Category Archives: gigs

gallery shows 1/14 and 1/16.

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Tomorrow night January 14 2010 during Artwalk I’ll play a slack little gallery in downtown LA called The Exchange. Exact location 114 W 5th Street, Los Angeles 90013 (on 5th Street between Spring and Main). Time is more or less between 7:30-9:30. Probably two 30 min sets at 7:45 and 8:30, followed by a set by Dick & Jane. I’ll have a trio with David Orser on standup bass and Scotty Boyd on mandolin. We’ll be playing uptempo roadhouse rube jazz and jug sounds, more recent and raucous than the solo instrumentals I usually post on the web. This place is a nice room to hang around in, super laid back, good for chatting and whatnot.

On Saturday night January 16 I’ll play a party for FORTH magazine at G2 gallery in Venice Beach. G2’s address is 1503 Abbot Kinney. Set time is about 7pm, I think. The band will be Tom Marion on mandolin and David Orser again on bass. The crowd will be attractive and stylish, a decent wine will be forced upon attendees, and I imagine it’ll be a groovy little deal. That’s for the west siders among you.

Both shows free as a bird and free as in beer. And both times I’ll spend the overwhelming majority of my time quaffing the wine and blabbing with whatever pals stop by. So stop by to quaff and blab.

photos from a couple gigs

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Playing a school for disabled children up in north Hollywood:

gig playing at Lowman's school

The kids get up and mosh, bang on whatever in a semi-rhythm, and generally create pure bedlam. Great crowd. They put the cool indie kids at rock clubs to shame.

Playing at a nursing home in the valley:

gig playing at nursing home

The ladies at the nursing home flirt like mad. One was very grabby in a physical way. I felt like Tom Jones.

The day after I did this show I got an email from my aunt saying that my mom was very jazzed because some musician had come to play old timey music in her nursing home. Not the same nursing home that I played at. So it was a moment of instant karma, the good kind.

But let’s agree to ignore the freaky Oedipal aspect of karma and my mom’s flirty peers. Because that would be freaky.

Hyperion show tomorrow night 9/10; Where/MMM snafu

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Beer before bed

Tomorrow night, Thursday 9/10, I’ll be playing the all-acoustic night at Hyperion Tavern in Silverlake. Three new tunes since the last time I played there. Set time probably 10pm. So c’mon and goof off at the bar. You know you want to have a beer before bed.

In other news, the Friday 9/11 show at Where/MMM is temporarily off. One of the other acts flaked out at the last minute and I figured it was better to reschedule than limp along.

Here’s the map to the Hyperion:


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Mornings Nights at Where/MMM on Friday

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I’ll be playing in a night of music at the Where/MMM coworking space in Silverlake. The idea is to cater to the small scene of people who hang out on the block on a regular basis, either at the coffee place next door, Mornings Nights, or at Where/MMM.

I put the event together. The idea is about the way that live music and real world communities have this symbiotic relationship. I noticed that people on the block know each other, and that there are plenty of musicians and creative people.

It’s a hyperlocal genre in that it’s about a specific place.

Particulars for the gig:

  • On Friday 9/11
  • Starting around 8 or 9.
  • No $ required, not exactly, but by no means would your contribution be refused.
  • There will be three main acts doing full sets. If you don’t know at least one of us on a first name basis, you probably aren’t the target audience. I have the impression that Jesse’s and Steve’s acts are good enough to have followings and bookings and all that kind of stuff. Jesse’s band is indie rock. It has a name, I just don’t know it. Steve’s thing is hip hop. He’s an MC. I will perform on the flying trapeze as always.
  • Every local is welcome to do a song or read their poem or do whatever they do. But only locals can perform.


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old time night at Redcat Lounge thurs 6/18

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Lucas Gonze in Americana night at REDCAT Lounge

Next Thursday 6/18 I’ll play at the downstairs bar at Disney Hall, called REDCAT Lounge. It’s an early bill from 6-9 to accommodate working people, the kind who don’t go out late during the week but would dig having a drink after work.

This is a night that I did the booking for. The other acts are fine local musicians who I play with pretty often —

* The inimitable Dick & Jane.

* The invincible Triple Chicken Foot

* A couple players from Sausage Grinder, which does jug band songs like Mississippi Sheiks in an authentic style with all the details.

Where? 631 West Second St., Los Angeles! But here’s a map:


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Triple Chicken Foot:
Triple Chicken Foot

YouTube magic lantern release ball Thursday aka tomorrow @ Hyperion Tavern

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In order to celebrate and mark the most august and celebrated magickalous mysterious movin’ picture I just put up on YouTube of the most august, celebrated, and twisty five-step waltz known as Dodworth’s Five Step Waltz there will be a husking frolic tomorrow night in Silverlake.

Now don’t get Hornswoggled! I swan to mercy, a huckle- berry above anyone’s persimmon. Some pumpkins, a caution, 100 percent certified by a Philadelfy lawyer. If not, dad-blame it, I’ll hang up my fiddle, and you can sass me, knock me into a cocked hat, give me jesse, fix my flint, settle my hash, ride me out on a rail and have a conniption fit, you cussed scalawag!

