Friday, February 6, 2015

Matthau & The Chocolate Mustache : PC3 Monday at the Bigfoot West

Matthau & The Chocolate Mustache...

When I was growing up, we used to go horse racing most weekends. My dad owned horses and had a bookie and the whole deal.
For one of the real big races, we got a whole host of his good friends who were total characters and ready to lose probably $100,000 that day, rented a limo, and we headed down to the track.
I mean there were doctors, lawyers, actors, and "entrepreneurs."
To be honest I can't remember which track it was. Or even which state. But I think it might have been Hialeah down in Florida because we loved Miami Vice and that was the race track with the pink flamingos during the title sequence.
Anyway, the catch to this story is whatever track we were trying to get in to you had to be over 18 or so to get in to the club. We were previously unawares of this rule.
So we've got our limo and all these rich and famous fellas ready to cough up egregious amounts of money. It was the 80's!
We walk up to the ticket window and they won't let us in cuz I was like 10 years old. I didn't look a day over 7.
We head back to the car. Defeated.
But just then one of our cohorts, Walter Matthau, ceremoniously takes a cork out of a wine bottle and burns one end of it with a lighter. Then he uses that cork to paint a black charcoal mustache on my face. Mind you, I was a towhead. My hair was basically white at that point. Blonde as could be.
So we walk back up to the same guy that had dashed our hopes only a few minutes before and now I've got a charcoal black mustache. Like he wouldn't notice us. He turned us away again.
Matthau complained vociferously. He told the man I was a jockey and needed to get in to ride in the big race. The guy still didn't buy it.
In the end, we figured out you could be underage at a certain part of the race track.
Station to station & guard by guard our buddies bribed me back up in to the Turf Club.
After a full day of racing, we waltzed out the front door of the club. The whole group.
As we passed by we were sure to each stop and say our thanks to the guy who wouldn't let us in. Charcoal mustache, tow head and all.


Barn Burner Mondays Presents PC3 playing a nice laid back Monday evening at the
Bigfoot West. 10939 Venice Blvd. Palms, CA 90034
Jon Niemann: keys
Rich Berardi: drums
3 short upbeat sets starting at 9pm.
Word up...



Monday, January 26, 2015

Jim Morrison is alive

Jim Morrison is alive...
I left my house to take a stroll. There was a group of 6 teenagers smoking a joint on Wavecrest. It's a walk street that leads to the beach about 50 feet from mi casa In Venice. One of the young ladies in the group looked at me and was like "Look Jim Morrison is walking toward us." And they all started cracking up. They were clearly inebriated. As I walked by they were like "Jim Morrison is alive."
I'll take it.


Saturday, January 31st
O'Brien's Pub, 2941 Main St. Santa Monica, CA 90405
9:30-close, Free!

21+



Monday, January 5, 2015

January In PCB

Friday, January 23rd
Sassafras Saloon, 1233 N. Vine St. Hollywood 90038
10:30-close, Free!
21+

Saturday January 24th
Basement Tavern, 2640 Main St. Santa Monica, CA 90405
9pm-close, Free!
Full Band.
21+
 

Sunday, January 25th
Figueroa Mountain Brewing Co., 137 Anacapa St. Santa Barbara, CA 93101
5:30-9pm, Free!

Saturday, January 31st
O'Brien's Pub, 2941 Main St. Santa Monica, CA 90405
9:30-close, Free!

21+

New Year's Eve at Pappy & Harriet's Pioneertown Palace was a complete and total blast. We sold it out for the 2nd year in a row! 

New Year's Eve at Pappy & Harriet's. Photo by Kim Michalowski
 

Friday, December 19, 2014

2014 : Epilogue

To round out the year we've got a couple of treats for you.

Friday December 26th
Sassafras Saloon, 1233 N. Vine St. Hollywood 90038
10:30-close, Free!
Woody Aplanalp (guitar) & Juan Perez (bass) of Aloe Blacc's will be sitting in with Rich Berardi (drums) and I respectively.

Saturday, December 27th
O'Brien's Pub, 2941 Main St. Santa Monica, CA 90405
9:30-close. Free. 21+. Full Band.

