Thanks to Liquid Kitty for this rundown of the bands:

BARRIO TIGER
Barrio Tiger is a garage punk band from Echo Park…with a rep to protect for delivering blistering live shows. After the demise of his beloved Juvee skateshop, Calixto Hernandez was losing his mind. “There ain’t nothin’ to do!” he cried so he hunted down Jimmy James, former guitar slinger for kick ass rockers such as The Hangmen, The Comatones, and the Masons. Together they formed the nucleus of what would eventually become Barrio Tiger.

“Garage punk done right!” – Flipside
The BLACK WIDOWS
The Black Widows first got together over an hour ago. They wear black hoods to protect their severe identities. Their music is all instrumental, all original, and all evil. The Black Widows are cool and they don’t like you.  Dr. Vibe: Guitar, no vocals/ The Executioner: Drums, no vocals/ Count Funkula: Guitar, no vocals/ Pharoah Malo: Bass, no vocal

“The bastard offspring of The Ventures and Blue Oyster Cult”
- Dan Epstein, writer and genius

LAWNDALE
Lawndale’s musical palette is drenched with the surfy sounds of the West Coast instrumental groups that preceded it in the 60s, but transcends those sounds with subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) stains of county, psychedelic, jazz, metal, TV and movie soundtracks. Accoring to CMJ “Lawndale practices surf music of the grandest order, raising it to the level of high art.”

“Instrumental Gurus of the Church of the Electric Guitar”
- LA WEEKLY

The MECOLODIACS
Jazz Core Groove Funk from Joe Baiza, guitar (Saccharine Trust, Universal Congress Of); Ralph Gorodetsky, bass; Dan Clucas, trumpet; Wayne Griffin, drums. Baiza once again breaks impressively the boundaries of Jazz, liberating it from obsolete formalism. Think you don’t like jazz? You had better hear these guys before you end up sounding like an a**hole.

“This sprawling ensemble….generates a sprawling amalgam of jazz, funk, R&B and blues all knitted together with a punky starkness…” – Option
BOMBÓN
Three piece, all girl surf rock. …..and they’re from Pedro. It really dosen’t get cooler than this.

“They’re young, they’re girls, and they play amazing garage/surf without the slightest hint of contrivance or inauthentic schtick.  Do not miss BomBon” 
- Qualcuno che sa tutto

“’60s surf-inspired garage punk jams that ride the line between the charm of Beach Blanket Bingo and the soundtrack that might accompany Link Wray surfing on a coffin.” 
-LARecord.com

The EXXTRAS
Born in a hot room next to the docks in San Pedro, the Exxtras can only be described as exxcessive, exxuberant, and exxestential. An exxcellent vocal quartet with Bill Marks – bass (Swing Riots), Raenie Kane – drums, phil0 – guitar, Jack Brewer – guitar (Saccharine Trust) facebook.com/theExxtras

“Pretty damn great stuff. Really. I mean, hey…I really like them and they totally rock..um..you will like them too…OK?”
- That Guy With Great Taste

Tony’s on the Pier

However, through stealthy investigative reporting, The Beat has learned that the cocktail is a Mai Tai with a floater of Bacardi 151. I have always wanted them to light that Bacardi on fire and call it “The Flaming Fire Chief” but no one listens to me. I guess after surviving the pier fire, Tony’s isn’t in a hurry to tempt fate.

Of course it doesn’t really matter what you call it, because after one you call it, “Give me another fruity thing,” and after two you call it, “Gimme my drink, goddamn you,” and after three you just call it, “Fla faa fiiiire driiiink.”

MULTIPLEX

Liam Neeson’s unlikely but highly successful transformation from earnest arthouse performer to action star continues with The Grey (Open Road), an entirely effective outdoors thriller with Neeson as a world-weary sharpshooter stranded in the Alaskan wilderness with a pack of hungry and highly organized wolves on his trail. Director Joe Carnahan (The A Team, Smokin’ Aces) wisely avoids the big-budget histrionics and big-bang set pieces in favor of slow mounting tension and developed characters (though that plane crash is a jaw-dropping special effect); the end result is an  thoughtful balance of violent action and old-fashioned (but not overdone) man-vs-nature drama, driven largely by Neeson’s exceptional gravitas in a part that might’ve been played by William Holden or Joel McCrea half a century ago. Extras include commentary by Carnahan and his editors and deleted scenes.

