Jam out this Halloween weekend at The Mint with the Halloween JamFest, featuring Check In The Dark, Chris Mouch Band, Revolutionary Side Effects and Ghostwriters.
11:00pm Check In The Dark
10:00pm Chris Mouch Band
9:00pm Revolutionary Side Effects
8:00pm Ghostwriters
Tickets: $10 in advance / $12 at the door
Doors at 7:00pm
After 72 years, the Mint remains one of LA’s most historic landmarks in the city’s musical landscape. It’s where Ben Harper got his start (and recently returned as Relentless 7), and Taj Mahal recorded his Grammy-award winning album. In recent years The Mint has reinvented itself to a whole new generation of roots music aficionados as well as becoming the unofficial hub of New Orleans music on the left coast. The room’s intimate vibe has only been enhanced by its renovations topped off with an art installation by LA artist, Norton Wisdom (http://www.nortonwisdom.com).
To celebrate the Mint’s 72nd anniversary we are presenting an all-star series. Two nights of Marc Broussard, Zigaboo Modeliste (of the METERS), Rupa & the April Fishes, Faun Fables, Los Pinguos, and ending with a November residency by the legendary Royal Crown Revue. The series showcases the diversity of The Mint, featuring some of the best musicians from the dirty south, homegrown in California, and in the case of Faun Fables, another dimension of the folk universe altogether.
For a complete listing of the Anniversary shows: THEMINTLA.COM
THE MINT has become the hub of Louisiana music in Los Angeles hosting monumental shows with Rebirth, Trombone Shorty, Papa Grows Funk, Dirty Dozen, Dumpstaphunk, and many more. In the spirit of building on this tradition, we are very proud to present some of the heaviest musicians from the homeland at the club this month. Stanton, Zig, Leo, Marc Broussard, and Joe Krown, Walter Wolfman and Russell on the same stage – sic! Lastly we have launched a weekly celebration of NOLA culture, Vieux Carre Mondays, featuring the Kevin O’Day Band and DJ Quickie Mart (9pm – Red Bean & Rice served – FREE entry)
![louisiana_a_comin_horizonta[2] (2)](http://themintla.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/louisiana_a_comin_horizonta2-2.jpg?w=450&h=350 "louisiana_a_comin_horizonta[2] (2)")
The New Orleans music scene will hit Los Angeles in a major way when the Kevin O’Day Band takes the stage at The Mint every Monday night beginning October 5th. Kevin O’Day has been one of the leading lights on the New Orleans music scene for over a decade. He has played with Stevie Wonder, Dr. John, Ivan Neville, Anders Osborne, Walter “Wolfman” Washington, and members of The Dirty Dozen Brass Band. In addition to the indigenous sounds, Vieux Carre Mondays will feature Nawlins cuisine, cocktails, artwork, and the sounds of DJ Quickie Mart. This is a FREE series starting at 9pm. Check out Kevin O’Day’s music and bio at his website, http://www.kevinoday.com. Check out DJ Quicke Mart at: http://www.myspace.com/quickiemart
Les Bon Temps on the left coast! www.themintla.com
![VieuxCarre_handbill_highrez[1] (2)](http://themintla.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/vieuxcarre_handbill_highrez1-2.jpg?w=450&h=409 "VieuxCarre_handbill_highrez[1] (2)")
I always find my self singing along this Shawn Mullins top 10 hit song “Lullaby”. Chorus “Everything’s gonna be all right..rockabye, rockabye”. His lyrics and originality is something that we all can relate and also remind us on certain moments in our lives.
Shawn’s musical accomplishments include a dozen self-produced records, two number one charting songs, Grammy nomination and thousands of live performances. One of his favorite accomplishments was the decision of the Australian Olympic Team to use his song Shimmer as their anthem.
As he sang in “Lullaby”
now, she feels safe
in this bar on fairfax
and from the stage I can tell that
she can’t let go and she can’t relax
and just before
she hangs her head to cry
I sing to her a lullaby, I sing
That’s right.. He will sing us Lullaby at THE MINT! It will be a very special night. Now come on down and sing our hearts out!
Video:
The Bonedaddys and Papa Grows Funk filled the house last night with their respective styles of music!!!! It was a party all night from start to finish.
The Bonedaddys brought with them fans who have followed them for twenty years and some younger ones as well. And, with an eclectic style of jazz-funk-reggae music the band was full of energy and fun that was completely infectious and engaging for the large crowd. Even more, an atmosphere of fun was created with such humorous lyrics as, “I need a personal assistant, losers need not apply.” The band included 7 members and a variety of instruments, including saxophone and cowbell!! The dress of the band was also refreshing—not the usual L.A. black jeans and T-shirts, but dress pants, vests, jackets, funky hats!!! This band provided for great fun, great sound, and amazing harmonies! For more, check them out here, http://www.myspace.com/thebonedaddysofficial.
