Something special again this week. Even the announcer at Radio France Musique said so.

L.A.'s very own (we like to think so) Gustavo Dudamel leading Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France in an all-Brahms program (Symphony Number 3 and Symphony Number 1). Recorded live last week as it was happening, it's further evidence that Gustavo Dudamel is one of the greats and the brightest light to come along in a very long time.

The program is broken up between two players. The top player is the Brahms 3rd Symphony and the bottom player is the Brahms 1st Symphony. Announcements are in French and the audience is bonkers.

Here's the program:

Brahms:
Symphonie n°3 en fa majeur Op.90 (1883)
1- Allegro con brio
2- Andante
3- Poco allegretto
4- Allegro

Symphonie n°1 en ut mineur Op.68 (1876)
1- Poco sostenuto - Allegro
2- Andante sostenuto
3- Poco allegretto e grazioso
4- Adagio - Piu andante - Allegro non troppo ma con brio - Piu allegro

Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France
Gustavo Dudamel, Direction

Enjoy and see a live concert at some point soon.

A dose of 60's Bay Area Psychedelia tonight by way of the legendary Quicksilver Messenger Service. More a staple in the diet of early FM underground, Quicksilver didn't get a mainstream hit until 1970. By then they had undergone several personnel changes and the band that gigged back and forth between the Fillmore in San Francisco and The Shrine Expo Hall in L.A. didn't bear a whole lot of resemblance.

Tonight's track is off their debut album, which was released by Capitol in 1968. Pride Of Man began life as a song by Folk artist Hamilton Camp. Reworked and featuring the iconic guitar work of the late John Cippolina, it is a classic of the Psychedelic genre.

And in case you missed them the first time around, you can pretend it's 1968.

For the next four minutes anyway.

Update: Still hovering at the 3/4 mark with just a little ways left to go. My deepest appreciation and sinceret thanks to those of you who have donated in the last few hours. Your contributions have been lifesaving. We're so close to hitting our goal and I am so blown away by your support of this site and what we're trying to do. We're getting there and,with your help, we'll succeed. Any amount you're comfortable with, it is all needed and it all chips away at the problem. You're making a huge difference. Just a little bit more to go - we can do it - we are doing it! You are all amazing.

April 29th may have marked the 20th anniversary of the start of the now-famous Rodney King Trial verdict insurrection, but April 30th was when the shit truly hit the fan and the streets were filled with anger and violence. Fires sprang up everywhere, most raging out of control because fire fighters were in short supply and the ones who did respond were attacked. The Police were mostly powerless to stop the rage and stores and businesses throughout the city were broken into, ransacked and burned. As of the start of the morning of the 30th, 9 had already been reported dead, with scores injured and a city in chaos and spreading.

Here is coverage, as presented by Public radio station KCRW, who also broke in and out to carry news reports from the local TV outlets as well as CNN. This recording covers the period of time from 8:55 am until roughly 10:00 am on the morning of the 30th. There are two press conferences, one from Mayor Braddley assessing the situation and Chief Darryl Gates. Also covered are statements from President Bush and a lot of eyewitness accounts.

And this day was only starting.

A change of pace tonight. Some electronica/Techno/Experimental/Pop from L.A. duo The Bird And The Bee, who consist of Greg and Inara in the studio but a full compliment of band members for live gigs.

In the six short years they've been together they've managed to put out an impressive avalanche of material and are doing quite well in the area of soundtracks.

Tonight's track, I Hate Camera is off their self-titled first album, released in December of 2006.

They have a website, a Facebook page and a pile of other goodies with which to connect. You might want to check them out and see what's going on.

It seems to go along with Saturday night quite nicely.

(P.F. Sloan -aka: The Grass Roots - confusing, not really)

When the Grass Roots gained attention with their first single, Where Were You When I Needed You, there was one catch - there actually was no Grass Roots - just two songwriters who wrote songs and cut a bunch of demos with some session folks of which tonight's track was one of them and it hit #28 on the charts.

P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri were house writers for Dunhill Records, an L.A. label very big in the mid-1960's when folk-rock was just about hitting its peak. The had written songs for a number of artists at the time and had gained an insiders notoriety as a talented and edgy songwriting team.

So when the first single was a hit, the problem became what to do about putting a band together. Eventually one was assembled, but after this single and the subsequent album that followed, the band that became the actual Grass Roots had very little in common with that first incarnation. Certainly what made the early non-Grass Roots Grass Roots so appealing was the edge and bite to their songs. And even though they went on to become huge as a pop group, they abandoned their initial protest stance and opted for a more commercial sound and that lost their early fan base.

Certainly not the first time that's ever happened and certainly won't be the last.

But tonight it's the early, edgy Grass Roots - rather timeless.

(The Toasters - no confusing with the other one . . at all)

The L.A. scene was all over the place genre-wise in 1979. With bands like Fear, X and so many others filling the venues in Hollywood, there was also the quasi-punk/garage/skinny tie/Farfisa Beat bands like The Knack that had a more universal commercial appeal (i.e. good for airplay), filling the venues on the Strip and frankly, there was enough room in L.A. to support just about everybody.

The Toasters (not to be confused with the New York Ska band of the same name) came along and gave it a shot. They got a reasonable amount of airplay and word-of-mouth and played at most of the venues around the Strip (The Starwood being a sort of "honorary" strip venue). But after spending a goodly amount of time in 1982 doing a demo for RCA which failed to click they slugged on and eventually gave up the ghost in the mid-1980's.

This is one of their singles (I believe they released two), Stuck On You which was released on their own Bagel Records.

If you couldn't get someone to do it for you, you had to do it yourself.

(Suburban Lawns - where would we be without Art School?)

Continuing my dig through the top-shelf box of 45's. Tonight it's Suburban Lawns and a staple of KROQ and several other "like-minded" radio stations at the time. Janitor was, if I remember, played to death.

And why not? The inimitable voice of Su Tissue was a little like Yoko Ono on glue and it was so weird it was actually rather hypnotic.

Sadly, the band from CalArts didn't last very long. Almost long enough to get signed to a big label (well . . .I guess you could say IRS was a big label at the time), do an album and ep and call it a day by 1982.

Still, there was a time in 1980 where you couldn't go for more than 15 minutes without hearing it someplace.

That's got to be worth something.

(She Wants Revenge - Perfect date night songs . . .depending)

Heading over for a dose of Darkwave/Techno tonight. She Wants Revenge is a duo from L.A. consisting of Justin Warfield and "Adam 12" Bravin. They've been kicking around since 2005. Two albums (a third being worked on as we speak), several ep's so far and a far reaching fan base. This track These Things is from their first ep. For some reason, it spoke to me this Wednesday night. Maybe it's because tomorrow is Tax Day . . .I dunno. The word Cheery doesn't come to mind.