The Hammer, KCRW collaborate in summer concert series
AM & Shawn Lee is one of the bands playing at the Hammer this Thursday as a part of the series, “Music For Better Living.”
By Faizan Ghori
June 24, 2013 12:00 a.m.
KCRW, a popular radio station, and the Hammer Museum are hosting a joint musical event called Music for Better Living, part of KCRW’s Summer Nights 2013 concert series.
KCRW commenced the festivities at the Hammer Museum’s Summer Solstice party on June 21, after which five KCRW DJs will continue to put on live music for five Thursday evenings.
Itai Shapira, a UCLA alumnus, producer and bassist for the band The Decoders, is performing at the event.
“KCRW is known to be a tastemaker in SoCal and is known all over the world as a premier station for emerging artists and new bands, and we’re really pleased with their support of what we’re doing from the beginning,” Shapira said.
Even though this is the fourth year in a row for the event, it’s constantly changing.
Travis Holcombe, a resident DJ at KCRW, said that the radio station has a “no-playlists, play-what-you-want, do-what-you-do” attitude that has become popular with the resident DJs. This attitude may be a big factor in the change.
“(There are) obviously different acts (than in previous years),” Holcombe said. “But schematically (we haven’t gone) different routes. One of the cool things about this year from the get-go, all the DJs got to choose all the acts that were on the bill with them.”
Students seem to be taking to the Music for Better Living program as well.
“I’m always at the Hammer and I like to study in the courtyard, so it’ll be a nice change of pace that where I’m generally quiet reading my books I can enjoy some of my favorite bands,” said Tammy Moujah, a fourth-year ethnomusicology student who frequents the Hammer. “KCRW is one of my favorite radio stations, so I’m pretty excited.”
Holcombe is pleased to be part of a program that he said is providing a valuable public service.
“It is an incredible opportunity and public service that KCRW and the Hammer are putting on for the community in that they are giving the community the gift of music, for free,” Holcombe said.
By allowing DJs the opportunity to choose the bands that accompany them, KCRW has given them a difficult decision because there are so many different acts to choose from.
Holcombe said that he hopes the community can take something away from this experience.
“I want them to have fun, it’s cool to get out of the KCRW basement and interact with the public, and events like these are just a great opportunity to interact with everyone. The No. 1 goal still is to have fun,” Holcombe said.
Unlike your traditional concert that requires you to pay for admission, KCRW and the Hammer are ensuring this doesn’t happen.
“The fact that (the program is) free, and at the Hammer Museum, an inspirational place of art, is awesome. Being able to present live music there is a huge positive, definitely,” Shapira said.
This joint project with KCRW also caught Moujah by surprise.
“To be honest, I’ve only been studying at the Hammer this past year, so I wasn’t even really aware that this kind of thing happens. But, now that I’ve heard about it I think it’s a little strange, for a concert with DJs to be happening inside of the museum,” Moujah said.
With KCRW providing the tunes, and the Hammer providing the scenery, and with free admission, the Music for Better Living campaign is a marriage of two art forms that would be hard to pass up.
