Hope...

Hope Sandoval has probably one of the most unique female voices to date. Her style was on the forefront of pushing the "dream pop" genre in the early 90's with then band Mazzy Star and continues to promote an eerie haunting essence through her solo project. Appropriately, her L.A. segment of the tour had landed on the Hollywood Forever Cemetery as the venue of choice, a suitable site to contribute towards the mystique-atmosphere of her drone sound. The performance itself was held in the masonic hall of the cemetery, a room plastered with classic movie posters ranging from the likes of The Shining, Star Wars, and A Clockwork Orange. Hope is actually a bit of a shy recluse and has performance/social anxiety, which means the whole room must be pitch black in order to make her feel less nervous about being exposed publicly. I forgot to mention the venue was also tagged with signs that read "Absolutely No Photography" but my camera was smuggled in anyway. There in the dark Hope emerged as two classic film projectors fired off sepia tone images of vintage female figures dancing 10 feet above her head. I found this to be both beautiful and spooky (since the old crypts and gravestones where right out the door) in an ongoing mental battle throughout the show. The Warm Interventions (Hope's backup band) manged consistent dreamy tones that might take you towards a suggestive David Lynch film soundtrack which again added to the mysticism of the whole setting. Hope can play some xylophone! Her tones often set you towards a pretty lullaby state that is very reminiscent of Radiohead or Sigur Ros. New Mazzy Star album is potentially on the horizon, but don't hold your breath.

Drive By

One of my favorite pass times of L.A. is driving through downtown and finding bits of randomness during the late afternoon hours. In route to my sisters gallery space, I was forced to take a detour off the 101 freeway (yup, you guessed it, traffic!) and traversed about the side streets when I saw the an abandoned couch just hanging out on the sidewalk.



I stopped the car despite Karen wanting to pee really bad and began shooting away at all the great trash treasures the street had to offer. The image below is a work in progress from the source pic from above. Keep the junk coming!

A Chat With Karl Hyde

The middle of August had triggered a beginning sequence of several unexpected surprises and events. It started with an email from my PR cohort and good mate Oscar from The Scenestar webzine - saying we've offered a time slot to interview Karl Hyde of the band Underworld via conference call. In a state of disbelief and excitement, I replied with "yes we'll take it!'. Both Underworld and their art collective TOMATO have been at the core of all my creative influence for almost 10 years now. Through the body of their work I found inspiration at a very bleak period in life to pursue my goal of being a mutant artist/photographer/game designer. Speaking to Karl gave an immediate insight into his sincere disposition though his willingness to express his views within any subject matter. It is what you hope to hear from someone you hold in such high regard. At the end of the interview we a had candid discussion about art and life, to which he pointed out "you've got to be hungry" which implied to keep moving, never stopping, always searching. A kick in the ass I needed to hear since I had sort of found myself in a rut with the current state of general misplacement. Photo by PEROU

The full interview can be found here http://thescenestar.typepad.com/ss/interviews/index.html

New Beginnings

Blogging... occasionally it crossed my mind to make the leap towards exposing my thoughts with cyberspace at large, but as the second half of my life has taken a realignment, this became practically necessary. I suppose the incentive in this case, is to use this tool as a sort of a reflective mechanism to stimulate the creative vibes that feel as though they're slipping away. They were once so omnipresent during the days of art school and extracurricular experimentation, but in these past few months I feel as though we've become distant strangers. In turn, I'll be compiling all things art, design, video games/interactive media, music, philosophy, and perhaps life too! The image on the left was taken (post processed in photoshop) with my new Nikon D-300 SLR, a very costly beast but again another necessary tool to continue on pushing the creative endeavors, especially concert and portrait photography. I found myself getting a little sentimental when I had to part ways with my old D-100 as we had many memorable moments over the past 5 years. Now it's somewhere in Tijuana - in the hands of a tattoo shop owner who will no doubt be give it a whole new story to tell...