Tag Archive for: echo park

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Echo Park’s Week in Music

For the week of Tuesday, July 20 through Sunday, July 25.

Tuesday, July 20
Grand Archives, S, Kaiser Cartel @ Echo
Poison Control Center, One Trick Pony, The Faraway Places @ Echo Curio

Wednesday, July 21
Dub Club with Echodelic Soundsystem, Mcpullish, El Tambor, Jah Faith, Ron Miller @ Echoplex and Echo
The Tough Cats, Crooked Paw, The Sundowners, 100% Good Time Solution Band @ Echo Curio
LA Record 100 presents: Whoa Hunx, Cowabunga Babes @ Origami Vinyl

Thursday, July 22
Barrio Tiger, Neighborhood Bullys, Stab City @ Echo
Down And Derby Roller Disco @ Echoplex
Upsilon Acrux, Voice On Tape, Megasquid @ Echo Curio

Friday, July 23
Club Underground Presents Jared Dreams of Far Out Things, John Carpenter, Kisses (DJ Set) @ Echo
Tan Dollar, Weed Diamond, Dash Jacket, Slow Animals @ Echo Curio
Standing Shadows @ Origami Vinyl
Papermade Records Presents: Canyons, Bear Flag Republic, Black Elephant, Ostrich Eyes @ Pehrspace
Rock ‘n’ Roll with Dan Daniels and the Southern Gents @ Tribal Café

Saturday, July 24
Wild Records – A Night of 1950s-style Punk with Luis & The Wildfires, Omar & The Stringpoppers, Don Juan y Los Blancos, The Desperados, The Rhythm Shakers, Santos & More @ Echoplex
Heather Woodbury’s “As The Globe Warms”, followed by the official closing party for “Geography of Somewhere” with movie screenings and surprise guest @ Echo Curio
Funky Sole @ Echo
James Apollo @ Origami Vinyl
Signal Hill, Silian Rail, Death House Chaplain @ Pehrspace
The Omegans, The Graven @ Tribal Café

Sunday, July 25
The Spits, No Bunny, Audacity @ Echo
Part Time Punks – Smiths/Morrissey Nite @ Echo
Father Figures, Phil Musra, Manhattan Murder Mystery @ Echo Curio
Slow Animal @ Origami Vinyl
Los Angeles Loves…A Summer Soiree, Elle King, Ema and the Ghosts, Miniature Houses, I Hate You Just Kidding @ Pehrspace
Michael Whitmore, Gus & Friends, Ray Charles Manson, Surveyor, Paper Rainbow and more @ Tribal Café

For more information on weekly musical events like club nights, see our community resource pages.Visit the venue website for more information on the cost and times of shows. Venue information can be found in our community resource pages.

This list may not represent all the musical events happening in Echo Park this week – feel free to add more events in the comment section. All events listed are subject to change at any time. New events announced for the week after this posting may not be included.

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L.A. Flea Market gets a mixed review

LA Flea Market debuted on Sunday, July 18, 2010

Hey, Pasadena, we have a stadium too! And anything you can do we can do… sort of.

Sunday was the first ever Dodgers Stadium flea market, which will be held, barring a Dodgers home game, on the third Sunday of every month. However, if they hope to draw crowds of flea marketers to the parking lot, the organizers need to put a lot more effort into finding decent vendors a month from now. Or they could scrap the flea market and be a food truck party, in which case they would already be winning.

Parking was a breeze, I arrived at about 10:00 am hoping to beat the heat a little bit. The heat won regardless, but such is life when you’re hanging out in a Los Angeles parking lot in the throes of summer. There was a short walk to the ticket booth where I paid my $5 and received my ticket. You could pay with a card and there were the only two ATM machines at the ready, no sign noting these as your last chance for green as these were the last machines I spotted all day.

Not exactly on my list of quality Flea Market finds

Perhaps I have an East Coast bias when it comes to the age of vintage items, or maybe I was spoiled by the Pasadena City College flea market a few weeks ago. When I first walked into the LA Flea Market, I already felt this event was planned around food trucks, Rick Dees, and small business owners. Every fiber of my being routes for the small business to succeed, but today I also had hoped for a true flea market experience.

