Free Today:Saturday July 18, 2009

Today we have a few live concerts to tell you all about. Its such a beautiful day out today that it's perfect for enjoying some tunes. Here's the rundown:

First off, at 5:00 this evening, the Los Angeles County Museum of Arts will be hosting another of their Latin Sounds Concert, featuring the group Los Compadres. They mix old time traditional Latin music with a contemporary twist. The show is at Dorothy Collins Brown Amphitheater in Hancock Park.

Dorothy Collins Brown Amphitheater
5905 Wilshire Blvd
In Hancock Park

Secondly, at Pershing Square downtown,they will be hosting another of their Downtown Stage Concerts. This one will feature the music of El Chicano and Upground. This show starts at 8:00 pm and is supposed to last until 10:00.

Pershing Square
532 South Olive Street Los Angeles, CA 90013

Finally, if you are looking to spot a celebrity around town, you are in luck! the Universal City Walk is doing a concert series every Saturday, hosting bands with celebrity members. tonight's show features Chase Masterson, who was in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. She goes on at 9:15 pm tonight, with the band Fallbrooke opening for her at 8:00.

Universal City Walk
100 Universal City Plaza
Universal City, CA 91608
Take the bus, this places charges out the ..... for parking

Have fun! see some cool music. Thanks for your support! keep telling your friends about us!

later
.kyle

Lots of Calendar Updates!

Hey guys and gals,

Just finished a massive update of free events on our calendar. Take a look at the tab at the top of this page. If I missed anything cool.. and free, let me know!

later,

.kyle

FOREIGN BORN: LA's New Big Secret is Out

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These LA locals are also Secretly Canadian's newest secret. They are currently on tour & made their most recent stop at UCLA's Hammer Museum last night during the second to last night of the awkwardly titled, "Also I like to Rock" FREE summer concert series. The Freeloader had a chance to speak with Matt Popielluch & Lewis Pesacov of Foreign Born.

_____________________________________________________

Freeloader: Well let’s start small, what’s your favorite venue?

LP: The Great American Music Hall in San Francisco.
MP: The Hideout in Chicago is pretty cool.

Freeloader: Would you mind self describing your sound for those who haven't heard?

MP: Sunkist melodies with dark as hell personalities.
LP: It’s kind of like a pineapple was shoved into a cornish hen & the cooked in an oven to the point where it was burnt black & just a little crispy on the outside

Freeloader: Hmm sounds tasty enough; tell us a little about your new album “Person to Person.”

MP: We found this really cool house in the hills, near Universal City called New King Sound.
LP: It’s basically a converted house into a barebones studio; it wasn’t really a “high tech” space.

Freeloader: In a day when anyone can record anywhere, why record there?

LP: We wanted a place that wasn’t a black hole studio, a place where we could see the light of day.
MP: A friend of mine gave me a card at a show. It had a picture of the tracking room with these big windows & a great view of the valley, it was beautiful.

Freeloader: What’s it been like since the new album came out?

MP: It’s been cool. Secretly Canadian is a very proactive label. They’ve done a lot for us. We’ve never done a tour with this much press or scheduled appearances.
LP: It’s like everyday we have an activity before the show, its kind of nuts, but its really good & you can’t say no because its great promotion for the album. We put a lot of effort into this last album, so we want people to spread the good word.

Freeloader: Well your tour is moving toward an end on the East coast; where are you most excited about stopping?

MP: New York will be really fun because we have all our friends out there. Chicago too, but sometimes the smaller towns are the better shows, I’m really looking forward to playing Minneapolis.
LP: We’ve done five dates so far; they’ve been surprisingly good. We’ve done tours before where we played in front of five people. Not that that’s a bad thing, but this is definitely not that.

Freeloader: You all are pretty new to the Secretly Canadian crew, so tell me a little about the transition.

MP: Dim Mak Records put out our first album, which was a strange friendship. They were nice & they liked out first record, but I think we had different artistic goals & we were headed down different paths. Our stuff kind of got out… Secretly Canadian heard our new demos & they were very interested in them. Everything happened pretty fast after that.
LP: It was an organic decision; Dim Mak didn’t seem really interested in the direction we were going, while on the other hand Secretly Canadian was excited by it, so it felt like an obvious choice.

Freeloader: So did S.C. find you here in L.A.?

MP: We were on tour actually.
LP: They came & saw us play a show in Chicago. I guess they had our first album, I think they must’ve had a copy on their desk, but probably never really listened to it until much later & then realized that maybe they actually had an interest in us.

