Los Angeles is an extraordinary place for live music featuring musicians with recording contracts or trying to make it on their own as independent artists. The LA Weekly tries to keep track of many of these small venues and it is a herculean effort due to the number of venues and the artists being booked. I was recently introduced to Room 5 on North La Brea which gives one an excuse to check out Mark Peel's trendy new The Tar Pit Restaurant or I could have stood in a fast moving line for famous hot dogs at Pinks. When checking out Room 5 on the web, I noticed that Lilly Scott who had missed the cut for the final 12 on this past season's American Idol, had been recently booked into this venue.
Anyway, I had been encouraged to see Jason Liebman perform, who has a following in New York City, as he was in Los Angeles during late May to play at Room 5 along with several other venues. Room 5 is a small music venue above Amalfi restaurant at 143 North La Brea. I caught Jason on his last night in Los Angeles and the room was filled with family, friends, and new fans. I enjoyed the venue and Jason's music. Jason hopes to back in Los Angeles in the Fall, but you can sample Jason's music by going to his webpage.
Maybe because he is from New York, or maybe it is just his style, but at times, Jason reminded me of Paul Simon with his melodies and cadence of his voice. His current CD is called Sweet Sacrifice. Jason is quite skilled on the acoustic guitar, and he talked about giving guitar lessons back in NYC. One of his students, Michael Bar-Levi, had come up with a guitar riff that he used for inspiration to create an original song (The Stars Above) for his new CD, and thus he gave him a co-writing music credit.
In this day of social networking, one is required to reach out on all of the major platforms to connect with one's fans and to make new ones. You can catch up with Jason on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter (check his official website for those three major links and nine other places to connect with Jason) and watch for his return to LA. On his recent CD, Jason makes use of one of the new optical reader applications, Beetag, to take one direct to his website on your smartphone.
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