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Masa’s Deep Dish Pizza goes Vegan

Photo by QuarryGirl

Everyone goes crazy over Masa’s Chicago-style deep dish pizza, especially when the Cubs come into town and the favorite dish comes half off. Now vegans have more opportunities to join in on the fun – Masa has added an animal-free version of the pizza to its menu.

Chicago Soy Dairy supplies the vegan cheese called “Teese Soy Cheese,” and Masa uses olive oil instead of butter on the crust. Vegan blogger extraordinaire Quarry Girl has all the great details and a rave review of the new menu item.

Masa is located at 1800 W. Sunset Blvd.

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Flashback Fridays – The Fate of Echo Park

Dial Torgerson, Los Angeles Times, Sept. 19, 1971

Both Kelly and I (on separate occasions) dug up a rather interesting article from the L.A. Times circa 1971. The article, entitled “Which Way for Echo Park – Inner City Oasis or Slum?”, describes Echo Park at the dawn of the ’70s as:

…the hilly, multiracial, multiethnic home of both the poor and better off. Echo Park is becoming a near slum and a much-in-demand middle-class community at the same time. It is going up and down simultaneously. Newcomers from from poorer areas are crowding into substandard housing and youth gangs have become active. At the same time, there is a different influx: that of the middle class. Older couples who sold homes in distant suburbs and young marrieds with college degrees are seeking homes and rentals in the hills.

From what I’ve learned about Echo Park, it seems that it’s always been home to a mixture of different cultures and incomes. It’s interesting to see proof of this and to see an argument similar to the one happening today, taking place almost forty years ago. The same racial tensions that bubble beneath the surface of today’s arguments were there in the ’70s as well and, presumably, the ’60s. For example:

‘The rapidly changing ethnic composition of the Silver Lake-Echo Park communities will soon transform Echo Park into a Mexican-American barrio,’ said a UCLA study for the city’s new general plan. ‘We strongly urge that, via the process of community organizations and related efforts, steps be taken to avoid further ghettoization.’ Many long-time residents of Echo Park, members of its Latin community, object to experts’ blaming Latins as the bringers of the slum.

Eek! Yeah, I think an objection to that study is justified. The article also brings up some interesting bits about the cultural differences between certain residents of Echo Park. Some of these descriptions sound vaguely familiar…

The Hip community calls it “The Other End,” the other end of Sunset Blvd. from the Strip. Barefoot hippies buy food with food stamps in the same supermarket lines with young deputy public defenders with mod clothes and lavish mustaches. Chicano street types dress in a uniform of neat jeans (or overalls) and clean white T-shirts; they haven’t learned, as have their Anglo contemporaries in the suburbs, to believe that dirt is somehow revolutionary.

Read the full article here (PDF download).

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AT&T Telephone Box Art

Today, at the end of my street, I noticed something I’ve never seen before: artists at work painting one of those giant telephone boxes in broad daylight. I stopped to take some pictures and talk to the artist, Carlos.

Carlos is part of a small group of people that have been hired by the city and AT&T to beautify those great gray behemoths, and to prevent them from being covered in graffiti. After the painting is done, the entire box is covered with an anti-graffiti coating. Carlos and his crew have painted boxes in several Los Angeles neighborhoods. The one pictured above is part of a series of about four or five that will feature Southern California’s wildlife.

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Urban Hikes: Discover Echo Park to Poetry

Get your tickets now for Urban Hikes: Forgotten L.A. with Mike the Poet and explore unexplored cultural and architectural parts of Los Angeles, along with walking poem performances by Mike the Poet.

Echo Park: Sunday, July 18 at 11:00 am
First 10 hikers to purchase a ticket will receive a free copy of The Madonnas of Echo Park by Brando Skyhorse. Hikes last an hour and a half.
Three-Tour Package | General Ticket | Student Ticket | A+D Members FREE

MacArthur Park: Sunday, August 1 at 11:00 am
Featuring: A tour of the MacArthur Park Bandshell, hosted by the Levitt Pavillion and an inside peek at the Park Plaza Hotel. Hikes last an hour and a half.
General Ticket | Student Ticket | A+D Member FREE

LA River, Confluence Park: Sunday, August 8 at 11:00 am
Special Guest: Mia Lehrer, Landscape Architect for the Los Angeles River Revitalization Master Plan. Hikes last an hour and a half.
General Ticket | Student Ticket | A+D Member FREE

Tickets are $30 for the three-tour package, and $15 general price per tour general price per tour ($5 for students). Architecture and Design members are FREE (email info@aplusd.org to RSVP). They request you purchase tickets by the Friday before each hikes.