Freeloader: Nice, well how did you all end up making music together?

MP: Lewis & I met in college at San Francisco State & we played around in college. After we graduated we played around San Francisco for the better part of a year & then Lewis had some friends down in LA, (Ariel & Garett) & they started jamming with us & eventually we just decided to make a change and move south to start living the dream.

Freeloader: So you both spent your college days here; are you California natives?

LP: I was born in Los Angeles, raised in Los Angeles… lived in San Francisco & then Germany for a spell.
MP: I was born in San Diego, but moved around a lot & lived in Hong Kong for a while before I moved to the Bay are for high school & college.

Freeloader: So what’s happened between then & now?

LP: We played a lot of music.
MP: Yes we did; we moved into a house together & did that thing for about three years. The clusterfuck; it was kind of rough. It was productive though & pretty cool to look back on.
LP: Yeah, it was really good considering that we never had any major fights between us; everything was surprisingly well paced.
MP: As time went on, more & more side projects started up. In the downtime between out last record, Lewis started Fool’s Gold. Pretty much we were always recording our friend’s bands & our own bands.

Freeloader: You both play in several different bands, how do you keep your different project’s sounds from bleeding into one another?

MP: That’s just my personality; I write a song for a certain thing, it’s very pronounced. I think it’s healthy to have a variety to help keep myself from letting things grow stale.
LP: I feel like I write all sorts of material & I deviate it out to whomever’s interested in doing it. Unfortunately this can lead to bleeding over into all my other songs pretty often.

Freeloader: Your sound has a little worldliness to it; how’s it feel to be released internationally?

MP: It’s great; it’s something we wanted from the beginning. It came out in Australia & New Zealand.
LP: That’s awesome; I just hope we can play all those places.

Freeloader: So after this are you finally professional musicians? …Or do you still have day jobs to cover the middle?

MP: We’re still not there quite yet; I’m a groundskeeper for “Tree People” which is a non-profit environmental group.
LP: I make music for Television Commercials, so my job is still kind of music oriented at least.

Freeloader: So finally, what is all this for? What are you hopes for this band in the future?

LP: That’s a good question, that’s something we never think about
MP: I think just like the hamster in the wheel, we only look at the wheel were spinning.
LP: I think of it like Sisyphus pushing his rock up the hill.
MP: Looking too far forward is never a great idea.
LP: It’s not about the destination. It’s about the Journey.

-MORE PHOTOS HERE by Brian Swanson-

HAMMER MUSEUM
10899 Wilshire Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90024-4343
(310) 443-7000

technorati

nrimdh5tv4

Free Today: Thursday, July 16, 2009

Busy today. Heres a real quick rundown.

Hammer Museum Free Day

Free show at the Hammer at 8:00 tonight featuring Foreign Born and Warpaint. Get there early these things always reach capacity!

Museum of Contemporary Art Free Night at 5:00

Free Concert at the Santa Monica Pier featuring Sgt. Garcia at 7:00 pm

Journalist conversation with Francis Dinkelspiel at LA Central Library. You Must make reservations to attend. starts at 8:00 pm

Free concert at Skirball Cultural Center featuring Issa Bagayogo starts at 8:00

Free film screening at the Grove tonight at 8:00. The Film is Spiderman!

ok. Busy.. Have Fun! Stay tuned for an awesome interview coming up soon!

.kyle

Iris Lecture Series at the Annenberg Space for Photography

Th Annenberg Space For Photography made its debut earlier this year. It describes itself as "An entirely new cultural destination dedicated to exhibiting both digital and print photography in an intimate environment." I couldn't have explained it better myself. The Annenberg recently reopened earlier this week with their exhibit Pictures of the Year International. The exhibit features some of the top photojournalistic images from around the globe. It will be on display until November 1.

In addition to their exhibits, the Annenberg will feature an (almost) weekly series of Lectures by world renowned photographers. The Series is entitled The Iris Lecture Series. Most of the lectures will take place on Thursday evenings at 6:30. All lectures are free but registration is required! Registration is available via their website as linked above and is available about a month before the event. Here's the rundown for the rest of summer:

July 25 - Steve McCurry - Registration is open

July 30 - Carolyn Cole's Photojournalism: An Internal Approach - Registration is open

Aug 06 - David Burnett - Registration: July 16

Aug 13 - Dan Winter's Periodical Photographs - Registration: July 23

Aug 20 - Michael Robinson Chavez's Photographing a Shrinking World - Registration: July 30

