Hundreds of people marched from Pershing Square to City Hall on Saturday, some with masks, some with bandanas, and many with signs bearing slogans admonishing the government, corporations and the current financial climate.

“We are the 99%”
“It’s not a crisis it’s a scam”
“Audit the Fed”
“Rights for the people not for corporations”
“200k in grad school debt where is my bailout?”

The protesters have been camped out on the City Hall lawn since Saturday, in solidarity with the 3-week strong Occupy Wall Street movement in New York. If America is a democracy, why does 1 percent of the population control 40 percent of the wealth, and take 25 percent of the income, economist and Nobel Laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz asked in the May 2011 issue of Vanity Fair.

By mid-September, a few dozen representatives of the 99 percent mobilized and began an occupation of Liberty Park near Wall Street. The protests doubled and tripled in size, topping the news last Saturday night with some 700 arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge.

Saturday, October 1 was also Day 1 for Occupy LA and in dozens of other cities including Boston and Chicago, the peaceful, anti-establishment protests spread in a manner inspired by the popular uprisings of the Arab Spring. With City Hall Park filled with people of all ages and ethnicities in circles of political conversation, megaphone-led chanting, drums and hacky sacks anyone napping under the numbered trees might have thought they woke up in the ’70s.

The L.A. contingency is relatively well organized, having met with City Hall officials and communicated with LAPD in advance of the Saturday march, training dozens of volunteer security to keep protesters on the sidewalk, hosting workshops on how to engage with civic leaders on City Hall’s north lawn, and coordinating with unions and progressive leaders. A nightly general assembly (GA) can go as long as three hours as established protesers and newcomers alike consider and vote on policies and tactics by consensus. The few dozen tents on City Hall’s south lawn shifted back to the north lawn when requested and the entire operation moves to the sidewalks from 10:30 p.m. to 6 a.m. per LAPD orders.

On Monday, when a hundred or so marched around the financial district, making stops to protest outside Mellon and Chase Banks, two squad cars followed in tow, protecting the protesters from rush hour traffic. The officers had a begrudged look on their faces but they were doing the jobs.

“It’s been a very peaceful demonstration,” Los Angeles Police Department Sgt. Mitzi Fierro told the LA Times Sunday. “They’re out there exercising their First Amendment right, so we’re going to allow them to continue as long it doesn’t become an unlawful assembly.”

“The Police are Part of the 99%” read another sign at the rally Saturday. Even Warren Buffet agrees that the rich don’t pay enough in taxes and with the economy still reeling after the taxpayer-funded $400 billion bailout of the financial industry and automakers, perhaps something’s got to give.

So far, there have been no arrests related to Occupy LA, however, the “love” expressed for LAPD in the chat room on the Occupy Los Angeles livestream is often tempered with caution. In New York, JPMorgan Chase recently donated a record $4.6 million to NYPD, leading many Occupy Wall Street protesters to cry that the police are owned by the banksters. And if that’s how the system works well the protests have only just begun.

Early cries of a corporate media blackout of Occupy Wall Street were all-but corroborated by NPR, whose Executive editor for news Dick Meyer was quoted in a September 26 blog post from ombudsman Edward Schumacher-Matos as saying, “The recent protests on Wall Street did not involve large numbers of people, prominent people, a great disruption or an especially clear objective.”

In hindsight, Meyer clearly missed the point. “What impresses me about media coverage of #occupywallstreet is how inattentive it is to a sleeping factor: the social media ignition moment,” NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen tweeted on September 27, referring to the exponential swelling of movements made possible by sharing across online networks.

Lack of media coverage hasn’t been an issue in Los Angeles, and certainly not since the 700 arrests in New York. The movement has issued a lengthy declaration and list of demands. But it seems as though there isn’t a clear endgame. Occupy Wall Street leverages the networked culture of the internet era, as Rosen alluded to, in hopes of expanding the conversation beyond right/left talking points and media quick hits. “It is difficult to comprehend a 21st century movement from the perspective of the 20th century politics, media, and economics in which we are still steeped,” wrote Douglas Rushkoff on Wednesday.

All is peaceful at City Hall. But today is just Day 5 of Occupy LA and a hundred or so protesters are expected to campout on the sidewalk again. As the Occupy Wall Street movement goes global how big will it grow? How much will the city and the police tolerate?

Photos via Andy Sternberg’s flickr set.