The very clever Chronicle (Fox), about a trio of teens who develop amazing powers after being exposed to a strange, possibly extraterrestrial object, suffers from just two things: the “found footage” format, which has truly run its course as a stylistic choice, and an uninspired third act which abandons its thoughtful examination of how young lives can be affected by sudden and dramatic change for a standard-issue CGI battle in the skies above Seattle. I suppose that moviegoers also didn’t care for a “superhero” picture (however nominal its association to that moniker may be) that didn’t unfold in mythic terms, but rather in very ordinary, human ways. So it goes; a second chance to enjoy the film’s stronger moments comes with the Blu-ray/DVD combo, which includes director Max (son of John) Landis’ unrated cut.

Most moviegoers also gave a pass to Rampart (Millennium), an exceptionally dark cop drama starring Woody Harrelson as a time bomb in LAPD black caught at the center of a brutality scandal. I assume that the ugliness of Harrelson’s Dave “Date Rape” Brown, who  infects every person and thing around him with his sociopathy, probably viewers hoping for another charismatic turn from the actor somewhat cold. The picture, is not for everyone, despite a terrific cast that includes Robin Wright Penn, Cynthia Nixon, Ned Beatty, Steve Buscemi and Ice Cube and a script co-written by director Oren Moverman (who helmed Harrelson’s great turn in The Messenger) and feverish noir legend James Ellroy, but those who prefer their crime on the darker side of the street will appreciate the intensity of Harrelson’s turn.

Equally intense, but on an entirely smaller, quieter scale, is Albert Nobbs (Lionsgate), featuring Glenn Close’s Oscar-nominated turn in the title role, a 19th English butler whose polished but withdrawn exterior hides the fact that he is actually a woman who has adopted a male persona to escape a ghastly upbringing. Close’s exceptional performance as Nobbs, who finds herself unable to break free of her assumed identity after three decades, is well matched by fellow Oscar nominee Janet McTeer as a housepainter who shares his secret.

ARTHOUSE

Not a lot of light at the Arthouse this week – you have your choice of melancholia with Norwegian Wood (New Video Group), Oscar-nominated director Tran Anh (The Scent of Green Papaya) Hung’s thumbnail sketch of Haruki Murakami’s 1987 novel about a young man weighed down by unrelenting depression cause by his friend’s suicide and a disastrous relationship with said friend’s mentally fragile girlfriend (set to the tune of Jonny Greenwood’s score), or the coal-black vacuum of Michael (Strand), an antiseptic account of a faceless pedophile who keeps a 10-year-old boy in his basement. Both are challenging, imperfect efforts, showing sides of humanity that are not exactly cinematic (or pleasant), but both have their merit for viewers looking for something far outside the boundaries of the movie norm.

There also aren’t a lot of laughs in First Run Features’ The Pruitt-Igoe Myth, a crushingly sad documentary about a much-vaunted public housing project in St. Louis meant to provide affordable housing to low-income families which ended in disaster, demolition and a black eye for the project’s planners and urban renewal in general. But director Chris Friedrich devotes as much of the film’s running time to detailing the miserable fate of Pruitt-Igoe to debunking the “myth” about the project, spun largely by the media and locals, that its failure was due to the (largely minority) people it housed, and not the nationwide dismantling of American cities by economic and political means during the 1960s and early ’70s. For those who note the gentrification efforts within our own fair city with a skeptical eye, Pruitt-Igoe is a cautionary tale about issues of class and wealth that play into every city restructuring effort.

First Run also offers Windfall, which documents the deleterious effect of wind turbines as an alternative energy source on the small New York town of Meredith, as well as the corporate forces behind this seemingly innocuous “green” energy source. On a somewhat lighter note is Man on a Mission (also First Run), an amusing doc about video game creator Richard Garriott’s eccentric vanity project-cum-quest to travel into space, and the frequently grueling opportunity afforded by the Russian cosmonaut program.

