EMAILS CAN INFLUENCE!
Local gaming giant Blizzard Entertainment backed down and cut tourney winner Ng Wai Chung’s year-long suspension to six months and returned his $10,000 winnings that they had confiscated. “Fight for freedom, stand for Hong Kong.”
So it’s not too late, TODAY, to write to your school board to ask them to save and restore, not destroy, the 41-yr-old environmental Muir Woods mural at Lincoln and Ocean Park -- brd@smmusd.org
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED:
SMILE film and conversation with BRIAN WILSON and DAVID LEAF (Leaf is a SM writer-producer-director known for documentaries, music programs and pop culture retrospectives, an adjunct professor of musicology at UCLA, and longtime good friend of Brian Wilson, one of the towering if troubled figures of 20th Century music and pop culture, and Leaf is probably the world’s foremost authority on Anything Brian, their conversation and the never-before-seen 2004 film SMILE should be one-of-a-kind, aren’t you glad you live here?), Sun 2 p.m., Schoenberg Hall, UCLA -- no set price, admission comes with a contribution at the website for the Brian Wilson scholarship fund https://spark.ucla.edu/project/16496 Leaf has endowed at UCLA and he emphasizes “any contribution is generous.”
Centennial Birthday Celebration Concert & Gala with DUDAMEL. MEHTA and SALONEN conducting!! (this will be unforgettable, on the actual LA Phil 100th anniversary day, details next week because I’ve run out of room this week but don’t miss this! spring for a “cheap” seat), next Thurs 7 p.m., Walt Disney Hall, DTLA, $135-$195, VIP $3,000-$15,000, tables $30,000-$75,000.
RECOMMENDED:
TONIGHT! - LA OPERA - The Light in the Piazza (OK, maybe I shouldn’t have ignored this for purity’s sake, it’s not an opera but a highly acclaimed Broadway musical and it does have opera diva Renée Fleming holding court and that’s probably worth the price, it has accumulated rave reviews from here to London), Thurs, Fri, Sat 7:30 p.m., and Sat, Sun 2 p.m., Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, DTLA, $26-$214.
TONIGHT! - TAIMANE with Her Quartet and Polynesian Dancers (so what else you got planned for tonight, huh? take a chance, I know, ukulele, I’ve got two words for you, Jake Shimabukuro, she’s not him but she tortures that electrified uke in a most beautiful way, and… dancers, now you’ve got a package), Thurs 8 p.m., Smothers Theatre, Malibu, $20-$40.
TONIGHT! -- LINDA RONSTADT: THE SOUND OF MY VOICE (amazing how long this music doc has played, way longer than anyone might have guessed, but it is good and will perhaps open your eyes to more respect for a woman who blazed early trails in male-dominated rock, advocated for human rights, shared a mattress on the floor of the Governor’s Mansion with Jerry Brown, lived life and her art on her own terms and succeeded wildly, and as Dolly Parton declares, “that girl could sing ANYthang!”), Thurs-next Thurs, Monica Film Center DTSM.
Ace 20 Year Celebration with RYUICHI SAKAMOTO, Serpentwithfeet, Zola Jesus (I fell in love with Ryuichi’s music back when it was strange and exotic, he was a pioneer, a visionary), Fri 8 p.m., Theater at the Ace Hotel, DTLA, $20-$150.
LA PHIL - SALONEN (always great to see Essa-Pekka back up there, conducting first the world premier of his Castor, then the demanding Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto and the luscious Bartok Concerto for Orchestra, I love Bartok), Fri, Sat 8 p.m., Walt Disney Hall, DTLA, $69-$214.
LA METROPOLITAN OPERA - Händel’s Julius Caesar in Egypt (whaaa? - now LA’s got 4 or 5 opera companies? well goodie I say, I don’t know nuthin’ ‘bout this but it’s in our back yard and Mt. Olive is very musically adventurous so let’s encourage them), Sat 7:30 p.m., Sunday 7 p.m., Mt Olive Lutheran Church, Ocean Park SM, suggested donation $30 advance, $40 door.
Meet Me at Reed - SAMOHI CHOIR (the Great Samohi Choir, you should be going to all their performances, Jeffe Huls is still working miracles, of course with very talented vocalists, today a broad repertoire of popular music in large groups, soloists, duets and smaller ensembles, you can relax outdoors on a blankey and be serenaded), Sat 3-5 p.m., Reed Park, SM.
