In the highly fickle and competitive world of music, bands that may be “great” individually but sound similar to other artists in their genre bracket, there’s a good change they get lost in the static. It is those musicians that straddle genre lines, blending influences to create a sound all their own, that are not only making themselves memorable, but becoming essential to staying relevant to listeners’ eclectic tastes.
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Power, honesty, gritty self-awareness, passion, love, humor, sexuality, self doubt … Every artist must have all of these.
The Independents Vol. 1 is a compilation of extraordinarily talented artists acting out moments of their lives and each and every one of them embody the characteristics mentioned above. The evening air relents and lowers its obstructive heat to give us a moment of cool calm.
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It’s All in the Hands by Ali…
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I am a firm believer that everyone needs to be reminded to get out of their comfort zones – immediately – when it comes to creating. We get stuck in the mundane, the everyday routines, we commit to a single genre or – we simply procrastinate SO I created quick, very casual writing tip videos for you on our YouTube Channel to keep your mind fresh and encourage you to do weekly assignments. While I get to attend a lot of fun and glamorous events and outings and I’m usually dolled up, when it comes to writing – I’m not fancy. I’m real and just like you, I’m sitting in front of the computer or out for a walk and ideas come.
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As the night continues, another dance, a crowd of thirsty dwellers, a trip to the cigar room, a plentiful amount of beautiful people, dance floor flow, and a lot of thoughtful character. La Descarga is a place that reminds me of the “joints” once permitted in old time Cuba. The kind that Reinaldo Arenas dared to write about:
I pull off the cover, and stare at her dusty, cold shape I clean of fthe dust and caress her. With my hand, delicately, I wipe clean her back, her base and her sides. In front of her, I feel desperate and happy.
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Fashion Report: Going With Camo by Ali…
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This week I’m getting spontaneous with a female of the species and verbally riffing with the lovely, talented and hard working Dawn Garcia. She is the visionary behind A TASTE OF DAWN Magazine and all-around champion of creative spirits in the world of food, film, music, entertainment, arts and fashion. Dawn’s purpose is to inspire the world to savor every moment. So let’s do just that and enjoy her responses to the randomness that is ‘Free Associate Fridays’.
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Z’Tejas Chile Fest By Greg Barraza |…
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If ever there was a glamorous graveyard, Hollywood Forever Cemetery is it. It is the final resting place for legends like Cecil B. DeMille, Vampira (Maila Nurmi), and the man we were there to celebrate: Ramones guitarist Johnny Ramone. Don’t let the cemetery aspect spook you—with lush magenta bougainvillea, pristine stone statues and soothing water features, Hollywood Forever is simply beautiful.
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The evening begins with a plethora of tastings. A throw back to the streets of New Orleans, the ostentatious melody of flavor and combination, and a wetting of ones appetite. It must be told that Five0Four is a restaurant and bar that has that open-air appeal with a subtle familiarity you’ve been there before. A testament to the environment they create and while it’s located right off of the infamous Hollywood Boulevard, you can sit outside, feast your eyes on the passersby, the tourists, the entertaining factor of life in real time.
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Global warming is an issue that has garnered bursts of widespread attention in both mainstream media and flyers on the walls of local colleges, with an impact as concerted as it is aloof. Films about the “inevitability” of our ill-fated demise (2012, An Inconvenient Truth) stand toe-to-toe with those rallying against the supposed absurdity of such a notion (The Great Global Warming Swindle). In a sort hilarious twist of irony, there may be a bigger issue at hand here, one that connotes the idea of a hell-on-earth as defunct.
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Fashion Report DENIM – ATOD Magazine’s Friday Fashion Report with Celebrity Stylist, Ali Levine and her Design Team
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Allow yourself to laugh loudly, openly, make strange noises, cry, and clap vigorously if you appreciated the performance. Not only will you feel good, your positive energy and encouragement nourish those performing. Support local talent and local venues. Give back however you can, even if it is just a heartfelt smile.
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Today begins a very interesting journey. I’m relinquishing my rights to choose my own dates and handing the baton over to my friends. First you better know who I am. My name is Dawn Garcia. I’m the Editor and Founder of this Magazine. I hosted a Radio Show and am hosting a new WebSeries. My entire profession revolves around telling other people’s stories, making sure the world knows about the amazing talent out there, and I even write the occasional screenplay. I work a LOT. And the most important thing … I’m a single mom. Emphasis on single.
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When Imagination Breathes Right Before Your Eyes…
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He is a thin, handsome man in a striped shirt and jeans, sipping on Stella Artois and bobbing to the music–and I realize it’s the second headliner of the night, Orlando Napier–and since we are standing inches from the speakers, I flip into a blank page of my notebook and write “Break a leg up there” and hold it up to him. He smiles and shakes my hand twice before hopping on stage, embracing a glistening-with-sweat Shaun B. who concludes his set with supercharged covers of Stevie Wonder and The Turtles’ “Happy Together.”
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It is with this in mind that I was struck by how at odds I felt about the actors’ ability in conjunction to the film’s style and narrative. Undoubtedly a by-product of the director’s decided dismissal of maintaining strict coherence of his script, throughout the narrative Renata and Val carry on Linklater-esque conversations in an awkward, pause-filled manner that initially induces a sort of ticking time-bomb dread.
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Friday Fashion Report: Leather in Pieces – At the Teen choice Awards this year, leather was on the red carpet. Barely …
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Chef Chad White Prepares a Feast for…
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Fashion Report: A Little Something With POW! – Accessorizing with some fierce necklaces.
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This is the show that the performers would put on for each other. The juggler dropped his pancake (more on that later), the sword swallower even choked up just a little bit of the spaghetti from his dinner (I’ll leave that one alone). That said, even before the show started, I felt like I was in on the jokes, maybe even sitting in Stefan’s living room, dancing a little too wildly and drinking more than I should. So along with other performers, the audience and I cheered the successes, forgave foibles, and generally had a delightful time doing so.
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So, as many of you know, I am a full-grown man. I chop wood, wear flannel, play a contact sport, drink beer, do dumb things with my friends, and eat an excessive amount of meat. I like to pride myself on my carnivore-like nature. Walking through the welcome gates at the OC fair, I experienced the beginning stages of a meat stroke. Then proceeding further through the smoke and smells of my paradise, I came to behold Juicy’s World Famous BBQ … They had an eighteen wheeler truck BBQ station, with over 300 turkey legs in sight, a brisket bigger than my torso, giant western sausages that could overflow an Olympic sized pool, and onions and peppers for days.
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While higher-budgeted docs filled with even bigger names might elicit the awe of that Hollywood intangibility, Cawley’s down-to-earth subject matter, and even the subjects themselves, bring us into the story of our own lives. We don’t want to be the people on-screen, these celebrities of sight and sound and tactile surfaces, but rather we wish to paint the stars of our respective destinies with the footnotes of these men and women’s successes, failures, moments of elation, and of suffocating despair. They are, in a word, human.
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Fashion Report: This Week We Go TRIBAL!…
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Just then, the lights begin to dim as a loud voice comes on over the loudspeakers, the once-deafening shouts of a crowd in conversation with itself dying down as a spotlight follows impresario and tonight’s host Stefan Haves down the right side of the theater to the main stage. Mr. Haves is known for “frequently drawing on LA talent to re-invent physical theater, circus, and clowning — stubbornly breaking every artistic wall in a town whose theatrical conventions and filmic traditions often tend toward maintaining that stubborn ‘fourth wall’ [pasadenaplayhouse.org].”
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