I’ll allow that George Elias, RootHub, The Artists, and L. Gonze will play all on one stick and in that order, with the Prof. Gonze playing almighty huge last of all at the dark hour of 10:30 after which you can absquatulate all you want. So don’t be a coot and do c’mon out and get slicked up to have a brick in your hat with the g’hals and b’hoys at the Hyperion bucket shop.

Yours All Exfluncticated-like,

L. “soup greens” Gonze


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p.s. I’m not too piss proud to allow that this 19th century slang came from A 19th Century Slang Dictionary Compiled & Edited by Craig Hadley.

Hikes Without Mics Joshua Tree Adventure

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I’m playing a Natural Stage Project (aka “Hikes Without Mics”) field trip to Joshua Tree National Park tomorrow, which I expect to be fun, sweet and ridiculous. Here’s my blog from the last time I did a Hikes W/out Mics thing:

In practice what this meant was a longish walk on a barely-visible trail by a creek, at the the end of which was a pretty waterfall with a woman standing in front of it to sing indie-rock type songs while she accompanied herself on ukelele. I did the hike with my Estralita on my back in a gig bag for bass, and instead of the bowler and brogans I usually wear I had a coonskin cap and psychedelic emerica sneaks. I ran into Pamita halfway up the path. She was rocked out in cowboy boots, a dress, and fishnets, which is an outfit that’s just slightly better adapted to scrambling over boulders than the corset she usually wears.

There was no real crowd to speak of, but there were plenty of musicians there to play and play for. The acoustics out in the forest were special and listening to the other acts was a profound pleasure.

Because the issue is lurking, I should point out that this was not a Grateful Dead setup like a drum circle. These people knew irony. The tactic is along the same lines as a dance party on the subway, where a group meets up at a subway car and dances to electronic music on a boom box for a few stops, then gets off and disperses. This was an acoustic flash mob.

Something I love about playing is the way it draws me into unexpected places. I end up in places I would never have gotten to go to, meeting people at events I wouldn’t have been invited to, like this one. So cool.

And afterwards in Historic Pioneertown:

A cosmic prehistoric natural environment, and an indie rock honky tonk bar and grill, 2 hours away with cheap lodgings. Stunning monster rocks, a movie-set town for 40s Westerns, spacerock, country/rock DJs, danceparty, hottub, and general good times. ALSO! Daytime acoustic concert in the park at Jumbo Rocks put on by The Natural Stage Project’s “Hikes Without Mics”… info on that here.

Pappy & Harriet’s is an honky tonk in historic Pioneertown that books both country and psychedelic indie rock like Cat Power, Spindrift etc.

Hyperion show Thurs

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I’ll be playing in Madame Pamita‘s old timey band at the Hyperion Tavern in Silverlake on Thursday night.

If anybody’s up for getting something to eat before the show, send an email to lucas.gonze@gmail.com. I’m thinking food and a beer in the area around Sunset and Alvarado.

Also performing that night will be the uber locals Dick & Jane. Not that they wouldn’t be there anyway. You love em if you know em. Also, Pam’s boyfriend Brad and the managerstress Angelina Elise will be working the bar. The musical scotsman Mr John McDuffie will be playing some deep dobro. It’s Patrick Weiss’ last night playing musical saw in the band before he moves back to Georgia.

No $$$ to get in, beers are a mere $5, and no charge for the witty conversation as long as you bring your wit. The night gets started around 9:30 usually, we go on around 10:30 or 11.

party like it’s 1929

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A festival from the heart of LA’s arts community
to celebrate the worst financial crash since 1929.

Where: at the A+D Museum, 5900 Wilshire Blvd. (across from LACMA)

I’ll be doing two half-hour sets: On the hooverville (plaza) mainstage from 8:30-9 and then on the plaza sidestage from 9:30-10 too. The mainstage is a “stop-and-look” situation and the sidestage is more atmospheric for passerby (unless it’s way packed with people, in which case there’ll probably be a stop-and-look crowd in both locations).

It’ll be a huge party with stellar people-watching in an atmosphere of depression-era decadence, including sexy flappers and tons of booze.

Inspired by the similarity of the economic crisis of 2008 to the Market Crash of 1929, artists will seek to immerse our merrymakers in the excess of the privileged elite and the grit of bohemian urchins below.

In the ballroom our fatcat partygoers will dance and celebrate in luxury while sipping fine beverages, watching burlesque beauties tease them to the awesome grooves of ANACRON, and reveling in decadence and excess. Outside on the plaza, partygoers will slum it with Hooverville tramps and bum cigarettes from Vaudeville acts as they listen to a junkyard band. All around them will be performance environments from dozens of LA’s most innovative companies. The evening culminates in a dynamic ballroom finale where past and present collide in a mash-up not to be missed. All Angelinos are invited to discover their inner tycoon amidst the largest economic downturn since the Great Depression.

Saturday, Dec. 13, 2008 8pm-2am. $20 admission, $10 open bar access