Jonah is always around on Thursdays to assist you and he sometimes joins in as well (he's a pretty cool electric ukelele bassist, btw)

The Westwood Music Center is a professional friendly experienced place (they’ve done all my set-ups f’instance) not to mention it’s a wonderland of guitars.

I get there every Thursday that I can for an acoustic jam.
“Our favorite event is our Thursday Night Sofa Jam. Every Thursday of every month from 6:00 to 8:00 PM we host a casual, unplugged (mostly) jam in our showroom on the big comfy leather sofas.
We are joined by players of all levels and the repertoire is dictated by the players each evening. From Neil Young to the Beatles to jazz standards to Django to Bill Monroe, you never can tell what song someone will start. Guitars, mandolins, dobros, lap steels, banjos and basses from the store are all available to play so there’s no need to bring an axe unless you want to. (And some do!)”
WESTWOOD MUSIC CENTER
Tue – Fri  10:00 to 8:00
Sat – Mon  10:00 to 6:00
Sofa Jam – Every Wed 6:00 to 8:00
1627 Westwood Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90024
Tel: 310 478-4251

Jam time

Talking with some friends outside we started discussing Competition vs Co-operation among local musicians. We all fell on the side of  camaraderie, because it’s hard enough being a performer without the added b.s. of working to edge out someone else who’s  just trying to get their thing up and running and successful.
Little story here: The first time I went to the long-gone Hollywood Coffee House HIGHLAND GROUNDS on a Wednesday night and signed up for the super-popular open mic I walked into a wonderland. I watched the stage for a few sets but the real show was out on the patio where circles of pickers were jamming and trading songs, many of us meeting each other for the first time. Sharing the playing of music for the pure joy of playing the music. I’m thinking: ” I am HOME! I’m gonna love LA! This is how it’s s’posed to be”. Well that never happened again. In all the times I went back the room was packed with anxious, jealous wannabes all waiting for their ten precious minutes onstage like they’re about to get “discovered”… and glaring daggers at one another. Yecch!

I grew up raised by and around folk musicians on the east coast and that meant frequent gatherings of players and singers to eat, drink and sing & play music till they were spent. I remember jams in houses, churches, before and after shows, in festival parking lots, campgrounds, wherever 2 or more pickers met. Man, I thought that was what life really was ’till I got out into the alleged  “real world”. Those of you who know me already have no doubt heard me ramble on about how I cannot understand why groups of talented musicians get together to party and nobody plays a note. I like getting folks over to my place to party and make music (cuz after a couple beers all I wanna do is jam, baby!).

Mom and Dad

The idea that I might ever become “rich & famous” as a musician is a long-dead barely-desired fantasy. The possibility that I might ever even earn my living with music often seems a distant near-unattainable goal. Music is what I do because I have to do it to remain sane. What do y’all think about that? Who’s with me?

- WES D

Happy Dad Kelly with lil Josephine

Seriously, folks, happiness is wonderful but it apparently still doesn’t fill the void that only rocking out can satisfy. We’ve been taking most of the last year off, and it’s been grand without the band  in a lotta ways.  I’ve been in a very fine place since Chelsea walked through my door and stayed… and Kelly’s been basking in the glow of marriage and fatherhood since the arrival of his adorable daughter last summer.

Chelsea

Jana (guitarist from the Monthlies) & daughter Josephine Wininger

But let’s face it… happiness just ain’t enuff for those of us who just  gotta rockNroll. After a while something irresistable builds up – until it’s clear the big noise is either gonna break out …or yer gonna explode.

So this summer Mister Nervous is back out there. And I’ll be checking in here much more frequently.

It’s not like I even have a choice… clearly I’m addicted to big guitar for life.

-WES

This Saturday June 11 beginning at 9am at FARNSWORTH PARK there is an American Cancer Society event, the local RELAY FOR LIFE. Wes has been asked to participate and will be doing a solo acoustic set at 7pm at this event.

Relay began in 1985 when Dr. Gordy Klatt, a colorectal surgeon in Tacoma, Washington, ran and walked around a track for 24 hours to raise money for the American Cancer Society. Since then, Relay has grown from a single man’s passion to fight cancer into the world’s largest movement to end the disease. Teams of people camp out at a local high school, park, or fairground and take turns walking or running around a track or path. Each team is asked to have a representative on the track at all times during the event. Relays are 24 hours in length; representing the reality that cancer never sleeps.

