{"id":400,"date":"2024-04-06T16:12:50","date_gmt":"2024-04-06T16:12:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alegendinthefieldofentertainment.com\/?p=400"},"modified":"2024-04-06T16:12:50","modified_gmt":"2024-04-06T16:12:50","slug":"4-5-24-san-pedro-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alegendinthefieldofentertainment.com\/fr\/2024\/04\/06\/4-5-24-san-pedro-california\/","title":{"rendered":"4\/5\/24: San Pedro, California"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I’ve driven Insterstate 40 into Los Angeles around ten times in my life, so few times I can almost remember each instance, but so many that some memories are harder to untangle one from the other. This time, I think I’ll remember it more clearly, because it snowed. The thermometer reading in the car plunged about thirty degrees and there was a huge gray-blue-black swirl of a cloud dominating the sky.<\/p>\n

I knew I was close to San Pedro when I saw the huge crane arms from the port. This is such a cool part of LA, with the docks that light up at night. Last night’s show was at the Sardine, a venue that Todd Congelliere from Recess Records opened up since I was here last, which was around 7 or 8 years ago. Todd’s record label released the Big Kitty album, Florence, back in 2012. That was of course a very important thing for me, and so this place and Todd’s support have always meant a lot to me.<\/p>\n

Of course, before I had that personal connection to San Pedro I was a Minutemen and Mike Watt fan. In fact, Mike Watt is the inspiration behind writing a tour diary. I used to read his back when I was a teenager, all the particular slang from Pedro that he used making a big impression on me of what this place must be like. Well, after visiting a couple of times, I must say that I haven’t heard anyone speak like Mike Watt, but this place does have a character all its own that I can sense despite the little time I’ve spent here. It feels like a friendlier and humbler part of LA, but still soaked in the sun and beach. Anytime I go to a coastal part of LA I get a certain feeling of ease from the people that I imagine is linked to the proximity of the beaches and sun, and maybe the ultimateness of living on the Pacific Ocean. There’s also a cleanness and consideredness of image that seeps in through the entertainment industry. That’s not a quality held by everyone by any means but I do feel like each place I’ve been so far on this tour has given me a pretty strong individual character, which runs against the narrative of homogenization that tends to dominate my concept of the trajectory of American culture.<\/p>\n

So back to the show and the Sardine – I love the size of this place, with very high ceilings, a large, open barroom in front and another, about equally large back room for shows, with a very roomy stage. There were two acts, a band called Play Hooky and one other, whose name I forget. Play Hooky was really fun and catchy, a rock band with some funny songs and occasional surf and punk touches. The bass player was playing through a pretty major foot injury, and had his leg bandaged up and on a scooter. He was just smiling and having a good time despite it all. I enjoyed their set, it was nice and long and gave me some time to chill out a bit.<\/p>\n

There were between ten and fifteen people at the show, so it was a fairly empty room. The cold weather may have played a role. It wasn’t, of course, that cold, but for Los Angeles it was unusual. So when I got onstage I said, “It’s great to be here in Fairbanks.” I think it may have produced a chuckle in some souls.<\/p>\n

I tried a lot of new stuff at this show, including opening up for myself twice, with two different characters: first, Rolly Lighthouse, who just acts crazy and has an extreme southern accent, and Roy Sessick, a bit of a self-important lounge singer type whose character I’m discovering as I go. I used a cheap Lone Ranger mask with an elastic cord that got stuck between my eyes and the holes in the mask, so I could not see while doing these songs, which made it extra weird. The Roy Sessick songs were sung to backing tracks, and I thought they sounded not too bad for my first ever try. It’s pretty fun to sing like that because it’s so much louder than just guitar and voice.<\/p>\n

This show was great, again, despite the small crowd. I’m not too bothered by performing for just a few people, when you can see individuals clearly. I used to be more so of course.<\/p>\n

I needed a place to stay and Ryan, who was bartending when I first came in, offered a practice space nearby with a huge couch, where I’m still sitting writing this. This is a really nice practice space, with lots of room, and it’s clean. Amazing.<\/p>\n

Today I’m going to visit Luke Pelletier’s garage to film a song or two, then move on to play a house show with the great Dingbat Superminx!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve driven Insterstate 40 into Los Angeles around ten times in my life, so few times I can almost remember […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"index","bgseo_robots_follow":"follow","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alegendinthefieldofentertainment.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alegendinthefieldofentertainment.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alegendinthefieldofentertainment.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alegendinthefieldofentertainment.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alegendinthefieldofentertainment.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.alegendinthefieldofentertainment.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":405,"href":"https:\/\/www.alegendinthefieldofentertainment.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400\/revisions\/405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alegendinthefieldofentertainment.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alegendinthefieldofentertainment.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alegendinthefieldofentertainment.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}