8 tcs 2014 week7 300dpi by Santa Monica Daily Press

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ZOMBIES

The British are Coming! LEGENDARY ZOMBIES MIX CLASSIC HITS AND MODERN TUNES INTO LIVE PERFORMANCES

he Zombies are as iconic to Rock'n'Roll as their namesake is to horror. The band burst onto the scene as a contemporary to the Beatles in 1961 and while most of their counterparts are now working the retirement circuit, the band has continued grow its legendary legacy with new songs, new shows and a desire to celebrate the past by reaching for the future. The group maintains a strong influence over popular culture. They have been credited as influences by artists like Courtney Love, Billy Joel and the Arctic Monkeys. Covers of their work are a staple for many artists and they have been featured in diverse film projects ranging from Kill Bill 2 to The Simpsons. Over the years, the band's lineup has evolved but they are still anchored by vocalist Colin Blunstone and keyboard player Rod Argent. The band has continued to craft new music including live

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albums and studio recordings. The new tracks continue a legacy of hits that dates back to the original British Invasion. “We're very excited about the way the band's playing,” said Argent in the band's modern biography. “Colin's voice is as strong as it ever was, and I feel that my voice is better than it used to be, because I've worked on it. Our chops, both playing and singing, are better now than they were before.” The original version of the band included Argent, Blunstone, Chris White, Paul Atkinson and Hugh Grundy. They began as teenagers and after paying their dues for several years, they hit it big with Rod's She's Not There in 1964. The song went to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and still has a place of honor in the modern-day Zombies set. The original formation didn't last much longer than their initial release, due in part to a lack of awareness about their level of

success. While their follow-up efforts didn't reach the same level of notoriety in their native England, the band built a massive following internationally, but they didn't realize it. “It was all there for us,” Blunstone muses in the biography. “We felt we were unsuccessful, but we should have thought of ourselves as being in an international business.” The group split in 1967 with each member pursuing solo projects. Fate reunited them 30 years later for what was expected to be a one-time show but the surging popularity of their original work prompted Argent and Blunstone to strike out with the Zombies name again. New albums followed, as did increasing acclaim for their live shows. Those shows have kept the band moving into the 21st Century where they say they are prepared honor their legacy by continuing to build upon it.

MYSTIC BRAVES OPEN THE SHOW Mystic Braves are often credited as a band out of time, seeming to have stepped straight from the 1960's into the modern era with a style of music that's both historic and original. The band have said they don't consciously mimic the sounds of the past, it's just that their personal style of great pop music has a psychedelic texture and tone that is naturally occurring. The band formed in 2011 out of Julian Ducatenzeiler, Tony Malacara, Cameron Gartung, Shane Stotsenberg and Ignacio Gonzalez. The Echo Park natives released their debut album in 2013.

SEPT 4 – OK GO & ALLAH-LAS AUG 21 - THE ZOMBIES W/ MYSTIC BRAVES, HOSTED BY DAN WILCOX

AUG 28 - DEEP REGGAE: LEE “SCRATCH” PERRY W/ MEXICO 68, HOSTED BY JEREMY SOLE

SEP 11 - 100% SOUL: CHARLES BRADLEY W/ KING JAMES & THE SPECIAL MEN

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Twilight Concerts insider’s guide TICKETS

BIKE & SKATEBOARD VALET PETS

No tickets necessary, this is pure free summer fun (remember that?) all thanks to our partners and sponsors who have brought us another season of awesome free concerts at the beach. Make sure to show them some love.

Park your wheels at the free bike and skateboard valet located next to the beach bike path just south of the Pier.

TIME 7 p.m. — 10 p.m., but those in the know stake out a good spot early.

PARKING Parking is available in the 1550 Pacific Coast Highway Lot next to the Santa Monica Pier on a first-come, first-served basis. Those wanting to avoid long waits should try one of the municipal lots around Second Street and Colorado Avenue or grab the ParkMe app for live data of parking availability and prices. Go technology!

