Bill Murray Song

Do you “keep it Bill Murray?” Sweatshop Union certainly does!

Happy Friday!

-LAMA Staff

The 5 Best Opening Acts Ever

You got your hands on front row concert tickets. You have your $10+ beer. You have your specially designed ear plugs to withstand the loud noise. You are ready to be blown away and then the opening band comes on. And stays on. And keeps playing and playing and playing. If you haven’t had something like this happen to you – you probably don’t go to many concerts! Opening bands have garnered the reputation of killing the mood of many a concert. However – every blue moon you see an opening act so incredible and so amazing that at times they are even better than the headliner. Recently Ranker, a website that ranks things of all shapes and sizes asked their community to to vote on the best opening acts they had ever seen. Let’s take a look at their Top 5 in descending order:

5. Weezer Opening For No Doubt

No Doubt in itself would be a great night of music – but add in the Blue Album boys!? It turns into an epic night. The band opened for No Doubt in the Spring and Summer of 1997 which was an interesting time for both bands. No Doubt was riding high on the chart-topping success of “Tragic Kingdom” while Weezer had released the now legendary “Pinkerton” record which at the time left their fans confused and unsure but now has legendary status. We wish we would have been smart enough to see this show!

4. Alice In Chains Opening For Van Halen

This is an ironic one because Van Halen infamously opened for Ted Nugent in the 70s and blew him away! Looks like Van Halen got a taste of their own medicine by letting these grunge icons warm up the crowd in 1991 during the “Van Hagar” era. Rumor has it that Van Halen would purposefully pick lackluster bands so that by the time Van Halen took the stage the crowd would be extra excited. Don’t pick Alice In Chains for this task.

3. Pixies Opening For U2

The Pixies are generally known as a band that got more popular 10 years after they broke up than they were at their prime. Leave it to U2 to be aware of new and cutting edge music to allow them to offer their opening slot to The Pixies on the Zoo TV tour.  While audiences probably didn’t appreciate the quartet from Boston — these same fans are now kicking themselves that they didn’t get there early to hear The Pixies at their best! Although they did break up soon after this tour so maybe it wasn’t meant to be…

2. Foo Fighters Opening For Red Hot Chilli Peppers

What seems like decades ago, the Foo Fighters opened for Red Hot Chilli Peppers on their Californication tour. Um… wow! Two alternative rock legends sharing the same stage? If you were a fan of Alt-Rock you pretty much just needed to see this show and you were good for the year. We even remember the foreshadowing as we watch both of these acts grace the same stage at the Tibetan Freedom Concert in San Francisco — in 1996!

1. Jimi Hendrix Opening For The Monkees

This is the grandaddy of all opening act stories. We have heard this story in so many incarnations and so long we just wish video existed of the event. 60s Teen Pop sensation The Monkees were reportedly huge Jimi Hendrix fans. Yes, THE Jimi Hendrix. They were such big fans that they asked him to open up for them. Lets just say their fan base wasn’t ready for what came next. A cacophony of sound and vision and – just utter amazingness. There were boos, walkouts, and angry parents! We can’t even imagine what that would have been like to witness.

So what is the moral of the story concert fans? It is probably worth it to put up with hundreds of bad opening acts just for the chance to see one that blows you away. The easiest way to deal with a bad opening act is to bring your earplugs or to go out and get a beverage of choice in the lobby. Musicians! Use it as an opportunity to learn, what are they doing RIGHT, what are they doing WRONG! Critiquing leads to learning. And if you see a Jimi Hendrix opening for you don’t be on the wrong side of history and boo him! Always keep an open mind 🙂

-LAMA Staff

Support Record Store Day – April 21!

We know, we know, you love your iPods, flash drives, and MP3s. However – there used to be a simpler time when you would walk down to your local record store and pick out the newest CD, LP, or cassette tape. It is hard to believe just about 10 years ago we were paying full retail price for CDs at the local Tower Records. Now there isn’t even a Tower Records to visit! However, there are tons of local independent record stores still carrying on the tradition of selling physical format products.

