U Want 2 GoGo

Guests at Create: Fixate’s Snap Flash All Photography Exhibit

Go Go’ers, April showers bring…wetness.  Then there will be sunshine.  The May flowers may or may not happen but the last weekend of April will.

Plan accordingly.

A Buttload of Belly Laughs

Is web-trolling for laughs your favorite activity?  Do you have the attention span of a gnat?  Have you tried to register “Funny or Die” as your preferred tombstone inscription?  (That’s All, Folks?  Taken.  Saturday Night Live?  Lawsuit-bait.  WTF?  Verboten at Hollywood Forever.)

If you nodded enthusiastically at any of the above, a) you are morbid and b) save the weekend for the Comedy Shorts Film Festival.  Actor and comedian Gary Anthony Williams (Boston Legal, Malcolm in the Middle) and Jeannie Roshar created the dedicated-to-funny fest out  of frustration after their comedy short was forced to compete in other fests against heavy-hitter films with subjects like genocide.

See this image, hope for the Apocalypse.

Hard to get a chuckle after that last one.

Williams and Roshar allegedly screened 800 entries s to come up with the 89 contenders in the four-day fest.  Selected shorts include newbie quickies as well as name brand entries from the likes of Michael Cera, Wilmer Valderrama, Margaret Cho, David Allen Greer, and  Kids in the Hall Scott Thompson whose short The Immigrant  opens the fest on Thursday.

Films will be screened in two-hour blocks with  pun-tastically Apocalypse-themed  titles like “It’s a Wrap-ture” and “Doomsday Come and Me Wanna Go Home”.  There will be parties for woo-hooers and wannabe shorts-titans can attend panels with the likes of  the legendary Buck Henry (SNL, Heaven Can Wait, Get Smart).

Ladies and gentlemen, start your shoe phones.

L.A. COMEDY SHORTS FILM FESTIVAL — Thurs, April 26 – Sun, April 29 — Downtown Independent Theater, 251 So Main St, DTLA.

For sked/prices/info on Sunday street closures: http://www.lacomedyshorts.com/lacs2012new/home.html

Hopefully, they won’t fall off before you get there.

Grimm Keeper

Zombie Joe’s Underground Theater is famous (infamous?) for grim productions like Urban Death.  So you’d be forgiven for expecting The Grimm World, directed by Sebastian Munoz with music by Mike Maio and costumes by L.A. Weekly Theater Awards-nominated Jeri Batzdorff, to focus on the more macabre (read “non-Disney-fied) elements of everyone’s favorite fairy tale tellers.

Cinderella’s eyeless stepsisters, anyone?

Adam Neubauer and Samantha Levenshus, who co-wrote The Grimm World, were equally intent  on staying true to the darker elements of the original tales and therefore interesting to adults while keeping the play appropriate for kids (10 and up).

Expect The Grimm World to be more high energy than high scream.

Since 2012 is the bicentennial of the brothers’ first, published  collection of tales, Grimm aficionados  will be intrigued by the playwrights’ decision to include some of the Grimms’ lesser known tales as well as iconic characters such as Snow White, Hansel and Gretel, and, of course, Cinderella…

…whose stepsisters will presumably have eyes.

THE GRIMM WORLD — Fridays, April 20 – June 8 @ 8:30 p.m.; $15/10+ — Zombie Joe’s Underground Theater, 4851 Lankersham Blvd, No Hollywood, 91601.  www.zombiejoes.com

Reservations recommended as the small theater often sells out: 818.202.4120

Create: Fixate presents SNAP FLASH – All Photography Show

Snap Flash Go

Yikes.  Month of Photography Los Angeles (MOPLA) is almost over and your photography viewing needs have yet to be met.

Admittedly, your photography viewing needs are prodigious.

To give you a final fix — and MOPLA the send-off it deserves — Create: Fixate presents Snap Flash: a big Saturday bash with 40+ artists, DJs and musicians.  All mediums and styles will be represented including:  film, digital, 3D, multi-media image manipulation, and interactive.

You’re all about the interactive.