FRIENDS & FAMILY Bring them, the more the merrier. You will not regret it. This is one epic summer tradition.

FIRST AID/LOST & FOUND If you need first aid or assistance, please visit the Pier Tent or flag down a security officer. If it is an emergency, please call 911.

SMOKING Don’t even think about it, it’s a 100year-old wooden Pier, and we really like it.

Friendly dogs are welcome on the Pier only and must be on a leash.

during the show. As a reminder, alcohol consumption is not permitted in public spaces, but there are several full-service bars in the area.

WEATHER & ATTIRE

THE CONCERT GARDEN

It never gets too cold, but sometimes it gets a little chilly once the sun goes down. So bring something or head up to the Pier Tent on the deck to grab this year’s limited-edition sweatshirt or T-shirt!

There is a 21-and-over Concert Garden featuring Michelob Ultra, Barefoot Wines, an assortment of cocktails and non-alcoholic beverages. Do not miss this view.

SEATING

E-MAIL LIST & SPECIAL OFFERS

Seating is not provided, so feel free to bring your own chairs, blankets, etc ...

FOOD & DRINKS

TAXIS

There are plenty of great food and beverage options on the deck and at the various restaurants on the Pier. Most even have to-go options perfect for munching

Let someone else do the driving. Download the Curb app and use promo code TCS2014 for $10 off your first ride.

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Energy beyond music THE TCS EXPERIENCE BRINGS COMMUNITIES TOGETHER

t's called a “concert series” but there's something more to the TCS than mere music, there's a vibrancy, an energy and shared euphoria and acknowledgement that what's about to happen is a unique experience that's enhanced by its communal nature. It's a feeling that Jeff Shular of One West Bank credits as the core of the TCS experience. “It starts when you're still parking, you can feel something just around the bend, the energy of what's coming, even though you haven't been there before, you know something is happening,” he said. While TCS has earned a reputation for catering to all musical tastes, Shular said the TCS experience goes beyond passive listening to encompass combination of time and place that cannot be copied or replicated. “The other thing that strikes me about it is the uniqueness of it. If you just read the label, Twilight Concert on the Pier, that's sounds great, but it's not until you really get there that you see it's so much more than that, you can't duplicate this anywhere in the world,” he said. “The tradition of the Pier, the variety of people, the community involvement the keystone artists, it's truly special.” TCS is known far and wide for encompassing all musical styles and genres in a way that makes the summer series feel more like a festival than a one-day-a-week show. By catering to all tastes, the concerts have become a community-wide gathering including people of different cultures, ages, beliefs and backgrounds.

“I'm glad to be a part of this, I feel honored to be a part of this,” said Shular. “I enjoy the bands but sometimes the bands play less of a role for me personally. What I love about the series is the diversity of people there. There are young families, mature couples, young singles, it doesn't attract a certain segment, it attracts everybody.” One West Bank is one of the sponsors supporting the shows financially and Shular said it's the partnership between businesses, non-profits, residents and local government that make a community truly thrive. “What makes a healthy community is not one thing, there's no one benefactor,” he said. “What I love about the opportunity is it really shows we all play a role in the health and vibrancy of our communities. It takes everybody to really excel. With one element missing, whether it's cultural, educational or economic, no-one can maximize the potential of a community. Good business is good community and strong communities are good for business.” Shular said perennial sponsors have seen TCS thrive over the years because there has been a real commitment to fostering the ephemeral energy that makes the event so memorable. “This isn't a template, everybody really steps back, encouraged by the organizers, to think about how to do it better, make it even stronger than it was last year. With the bands, the mix of sponsors, its all about what we can do to make this even more engaging, to enhance the experience for people that come down to enjoy it,” he said.

