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If you'd like to venture out to Hollywood on a Thursday night and see something really cool and interesting, go over to The Steve Allen Theater at 8pm and check out ResBox, a monthly event featuring the best in experimental and improvisational music.

Musician and filmmaker Hans Fjellestad spearheaded the ResBox project in Hollywood after founding a similar group in San Diego called Trummerflora. The latter group started small in a tiny area of San Diego in the late 1990's and has grown into a very large collective of experimental and improvisational musicians and performance artists who still perform around San Diego and now Los Angeles - as well as New York City and around the world.
You can find their works here and you can also find CD's on the site as well as iTunes. (I highly recommend the Christmas CD "...and the Reindeer You Rode in on (from 1999 on Accretion Records)" - which consists of experimental interpretations of Christmas songs.

Fjellestad is playing in a two-person group tonight called "ICE CREAM" which also includes Amit Itelman and the evening also will feature performances by Steve Roden, Yann Novak and VJ Fader. Tonight is the last of the ResBox monthly series.

You can find more of Fjellestad's musical work here and here. He has made several documentary films (several about music) that includes A Frontier Life (2002) and Moog (2004), about the life and work of synthsizer maker Robert Moog. Expect three more films in the very future from Fjellestad.

The Steve Allen Theater is located at 4773 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90027

Them Crooked Vultures will play a special one time only club show at the Roxy Monday, November 16, the day before the band's self titled debut is released. The band consists of Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters, Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age and John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin, among others.

Tickets will be available exclusively in-person at the venue on show day. No lineups prior to 2pm. Ticket holders will be required to enter immediately after purchase. No ins and outs. Tickets are non- transferable

The show will be open to all ages. Box office and doors open at 8:30. Them Crooked Vultures on stage at 10:30

If you want to venture to the Palm Springs area Saturday, cruise on down to the Spotlight 29 Casino in Coachella Saturday and check out the Old School Reunion IV concert with Midnight Star, Expose', Freestyle Evolution, Club Noveau and Suzi Carr of "Will to Power" playing in consecutive sets.

It's been 26 years since Midnight Star's breakout R&B hit record No Parking on the Dance Floor with the dance hits "No Parking on the Dance Floor" and "Freakazoid" and nine years since they reunited the original lineup. They've toured consistently since 2000 and released an album of new material called "15th Avenue" in 2002.

The group mostly plays shows with other R&B groups of the 80's including Zapp (without Roger Troutman who is deceased) and Con-Funk-Shun, among many others.

Expose is an 80's soul singing group who had a major hit with the song "Point of No Return," as well as other minor hits and they have also reunited. - as has Club Nouveau, who had a hit song with the remake of Bill Withers "Lean on Me" in 1987.

The show starts at 8pm. The address of the casino is

Spotlight 29 Casino
46-200 Harrison Place
Coachella, CA
1 866 377-6829

If you can make some time tonight, head on over to The Hotel Cafe in Hollywood and hear Lindsay Ray play. She's a fantastic singer/songwriter from Maine - which is also home to another good singer - Ray LaMontagne.

Ray's show tonight is also a CD release party - celebrating her new record The Picture Perfect - which is available on iTunes and her own website where you can hear some of her tunes before you go.

Ray calls her style 'quirky-pop' and a few of her songs have been featured in television shows such as Knight Rider and on The Style Network, E! Channel and the Lifetime TV Movie "Sorority Wars"

The show starts at 9pm and the tickets are $10 advance or $12 at the door. You can get advanced tickets at the Hotel Cafe site. The first 50 people through the door get a free EP.

The Hotel Cafe's address is 1623 1/2 N. Cahuenga Blvd (between Hollywood and Sunset).

Most Friday nights at The Hotel Cafe in October have featured (or will feature) great musical acts and this coming Friday the16th is no exception.

Keaton Simons will play at 9 p.m. that night and is a fantastic singer/songwriter
who is great on record and better live. His genre of music is blues
for the most part, and his voice and guitar-playing certainly match
that. His songs are sometimes acoustic, sometimes blues-pop and
sometimes just rockin — but they are always great.

He released his full-length debut CD called "Can You Hear Me" in June 2008 on CBS Records and he has been touring around the country in support of it ever since - playing in Los Angeles sparingly among those stops. The album is a brilliant mix of blues, pop with some rockin' thrown in, with some of the standout tunes that include the very radio-friendly 'Good Things Get Better;' the mellow 'Without Your Skin;' and the blues-rippin' 'Mama Song' and 'Burch Mog.' Another track on the record is perfect for today's weather - add some rain, some wine, some cold, maybe a fireplace along with your significant other and then play the song 'Currently.' Perfect combination.

You probably have already heard his songs and didn't realize it. One
of his tunes is featured in several trailers for the Starz Network
television series "Crash," and several of his tunes have been in the
television shows "Men in Trees" and "Numbers" and the movie "Sky High."

Since his last show in Los Angeles in the summer, he has made a video for 'Without Your Skin' which is here on his youtube channel. He is all over the place online with Facebook fan pages here and here; a myspace page and his own website . He is also on twitter and has created a weekly conversation called Twitterviews where on Mondays, he and another artist interview each other on twitter. That happens at 1pm PST each week.

On Friday, he goes on at 9pm, right after The Makepeace Brothers. Look for new album from Simons soon too, but check out his show first. You're guaranteed to love it.

Not only is The Hotel Cafe a great music venue, but look for several outstanding artists and bands playing during the month of October. Here are a few:

Schuyler Fisk - October 1 (tomorrow)
George Stanford - October 2nd (Friday)
Lelia Broussard - October 6th (Tuesday)
Andy Clockwise - October 9th (Friday)
Keaton Simons - October 16th (Friday)
(Simons has a song featured in several trailers for the Starz Network television series Crash.)
Brian Wright - Every Friday all month, except for the 16th
Sweet Talk Radio - October 20th and 27 (both Tuesday nights)
The Mornings - October 23rd (Friday)

Also, in early November
Curt Smith (of Tears for Fears) - November 2nd (Monday)
Will Hoge - November 5th - (Thursday)

for more on the lineups at The Hotel Cafe, go here

If you're in Hollywood this Friday night, head over to The Hotel Cafe and give a listen to singer/songwriter George Stanford. He is a phenomenal talent, has excellent songs and a great band.

Stanford is from Philadelphia and has been in Los Angeles playing for several years. When I saw him the first time several years ago, he was playing with The Denim Family Band, who split up when two of the guys left - Stanford being one. Stanford then went solo and recorded his debut CD "Big Drop," which was released in June of 2008. He's been playing and touring in support of the album ever since, playing the Hotel Cafe and Crane's Hollywood Tavern several times over the past several months.

Several of the times I've seen him play recently, he was on the same bill as Truth & Salvage Co - which consists of many members of the no defunct Denim Family Band. Like Stanford, Truth & Salvage also got signed and they are now touring with The Black Crowes. They'll be playing Los Angeles with the Crowes in November. More on that later.

If you can, see Stanford play or get his album Big Drop. It's really good - particularly the title song, "30,000 Feet," "Downriver," "My Own Worst Enemy" and one song that's not on the album but still great, "Meet Me in Los Angeles."

He is also playing at Crane's on Wednesday October 14th

Hotel Cafe is 1623 1/2 N. Cahuenga Blvd in Hollywood.
Crane's is at 1611 El Centro Blvd, in Hollywood/Los Angeles.

You can find the album on iTunes and Stanford's music page on Facebook and here.