Highlights of the Optical Lounge include: prolific music video director Dean Karr (Marilyn Manson, Ozzy Osbourne, the Dave Matthews Band); photographer Andrew Matusik, whose fashion work includes mind-bending surrealism;  the digitally projected 54th Hollywood International Stereo Exhibition 2012 from The LA 3-D Club; and internationally lauded video installation artist Tiffany Trenda who will be presenting her latest performance Camera Obscura: an interactive live performance piece and video installation with models, dancers, and performers that allows you, the viewer, to participate by taking a photo that will then become part of the piece online.

Ms. Go Go hopes her phone will be artistic as well as smart.

The Audio Lab (a.k.a. music portion of the evening) includes musical stylings by Garth Trinidad (KCRW), Joplin, and Space Ribbon.

Seriously.  You gotta love a Space Ribbon.

Families are welcome from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m. when there will be plenty of art materials for use by young artists.  The main event, which starts at 7:00, is 21+ only.

Expect to be satiated.

CREATE:FIXATE’S SNAP FLASH — Sat, April 28, 4pm – 2am; $5-$20/21+ after 7pm —  Premiere Events Center, 613 Imperial St,  DTLA, 90021  https://www.createfixate.com/shop/createfixate-i-art-you-presale/

Ready?  U Know U Want 2 Go Go….

UPDATE: The updated post correctly lists “Camera Obscura” as the current piece by internationally award winning video installation artist Tiffany Trenda.

ATTENTION GO GO’ERS – U Want 2 Go Go should be arriving in your in-box on the DAY OF the first event if not before.

If your posts are significantly delayed, please let Ms. Go Go know via the Comments.  Merci beaucoup!

B is for Brokechella? (Courtesy of Marissa Perry and Brokechella)

If you paid a gazillion dollars at Coachella last weekend, you got good music…and a Tupac hologram.

Part of that experience is unlikely to happen again.

Luckily, L.A. has fame and fests too.  And the best part?  They cost 99-100% less than Coachella.

You’ve heard of “staycation”.

Think of this weekend as “stay-stival”

So Wha’cha Want?  How About a Free Art Festival from a Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Famer?

Here’s the short CV for Michael Diamond:

Furniture collector.  Drummer.  Beastie Boy.  Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Famer.

And starting with the Friday, April 20th opening of Transmission LA: AV CLUB at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, Mike D can add “museum curator” to his resume.

Just proving that there’s always room to grow.

As you might expect from a hip hop legend, the 17-day event (through May 6th) is more multimedia art/music/food happening than a stuffy collection of Old Masters and chipped statues.

Mike D’s enlisted artists like Peter Coffin, Jim Drain, Will Fowler, Benjamin Jones, Mike Mills, Takeshi Murata, Tom Sachs, and Sanford Biggers (Biggers’s awards include The Creative Time Travel Grant.) and musicians like James Murphy (formerly of LCD Soundsystem); the latter will be performing at one of the Thursday-Saturday pop-ups presented by Roy Choi (Kogi/A-Frame awesomeness) who will be offering special day-of menu surprises as well as his usual delish Korean tacos.

You can’t beat art+ tacos+ a Beastie Boy.

TRANSMISSION LA: AV CLUB — Fri, April 20th – Sun, May 6th; Free/All ages - The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA , 152 N Central Ave, DTLA

More fun, less sand.

We Are the 99%…of Fest Goers

The Tupac hologram notwithstanding, it’s hard to have a photo booth in the desert

This is only one of the reasons that you might want to attend  Brokechella, whose cheeky tag line is “In the spirit of the festival none of us could afford”.  Other reasons to fest closer to home?  Less sun, less money, less driving, equal fun.

Plus, art, Starry Kitchen, and the aforementioned photo booth.

The hometown hey-ra-ra  is being held at an expanded venue after last year’s inaugural event proved wildly popular.

Here’s your live band lineup on the  Six01 Studios Main Stage: indie rock up-and-comers Infantree, LA Font, The Dead Ships and Rumspringa and make-you-groove  pop rock from Big Moves . The Janks bring the folk, Das Tapes delivers the funk, and yOya serves up electronic melodica.

DJ’s on the outdoor stage include: Dannahan,  gLAdiator, GOJ!RA, The KiD, T.B.E (Littlefoot x Koncan X Pilo), Robin People, Smiles, and Cooper Save.

“The art behind Brokechella has been inspired by the dusky playground of the Las Vegas sign graveyard,” according to cARTel, the outfit responsible for this shindig. “Set in the remains of a once sovereign land of revelry, our music festival rages on amongst the dilapidated pieces where the party outlives the land.”

