weekend roundup

Friday night I traveled downtown to the Natural History Museum for the opening of Sonic Scenery. It was neat but I'm not sure if the $10 for the musical narrative was worth it. It was nice to listen on my own iPod rather than a rental, but I feel that they should have opened up more rooms for the exhibit allowing the music to breathe a bit more. The two main rooms were Dioramas featuring animals in their natural environments from Africa and America (not to be confused with the new Dior calfskin iPod holder) .

The performances were very good particularly Matmos (there's nothing like seeing groups of indie kids with headphones on spacing out in a museum to a live performance by Matmos). I would give the exhibition itself 45 minutes at the most. Which was perfect because next up was a stop at the Mountain Bar in Chinatown. This bar is small, dark, comfy, and clean - perfect! Not so crowded and the drinks are affordable. This guy ordered a dirty martini and it looked like a little glass of (dirty) heaven. The bartenders are supercute and nice and the music was good. I'll be heading here much more often. On my way out we walked past Firecracker which was going OFF. A DJ was set up in the street and people were out there dancing despite the chilly weather. Saturday I traveled back to Chinatown for the New Years parade. Bought some of that good Chinese green tea for 3.25 (100 bags). The market I found it in had all different kinds of ginseng. I'll need to do some research on the effects of different kinds of root now that I know where to find it.

Saturday night was a music video shoot for the new Charletans single set to drop in early April. The party was at Little Radio downtown on Long Beach Blvd. For the longest time I thought they were actually in Long Beach, it's good to know they're not so far away. :-) Tonight is a party for KCRW staffers at Zanzibar in Santa Monica. Liza, Jason, and Raul will be spinning so it should be fun. I'm a little tired from weekend craziness so who knows if I'll wind up going. peace for now...