KCRW Presents the First-Ever Summer Nights’ Backyard Party @ KCRW HQ

KCRW Presents the First-Ever Summer Nights’
Backyard Party @ KCRW HQ

Featuring The Midnight Hour, Jim James, Henry Rollins, and KCRW DJs

This brand-new, three-concert series is free, all-ages, and outdoors, and takes place in the backyard of KCRW’s new home at Santa Monica College’s CMD Campus

Saturdays: August 4, 11, and 18, at 7PM

Santa Monica, CA (July 16, 2018) – KCRW announces today, details for a brand-new Summer Nights series – the first-ever Backyard Party @ KCRW HQ, free, outdoors, and all-ages at KCRW’s new home on Santa Monica College’s state-of-the-art CMD Campus. This three-concert series launches with The Midnight Hour – the project from Ali Shaheed Muhammad (of A Tribe Called Quest) and composer Adrian Younge – performing with an 18-piece band on August 4. On August 11, Jim James will treat everyone to a luscious solo acoustic performance. The series will close with a blistering DJ set by Henry Rollins. KCRW DJs Garth Trinidad, Travis Holcombe, Liza Richardson, Chris Douridas, Dan Wilcox, and Eric J. Lawrence will also be delivering killer DJ sets throughout the series.

Backyard Party @ KCRW also features Good Food’s Evan Kleiman’s favorite food trucks, record collectors and dealers hand-selected by Beats Swap Meet, a bar, and plenty of summer fun.

For more information, please visit: http://www.kcrw.com/summernights

More about the Artists:

When two of hip-hop’s most accomplished composers get together to make an album, you know the results are going to be special. Ali Shaheed Muhammad (A Tribe Called Quest) & Adrian Younge began their work together in 2013 on the critically acclaimed album There Is Only Now. Their partnership cemented on the score work for Marvel’s Luke Cage. The duo’s long awaited album as The Midnight Hour is carefully constructed and masterful, and showcases their songwriting ability like never before. The 20-track double album, was recently released June 8, on Linear Labs, and distributed digitally by INgrooves with vinyl distributed by Traffic Entertainment. The lead track and first single “Questions” features CeeLo Green and perfectly captures the album’s underlying roots in hip-hop’s origins.

Flipping through the pages of The Last Whole Earth Catalogue, a resource that was, in 1971, basically the internet before the internet, Jim James stumbled upon a distorted photo of “The Illuminated Man” by Duane Michals. Immediately moved by the photo, he asked for permission to use the image as the album cover of his third solo album Uniform Distortion. The first request to Michals was rejected. In hopes of changing his mind, James wrote a letter to Michals, personally, and was ultimately allowed to use the image. In the letter James wrote “the name of my new record is ‘UNIFORM DISTORTION’ because i feel like there is this blanket distortion on society/media and the way we gather our ‘news’ and important information…and more and more of us are feeling lost and looking for new ways out of this distortion and back to the truth…and finding hope in places like the desert where i write this email to you now…finding hope in the land and in the water and in old books offering new ideas and most importantly in each other and love.”

In describing Henry Rollins, the tendency is to try to squeeze as many labels as possible into a single sentence. “Rollins is many things,” says The Washington Post, “diatribist, confessor, provocateur, humorist, even motivational speaker…his is an enthusiastic and engaging chatter.” Entertainment Weekly’s list includes “Punk Rock icon. Spoken word poet. Actor. Author. DJ. Is there anything this guy can’t do?” TV Guide has more concisely called him a “Renaissance Man” but if Henry Rollins could be reduced to a single word, that word would undoubtedly be “workaholic.” When he’s not traveling, Rollins prefers a to keep a relentless schedule full of work, with gigs as an actor, author, DJ, voice-over artist and TV show host to name a few of the roles that keep his schedule full. Rollins has toured the world as a spoken word artist, as frontman for both Rollins Band and Black Flag and as a solitary traveler with insatiable curiosity, favoring road-less-traveled locales in places such as Nepal, Sri Lanka, Siberia, North Korea, South Sudan and Iran.

DETAILS:
Backyard Party @ KCRW HQ
1660 Stewart Street
Santa Monica, CA 90404

Free, outdoors and all-ages

Saturday, August 4, at 7pm
The Midnight Hour + KCRW DJs Garth Trinidad + Travis Holcombe

Saturday, August 11, at 7pm
Jim James + KCRW DJs Liza Richardson + Chris Douridas

Saturday, August 18, at 7pm
Henry Rollins + KCRW DJs Dan Wilcox + Eric J. Lawrence

About KCRW
KCRW creates and curates a unique mix of content centered around music discovery, NPR news, cultural exploration and informed public affairs. We are driven by the spirit of LA and deliver in innovative ways — on the radio, digitally and in person — to diverse, curious communities around the corner and around the world. A community service of Santa Monica College, KCRW can be found on the air in LA, Santa Barbara, Ventura, Mojave, Palm Springs, San Luis Obispo, and online at kcrw.com.