A bay's best friend HEAL THE BAY FIGHTS TO KEEP OUR BEACHES CLEAN

lanket? Check. Picnic basket? Check. Illicit bottle of wine? Maybe we'll hit up the beer garden instead. So goes the planning session before a Thursday night at the 30th annual Twilight Concert Series, a 10-concert series that transforms the historic Santa Monica Pier from sight-seeing destination to dance party and the beach into a casual dinner spot for those who would rather mingle than twerk. Down below, people take in the sounds of the music above and the ocean below as they enjoy the pristine sand of Santa Monica Beach. That condition is no accident - a collaboration between the Pier and the con-

cert series' nonprofit sponsor Heal the Bay keeps the area clear of trash and hospitable for humanity. Heal the Bay has a long, productive history with the Pier, of which its support of the Twilight Concert Series is only a piece. Heal the Bay began its work in 1985 with a fight to end the dumping of untreated wastewater from the Hyperion Sewage Treatment Plant, and its mission continues, albeit focused largely on educating the public about their impact on the ocean and lawmakers about policies that could protect one of California's most valuable resources. To further that goal, Heal the Bay leads beach cleanups with hundreds of volun-

teers to pick up the trash that works its way to the waterfront both from beachgoers and residents further inland who chuck cigarette butts out of car windows that find their way into storm drains and eventually to Santa Monica Bay. The organization isn't content to simply pick up the mess, however. For the last decade, the organization has also run an aquarium on the pier with exhibits depicting local animals, plant life and the ecosystem that people appreciate about Santa Monica. It took over the facility in 2003 from UCLA, and has used it to connect with the 7 million Santa Monicans, Angelenos and world visitors that arrive at the Pier every year.

The pier makes the perfect spot for the aquarium because of the foot traffic and proximity to the very subject matter that the educators there like to talk about. Aquarium representatives take people on field trips to the beach for relay races, clam hunts and other activities that expose people to the environment around them.

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2014 Twilight Concert Series bios WEEK 8

AUGUST 28

Lee “Scratch” Perry WITH

MEXICO 68

The man who long ago named himself (and his record label and his band) The Upsetter knows whereof he speaks. As a producer, mixer and artist, Lee “Scratch” Perry has been overturning tradition and confounding conventional wisdom for more than five decades. In the process, the widely acknowledged father of dub reggae became a major player in Jamaican music and international pop. Born in Jamaica in 1936, Perry began in the music business in the late 1950s, working with the island’s mobile sound systems and such artists as Prince Buster, best known for the ska hit Ten Commandments. Subsequent work assisting famed producers Coxsone Dodd and Joe Gibbs prepped him for his professional coming-out. In 1968, he formed Upsetter Records and, throughout the early ‘70s, issued a profusion of recordings (under his own name and various pseudonyms), pioneering a radical form that utilized reggae rhythms and the loping instrumental “spaghetti Western” style of music featured in Sergio Leone’s neo-cowboy movies, on cuts like Clint Eastwood and The Return of Django. Concurrent with his own releases, Perry produced numerous reggae artists, including, early on, Bob Marley and the Wailers (Duppy Conqueror, Small Axe). By the mid-’70s, the myth of Lee “Scratch” Perry was commanding as much attention as his innovative productions, as spats with artists, lost tapes and a mysterious fire that burned down his Black Ark studio occupied ardent scenewatchers. Still, Perry continued his onslaught of atmospheric dub releases, next capturing the attention of Britain’s punk movement; Perry even produced tracks for The Clash, who’d covered his production of Junior Murvin’s Police and Thieves on their 1977 debut album. Numerous post-punk bands, most notably John Lydon’s Public Image, created music based on a template first fashioned by Perry. By the mid-’90s, his legacy had spread into rap and hip-hop; the Beastie Boys gave Perry a shout-out on their Ill Communication album and sparked yet another revival of interest in his work. Not slowing down after the turn of the century, Perry won a Grammy for Best Reggae Album in 2003 with the album Jamaican E.T.. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked Perry #100 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. He teamed up with a group of Swiss musicians and performed under the name Lee Perry and the White Belly Rats, and toured the United States in 2006 and 2007 using the New York City-based group Dub Is A Weapon as his backing band. After meeting Andrew W.K. at SXSW in 2006, Perry invited him to co-produce his album Repentance. The 2008 album featured guest artists including Moby, Ari Up, producer Don Fleming, drummer Brian Chippendale, and bassist Josh Werner, and received a Grammy nomination for Best Reggae Album on the Narnack Records label. In 2008, Perry reunited with Adrian Sherwood on The Mighty Upsetter. Between 2007 and 2010, Perry recorded three albums with British producer, Steve Marshall, at State of Emergency Limited in England. The albums featured performances by Keith Richards and George Clinton. Two of these albums, End Of An American Dream (2007) and Revelation (2010), received Grammy nominations for Best Reggae Album on the MEGAWAVE Records label. In 2009, Perry collaborated with Dubblestandart, on their Return from Planet Dub double album, revisiting some of his material from the 1970s and 1980s, as well as collaborating on new material, some of which also included Ari Up of the Slits. Dubstep collaborations with New York City’s Subatomic Sound System included Iron Devil, Blackboard Jungle Vols. 1 & 2 featuring dancehall vocalist Jahdan Blakkamoore, and Chrome Optimism featuring American filmmaker David