REVIVAL HOUSE

I’m in the minority about Spike Jonze’s Being John Malkovich, which arrives on Blu-ray from Criterion this week. The comedy, with John Cusack as a hapless puppeteer who finds a pathway into actor John Malkovich’s brain through a hidden floor in an office building, feels like a great short expanded needlessly to feature length, and filled with grating characters who hew to screenwriter Charlie Kaufman’s leading conceit that the more unpleasant a person is, the more the audience will want to see them engage in that unpleasantry. Not me. Jonze is a clever director in short form, and Malkovich is very funny, but the movie goes nowhere for a long time. I know I’m among the few who feel this way about the picture, so fans will want to know that the Blu-ray features new commentary by Michel Gondry, conversations with Malkovich and John Hodgman and a documentary by Lance Bang.

You ask me, I’d rather spend time with The Odessa File (Image), Ronald Neame’s exciting 1973 thriller with Jon Voight as a German journalist on the trail of a Nazi camp commandant (Maximillian Schell) who may be part of a secret organization run by former SS officers with plans to attack Israel. I’d also be okay with either S.O.B. or Victor/Victoria, two of Blake Edwards’ best late career efforts, though I’m bewildered why these are coming out as MOD titles from Warner Archives and not directly from Warner Bros. itself – didn’t Victor/Victoria earn seven Oscar nominations? Regardless, S.O.B. is a ruthless show business satire with Richard Mulligan as a director who attempts to rescue his latest failure by turning into a softcore musical with a nude scene featuring his wife, a famously goody-two-shoes actress (played by Edwards’ own wife, the famously goody-two-shoes Julie Andrews), while Victor/Victoria stars Andrews as an out-of-work singer who poses as a female impersonator (yes, a woman posing as a man posing as a woman) to break into the Paris cabaret circuit. Both pictures are anchored by exceptional casts, including William Holden, Shelley Winters, Stuart Margolin and Sally Kellerman in S.O.B. and James Garner and Lesley-Anne Warren in Victor. Old pro Robert Preston also turns up in both films, and handily steals them both.

Finally, the anthology feature New York Stories (Mill Creek) offers three separate shorts by Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen and Francis Ford Coppola, but only one is really worth the effort: Allen’s “Oedipus Wrecks,” in which he also stars as a lawyer plagued by his mother (Mae Questel, the original voice of Betty Boop), who vanishes during a magic act, only to reappear in the skies above Manhattan, revealing his most embarrassing moments to the entire city. The picture is probably best enjoyed for spotting a cast of current stars in the early stage of their careers, including Kirsten Dunst, Larry David, Adrien Brody, Steve Buscemi, Illeana Douglas, and a promising young musician named Peter Gabriel, who plays himself.

GRINDHOUSE

Descendents (Lionsgate) is an ambitious and fairly successful attempt to inject an original idea into the zombie film. Made in Chile by director Jorge Olguin (Eternal Blood) for less than you might pay for a decent used car, it views the end of the world at the hands of the hungry undead from the perspective of a group of children, who have united on the strength of a shared dream of the ocean as salvation. The age of its protagonists, which face threats not only from zombies but from trigger-happy adults, ratchets up the tension considerably while making oblique references to Chile’s sordid history of youthful protesters murdered by the Pinochet regime during the 1970s. Not everything works in Descendents, and zombie fans who prefer their fare with heavy shoot-em-up action probably won’t care for it, but if you’re tired of the endless Dawn of the Dead/Walking Dead clones, the picture offers a welcome and stylish alternative.

The Walking Tall trilogy, which arrives on Blu-ray from Shout! Factory this week, always reminds me of Ian Holm, who as Napoleon in Time Bandits, expresses his fondness for entertainment based on “little things… hitting other little things.” In the case of Walking Tall, it’s big things hitting other things – specifically, beefy Joe Don Baker and granite-jawed Swede Bo Svenson (Inglourious Basterds) as real-life Southern sheriff Buford Pusser, who applied a literal understanding of the axiom “speak softly and carry a big stick” to his efforts to wipe out corruption in his small Tennessee town. The first Walking Tall (1973), with Baker as Pusser, has the grit and sweat of low-budget noir (of which director Phil Karlson was a specialist) in its depiction of Pusser’s doomed crusade against small town crooks. The sequels, Walking Tall Part 2 (1975) and Walking Tall: Final Chapter (1977) are lesser carbons enlivened only by Svenson’s towering presence. The real Pusser’s life and struggle are covered in a featurette included with the two-disc set.

