Downtown Long Beach’s East Village was an interesting collection of audio installation art combined with creative vibrations and intensities on Saturday during FLOOD’s annual SoundWalk. From headphones emitting hammering sounds hanging from trees to live feedback musicians, hovering musical oil drums and ambient street frequencies, the neighborhood was alive with music as fans of amplitude filled [...]

City officials, neighbors and its owner consider Blue Cafe’s future following a ruinous flood

PHOTO by DANIEL DE BOOM
If downtown has seemed a little quieter recently, well, maybe that’s because it has been. In an unprecedented run of bad luck, Blue Cafe—one of the area’s oldest surviving live entertainment venues—has been closed since Aug. 31, when [...]

SoundWalk turns five

‘FOG HORN’ from SOUNDWALK 2007
I was living in the East Village five years ago when SoundWalk debuted, and were it not for scattered pockets of people walking through the neighborhood—walking very strangely, almost delicately, if I remember correctly—I might never have known it was going on. The people out my window were tiptoeing [...]

FLOOD’s SoundWalk: City as Art, City as Instrument

PHOTO by RUSS ROCA
A survey of the usual audio ecology of Long Beach’s East Village Arts District: traffic growls, bus hydraulics puff every 20 minutes, skateboards clatter over loose sidewalk grates, bike bells twinkle—police, fire and ambulance sirens chop through everything—somebody shuffles around on a drum set—helicopters thump [...]