Lorange Blog

How do those roadside diners survive? Driving in day light desert to Las Vagas, waiting for the bend where you look to your left and sometimes in the distance between the peaks you can see french fried sand dunes. Maybe there, maybe not there. They shift with the winds, hide within the sky hazed by wildfire. Mental tour guide notes: That is a solar water tower. That is a touristy ghost town. One day there will be a meg-lav train they say but I don't believe I'll ever see it in my lifetime. The joshua trees are jealous This rest area is useless Lonely is not a word I use anymore I left Las Vegas at sunset on purpose. not wanting. to go home. to nothing. This drive is much nicer at night when the sun turns red and low, casting deep shadows across the mountains. My head wanders to sounds of the song of desert stillness. This radio is useless. Deep shadows sit on dry lake beds and slopes that go on for miles so in the mirror I can watch the headlights come down

Come out to see the newish four piece line up of Bang Sugar Bang every Thursday in September starting tonight (yeah, you get an extra August date) at Canters. Canters? Yes Canter has bar attached to it called the Kibitz Room where it small, loud, and with some of the strongest drinks I've ever had. Oh and it's free. 21+, On Fairfax, just past Farmer's Market The wonderful Chissum Worthington made a very special vidpromo ( vid link ) video stars they are not, amazing live band they are.

Kiss or Kill presents a great lineup tonight @ El Cid: Steel is up first, The Waking Hours (my fav of the bunch), The King Cheetah The last band sounds interesting / Joe says they're great: The Midnight Shakes - Shake Your bones ( vid link ) Thursday: Great Northern , @ Detriot Bar, $6 I believe The Happy Hollows @ The Makeout Room (San Francisco) bay area peeps: I'm trying to make this show, come out.

This is a public service announcement for all the folks like me who will be up there this holiday weekend. Full Bay Bridge Closure Labor Day Weekend The Bay Bridge will be closed 8:00PM Friday August 31st and will re-open Tuesday 5:00AM -- Bart will be running 24 hours (hourly overnight service, not all stations open) -- expanded Ferry service -- Official info baybridgeinfo.org You can dial 511 (in the bay area) for more info on traffic/bus/ferry schedules or use 511.org Article on what exactly is being done on sfgate.com .

One my favorite bands since first seeing them at kiss or kill way back in 2003, Underwater City People will be closing out their Eagle Rock Sunday Night Bowling & Drinking Club residency tonight with some other bands I dig too. Show starts at 9, but your five buck admission gets you a free bowling shoe rental and if you want, joining the band for a game and Big Lebowski quotes at 7pm. Eagle Rock Sunday Night Bowling & Drinking Club Eagle Rock All Star Lanes 4459 Eagle Rock Blvd., Los Angeles CA 90041 This will be a very interesting lineup with: 9:00 pm Meghan Toohey Things that perked my interest: - I liked the songs listed on myspace. - Her band is listed as: "me. guitar. bass. keyboards. voice. computer. iPod. drum kit." - Realized that the familiarity of her name was due to playing with one of Sizzle 's favorite bands, The Weepies . I'm learning that Sizzle has way better taste and knowledge in music than I do. - She is producing a new album by an arti

I'm on my way to Vegas . bringing the laptop bringing it to the chicken

I can't get a lot of things off my mind lately: This heat is sucking us all dry, this Earlimart album playing on repeat, oh and this one girl. I remember when I first played parts of Earlimart's Treble And Tremble for MFR years ago and while she liked it, the singer sounded just a little too much like Elliot Smith for her. She loved ES as he played near empty rooms, as he played in forms not suited for standing let alone pulling off a show; Anything similar did not ring true to her ears. Playing catch up as aways I later learned that Aaron Espinoza was a close friend of ES, as the well known story goes, and it made sense that intentionally or not Elliot Smith would affect the sounds emitting from that album. For me it was like most things I'm attracted to: it just has to happen in simple terms. I just loved the sound and the way I felt listening to them over and over again. Tomorrow is the release date for the new album Mentor Tormentor and the second release show at Th

I'm waiting for something flown on top of winds from the East Coast and I think it will be just as good as the real thing. I also think the real thing will even better whenever that might happen again. I'm patient. Friday was a nothing night when folks took it easy before the junction as was Thursday I suppose. That night I went over to the Echoplex which was not as crazy packed (just walk right in packed) as I had imagined it would be. Not only was it free but it offered a great line up of Gore Gore Girls , The Architects (I missed both to being slow and having an late old man nap), Irving , and Midnight Movies that are two of my favorite things. Irving is such a wonderful band that I kept missing over the last year but not because I didn't try: one time the power went out but usually often due to conflicting plans. Standing up front remembering where I was in my life a few years ago when I first came across their music, thinking how much has changed for the better. I o

