and now for a musical break

I love Jane Lui's voice, and this video of her rendition of Edelweiss is just wonderful! Hopefully she will do a show in LA sometime soon. If you like what you see + hear, the song is also on her new album, Goodnight Company, which is worth a listen. It's out now and free to download on her website! Enjoy!

nice strings

Here's a bit of music to help finish off your hopefully lovely summer weekend! I'm a bit late to the party on this one, considering this video is three years old and has a multimillion viewer count, but I just heard it and wanted to share. I love great violin (and all the other string instruments for that matter), and especially love it when it's used unconventionally.

This reminds me of a recent visit to the farmer's market. There was a jazz band playing there, and as a toddler passed by he saw the upright bass, and he looked at his mother wide-eyed and said, 'Whoa, that is one biiiig violin!' It made me smile. His comment and wonder at the huge 'violin' totally made my day.

music break

Hallo. I was just taking a quick break from staring at my blank sketchbook page and happened upon this amazing, ukelele-filled rendition of MGMT's "Kids" by Ooks of Hazzard. It is so great! Ukeleles and accordions can make for some fun listening, so I had to come by and share it with you here. It seems that this band is only a couple months old--amazing!

Okay. Back to staring. Err, I mean drawing.

when we swam

Here's another great tune to help dance away the it's-too-early-for-sunset blues!

I just discovered Thao and the Get Down Stay Down, and love the couple tracks I've heard so far! I love the videos, too! So creative and with great energy! Like it? Check out Swimming Pools for more!

in my ears

I love this new track from Vampire Weekend--it's like the perfect aural antidote to dance away the cold-weather blues.

Ahem. *Not* that I dance. And, not that it's cold here in Los Angeles right now. It was 80-something degrees all weekend! But don't hate me because you're somewhere colder--just have a listen and you'll dance it out and feel better:


Bonus! You can even download the track for free right now here!
Can't wait for the album to come out in January!

another music video:

Her Morning Elegance / Oren Lavie


so, so beautiful.
he has a local show next month, i hope to go!

winter song

Winter Song with Ingrid Michaelson


I can't seem to get enough of this beautiful song lately, by Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson. The video is lovely too! Hope you all are staying cozy through the wintry nights.

beautiful inspiration

This afternoon a friend and I went over to the Grand Avenue Festival downtown. Block off streets, offer delicious food for a few bucks, perform live music, and I'm there! It was quite the afternoon, the highlight of which you see above: we got free(!) tickets to a concert by the LA Philharmonic at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. The hall itself is beautiful, and I had never been inside it until today. By an amazing stroke of luck, our tickets (which had reserved sections) were for the small section behind the orchestra. It was such an experience to sit as if you're looking over the orchestra's shoulders, and a great new perspective to see the conductor at work. And the music!--they performed works by Sibelius, and it was just beautiful.

Of course we ate to our heart's content, and wandered around the concert hall gardens. The afternoon also included a quick visit to the Cathedral where we heard an organ demonstration. The whole outing was made all the better by having gotten downtown via the Metro subway. It was my first time on LA's subway, and aside from a technical glitch on the ride home, I definitely loved the easy access of the subway. The lines should definitely be expanded to cover a greater portion of our city.