The original idea for Record Store Day was conceived by Chris Brown, and was founded in 2007 by Eric Levin, Michael Kurtz, Carrie Colliton, Amy Dorfman, Don Van Cleave and Brian Poehner as a celebration of the unique culture surrounding over 700 independently owned record stores in the USA, and hundreds of similar stores internationally. Thousands of bands and labels have started participating and now print up special exclusive “Record Store Day” merchandise that is often free just by showing up to the store! If you want to see the best offerings from last year check out this Rolling Stone pictorial here.

LAMA students! These fine Pasadena stores below will be participating on April 21st! Get there early and get your gear and for more info go to the official Record Store Day website.

-LAMA Staff

Canterbury Records	1.8 mi.	Pasadena, CA	VISIT WEBSITE
Permanent Records LA	2.2 mi.	Los Angeles, CA	VISIT WEBSITE
Penny Lane Records	2.8 mi.	Pasadena, CA	VISIT WEBSITE
A Dark Philosophy Records	3.7 mi.	Los Angeles, CA	VISIT WEBSITE
Poobah Records	3.9 mi.	Pasadena, CA

Get Your Summer Music Learning On!

Warm weather, trips to the beach, hiking outdoors… While summer is a the time for all those things, it’s a great opportunity to polish your musical chops. Prestigious music schools and colleges often offer summer music programs and camps that are open to musicians of all ages and skill levels. Music schools also have more advanced programs for experienced musicians. For the beginner it can be a great way to mingle with music royalty — while at the same time, you’ll get a taste of what day to day life is like at a music college. For the experienced student, a Summer music program can keep you fresh! Nothing would be worse than forgetting what you learned because of too much fun in the sun!

At LA Music Academy’s Summer Program, students write an original song, play in Ensemble Workshops, record, see their instructors performing daily, and much more. As with all programs at the Academy, the small, friendly environment and personal attention combined with daily playing/singing gives the student the most focused style-specific musical training possible in one week. LAMA is currently taking admission submissions now so what are you waiting for? Sign up here .

Guitarists and bassists must possess basic tablature reading skills. Placement evaluations will be held after orientation on the first day. Most students are teens and adults, but children as young as 9 are welcome.

Look for the info about summer music camps on music college websites, like LA Music Academy’s Third Annual Drummers Reality Camp. You may remember the DRC camp from the first two years, which featured some of the top drummers in the world. Taking place June 27th-30th, 2012 #DRC is brought to you by Drum Channel, Guitar Center, and LA Music Academy College of Music. Here you’ll have a chance to hang with and learn from the best drummers on the planet! The 2012 lineup includes Neil Peart, Doane Perry, Jim Keltner, Gil Sharone, Marco Minneman, Ralph Humphrey, Joe Porcaro, Tony Inzalaco, Gary Ferguson, and Uli Frost!

Just because admission requirements for the camp are open to more people doesn’t mean experienced musicians shouldn’t take part as well. In fact some of LAMA’s best students will be sitting front row – who wouldn’t want to hear awesome stories and insight from Rush’s Neil Peart?! For more info on DRC visit the official website. We’ll see you in June!

SO! Don’t fall prey to the summer slack off that some musicians do. You don’t have to ditch the beach and relaxation, but keep sharp and sign up for a summer music experience of some kind!

-LAMA Staff

We ♥ Music.

A picture is worth a thousand words:

(via http://bit.ly/JamN0f)

-LAMA Staff

The 5 Best Bass Guitar Solos On The Planet?

Save your guitar solos, your drum solos, and your vocal solos for another day. This is about that real low end…the bass! These are our 5 favorite bass solo videos on the planet. Let us know what you think! Turn that subwoofer up (or down):

1) John Entwistle from The Who Bass Solo at Royal Albert Hall

2) Billy Sheehan Bass Solo

3) Jason Newsted Bass Solo w/ Metallica

4) Victor Wooten Bass Solo

5) Bootsy Collins Bass Solo

Was that enough bass for you? Look for The 5 Best Bass Solos Part 2: Return Of The Thump soon!

You can also check out the instructors and tips/info for the LA Music Academy bass department here: http://bit.ly/Hk4kD9.

