Electric Lotus (brain still fuzzy)

4656 Franklin Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90027
(323)953-0040
Sun-Thurs 12PM-12AM
Fri-Sat 12PM-1AM

I'm finally recovering from last weekend at Coachella. Had a chance to pop into Electric Lotus with a buddy and forgot that with just the two of us I need to order accordingly. Many leftovers were had.

When you walk in here you're in a dark den that kind of reminds me of a Moroccan movie spy hangout. We pop a seat and order up. This shot was with my flash on...gives you an idea of the darkness in there.

We got the Lamb Biryani and the Lamb Coco Curry and to drink a Taj Mahal Beer and a Yeti beer. We also grab the garlic naan which is kind of addicting. We talked about life and issues facing us and the world today. The food shows up and my eyes are reminded that when you come here you order for everyone cause the portions are massive. We laugh then proceed to stuff ourselves. The lamb in both plates was super tender and the rice in mine was flavorful as well as balanced while the curry was not too heavy, but was flavored oh so delicately with the coconut. Good eatins. I had enough leftovers with my lamb biryani to share two plates with my wife later on! The price is balanced to how much you get about hence why you should order according to who you're with so that you can share plates. I'd say 3 plates of food is good for 5 people about.


It's a rock and roll hideout that serves up good Indian food. Kind of like Toi's is for Thai food on Sunset. My brain still hasn't fully recovered. Such an amazing time was had. I'm exhausted and have a headache. Have a wonderful weekend and if you are so inclined next week come to the Mint on Thursday at 8 PM if you care to meet me and have some tasty burgers. I'll share with you if you'd like. I'll be the one onstage with the upright...

Free Drink Refills: Yes (word of caution while the beer is a good size it's $6 to$8 a bottle...but man does it go nicely with the meal)
Entree Price Range: $9 to $17 (remember you get a lot and that the steeper end of that range is mostly seafood)

Coachella Day 3 (The day Rage returned to California)

The day many of us had been waiting for ever since the rumors started and for some even longer. Those that wondered if one of the seminal bands of our generation would ever return to the stage. They are like the Led Zeppelin of our time. Just something to behold. Of course I'm talking about the Lemonheads...hahahaha. I felt so sorry for any band that was playing during the Rage Against The Machine time slot. Before I get to the end of writing about this day let me just say that I was in the thick of it and looking around and all eyes in the entire Empire Polo Fields were facing towards the main stage as if they were Muslims looking toward Mecca.

Got a late start but had a good reason. We caught lunch before hand at this Mexican place that escapes me right now. I know sad considering I'm a restaurant blogger. What makes it doubly sad is the place had realllllllly good Mexican. My loss and yours as well. Over the weekend we lived off of water and gatorade...there really wasn't much time to eat cause you wanted to catch all the bands! Amazingly we didn't suffer at all and hunger never even approached our minds.

It being the last day and the blockbuster of the weekend we took the same route and though we got in to park in a decent time we had to walk like forever (let me tell you when you've had a long weekend and you're walking back from one of the most intense shows of your life that walk seems to last forever on the way back to your car). We get in to see the last little bit of Tapes N Tapes who were living up to the hype. The lads did a great job rocking out and the sound in there was really sweet and clear.





We got out from the tent and thought about what we'd see today and what we'd turn down in order to position ourselves for the shows. Many people of course would sit in front of the main stage all day long just to be close for Rage. We were not them thankfully as the temperature topped out around 110 or so. We did head that way nonetheless to catch Explosions in the Sky. Before coming out here I checked out the bands online that I didn't know to get a vibe for them.
I remember going ehhh when I heard them online. When we caught them I felt more like it was one song called Explosions in the Sky that had movements. I can't say it was good and I definitely can't say it was bad but it was memorable to watch for sure. They destroyed their instruments practically.


Stayed at the same stage to catch The Roots who I've been trying to catch for the past I don't know how long. It's been stupid. I've always been close but couldn't make it for one reason or another. I finally catch them and they don't let me down...except for one thing. The band included an amazing friend of the theirs who played sousaphone. Now don't get me wrong their was nothing wrong with that at all...it was actually pretty freaking sick. The one complaint was that they introduced a side project that they were working on that included the sousaphone player, their guitarist Kirk Douglas and Questlove. They did a rendition of a Bob Dylan tune that rocked out and was all over the place but we came to see the Roots so let's see the Roots. Not only that it was a long song...like 10 minutes at least. Come on already! Let's get back to the original "Roots crew...no additives no perservatives". Other than that I can dub them my favorite party band that also happens to be my favorite hip hop act hands down.