In other words, Go Go’ers, what happens at Brokechella, stays at Brokechella….

BROKECHELLA 2012 — Sat, April 21st, 4pm-2am; $5/21+ — Six01 Studios, 601 S. Anderson St, LA, 90023.  Tix and info: http://brokechella.com/

Get inside Castle Green.

Greene and Greene + Green for Earth Day

Maybe it’s Earth Day.  Maybe it’s the giddiness of spring.  Whatever the reason, Pasadena — not a town known for excess — is having not one but two behind-the-scenes home tours this weekend.

Party on, Pasadena.

You may have seen the 1898 Castle Green‘s Bridge to Nowhere off the Old Town Pasadena main drag.  This Sunday, you can walk inside it.

Built in 1898, the former hotel of choice for wintering, affluent East Coasters is offering tours of residents’ private abodes, the rooftop with a view of Pasadena, and the penthouse: once a glass-ceilinged conservatory.

Further indulging your fantasies of a life of leisure, there will be a “Light English Tea” available for purchase on the porch and you can watch (and dance with) Victorian dancers in the ballroom, with live music by the Armory Band.  The capper?  Croquet on the lawn presented by the Pasadena Croquet Club.

You love a good Earth Day croquet game.

SPRING CASTLE GREEN TOURS — Sun, April 22nd; 1-5pm; $20 pp (children under 12 are free) — Castle Green,  99 S Raymond Ave, Pasadena 91105, 626.385.7774.  For info/tix: http://www.castlegreen.com/tour/

Seduced by the sun and inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement, some of those titans of industry hired the firm of Greene and Greene to build houses along the Arroyo Seco.  Sunday, April 22nd, you can get a rare peek inside five homes and one garden during the Arroyo’s Edge: Greene and Greene Interiors 2012.

So much more inspiring than the Ikea catalogue.

Tour the Duncan-Irwin house (1906-08), the Mary Ranney house (1907), F. W. Hawks house (1906), Van-Rossem Neil house (1903-06), S. Hazard Halsted house (1905-15), plus the garden of the James Culbertson house (1902-14) — all homes that are almost never open to the public.

Lookie Lous, start your engines.

ARROYO’S EDGE: GREENE AND GREENE INTERIORS 2012 — Sun, April 22nd, noon-5pm; $50-$75 — For event and ticket info: http://www.gamblehouse.org/events/arroyo.html?from=homeTOC

Ready?  U Know U Want 2 Go Go….

Those are not their real bodies.

Easter is over.  Passover is past.

Go Go’ers, it’s time to get the parties started.

A certain music event in the desert just means there’s more room in L.A. for the rest of us to have fun so read on for a weekend jam-packed with music-themed events.  And if you’re really jonesing for a Coachella-like experience, a couple of the events even require sunglasses and a water bottle.

What you put in the water bottle is up to you.

You Belong Everywhere (But Come Here)

Yearning for the loud crowds and anything-can-happen edginess of a concert experience?  Start the weekend with YOU BELONG EVERYWHERE.

Already, you’re taking the affirmation to heart.

Former paratrooper and current poet  Derrick C. Brown has performed on  The Jay Leno Show, at the Sorbonne, and  all over Europe opening for indie darlings The Cold War Kids. A five-time, international poetry slam winner and an audacious, daredevil performer,  Brown is determined to help poetry achieve rock ‘n roll status.

This is what happens when you repeatedly  jump out of a plane.

Filmmaker Stephen Latty (Drums Inside Your Chest) followed Brown around Europe and captured the poet wrangling crowds into silence with the  sheer power of his words.

European crowds require serious wrangling.

The resulting film  You Belong Everywhere, produced by actress/fellow poet Amber Tamblyn, will get its only full-length, L.A. screening to date (with post-screening Q & A) tonight, Friday, April 13th, at the Echo Park Film Center at 8:00 p.m.  L.A. phenom poet Brendan Constantine sets the mood.

Parachute optional.

YOU BELONG EVERYWHERE w/Brendan Constantine — Fri, April 13 @ 8:00 pm; $8 — Echo Park Film Center,  1200 No Alvarado St, LA, (213) 484-8846;  Click here for TIX

Check out Ms. Go Go’s  interview with the highly entertaining Brown and Latty.

