Taylor Grey

Singer-songwriter Taylor Grey at Primo Passo Coffee Co. in Santa Monica

TAYLOR GREY 

At Primo Passo Coffee Co.
702 Montana Ave., Santa Monica

“Usually I get black coffee. I don’t know why I started liking it plain – college will do it to you,” laughs singer-songwriter Taylor Grey. “I have a little Keurig in my dorm but don’t have any milk, so I just got used to it.”

It’s no wonder that the 18-year-old recording artist admits that she has turned into a coffee lover over the past couple of years. Not only did she keep up with her schoolwork and earn admittance into Stanford University, she recorded a debut EP, Mind of Mine, which released via Kobalt Music Group in February, and finished a full-length album, Fallin, that will be available in a couple of months.

Taylor is down in Los Angeles to perform for the first time in the city (several sets at the Grove) and meets me for an afternoon coffee break at Primo Passo Coffee Co. in Santa Monica. With its specialty brews, industrial-chic decor and ultra tempting pastry offerings, the independent café resembles the setting for Taylor’s music video for the lead single off Mind of Mine, “Love Sweet Love.”

“I’m from the Bay Area and grateful that I’m so close to home, but I’m trying to keep some distance – only go home during designated breaks – to have as much of a ‘normal’ college experience as possible. It doesn’t always work out like that, especially when I need to travel here,” she says. “I do like coming to Los Angeles. It’s such an artistic, trendy city. Everyone here is very ‘on it.’ I like coming here because I feel productive being a busy bee for a couple of days.”

One of the perks of visiting the city is getting to stay at the Beverly Hills Hotel, since Taylor is a huge fan of the Eagles.

“The Beverly Hills Hotel is Hotel California. There are actually others called Hotel California now, which is funny, but this is the OG Hotel California. Being there is like being transported through time,” she smiles. “I would listen to ‘Hotel California’ on my dad’s iPod when I was little, and the Eagles are my all-time favorite band now. Listening to that song is a clear memory I have of being influenced by my parents’ choice of music.”

So although her mom and dad weren’t huge music people, their taste in songs that were being played around the house definitely had an impact on Taylor growing up. She also remembers always singing around the house and eventually parlayed this passion into performing in musical theater productions.

Taylor began playing guitar and piano around fifth grade but confesses to having an on-and-off relationship with both instruments over the years.

“I wanted to learn because my younger sister wanted to play. I thought, ‘Oh that looks cool. I want to do it too because I’m the older sister and need to do everything first,” she recalls with a laugh. “I don’t really play with sheet music per se, I just play what sounds good when writing. I just like having them as tools in my repertoire.”

It was around middle school when Taylor began writing song lyrics as well.

“I used to have notebooks full of song lyrics. They were really embarrassing and pretty funny! I wouldn’t write on the guitar, it would just be melodies in my head. I need to find those notebooks, they would be good for a laugh,” she says. “My writing style has definitely changed in terms of lyrical content since middle school [laughs], and I don’t really write things down a lot anymore. If I get an idea in my head or if I feel like writing a song, I’ll grab my guitar, sit down, press record on my iPhone and play something until it figures itself out.”

When she started high school, Taylor began cultivating broader musical tastes. At first she listened to a lot of Top 40; her first show was a Hannah Montana concert. Then, she started exploring her friends’ playlists.

“My best friend was super into classic rock at the time. I was really being influenced by that, driving in the car along the highway and listening to any of the good ‘70s, late ‘70s and ‘80s classics.”

Taylor’s openness to music of all eras has definitely lent to the timeless sound of the six songs found on Mind of Mine. She recorded the EP over six months, a little at Interscope here in Los Angeles, but mostly at San Francisco’s Studio Trilogy with the production team of Benjamin Taylor and Bryan Morton (who has served as recording engineer for the likes of Nicki Minaj, Chris Brown and Kendrick Lamar), both formerly of Tournament of Hearts. 