We strolled over to catch the Kaiser Chiefs before the Roots were up. Possibly at the hottest point of the day I was proud of them as they gave 100% of their energy when they played and the crowd loved it. It was awesome cause they knew that despite their popularity lots of people don't know them or their songs but they encouraged everyone to have a great time and just get into it.


Not having the ability to stay still we moved on and caught one of the coolest non mainstream acts at the festival. This was an awesome sight to behold. We had heard a party in the Gobi tent going on and Konono No. 1 was playing. Okay everyone in the tent was dancing to this amazing band who hails from the Congo. Probably no one in there knew what they were saying but the music felt so good and just made you want to move. The lead instruments were the thumb piano and percussion. The vocals had the cool chant sound going and it was just mezmerizing. It made everyone just feel good and it was a joy just to see that.




We opted out of catching Willie Nelson and Crowded House (figured I hear it "Don't Dream It's Over" somewhere on the field for sure cause the main stage was so loud anyways) and opted to instead catch the beautiful artistry of Jose Gonzales and then catch Lily Allen. Jose was beautiful. The sounds actually soothed the day and even though on occasion he had feedback it was feedback that magically sounded good in the songs! He and his band really were a nice interlude to the day. A calm before the storm if you will.




Missing Air was a tough decision but I'm glad for two reasons. 1 was that they were SUPER late. I heard they started like half an hour late. And 2 was that Lily Allen was so worth the sweaty fest that it was. She packed it out as far as you could see and she said she totally wasn't expecting this kind of turnout. We were close to the front and here was the view behind us:

She came out and looked adorable in her trademark puffy dress and sneaks. She seemed a little nervous and smoked a cigarette about 4 songs into her set. One thing that was off was the fact that she forgot many lyrics to her own songs. This she attributed to not having done anything at all bad that day except smoking a couple of fat spliffs before the show. Despite this which almost doubled her cute girlieness, her set was awesome, the band was tight and and the crowd sang along the entire time. Thanks Lily for a memorable one!




Herein lies one of the tragedies of scheduling. We had to miss Damien Rice to get prime positioning for Rage. So we lost out on that one but Manu Chao was great and was a good warmup act for Rage. The pulsing punk bursts got the crowd ready for the mayhem that would ensue.


Here it is. What all the hot sweaty sun drenched days were for. Rage Against the Machine hit the stage and here's what you can see initially. You see them approach the the stage and every camera pop in the air like gophers looking for enemies:

Zack introduces themselves and the downbeat happens...

Honestly thought there was no chance in the world I would be walking out of there with my camera after that first song started. It was amazing!
Had to shoot clips in super small tidbits or I could have loss a vertebrae:

But I was able to position myself further back from the pit which I was in for a huge portion of the set (by the way one of the best pits I've ever had the exquisite pleasure to be in) and in getting further back it was slightly calmer so I could snag a slightly longer clip:





How'd the set go? I would say that it wasn't their tightest but after 4 songs all the cobwebs were shook off and the rage in Rage had fully returned. The rants of having president Bush and his administration shot over what they've done were in full effect. Initially also the sound mix was not as great as it could be as well but a couple of songs into it was spectacular. Zack wasn't sporting the dreads but was rocking a curly fro that suited him well. He intially didn't seem like he knew what to do with himself like "How was it that I used to move on stage all those years ago?" but his memory was quickly jogged. The band kicked it so hard that in the end everyone was relieved like something they had locked up they got to get out of themselves by seeing Rage and in the end you couldn't have asked for a better weekend. Like I said I felt bad for any band playing when Rage was cause I can only imagine their shows being near empty. One of the top 5 shows of my life hands down.

We walk back and everyone is talking about how awesome the night was and there's a bit of sadness it over. But it was awesome all around that it did happen at all.

Coachella Day 2

Coming from out hotel, we find that our secondary route to the festival gets us there much quicker. We show up in time to catch the Fratellis kick out the jams. Hearing them on the radio, I often thought that they had more energy but when watching I felt like they were a really strong bar rock band. No offense...just calling it like I see it. I still enjoyed what I saw.