[See image gallery at andysternberg.com]
Click photos to embiggen / view as slideshow or click here to view all the photos on a single page.

Rayani on stage with Explosions in the Sky at FYF Fest 2011 (photo by Andy Sternberg)

I caught up with Explosions in the Sky guitarist Munaf Rayani before the band took the stage at FYF Fest last weekend and got the lowdown on surviving the deadly storm at Pukkelpop Music Fest in Belgium, how an art installation at Hollywood Forever Cemetery to debut the band’s latest album, “Take Care, Take Care, Take Care,” came to pass last April, and why they love Umami Burger.

AS: What did you guys think of the art installation at the cemetery? How did that come about?

Munaf Rayani: We only saw it through pictures and video but we heard it was a smash hit…. It was kind of a collective idea between us and some people that we’d worked with. We got in cahoots with the cemetery and they were cool with running it the week prior. A few creative minds, a few phone calls and it went through! What’d you think of it?

AS: I thought it was a great concept to have this walking tour of unique physical installations as a way to present the album as a first listen.

MR: That’s why I was most pleased that it was a true individual interpretation of these artists and the way we found them — a few we knew their names, others we looked at their work and were curious as to what they’d make of the six pieces. So it was exciting for us to see what these artists see in the songs. And if we picked six different artists it would have been completely different too and that’s the beauty of music and the visual interpretations thereof — to each his own. And it was exciting for us to experience what others “see” or “think” when they hear our songs.

AS: How’s summer tour been? Any notable stories?

MR: We just did a string of festivals in Europe and… a more troubling story — we were at Pukkelpop [music festival in Belgium, where five people died after a stage collapsed] and the storm came through and just kind of blew the whole festival away and shut it down. That was really strange and surreal because we had just finished our set and the storm came through about ten minutes later. When we went on stage, the sun was shining, we played a 45-50 minute set and it darkened up. We loaded pretty quickly into the trailer, locked the doors, and the rain started. We went underneath a tent and boy, it just blew everything away. The timing for us was crazy — how did we just miss that? But the collective experience of what other people went through was devastating, just disastrous. So, that happened.

But on the flipside we played the David Letterman show and that was very exciting. We felt very lucky that whoever was choosing the music there and whoever was pushing us made it work out. because there’s only two talk shows that we really wanted to ever be on and Letterman was #1 and Conan was #2. On our last record we got to play Conan when he was in New York.

AS: Did you have any directive to keep it under four-and-a-half minutes or anything?

MR: That was exactly it we had to edit a song to three-and-a-half minutes but to tell you the truth, Biff, the stage manager who’s in a lot of the bits and all the crew guys said that in the 20-30 years that they’d been working for CBS of this program they had never seen an instrumental rock band on the show. So it felt really good that, man, we made some sort of impression on someone to allow us that venue.

AS: You guys are based in Austin. Do you have any crazy LA stories?

MR: We just discovered the Umami Burger a couple trips ago and that’s really tasty so we try to make our way there. LA’s a cool place for us to come visit. Growing up in Texas, anything outside of Texas was almost make believe so even when we went to New York for the first time it felt really good. We’ve celebrity sighted a few people — saw Tim Allen get some coffee one morning that was pretty funny. The crowds in L.A. have been so good to us that it’s one of those checkpoints on the tour that we have a good feeling the shows going to go really well. The cemetery, Palladium, and even starting at the Knitting Factory and working our way up.

AS: How would you feel about doing the Hollywood Bowl with the Philharmonic?

MR: We used to want to play it but not anymore. We’ve heard enough about it that we kinda lost our interest. But I know it’s a beautiful place but if the opportunity came up it’s something we’d consider.

AS: Have you considered collaborating with an orchestra?

MR: We’ve batted around the idea of making an orchestral composition of the album — without us. Just a symphony playing it. It’s something we’ve talked about for a while but the execution is tough to pull off. We’re talking to a great orchestral transcriber right now out of San Francisco and if we all stay on course than it might be something that could happen in a few months or a year.

Metallica did it already where the band played with the symphony… this band we love — Mono, out of Japan, played with a symphony a couple times. If we could do it we’d like to do it a little bit differently. We’ll see what happens.

The state of the economy may be a big question mark but one thing’s for sure: L.A. tech is hot. Westwood-based Elevator Labs received $20 million in funding this week in another example of investors putting money into innovative Los Angeles-based startups (just last week Santa Monica-based BetterWorks received an $8 million investment).