A Music Fest in an Old West Town

Must hear music in the Great Outdoors?  Yearning for  a more intimate concert experience?

Determined to use your pup tent?

Head to the Mentryville Music Fest to be held in Mentryville Park: a former oil boom/Old West town   in Santa Clarita.  Part of The Natural Stage Project, which aims to bring “folk music into the forests, parks and mountains of SoCal”, the event features over a dozen bands,  like The Carrions (from Cheryl Lindsey of The Breeders and Exene Cervenka’s band) and Death to Anders (think Pavement and the Pixies),  that will redefine your perception of folk music.

All this and an oil well.

MENTRYVILLE MUSIC FEST — Saturday, April 14, 11am – ?; $5 for parking — Mentryville  Park, Newhall/Santa Clarita.  Info and directions 

There will be so much fun here.

Return of the Grand Ole Echo

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, (you know who you are), you’ve probably heard about CicLAvia, which opens up streets on the Eastside of L.A. for walking, biking, triking, and playing.

So far, a good Sunday.

Here’s where Sunday gets great.  After you’ve tootled around warming up your dancing legs, head over to the Echo for the sixth season kick-off of the Grand Ole Echo: Americana queen Kim Grant’s festival of all things rootsy.

And all things swell.

The season’s inaugural line-up includes: Old Californio, which has been touring after the release of their much-touted album Sundrunk Angels, Afro-inspired Nearly Beloved , twisted backwoods music from Walter Spencer, and the debut of Red Carnations from Jeremy Little, whose songs have been featured on numerous films and T.V. shows.

No dust, plenty of parking, maximum fun.

GRAND OLE ECHO — Sun, April 15th from 5:30-9pm/FREE/All ages- The Echo, 1154 Glendale Blvd, LA 90026 , 213.413. 8200, www.attheecho.com

Ready?  U Know U Want to Go Go….

Derrick Brown x 9

Update!  The time of  YOU BELONG EVERYWHERE screening has been changed

“You are a poet, invited on tour by a popular rock band.  Europe!!  There will be large audiences.  They might be drunk.  They might get loud.  They might not understand English.  It’s the opportunity of a lifetime…. Now what?” (From the press release for You Belong Everywhere.)

If you are Derrick C. Brown — electrifying performance poet, former 82nd Airborne Paratrooper, President of Write Bloody Publishing, and one of America’s top five poets according to National Poetry Slam founder Marc Smith — you invite your friend, documentary and commercial filmmaker Stephen Latty (Drums Inside Your Chest) to document your career-defining tour  opening for Cold War Kids.

Smart choice.  The result, You Belong Everywhere, is a compelling, dynamic, you’ll-laugh-and-cry, rock ‘n roll poetry concert film.

And just in time to celebrate National Poetry Month!

The film, which is produced by actress and fellow poet Amber Tamblyn, screens this Friday, April 13^th at 8:00 p.m. at the Echo Park Film Center with a performance by L.A. poet Brendan Constantine.

There will also be a Q&A with Derrick and Stephen after the Echo Park Film Center screening of  You Belong Everywhere.  After reading the artists’ immensely  entertaining interview below, conducted by email during the hustle and bustle of the tour,  you’ll want to see You Belong Everywhere and ask them more questions yourself.

Hilarity may ensue.

 Ms. Go Go: Stephen, you’ve written that “It is a really interesting time for poetry. Young poets are starting to be able to make a living as poets – not as musicians, or screenwriters, or greeting card writers, or insurance salesmen, but as poets.”  Derrick, do you agree and if so, why do the two of you think poetry is becoming a viable way to make a living?

Stephen Latty: When I first met Derrick, he was in his early thirties working at a small production company making Sunday school videos for kids – very weird and very funny Sunday school videos. The strangeness he brought to it was fantastic…gigantic hot dog men in space talking about God and telling bible stories with dead fish.

Stuff like that.  He was definitely pushing the envelope in that medium, which I didn’t even know was possible. Anyway, the job seemed pretty ideal – I think it paid okay and he was able to take off for months at a time to do poetry shows around the country. So when he quit that job, I had a feeling poetry was becoming something much more sustainable for him, otherwise I think he’d still be doing it. There’s nothing like slightly warping children’s minds. I should mention that Derrick introduced me to other poets who also make a living writing and touring as poets – Beau Sia, Mindy Nettifee, Mike McGee, Buddy Wakefield…those are just the people I know pretty well as friends. The list Derrick could give would be a lot longer. The only reason it seems to me that poetry is becoming a viable way to make a living is that I see these poets doing it. I admire them all. I believe in that fight to make a living doing what you want to do.