We cut out early to catch a good spot for Regina Spektor who I've heard more about than I've actually heard her music. She came out and sang acapella for her first song. A very sweet playful voice is the best way to describe her. Me and Derek both enjoyed her set. The band was solid and though painfully hot (about 107) they all had a good time. I particularly enjoyed when she sat at her piano and while she played piano with one hand she also played a drum stick on a chair with the other. Just a nice break from all the seriousness of the festival especially for a mainstage act.


We stayed in the same space to also catch one of my favorites from the past and with their new album, Travis. They had a great time with the audience and were super ecstatic to be playing there. I love when bands are like happy kids when it comes to performing...it really comes off as so endearing. Considering they are far from kids now it made it all the cooler. They had fantastic energy in the heat and could joke about it with the best of them. A fantastic set indeed.




Travelling from Travis en route to the Peter Bjorn and John show we were passing by the Nightwatchman's show. The Nightwatchman is Tom Morello from Rage Against the Machine's side project. Basically him doing songs about how the goverment is evil. Folky Rage Against the Machine. I dig it. We passed in just enough time to see him call up Perry Farrel of Jane's Addiction fame and Bootsy from the Coup to sing with him the Woody Guthrie classic "This Land is Your Land". Tom also explained that the song was a retort to the Irving Berlin song "America" cause it was such a wishy washy piece of fluff. Everyone joined in on it. So glad we caught this little tidbit.


Peter Bjorn and John did a bang up job from what I could see of them. It was to be expected that a band with such a huge hit and very well selling album would be packed out. I caught some of the set and bounced back to the Gobi tent after hearing a couple of songs to snag a close spot for Andrew Bird.
PB&J:


Andrew Bird, himself with an album all the blogs have been talking about, packed out his tent. We were lucky to be so super close to the stage. He does this cool thing where he plays stuff on violin whether it being plucked or bowed and then loops it to make this impressive sound and then will play guitar over the looping. At times it was so good that you thought he made an entire impromptu string section. Great band and great sound. He brought an amazing show and despite getting badly shocked from bad grounding on his mic more than twice, he was one of the best intimate shows we caught. He joked about the shocking but you could tell it really messed with him when he got zapped. Quite the trooper.





Up next was the Arcade Fire. Without saying too much let me say a lot. Stupendous. A symphony of passionate sound. One of the extreme highlights of the weekend. I was bowled over. If you ever have the chance please go see them you'll be non-plussed.




We quickly went over to the outside stage after their set to catch some Blonde Redhead that was cool and dark. They did a good job even though we couldn't stay long cause we wanted to catch a sweet spot for the home town favorite Chili Peppers.

Arriving back at the main stage the air had cooled off a bit so the only thing to keep you warm were other bodies which there were plenty of. The Peppers took the stage and played a phenomenal set. No surprises to speak of really just a solid rocking set that the crowd ate right up. Though the Peppers are starting to get up there in age you still would never guess it by how hard they rock out. For many this was the actual headline of the evening cause Tiesto was afterward and wasn't for everyone (like us...heck how those fans could dance for a Tiesto show was amazing as hot and tired as we all were).





After getting destroyed over at the Chili Pepper show we did our short stroll over to catch the Good the Bad and the Queen who started like half an hour late. This was a bummer for us cause after 2 days of being in the sun and catching as much as we did we weren't in the right mindset to be waiting around for too long. I really wanted to catch as much as possible but we only stayed for 2 songs in the end. It was just taking too darn long and our eyes were closing. In fact this picture shows you exactly what I saw from being so tired.


Day 3 will be up very soon!

No food today but Coachella (day 1) is something to write about

This weekend I embarked on the human endurance/entertainment show that is Coachella. My buddy Derek Halet and I got a slightly late start on Friday morning to head out 120 miles eastbound on the 10 to Indio. Surprisingly we had zero traffic almost the entire way out there and showed up in great time to catch some In N Out before we got in the long car line off the Indio exit. Let me interject and say that when going to the desert and you have to wait in a long car line make sure you have AC...it was like being punished for sins you hadn't done yet! We waited about an hour from getting off the exit to getting into the parking lot. Might've been the hottest time I spent during the entire weekend.

We get inside the festival and try to catch the end of Nickel Creek who were performing on the outside stage at the the festival. There are 5 stages at Coachella; those being the main Coachella Stage, the outdoor stage to the right of it, the Gobi tent is next, then the Mohave tent and lastly the Sahara tent. Nickle Creek broke up last year so it was great getting to see them once again bring a little instrumental, down home organic jamming to the masses.