LEE “SCRATCH” PERRY

Lynch. In 2011, Perry recorded Rise Again with bassist and producer Bill Laswell, with the album featuring contributions from Tunde Adebimpe, Sly Dunbar and Bernie Worrell, and released on Laswell’s M.O.D. Technologies label. In 2012, Perry teamed with The Orb to produce The Orbserver in the Star House. Perry remixed the Thor’s Stone single by UK producer Forest Swords in November 2013. Perry recorded an album with Daniel Boyle in London, due to be released in April 2014 as Lee “Scratch” Perry – Back on the Controls. Currently, there are two films made about his life and work: Volker Schaner’s Vision Of Paradise and The Upsetter by American film-makers Ethan Higbee and Adam Bhala Lough and narrated by Benicio Del Toro. In 2010, Perry had his first ever solo art exhibition at Dem Passwords art gallery in Los Angeles, California. The show entitled Secret Education featured works on canvas, paper, and a video installation. Perry is featured as the DJ on the Dub and Reggae radio station Blue Ark in video game Grand Theft Auto V. The station includes a number of dubs by Perry and the Upsetters including Disco Devil and Grumblin’ Dub. In August 2012, it was announced that Perry would receive Jamaica’s sixth highest honour, the Order of Distinction, Commander class, and in October 2013, it was announced that he was to be awarded a Gold Musgrave Medal later that month by the Institute of Jamaica. Perry now lives in Switzerland, where he continues to create unique, category-defying music. He remains one of the world’s most imaginative sonic architects.

fourth full-length and the newest addition to a curriculum vitae filled with experimentation in a variety of mediums. The band worked with longtime producer and friend Dave Fridmann (Flaming Lips, Weezer, MGMT), while also enlisting a new collaborator in Los Angeles, veteran Tony Hoffer, (Beck, Phoenix, Foster the People) to create their most comfortable and far-reaching songs yet. Building on (and deconstructing) 15 years of pop-rock smarts, musical friendship, and band-of-the-future innovations the EP, Upside Out, offers a concise overview of forthcoming Hungry Ghosts’ melancholic fireworks (“The Writing’s on the Wall”), basement funk parties (“Turn Up The Radio”), IMAX-sized choruses (“The One Moment”), and space-age dance floor bangers (“I Won’t Let You Down”). Drawn from the same marching orders issued to bighearted happiness creators as Queen, T. Rex, The Cars or Cheap Trick, and a lifetime of mixed tapes exchanged by lifelong music fans, Upside Out is a reaffirmation of the sounds and ideas that brought the band together in the first place. The four songs provide an assured kick-off to a new sequence of interconnected performances, videos, dances, and wild, undreamt fun. “As the band has evolved over the last 15 years, the creative palette we work with has expanded in so many unexpected and gratifying directions,” says frontman Damian Kulash. “This record feels like it’s the musical manifestation of that — like we can speak in a clearer voice when we are playing in a bigger sandbox. Just as the band’s whole project became clearer to us as we learned to find more homes for our creativity — we triangulated it from more directions. And, I think the music itself has gotten more focused for similar reasons. We went in with fewer preconceptions of who we are or what our sound is, and came out with a record that sounds much more uniquely our own because of it.” Continuing a career that includes viral videos, New York Times op-eds, a major label split and the establishment of a DIY trans-media mini-empire, collaborations with pioneering dance companies and tech giants, animators and Muppets, OK Go continue to fearlessly dream and build new worlds in a time when creative boundaries have all but dissolved.

WEEK 9

WEEK 10

OK Go

Charles Bradley

SEPTEMBER 4 WITH

SEPTEMBER 11

ALLAH-LAS

WITH

KING JAMES & THE SPECIAL MEN

Formed as a quartet in Chicago in 1998 and relocated to Los Angeles three years later, OK Go (Damian Kulash, Tim Nordwind, Dan Konopka, Andy Ross) have spent their career in a steady state of transformation. The four songs of the all-new Upside Out EP represent the first preview of Hungry Ghosts, due out in the fall on the band’s own Paracadute. This is the band’s

If you’re looking for a story that best summarizes the last year in the life of Charles Bradley, you’d be hard pressed to find a better one than the night he and his band showed up in Utopia, Texas to play an outdoor show in the middle of a thunderstorm. “It was just raining, raining, raining,” Bradley recalls. “I walked out onstage, and there were about 800 people there - maybe more - all of them just standing out there in the rain and the mud.” The band settled in and fought their hardest against the elements, but - for a moment, anyway - it seemed that nature was too much for even the mighty Charles Bradley. About halfway through the show, the power went out, leaving both the band and the drenched fans in total darkness. At any other show, that would be understood as the meteorological signal for “Quittin’ Time,” but if there’s one thing the last year of tireless touring before enrapt audiences has proven, it’s that Charles Bradley does not put on typical shows. “I could hear them screaming, ‘Charles Bradley! Charles Bradley we love you,’” Bradley smiles. “And so when the lights came back on, I said, ‘If all of you can stand out there in the rain and get soaking wet because you want to see me perform - to see me do something that I love to do - then you know what? I’m gonna

OK GO

SEE BIOS PAGE 13

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CHARLES BRADLEY

BIOS FROM PAGE 12

get wet, too.’” And with that, Bradley jumped off the stage and into the crowd. “They went completely crazy!” he laughs. “We were laughing. We were hugging. We were getting muddy. It was just love.” That’s his whole persona in a single tiny scene: Charles Bradley, victim of love. Other artists appreciate their audiences, just as many are grateful for them, but few artists love their fans as much and as sincerely as Charles Bradley. By now, his remarkable, against-all-odds rise has been well-documented - how he transcended a bleak life on the streets and struggled through a series of ill-fitting jobs - most famously as a James Brown impersonator at Brooklyn clubs before finally being discovered by Daptone’s Gabriel Roth. The year following the release of his debut, No Time For Dreaming, was one triumph after another: a stunning performance at South By Southwest that earned unanimous raves; similarly-gripping appearances at Bonnaroo, Austin City Limits, Newport Folk Festival and Outside Lands (to name just a few); and spots on Year-End Best Lists from Rolling Stone, MOJO, GQ, Pasteand more. Victim of Love, Bradley’s second record, is a continuation of that story, moving past the ‘heartache and pain’ and closer to the promise of hope. “The first record taps into maybe two or three feelings,” explains Thomas Brenneck of Menahan Street Band, Bradley’s producer, bandleader and co-writer. “But the range of emotion on this record is huge. The last record was written by a man living in the Brooklyn projects for 20 years. This record is more than just a poor man’s cry from the ghetto. This time, he’s grateful.” Bradley agrees. “I was singing about all these hardships that I’ve been through. I wanted people to know my struggles first, but now I want them to know how much they have helped me grow.” Drop into any moment of Victim of Love at random and that message is immediately apparent. Where the last record opened with the apocalyptic “The World (is Going Up in Flames), Victim begins “Strictly Reserved For You,” a track that sees Bradley grabbing his girl, jumping in a car and hitting the highway for a romantic getaway. In “You Put The Flame on It,” Bradley sings “My life is gold - you put the flame on

