Codega Newsletter: 1/14/2010
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A night of vertical ecstasy & musical revelry featuring the VertiGirls @ King King Hollywood
Thursday – January 21st – 2010
Doors 7:45pm … 21+ … {$15 cover, $10 advanced tix}
{click here for guest list action}
featuring ~
8:00pm The Shakers
9:00pm The Mulhollands
10:00pm Fire At Play
11:11pm VertiGirls
11:45pm Ironheel
… along w/ DJ Sunevil + Live Painting by Michael Pukac
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Plus an exclusive night of music in The Foundation Room @ the House of Blues Sunset Strip
Saturday, January 23rd, 2010
Doors: 7:45pm … 21+ … {$10 cover; $5 w/ flyer}
featuring ~
9pm Connie Lim & The Forrest Philosophy w/ acoustic set by Jazz Callner
10pm Justin Hopkins w/ acoustic set by Ariana Hall
11pm Yonatan {Double Set} w/ acoustic set by Andrew Paul Woodworth
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Please respond to this email to be placed on The Codega VIP Guest List for both nights!!!! Thank you for your support of the Los Angeles Music & Art Scene.
629 Neals Lane
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The Codega designed this print bi-fold for Geisler Young/FCPA, along with the architectural schematics. The place looks beautiful! $1,550,000. Text below is from the print piece. If you’re interested, contact mark@markstorolis.com.
Recording studio in Nashville retreat in Gallatin, Tennessee. Impressive technical craftsmanship. The studio is an acoustic marvel: layered in soundproof materials, hundreds of bass traps, sand-filled concrete walls, and floating floors. Every surface has been scrutinized. Material costs outweigh the asking price. Turnkey maintenance and customization terms. 629 Neals Lane is a rare investment opportunity.
Looking at the studio, a professional team of four to six works well in 5,000 square feet. An entourage-capacity control room holds over 20. Outside, the insulated shop heats enough room for a tour-bus, merchandise, office and rehearsal area.
The home boasts brick and oversized frame construction. Interior comforts include an open kitchen, three bedrooms and three and a half bathrooms — all pristine. Home, shop and studio rest on five acres with pond and pastures.
Area amenities: Nashville International Airport, Long Hollow Golf Course, Gallatin Country Club, Bluegrass Golf and Country Club, and Old Hickory Lake.
TVBC Identity
Branding developed for business development council in the East Bay. Online at trivalley.org
The VertiGirls
The VertiGirls were founded by Emilee Wilson in 2009. She hand picked each performer after witnessing the amazing amount of strength and grace they exuded during pole performances. The VertiGirls have been featured in Pole2Pole Magazine, and they’ve played at such legendary venues as the Hollywood House of Blues (the first time in that venue’s history that pole performers headlined on the main stage), the Key Club, the Aqua Lounge in Beverly Hills, Gallery 1018, the Upper Manhattan Lounge, and in January 2010 they’ll be starting a residency at King King on Hollywood Blvd. every third Thursday of the month. The VertiGirls are proudly endorsed by Bad Kitty, Xpole, and Mighty Grip. They wear signature feather masks which add mystery and magic to each show and they provide jaw-dropping entertainment with synchronized pole tricks, duet dances, and choreographed routines (including hoop, trapeze, and fire dancing). Several of the VertiGirls are title-holders in professional U.S. and California pole competitions.
Anduze
The latest album, entitled Closure, weaves the listener through the nuances of a relationship gone awry. That being said, it’s not your typical sappy break up record. For the most part, the tone and tempo of the songs gleam with hope and the projection of moving forward. Anduze’s sultry voice resonates with a sympathetic confidence that leaves a unique impression. Using beautifully crafted lyrics, each song tells a story that reels us in for an up close and personal look at the artist…and at times ourselves. The subject matter is relatable, like a conversation with someone where you find yourself not speaking because you agree with every word.
The latest album, entitled Closure, weaves the listener through the nuances of a relationship gone awry. That being said, it’s not your typical sappy break up record. For the most part, the tone and tempo of the songs gleam with hope and the projection of moving forward. Anduze’s sultry voice resonates with a sympathetic confidence that leaves a unique impression. Using beautifully crafted lyrics, each song tells a story that reels us in for an up close and personal look at the artist…and at times ourselves. The subject matter is relatable, like a conversation with someone where you find yourself not speaking because you agree with every word.
Finding “closure” is not easy, we all know that. But as he searches for his, Anduze also manages to inspire us to look for ours in whatever capacity we may need it…proof that music truly can be life changing when it comes from the soul.
West Indian Girl
In 1963, renowned chemists Bear Owsley and Nick Sands developed a strain of designer LSD which had a reputation for inducing tribal hallucinations. This strain of acid was called “west indian girl.” Flash forward forty-some years and however many psychedelic revolutions later to find the Los Angeles duo of Robert James and Francis Ten deciding to call their musical collaboration “West Indian Girl.”
