On April 18th our good friend and homie Ceazs Hernandez helped organize an art/design/jewelry exhibit on the rooftop of the 1010 Wilshire. With free entry and free beer/wine, it got pretty crackin' and the vibe was right.
Artists Ray McCray (one of my favorite LA Jazz-related artists, with the immaculate Miles And Monk In The Sky [...]

Record Store Day was good to me. I spent a few hours around noon at the Artform Studio in DTLA & came up on some joints that the big homie Forest brought. (You might know him from his international heat at the Beat Swap Meet) It was a good time, a lotta heavyweights in the [...]

Quantic & Alice Russell – The Robert Glasper Experiment & Bilal March 21st at the Exchange DTLA. 
Quantic & Alice Russell were the most impressive to me at this show, mostly because I was pretty unfamiliar with them besides a couple Mochilla videos. Their musicianship and variety of styles, especially their cumbia work, was amazing though.
The [...]

4 years of the Beat Swap Meet. What a trip. I remember hearing about the first one, back when I was still relatively new to LA, when it was still just an idea and when it was still hosted at the Echoplex. I sold records at the first few, but then realized that the freedom [...]

           
And listen to those breaks gettin slapped by the Djs.

The Freestyle Sessions 14th Year jam was a perfect ending to the last (kind of, I’m done anyway) weekend of summer. At the the end of BBoy Week, after a week of different battles and jams all week long in Los [...]

I went and checked out the LA-area stops of Cut Chemist's ”Tunnel Vision” tour this week. For shows on a  Tuesday and Wednesday night, the turnouts were nice and the performances were on point. 
Cut, Mr. Lif, Paton Locke, Edan, Myka9, Hymnal, Deantoni Parks, Blackbird, Chali Tuna all came and repped. It was cool, and Cut made the point a [...]

Spent the evening last night at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery where Cinespia was screening Monterey Pop, which is a film from 1968 about the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. I had already seen this film, but something I learned last night that it was this film that really launched Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and the [...]

Long Beach Funk Festival 2010  Funkin' good times Saturday, August 7th for the 2nd Annual Long Beach Funk Festival.  And free to zoot. I mean, boot.  Perfect weather, perfect crowd, great music and great art. Before the show, I thought I was most excited to see Jimmy Castor And The Bunch, just because of the [...]

Lucent L'Amour At The Shrine Los Angeles This event was promoted and toted as a "Visionary Love Fest", held Saturday the 13th, going to 4am on Valentines Day.  I was drawn to this event and felt like I had to go due to the incredible lineup of artists who were showing and doing live painting [...]

"From Percee P's surprise acapella performance.. to Alchemist strolling through so nonchalantly.. to Ras G telling me he really came up on some good records.. to Gaslamp Killer never missing a Beat Swap Meet.. we are very thankful for Los Angeles." -Beat Swap Meet
The Beat Swap Meet, where Socal's vinyl fiends, beat heads and loop [...]