MusicFridayLive | Music Junkie Press

David Martinez, Texas-indie-Americana-folk give us a Piece of Me

August 22, 2016

(Los Angeles). Texas-indie-Americana-and-folk music is what David Martinez does and he does it really well, with a little rock and roll thrown in for good measure. A passionate, powerful and yet gentle singer- songwriter, Martinez has crisscrossed the country, been spun on radio in the US and the UK, appeared 3 times at SXSW and has a new album out, Piece of Me, produced by legendary LA-based bluesman Leroy Miller. Martinez has a voice that can belt the blues or croon as smooth as glass and he is using it to bring a refreshing vibe to Texas roots music and to folk and Americana music everywhere with a take that is uniquely his own. We caught up with him on his current Texas tour supporting the new album. Patrick. David, let’s talk about this new album, Piece of Me. I love listening to it. It just makes me feel good. But the title, piece of me sounds like a challenge. Actually, it is more of a welcome party of very accessible music. Why [Read More]

M.A.K.U. Sound System: the United State of Dance

August 15, 2016

By Patrick O’Heffernan (Los Angeles) Raising her drumstick high above her straw hat-topped head haloed in electric blue light, drummer/vocalist Liliana Conde proclaimed “We can be together, we can come together right here with music”, and loosed the joyful demon players of the moving, grooving magical music machine, M.A.K.U. Sound System, who exploded onstage with the most infectious people-in-motion dance music this side of Colombia at LA’s Skirball Cultural Center. Known as an “immigrant band” because most of its members are from Colombia, M.A.K.U. Sound System is currently on a national tour which brought it to the Skirball Center straddling the hills separating west LA from the San Fernando Valley, packing it with a diverse audience from all over this vast city and baking them into a single pulsing, dancing organism. Out of their seats and onto the brick plaza under flashing LED lights on a cool summer night there were break dancers, cumbia dancers, salsa dancers, rock dancers and just plain old jumping up and down dancers bumping into each other, applauding each other, hugging each other. [Read More]

Interview: Will Kreth of Stick Against Stone. By Patrick O’Heffernan

August 8, 2016

(Los Angeles) Bands go through changes. It is a universal constant that only the Rolling Stones seem to be able to defy. Bands break up, reunite, change names, change styles, add people, lose people, change homes, band mates join other bands, band mates go solo, and some even leave music altogether. It is part of the ebb and flow of the creative process. Stick Against Stone has seen all of that over its 30-year lifetime, and with each new step in their evolution they have maintained what many critics feel is one of the most creative blends of Afro beats, punk, reggae, funk, jazz, dub and horns and percussion in our time. The band started out writing music in a basement in Pittsburg, crisscrossed the country – often in a converted yellow school bus – played music and sometimes politics, always live, never recorded And now after 30 years they have recorded an album of songs drawn from their long career. Will Kreth, percussionist, manager and unofficial archivist for the band, stopped by to [Read More]

Essence releases Black Wings, an album that reminds us why we are human. By Patrick O’Heffernan

August 1, 2016

(Los Angeles). I often say that poetry is not dead, it is all around us but we just call it lyrics now. That applies in spades to Black Wings, the new album released this week by essence, the San Francisco-based Americana/folk/blues/rock/pop singer who goes only by her first (and given) name. Back Wings is a deeply poetic and musically addictive quarry of the dissolution of essence’s decade-long marriage. Listening to it is like orbiting the dark side of the moon: you are joyfully lost in the eternity of the universe, but you are tethered to the shadows of the reality below. Either way the experience is mystical and forever memorable. It is no wonder that essence won the grand prize in the Lilith Talent Search and came in second, ahead of 20,000 other entrants, in the international Contest. Black Wings is a dozen song that quarry the intimate agonies and lingering fossils of essence’s divorce. The songs are not in chronological order – they don’t proceed from discovering her man’s unfaithfulness and the stages [Read More]

#GirlsRockLA: Madame Ur, Love La Femme and having fun making history.

June 12, 2016

I have often said in my essays and on my radio shows that Los Angeles is the music capital of the world. That statement draws denials from Nashville, New York and London –understandably so. But it cannot be denied that something historic is happening in the south and east quadrants of the City of Angel, in Boyle Heights, EastLos, El Sereno, Compton, the Arts District and even places like Mt. Washington, Silverlake and Echo Park. There, the long-resident Latino music scene is colluding with rock and rap and jazz while it adds a constant stream of fresh talent from Mexico, Columbia, Guatemala, El Salvador and the Caribbean, all drawn to the enervating proliferation of bands, producers, studios, venues , managers and publications dedicated to the emerging new genre, American Latino Music – or ALM. That collision was on full display Friday night upstairs at Los Globos in the Silverlake District as the production partnership The Living Sessions and Sunset Eclectico produced the third #GirlsRockLA event with a stellar lineup of local and international [Read More]

Diamante Electrico. Conquering the US because they Just. Play. Music. Together.

June 3, 2016

The three members of the Columbian indie rock band Diamante Electrico slid into a leather booth at LA’s venerable mid-town rock club The Mint and said they were here to conquer the American music market. They had just wrapped up a mic check and the sound engineer told them they could kick back after they take photos of their settings and connections. The trio had previously spent the afternoon at the Gibson Guitar Showroom in Beverly hills rehearsing and they were ready to lean back and talk. This was their second visit to Los Angeles. Their first was at the Cultures Collide event last year where they played to a jam-packed crowd in a small bar in a Silver Lake restaurant. No matter. Whether it is a lounge in Silverlake, the Mint in West LA or Bogota’s El Campin stadium before 40,000 people as special guests of the Foo Fighters, they live up to their name – “electric dynamite”. The trio – Juan Galeano, Daniel Álvarez and Andee Zeta – knew exactly why they [Read More]

Excitement at Cowboys and Turbans Wednesday night as David Alfaro caps an all-star Latin lineup

May 26, 2016

(Los Angeles) The excitement was so thick you could chew on it at Silver Lake’s Cowboys and Turbans club Wednesday night as Julieta Isela took the stage and welcomed the buzzing crowd to an intimate night of Latin music headlined by the rising LA-based singing star, David Alfaro. “He is going to be right there onstage,” two young women behind me whispered, not noticing that David was sitting two tables away from them surrounded by fans and friends. The Cuban-born actress/musician Ilza Rosario has just wrapped up a rocking set of keyboard- driven tunes, following the soft guitar and love songs of the young Brazilian artist Grecco Buratto when Isela took the microphone to introduce the night’s star. Every chair will filled, every table crammed with drinks and cellphones, every square inch of wall supported a leaning body, and heads were craning from around the corner of the hall to catch of glimpse of Alfaro. He did not disappoint. Although the set was shorter than the room wanted, the six songs he delivered – [Read More]