Next we had a laughable moment at the gimmicky "Tilly and the Wall". A super poppy band with the unique quirk of tapdancing with the percussion. Wasn't too tight of a set but the crowd was fresh and enjoyed it.

From there I moved on to catch a little bit of the set from "Of Montreal" at the outside stage. I must admit I felt bad for them as they were having insane monitor issues and spent most of the set playing charades with the sound guy, but usually having to walk over to him. In the end though, even when things were going well on stage they really didn't have much life to them, which is very unlike them. Maybe just too darn hot.

Next stop was Gillian Welch who played with David Rawlings. Dressed in matching folk Grand Ole Opry outfits A beautiful set with class and they really just held things together sweetly. David's excellent chops gracefully and sometimes fiercely embraced Gillians great songwriting. Together their voices were delightful to hear as the accompanied the breeze that was slowly start to come through the Empire Polo Fields of Coachella.

The nature of Coachella is that you really have to pick and choose wisely who and when you catch the acts you want. Many of them overlap and are sometimes far from each other not to mention that sometimes they are in tents that fill up or are so crowded you can't get close. We learned this quickly when we stepped away from the tent that Gillian was at to get something to drink (by the way a nice change was that water was $2 in the entire festival and gatorade, which I lived on, was only $3...incidentally they sometimes had the Kirkland version of Gatorade which tasted better) and when we came back to the tent it was completely and utterly filled to the brim cause Amy Winehouse was going to be playing there next. Sadly we did want to see her and all I got was the tiniest glimpse of her and heard her from the outside. A nice thing though is we did get to see Silverlake's pride and joy, the Silversun Pickups, on the main stage. They initally seemed to not know how to work a festival audience which is a different thing than a club but they eventually worked it right and the sonic fuzz mayhem reigned. Here they are killing it:


We moved onto the next tent where we saw a band by the name of Circa Survive...sigh. Wish we hadn't but Rufus Wainwright was playing in there next and we weren't about to miss that. Circa was just a boring show to watch and consisted of a cross between muscle and jock rock. I particularly found it funny being a bassist that the bassist was rocking out and you couldn't hear one single note he was playing. It was hot and we sat through their set specifically for Rufus Wainwright so that we could catch a close spot.

We were hooked up with a super close position and Rufus packed out the tent as far as I could see. He played some material from his new album and some of the hits from he's 3 previous discs. Despite being plagued by feedback that was practically making him deaf from the squeals on stage, he did a fantastic job and trudged through it. In the end it was one of the most solid performances for the weekend. He was also one of the only performers to give an encore that wasn't a main act.



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We hustled out of the tent to race back and catch some of the set of premiere shoe gaze grandads "Jesus and the Mary Chain". What can I say... the sound was stupendous and washed over you with such an intensity but you must only listen cause shoe gaze bands don't really do anything on stage. They were no exception. There was one plus and I'm bummed as all get out that I didn't get a picture, but Scarlett Johanson came up and sang a song with them. She wasn't the greatest singer but it was cute and weird all at once.

We stayed at the main stage to catch the rest of the mainstage acts, which first up was Interpol who were solid. Clean and excellent playing and the crowd ate it up. The only complaint EVERYONE had was: how many times were the techs going to tune their guitars before going. I counted 6 times on the same guitars at like 5 minutes intervals. But still a great show:


Last up was Bjork. What an incredible spectacle! We were maybe 10 rows from the front and squished to death but it was soooooo worth it. She comes out in this amazing head dress that sadly I couldn't capture cause of the movement of the crowd, but you've probably seen it online already. Needless to say the stage was amazing with a drummer, a 10 girl horn section that also sang heavenly, a digital mixer that had this device that could best be described as CHAOS pad but with a completely versatile real time ability to control and add varying distortions and logorhythmic variances to the patch (it looked like a huge radar screen that he placed circular runes on...it was freaking amazing), and a keyboard player. She was so adorable and endearing to the crowd. After every song was a "Senk You" or "Graciasssss". She also had new versions of some classics like "Hyper Ballad". In the end she fulfilled every myth about herself musically. Her voice was huge and soared and she proved once again why she's an artist not to be missed ever.
Day 2 and 3 should be up on Tuesday!



Here's the cool device I was talking about: