Finally found the right publication for a story I’ve been carrying around for about about a year now. This morning, I made the front page of GOOD with an article I wrote about Village Beat, a California-based collective of artists-activists, and the Slumchella music festival they’re working to produce. Super psyched about this piece—Village Beat does great work, and GOOD is my favorite magazine. Read on to find out why Slumchella needs to happen and how to help make it a reality.

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Just profiled one of my favorite rappers for Resident Advisor. Read why Jonwayne (Alpha Pup/Stones Throw) is the most exciting up-and-comer in the game. Love how RA organized the article—great photos, and you can check out a song from every single Jonwayne release to date.

(And if you’re reaaaaaally interested, read my Q&A with him in L.A. RECORD, too)

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Woke up Wednesday morning to find my review of the Magnetic Fields’ new album Love at the Bottom of the Sea in the front page of Time Magazine’s Entertainment section! Fantastic surprise. Read the full review here.

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Went to Palm Springs at the tail end of Modernism Week with my friend Tim. Got to check out Lautner’s famous Elrod House (1968), thanks to the Los Angeles Conservancy. The James Bond movie Diamonds Are Forever was filmed there! We also toured some of the city’s best hotels (The Parker is so incredible!), checked out a pre-fab housing showcase (furniture was way more impressive than the homes), and met some dinosaurs in Cabazon on the way home.

1-12 Elrod House, 13-20 Parker Hotel, 21-22 Ace Hotel, 23-24 Saguaro Hotel, 25-27 Pre-fab Showcase, 28-30 Cabazon Dinosaurs.

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Dick Whittington Photography Collection, USC Libraries

Earlier this month, the historical façade of downtown’s iconic Clifton’s Cafeteria was revealed for the first time since the early 1960s. For decades, the beaux-arts façade was hidden behind a wall of aluminum grates. On Feb. 7, Clifton’s new owner Andrew Meieran—a director-producer-developer also responsible for revamping the gorgeous subterranean bar The Edison—removed the grates to reveal the original 1904 design as a first step in the process of renovating the building. Meieran bought the cafeteria from the Clinton family, Clifton’s original owners, in 2010.

Read more »

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Very excited to announce that I’ll be joining the development dept. of the Los Angeles Conservancy—one of my favorite non-profits in L.A.—as their new Memberships Assistant! I’ve been wanting to get back into non-profit work for a while now, so I’m pretty thrilled. I’ll still be writing a lot, but I’m real glad to leave the world of full-time freelancing behind. I’m sure that kind of stress has already cut years off my life. In related news, I’ll be writing about film for some new sites soon. More on that later.

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Finally got around to getting my Chile/Peru trip photos organized. Dying to go back to Valparaiso. Miss cazuela. Continue on to see a street dog wearing a hand knitted scarf in Valpo and an alpaca trying to kiss me somewhere in the Sacred Valley.

CHILE: Santiago, Valparaiso (Aug. 12-18, 2011)

PERU: Lima, Urubamba, Cuzco, Puno, Uros Islands (Aug. 19-28, 2011)

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I NEED YOUR VOTE for Best Music Writing 2012! Please nominate my articles for publishing in their new book.

It’s super easy and only takes a minute. Here’s how it works:

1. Click here: http://funboring.com/2012BMWballot

2. Enter my name and affiliations (LA Weekly, L.A. RECORD, OC Weekly, Resident Advisor, Consequence of Sound, CityBeat Long Beach, Obey) in the appropriate box

3. Under “Nominations,” please enter: Lainna Fader, “The Wiltern Opened 80 Years Ago. Its Survival Story Is As Grand As Its Terra-Cotta Tile,” LA Weekly, Oct. 5, 2011, http://blogs.laweekly.com/westcoastsound/2011/10/the_wiltern_opened_80_years_ag.php

4. If you feel like it, you can nominate other articles I’ve written. Some options are below:

— Lainna Fader, “Possessed by the Spirit of ’76,” OC Weekly, Jun. 9, 2011, http://www.ocweekly.com/2011-06-09/music/the-buzzcocks-steve-diggle/
— Lainna Fader, “Sparks Premiere Radio Drama “The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman” Live at L.A. Film Fest Saturday, Guy Maddin Directs the “Film-to-Be” Performance,” LA Weekly, Jun. 24, 2011, http://blogs.laweekly.com/westcoastsound/2011/06/sparks_ingmar_bergman_guy_maddin.php
— Lainna Fader, “Eagle Rock Music Fest Preview: Feeding People On Their Debut LP And A Particularly Memorable Encounter with the Devil,” LA Weekly, Sept. 30, 2011, http://blogs.laweekly.com/westcoastsound/2011/09/feeding_people_eagle_rock_musi.php

5. Submit!

That’s it! DO IT!

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Shabazz Palaces

Alright, I finally got around to it. Here are my top 10 releases of 2011 (plus 10 more awesome albums that didn’t quite make the cut).

Honorable mentions:

Battles – Gloss Drop [Warp]
Wooden Shjips – West [Thrill Jockey]
White Fence – …Is Growing Faith [Woodsist]
Shlohmo – Bad Vibes [Friends of Friends]
a.d.l.r. – Foam on the Waves of Space-Time [Non Projects]
Jonti – Twirligig [Stones Throw]
Kendrick Lamar – Section.80 [Top Dawg]
Thundercat – Golden Age of the Apocalypse [Brainfeeder]
Austin Peralta – Endless Planets [Brainfeeder]
Nicolas Jaar – Space is the Only Noise [Circus Company]

Read more »

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I did five interviews for this issue, but there was only enough space for three. Hopefully my interviews with Death Grips and Martyn will be online soon. Oh, and there’s a 45 RPM Nocturnes flexi in a few copies of LAR 105! If you find one, hang on to it–they’re pretty rare.

JONWAYNE: TRY NOT TO ASK FOR TOO MUCH
JonWayne initially came up as a rapper but now he makes blunted beats on earth when he should be making them somewhere on Neptune or at least in a castle underwater. In a little over a year, the twenty-one year old La Habra-based producer put out Wayniac, Doodles, Remixes Are Things, Bowser, Thanks Bro, I Don’t Care and now, he releases The Death of Andrew on Alpha Pup. He speaks here about his high school days as a football-playing poetry-writing theater geek, recording beats in his bathroom with an 8-track set up on a  trash can, and the first time he played Low End Theory.

DJ SHADOW: THE SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF DREAMERS
Fifteen years ago, DJ Shadow released Endtroducing…, a timeless masterpiece that secured his legacy as a pioneer of instrumental hip-hop and inspired several generation of beatmakers. With his latest The Less You Know, The Better, the legendary turntablist returns to his roots after experimenting on his confrontational and polarizing 2006 album The Outsider. He speaks here about recalibrating people’s expectations, performing in the Shadowsphere, and meeting Francois Mitterand in the sixth grade.

JANIE GEISER: TRYING TO GET CLOSER TO THE MEANING OF THINGS
Somewhere in between dreams and memory, Janie Geiser crafts intricate and enchanting—and often haunting—films with her own handmade puppets and once-loved but now forgotten objects. Geiser’s new series of experimental “Nervous” films—Ghost Algebra (2009), Kindless Villain (2010), The Floor of the World (2010) and Ricky (2011)—screens on tonight at REDCAT, and she speaks here about the first puppets she ever made, feeling electricity in her traveling nerves, and constructing meaning with and without the ability to create memories.

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