Céu has been the darling of the farmers' market-shopping, Starbuck-drinking, Tom Schnabel-listening set since 2007. Despite that, I always liked her work. Céu’s music has been a guilty pleasure of mine. Her latest release, Caravana Sereia Bloom,  is her best work to date. In just over forty-minutes (the ideal length of an album, in my opinion), Céu pulls all her influences together into a cohesive, short-but-sweet collection of songs. Bits of nostalgia bring to mind some of the great Brazilian artists over the years, such as Antonio Carlos Jobim, Jorge Ben, and Os Mutantes. Yet what I like about Caravana Sereia Bloom is that Céu also recalls her lesser-known Brazilian contemporaries such as Nação Zumbi and DJ Dolores who, much like her, use their Jamaican influences as a base. The result is that the Tropicalia- influenced “Falta De Ar” and 70’s groovy Samba “Contravento” feel right at home with the Jaimaican Rocksteady of “You Won’t Regret It” and “Asfalto E Sal.”

I’m not sure to what extent producer Gui Amabis influences Céu’s music, but he seems to give her room for her imagination to run. The instrumentation is organic and there is less of that laid-back, Electro-Brazilian fusion that people living in Los Angeles have dubbed “The KCRW sound” (although there are a few moments). Caravana Sereia Bloom has exposed everything that I loved about Céu’s voice and music, and guilt-free.

Anyone who's been to Amoeba Hollywood on a Saturday knows that it's always the busiest day of the week. Saturday November 12, 2011 was a reflection of this simple fact, with one major addition: Amoeba Music celebrated 10 years of serving the Hollywood community!!! Amoeba Hollywood officially opened its doors on November 17, 2001 and we decided to celebrate a few days early: filling the store with colorful balloons, conducting trivia contests, and doing what we do best - helping locals, regulars, and visitors find the music, movies, and memorabilia they can't get anywhere else.

This Saturday was also extra special with the help of the crew from KCRW 89.9FM, who were broadcasting live all day from Amoeba's famous stage. This was the first time KCRW ever did a live radio broadcast and the first time Amoeba ever hosted one.

KCRW DJ Chris Douridas kicked things off from 12-2pm, playing a broad mix of tunes from the wonderfully bleak "My Autumn's Done Come" by Lee Hazelwood to the sweet and honest vibes of Michael Kiwanuka's "Tell Me a Tale;" from Ray Charles' pitch perfect version of Sam Cooke's "Laughin' and Clownin" to a brand new Black Keys single, "Lonely Boy" (new album El Camino out Dec. 6th!). KCRW had some challenging trivia questions about the station, with winning answers receiving KCRW hats and Amoeba gift certificates. KCRW also held a Willy Wonka style scavenger hunt with staffers and DJs hiding "golden tickets" among the Amoeba racks: tickets to their December 3rd "Are Friends Eclectic?" concert.

30 Coachella Bands Featured in 30 Days

127 Bands, 5 Stages, 3 Days and 1 Mean Sunburn.

"Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival - April 17-19th, 2009 or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Find 30 Reasons To Love a Weekend in the Desert."

-By Scott Butterworth

     
Day #1 - Artist #1 - Henry Rollins:

“I know that I know him, but I don’t know how I know him.” This is the response I got a couple weeks ago while I was rattling off a whole list of bands/artists, trying to convince my roommate to skip a weekend of his usual non-stop studying for medical school (I mean, where is that going to get you in life anyway?) and join me for the weekend at the Coachella Festival in Indio this April. He made the above statement when I emphasized how excited I was to see Henry Rollins. In the past, I’ve found myself saying the same thing about a number of artists, before my phase of being a self-proclaimed/admitted complete music nerd (which I make no apologies about currently being at the height of). There were many artists that I knew that I was supposed to know…but I just didn’t know why. Some might even say that there were many artists "that wanted me to want them…that needed me to need them," and in fact, I passed up going to many years of Coachella festivals because I simply didn’t have the age, the life experience, a job at a record store, or an older brother to steal records from, to realize the musical, cultural and historical significance of the many artists that have graced the stages of Coachella since 1999.

Born and raised in East L.A., Raul Campos is a DJ that is both old school and new school. He knows the importance of keeping the party rocking, yet is deep in his selections and not one to play the same old jams. He has own show on 88.9 KCRW (Nocturna, M-F from 10 p.m. -12 a.m.) and a new CD out on Nacional Records, Lotería Beats Mixtape, Volume 1. Raul will be doing an instore performance at Amoeba this Friday.

Raul spent years playing clubs, parties, Quinceañeras, even doing a stint at Radio Clandestina, a great pirate radio station out of Highland Park from the early 2000’s, before starting at KCRW. An idea of the show’s eclectic play list ranges from Venezuela’s very cool Cuatro Poder, The Budos Band, Teddy Bear w/Iggy Pop and classics from Sonora Dimamita and Eydie Gorme Y Los Panchos.

In an interview with the L.A. Times, 106.3 Power Tools host Meraz is asked if Raul being Latino makes a difference from other Non-Latino DJs trying to play the same style:

"He's coming from a different space," says Meraz. "It's not just, 'Look what I found.' It's, 'Look what I am.''"