They’ll share the stage
YOU walk into the Cocaine, a curiously named party booked on weekends at Little Tokyo’s 2nd Street Jazz Bar & Grill, a little bit wary. What to expect -- Don Johnson pulling up out front in a speedboat? A secret portal into Los Angeles’ drug culture?
Nothing of the kind.
The Cocaine -- the name was conjured up solely as an attention-grabber, you won’t find Pete Doherty holed up in a stall -- is more like Rock ‘n’ Roll 101, a club where nascent bands try to entertain a room full of equally youthful patrons. The results can be wildly unpredictable, because Cocaine booker Nico Del Castillo and club owner Ko Matsumoto pride themselves on giving start-up acts a chance.
“We’re all musicians and we know how hard it is to get a gig in L.A.,” Del Castillo says.
So it is on a recent Saturday night, when restless young twentysomethings milled about out front of the small, unremarkable storefront housing the club while a big-boned youth in a teal T-shirt with thick, black-framed glasses and a white bandana played bass alone to an accompanying preset keyboard track.
Although the crowd is stingy with its applause, this refreshingly unstereotypical rocker, 21-year-old Mario Ruiz, has a smart sound going with his project, the Girl With Violent Arms. His bass grooves ooze thickness and he gets on his knees every once in a while in an unaffected way that warms the heart.
“The one thing I’ve learned from playing live is that you have to play really loud, because otherwise when they boo you, you can’t drown them out,” Ruiz says amicably into the microphone.
An oversized jock sitting next to me at the bar bobs his head in time with the music. “Not bad. They kind of grow on you,” he remarks to the bartender.
They? He clearly hasn’t turned around to look at the stage yet.
After Ruiz’s set Del Castillo grabs a mike and taunts the audience for its tepid response. “You’re pathetic,” he quips with mock consternation. His enthusiasm perks things up a bit. It’s not that the crowd isn’t having fun, it’s just that on this night they are a bit young and susceptible to a hesitant herd instinct.
“We’re the Cocaine,” he continues. “We’re on MySpace, because you’re all on MySpace but you don’t want to admit it -- it’s like masturbation.”
OUT front, before the next band strikes up, Matsumoto lays out the club’s seven-year history. It was opened by his late father, who was a well-known trumpet player in Japan. Matsumoto’s mother plays jazz piano regularly at the Grand Star in Chinatown, and her father conducted a World War II-era Japanese swing band. 2nd Street Jazz hosts live jazz three to four nights a week.
“My dad always wanted a place where he could listen to music,” Matsumoto says.
Did he like the kinds of music showcased by the Cocaine? Absolutely. “My pops was a rebel,” Matsumoto replies, displaying a photo of his father, a handsome, lanky man with silver hair standing between two young rockers. It is the father, not the rockers, who is good-naturedly flipping off the camera with both hands.
“We want to be a kind of heaven for amateurs looking for a place to play,” Matsumoto says.
No one appreciates this more than the bands themselves. After an energetic set, Paul DiFlauro, the candy-cane-cute lead singer of Dust Pilots, strides up to the bar for a glass of water. “I love playing here,” he says earnestly.
While the final band of the evening, Good Friday, sets up, Matsumoto mixes a cocktail that he says was invented by Johnnie Munger, an old bandmate of Del Castillo’s and one of the founding fathers of the Cocaine. It’s like a White Russian, only it’s cut with the rice drink horchata instead of milk. It’s called a “Dirty Whore.”
When Good Friday takes the stage, an eager group of fans pushes in around them and stadium-worthy spotlights of sudden and unspecified origin beam out at the crowd. The lead singer starts off by asking how the audience liked the Dust Pilots.
“No one knows how to blow the lines between power metal and emo like those guys,” he remarks, before launching into a song that does just that.
*
The Cocaine
Where: 2nd Street Jazz Bar & Grill, 366 E. 2nd St., L.A.
When: 8 p.m. to 1:45 a.m. Saturdays and Sundays
Price: $5 on Saturday, free on Sunday; 21 and older
Info: (213) 680-0047 or www.thecocaine.com
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