey hummus, and a tapenade of green olives, turnips and pickles. One sandwich, no options, no seating, totally vegan.

So be sure to head over on the early side, sales start at 9:30 pm and go until 1:00 am – or until sold out. Bring cash, falafels are $5 a pop.

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