Sept 03 - David Hume Kennerly's Behind the Scenes of History - Registration: Aug 13

Sept 10 -Susan Meiselas's Abstract - Registration: Aug 20

Sept 24 - Colan Finlay's Photographic Prose - Registration: Sept 03

Oct 01 - Gerd Ludwig's Russia- From Broken Empire to Wild Wild East - Registration Sept 10

Oct 08 - Eli Reed - Registration Sept 17

Oct 15 - Gillian Laub's Everything is Personal. Tales of Intimate Engagements - Regist: Sept 24

Oct 29 - Sara Terry and Louie Palu's War is Only Half the Story - Registration Oct 08

Free Today: Wednesday July 15, 2009

Good Morning folks! Today is a busy one. Hopefully you all feel like heading out and seeing some cool stuff. Here's the breakdown.

First off, if you are into the Renaissance thing and happen to have an extra Renaissance costume lying around, you should head down to the Bowers Museum. That's right! Today is Rembrandt's 403rd birthday (if he wasn't already dead) and the Bowers is celebrating in style! Starting at 10:00 The Bowers will allow access to their Rembrandt exhibit as well as host special events throughout the day. All of this is free if you dress in your Renaissance best!

Bowers Museum

2002 North Main St

Santa Ana, CA 92706

At 12:30, the Hammer Museum will host another of their Lunchtime Art Talks. This one will feature a walk through of their current exhibit, the work of artist Larry Johnson. If you have a few minutes during your lunch break, maybe you should have a look.

As if the Hammer hadn't already done enough for the free world, the museum will also host a lecture featuring artist Nic Hess. If you haven't already seen Hess' work, you can get a sneak preview in the entryway of the Hammer. His work often includes large murals done almost completely out of different types of colored tape. Its interesting to say the least. You will definitely see me there. Tickets are free but first come first served. Get there at 6:00 to reserve your spot. The lecture starts at 7:00.

Hammer Museum

Los Angeles, CA 90024
Phone: 310.443.7000

Local musical heroes Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros will be having a free show tonight at Amoeba Records at 7:00 pm. If you cant catch them tomorrow Check them out at the Hammer on the 23rd. Also Free!

Amoeba Records

6400 Sunset Blvd.

Hollywood

Finally, the LA Central Library will be hosting another installation of their Aloud series. This one will feature author Jim Krusoe. He will discuss his most recent book Erased. You MUST reserve your seating in advance to attend this event. Tickets are free, but you have to reserve them! The link to do so is HERE. the Lecture starts at 7:00

Central Library
630 W. 5th Street
Los Angeles, CA 90071

The Mystery of the Piano Bar

Today's free event is more of a mystery of sorts. It was passed on to me by a reader and appeared in our inbox sometime last night. He said that a band called The Bar Band, plays a weekly residency every Tuesday night at the Piano Bar.

Sounds simple enough.

The mystery deepened when I clicked on the link for the Piano Bar. What turned up, was an obscure page advertising the music of one Phil Westbrook, A self proclaimed song stylist. I could not for the life of me see anything pertaining to the actual Piano Bar itself. As I dug a little deeper, I was able to uncover an address and a few reviews for the actual Piano Bar in Hollywood.

The reviews were an ambling web of sentences that only deepened the mystery of the Piano Bar. Some reviews said that it was a classic Hollywood institution that operated as an pseudo gay bar. Others stated that the place was thousands of dollars in debt and was about to close. Still others said that the bar had actually shut down and was no longer in business. Finally, I came across one review that said that the place had been recently taken over by a dude named Ryan, who is trying to clean up the place.

So is the Piano Bar open? I think so.... Is the Bar Band playing a Tuesday residency there? I'm pretty sure they are. Its funny, there's such a mystery surrounding the place, that I'm probably going to make it down there tonight to see whats going on. You should too...

Who knows, this could be the next big happening spot in town.. Get there before everyone else finds out about it...

.kyle

The Piano Bar
6429 Selma Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90028
(323) 466-2750

FREE TODAY: Gorgeous California Sunshine

Well...

I'm not going to lie, sitting inside on a computer is a pretty entertaining way to kill your day. But if your eyes are too sore from staring at the screen... I guess you could always go to the park & feed the ducks.

I mean... ducks have families to feed too.
Besides, you never know... that little gosling your feeding could grow into the next Miley Cyrus (in the duck disney world of fame that is)

Free Finds: Ridiculous Dead Weather Video

FREE: Internet

I'm taking bets on how many bands Jack White will start before he burns out. I thought he'd be done already, but he threw a curve ball this time by hop'n on the drums.