Also on Blu-ray: a Spaghetti Western double feature from Mill Creek pairing The Grand Duel (1972), a watchable Lee Van Cleef actioner with a title theme  borrowed by Quentin Tarantino for Kill Bill Vol. 1, and the thoroughly bizarre Keoma (1976), with Franco Nero as a half-breed gunfighter who returns to his home town – a crumbling, smog-drenched, plague-ridden hellhole straight out of a Mario Bava film – to settle a score with his adoptive brothers, who have sided with an outlaw. Of the picture’s many offbeat touches, the score by Guido and Maurizio De Angelis is perhaps the most unusual, an over-amped collection of electrified dirges featuring Nero as Keoma offering a gravely, spoke-sung commentary on the action. Even those dead-set against Westerns should expose themselves to this feature from Italian action specialist Enzo Castellari (the original Inglorious Bastards).

Otherwise, your Saturday night thing can be completed with one of two releases from budget label Alpha Video: Look in Any Window (1961), an astonishingly tawdry thriller-drama with Paul Anka (!) as a  wigged-out teen who numbs his frustrations over his alcoholic, deadbeat parents by peeping in his neighbor’s windows! Alpha also has Hollywood After Dark (1968), a no-rent faux noir with Rue McClanahan (!!) as a burlesque dancer whose dreams of stardom are flushed down the Tinseltown toilet when she takes up with a junkyard dealer pressed into an armored car heist.

SMALL SCREEN

TV’s still in the shop. Check back next week.

Photo by Coco Carmel Whitlock, used by permission.

“Everybody at Stax would come over to hear me play (with The Counts, later renamed The Memphis Blues) at the Cabaret Club at University.  Memphis was a great place to be at that point in time.  Music was just everywhere.  It was thick.  There was always something going on. Great music was always being played or made by somebody. Arthur Conley or Wilson Pickett would be in town, and I always had my ear to the ground at what was happening at Stax.” – Bobby Whitlock

Bobby Whitlock was born March 18, 1948 in Memphis Tennessee, and began his musical career at the legendary Stax while still in his teens, where his distinctive hand claps on Sam & Dave’s “I Thank You” caught the attention of Donald “Duck” Dunn and Steve Cropper.

Dunn and Cropper were grooming the young Whitlock for pop success when Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett first heard Whitlock perform at a club and invited him to join them in California to record on their record Home, in early 1970.  Bobby didn’t have to be asked twice; off to California he went.

Whitlock met Eric Clapton when Delaney & Bonnie were Clapton’s opening act for Blind Faith. Forming a fast friendship, Clapton was highly impressed with Whitlock’s versatile talents, as well as that of his fellow band members Carl Radle and Jim Gordon.

Remaining for awhile with Delaney & Bonnie, after the other band members left to join Mad Dogs and Englishmen with Joe Cocker, Whitlock permanently parted ways shortly thereafter.  Looking for a gig, Whitlock approached Steve Cropper, who suggested that Whitlock visit his old pal Clapton in England.  Re-igniting their friendship, Whitlock lived in Clapton’s house while the two hung out, jammed and subsequently wrote what later became the bulk of the album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs.

It was then, at the behest of George Harrison, that Clapton and Whitlock formed a backing band for the recording of All Things Must Pass, calling upon their former Delaney and Bonnie musicians Dave Mason and Carl Radle.  Jim Gordon was brought aboard as drummer when their first choice (Jim Keltner) wasn’t unavailable due to previous commitments.

 For that recording, Whitlock played an important central role, providing backing vocals (with Clapton as the “O’Hara Smith Singers”), pump organ (Harmonium), electric Wurlitzer, Hammond organ, piano and tubular bells.  However, Whitlock’s instrumental contributions were somehow not credited upon the release of that classic Lp.

Whitlock states that the band received their name Derek and The Dominos on the night of the group’s June 14, 1970 official debut at London’s Lyceum Theatre, due to Tony Ashton ( of Ashton, Gardner and Dyke) mispronouncing their provisional name of “Eric and the Dynamos.”  According to Whitlock, upon leaving the stage at the close of his set,  Ashton erroneously announced them as “Derek and the Dominos”.  Liking it immediately, the band stuck with their new name.

