Super excited to share with you-all that pianist extraordinaire Gerald Clayton has been nominated for a Grammy in the “Best Improvised Jazz Solo” category! Gerald is a friend of vosotros; appearing on The Lazy Susan, as well as a subsequent Erykah Badu remix…

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To Do by How Long It Takes To Know [mp3]
[vosotros presents: the lazy susan]

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Real Thang (vosotros remix) [mp3]
[Erykah Badu remix contest]

Way to go, Gerald!

Special thanks to Rhoda (aka Rho-dawg) for submitting this year’s vosotros pumpkin.

We’ve missed you-all.

Things have been moving quickly here at vosotros HQ, and we needed a little time to get prepared…to bring you-all some exciting new music! 

The Almost Ready!

•The Years

A musical labor of love, recorded in LA, NYC, Chicago, and Macau over the last year (and some change).  Co-produced by Sam Barsh and vosotros, The Years has been a journey in every sense of the word.  Stay tuned!

Enough can’t be said about Monsieur John Wood and his amazing Learning Music.  It seems as soon as I get his latest record I get the next! Every Month!  And to all the musicians out there, get involved!  Remix!  Cover! 

•Bobb Bruno

Everyone’s favorite bunny is tearing it up!

Check him out here @ L.A. Record

and here @ Decider Los Angeles

and here @ In Flight At Night

and here @ LAist

The Bunny Abides!

The Next Step!

Shoulda, NOMRAHLEON, I Think You’re Great!, What If They Met/Rewriting History Project, Gaib + Friends, Collaborations, Parties, Surprises, and who knows?!?        

Thanks for sticking with us, you-all.

Welcome back.

gaib

Learning Music Monthly is subscription based album-a-month series featuring the music of John Wood and the Learning Music band. Starting March 1st, subscribers will receive a brand new full-length album of original music every month. You can choose to receive your monthly issues on CD (delivered to your mailbox in beautiful handmade packaging, with cover art by a different artist each issue), or in downloadable high-quality mp3 format. Subscribers also receive unlimited access to the online archive of music, including twelve re-mastered albums from the original album-a-month series. Additionally, you are invited to collaborate in the creation of Learning Music Monthly, with remixes, covers, and sound donations, regardless of whether you are a subscriber or not.

Visit the new Learning Music Monthly site to learn more about the project, preview the first issue, subscribe to the series, and explore ways you can contribute creatively to LMM.

Upcoming Learning Music Events:

• Friday Feb 27 – John Wood joins Kevin Bronson (Buzz Bands) live on Little Radio for an interview, 10am-noon, littleradio.com (Buzzbands.la feature on LMM)
• Sunday March 1 – Learning Music’s Music Learning Workshop – Machine Project in Echo Park, 1200 D North Alvarado LA, CA 90026 – doors at 8pm – FREE – everyone attending will receive a copy the first Learning Music Monthly album – bring a small instrument to participate in the workshop portion of the evening (culminating in a massive group performance!) (Flavorpill) (LA Weekly)
• Monday March 2 – Live Performance on KXLU – 5pm – 88.9 FM Los Angeles – kxlu.com
• Tuesday March 10 – Learning Music @ Silverlake Lounge – 10:30pm – $8

Learning Music Monthly – Free Podcast on iTunes

Learning Music – MySpace

See you at Machine Project on Sunday!!!!

Gabe and I first heard Bobb opening for Wilco at the Auditorium Theater in Chicago.  They had rigged these pulsating bursts of light to his drumpad. The audience loved it.  I remember standing in the beer line before Wilco’s set – and everyone was talking about him.  ”Dude – what’s up with that bunny?”  Well thanks to the internet - we were able to track him down – turns out he lives in the neighborhood!  Vosotros historians will remember Bobb for opening up our first show EVER in Little Tokyo almost 2 years ago.  And now, we’re very excited to announce the release of Bobb’s new EP, “Dreamt On”, coming February 17 on vosotros. Get ready for 6 new Bruno songs – including a track with fellow Angelinio Nels Cline on lap steel guitar!

It sounds like you graduated top of your class, trained hard, became an astronaut, flew to the moon, and then found out it was actually made of cheese. ~ Gabe

If you’re not familiar with Bobb, check him out on MySpace and read this feature from New Angeles Magazine.  The headline ….  What do you get when you mix Disneyland, Paul McCarthy and French black metal? It’s not a riddle, silly wabbit, it’s Bobb Bruno.

