Armenians’ turn on the red carpet

When it comes to red carpet, no one can go wall to wall like L.A. Commercials call them once-in-a-lifetime awards galas, but here it’s really more like a biweekly ritual that keeps limousine fleets in the black and UPN’s airwaves occupied. Tonight’s entry on the trophy schedule? The Armenian Music Awards at the Hollywood Palladium, which will bounce off satellites to the far corners of the globe.

If it sounds like a big show for a small scene, well, that’s the beauty of L.A. -- the super-sized populace and unequaled cultural quilt have enough juice to put footlights in front of just about everybody. This year the show has an intriguing subplot in the man slated to host: Mark Geragos, the attorney fresh from the Michael Jackson trial.

“We don’t have anything in writing, but he agreed to do it and we shook on it,” said Peter Bahlawanian, who founded the event seven years ago. “I asked Geragos if we could write something up and the look he gave me -- like, ‘You think a contract will do any good?’ We’re very excited to have him. It will catch people’s attention.”

Bahlawanian is 34 and, with hip clothes, a slight build and soulful eyes, has a vague resemblance to Moby. He is Canadian-born but, as with everyone who identifies him- or herself as Armenian, map boundaries are flimsy in a nomadic heritage.

His father had a music retail business that provided the seed for Bahlawanian’s L.A. arrival in 1994. From there, he operated a record label, a wedding magazine and a world-music publication. The show hit its zenith a few years ago with a live cablecast that bounced into space and back down to a potential audience of 42 million (actual viewership was nowhere near that).

The show was most popular in the community hubs in Australia, France, California, but it was not only an in-house affair. Armenian contemporary music is popular enough, but the most potent crossover remains the sound of the duduk, the wind instrument that many casual music fans might know best from the soundtrack to “The Last Temptation of Christ.”

“That is a CD,” Bahlawanian said with some reverence, “that you will find in every Armenian family’s house.”

Bahlawanian spoke while sitting in an outdoor dining area at Mandaloun, a popular restaurant in Glendale that’s nothing less than a global capital for Armenians. Between courses, he smoked from a hookah fitted with an apple packed with tobacco and small, sausage-shaped heating bricks. He got particularly animated when discussing System of a Down, the crazed Los Angeles rock band of Armenian heritage. “They have done so much for music. And also for the cause -- the recognition of the genocide.”

Much of the binding for the Armenian community is spun from that horrendous historical chapter. “It is part of who we are now and who we were long ago,” Bahlawanian said. The community fights for formal declaration by world governments that the Armenian people suffered a campaign of genocide at the hands of the Turks between 1915 and 1923.

Another cause with mixed results is the awards show, which Bahlawanian has presented with fairly slick production values and some poignant moments. The Armenian identity is so varied that early editions were like truce negotiations. Bahlawanian was a stern force, demanding that the ceremony be in English.

The Oscars it’s not, although show biz still conjures magic and ego. The worst moment, Bahlawanian said, was the music debut a noted poet made on the show a few years ago. “She wouldn’t come off, she kept adding more and more to the song. She waved off the host. I couldn’t believe it ... you never know what will happen to a person when they get the microphone and have the world watching.”