You have your reasons to visit the frying street pan that is Sunset Junction be it the food, the rides, the great bands, or the guys in leather chaps. At some point you're going want to drink regularly priced hard alcohol, enjoy some air conditioning, a real, regularly cleaned bathroom, or maybe listen to some great local bands that you are unfamiliar with. So for three extra bucks you can get all that above starting at El Cid located between the Bates stage at Fountain and Santa Monica and Sunset, er the actual junction. Oh don't forget the fair is elbow shaped this year, making a turn down Santa Monica. Kiss or Kill Presents @ El Cid, $3, 18+? Bands playing from 1 PM until last call: [ Update: Chissum was hurt in a horrible pudding accident so the three bands he plays in will not be performing. At this point bring a harmonica and a plastic bucket and you'll probably get a slot] [ Update 2: King Cheetah and Eject added, BSB removed and please note that El Cid's usua

My hair is worth $21 plus tip. I like my hair enough to keep it clean but not have it cut more often than two months of average then get chopped short and proper until letting it grow out to skooby doo shagginess. Not sure if this is a guy thing of not putting much thought in my looks or living most of my life in suburbia that has immune me paying anything more than $13 bucks. If I was little more full of myself confident, I would go out with bed hair (I rock the bed hair) but there's that whole I didn't wash it filth that forces me to wash it away. So now that it was that time again and after the bad cut (still an improvement over the friar tuck) a couple months ago, I decided to spend the extra money and hit Rudy's Barbershop in Silver Lake. Now I know it's a chain too but I've seen plenty of good cuts walk out of the place that I couldn't go wrong and in this I was right. Might look the same to some of you but I feel like a unicorn under rainbows when I l

So, yeah* I've been out of town the last few days and not posting much lately. It's nice here in Crushville and I kind of like the locals a lot. Smitten if you will. "Wait. (hands on hips) Isn't this the same place you disappear to once a year?" "You've been reading this for over a year? Why haven't I noticed?" "Yes, it's called RSS feeds ." "Oh I know all about feeds. More people should use them; They've been around for years." "I know!" We both exclaim in unison. "So?" Oh yeah. (Wait. Who am I talking to?) No that's the industrial area of Infatuation Burg on the other side of tracks filled with the empty buildings where the cracked out shopping carts roll down to rust; not even the homeless want them. The one good thing that place has going for it is that you can do anything there. Let your mind go free to imagine a better place. A better place like Crushville. No Crushville is even better tha

Quick post of some shows for this week before I take off to catch Gliss at the Viper Room. Going to try anyhow. Tuesday: ** The Katie The Pest show is Sat the 18th ** Talia Rose (pictured) of Katie The Pest performs solo @ Zephyr Vegetarian Cafe 340 e. 4th st, LBC, Free with Ruthann Friedmann, Brian Wakefield, Pegasissy (Oregon), Ryan Musante solo project. ["outsider folk" as they call it] Tuesday: As mentioned before , Nu-trapalooza @ Safari Sam’s all ages, free for over 21+, half price beer NU-TRA, 8-Bit, The Mormons, The Bolides & The London Broil Wednesday: Kiss Or Kill presents @El Cid Bang Sugar Bang 12ish, The King Cheetah resident band 11pm, Sin Serenade 10:30, The UVs 9:45 --18+, $3/$5 after 10pm Thursday: A bunch of OC bands on the Strip Delta Spirit , King Elementary, Sparrow Love Crew , & The Outline @ The Roxy. $10 ~~~~ Random: The founder of The Gap announced the other day that he is building his own museum in San Francisco's Presido. Watch

yup :) goodnight

I might have told some of you that I was going to make a turn around trip to Vegas yesterday for a convention that is currently at the Hilton which might or might not be based on an old tv series with William Shatner (of shut up, I was getting in for free and don't tell me that some great drunken blog posts wouldn't have come from it). With lots-o-time on my hands so the plan was a go with the time available until I realized that my money was already tied up for something else. Oh well. Now the thing with being available all day is your friends also know that I'm going to help them move something or lots-o-somethings. This cannot be avoided . For example, last week I helped Ash with her refrigerator to the new digs in Glendale; Yesterday I was recruited to help move stuff from J's apartment to his new apartment. So we started about two and the uhual loaded and apartment cleaned by six, ate a couple handfuls of chips as my only food that day and then drove a few miles t

yeah third post - it's five am and I'm jealous that you are going to work. Tonight The Wombats were indeed better live than their already energetic recordings. I imagine outside photos and reviews will come in a day or two so I'll post links later. Now it struck me funny how many people I recognize via myspace or blogs in the real world that I momentarily think I know them. If I didn't know better there was one person I thought could be xTx . I mean I only have pictures like this to go on so it wasn't her, but I think this person would be what I expected her to be like in person for some reason. In that case, xtx you're short. I left right after the Wombats played for Kiss or Kill and met someone new, a friend of a friend. I'm going to leave it at that for now as I like to keep somethings close to my chest. Was I at a show this Monday? I lost this weekend somehow - did you see me? If so please remind me of what I did. Oh yeah, Monday was wasted