Here’s the full info from the event organizers:

Los Angeles poet and native Mike Sonksen, aka ‘Mike The Poet’, performs his poems live and loud while providing a cultural, historical, and architectural tour exploring the forgotten and hidden gems in our City of Angels.

Mike is widely acclaimed for his live performances, contributions to international publications and legendary city tours with A+D Museum, Red Line and The Museum of Neon Art. Poet, journalist, historian, tour guide, and teacher, Mike is published in Citybeat, O.C. Weekly, New Angeles, L.A. Weekly & many others. A third generation L.A. native, Mike graduated from UCLA in 1997. His book I AM ALIVE IN LOS ANGELES! has been added to the curriculum of several universities and receives rave reviews.

Email the event organizers with questions at info@aplusd.org or call 323.932.9393

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The Gentrification of Echo Park Student Documentary

Here’s a short student documentary about the gentrification of Echo Park, “with a focus on local businesses, real estate, racial tension, and class struggle.” They interview Echo Park residents, including Rickey Kim of Evil Monito in Echo Park.

Though I’m not sure when this video was made exactly (it was uploaded to YouTube recently), it does mention the Echo Park swap meet (at around 8:26), saying: “Every Sunday, Latino families and vendors from other parts of Los Angeles come to the park to sell used clothing, appliances, and other items as part of the Sunday Swap Meet… Due to residents’ complaints, strict ordinances have been placed on the vendors regarding what can be sold. Vendor numbers have diminished while tension persists.”

Just to clear things up, at this time there are currently no ordinances in place for the Sunday swap meets at the lake (let alone restrictions on what items can be sold), and the numbers have actually increased in the past year.

The above video is written and directed by Sinziana Velicescu with the help of Marvin Arias and Chelsea Zeffiro.

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Echo Park’s Week in Music

For the week of Monday, July 12 through Sunday, July 18.

Monday
Mississippi Man, Superhumanoids, Dahga Bloom, Useless Keys @ Echo
New Music Monday With Greg Mullen, Glacier Saint, Maraca Mouths, Air Surgeon @ Echo Curio
Hyena, Kid Infinity, Myths, Professor Calculus, Sean Pineda, DJ Mapi (KXLU) @ Pehrspace
Residency Night 2: The Black Apples, Wait. Think. Fast., Cue The Moon, Summer Darling @ Origami Vinyl

Tuesday
Smog Sessions With Mrk1, Juan Basshead, Emu, Kemst @ Echo
Big Tree, The Shade, C-horse, Birdlips @ Echo Curio
Open Mic night hosted by Josh Bassett at 7:30 pm @ Tribal Café
Superhumanoids @ Origami Vinyl

Wednesday
Dub Club With Echodelic Soundsystem, Jah Faith, DJ Danny Holloway, DJ Expo, J1 @ Echoplex & Echo
Basshaters, Mirage (Featuring Members Of Smegma + Sissy Spacek), Damion Romero, Indian Mound @ Echo Curio
i can be cheery and LA Record 100 Present: Lola Loshkey, VOICEsVOICEs, Halloween Swim Team, Corridor, DJ Jung Hollywood @ Pehrspace
The Breeding Ground Open Mic (every Wednesday) hosted by Joe Mullenix at 7:00 pm @ Tribal Café

Thursday
Threadless West Coast Social With Special Guest DJ Greg Dulli (Of The Twilight Singers), Teen Inc, The Samps @ Echo
Antibalas, The Sway Machinery @ Echoplex
The Gripping Play Ulysses Crewmen, Performance By Peter J Woods, Moment Trigger, True Womanhood @ Echo Curio
Open Mic night hosted by Jackie at 7:30 pm @ Tribal Café
Foxtails Brigade @ Origami Vinyl

