Music Friday Live | Music Junkie Press

The fire this time, and its impact on music in California. By Patrick O’Heffernan

November 15, 2018

Patrick O’Heffernan (Los Angeles) As a high school student in Los Angeles in the 60’s I was volunteered to help with firefighting in the Hollywood Hills. We didn’t actually fight fires – we removed debris, shoveled mud, and cleared streets of fallen trees and other obstacles so firefighters and emergency workers could get through quickly. I remember that the destruction taught me the power of fire and water. But his week, I learned another lesson: fire and water have no respect for fame or talent. The two fires now ripping across Southern and Northern California have leveled the lives of the famous, the up and coming, and the heroic. With the Woolsey Fire only 47% contained as I write this and the Camp Fire gobbling up another 5000 acres last night and raising the death toll to 59, it is far too early to take account of the devastation. But one thing is certain, there will be an impact on music in California. What I know so far about the Malibu [Read More]

Midnight by Joy Autumn. a lifetime of emotion compressed into six brilliant songs

October 12, 2018

Patrick O’Heffernan (Los Angeles) Listening to Joy Autumn’s debut EP Midnight is a mystical, interior experience. She brings you into the sunrise of her emotional life, her early morning disappointments, her dashed dreams and her hopes. Autumn’s voice is vulnerable and steel-strong at the same time, with a curl that pierces you like a minor note. Her lyrics paint pointillist, tear-stained pictures — lights and shadows across her face. She opens Midnight with” Searching for You”, sung from the depths of the Hollywood tomb she spiraled into when, broke and eating canned food in a 400 square foot apartment, she sought sustenance in the predatory afterhours Hollywood party scene of drugs, alcohol, and sex. “ I was searching for myself in all the wrong places” she says, “going to parties until 4 in the morning to meet industry men who could help my career – and never did”. Running to put money in the meter with heels in the morning light/Those moments I wonder how I got to this place, she sings in [Read More]

PST LA/LA concert at the Hollywood Bowl – three headliners, one message: Latin pride.

September 21, 2017

Patrick O’Heffernan (Hollywood) Las familias lined up early at the entrance gates to the Hollywood Bowl Sunday night. Padres, madres, niños and niñas, abuellos and abuelas and many, many amigos and amigas. Some carried picnic baskets and cold chests, some carried delicious smelling shopping bags, others were planning their orders of gourmet dinners and wine from the roving waiters inside. The air was filled with excitement in Spanish, English and Spanglish as people talked about how amazing it was that in one night they would experience three of the biggest names in Latino American Music – the fusion music birthed by Latino-Americans and their brothers and sisters throughout the world. There were young men and women in Café Tacvba and Mon Laferte t-shirts, little girls in their La Santa Cecelia petticoats, and flowered crowns that lit up like halos on heads of all ages. They were ready for a concert the likes of which LA had never seen before, one with three Latino headliners at the city’s magical Hollywood Bowl. The 17,500 people [Read More]

Interview. No Small Children: mild-mannered teachers by day, tear-your-face-off alt. rockers by night.

August 7, 2017

Patrick O’Heffernan (Los Angeles) No Small Children is a band like no other. Born on an elementary school playground in the spring of 2012, the trio are school teachers by day and a phenomenally successful hard rock band by night. And they move very fast. Three months after deciding to use their recess breaks as band practice time they had an EP out, countless shows behind them and an East Coast tour booked. Plus, their remake of the classic Ghostbusters theme song was released by RCA records and is featured in the new Ghostbusters movie. And the band’s original song, ‘Big Steps‘, is featured in the Netflix series, Santa Clarita Diet. They released their third album, Hold Tight, I’m Flying, in 2015 and singles have flowed steadily since then. Their live shows are insanely animated and can exhaust both the audience and the band. Fortunately, they were not too exhausted to talk with me before heading off on a national tour. Patrick. When I saw you live you were insanely fun and so wonderfully over the top. How did that happen? Were you always this [Read More]

Kris Angelis is melodic, hypnotic and addictive in the new Heartbreak is Contagious EP. By Patrick O’Heffernan

June 9, 2017

(Los Angeles) I have been listening to Kris Anglis’ new EP, Heartbreak is Contagious over and over since I recently had her on my radio show, partly because I can’t stop and partly because every time I listen I hear something musically and emotionally new. As with all things Angelis, Heartbreak is Contagious is melodic, hypnotic, and dense with addictive emotion. Three of songs on the EP explore the pain of the love’s demise; the fourth is fun, funny, and foot-tapping but actually a cathartic part of the EP’s soulful narrative. Only Angelis could pull that off — perfectly blending pain and heartbreak with laughter and catharsis in the same EP. Heartbreak is Contagious was written with and produced by Morgan Taylor Reid and Alexander Cardinale. The album follows her earlier The Left Atrium, in that it makes you feel what an emotionally defective heart feels like with stunning poetic lines like I swear there was a time /when you belonged to me/But I’m a two-way heart/ On a one way street. Even deeper than the writing [Read More]

Athena’s back and she brought her friends for one of LA’s best musical nights. By Patrick O’Heffernan

June 8, 2017

(Los Angeles) Back from a triumphant tour in New York, the Greek-British goddess of song, Athena Andreadis, celebrated returning to her adopted home of Los Angles with a sprawling 18-song set at Genghis Cohen’s concert room featuring songs from her album and contributions by a brace of great musician friends. Backed by Deron Johnson on keyboard, Michael Ward on guitar, and Jimmy Paxton on drums – all stars in their own right – Athena was in a lively mood as she danced, bounced, laughed and crooned through the evening, carrying a very happy standing room only crowd with her. Joining her over the performance were Warner-Chappell blue-eyed soul singer Conner Pledger, Angela Parrish – known to millions from her song “Another Day of Sun,” which opened the Oscar-winning film musical La La Land, folk-singer Sarah Melson whose music is familiar to fans of Grey’s Anatomy and other TV series, and singer/songwriter Joy Autumn who recently released the Sunny Lemonade album about her move to LA from Washington State. Dressed in black silk shorts and top, [Read More]

Latin rock and Irish blues at the Gibson Showroom private concert: Los Hollywood and Sarah Packiam light up the crowd

December 4, 2016

(Beverly Hills). By day the Gibson Guitar Showroom, around the corner from the Playboy Headquarters in Beverly Hills, is where LA’s music tribes go to test and buy their latest equipment. But at night, couches and tables and chairs disappear (but not the guitars) and a stage rises in the east end of the building, complete with lights and sound and an engineer. One night last week the pop up stage was populated by a five-band Afonico Music production, headlined by the Latin pop rock group, Los Hollywood, and introducing the stunning Irish blues rock balladeer, Sarah Packiam. It was a magic night for the crowd of music producers, fans, writers, and music biz insiders who had found their way to the private showcase. Miami-based Marthin Chan, Afonico’s A&R, assembled a review of both California and Florida talent including Calico Ghostown, Las Cruxes, the sultry Miami songstress Marlin Limon, Packiam and the headliner, San Diego-based Los Hollywood. Music ranged from the tuneful acoustic harmonies of Calico Ghost Town to the hard rock/punk [Read More]