Greetings from Laurel Canyon!
Sounds of laughter, here comes sunshine, smiling faces all around. / They possess you, bless you, sunshine, now you can never let them down, I say sunshine. / Sunshine, sunshine, is that a cloud across your smile or did you dream again last night? / It’s best you rest inside a while as blue doesn’t seem to suit you right.
Things ain’t what they used to be, pain and rain and misery. / Illness in the family and sunshine means a lot to me, I say sunshine. / But could it be Sunshine is drifting with midnight and lonely when everyone’s gone? / Blue crystal spirits and gardens in moonlight / Leave weak alone and bleak all quiet and grey by dawn.
Sunshine, sunshine rising to late to chase the cold and failing to change the frost to dew. / She’s trading her mood of yellow gold for frost bitten shades of silver-blue. / Friends and lovers past and gone and no one waiting further on, / I’m running short of things to be and sunshine means quiet a lot to me, I say sunshine. / Sunshine, sunshine…
Over the past several months I’ve been going to a show or two a week. It certainly has dawned on me that the kids are not really showing up at shows like they used to. To say it bluntly—it ain’t what it use to be for rock crowds in LA.
Hollywood, CA | Critics sue to stop Hollywood project that would displace Amoeba Music: Weeks after Los Angeles officials gave the green light for a new development on the Hollywood site now occupied by Amoeba Music, critics are suing the city to stop it, arguing that it would tear down a “cultural resource” that deserves protection. AIDS Healthcare Foundation and the Coalition to Preserve L.A., a group funded by the foundation that is critical of how the city handles planning and development, are also pushing the city to enshrine the distinctive murals and neon art at the Sunset Boulevard site as part of a historic monument. Doing so would make it harder to tear down the building, which boasts a Space Age neon turret, an old-fashioned marquee, and murals inside and outside the structure. L.A. “is giving short shrift to the 
The pieces are in place for a new Rush jigsaw collection: Four classic Rush album covers have been transformed into 500-piece jigsaws – and they’ll be out later this year. Hot on the heels of a series of jigsaws featuring Metallica album covers comes news that Rush are the next band to be put on a puzzle. Zee Productions imprint Rock Saws will launch four 500-piece jigsaws in September featuring the covers of Fly By Night, A Farewell To Kings, Permanent Waves and Moving Pictures. Each puzzle will be presented in a 
NEW RELEASE PICK: Rosenau & Sanborn, Bluebird (Psychic Hotline) When I first glanced at the artists’ name, my brain stirred thoughts of some neo-soft rock/ yacht rock duo, but Bluebird is pretty far from that. Pretty far? How about a few thousand yards, at least. This is Chris Rosenau of Collections of Colonies of Bees and Nick Sanborn of Sylvan Esso, and while I’ve not glimpsed any credits for this collab it’s safe to assume that the former plays guitar and the latter is responsible for the electronic component, which is substantial and varied. From the seed of live performance this studio recording, a casual affair, was born; one of the music’s real strongpoints is how the ambient background, including chirping birds and rain, was left in. Warm in the way The Books are warm, this is likely to be a grower. A-
REISSUE/ARCHIVAL PICK: Tubby Hayes Grits, Beans and Greens: The Lost Fontana Sessions (Decca / Universal Music Group) Edward Brian “Tubby” Hayes was probably the finest hard bop tenor saxophonist the UK produced, a player whose work could satisfy sticklers who hold Coltrane, Rollins, and Gordon in the highest of esteem and generally grouch or grudgingly acknowledge the worth of most everything else. This is not to infer that all Tubby is great Tubby, for until recently his supposed final studio recording, a highly mersh pop tunes-focused large band effort The Orchestra concluded his non-live discography with something of a whimper. That one came out in 1970. Hayes passed in 1973 at age 38 during a second open heart surgery, though he’d struggled with substance abuse, as well.
Missoula, MT | Return of vinyl: Missoula record stores see resurgence in sales: Seventeen-year-old Missoula high-school student Noah Woodin likes spinning Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” on his turntable. No, that sentence wasn’t written in the 1970s; it was written today. Vinyl records are once again hip, and Missoula’s Hip Strip is the place to find them at Ear Candy Music and Rockin Rudy’s Record Heaven, both on Higgins Avenue downtown, south of the bridge. “I prefer vinyl for the aesthetics, and the quality of the music,” Woodin says. He’s not alone. “A young guy came in yesterday and bought 200 records,” says Scott Storer, manager of Record Heaven. “There’s been a real resurgence in vinyl. I sell hundreds, if not thousands of records a week, and mostly to younger people in their teens and twenties.” John Fleming, owner of Ear Candy, reports similar numbers. “I now sell about five records for every CD I sell,” he said. “Vinyl has 
Austin, TX | Spoon adds Friday record-store signing before amphitheater show: Never mind Moon Week, here’s Spoon Week! The titanic Austin indie outfit’s first-ever best-of compilation, “Everything Hits at Once,” will be out Friday via Matador Records, just in time for the band’s performance that evening at the Austin360 Amphitheater on a bill with Beck and Cage the Elephant. And now there’s 
