#22 Back From LA LA Land

Ezra Reich (*Pictured with me) was almost true to his word in his June 10th Eden's Hour interview in which he promised to get his full band together for a live show soon. Even though his bandmates Elliot Glass and Eric Starr are still in NYC and violinist Rebecca Cherry is touring with the Jonas Brothers, Ezra managed to pull off a near miraculous feat of rounding up an amazing last minute line up to join him in opening for the July 16th David Lynch Foundation benefit concert in Hollywood. Which was awesome, but it was only one song and I expect more live performances from you Ezra Reich!

(*Pictured at right) Joe Escalante, whom David does the daily weather report for on Indie 103, was a wonderful concert MC and auctioneer. David introduced the concert and thanked all the bands for supporting his foundation ...and in true weather man fashion declared that "it's gonna be blue skies and golden sunshine from here on out". And I think he may be on to something.

Astra Heights(*Pictured) played the first set followed by 8mm, The Bangkok Five, Gods and Monsters, and Nico Vega. As this review points out ...there was no shortage of tight black pants, sweat, and ...um, crack.

But I'll spare you the details on the crack. What I will say is that this concert was such a fun night and came together amazingly well considering we had only been working on it for a short while. Since I work with the musical wing of the DLF I have been wanting to organize benefit concerts for quite some time now, but my attention has always been elsewhere. Shortly after the April 2008 Lynch Weekend I decided I was going to start coordinating a concert and that very same day I got an email from Joshua Reed of Gods and Monsters asking if his band could do a benefit for the David Lynch Foundation. Obviously, I said yes. Joshua and his friends did an outstanding job of coordinating things in LA and getting all the other bands on board.

Thanks again to all the musicians who donated their time to play. And a MAJOR thanks to all of the volunteers and to the sponsors and the donors who provided fabulous auction items. David's lithograph Factory At Night With Nude was a hot item, but there were so many great things to choose from. I only wish that I hadn't been so busy managing the auction table, because I would have been up there during the live bidding to snag Glen La Ferman's limited edition print of Bob Marley. Glen was commissioned by Bob Marley's family to photograph Bob shortly before his death. The print that he donated was from that last and lost collection and it was absolutely gorgeous! One of our volunteers was lucky enough to win it.

Included in the show that I did this week were a couple of the artists who performed at the July 16th benefit and I'll be playing more next week. That will also give me a chance to share some more of Elizabeth Thorp's pictures that she shot that night, like this beautiful and sultry shot of 8mm. *All of the photos in this blog entry were taken by Elizabeth aka thee photoG images. If you're a Myspacer be sure to check out her photos in our DLF album.

If you want to see some footage from this benefit concert, ADD THE BRAND SPANKING NEW MYSPACE PAGE FOR THE SOON TO LAUNCH DAVID LYNCH FOUNDATION TELEVISION!!!!!!




Click HERE for the complete playlist for 08/09/08