Next, was Papa Grows Funk, which brought a fun crowd of all sorts of people! With awesome their style of jazz-funk music, bass beats and horn accents, plus an amazing guitar and drum solo there was no stopping the dancing and party atmosphere at the club! For more check them here, http://www.myspace.com/papagrowsfunk.
Thanks to both of these amazing and talented bands for a great night of music and we look forward to seeing them again!!!
“Takes the funk one step further” – Pitchfork
Lyrics Born
I’m gonna map it out for you because the border between the funk and funkless is often hard to find. Go to West Pico Blvd, find 6010. With one foot out of The Mint and one foot in you’ll be straddling the border line. When you get there, take a picture and then move on inside towards the funk of Lyrics Born. He’ll have beats to keep you movin and be movin you all March 14 long.
Click here to begin your journey: Advance Tickets.
Every year new words are officially added to the dictionary, culled from their humble social slang beginnings.
How does our language get padded?
Shakespeare invented maybe thirty words a manuscript. Shaq coined Bling. And one day when your children and your children’s children ask, you can tell them that you were a proud part of the movement that made Google a verb.
And who brought in the funk (n.) to funk (v.) and be funky (adj.)?
That would be Ivan Neville’s DUMSTAPHUNK@ the mint on 2/12/09.
Don’t believe me? Here’s a primary source: Charley Rogulewki.
“Most people who’ve told me to see Dumpstaphunk share some late-night New Orleans Jazz Festival or Mardi Gras after-after-show memory- — tumbling out of Tipitina’s or the Howlin’ Wolf at 5am drenched in sweat after dancing for hours. Perhaps what Dumpstaphunk do best is build the funk up so much you don’t want it to stop.”
Now get the funk over here to read more: http://mog.com/Charley_Rogulewski/blog/1231087.
Max Martin
This is a business of favors.
And only an emotional obligation would have gotten me out of the house this afternoon. It’s pouring rain, and in L.A. it’s either wimpy drizzle or the end of the world bucket drops, and Jason Flom wants me at the Mint at 5?
Don’t schedule anything during rush hour. Which at this point is seemingly from 6-10. 6 AM ’til 10 PM! Traffic is so bad in Los Angeles I do my best to never leave my house. It’s just not worth it, I’m wasting too much time. I shop at the supermarket after midnight, or online. I don’t want to while away my life gridlocked, no matter how much I love satellite radio.
It’s coming down so heavily that I’ve got my wipers on the highest speed. You know, the one that makes you think you’re on meth. I’m shy of Robertson Boulevard, and I’ve been in my car for an hour already. I want to kill somebody. The woman in the Mercedes trying to nudge in front of me, maybe myself. There’s not a single band worth this hell. Except maybe the Beatles. I spent a good chunk of the afternoon casing out some of their videos on YouTube, there’s this incredible footage of the band in Germany. You can see Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours in action. They’re not self-conscious, they’re not uptight, they’ve played onstage ZILLIONS of times. They don’t need no stinking backup tapes. They’re enough. Watch a clip and understand why we needed to go to the gig, why music revolutionized the world.
As opposed to the drivel today. Except for a few tracks. Oftentimes completely meaningless, but oh-so-right. Like the Backstreet Boys’ “Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)”. Not that I was thinking of that number while I was stuck in traffic. I was working my way up the Sirius dial from 1 on into infinity! Actually, I ended up stuck at the country station. Sounded like music to me!
And by time I reach the Mint, after the appointed hour, but before Jason has confidentially told me the act is going to hit the stage, it’s barely drizzling. But I take my umbrella with me anyway, knowing that weather comes from the west, and I’d just emerged from a meteorological event that was the H20 equivalent of a conflagration.
And when I get to the front door of the venue, Jason says we can’t go in. The gig was called for 5. It’s 5:20. She’s supposed to go on in 5 minutes. But Jason says it’s a legal issue. I’m a lawyer, do I know what’s going on? Maybe a nightclub law, who the fuck knows. But now, after racing here, afraid I’m going to miss the 25 minute set, I’ve now got to wait, outside?
I stand under the canopy and check my BlackBerry. E-mail Felice. I think about emerging onto the sidewalk to talk to Jason, but the guy next to him is smoking! Didn’t he get the memo? Does he want to die? This little pipsqueak with the gay sneakers is killing himself and I’m not going to stand next to him and have to put my entire wardrobe in the wash when I get home, I’ve still got places to go and people to see tonight!
But Jason motions with his arm and calls my name. And introduces me to this living chimney.