Join us on February 21 at Betalevel in Chinatown to celebrate Bobb’s new album.  It’s a free show – booze by donation (courtesy of Beta Level) – and limited edition Bruno EPs on hand.  We’ll kick off the night with some music by vosotros – followed by Bobb Bruno – and then Keenhouse.
And if you’ve never been to Betalevel, follow these directions carefully.

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Bobb Bruno – “Dreamt On”  (Dreamt On EP) [MP3]
PRE-ORDER HERE  (shipping next week)

John and I met in 7th grade Spanish class.  And later, after attending the same high school, and while attending the same college, we began vosotros.  And after seeing the following SNL clip, I was struck with such nostalgia I decided to link to it…enjoy.

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To celebrate the inauguration, we asked some of our favorite Los Angeles bands to record cover versions of public domain patriotic songs. The entire album is licensed under Creative Commons and available for free download from the project’s website: yeswepuede.com

oh mega super sí shout out to Obi Best, Learning Music, Dream Kids, weyou, B.R.A.M., Mooey Moobau and Max Markowitz for throwing down so hard – the album literally came together in a couple of weeks … a testament to how talented these guys are…

(please send the link to everyone you know who loves america)

[YWP Around The Web]
     • Good Magazine    
     • Tiny Mix Tapes    
     • Creative Commons
     • Soup Greens
     • BHAM.FM
     • Skips On The Record
     • web in front
     • LAist
     • Future Sounds
     • Largehearted Boy
     • Rock Insider
     • Boing Boing
     • Mikey Wally
     • Buzzbands.LA
     • Fly, fly, balloon man. Savor the Void!
     • Twitter (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9)
     • NOVA (cell phone company in Iceland)

As the new year approaches, Palabra has been wrestling with time, which is to say wrestling with illusion. We know the past only by the things that represent it— by pictures, or stories, or recordings, or by our memories. We know the future only by the hopes and fears of what may become our present. In either case, past or future, what we experience is merely the production of our minds. The representations of the past show us “facts” through the lens of our personality; the hopes and fears of the future show us more about ourselves than about what is. If we think that we live “in time” we are living in a dream because the past and the future trap us in a reflection of ourselves; and if the past and the future are merely dreams then how can time exist? Furthermore, how do we escape the illusion of time, the house of mirrors that we live in when we think time is real? …Only by losing ourselves to the present. When life is at its best, there is no time because we are so swept up into the moment that there is no past, no future, no self. But when there is no time and no self, who or what is acting in these, our best moments? What is playing music, what is painting, what is saying words that are unplanned but resonant in truth? When we are not “self” but only present, what have we become? In The Odyssey, when Menelaus is wrestling with Proteus, he discovers that the “Ancient of the Sea” is a shape-shifter. As Menelaus tries to hang on, his opponent turns into a lion, a snake, a tree, a boar, then water… until eventually the contest is over. When it ends, Proteus gives up and tells Menelaus the truth. When we wrestle with time we must contend with illusions until at last we are left only with the present—and within the present we find the truth we are seeking—the truth that we are. The present isn’t for you all, it is you all.

-Palabra.

monday night vosotros bid Oscar Shedin adieu as he prepares to return to his homeland of Sweden- the land of beautiful people, free jazz, and nighttime. You-all may remember him from First Good Feeling, playing guitar and offering the vosotros plug—->vosotros musik feredalla

He is a wonderful guitarist and total sweedenheart and we wish him all the best.

On the morning of my eighteenth birthday I sang with the birds.  As the sun rose over my parent’s back yard I ran in circles with the perfect knowledge of why the birds were singing. It may be true that I had eaten a small piece of paper that completely changed what I heard, what I saw, what I smelled…but I don’t think I was living a delusion (and Aldous Huxley, who is deeper than anyone I know, doesn’t think so either). I sang at the top of my lungs knowing what the birds knew: that the morning was a miracle, that the dawn was god, that the air around me was a plenum vibrating with life and knowledge. Since then I have learned that the whole world sings. The music of birds follows inherent and predictable patterns; the songs of whales reach across the depths of the seas; the oscillations of the earth on its axis can be rendered into music and it’s beautiful! Our very speech is music and I believe that one day a genius will run a staff across the heavens and demonstrate that the stars are the notes to a symphony. Poor Prufrock cried, “I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each./ I do not think that they will sing to me.” But that doesn’t have to be your fate. You choose my friends. Either the world is a silent cacophony, or there is song ringing through the soles of your feet, melody in the eyes of those you love, and harmony in the rhythm of your days. The music of the universe is for you all.

-Palabra.