Derrick C. Brown: It is not as viable as advertising for cruise ships, prestidigitation or even mowing lawns. But it is more possible than ever to use the rock and roll model to hit the road, sell t-shirts off your fancy website, offer to perform weddings, work with orchestra’s etc. It all depends how disciplined and organized an artist can be.

MGG: What did you think was going to be the biggest challenge about making YBE and what actually was the biggest challenge?
(more…)

String theory (Courtesy of the Carolina Chocolate Drops)

It’s a sweet weekend, no question, and Ms. Go Go is not talking about  Manischewitz and marshmallow Peeps.

She is talking about subversive rabbits and serious ear candy.

Step away from the jelly beans, Go Go’ers, step away from the jelly beans .

Chocolate for Your Ears

The Carolina Chocolate Drops are  an old-time string band — think banjo, fiddle, guitar, harmonica, snare drum, jug and kazoo — whose members learned much of their repertoire, which is based on the traditional music of the Piedmont region of North and South Carolina, from the eminent African American old-time fiddler Joe Thompson.

Think music that’s revitalized not resuscitated.

Or as band member Rhiannon Giddens says, “Tradition is a guide, not a jailer.”  (You hate your kazoos in handcuffs.)

The trio-turned-quartet Grammy winners (for Old Negro Jig) will be at UCLA’s Royce Hall on Friday, April 6th at 8pm to celebrate the release of their newest album Leaving Eden,  which has original compositions, covers, and traditional songs.  Special guest David Wax Museum opens.

Your Good Friday just got great.

CAROLINA CHOCOLATE DROPS — Fri, April 6 @ 8pm; $15 – $50 — Royce Hall, UCLA (North Campus), 340 Royce Drive, LA 90095

For info/tix: http://www.uclalive.org/calendar/event_detail.asp?id=151

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a poet.

A Poet in a Bar

Fun fact from Ms. Go Go:

April is National Poetry Month.

And Go Go’ers, while you weren’t looking, poetry got hip again with performance poetry and Poetry Slams and rock concerts.

Yes, rock concerts.

Poet Derrick C. Brown is one of the country’s five best poets according to Poetry Slam founder Marc Smith.  He’s also is a former 82nd Airborne paratrooper.

Which has to serve him in good stead when he opens up a vein of words on stage.

Get a double dose of Brown’s jaw-dropping performances at Bootleg Bar Saturday, April 7th at 8pm.  The poet will read from his newest book Strange Light, a 40 minute poem commissioned by prestigious Dutch dance troupe Noord Danse Collective.  In addition to the book release party and music by Caught a Ghost, there will be a mini-screening of YOU BELONG EVERYWHERE, filmmaker Stephen Latty’s rock ‘n roll poetry film about Brown  opening for Cold War Kids on a recent European tour.

Dive out of that plane.

DERRICK C. BROWNE/Strange Light/YOU BELONG EVERYWHERE– Sat, April 7th @8pm; $10/21+ – Bootleg Bar, 2220 Beverly Blvd, LA 90026;  213. 389.3856;  For info: http://www.bootlegtheater.org   For tix: http://www.ticketfly.com/purchase/event/102291

That's a big bunny.

Pesky Wabbits

If you’re the kind of person who takes secret delight in chomping off the heads of chocolate bunnies, you’ll want to plan your Easter dinner around the Harvey/Donnie Darko Sunday night double-feature at the Aero Theater in Santa Monica.  The former features Everyman Jimmy Stewart: the only person who can see the time-traveling, eponymous bunny Harvey.  The latter stars Jake Gyllenhaal whose visions of terrifying, big bunny Frank save his life and may or may not mean he’s crazy.

SO much more fun than Paas-dyed eggs.

HARVEY & DONNIE DARKO – Sun, April 8th @ 7:30pm; $11 – Aero Theater, 1328 Montana Ave, Santa Monica 90403; 310.260.1528 | Website

Ready?  U Know U Want 2 Go Go….