Friday
Club Underground With Secret History, Sweater Girls, Waterlaso @ Echo
Trannyshack La @ Echoplex
Kacey Johansing, Honeycomb, Nightmare And The Cat, Kandyce And The Killdozer @ Echo Curio
Otik Records Presents Shirley Rolls Video Release: Shirley Rolls, C-Horse, Brown Irish, Mountain Animal Hospital @ Pehrspace
G.T.Y.E Presents America Eats its Young, Michelle Macedo and Co. @ Tribal Café

Saturday
Bootie La With Dj Shyboy, DJ Paul V., Raid @ Echoplex
Funky Sole @ Echo
Heather Woodbury’s “As The Globe Warms” followed By Simon Joyner, Queen Victoria, Claire Cronin @ Echo Curio
Oh Yeah, The Future, Therapy Session, Tubby Boots @ Pehrspace
Mystery Claws @ Origami Vinyl
Indie Rock Night featuring alternative country band, Oak Street Blues and more TBA @ Tribal Café

Sunday
Part Time Punks: Factory Records Night With DJ Tim Burgess (of the Charlatans) @ Echo
Echo Obscura @ Echo Curio
Diggin’ Sunday is Back, Failings Exposed (music event to raise money for lupus) @ Tribal Café

For more information on weekly musical events like club nights, see our community resource pages.Visit the venue website for more information on the cost and times of shows. Venue information can be found in our community resource pages.

This list may not represent all the musical events happening in Echo Park this week – feel free to add more events in the comment section. All events listed are subject to change at any time. New events announced for the week after this posting may not be included.

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Lotus Festival Sunday Schedule

Here’s the schedule for Sunday I snapped a shot of last night at the Lotus Festival, click on the image for a larger view.

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Sobriety Checkpoint Tonight in Echo Park

Another sobriety checkpoint tonight in Echo Park (the last one was May 28, 2010), this time at Sunset Blvd. and Sutherland right in front of El Compadre. They will be checking for drivers under the influence as well as for drivers licenses.

The checkpoint is planned for 8:00 pm – 3:00 am.

Tonight the Dodgers are playing the Cubs for game two, and for those fans exiting the stadium down Sunset Blvd., well you’re in for a wait in traffic.

Click here for the full LAPD announcement.

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Learn Dog CPR and First Aid at Blue Collar Supplies

Learn how to save a dog’s life by getting certified in Dog First Aid by the American Red Cross at Blue Collar Supplies in Echo Park.

The event takes place on Sunday, July 11th from 5:30 pm to 8:30 pm.

Cost is $55 (includes course fee, Red Cross Dog First Aid manual, DVD and certificate)

The training is three hours long, and provides hands-on training for emergency care procedures as well as the certification in Canine First Aid. You’ll learn how to:

  • Administer CPR & rescue breathing
  • Identify a normal heart and pulse rate, breathing rate and body temp.
  • Safely handle an ill or injured dog.
  • Safely muzzle a dog.
  • Identify life threatening warning signs and symptoms.
  • Care for a dog who cannot breath or is in shock.
  • Provide basic wound and trauma care and control bleeding.
  • Care for a dog with a muscle, bone or joint injury.
  • Care for a dog involved in a car accident.
  • Care for a dog with sudden illness.
  • Care for a dog who has been bitten by another dog or animal.
  • Care for a dog who has been bitten by a snake.
  • Care for a dog who has been poisoned.
  • Care for a dog with a gunshot wound.
  • Care for a dog who is over-heating
  • Care for a dog who is suffering from hypothermia or frost bite.
  • Properly use the items in a dog first aid/emergency supply kit.
  • Prepare for your dog in the event of disaster or evacuation.
  • Help any dog in the event of an emergency!

Don’t bring your dog! Dog mannequins will be provided for demonstration.

RSVP my emailing Bluecollar.Seminars@gmail.com or on the Facebook event page.

Click here for the full email and event information.

Blue Collar Supplies is located at 1533 Echo Park Blvd.

Blue Collar Supplies also as another round of dog training courses coming up: Starting July 18, basic obedience class begins at 4:30 pm and will meet every week for the next six consecutive Sundays. Click here for more info on the training.