CACHE VALLEY DRIFTERS and Crary, Evans, & Barnick (The We’re Not Gettin’ Any Younger Tour, allright, tell it, CVD has been pushing the boundaries of American acoustic music for over four decades incorporating many influences but with a foundation on bluegrass and folk with a focus on vocals rich with harmony, and in CE&B you have master flatpicking guitar, five-string banjo, and a singer who took up bass 40 years ago to make sure he could get into bands, “and it’s worked”), Sun 8 p.m., McCabe’s, SM, $25.
SANTA MONICA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA's 75th Season Premiere Concert (LA Phil Principal Cello Robert deMaine will perform Dvorak’s contemplative Cello Concerto in B Minor, also on tap Weber’s Overture to Oberon and Gershwin’s renowned An American In Paris, pre-concert lecture by KUSC’s Rich Capparela), Sun 7:30 p.m., Barnum Hall, Samohi, free.
Viva MOMIX (athletic dance, riveting music, outrageous costumes, inventive props, magical lighting and imagery -- if that’s what MOMIX is still doing then you will probably enjoy them as much as I did when they dazzled me decades ago), Wed 8 p.m., Smothers Theatre, Malibu, $25-$50.
JACARANDA: ORGANIC I series premier - TY WOODWARD, organ, David Searfoss, trumpet (Woodward helped design the original Schantz organ now gracing the church, French showpieces by Alain, Duruflé, Dupre and American works by Ives, Hovhaness, Sowerby) Sun 2 p.m., First Presbyterian Church, DTSM, $10 students, fixed income, $25 adults.
TOOL, Killing Joke (if you are not a full on Tool fan, like Chris and Aaron, what is wrong with you?), Sun, Mon 7:30 p.m., Staples Center, DTLA, $60-$150.
BARBARA MORRISON (I hope you caught Cal Bennett at Pip’s last Wed but if you didn’t you can partially atone by going there any Tues evening to hear this marvelous vocalist, LA treasure Barbara Morrison, at this cool venue), Wed 7-10 p.m., Pips on LaBrea, LA, free.
COMING ATTRACTIONS: THE GIFT: THE JOURNEY OF JOHNNY CASH, 10/25, Laemmle Music Hall Beverly Hills; MEHTA’S MAHLER 10/25, SALONEN & SIBELIUS 10/26, DUDAMEL conducts BEETHOVEN’S 9TH 10/27, Walt Disney Hall, DTLA; DAN NAVARRO presents Cantina Navarro with MASON SUMMIT, ADRON, KATE COPELAND, 10/27, McCabe’s, SM; LA METROPOLITAN OPERA - Handel’s Julius Caesar in Egypt, 10/27, Mt. Olive Lutheran Church, Ocean Park, SM; THOM YORKE, 10/29, Greek Theater, Griffith Park; MARY J BLIGE, 10/31, Staples Center, DTLA.
BODACIOUS BIRTHDAYS: EMINEM (1972), ARTHUR MILLER (1915), ALAN JACKSON (1958), ZIGGY MARLEY (1968), WYCLEF JEAN (1969), BARNEY KESSELL - jazz guitarist (1923), SHINICHI SUZUKI - Japanese music teacher, Suzuki Method (1898), JIMMY BRESLIN - columnist (1930), RICHARD ROEPER - columnist, film critic (1959), JUPITER HAMMON - slave, first African American to publish poetry (1711), MAE JEMISON- first African American woman in space (1956), MIKE JUDGE - born in Ecuador but moved to Albuquerque at 7, worked on a chicken farm, graduated from my HS, St. Pius X, oh yeah then di (1959), EVEL KNIEVEL (1938). WILLIAM "CANDY" CUMMINGS - baseball player credited with creating the curveball (1848), JAMES “JUNIOR” GILLIAM - Dodger! (1928).
Charles Andrews has listened to a lot of music of all kinds, including more than 2,000 live shows. He has lived in Santa Monica for 33 years and wouldn’t live anywhere else in the world. Really. Send love and/or rebuke to him at therealmrmusic@gmail.com