-LAMA Staff

Drummer Rage

Ain’t it the truth?

source: http://imgur.com/XGq9o?tags

-LAMA Staff

5 Reasons: Study Bass Guitar at Music School

We LOVE the bass guitar. And some of the most dedicated players to have passed through LA Music Academy were bassists. We’ve learned a lot about why they chose to study music in a professional setting like LAMA. Besides the obvious — learning from and playing with pros, formal training, diverse understanding of styles and technique, peer to peer feedback, networking — we’re highlighting five of the reasons why you should pursue a degree for bass guitar:

1) Stand out.

Savvy business folks find a need and fill it with their product or service. This can apply when it comes time to pick your instrument —  usually people flock to the guitar and everything else comes after. You might be asking “Shouldn’t I study something more popular then?” Well, frankly, guitarists are a dime a dozen whereas we constantly hear of musical settings where a good, solid bassist is in need. Here’s an opportunity to be big fish in a small pond? When people meet a student who is studying bass guitar, relatively speaking, you are already a stand out.

2) Everyone needs a bassist!

Speaking more about standing out and filling a need — just scan classifieds and musician ads. There are always tons of situations where a qualified bass player is in need. Bands having to book a last minute tour frequently scramble for a bassist. You would be surprised how many great gigs you can score just being a bass playing journeyman. Having a degree from a music college like LAMA would certainly help with this process. The same goes for recording projects — being a solid bass player comes in handy for getting interesting session work.

3) Bass playing is an excellent complement to music production.

Whether you are studying music production or just fancy yourself as a “weekend engineer” a proficient understanding of bass can help quite a bit with your production career. Most musicians can play a little guitar or a little piano but very few play bass properly. This is a huge plus for musicians looking for a producer — they’ll see a bass in the corner of your studio right under your framed bass performance degree, which lets them know they are in good hands.

4) Good company.

Roger Waters. Paul McCartney. Geddy Lee. Phil Lesh. Les Claypool. These are some of the most versatile bass playing songwriters around. While guitar was used to compose some of the classic songs we hear, there is no doubt those bass playing fundamentals impacted the incredible songs in these catalogs. The reason we mention all these people is to illustrate to you that just because you play bass doesn’t mean you can’t be front and center of your group — be a classic songwriter and verified rockstar!

5) Your value in a live setting.

Have you ever heard a band sound checking without a bass player because he or she was running late? We have – and it’s usually terrible! The bass is insanely vital and nowhere is it felt more than in a live setting. It connects all the different instruments with the drums and keeps that song grooving. In a live setting, bass is one of the instruments that the audience can truly “feel”!

So when you are touring your possible music schools make sure you ask if they have a bass program – and if they don’t offer one we suggest you think twice about that school! #stopthebassism lol. For more info on the visit the webpage for LAMA’s bass performance degree.

-LAMA Staff

Video Quick Tip: Jazz Drumming – “Accenting Triplets”

LA Music Academy College of Music Jazz Drums Instructor Tony Inzalaco received a Bachelor’s degree (percussion) and a Master’s degree (music education) from the Manhattan School of Music in New York. He has performed in Carnegie Hall, The Guggenheim Music, The New York World’s Fair, the Apollo Theater and the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. While in New York, he played in all the major jazz clubs including the legendary club Birdland. He has traveled extensively, performing in major club venues and festivals in the U.S., Canada and throughout Europe.

He has played in person, on radio, on television or recordings with the following jazz masters: Ben Webster, Dexter Gordon, Joe Henderson, Maynard Ferguson, Donald Byrd, Dizzy Gillespie, Slide Hampton, Jimmy Cleveland, Frank Rossolino, Oscar Peterson, Kenny Drew, Roland Hannah, Ron Carter, Slam Stewart, Niels H.O. Pedersen, Kenny Clarke, Anita O’Day, Carmen McRae, Irene Reid, Jimmy Rushing and Lionel Hampton. In addition, he has the unique distinction of being one of the very few drummers to have ever worked for Buddy Rich. He also spent one year as Bobby Darin’s personal drummer. He now plays in the L.A. area with a quintet that spotlights him not only as a jazz drummer but also as a jazz composer.

In this video, Tony discusses different ways to accent the triplet in jazz drumming:

-LAMA Staff