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Masa Pizza Specials when the Cubs Play

We just had dinner at Masa tonight and realized that whenever the Cubs play at Dodger Stadium, Masa has some incredible specials on Chicago deep dish pizzas.

During the game only, Chicago Deep Dish Pizzas are half off (dine in or take out). This series is a four-game series starting tonight, July 8, and goes through Sunday, July 11.

You can usually watch the Dodger games at the restaurant – but only when the games are on KCAL9, a broadcast channel available at Masa (tonight was an exception as the game was on Prime Ticket). We were assured by our always awesome server that Saturday and Sunday, the games will be on at Masa.

Click here for the Dodger schedule and times on our Dodger Calendar page.

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Echo Park Farmers’ Market finds

Last Friday, I posted a sneak peak of all the wonderful goods I picked up at the Echo Park Farmers’ Market, all delicious goodies which I cooked up over the long holiday weekend.

This little Farmers’ Market shopping trip was meant to explore some the vendors and find out how far away (or close) the food at the market was coming from. It also gave me an opportunity to meet with blogger Valentina of the newly published Eastside Food Bites as we explored the sights, smells and tastes of all this great, local food.

While unable to interview all the vendors at the market, I do have some recommendations based on this recent experience as well as from some raving reviews from other Echo Park residents:

John Sweredoski helps customers at the Farmers' Market

Sweredoski Farms: Located in Bell Gardens (more less, about 15 miles from Echo Park) has a lot of herbs, lettuce varieties, really fragrant tomatoes, and other produce. The man behind the counter shown above is John Sweredoski; he is very friendly and knowledgeable about the produce he has available, and is there every week. From there I purchased an enormous zucchini and saucer squash, squash blossoms, potatoes, dill, and lemon basil. Everything is fresh, organic, and delicious.

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Lotus Festival 2010 is this weekend

Flickr Photo via citta-vita

While the Lotus Festival isn’t going to coincide with the blooming of the Lotus flowers in Echo Park Lake this year,  have to admit we are a little excited about its return this weekend. In 2009, the Lotus Festival was canceled due to budgetary cuts, and instead turned into the first Echo Park Community Festival. This year marks the 32nd celebration of the Festival, and is sponsored by L.A. Lotus Festival, Inc. and the City of Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks.

For those of you who have never been to a Lotus Festival and are new to the area, it’s basically a medium-sized fair around the Lake with vendors selling clothing, jewelry, and other knick-knacks, along with a variety of festival-style food. There’s also a stage where entertainment takes place – we’ve seen some impressive taiko-style drumming, traditional dancing, and other great music.

All this is designed to promote an “atmosphere of understanding in which Asian and Pacific Islander communities in Southern California are brought together for two days of cultural sharing.”

Also in past years, there used to be a Dragon Boat race, where teams applied and paid to race each other in the lake. It seems due to some cutbacks, the races are canceled this year. From the Lotus Festival Dragon Boat Races website:

After much discussion and deliberation, HAP, Inc. has made this difficult decision to cancel the races. Since, we are a not-for profit organization, our primary goal is to provide scholarships to graduating high school students to further their higher education aspirations. Due to unforeseen complications and in the best interest for those most in need of our scholarships, this year races have been canceled.

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Share your skills at the Echo Park Share Fair

The Echo Park Share Fair takes place on Saturday, July 10, 2010 from 1- 5:00 pm at 1380 Echo Park Ave. (on the corner Echo Park Avenue and Montana).

Basically, the Echo Park Share Fair is a collective of people sharing their knowledge and services – artistic, entertainment, and other skills and services – so that community members can benefit from your knowledge. From the event organizers:

Join in giving and/or receiving goods, services, skill-sharing, meeting your neighbors, and FUN.

Free market, skill-share, potluck, community building…it’s in your hands.

Ideas for what to share: food, clothes, sewing, bike maintenance, cooking lessons, haircuts, massage, music, anything you imagine might be useful to someone else in the community.

If you would like to contribute a service, skill-trade, teach a workshop, or entertain, please contact the event organizers at ohjeepers@gmail.com. If you let them know ahead of time, they’ll make sure to save a space for you!

Check out the event website here.

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