Later this month, Jababa will be taking our show on the road – to Venice Beach, California. On November 21, we will play at the art gallery grand opening party for Soltar, Will’s Burning Man art installation. This will mark the first time we’ve played outside the state of Colorado. It should be a great way to close out what has been a very productive and eventful year for the band.
The groundwork for this show was laid at Burning Man. While out on the Playa working on the guitar, Will met a woman who greatly admired his art project. After a lengthy conversation, she expressed interest in purchasing the guitar.
Once we arrived back in Colorado, Will kept in touch with this woman and ultimately sold Soltar to her. When we found out there would be a grand opening party for the initial display of the guitar, Will inquired about the possibility of Jababa coming out to play the event. Lori, the woman who purchased the guitar, was very excited by this idea, and plans were quickly made for us to travel to Venice Beach.
Will sat in on a lengthy conference call that included many of the major players of the Venice Beach community – the mayor, chief of police, and fire chief. Lori, Soltar’s new owner, was also part of this call.
At first, it seemed like we would be very busy on the 21st. Initial plans called for us to play a daytime set on a flat-bed truck during a parade, an evening set at the art gallery grand opening party, and a late night set at a warehouse party.
However, everyone involved quickly realized that this was too ambitious of an undertaking on such short notice, especially considering the fact that we are traveling out from Colorado, have to secure all of our musical equipment once we arrive, and do not know the area at all. Furthermore, as logistics began to get worked out, unforeseen problems began to arise that altered the overall game plan.
The original location for the guitar was a gallery called 99 High Art Collective. Due to a variety of factors, it quickly became apparent that this was a less than ideal location for the art gallery grand opening. Therefore, Lori was left to scramble for a new location with just a few weeks left before the event. It will now be held at venue called Paint Lab, which should accommodate the party very nicely.
The initial location for the warehouse party also fell through about 2 weeks ago, and Lori was unable to secure an alternate location on such short notice. So sadly, this party was cancelled. I believe that the parade is still going to take place, but the logistics of securing a flat-bed truck with generator power for the band made this part of the day unworkable as well.
As it stands, there is an open house party at Paint Lab for the general public from 1-4 pm, where people can come to view Soltar and the other art pieces Lori has on display. There will be a private party starting at 5 pm and continuing well into the night. We will be providing the music for the private party.
While we were looking forward to an action-packed Jababa invasion of Venice Beach, we also realize that playing one show instead of three will make the day run much smoother, especially since we do not have vehicles to transport equipment from one venue to the next. So we plan on making our one performance count. The grand opening party should be a night to remember for everyone in attendance.
Sadly, Paint Lab is much smaller than 99 High Art Collective, and as a result, we have been limited to a guest list of five people. Many of our friends expressed a desire to travel with us, and we also have several close friends in the Los Angeles area who had planned on coming to check out the band. We have reserved our five guest list slots for the first five of our friends who committed to traveling out to California with us, and we will do our best to see if we can get our local friends in on the day of the event.
The band is very excited about this opportunity. It should be a great way to close out what has been a most memorable year for us. I would like to applaud Will for all of his hard work in making this happen. He has dedicated all of his free time over the past two months to making this event come to fruition, and we wouldn’t be making this trip without all of his efforts.
We hope to see you all at the Lazy Dog this Saturday night as we play what most likely will be our final Boulder area show of 2009. It will also be our send-off party to Venice Beach, so in honor of the occasion, we encourage everyone to show up in beach shorts and flip flops (weather permitting, of course).
“The Jababa Chronicles”: All musings, anecdotes, philosophies, ramblings, rants, and tirades written exclusively by Andrew Martin unless otherwise specified.