GLEN & MARKETA

GLEN & MARKETA
Originally uploaded by davecobb

Tonight's concert was pretty tremendous.

Glen & Marketa's on-stage personas are just as you'd expect, and reflect the same things I fell in love with in their film -- they're both incredibly sweet, funny, humble, earnest and honest. Glen sheepishly said early in the show that they've only been on tour for a few weeks in the U.S., and while they'd heard back in Ireland that the film was "doing well" here, they had no real idea of the massive following that the film and their music have garnered until they were stared at, followed, and mobbed on the streets of Manhattan -- to which Marketa remarked, "don't flirt with success if you're not prepared to have sex with it."

Anyway, the audience couldn't have been more supportive and in-the-moment (except for the industry hipsters who kept whispering in too-loud tones, "was that song in the film? I don't think it was in the film..." every time the duo would play something from their previous album or from The Frames. Grrrr...). They played most of the favorites from the movie and from The Swell Season with grace, power and sweetness, and the audience went completely nuts.

One of the most remarkable moments was Glen's solo performance of Say It to Me Now -- if you've seen the film, it's the first original song he performs, busking alone in an alleyway in Dublin, and it's quite intense and emotional. While on stage at the El Rey, his enthusiastic foot-stomping during the song managed to unexpectedly kick free his guitar's amplification -- uncannily, right at the pivotal point near the end of the song where his soft singing builds into a heartbreaking emotional yelp. Rather that fiddle with the amp or wait for the sound crew to fix the problem, Glen jumped to the edge of the stage and steamrolled through the rest of the song completely acoustically -- no microphone, no guitar amp -- causing the sold-out, packed-to-the-gills audience to hold their breath and bask in nothing more than his hole-filled guitar and aching, lovingly imperfect howl. You could hear a pin drop. It was one of those concert moments that you never, ever forget -- honest, raw, and completely unscripted.

All that would have been just fine on its own -- but then, he put down the acoustic and plugged in a Stratocaster and threw down Cactus by the Pixies, which nearly made my brain explode. After the audience went nuts some more and demanded an encore, one was provided in the form of a surprise visit by Damien Rice, with an incredible rendition of Elephant. As if that wasn't enough, Glen & Marketa followed up with my favorite Van Morrisson tune, Into the Mystic, and a finished off with a perfect closer, Star Star by The Frames (with a bit of Pure Imagination thrown in for extra warm-fuzzy goodness).

Without question, one of my top five live shows of all time.

DRAW WHAT YOU SEE

A bunch of people have asked me why I haven't yet posted photos of some of the drawings I've been making in my twice-weekly "Introduction to Drawing" night class at ArtCenter. It's not out of fear or false modesty that I've been holding out -- usually, I love sharing my writing & production work, and getting feedback from peers and friends.

( This, however, is different, and a bit more personal. )

OAKRIDGE

The San Fernando Valley here in Los Angeles -- where I live, where I grew up -- has a unique feel to it, some would say sprawling and overdeveloped. Not an incorrect description, mind you -- but I have always been fascinated by the remnants of the Valley's "rural" origins that managed to survive the times -- the sprawling ranches in Van Nuys or along Chandler Blvd., the unmistakable smell of Pierce College (aka "Moo U"), the horse trails and equestrian center in Burbank, right alongside the sprawl of the 134 freeway and the "media gulch" of Riverside Drive.

While the Valley has been mostly strip-malls, apartment buildings and freeways in my lifetime, there was always this feel that it used to be something else. You could always sense its agricultural roots, that most of it used to be vast citrus groves and farmland. I had friends when I was growing up who lived in some of those huge ranch houses, left over from the the 1930s and 40s, when Hollywood's elite would cultivate the "California Lifestyle" by building huge estates on massive tracts of then-inexpensive land. A privileged life, for sure -- but it always seemed like they were casual retreats, not stuffy formal castles.

I always wondered what it would have been like to live in that kind of semi-rural bliss, with the bustle of Hollywood and Downtown LA only a short drive away. I guess that's always been the myth/dream of Los Angeles -- on the surface, it's a big overdeveloped city, but underneath there's this odd yearning for connecting to the "outdoorness" of its climate and locale.

I was thinking about all of this today because of this LA Times article, which I saw cross-posted in the LJ Los Angeles community, regarding the pending sale of the historic Oakridge Estate in Northridge. Let's hope the city wins the battle and a small sliver of the Valley's once-sprawling heritage can be preserved.

MY JACKASS MOMENT

Leaving work today, I discovered Johnny Knoxville hanging out outside his production bungalow, which is right across the studio alley from my office.

He was tossing gummi bears to his daughter, who was standing about fifty feet away and attempting to catch them in her mouth. As I walked by, I clapped my hands like a seal and opened my mouth wide. He hurled one my way in a huge arc, about twenty feet in the air. I dropped my backpack, shuffled into position, and snagged it. Perfectly.

As I walked off to my car, I saluted him (since he was wearing a dark blue Navy Garrison cap), which made him crack up.

NOT FROM AROUND HERE

There are a handful of favorite movies that, if I catch them while channel-surfing, I will inevitably have to watch them through to their conclusion (especially now that we have HD).

STARMAN is one of those movies. I love Jeff Bridges in it, I love the score, and the ending always makes me cry.

"Shall I tell you what I find beautiful about you? You are at your very best when things are worst."