Close your eyes, put on West Indian Girl’s self-titled 2004 Astralwerks debut, and feel how apt James’ and Ten’s choice of moniker is: the ensuing auditory hallucination will bring you back indeed, back to a time when Blur were considered shoegazers, when My Bloody Valentine wrote anthems posing as crystalline soundscapes, when U2 was more concerned about the great beyond than politics and Stone Roses vied with Primal Scream as the sexiest, spaciest, stonededest band around.
It’s not that West Indian Girl is derivative of those bands, or even sounds like them per se, as much as it is born out of a similar ethos. Like those bands, all deeply transformed by England’s post-Acid House movement, West Indian Girl is born out of a similar ethos: a devotion to the expansion of all things mental, musical and mood elevating, a desire to find that transcendent missing link between rock’s human pulse and electronica’s man-machine meltdown. At the same time, West Indian Girl are no mere Anglophile nostalgists but true products of their time and environment. West Indian Girl remain next-level, next-generation journey-to-the-center-of-your-mind rock, the v.2.0 version: songs like “Northern Sky” and the first single “Hollywood” suggest the abandon of a dreamy, slightly unreal Southern California landscape just as “Madchester” dance-rock evoked vagabond “free parties” in the middle of some remote pastoral field.
Indeed, West Indian Girl’s swirling, empyreal big-canvas sound draws from an evolution out of America’s own version of the Acid House “Summer of Love.” Growing up, Ten moved continuously from the East Coast through the Midwest (“My dad is Sicilian—he owned various… businesses, and there are Sicilians everywhere” is all Ten will say by explanation). James led a similarly nomadic upbringing, bouncing from Australia to Tucson, Arizona and then, when his mom passed away, headed to the Detroit area. After graduating high school, James sidestepped college in lieu of an extended road trip that landed him in Dallas, Texas circa the early ‘90s; by coincidence, Ten had landed there himself. Both found themselves living out a key chapter in American rave culture. Ecstasy just became illegal and still readily available in Texas back in those days, and Dallas soon became the epicenter for U.S. MDMA culture; there, these two like minds quickly found each other. “When Rob and I met, we combined resources and started throwing parties ‘the pioneer ranch raves’ we called them,” Ten explains.
As that phase of Stateside rave culture died down in the mid-‘90s, both pursued different musical trajectories. Ten gravitated to Los Angeles, where he tried to keep the “peace, love, unity, respect” vibe alive by throwing self-styled raves, only to find himself quickly in handcuffs. “We set up a bar in North Hollywood warehouse, and the authorities thought we were running a meth lab,” Ten groans. James, meanwhile, had shacked up in the Catskills “with a band that was more of an idea than a band. We spent most of our time stoned and never doing anything.”
By 2002, however, James had eventually joined Ten in Los Angeles, and West Indian Girl was born. Instead of playing live to audiences who didn’t know who they were (or care), James and Ten decided to build a home studio in an idyllic environment: placed high in the Hollywood Hills, its windows’ overlook deep into a lush canyon. The studio became “like Frankenstein with computers”—in other words, the ideal crucible to forge a unique sound out of disparate yet complementary influences. Initially, the two members of West Indian Girl make an unlikely pair, Ten with intense eyes and multiple tattoos, contrasted with James’ pensive, shaggy mystic quality; accordingly, James’ tastes from folk-rock to Underworld, Can and Kraftwerk, and the modal drone of Indian and African music, while Ten finds inspiration in everything from early Killing Joke and Japan to Jane’s Addiction and My Bloody Valentine. After a number of vocalist false starts, James took over vocals, with both collaborating the music; soon a raw, straight-from-the-hard-drive demo of “Dream”—an alluring Pink Floyd-circa-Syd Barrett-esque ballad rewired with hypnotic electronica—started circulating. “Dream” quickly found play on L.A. DJ Nic Harcourt’s radio show “Morning Becomes Eclectic,” a buzz-creating haven for new music on influential local station KCRW.
For their full-length, West Indian Girl strove to capture the lysergic immediacy of the “Dream” demo, so they set about producing their debut full-length in their bucolic home-studio getaway. In the tradition of classic debauched albums from the likes of Happy Mondays and the Rolling Stones through New Order and Primal Scream, West Indian Girl evolved out of some truly altered states, and gorgeously sounds it. “I’m not a big pot smoker, but Rob gave me a pipe as a present to start the record, and it benefited me,” Ten says. “The songs opened up—that’s how the album was realized.” “Drugs have their place,” James adds. “And I wouldn’t say this album was done under just the influence of pot, either. I see the benefits of every drug: use your imagination.”
Ten notes that West Indian Girl’s debut intentionally reverberates with “a positive feel that almost sticks out these days.” It’s the human quality to the album that proves most seductive, from the washes of analog Moog keyboards to the spooky harmonies alchemizing “Leave Tonight.” “In an age where so much is programmed, everything on this record is actually played, which gives it that warm feel,” Ten says. “People crave that realness.” “The music West Indian Girl makes is very touchy-feely,” James concludes. “If it feels right, it’s right.”
Bumbershoot
Oversize full color guide designed from scratch for One Reel’s Bumbershoot music festival in Seattle.