“Bob, do you know Max Martin?”
Supposedly Max Martin is an overweight fifty year old who never leaves his house. Hated by the industry for his talent, unknown by so many of the masses. This can’t be him. This can’t be the pop svengali. He must be an impostor. I must have heard wrong.
And while my mind is bending, they’re asking me what’s up in my life and I can barely get it out. This is Max Martin?!
Soon thereafter they let us in, and like a groupie I hang by the Swedish mastermind and begin to quiz him. How long is here for? What’s he doing here?
He must be nominated for some Grammy award. But he tells me he’s here to cut a track with the Backstreet Boys.
Isn’t one of them gone?
Yeah, but he wasn’t a key vocal element.
Yeah, the only key elements were Lou Pearlman and this shrimpy little 38 year old.
That’s what he told me his age was. I started getting his background. He played in bands. Then he went to work for Cheiron. I had no fucking idea what he was talking about. I just looked it up on Wikipedia. It was a studio, there was this guy, who did Ace Of Base. Max gave up singing and started writing and producing.
And this is where I come in. I tell him the conventional wisdom is wrong! People say everything is cyclical. There were kid hits in the sixties, the boy bands were no different, it’s just the passing of the generations. I told him this was incorrect. New Kids On The Block sucked. Their material was less than memorable. But “Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)”? It may be meaningless, but it’s a fantastic record! Same deal with “I Want It That Way”.
I tell Max Bruce has got it all wrong. He needed to create one incredible track and whore it out. Fuck an album. That’s the old model. That’s about money, not music. If the Boss had just had one killer track, Top Forty radio would be forced to play it. He could whore it out for commercials, sports shows. The track could become a cultural institution. Instead, he plays in front of ninety odd million people and moves a grand total of 250,000 records. And if he’s lucky, 175,000 next week.
So what kind of music does Max listen to in his spare time?
Actually, he doesn’t listen to that much at all. He’s a regular consumer. He comes home and plays with his seven year old in silence. He listens to the radio in his car. It’s an era of singles.
But I tell him it’s about careers.
And then, worried about monopolizing him, I let Max go. He says we’ve got to continue the conversation, but is that just a figure of speech or..?
I catch up with Lee Trink, talk to him about his new deal with Kwatinetz, and end up watching the show right in front of Doug Morris. And although Oliver Leiber and the band are killing it, and the first track by Jason’s protege is quite good, I can’t stop thinking about Max. And then it hits me. I just met a rock star.
I would have nothing to say to Britney. Not more than a word to Kelly Clarkson. They were just two dimensional vessels, marketed to the masses. But what made it all work were the tracks underneath, so often written and produced by Max Martin.
I bought that initial Britney Spears albums. ”…Baby One More Time” is one of the best tracks of the nineties. There’s as much sex as any hip-hop hit, but a sassiness and intimacy and a catchiness evidenced in the classic pop tracks.
And the reason anybody even cares about Kelly Clarkson is “Since U Been Gone”.
I realized I wasn’t as jaded as I thought. Max was unassuming, but I was still infatuated. How did he do this? How did he come up with this material?
Oftentimes in collaboration. Hours were spent in perfecting the material. But what was ultimately released, this was what was infiltrating the minds of the younger generation.
This was not a hack. This was a guy working at the zenith of his abilities. He took an oftentimes vilified musical form and created art!
On my way out of the Mint, Max caught my eye. Told me he thought the girl had a great voice. I told him what she needed most was him! A great production by the Scandinavian wizard. Who the mainstream wrote off, but the true cognoscenti knew was a genius.
The Beatles live in Germany
Is It somewhere sloshing around in the empty space of your head? Or is It in your chest, guarded by rigid regiments of ribs?
Once I looked for It under my bed. I found my little pink pony with the purple tail and a rainbow on its hindquarter. The boxcar children were folded over, paused in the middle of one of their adventures. I thought my running shoes had made a break for it after my first track practice, but no. They were located, the boxcar children helped me find them, and I was finally able to take down the BOLO in my kitchen for the missing Asics. However joyous that reunion was, I also became certain that It was not a citizen of the United Stuff of Underbed.
Do you know where your soul is?
I can’t give you the answer to that one I’m sorry. I can tell you where to find The Soul of John Black and how! Come to The Mint on Jan 17 to see it, hear it, revel in it live.
How often can we be witness to sanctified harmonies, the essence of a Memphis soul? The text of ourselves is the hardest work to translate in the entire liturgy of life, the music of John Black is his Rosetta Stone. Come to eat, to dance, to find some fun and leave with your thoughts running to the rhythm of life all night long.
(I have lost my shoes again. If your thoughts are wearing size 8, please describe them below. Thanks much.)