it,” backed by a horn chart that sounds like it was lifted from a lost Four Tops single. And on “Victim of Love,” the song that gives the album its name, Bradley sings, “I woke up this morning, I felt your love beside me,” over the kind of gentle acoustic guitar that wouldn’t sound out of place on a classic Neil Young album. Which brings up another point: with the new subject matter comes a broader musical scope. Where Dreaming hewed close to the rough-and-ready R&B sound Daptone has become known for, Victim is stylistically more restless, edging closer into the kind of psychedelic soul The Temptations explored in the early ‘70s. “I’ve been calling it ‘New Direction Daptone,’” enthuses Brenneck. “People are not going to expect this. There’s a lot of psych influences on this record, a lot of fuzz guitar. I’m pushing the band & the arrangements further out, which in turns has to make Charles go further out.” That new direction is most apparent in “Confusion.” Opening with the kind of echo-drenched vocal and charging rhythmic cadence that characterized Curtis Mayfield’s “(Don’t Worry) If There’s a Hell Below, We’re All Going to Go,” Bradley calls down fire on crooked businessmen and duplicitous leaders. “That song is about a lot of those big politicians who think they can make everybody’s decisions for them,” says Bradley. “The higher class think they can make up the rules for us. But a lot of those big wigs have never really been down to the harsh life. They don’t know how it feels. So I’m trying to talk to people who are going through those hardships.” As is typical of Bradley, the song comes off not as a roaring jeremiad, but as a deeply-felt note of sympathy for the oppressed and beaten-down. But if the album has a summary statement, it’s “Through the Storm.” Over a deep gospel groove, Bradley expresses his gratitude - to his fans, his friends and to God - for their support, their dedication and their devotion. “When the world gives you love,” he sings, “It frees your soul.” This is the new message of Charles Bradley, the Bradley who has emerged from the heartache stronger and more confident, overflowing with love to share. This is Charles Bradley, victim of love — gratefully returning the joy that has been given to him.

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High energy LATIN-INFUSED BANDS BRING SWINGING HIPS AND SHUFFLING FEET TO THE PIER

pair of energetic performances got the crowds dancing at last week's show. Fans of La Santa Cecilia and Sergio Mendoza packed the pier to enjoy a night of powerful tunes.

PHOTO CREDIT DAVID ZYGIELBAUM - LA SANTA CECILIA

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PHOTO CREDIT DAVID ZYGIELBAUM

PHOTO CREDIT DAVID ZYGIELBAUM - SERGIO MENDOZA

WATCHING THE SHOW from the beach tonight? Don't forget to recycle your glass bottles and aluminum cans.

2411 Delaware Avenue in Santa Monica

(310) 453-9677

MICHIGAN 24TH

Santa Monica Recycling Center

CLOVERFIELD

Aluminum Plastic Glass Bi-Metal Newspaper CardboardWhite/Color/Computer Paper Copper & Brass X DELAWARE AVE. 10 WEST

PHOTO CREDIT DAVID ZYGIELBAUM - SERGIO MENDOZA

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