New Year's Eve
Pappy & Harriet's Pioneertown Palace, 53688 Pioneertown Rd. 92268
Free & all ages. 7:30pm-close
Dinner reservations are closed, but there you can still order the full menu from the bar.
And there will be plenty of room in the pool hall and on the dance floor.
Champagne toast at midnight.

New Year's Eve at P&H 2014. Photos by Katie Stratton...





Tuesday, December 16, 2014

PCB 15 Year Anniversary Month : Saturday at Mrs. Fish in Downtown Los Angeles

Saturday, December 20th
Mrs. Fish, 448 South Hill St. 90013
8-10pm. Free
After us will be the band Tulips.

This is a brand new swanky spot downtown.
They have a giant aquarium.

We are playing early enough there should be no problem getting in.
Bring your snorkel gear.

word to the booty monster

PCB 15 year anniversary note...
In the summer of 1999, I had graduated college and I had a little leeway from my beyond forgiving parents before it was time for me to get a job.
During college, I'd read 10 hours a day. I'd play basketball the other 3. It was an idyllic situation. Every Thursday, I worked it out that I could spend an hour or 2 writing songs. Previous to this and since then, there were no parameters on my so-called art. I would and will write all the goddamn time.
My thinking was, I really wanted to take in that knowledge and graduate from UCLA for whatever that is/was worth. So, those boundaries were self-imposed.
Anyway, I would use all the words I learned from reading all those books with a dictionary sitting beside me and my little soul mate, Candy the toy poodle, sleeping on my lap as my study partner, and write a song.
Every Thursday at 4pm. They were very erudite. And pretty dang good. But a little forced.
So like I was saying, I had been writing all these songs. Everyone kept asking me what I was gonna do with my life.
I finagled a little 3-4 month window where I was working part-time trying to figure it out.
In secret during the Summer of 1999, I played every open mic night in LA pretty much. Several nights a week.
After a couple weeks, I started to know everyone.
And I started to realize that I was only there for myself. Because everyone else was.
And I had the most terrible stage fright. It was crippling. Slowly I got over it. Still working on that.
I dove in head first. Into the shallow end of the swimming pool.
In those couple months, I met this dude name "Eric Swan-in." That's how he spelled his name when he scrawled his # illegibly on a napkin. He said if I ever needed a bass player, he would love to be in my band.
Band? I never had a band, but I needed one.
Then we met a drummer, Jon "Beachfoot" Weil. And in December of 1999, we got our first show as the PCB on a Sunday night at Canter's Kibitz Room.
Long story short, me & Dutch have played about 1200 shows together.
It's been a couple years since he was 'in the band' because he's been working on other projects, but last week he joined us on the guitar up in one of our favorite dives in Bakersfield.
Why don't we just call it the 15 year anniversary month of the PCB for all of December?
Let's do that.
Wow! We made it. In so many ways. Artistically. As friends. As brothers. Musicians. Arch-nemeses. Co-conspirators. Enablers. Lovers. Alive. We done way better than like 99% of bands. And we're still here to make fun of each other and steal each other's songs. So. Like I said we kinda made it. Not like Jay-Z or even Ryan Adams.
But we have so many great friends that we have met over these last 15 years to share it all with. Jonny Niemann your 10 year anniversary is coming up.

The celebration continues at Mrs. Fish on Saturday.

paulchesne.com

Thursday, December 11, 2014

I played at the Hollywood Bowl : Bakersfield on Saturday (Dutch is coming, look out!)

So I played the Hollywood Bowl the other day.
The show went from 3pm until 5:03pm. At one point a guy walked through with his 2 dogs.
Otherwise, it was just me and Stephen Albanese who was filming and taking stills...
Click here to check out a little video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQLcBUNGQMo


Also, Dutch will be joining us for a trip to scenic Bakersfield!
Saturday, December 13th
Texas 28, 1517 Eighteenth St. Bakersfield, CA 93301
9pm-close
$5

Next LA show will be 12/20 at a new bar in downtown called Mrs. Fish.
It is "pretty swank" in a rock n' roll kinda way.

12/27 O'Brien's!

New Year's Eve at Pappy & Harriet's dinner reservations are now full. But they have the full menu available at the bar and in the pool room. So don't be scared. Come fill up that dance floor and rock in to 2015.

paulchesne.com


Sunday, December 7, 2014

Paul Chesne Band's Fan Box