Event Schedule
Opening Ceremony: 9:00 AM Sat
Survivors Lap: 9:00 AM Sat
Luminaria Ceremony: 9:00 PM
Fight Back / Closing Ceremony: 8:45 AM Sun

Mister Nervous returns from hiatus to launch Memorial Day weekend at the Old Town Pub in Pasadena

Yeah, it is a bit hard to believe that our last Mister Nervous show was back in January.
We’re back this month and it is time to party like mad: We’re playing the Old Town Pub in Pasadena Friday May 27th.
We’re closing out the show preceded by The Sundowners and Jinsai... and I’m headin’ to the weddin’ of the head-banging bassist for both those bands Michael Harpel to his gal Tanya the very next day. Yep: Michael is doing double duty on stage the night before he’s to be hitched (so you gotta know this’ll be a raging party).

The show opens at 9pm with Amanda Jones & The Sugartits 3
then it’s
JINSAI @ 10:00!
The Sundowners @ 11:00!
Mister Nervous @ 12:00!

Amanda Jones & The Sugartits 3

JINSAI

Min Siegel d. 2007

I’ve lost more than a few people and things over the years for which I held a nearly indescribable affection. The first truly epic love of my life ended four years ago when I lost my Min, the one woman I thought I would always have in my life. That loss didn’t dim my belief in love, but it shook my faith in my ability to survive this world and what I held to be true about life. I have written many songs about this experience during these last few years. I sincerely hope I have written all that I need to on that subject.





Today I find I wanna talk about a more joyous perception of existence. This year I feel myself coming back to life, and after 4 years of unrelenting darkness of the soul that’s one hell of a jolt.

WES & CHELSEA in the breakfast nook of "The Fifi" at the Hicksville Trailer Palace

You see: a few months back a young woman walked through my door and stole my heart right out of my chest in a matter of hours. I am not at all sure she’s gonna appreciate my shining this spotlight upon her because she doesn’t share my obsession with spilling my guts in public as a form of art. But as a writer of songs it’s my primary goal… to be as honest and true as my limited abilities will allow. I believe that it’s instantly possible to separate the bullshit artifice from the genuine article when you listen to a song. If it doesn’t ring true it belongs in the circular file. Well, the truth is I have been smitten by this girl in a way I never expected to feel again.

For my recent birthday this adorable creature took me out to the desert to a destination called the Hicksville Trailer Palace, a wacky motel comprised of vintage auto-trailers all tricked-out in hilarious/bizarre themes. We stayed in a purple and gold trailer with chandeliers, a bar, a femme vanity, three glowing wig mannequins (their disembodied plastic heads floating above the bed) and a glorious silence beneath a star-studded desert sky. I can barely remember the last time I was this… happy. So thank you Chelsea, for waking me back up, for renewing my faith in my own worth, for giving me something other than grief to cling to, for reminding me what it’s like to feel that need to cherish and protect another human, for being the new great love in my life.

Mister Nervous' God of drum thunder KELLY and Monthlies.' guitar gal JANA were recently wed.

As I look around me I see many other examples of love’s power to triumph over the daily grind of life on earth. Our awesome drummer Kelly was just recently wed to his lovely and talented lady Jana at a small ceremony, they have moved into a new home and look how joyous they appear. In the coming days our friend Michael (from The Sundowners, a band already near & dear to the heart of Mister Nervous) will be wed to his betrothed Tanya…

It's wedding bells this month for Sundowner MICHAEL and his gal TANYA!

and bandmate Dennis will officiate. More on that awesome weekend kicked off by a public pre-wedding party in Pasadena with The Sundowners, Jinsai and Mister Nervous later on.

I’ve been mostly absent from this space, this blog, for several months now.  I was busy being happy and reacquainting myself  with that sensation privately. Mister Nervous has not hadda night on the boards since our show back in January with The Monthlies. That’s all about to change Memorial Day Weekend.