“The three of us get along really well. They’re great guys to be around and sort of like older brothers, so it’s super fun to hang out together. They let me do my thing with songwriting, but they know I don’t know all the chord structures for songs, that I don’t play 15 instruments, so they help me out with the actual music. It’s a good balance of me doing my own thing versus collaboration,” she describes. “I have complete trust in them since they’ve been in this industry and thrived in it for so long. They know what they’re doing, so during production if they say, ‘We didn’t originally plan on this, but we were thinking of adding this type of drum. It sounds a little weird, but what do you think,’ I’m not afraid to say, ‘OK, let’s hear it out, and see how it goes,’ because I know they know what they’re doing.”

The trio make such a solid team that they also completed an entire full-length album’s worth of material that Taylor is hoping to release in May.

“I’m super excited because I think my favorite song that I’ve ever written is going to be on the album. It’s the title track, ‘Fallin,’ and Brad Simpson of the Vamps sings on it with me. I’m so pumped for that collaboration,” she gushes. “All winter quarter I was writing, so I have a bunch of stuff that I want to keep demoing, too.”

Sitting and talking with the poised-for-her-years young woman, it’s quite easy to forget that she is in the midst of her freshman year at such an academically rigorous institution as Stanford. When I ask her about declaring a major, her intended path of study takes me by surprise.

“I’m very undeclared at the moment, but I plan to take this year to figure it out. I’m looking into something with the brain: neuroscience or cognitive science,” she reveals. “Have you heard of mBerry? We tried it in class, and it blocks hydrogen receptors on your tongue so when you eat lemons, they’re sweet like oranges. It’s a fruit that they make into tablets, and you can buy it on Amazon.” 

Since juggling academics and music leaves little free time, Taylor really just loves to keep things low key.

“I spend most of my days in Nike leggings and Vans, being comfortable. If I have down time, I’m hanging out and talking with friends. I really value those hour-long conversations about life with them,” she says. “I have gone on some adventures, though. I recently went to the beach off of Half Moon Bay with a couple of friends, and it was fun to jump into the waves.”

Fun is really what Taylor hopes listeners take away from her music, whether it’s watching the video for “Love Sweet Love,” seeing her perform or listening to Mind of Mine in their own dorm room. 

“I hope people feel happy. I want someone to feel like listening to the song is worth it,” she concludes. “If it’s on in the background and they could relax, hang out, dance to it or enjoy it in some way or another, that would be ideal.”

Mind of Mine is currently available. For more information, visit taylorgreymusic.com.

P.F. Sloan

P.F. Sloan at Fromin's Delicatessen & Restaurant

P.F. Sloan 

At Fromin's Delicatessen & Restaurant
1832 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica (310) 829-5443

P.F. Sloan’s musical path can be traced to one specific point of origin: the day his father took him to Wallichs Music City, the famous record store formerly located at Sunset and Vine in Hollywood, to buy a guitar.

“When I was 12, I met Elvis Presley there, and he gave me a guitar lesson,” the L.A. singer-songwriter remembers. “He took an interest in me right away, gave me a guitar lesson and within six months I was on an R&B label making records at 12 and a half.”

P.F., who has penned such hit singles as “Secret Agent Man” and “Eve of Destruction,” has a life story that is indeed far from ordinary, and he takes some time to share some of his experiences and talk about his first new album in nearly a decade, My Beethoven, with me at one of his neighborhood haunts, Fromin’s Delicatessen & Restaurant. Fromin’s has been serving deli favorites like Corned Beef and Cabbage and Reuben, Pastrami and Brisket sandwiches to Angelenos since the 1970s. P.F., however, has called Los Angeles home since the late 1950s when his family migrated from New York.

“My father was a pharmacist but couldn’t get his license here right away, so he opened up a sundries store in Downtown on Flower and Wilshire. It took a toll on him because he was a professional man, but he had to support his family, so it put a little distance between us,” he admits. 

Although no one in his family was musically inclined, P.F. would pluck out songs at home on a small ukulele that only had one string on it and sing along to music he heard on the radio. That is, until the day he got a guitar and made the acquaintance of the King of Rock ’n’ Roll. The R&B label he refers to was Aladdin Records, and by age 16 P.F. joined the songwriting staff and became head of A&R for Screen Gems music publishing.

