Welcome back to Artrocker’s blog for Fly53, our partners in crime for a third year running as we marry together the worlds of fashion and music.
Before heading back to Artrocker Towers from my recent trip to LA I was lucky enough to see the LA Galaxy for a second time and witnessed my first-ever trademark David Beckham strike – it was quite something. Earlier the same day I’d seen the LA Dodgers ‘hit some home runs’ at the baseball, but after some seemingly uneventful action I told my American friends that I would leave them to their “game of rounders” and “go watch some real athletes” – I thought darts was pretty low impact, but the ground covered in walking up and down the oche to retrieve your darts is pretty labour intensive compared to baseball.
Worn out from all my sporting activities – watching can be just as draining, you know – relief came in the form of a few ‘tall boy’ Pabst Blue Ribbons (affectionately known as ‘PBR’, should you ever want to order one) whilst watching Lee Ranaldo from New York seminal alt rockers Sonic Youth playing an intimate solo gig at Satellite in Silverlake. I’ve never seen quite so many awesome Fender Jaguar guitars in one gig – he must have used a different one on almost every song. The guy’s sound is truly amazing and he drew a crowd that covered every generation, which is testament to Sonic Youth’s continuing influence on new music – true legends. Local LA band Nightmare Air also proved to be a surprisingly good opener with some serious Smashing Pumpkins rock’n’roll sounds.
Nightmare Air
It may only be April but May is soon upon us and with it comes festival season.
We’re getting ready for Liverpool Music Week, our first stop on the festival train, where we have a stella line-up of bands playing our Artrocker stage as we curate three nights at the Kazimier. Already confirmed to play our venue are Death In Vegas, Toy, White Denim, Two Wounded Birds, White Arrows, Revere and Eugene McGuinness, which we are super excited about.
With Artrocker stages at Camden Crawl, The Great Escape and 1234 already confirmed, plus a few more irons in the fire, it’s going to be a busy summer for us at Artrocker, so I better go dig out my wellies and dry out my tent now!
Lee Ranaldo at Glasslands Williamsburg Brooklyn NY Dec 16 2011