From late August to early October 1970, the band worked at the famed Criteria Studios in Miami Florida, under the guidance of legendary Atlantic Records producer Tom Dowd. The resulting album, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, which featured prominent contributions from guest guitarist Duane Allman, was initially stifled by limited radio airplay and poor sales.  The album is now esteemed by both critics and fans alike to be one of the seminal recordings in the history of Rock.

Today, Bobby Whitlock continues to write and record, both solo and with his wife Coco Carmel.  He enjoys coverage of his songs by numerous noted artists (Sheryl Crow, George Jones, Derek Trucks, to name but a few) and his autobiography, which was co-written with noted music historian Marc Roberty (A Rock ‘n’ Roll Autobiography: Bobby Whitlock, McFarland & Company Publishers), is now a best-seller into its third printing.

From his cozy farm in Austin Texas, Bobby Whitlock shared his personal memoirs of helping to create some of the most iconic Rock albums ever recorded (“I never had aspirations to be a rock star.   It’s just something that I always have been”) and the secret to his enduring success both professionally and personally.

SP: You were only 16 when you started hanging out at Stax.  What did you learn by observing how the musicians, singers, producers and engineers worked with each other?

BW: It was amazing! They had great in-house songwriting teams like Isaac Hayes and David Porter.  To look at them, you would think they were in a band.  They had matching cars and matching outfits.  They would show up at the studio looking like they were gonna go out and play on a stage, lol!

Booker T (Jones) would let me stand behind him, and I’d watch the way he worked.  I must have watched him record hundreds of times.  I’d pick up how he used drawbars on his B-3, and the way he would pre-set them to get different nuances of sound.  I got to watch Albert King, The Staple Singers, Willie Bell, Sam and Dave, Carla and Rufus (Thomas), Betty Crutcher, Homer Banks; every artist they had.  I always knew what was going on at Stax.

 SP: How did you meet and come to record/tour with Delaney and Bonnie?

 BW: In Memphis, I met them through my producers Duck Dunn and Don Nix.  Duck had discovered them (Delaney and Bonnie) performing in a bowling alley in Hawthorne, California, and he then brought them back over to Stax.  They were first called Bonnie and Delaney, because Bonnie could really sing.   Man, that woman could sing! She was gonna be the next Janis Joplin!  Stax put all their machinery behind them, wanting Delaney to stand in the background like Ike (Turner) was doin’ with Tina, but Delaney wasn’t havin’ no part of it!

 SP: After most of your fellow musicians left Delaney & Bonnie & Friends to join Joe Cocker’s Mad Dogs and Englishmen band, many would wonder why you didn’t immediately follow them to join an act that was destined for much greater acclaim and success.

BW: Number one: I wasn’t asked.  Number two: I was loyal to Delaney and Bonnie. Also, I didn’t want to go back on the road with those very same people who were, by this time, a bunch of completely doped up rock and rollers. I wanted nothing to do with that bunch!  The drugs never stopped; it only got worse.  At least I got a little break from all that.

SP: So, how did you come to join musically with Eric Clapton, and how did you become a member of Derek and The Dominos?

BW: Well, Eric and I met when Delaney & Bonnie & Friends opened for the Blind Faith tour.  We got close there, then Eric went on to finish out his tenure with Blind Faith, and we went on to play on his first record (Delaney & Bonnie & Friends).  After that, my thing was over with Delaney & Bonnie, as everyone else had left and went with Mad Dogs and Englishmen.

SP: What was your initial impression of Clapton?

BW: He stood out from everyone else around him, even when he wasn’t onstage.  You could just feel his presence.  He gravitated towards us, and we gravitated towards him.   We were “like minds” of sort.  I think Eric admired the fun and camaraderie that our band had with Delaney and Bonnie, and he wanted to experience that for himself.

Then I went over to England and hung out with Eric for a little bit.  We started writing, and the next thing you know we’re putting a band together!  George (Harrison) asked us to put together a band to be his core band, and we said “Yes!”  The Dominos were formed during the recording of All Things Must Pass.