“[At Aladdin,] they asked if I could write songs. I said, ‘yes,’ came up with four songs that week and went in and recorded them. That was the beginning. Music is divine when it’s done right. It changes people’s lives, as well as your own. First and foremost, it changes you inside. It’s a great life to have except it’s like this [motions up and down], and most people want a life like that [even, flat]. That’s why they find musicians interesting. I found musicians interesting because they all had a great sense of humor, and I really wanted to have that. You’re hanging around musicians who are so open, honest and so funny – it just seems like a great life. I was working with a professional bunch of musicians as a kid, and I got to learn a lot of things, which was great.”

Some of the personalities P.F. met at the time were Steve Barri, who became his songwriting partner, and Screen Gems executive Lou Adler, who hired the duo as backup singers/musicians for a band he managed, Jan and Dean. P.F. and Barri wrote on Jan and Dean’s next albums, composed the theme song for the T.A.M.I. Show and other tracks such as Round Robin’s “Kick That Little Foot Sally Ann.”

“It was all fun. The only pressure I felt was to keep myself from having to become a pharmacist,” confesses P.F. “As soon as they started paying me $10, $15 a week I knew that that was enough money to keep me from going to school.”

P.F. continued working with Adler at Dunhill Records where he wrote hits like “Eve of Destruction,” “Secret Agent Man,” the Turtles’ “You Baby” and “Let Me Be” and Herman’s Hermits’ “Hold On!” and “A Must to Avoid.” He also created and played the guitar intro for the Mamas & the Papas’ “California Dreamin’.”

“You can’t imagine what it was like in those days, we had 60 new records coming out every week – a new Supremes, Beatles, Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan. This was week after week, with each getting better and better for two or three years. A catchy two-and-a-half minute song hit all these buttons of emotion within us, and their message was new. There were feel-good songs, but then there were message songs about the state of the world, how a wise person should be dealing with life,” recalls P.F. “First we had Elvis Presley to teach us how to kiss, be kissed and what a man expects from love and life. Then along come these teachers/philosophers like Lennon, Jagger, Dylan. This was a way different idea of what music is supposed to be versus Benny Goodman. It was actually teaching, waking up the consciousness of people that were fast asleep.”

This awakening definitely captured P.F.’s interest and influenced the songs he was writing. But it soon became the reason he would part ways with the music industry for several decades.

“That awakening was something the music business, my label, nobody wanted. They refused to publish anything that I wrote along those lines, and that’s fine. I don’t think any one thing is better than another. A pop song is equal to any folk song per se, but there are outstanding songs such as ‘We Shall Overcome’ and ‘Amazing Grace’ that are going to live forever,” he explains. “When you’re growing up in music, you don’t think that it’s something you can shoot for, but there is an awakening that became the beginning of all my problems.”

At this point in our conversation at Fromin’s the waitress comes by for our order, and P.F. says he normally gets a bowl of soup and half of a sandwich. I mention that whenever I visit a deli I have to order matzo ball soup, so we both order a bowl. Fromin’s version stands out from others because of its big chunks of chicken, a dough ball the size of a baseball and noodles. 

P.F. informs me that his mom was an extraordinary cook, and he also enjoys cooking. His specialty is his mom’s recipe for tomato sauce that “even Frank Sinatra wanted to buy.”

He currently lives on the West Side, but has lived all over Los Angeles. His family had originally moved to West Hollywood and settled in Mid-City West, and he admits that he has never felt comfortably at home anywhere other than his parents’ house. Yet, he has found one refuge in this world, although it’s literally across the globe.

“India is the place for me. I was blessed to first go in 1986 [to meet his guru], and it transformed my life completely. India is an enchanted place, like no place else on Earth. One can find enlightenment there; the energy is so full of love and charged with positive things,” he describes. “I go there often, and I can get snippets of being there in meditation to keep myself moving and going.”  

