MusicFridayLive | Music Junkie Press

Eljuri at the Gibson Showroom: exuberant, exciting, explosive and far larger than life

October 24, 2016

(Beverly Hills) With the energy of a 20-year old and the chops of one of the nation’s most seasoned rock guitarists, Eljuri blew the roof off the Gibson Showroom in Beverly Hills at a special Girls RockLA performance Thursday night, produced by The Living Sessions. It wasn’t just the guitar riffs – although they were incendiary, and it wasn’t just her singing – although she growled and soared and dug into our ears and our brains with best the best of them. It was her presence – the there that Eljuri is: exuberant, exciting, explosive and a woman who knows herself, where she is going and how very, very good she is. In LA for a quick stop, Eljuri gave 1000% to the crowd who managed to get into small but prestigious venue. Ripping through ten songs from La Lucha, her new album released this month, that ranged from the anti-gun-violence hard rocker “Bang Bang” to the more melodic (but still rocking) “Salvame”. Working with an abbreviated band from her native New York, [Read More]

Leyla McCalla pulls the audience close with history and joy at McCabe’s in Santa Monica

October 16, 2016

(Santa Monica) Leyla McCalla brings her audiences close with smiles and stories and songs that cross the borders of time and culture. On a cello, a banjo a guitar, in French, in Creole or in English – it doesn’t matter; her songs lift us, pierce us, love us. She is one of a kind, and that musical singularity was on full display last night at McCabe’s Guitar Shop in Santa Monica California for a jam-packed full auditorium. We listened, we clapped, we sang with her, we cried and we feel thankful that we had managed to get tickets to a one-of-a-kind evening at the historic venue that for 80 years has brought LA the talent of the Americas. With a star like Leyla and a venue like McCabe’s, it pays to be early. Leyla McCalla is a New York-born Haitian-American living in New Orleans, a city whose jazz has powerfully influenced her music, which incorporates blues, Haitian ballads, and American folk. She once dreamed of becoming a classical musician playing chamber music – [Read More]

Vámonos Vámonos by Los Damn Ramblers: the most fun I have had all year.

October 8, 2016

(Los Angeles) I cannot get enough of the Los Damn Ramblers’ just released album, Vámonos Vámonos, and not only because I am a rock and roller of a certain age. This music is in the blood of everyone who has ever dropped a needle, ripped a cut or streamed a song. It is embedded in our musical neural pathways and Los Damn Ramblers found the nerve. According to legend, the album was born one night when two Latin-American musician friends were hanging out at a local joint sharing beers and laughs, got up and played a couple of Elvis, Cash, and Beatles tunes and then decided to do it again… and again and again for a couple of years. It didn’t hurt that the two guys were the double-Latin Grammy nominated singer-songwriter Elston Torres (aka Fulano de Tal) and Grammy Award winning songwriter/ producer Carlos ‘El Loco’ Bedoya. The two of them added some friends to the rolling musical party and kept playing until they created the best laid-back, rootsy, unpretentious, totally fun [Read More]

Militia Vox Isosceles EP: Grab your headphones.

October 1, 2016

Militia Vox is one of those rare artists who comes along every decade or so and breaks molds and opens new creative doors, which is exactly what her new EP Isosceles does. Vox packs more music, more meaning, more power into the three songs on Isosceles than many musicians do in a lifetime of albums. Formally trained in classical piano and voice, Vox embraced heavy metal, founded one of the most successful metal cover bands of our time, The Judith Priestess. She also served as the central figure in bands like Disciples of Astaroth and Swear on Your Life. She has performed with Twisted Sister, Living Colour, Nancy Sinatra and Cyndi Lauper – a musical range few can even imagine. And all of that comes together in exploration of birth, life and death on her own terms that Vox takes you through in Isosceles, the second release of her trilogy story, Villainess. The songs on Isosceles have been “festering in my mind for years” Vox says, explaining the deep attention to details and [Read More]

Mariana Vega’s “Cámara Lenta” slows us down to enjoy life, love and music.

September 21, 2016

(Los Angeles) Have you ever wished you could slow down, take the time to think, contemplate, and understand life while you are living it? Most of us have – I do often. So I was ready for Mariana Vega and her new single “Cámara Lenta” – “Slow Motion” — to slow me down and make me listen and think. The experience was simultaneously exhilarating and calming, and very, very enjoyable. With “Cámara Lenta” now at the top of my playlist, the feeling ofslowing down may just happen to me every day. “Cámara Lenta” is a new release by the two-time Latin Grammy nominee Mariana Vega, who won the 2014 Grammy for Best New Artist. The song is true American Latino Music – it mixes electronic and acoustic sounds with USA pop flourishes. And it also references Latin American folklore in its use of the 6/8 charcatera rhythm and minor note forms of the Argentine countryside. But in any language, “Cámara Lenta” soothes, entices, seduces and carries you along in the here and now. Vega’s hometown [Read More]

Dessy DiLauro and Parlor Social: best live club performance in LA or possibly the nation.

September 4, 2016

In a world where both audiences and musicians think nothing of showing up at a club in ragged cutoffs and old t-shirts (I actually saw a major British pop singer introduce herself for the first time to La audiences wearing exactly that) it was refreshing and exciting to experience Dessy DiLauro and her Parlor Social concert at Sayers Club Thursday night. With an attention to detail in both music and style and an unwavering demand for quality, she and her team of band members, guest performers and dancers put on what is undeniably the best live performance in the Los Angeles club scene, if not the nation’s. The performance at the Sayers Club was a perfect example of how good they are, and how unique. It was a short set, only five songs. But in those five songs they got a packed elbow-to-elbow crowd on its feet cheering and singing as if it were an arena concert by a global star. I have seen Parlor Social three times and each time my response alternates [Read More]

Blake Morgan and Janita tour the west: two diamonds sparkling in the stage lights

August 29, 2016

(Los Angeles). If you live in any of the cities where Blake Morgan and Janita are performing on the remainder of their West Coast tour you should cancel what you are doing and see them live. If not, buy their albums and play them in headphones with your eyes closed. Either way, the experience is transformative, as it was Saturday night on the Second Stage of Hollywood’s renowned Hotel Café. Blake’s bell-pure voice, stunning guitar chops and poetry-in-music lyrics made the outside world disappear. When teamed with Janita, the effect was far more than the sum of its parts – it was magic; it took both your breath and your cares away. Both Morgan and Janita are stunning singer-songwriters and experienced at-ease performers who kept an almost full house mesmerized for two hours, with Morgan opening and delivering nine songs, some new and some from his albums, and Janita doing the same in the second set, accompanied by Morgan on the guitar and vocals. The songwriting was inspired and the passion that drove the [Read More]