All day long
West Indian Girl, Chris Pierce and Very Be Careful brighten Art Performance stage
By Bliss 10/09/2008
Time was, not so long ago, that free festivals and fairs in Greater Pasadena offered music that was guaranteed to offend no one and please … well … those for whom music is something less than a passion. Let’s just say it had more gums than teeth, and soul, world, blues, country, rap and hip singer-songwriters were rarely if ever to be found.
Times have, thankfully, changed.
Lord save us from “the Eastside becoming the new Westside!” as some overly lubricated barfly put it a few years back at a bustling hole in the wall in Eagle Rock. Since then, Eagle Rock has only grown in popularity as a favorite nesting place for creatives, with an annual music festival (whose lineup last week was a vast improvement over last year’s) and more venues hosting live music. Pasadena, meanwhile, has become even more interesting to tastemakers from all over LA; witness recent splashy events like June’s KCRW-sponsored Make Music Pasadena festival.
All of which leads us to ArtWeekend, a three-day celebration of various facets of Pasadena’s rich cultural life. It culminates with ArtPerformance, an all-day, all-ages fest taking place this Sunday in the heart of Old Pasadena — with a musical lineup that, in the past, you’d have had to trek westward to see.
The headliner of the day will be West Indian Girl, a duo-turned-sextet familiar to audiences of the Fold’s club nights in Silver Lake. Processed and produced to a shiny gloss, their trippy electronic indie-rock, lightly dipped in surf and psychedelic pop, is determinedly upbeat and hopeful, despite the fact that the album was recorded in a rathole of a downtown warehouse surrounded by a virtual homeless Hooverville that in fact inspired the album’s title. Like the band, the music’s very LA.
Also on the bill: Chris Pierce, whose warm, low-key neo-soul has earned favor with KCRW and Hollywood’s Hotel Cafe, and Colombian vallenato ensemble Very Be Careful — one of the most exhilarating dance bands around. That observation’s born of personal experience. This writer, as a general rule, detests wedding receptions, at least the kind where guests sit at assigned tables and the music’s deejayed by a wannabe disco hustler. But when Very Be Careful played a friend’s reception, they upended all preconceptions and had people gleefully dancing to Colombian rhythms they’d never heard before. VBC’s in-the-round performance provided a fun, convivial cap to the gathering, and proved an accurate foretaste of their shows, which are even more spirited and engaging. So consider yourself warned: wear comfy shoes, and be prepared to dance.
ArtPerformance takes place from noon to 6 p.m. Sunday on DeLacey Avenue between Colorado Boulevard and Union Street in Old Pasadena. Admission is free. www.OldPasadena.org, www.pasadenaartweekend.com, www.myspace.com/westindiangirl, www.myspace.com/chrispierce, www.myspace.com/verybecareful.
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