It was at the urging of his guru that P.F. returned to music in the early 1990s, and this reemergence also had a lot to do with seeing Beethoven’s music performed for the first time at the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

“It was like I was hearing music for the first time; it was that beautiful, a religious conversion. Beethoven, to me, is like trying to describe chocolate ice cream to someone who has never tasted it. It’s that good. I was never open to Beethoven before. I was given the talk that Beethoven and Shakespeare were for the nerds, and I was into rock ’n’ roll,” he offers. “But after I had done it all seen it all, I was completely burned out on music. There was no new revelation in pop music, it was just the same hormones, loneliness, angst. Whatever kind of enlightenment they were giving was for a whole new generation of teenagers who hadn’t experienced life yet to know what’s real and what’s not real. So the worst thing in my life happened, I didn’t have music anymore.”

Experiencing the live performance of Beethoven’s pieces renewed P.F.’s passion for music and piqued his curiosity about the composer’s own life.

“All I knew about Beethoven was that he was deaf and grouchy, so I read everything that I could get my hands on about him for the next six years,” he says. “This was before the internet, so I went to every library to find out why he wanted to commit suicide (because I was feeling suicidal) and why didn’t he commit suicide. I just needed to know the answer.”

As he delved further into Beethoven’s history, P.F. discovered that they had much more in common than their shared deep depression. 

“He’s so misunderstood, and I feel misunderstood as well. Who doesn’t? But when you have the world’s greatest talent and he’s still not understood … As a matter of fact, most things that people know of him are lies written by a guy [Anton Schindler] who was basically using him. I found the real Beethoven in a book, Canto [Memories of Beethoven: From the House of the Black-Robed Spaniards], written by the son of Beethoven’s childhood friend,” he begins. “I also found books of his letters and his journals, and there was a lot I had in common with him so I thought we could be friends. He was considered a Mozart wannabe until the day he died, and I was always considered a Bob Dylan wannabe. I was abused as a child, and he was beaten as a child. He played guitar and wrote 400 folk songs. He carried a guitar with him everywhere, taking poems from Robert Burns and writing music to them.”

Their commonalities began to inspire P.F. to create compositions of his own, but there was one hurdle he had yet to overcome.

“I didn’t know how to play piano, so I began listening to Beethoven’s work played by Glenn Gould, who said that it was his life goal to play every note exactly as Beethoven played it, so when I was listening to Gould, I was listening to Beethoven, hearing a song exactly as he would have played it,” he tells. “I slowly began to learn how to play piano. I worked on one song, ‘Beethoven’s Delight,’ in 1994, but it was horrible, so I spent the next 20 years trying to reach the place where beauty exists in all of us.” 

After years spent researching Beethoven’s life, studying piano, composition and orchestral arrangement, P.F. enlisted musicians from the L.A. Philharmonic Orchestra, and My Beethoven began to come together.

“Learning to play the piano took me seven years, and I started getting money to get Pro Tools together to work on one song for eight years. Another thing I found attractive about Beethoven was that he erased everything, he struggled over every note for weeks. The fact that I love to rewrite made me feel like I had a partner, that it was OK to rewrite because that’s where the polish comes from,” he says. “B.B. King once told me, ‘Ninety percent of everything that you write is going to be crap, but most people fall in love with their own crap and can’t tell the difference anymore.’ It’s rare that you can throw away what you think is your best, start from scratch and find another level that’s never been touched by filters. It’s a fantastic process.” 

My Beethoven was finally released in May, and also resulted in a pop opera P.F. created with playwright Steve Feinberg.

“By the time I finished nine songs, Steve Feinberg found me. I took him to my studio, played him the music and he said, ‘This is a play as well!’ We spent the next two years writing a play. I called it ‘Louie Louie.’ The French called him ‘Louis’ [pronounced ‘Louie’], and he loved it, so his close friends would call him Louie,” he says. “Beethoven really has become a dear friend. He transformed my life, filled it with beauty, love and music. I can’t imagine a day without him.”

My Beethoven is currently available. For more information, visit sloanpf.wix.com/-pf-sloan-memoirs.

Ice Skating in L.A.

