Bernie Pearl at Folk Music Center

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Bernie Pearl Saturday May 23, 2009

Bernie grew up in the Los Angeles community of Boyle Heights. He took up the guitar in the 1950’s. Later, at his brother’s legendary Folk and blues showcase, the Ash Grove, he met, studied with, and often performed with greats like Lightenin’ Hopkins, Mance Lipscomb, and Mississippi Fred MacDowell as well as with Freddie King, Albert Collins, and Big Mama Thornton.Bernie played duets with John Lee Hooker at Gerde’s Folk City in Greenwich Village.

“They were my teachers,” he says, “and it wasn’t just music they were teaching. If you took Mance or Lightnin’ out fishing you got philosophy, history, and lessons in life”.

(Thanks for all those years of the Ash Grove, Bernie!)

$10.00

Call (909) 624-2928 for concert times, ticket availability and more information.Folk Music Center, 220 Yale Ave.,Claremont, CA 91711.http://www.folkmusiccenter.com/

No Doubt rehearses at Citizens Business Bank Arena

I was online earlier today when a preview for No Doubt’s tour caught me attention. Apparently the group used Citizens Business Bank arena recently to prepare for their tour.

Here is excerpt from the article from Randy Lewis published in Jakarta Globe:

“Gwen Stefani may be a pop superstar, hit songwriter, fashion maven and role model for millions of girls and young women, but on a brutally hot afternoon recently, on a loading dock outside a largely empty sports arena in Ontario, California, she was just a mom, trying to keep her 3-year-old son entertained while she took on an impromptu decorating project.

“I don’t have time to do this, but you know me — once I get obsessed with something,” Stefani said while splattering globs of sky blue, neon orange and electric pink paint across three large squares of white fabric. She and a couple friends were creating tapestries to hang in the backstage dressing rooms during the first full-scale concert tour in seven years by No Doubt, the once-scrappy ska-rock group that emerged from Anaheim to become one of the biggest-selling pop music acts of the 1990s and early 2000s.

…..Inside the new Citizens Business Bank Arena a short time later, Stefani, bassist Tony Kanal, guitarist Tom Dumont and drummer Adrian Young were showing pretty much the same childlike exuberance and energy as they bounced around the gleaming white retro-futuristic stage set they were trying out for the first time before the tour kickoff Saturday in Las Vegas.”

Here is the link if you want to read the whole thing for yourself:

http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/life-times/arts-entertainment/article/19734.html

Squeakin’ Wheels CD Release Party this Saturday

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Saturday, May 9, 2009 at Folk Music Center


Squeakin’ Wheels are seven musicians who fuse musical influences from a wide range of times and places. Their shows are like an aural tour through the American musical landscape of the past century. In a nod to folk traditions, old songs are reinvented and mixed in with originals by siblings David and Marguerite Millard.

Squeakin’ Wheels are not a traditional string band museum piece but a compendium of folk, country, blues, rock, and gospel flavors. Their soulful, vocal harmonies rubbing up against some rambunctious licks will help you re-imagine what folk music is.

(I’ll be working that night, but request “Red River Valley” — for Carl, OK?)

$10.00

http://www.myspace.com/squeakinwheels

Call (909) 624-2928 for concert times, ticket availability and more information.

Folk Music Center, 220 Yale Ave.,Claremont, CA 91711.http://www.folkmusiccenter.com/