SP: What particular memory still stands out in your mind of working with George Harrison on All Things Must Pass?

BW: When George and I were standing there, doing “My Sweet Lord”, singing all the background vocals.  That’s just George and me on background, on that track.

SP: Did George, in your personal observations, seem to truly lead a “spiritual” life?

BW: Absolutely!  George carried with him a sense of well-being and peace everywhere he went.  George would walk into a room, and even if you didn’t know he was there by actually seeing him, you would know he was there by feeling his presence!  You could actually feel his presence!  I can feel his presence right now, just talking about him!

SP: With Eric and you as the core founding members of Derek and the Dominos, how did the other members come to join?

BW: We originally wanted Jim Keltner as our drummer.  Keltner was doing this Gábor Szabó album, and Eric and I were doing a session for P.P. Arnold that Carl was supposed to play on, but he couldn’t find it.  As a result, we used Manfred Mann’s bass player instead.   Jim Gordon was on that session, and we were going to have to wait another month for Keltner to finish up with Szabo.  Eric and I were hot to play now, and we’d already worked with Jim, who was an incredible drummer. So Eric and I talked it over, and we said, “Why don’t we just go ahead and ask him (Gordon) now?  He’s here. He’s eager to play, and besides it’s gonna be another month till Keltner can come over.”  So, that’s s how we got Gordon.  Then Carl agreed to be the bass player.

SP: Over these many years, fans have speculated whether Duane Allman was ever considered, or had plans to become, an actual member of the band.

BW: Absolutely not.  Duane was never a Domino.   He was a session player, a sideman, a hired gun as it were.  We asked him, we did want it to happen, but he wouldn’t leave the Allman Brothers without bringing his brother (Gregg) along, and I didn’t want another keyboard player in the band.  We originally thought that having Duane in the band would have worked, but after he sat in with us on two different occasions, we realized it wouldn’t have.  Playing in a structured situation like a studio is one thing, but getting out in the real world is another. The Allman Brothers were a structured Southern rock band,  and each member had their part to play, playing the same notes and figure passages every time they play.  Derek and The Dominos were a sophisticated rock and roll band.  Duane really couldn’t hang with Eric when it came to stretching out solos, tradin’ things over. All of his playing was that way.  Derek and the Dominos’ whole playing was completely outside of it.  Therefore, being that Duane was never that type of player, he could never “hang” with us.

SP: To this day, many fans lament that the band broke up all too soon.  After producing what is arguably one of the greatest Rock albums ever (Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs) why did the recording of the band’s second album fall apart in the studio?

BW: Drugs and alcohol!  Drugs and alcohol, egos and paranoia!

SP: As you look back, what is your fondest memory of the recording of Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs?

BW: The writing and recording of “Keep On Growing”.  That came about because we as a band used to tune up in front of everybody and just jam.  Right before we did anything we jammed, then we’d break into something, you know, into whatever. But always it started with a jam.  On the Layla album before we would record anything we’d jam as usual.  There was really no distinction between the live process and the recording process.  We did exactly in the studio as what we did on the stage.

We were into the third song, and this was before Duane Allman was on the scene. Eric was doing all the guitar work, and it was just a four-piece band.  So, we were going into the third song and we did this great jam and Eric said: “I’m gonna put another guitar on that one!” and since he was playing through a little pig-nosed amp he could talk over it. So Eric laid on one guitar, then he went “Next!” and put another one on, then “Next!”  So there were like four or five guitars on there and it was beautiful!  If you could imagine being a fly on the wall when Rembrandt was painting: what an incredible experience watching the master at work!

When it was finished, it was just this beautiful plethora of musical colors, yet they were gonna can it!  I said: “NO! NO! Give me 20 minutes!”  I took a yellow note pad and a pencil and went into the foyer of Criteria, and my relatively short life kind of just fell out right there and then: melody, lyrics and all!  I went back in to record it-put my voice on it-and I got half way through the verses, stopped and asked Eric to come back out. “Let’s do our ‘Sam & Dave’ thing!” I said, and we did just that! I’d sing a line and he’d sing a line, then we’d sing together.  So it worked out just like that.

SP: In a previous conversation, I remember you telling me the reason that Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs has stood the test of time to remain a seminal recording.