His newest endeavor (The DEAD WEATHER) has earned just as much hype as his last, but this ensemble comes armed with a much stronger "rock" backbone. Alison Mosshart (The Kills); Dean Fertita (Queens of the Stone Age); & Jack Lawerence (The Greenhorns) forged their band with White in the danks of Nashville, Tennessee earlier this year.



Their latest music video (directed by John Glazer) is a burn on everyone who wishes they could do what he's doing. (I mean, I want to spend a day strut'n around with super HD cameras & movie prop automatics shooting a terminatoresque video about a bad love affair... don't you?) Glazer knows how to make a music video though. I've been a sucker for the guy ever since he did a video for radiohead back in the 90's.

The Dead Weather is on the east coast currently, tonight they will be playing a show in the D.C. area. They will be stopping in Los Angeles in August at the Wiltern, but the actual show is pretty far from free.

89.9 FM-KCRW Free For All Movie Mondays Schedule

89.9 FM-KCRW and the Orange County Performing arts Center are hosting a summer movie series. Tonight the series kicks off with a screening of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory at 8:00 pm. Its going to be fun watching this classic film on such a beautiful night. Here's the schedule for the rest of the summer:

Tonight: Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory

July 20 - Annie

July 27 - Footloose

August 8 - Mamma Mia

All shows will be at 8:00 pm

The Orange County Performing Arts Center

600 Town Center Drive

Costa Mesa, CA 92626

Its a bit of a drive for us, but if you are down there, it could be fun.

.k

Free Tonight: LA Record Issue Release Party

What: "LA Record Issue Release Party"
Where: Cha Cha Lounge
When: 9p-2a

The monthly issue release party for the LA Record is taking place @ the Cha Cha Lounge Tonight. There will be a live DJ & some movie projector action going on; it's FREE to get in, but any booze is always a few bucks.

Cha Cha Lounge
2375 Glendale Blvd
Los Angeles, Ca 90039
(map)

Free Today: Monday July 13, 2009 Monday Night Residencies

Its Monday night, so that means its residency night in the Silverlake/Echo Park end of town. Here's tonight's lineup:

Club Spaceland 21+ (Doors at 8:30) 1717 Silverlake Blvd

Andy Clockwise

Natalie Portman's Shaved Head

Broken Meters

Hey Champ

The Echo 21+ (Doors at 8:30) 1822 Sunset Blvd

Japanese Motors

Dirt Press

UV Lights

Correatown

Silverlake Lounge 21+ (Doors at 9:00) 2906 Sunset Blvd

Last American Buffalo

Avi Buffalo

Evan Way

Greg Jong

All Shows Are Free for 21+. Head on down and check out some cool local bands!

Free Today: Sunday July 12, 2009

Good morning all, happy weekend! Today there is a pretty solid list of events going on that might be of interest. First off, the Echo Park Community Festival is on its final day, so if you haven't had a chance to go down there, today is your last shot. The event is held at Echo Park.

Tonight, at 6:00, musician Kim Lenz will be performing a live set at Amoeba Records on Sunset. If you like rockabilly, this show should float your boat. Lenz has disappeared from the scene over the past few years, but tonight she will be back in action, and ready to rock. Here's the address:

Amoeba Records

6200 sunset Blvd

LA, CA. 90028

If you are interested in folk art, The Craft and Folk Art Museum will be hosting a free day today from noon to 6:00 pm. now is your chance to see their current exhibit Celestial Ash: Assemblages from Los Angeles. that we wrote about last week. Another exhibit they have on display will be an exhibit entitled Ancient Gods and Modern Politics: Mithila Painting. You can read more about both exhibits here.

Additionally, at 3:00 pm, the Craft and Folk art Museum will be hosting a poetry reading featuring artist and musician Exene Cervenka.

Thats the line up for today. Hopefully there is something worth looking in to. As far as things go for us, We will be heading over to the Getty Center today to see their photography exhibit, In Focus: Making a Scene. The exhibit will be on display until October 18th.

The Getty Center is free every day. It is located on a beautiful mountainside in West LA. There is parking on site, however it will cost you $15 bucks. To some, thats a bit steep, so we recommend taking public transportation. Motorcycles and bicycles can also park for free, and parties of 15 or less are allowed to be dropped off at the gate at no cost.

Getty Center

1200 Getty Center Drive
Los Angeles, California 90049

(310) 440-7300