Yonatan Elkayam
On the stage and in the studio, Yonatan has become a permanent fixture in the Los Angeles music scene.
As a musician, producer, and composer, he is constantly creating on all ends of the spectrum. Focused on expanding his ever-growing portfolio as a producer & engineer, he is looking for his next project. From a single track to a full length album, Yonatan is equipped with vision, skills, gear, and a vast network of musicians to take your music to the next level.
Here are some tracks that really display Yonatan’s ability and diversity.
And the following are some notable highlights of his career so far :
❂ USC graduate; Degree in Comprehensive Sound Arts from Ex’pression Center for New Media.
❂ Studio work with George Clinton and Merl Saunders, as well as on stage with the Black Eyed Peas and the Crown City Rockers.
❂ Radio Recorders in Hollywood; Produced and engineered full time; worked with the legendary John Cale of the Velvet Underground and Lonnie Jordan of War.
❂ Collaborated with Money Mark of the Beastie Boys, and mixed a complete album released in Japan.
❂ Member of the band million/billion; toured the country (shared stages with Ray LaMontagne, Gomez, and Beck) and released their first full length album, Ready. Fire. Aim., through Universal in 2007.
❂ Recorded and toured with singer/songwriter Andrew Paul Woodworth.
❂ Accomplished composer; featured on TV shows such as King of Queens, Dr. Phil, Rachel Ray, and America’s Best Dance Crew.
Feel free to inquire about his availability and rates with me: Jaclyn Strong (323) 804-7558 or jaclyn@thecodega.com
The Source Code
The Source Code chronicles the real life story of a young woman whose path is forever changed after visiting the ancient Mayan Pyramid of Uxmal. From deep feelings of being alone to overwhelming feelings of complete connectedness, this intimate full-circle journey takes you from the jungles of Tikal, to the pyramids of Egypt, and to the living rooms of some of the Worlds leading experts. Her search for inner-knowledge leads her to uncovering profound ancient secrets…ancient secrets that will have a deep impact on the way we view each other and the World we live in today.
Cityzen
Cityzen started with songwriting partners Tobias Forrest and Jeff Line who used mind control to persuade four younger more talented musicians to enter a cacophony of noise. Nick Woods (drums), Chris Woods (keys) and Nick Lopez (bass) are unique players with mutant like musical abilities. In the eye of an electrical, instrumental storm the music dissolved into a blend of original “Roots” Rock sounds fused with Funk, Jazz, Reggae & Hip Hop influences. Although Cityzen is a fairly new band, it is consistently developing in many ways and looks to offer a variety of unique songs and styles. Our original project, “Invisible Mental Tenticles” is a compilation of raw and original “Living Room Sessions” that has evolved into the current full band set. Future live performances and studio recordings will shape an even more original and eclectic sound that provides listening pleasure and induces our audience with the impulse to dance. Whether we are at an intimate private setting or a full band venue, Cityzen simply wants to share the gift of entertainment. Thank you for any support or helpful feedback and we hope you enjoy our music.
Connie Lim
Fueled by the confident and playful spirits of Nina Simone and Feist, Connie Lim & The Forrest Philosophy stir up an earthy blend of blues-driven, folk-rooted, indie pop. Lim, nick-named an indigo child of our time, sings with young spirit and old soul. Her deeply inspired lyrics are backed by driving rhythms that are perfect for that good old getaway car of yours.
Add in Nick Reiter on guitar, Leo Budirahardjo on bass, and guest musicians on percussion, and you’ve got the perfect road-trip experience through the desert and towards the solitude you’ve been craving.
No matter how light or heavy the topic, Connie Lim & The Forrest Philosophy’s music has always intended to promote good-spirits. After all, the band’s name is a tribute to Forrest Gump, the man who didn’t really ever know where he was going with all of it, but who sure did try his best.
In a world that values speed processors, instant noodles and go-gurt, Lim insists on taking the time to allow her next record to be as honest as possible. Lim continues to live, record, write, and perform in Los Angeles’ first choice venues, including The House of Blues, The Mint, and The Viper Room. Just recently major network NBC showcased and interviewed Lim on Ted Chen’s morning show, Sunday LA.
CODEGA NIGHTS
Thursday - January 21 - 2010at King King Hollywood featuring
⁙ ⁙ ⁙ Ironheel
⁙ ⁙ ⁙ The VertiGirls
⁙ ⁙ ⁙ Fire at Play
⁙ ⁙ ⁙ The Mulhollands
⁙ ⁙ ⁙ The Shakers
⁙ ⁙ ⁙ DJ Sunevil
Saturday - January 23 - 2010
at House of Blues featuring
⁙ ⁙ ⁙ Yonatan
⁙ ⁙ ⁙ Justin Hopkins
⁙ ⁙ ⁙ Connie Lim
⁙ ⁙ ⁙ Andrew Paul Woodworth
⁙ ⁙ ⁙ Ariana Hall
⁙ ⁙ ⁙ Jazz Callner
© 2010 The Codega Group.