Elevator Labs plans to use the investment to launch new businesses its currently incubating in addition to its existing portfolio: Hello Music, Wilshire Media Group, and Fat Cloud. Managing partner Zack Zalon discussed how his years as president of Virgin Digital influenced his approach, why Elevator Labs is an “invention company” and why he’s excited about the growth and innovation in L.A.’s tech community.

“It’s about time that people stand up and start taking notice because this is the next generation of entrepreneurial leaders here in Los Angeles that are ready to emerge,” said Zalon.

Originally posted at LAist.

UPDATE: Watch video of the panel below.

For both businesses and consumers, geolocation apps and services are a dime a dozen these days. But many of these apps and tools serve to benefit both when used consistently and correctly. Much like social media itself, geolocation is a two-way entity.

“Geolocation makes it easier for consumers to get the services they want nearby and for local businesses to reach the consumers in their area,” Eli Portnoy, CEO of Culver City-based mobile marketing startup Thinknear told me matter-of-factly.

As consumers become increasingly engaged with smartphones and other mobile devices, geolocation will have a growing influence on commerce. For most businesses and services, location — and circumstance — means everything. More than one-third of U.S. adults (35 percent) are smartphone users according to a July 2011 Pew Internet report. Consumers are always on the hunt for quality goods and services at reasonable prices. As consumers grow accustomed to the “smart” aspect of always-connected, GPS-enabled mobile devices, the bargains appear at their fingertips and it only becomes a matter of convenience. As consumers discover the power of smartphones beyond texts, emails and phone calls, shopping habits change.

In the same Pew survey, 25 percent of smartphone owners indicated a preference for using the internet on their phone rather than their computer. This is likely not just a matter of convenience, it’s based on better circumstantial results. The top search results for “yogurt” on a home or office computer likely yield the Wikipedia entry, and links to the Dannon and Yoplait websites. But the same search from a smartphone directs the user to the nearest fro-yo shop. Geolocation is a win-win: consumers can find what they want and need at their fingertips while businesses can acquire new regulars by dangling their goods and services right in front of the smartphone user around the corner.

Geoloco & Business:

Do you see a map and a location listing for your business when you search Google? If not, you can list all physical locations on Google for free: www.google.com/placesforbusiness.

Gowalla, Foursquare, YP, Yelp…. Help!?! Forget about your business for a minute and try out each of these services via their mobile apps as a consumer. There are many tools, including these, which make it easier for consumers to get what they want. Search for your business on these applications? Is it there? Is the listing accurate? Not everything in the world is automated (yet) and so it’s never a surprise when new stores replace old ones but the old listing remains.

Your business (if it relies on a physical location) may only have one physical location but by making sure it’s populated and using any and all geolocation services at its disposal, you are doing the best you can to bring your offering to potential consumers on their terms. Foursquare may have more users than Gowalla but your next customer might discover you through Gowalla. Either way, these serendipitous, location-based discoveries often lead users to return and more importantly to share their experience with others via social media and word of mouth.

I was honored to be a panelist at this month’s Social Media Club Los Angeles event on geolocation, a topic I’ve been obsessed with for quite some time (it’s the subject of my Master’s Thesis). I wrote this post in advance of the July 26 SMCLA event.

Between absorbing the latest trends as discussed by multiple panels we managed to interview a few executives from top online media companies.

In the video below, Ooyala’s Vice President of Biz Dev, Chris Wong, explains the importance of streaming video solutions providers, why most companies require DRM (digital rights management) to control copyright, and ponders the meteoric rise of Netflix and the potential impact of its competitors.

[display_podcast]
Click here to view on YouTube.

Then I heard about how full bore Waters was going with the production — recreating the spectacle of The Wall on its 30th anniversary and then some — on this Sound Opinions podcast in October. Yeah, I can dig it.

Only top top bands with a serious legacy can truly demand $250 and up for a top ticket and still manage to fill arenas nationwide (often for multi-night runs). But there sure as hell better be some spectacular video / light show / side show to go along with the tired greatest hits nonsense. Regardless, Waters will have absolutely no reason to work again after galavanting around the world for 10 months on the strength of his 30-year old magnum opus. Look for his name near the top of the next weekly Pollstar Top 20 Concerts list.