So whilst shopping at Kohls for basic dress clothes for my non-existent job, I couldn't help notice that they have pretty decent in-store music (Nouvelle Vague for example) playing and not surprising, up pops The Dollyrots ' song Because I'm Awesome . I heard about Kohls using the song for a commercial but without cable I had yet to view it and duh, didn't think to look online until this morning. Nice to see a local band of good people and one time staple of Kiss or Kill make some money. Oh they're in the beginning and then in the audience at the end. So here it is: DollyRots Kohl's Commercial I was reading the press release and they're called a "teen rock band" (well they do look young...) and have upcoming commitments to appear on a college based show called "Greek" (ABC Family) and on "Sauce," (FUSE) some kind of variety show*. Already completed: HP commercial, episode of CSI NY. Next stop I could see them making: Conan

press play first for a very shoegazery soundtrack while reading this. Ghost Train video Thrushes | MySpace Music Videos It happened two weeks ago. Thursday was a bad day when panic stabbed my eyes out with its sorry, pathetic edge: Out in the LBC the night before (Wednesday) seeing happy bands play happy music with my happy friends and happily I went along standing on a bus bench afterwards watching the cops speed by. It was 65 degrees if not warmer, even at 3AM. We sobered up (I didn't drink) with Del Taco where my friends took my car for a spin around the parking lot without me. Thursday morning 4 or 5 am writing. The sun raw rays were waking and the traffic starts to thicken in the morning broth of Glendale and Sunset Blvd. The throttle of idling buses traveled up the hill into my building and I want to taste the work commute again like warm apple pie that crumbles within the cinnamon ether. Without a purpose in my day or a person to spend it with, I am cold to t

Kiss or Kill presents @ Metal Skool/Key Club The heshers won't see what's coming with: Automatic Music Explosion 11 (a KorK fav that's perfect for this night - fun stylish rock AND it's their one year anniversary) The Mullhollands 10, and OK Stranger 9. I be (I be? I should really stop the post first, rewrite later policy) I'll be there until that crappy last band metal skool starts to play. Tuesday: The Wombats @ Cinespace The Prix @ Spaceland 11pm 8 Bit with The Mormons (9 yr anniversary !?!) @ Mr T's Bowl with the Monolators + more, 21+ free I love this flyer!

I'm sorry people who own that red car that was just broken into. I tried. Don't know if you're eating at the bar, restaurant, or asleep down the street right this second but I did my best when I took the sum of the situation and decided to do something: Called 911 and as I spoke to the operator I reported that two guys had exited with your stereo and were presently walking up towards Sunset with it in hand like a purse oh so nonchalantly. With my headphones on I didn't thing much of the popping sound the window at first. It was the crackling of your dash that brought me to the window and instantly knew something was not right just under those trees. Living here only since November has been almost problem free so maybe it's the ending summer months that has brought out the crap to my corner lately. A few weeks ago around 3 AM I turned up my street after parking to see a lady near that alleyway and knew immediately this was a somewhat rare (as in obvious) hooker enco

The Wombats are a UK band I came across last year (again a big yay to music blog futuresounds for the introduction) and fell in love with their catchy, silly lyrical songs that basically sound the same but that could not stop the ridiculous amounts of repeat plays in my stereo. Originally set to do a show at Safari Sam's right after SXSW but due to illness and/or concentrating on bigger shows back home a series of show cancellations dashed my anticipation until the two shows next week. Now I'll find out if all those crazy sing alongs I've read about are true. A new proper album with reworked songs and some new bits will be out at some point in October or so they claim so keep and eye out for that. In the mean time enjoy this video for the song Kill The Director. Tuesday Aug. 7th @ Cinespace ($5 I think) 21+ Wednesday Aug 8th @ Spaceland $12, 21+ Thursday Aug. 9th @ Popscene (San Francisco) $8 21+, $10 for kiddies website , myspace , funny SXSW promos ( part1 , part2 ) o

Found a man in Glendale who said twenty dollars and twenty minutes will heal the broken frames I held in my hand. "Yes, I need them well again," as I laid a crisp twenty down on the counter to seal the deal. Hands shook after we both spat in our palms (not really) and I waited and waited and then stood up to see sunken eyes in the mirror, just a little clearer now. I saw the grass was truly greener on the other side where a wedding exited onto concrete steps with bridesmaids blue with dresses they never will wear after today. Amused how sidewalk cracks loomed large over little dogs much cuter than possible on my walk up to my apartment but kept thoughts straight on friends happier in 'we dare not call it more than serious like' relationships. Whatever, we all know better. A nap, then daze, a three dollar shirt bought because I didn't need glasses to spot a deal on mis-stitched apparel. My priorities wouldn't allow for more and I wanted a beer tonight so I

When you held my hand and pull in for a kiss I thought that I finally found The One. You are perfect - such grace, such a smile, such soft skin as I run my hand up the front of your nightgown, reaching behind your neck, feeling the warmth of your flesh as I brushed cascading hairs away. not to be said afterwards: ...It makes me miss my old collie Snazzles.

I would risk bodily harm to save your life. not to be said afterwards: ...by bodily harm I mean pull myself to safety for better cell reception.

You smell like something I want to wake up next to. not to be said afterwards: ..like a coffeemaker.