L.A. Kings Holiday Ice skating rink in Nokia Plaza at L.A. Live

 

HOLIDAY SKATING RINKS

My favorite rom-com is Serendipity, and one of its most memorable scenes is when John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale go skating at Wollman Rink in Central Park. Seriously, what could be more romantic? Grab your significant other or a bunch of friends, and get into the holiday spirit by going for a glide at one of these L.A.-area outdoor skating rinks.

Beverly Hills Holiday Ice Rink
Now-Jan. 6, 2013 @ Crescent Drive, between North and South Santa Monica Boulevards (Beverly Hills); $15 for admission and skate rental
This is the first time the Golden Triangle is hosting a public rink, and it will be located directly in front of City Hall.

Chill Ice Rink
Now-Jan. 2, 2013 @ The W Hotel (Westwood); $10 for one hour of skating and skate rental
If you're seeking more of a club environment, the W has transformed their pool area to a hybrid-ice rink, complete with private cabanas, specialty cocktails and food. Plus, snow falls every hour.

Downtown on Ice
Now-Jan. 21, 2013 @ Pershing Square - 532 S. Olive Ave. (Downtown); $8 for a one-hour skate session and skate rental
Besides skating, there is also a concert series, exhibitions, broomball games and a holiday festival.

Holiday Ice Rink
Now-Jan. 6, 2013 @ 9300 Culver Blvd. (Culver City); $14 for admission and skate rental
Work up an appetite at this rink located in downtown Culver City, next to the Culver Hotel. Then walk across Washington Boulevard to go eat at one of the best Japanese restaurants in Los Angeles, K-Zo.

ICE at Santa Monica
Now-Jan. 21, 2013 @ 1324 5th St. (Santa Monica); $12 for admission and skate rental
This is one of the only places in Los Angeles where you can spend a day at the beach then go ice skating – all within walking distance. There's even a broomball league that plays games here every Thursday night.

L.A. Kings Holiday Ice
Now-Jan. 2, 2013 @ Nokia Plaza, L.A. Live (Downtown); $13 for admission and skate rental
You can also purchase a Supper & Skate package for $30, which includes admission, skate rental and a prix fixe dinner from ESPN Zone, LA Market or Trader Vic's.
 
The Queen Mary Presents CHILL
Now-Jan. 6, 2013 @ 1126 Queens Highway (Long Beach); $12.90 for admission and skate rental
After skating, you can go ice tubing, visit The Ice Kingdom exhibit and a Holiday Village.

The Rink
Now-Jan. 3, 2013 @ Hyatt Regency Century Plaza (Century City); $10 for a one-hour skate session
Annenberg Space for Photography is a sponsor of this rink, which features eco-friendly synthetic hybrid ice.

Woodland Hills Ice
Now-Jan. 27, 2013 @ Westfield Promenade (Woodland Hills); $15 for one session and skate rental
Now in its fourth season, this rink offers lessons, as well as special theme nights and giveaways through New Year's Eve.

Bernard Yin of Astra Heights

Bernard Yin digs into Cha Cha Chicken's Mulato Cubano sandwich.

BERNARD YIN of Astra Heights

At Cha Cha Chicken

1906 Ocean Ave., Santa Monica

One of the inspirations for JIGSAW was the amount of musicians I know who are total foodies. And Bernard Yin, lead guitarist for Astra Heights, definitely loves food.

"I just finished touring Europe with a band that doesn't pay terribly much, but my primary motive whenever I tour with them is that we go to cities with amazing food. If I knew that the food was not going to be part of the package, I wouldn't do it. It's that important," he says.

Bernard meets me at one of his usual neighborhood haunts, Cha Cha Chicken, where he enjoys the Caribbean-fused-with-Latin cuisine a few times a month. His favorite dish, the Jerk Chicken Enchiladas, is comprised of the restaurant's signature Jamaican-style chicken wrapped in tortillas and smothered in a sweet, spicy mango pineapple sauce. He's also a big fan of their Aguas Frescas (seasonal fresh fruit waters). Today, he decides to try the Mulato Cubano and a blended watermelon and cantaloupe ague fresco, which is quite refreshing on this hot summer day. The sandwich is well worth the wait when it arrives. A crispy Cuban baguette is pressed around shredded chicken breast, cheese, lettuce, pickles and mustard. The chicken is juicy and so tender that little bits keep falling away from the sandwich.

