The Killers, Grace Potter, Ben Harper and more close inaugural KAABOO Del Mar with a bang

The Killers, Grace Potter, Ben Harper and more close inaugural KAABOO Del Mar with a bang
Mark E. Ortega
GrimyGoods.com
September 23, 2015

The final day of the inaugural KAABOO Del Mar brought its largest crowd of the weekend as it was topped by a performance from The Killers, one of the biggest American rock bands out there today.

Brandon Flowers has been in heavy support of his solo record, with very few dates in the States in 2015 for his band. They recently performed at the iHeartRadio Music Festival in Las Vegas, as well as a late-add show the night before in San Diego. Some fans told me how tired and hungover they were from a show that didn’t start until around midnight. This set would begin at 8:30 p.m. and end before 10 p.m.

Click here to read the rest...

Kendrick Lamar tops Bonnaroo highlights, freestyles with Chance the Rapper during Earth, Wind & Fire

Kendrick tops Bonnaroo highlights, freestyles with Chance the Rapper during Earth, Wind & Fire
Mark E. Ortega
GrimyGoods.com
June 15, 2015

Of all the festivals I’ve traveled to the past few months, I felt least prepared for Bonnaroo. Flying in from LA I could only bring a small one-person tent and carry-on bag but I lucked into camping with people a bit more prepared.

We got into the line of cars to pull into the campgrounds at 4 am Thursday morning and didn’t park until close to 10:30 am. Despite that and no sleep, I rallied to see some awesome stuff the first night as well as a jam-packed Friday.

Click here to read the rest...

The Nine II Five: Volume Two

The Nine II Five: Volume Two
TheAudiologist.net
December 5, 2014




Remember mixed tapes? Mixed CDs? Recording songs off the radio? Nowadays, it’s too easy to try and make a playlist on subscription-based streaming sites that spiral out of control.

Every playlist I’ve made climbs to crazy numbers, sometimes into the hundreds. This can be nice, for many reasons. But there was a certain difficulty and passion that came all my life with making mixed CDs. There’s an art to it — being able to move from track to track without something feeling far too out of place.

925… It’s the area code where I grew up in northern California’s Bay Area. It also works as “nine-to-five”, commonly known as the working person’s grind Monday-through-Friday. I’m taking that number and using it as the formula for a mix I hope to continue creating every week.

Click here to read the rest...

Dawes, Nick Waterhouse, and others rock the Echoplex for a good cause

Dawes, Nick Waterhouse, and others rock the Echoplex for a good cause
Mark E. Ortega
GrimyGoods.com
January 13, 2014

This past Saturday night at the Echoplex, a variety of mostly L.A. based musicians turned up in support of fellow musician Richard Gowen in an effort to raise money for mounting hospital bills. Those that showed up at the posted doors time saw more than six hours of live music for $20, as good of a value as you’ll get anywhere – even better when taking into account the quality of music on display. Though each act played between roughly 30 minutes to a full hour, you got nothing but quality from each.

Los Angeles foursome Dawes can most certainly be considered a consistent powerhouse, opening 2014 as the headlining act. I first heard Dawes not from a studio recording, but at the inaugural Life is Beautiful Festival in Las Vegas this past October. I had heard good things and took them in and they were easily one of my favorite sets of the festival to the point I anxiously awaited another tour date.

Click here to read the rest...

Ten Favorite Sets of 2013 - Part One

Ten Favorite Sets of 2013 - Part One
Mark E. Ortega
December 18, 2013

In 2013, I had the opportunity and privilege to attend over a dozen concerts, including a two-day inaugural Las Vegas music festival where I saw about two dozen acts. It's the most amount of live music I've ever experienced in one calendar year and it gave me enough of a sample size to decide what my favorites were. With that in mind, I compiled a list of my ten favorite sets of 2013, starting with a few honorable mentions that didn't quite make the cut but were still worthy to discuss. The honorable mentions is where we will begin, and in separate posts, I'll go over the top ten in the coming days.