BW: Because it came from a divine source!  It wasn’t just some contrived piece of something that was put together like “Let’s make this record and do this and that, and bring your rhyme book and we’ll craft some songs!”  None of it came together like that. We were all the instruments through which that creative principle of the universe works. Call it the Holy Spirit, God, whatever you choose to call it.  That thing that was behind Rembrandt, that’s what was behind it all.  We did everything that you could possibly imagine to de-rail those sessions: drugs, alcohol, are you kidding me!  NOTHING would stand in the way of that music that was divinely inspired!  Nothing would stand in the way of God expression!

SP: As you look back over you life and career, is there anything you would have done differently?

BW: Absolutely not.  I wouldn’t change anything that I’ve ever done in my entire life, because everything that I’ve ever done has gotten me to this place now.  With my family and with the writing of my book, suddenly my life makes sense. I know now that I was born for this moment.

The festival features performances by Dustbowl Revival, La Santa Cecilia, Lux Aeterna and Vaud & The Villains. crafts include making spoke cards for your bicycle or a rocket ship or a planet. Food trucks scheduled include some of our favorites:  Border Grill, Coolhaus, and Gastrobus. Work off those calories by joining in on Zumba, belly dancing, martial arts, gymnastic, and yoga demos. Learn do-it yourself bicycle repair, maintenance and safe riding tips from Bikerowave. Attendees can also learn about recreation offered by the city and local resources.

…the 21st annual Santa Monica Festival brings together the community while highlighting the dynamic connection between the City’s businesses, arts and environment, providing ideas and solutions for a greener, healthier and more sustainable lifestyle.

At the Food Salon, you can look forward to cooking demos from Alex Moreno, Executive Chef of Border Grill Santa Monica, and chef Marina Ivlev. There will also be a cookbook workshop where participants can choose recipes from Santa Monica chefs and make their own cookbook. This year marks the premiere of ”the Santa Monica Farmers Market “Chef Challenge” cooking competition featuring Nyesha Arrington, executive chef at The Wilshire and contestant on Bravo’s Top Chef Season 9 and John-Carlos Kuramoto, executive chef at Michael’s. They will face off to create dishes that are quick, easy and affordable using Santa Monica Farmers Market ingredients.” The Food Salon host/MC will be none other than friend of The Beat, Eddie Lin of Deep End Dining.

FREE bike valet is available on 25th Street at Ocean Park Boulevard. Parking is also free. The Santa Monica Festival is Zero Waste. Clover Park, 2600 Ocean Park Blvd., between Cloverfield Boulevard and 28th Street. Parking and bike valet are free.

It’s smooth to the touch (it has a satin finish) and does not resemble a human body part-something that always is off-putting to me when it comes to sex toys. Now, down to business. This is perfectly designed. Vibration point 1 is for G-spot action and that it does. I’m someone who is blessed (and I do not take that for granted) with G-spot ejaculation so I gave this a good trial run. Vibration spot 2 is for clitoral stimulation and-get this-you have the option of straight on buzz or a tongue-like feel. What I figured out, and would have known had I read the directions beforehand, is that intensity is controlled by holding the power button.  Intensity is the word here. This is the most intense toy I’ve ever used. Meaning:

Highly recommended.

Participating chefs will include Joe Miller,  Michel Blanchet, the adorable Josie LeBalch,and let’s admit it, the adorable Neal Fraser. Chefs will be preparing delicacies from various regions in France using over 700 pounds of proteins, 200 pounds of cheese and 500 baguettes. Over 30 wineries will be pouring.

In case you get bored eating (as if!), there will be a plethora of activities, including a moon bounce paradise, petting Zoo, a heated swimming pool with a giant waterslide, rock climbing wall, pétaque, soccer, volleyball and badminton. Raffle prizes include two roundtrip tickets to Tahiti or Paris on Air Tahiti Nui, and a weekend at The Ritz Carlton Laguna Nigel (which is gorgeous).

Tickets are $60 for adults and $20 for kids, which is generous extended to 21 years old. LIKE them on Facebook for a $10 discount! Purchase tickets HERE or at Club Culinaire.

Vasa Park- 2854 Triunfo Canyon Rd. – Agoura Hills, CA 91301