Cha Cha Chicken in Santa Monica

Since Bernard has lived in Los Angeles for 20 years, he also loves Mexican food.

"I eat Mexican food almost every day. I've got this route, I know where to go for the best huevos rancheros, fish taco, [etc.]. There's a place called Gilbert's up on Pico – the vibe is great, and it's definitely a place where you prepare to get really stuffed. Paco's Tacos on Centinela is pretty well known. The tortillas are made right then and there. That's a very powerful thing. There's a place, a real hole in the wall on Lincoln right near Pico on the southeast corner. I go there a lot for a veggie burrito. Mariscos Guillen La Playita is fantastic and mind-boggling inexpensive. … The culture clash or the blending of cultures that you see here in L.A., it's so well exemplified when you see these taco trucks with like, the Korean taco – all these funny hybrids of food genres."

Fusion cooking is something that Bernard is used to. His mother is Greek but was born and raised in France, and his father is Chinese, so he grew up being exposed to a lot of different foods.

"My mom would make traditional Greek Tiropita – a phyllo dough triangle stuffed with feta cheese and herbs – and Spanakopita. She would also make souffles. I grew up eating rabbit in urban America. The French eat rabbit a lot, and I know the taste of rabbit very well. From my father's side I know the taste of duck. … My dad cooks very well too. He loves to prepare a slab of salmon, garnished and dressed up with a lemony, tangy element going on. He does make a mean pancake – as all Chinese people are supposed to," he says with a wink.

Another benefit of growing up in a multicultural household was a wide variety of music.

"My mother, for example, loved that Eydie Gormé album, Canta en Español, which anybody from Latin culture knows even though it's at least 35 years old. It's this amazing collection of standard Spanish love songs that you hear every mariachi play. She did it with such panache with Trio Los Panchos. So, there I was with a Greek-French mother and a Chinese dad listening to Spanish music (by a non-Hispanic, mind you!). Even to this day, it's one of my favorite records."

Bernard's love for music blossomed when his family relocated to San Diego from the San Francisco Bay Area.

"I no longer could hang out with my friends, I had no life. The guitar was handy, so I started playing a few random things. I was always listening to AM radio. All through the '70s you could turn on an AM station and you would hear an impressive variety – Sly Stone, Deep Purple, America, Helen Reddy, Olivia Newton-John, John Denver, Grand Funk Railroad and all the British Invasion and post British Invasion stuff and pre-disco Bee Gees – all on one station. As a musician it's kept me stimulated because I enjoy a variety of music. The other day I jammed with Norwood Fisher, the bassist from Fishbone, and I'm working with some projects right now that have nothing to do with the direction that he's got. The variety keeps me from getting sick of it and selling my guitar."

Aside from Astra Heights, Bernard has played with arrests such as El Vez, the Fuzztones, the Zodiac Club, the Animators, Pansy Division, Medicine and the MiGs. He has also produced material for Marisable Bazan and created music for film and television shows like "Dexter."

Cha Cha Chicken is just a block away from Bernard's house, as well as one of his usual surf spots. 

"I surf almost daily. My favorite spots aren't always the nearest, sometimes you have to settle to just get some surfing under your belt for the day. Out of convenience I surf right here at Bay Street and the waves are semi-decent there often enough, and it's walking distance. It's so rejuvenating and stimulating. As far as L.A. goes, all the way up the coast there are different spots. Sometimes it's good at Zuma, sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's good in Malibu, sometimes it's not. The list goes on. They call it a Surfing Safari because you're looking and hunting for a wave."

Another of Bernard's passions is fishing, which he got into from spending a lot of time around water with his dad, an underwater marine photographer. The self-proclaimed "obsessed angler" also loves the artistry of making his own flies. Besides working a day job in marketing, composing instrumentals for licensing and performing with bands, this modern-day Renaissance man certainly deserves to enjoy his downtime eating good food, surfing and fishing.  What else does he do to relax?

"I sleep. Almost every day I take a nap. That's huge!"

For more information, visit bernardyin.com.