Chris Valenti

Have you noticed that everyone you know has their birthday this week or next? Everyone. I bet you can name five people right now. It makes perfect sense when you think about it. The beginning of the Fall comes nine months after the beginning of the Winter. When it starts to get cold, people start to cuddle. Next thing you know, you got a ton of birthdays at the end of September and the beginning of October.

We’ve got two in the Emotional Wrecks: Wreckette Heather and Drum Wreck Gary. So, we are going to throw one big bash on Sunday night during our residency at the Santa Monica Bar & Grille. If you want to get in free, just bring one unwraped toy. It’s not for a charity, it’s just that Gary gets confused by the wrapping paper. (Insert your own drummer joke here.)
Our version of the Muppet’s Animal has been a highly talented, dependable, and instrumental force in this band for the past year or so. I want to show him my appreciation with an embarrassing insult-filled song about his age.

Heather, our resident philanthropist and marathon runner, is using her birthday as a means to raise $3000 to run the Nike Women’s Marathon benefiting The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. (Donate at www.active.com/donate/tntgla/heatherfields or in person Sunday.) She generously put in many hours to make our show with the Violent Femmes as amazing an experience as I’ve ever had. And to show her my appreciation, I’ll play an embarrassing insult-filled song about her age.

We will also have our first guest artist – NYC’s incredible Bobby Syvarth. Saw him at the Hotel Cafe tonight. He’s recording in town for one week.

So come down to The Santa Monica Bar & Grille, 3321 Pico Blvd, just west of Centinela, at 8pm this Sunday, Sept 30. If it’s your birthday, I’ll play you… a really nice song. Plus you get cake.

If you’d also like a Ham Sandwich, come to The Mint, 6010 Pico Blvd, on Tuesday, Oct 2 at 10pm. I’ll be playing a song during in the intermission of Evan Stone’s Translucent Ham Sandwich Band’s spontaneous jazz film scoring. Come for the Hasidic juggler, the monk musicians, the beautiful belly dancer, the film noir magician, and the skating ham sandwich waitresses. It’s quite a show.

I’ll also be playing a song at Genghis Cohen, 740 N Fairfax, the same night, Oct 2nd, at 8pm. My extremely talented friend Shanti, previously a major label popstar, asked me to play a song during her solo acoustic debut. I think she just wants to display the difference between my songs and her talent. I hear there’s going to be a dance contest. I’ll show her.

If you have never heard of Sit N Spin, listen up.  LA is the world’s entertainment capital, right?   And all of the most talented artists and writers from every large and small town in that world come here to pursue their passions professionally, right?  Then why is it that when you go out to be entertained, the majority of the time, what you see is moderate at best?  Well, the reason is that the top people all save their small venue performances for Sit N Spin.  Outside of this night, these people have no free time because they are working every hour of every day on all the shows and movies you love to watch.  These are the working pros.  This evening happens every other Thursday at the Comedy Central Stage at the Hudson Theater, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd.  It’s free.  How such a fun night remains under the radar in this town is beyond me.  Well, it hasn’t really, it’s usually packed.  In fact, you pretty much need to RSVP to be safe – (323) 960-5519.  I go a lot, every Thursday I can.  That’s why I’m so excited to have been invited to be the musical guest.  This Thursday (tomorrow) Sept 6th, I’ll start and end the show with a song, and play snippets of other tunes inbetween the performers.  I’m quite sure it’ll be an amazingly fun night.

Now also:  The Emotional Wrecks and I were granted a residency at the Santa Monica Bar & Grille.  For some reason they thought we would be a good match for the rowdy football crowd that watches the late game on Sundays.  So, we’ll be going on every Sunday at 8:30 to play the ULTIMATE POST-GAME PARTY!  It starts this Sunday night.  Come watch the Giants slaughter the Bears - then hang with us for a free full band show at the coolest new LA club.  We’ll be giving out prizes and putting off the work week for as long as we can.  We’ve got brand new songs (New Wreckage!) and we will each week.  We don’t do covers, but every show we will do ‘my version’ of a recognizable tune – last week “Semi Hard Kind of Life” seemed to go over well.  Also, Wreck Eric (or Er-Wreck) posted this video of our new ballad “I Miss Her…” from our performance at the SMB&G last week.  The club is located at 3321 Pico Blvd, just west of the Centinela exit off the 10 freeway.  I’ll be down there at 5 for the game.  Come have some fun.

And since good things come in threes:  Listen to KPFK 90.7 this Sunday at 2pm (or www.KPFK.org).  I will be a guest on Samm Brown’s show again.  This time I hope to be on the right show and not be crashing someone else’s, so hopefully I’ll talk a bit more.  My new film, 800 CDs, is debuting at the Temecula Valley Film Festival next week, Thurs, Sept 13, at 5pm and Fri, Sept 14, at 1pm if you want to head over to it.  I’ll also be on a panel Sunday morning at 11am talking about indy artists and music promotion – the subject of the film.  Which is also what we’ll be talking about on Samm Brown.

Actually, sometimes good things can come in fours.  Like aces.  My old friend and ridiculously talented jazz drummer, Evan Stone, called me. (Evan was a co-member of our high school band Street Wise, we were tough guys as you can probably imagine.  Sadly, it was downhill for Evan after that.  He got stuck playing with hacks like Maynard Ferguson, Brian Bromberg, Darek Oles and Dr. Art Davis.) Well, Evan invited me to play at the Mint on Monday night, 8pm, with his conceptual potpourri evening of random entertainment – jugglers, dancers, magicians, and spontaneous film scoring.   It’s called the Translucent Ham Sandwich band.  We go on at 8pm.  I think I’m the baton twirler, but I’m not sure.  Should be wild.

All free stuff! 

Also, one other free thing.  If you can’t get into the Thurs Sit N Spin – or would rather hang at the J Lounge downtown for a very large and fun singles event, go to www.onekeyaway.com.  Or even better, e-mail Edwin@OneKeyAway.com and tell him I said you could get in free.  This event is being film for ABC News nationally.  OneKeyAway is becoming a big deal.  It should be a really fun night.