In this case there was amazing video — the wall featured a steady stream of motion graphics and video, many from the original The Wall, projected onto a huge wall — about 240 feet wide and 33 feet tall. The story of The Wall holds up very well, all the way to The Trial, even if it can get a little tiresome looking at Waters parading in front of the wall alone in love with himself as the lead character in the story as his presumed alter ego, Pink Floyd. A 12-piece band including horns and a childrens choir comprised of kids from the Heart of Los Angeles after-school program took the stage for the cockneyed refrain on “Another Brick in the Wall” and probably the most elaborate and crisp sound I’ve heard in an arena. There were monster speakers in teh back of the house and from the floor, you could literally feel the helicopters closing in from all sides at some points. Holiday season — maybe I was feeling sentimental, but I got major chills a few times.

I definitely recommend seeing this show if you can, tickets were going for below face value for the Staples Center (I got lucky and was whisked in on a friend’s last-minute extra ticket, thanks Gretchen!). The remaining U.S. tour dates are listed below along with a clip from “Hey You” which opened up the second part of the show from behind The Wall.

Dec 03, Oracle Arena Oakland, CA
Dec 05 Staples Center Los Angeles, CA
Dec 07 HP Pavilion San Jose, CA
Dec 08 HP Pavilion San Jose, CA
Dec 10 Rogers Arena Vancouver, BC
Dec 11 Tacoma Dome Tacoma, WA
Dec 13 Honda Center Anaheim, CA
Dec 14 Honda Center Anaheim, CA
then to Mexico and off to Europe for the entire first half of 2011.

Reuben Cox, Liz Durrett, Eric Bachmann (photos taken with Canon PowerShot S90)

More video below….

LA Public Libraries are closed on Sundays and Mondays due to unruly budget cuts. This includes the historic Central Library – a downtown landmark and one of the largest libraries in the country – in addition to all 70 LAPL branches. Beverly Hills, Santa Monica and Burbank patrons can access their library’s resources 7 days a week.

How do we fix this? LA City Council President Eric Garcetti told me last month (in a Twitter reply) that the library cuts signify about $10 million in savings for the city “…and I am working to see if this 15% cut can be mitigated as soon as economy/receipts pick up.”

This is an issue that should irritate everyone who feels part of the community as it affects education, jobs, and the digital divide, not to mention the amount of waste contributed to people who are forced to buy new books because the library is closed on their day off.

As long as our elected officials are corrupting our tax dollars for personal and professional gain, we should not allow them to take away our communities’ most precious resources (a far more valuable allocation of taxes, dontcha think?). This shouldn’t require a costly amendment that, if passed, would add a $39 parcel tax to our plate.

Most of us (reading this now) sit in an office all day and have relatively unlimited access to anything we want while we sell/study/teach/direct/produce/arrest/compute. But everybody’s got a close friend who has lost their job/house/car/mind as a result of this shitty economy. Look at the photo above. There are no longer books on those shelves, replaced by a row of computer stations, packed with people checking their email, searching for jobs, reading LAist and otherwise using a high-speed broadband internet-connected computer — free of charge.

Where else can you do that?

Originally posted at LAist.

Over the course of a couple hours I saw two bands and three electronic beat mixer-uppers (DJs, I guess we call them) all within a couple miles of my Echo Park home. Money well spent on a broad experiential night. Everest tore up the Bootleg Theater, and later I caught the final three beatmasters at Proximal Records Proximity One: Narrative of a City (listen below) Release Party: Sahy Uhns, TOKiMONSTA, and Daedelus. I was torn between going to one show or the other and was ecstatic to have the timing to get the best of both worlds. It helped that a small lighting fire at The Echo set the show back a half hour or so.

I got a few decent photos. Plus see below for a list of podcasts and websites that I check regularly to get my fill of live music (video and audio) when I’m not at the show myself. People talk about digital downloads and physical music. Physical music for me means hearing it live. Feeling it.

Gettin’ the Live Music Fix Without Leaving the Laptop:

• Daytrotter (RSS | Video RSS): great live sessions and a huge vault of audio and video
• La Blogotheque (RSS): It’s in French and sometimes in English and it’s awesome either way
• Amsterdam Acoustics (RSS): fun street sessions with great bands
• KEXP – Live In Studio (RSS): practically everyone cool who comes through Seattle
• KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic (RSS | Archive): in-studio audio and video + interviews
• Sound Opinions (RSS): one of my fave weekly podcasts, it’s half interview/performance
• …… [several more i’m forgetting and will add later] …….

What podcasts / websites do you turn to to get your live music fix?