Hello Troubadourians! Have you ever experimented with open or non-standard tunings? While this is mostly the domain of guitar players, other instruments such as bass guitar are also candidates for non-standard tuning. Guitarists have been using open tunings for almost as long as the modern guitar has been around. When the guitar took its modern […]
First things first. Despite the Beatles pictured on the cover, this book isn’t about them. Indeed, it’s not a not a book about music, but fans of both will find it an interesting read. There have been plenty of books written about the Fab Four, even more that feature them in some capacity and you […]
The fifteenth annual Art Around Adams music and artwalk takes place June 2 along a two-mile stretch of Adams Avenue, in Normal Heights and Kensington. The free, all-ages event is a grass roots street fair with a difference: no street closures, no vendors in the street. The focus here is on the community with almost […]
Note: Fred Gerlach was one of the few 12-string guitar players who played in the Leadbelly style back in the day. Although he never met Leadbelly, he did live for many years with Leadbelly’s niece, Tiny, and was a part of People’s Songs. Gerlach ran regularly with Woody Guthrie, Cisco Houston, Pete Seeger, and all […]
The desert is a hot place. A hot place to work. A hot place to sleep. A hot place to do anything, but there we all stood. Yes, we, just a bunch of us hard-core desert truckers, waiting outside a desert bar oasis known as the “Whispering Palms.” A sort of whiskey oasis for the […]
Scratch Acoustic Soul Trio has been playing locally for years, doing covers of popular songs; the members include Simeon Flick, Eric Oberschmidt, and Michael Strawbridge. All sing and play guitar, and they play an eclectic song list featuring tunes by just about everybody in multiple styles. No surprise, then, that their EP Operation Demo is […]
Laundry day. As I haul another heaping basket of laundry across the bedroom floor, I notice a pair of my favorite jeans crumpled in the corner. I pick them up and immediately notice an unusual wear pattern on the back left pocket. I run my finger along its white rectangular outline, studying the intricate interlacing […]
With their new CD, One Day It Will, the Danny Green Trio give us a musical tour de force with ten compositions that combine Green’s stellar jazz trio with a quartet of some of the top local string performers. The music is, at times, engaging, thrilling, and sublime. The genesis of this project goes back […]
One of the great mysteries in music today is why John Prine is not a household name in the world at large. His fan base has grown steadily and remained loyal over the last five decades. In his L.A. shows, a favorite pastime is spotting the celebrities in the audience. In the world of Americana […]