Sadly in the midst of  this love-fest I must absorb the passing of one of my favorite bands in Los Angeles. The aforementioned Monthlies. appear to be no more. This saddens me because I loved that band beyond expression. The bandmates themselves appear to be doing well: Wes O’Lee and Chris Hall have lovely girlfriends, Jana married Kell, and Nick’s already found another band to apply his sweat and savage beatmaking to. I will miss the Monthlies as a band not only because they are my friends, but because the intensity of emotion called up by some of their songs was/is overwhelming (how many nights did I spend where at some point or another during the set I actually felt I had to keep it together as one or another of the band’s songs brought on a lump in my throat or a moistness to my eyes(?)… whatta sap I can be!). So if The Monthlies rise again I will be standing stage front once more. And that is how I judge what music, to which performers I unashamedly pledge my fandom… you gotta kick my butt with your ability or break my heart with the heartfelt truth of your songs. Nothing else will do.

Yeah, I’m actually a huge cornball: “I wear my heart on my sleeve”… but what the hell’s the use of keeping it in a lockbox? I am still too cynical to believe that songs, or love, will change the world. But they can change your little corner of the world, or – at least – love can change mine.

-WES D

The Diamond Light have the blues with the Devil on their trail

THE DIAMOND LIGHT: If you don’t know you better check it out.

On their second blazing cd SEEDS IN THE STREET the band seem to have blasted far past their first record’s ruminations on a relationship with the Divine and fallen feet first into a roiling caldron of Devils Brew.

Blazing out of the gate with OH YEAH some digital percussion and bracing guitar lurch into a melodic blues groove of wailing vocals with a 70s reminiscent quality: but in a conversational cadence sung flat out… while the band rocks like a motherfucker through some raging playing punctuated by smashing stops and starts. COLD MOON opens with a half-tone descending blues riff stomp and morphs into a riff-rocking monster with some stinging slide guitar stabs. THUNDERHORSE has some acoustic strumming and a confessional vocal before segueing into a pounding soundscape that feels like a sun-baked desert nightmare.

The band is a full-out rocking monster, the ensemble playing reeks of sweat and commitment, but just try to keep your eyes off of Griffin Young as he stabs at his guitar, long locks flailing, roaring like the top of his head’s gonna blow off. And dig some of the awesome wordplay coming out of his full-throated vox in JUNGLE:
“I bought a hammer just to see where it would go”, he hollers while talking about paying off the Devil and states,
“They drew a rope, I spoke in tongues for them,
still they said: you must play dead”

The six song album closes with DUSTY WALLS where vocals and gutbucket slide start the ride… by the time the full band blows in you just know you’re standing at the legendary crossroads.

OK: these guys are playing TONIGHT at O’Briens Pub in Venice with THE DOWNTOWN TRAIN and PAN AMERICA…
You’re goin’… RIGHT???
3/12 @ 10 pm

Griffin Young rocks like the top of his head's gonna blow off!

O’Brien’s Pub
2941 Main St
Santa Monica, CA 90405

Also it’s a celebration of a birthday among The Monthlies: the lovely and talented lead guitarist Jana.

Mister Nervous is up first at 6pm, yup REALLY SERIOUSLY 6pm. The Ross Sea Party is up at 7 and The Monthlies. at 8. It’s all over by 9pm allowing you to continue the party elsewhere nourished by good songs and great people. The new Mister Nervous song CRYSTAL GIRL has been a hit with audiences every time we play it – we’ll be recording this one soon. Naturally we’ll have copies of the DRAMA cd available… we’re gonna give some stuff away too.

MONTHLIES. lead singer and songwriter Wes O’Lee has also embarked on a very ambitious project: writing, recording and posting a new song every day in 2011. It’s almost disturbing how prolific he can be – writing so many good songs. It’s enuff to make Mister Nervous full of jealous envy…(well, Wes D anyway).

…and so in the venerable (haha) misternervous.com tradition of supporting stuff that is totally awesome (even if WE didn’t MAKE it ourselves) we present here the first two posts in the WES O’LEE – A SONG A DAY 2011 project:

OK: this first one here is also a family affair: Kelly plays drums and sings back-up along with his gorgeous gal Jana… and Monthlies. bassist Chris Hall notes:”I need to tag my bass from 8th grade in this sucka!”.

and heeeere’s song #2
(‘scuse me for a minnit… I think I got sumpin’ in my eye…)

MISTER NERVOUS – THE ROSS SEA PARTY – THE MONTHLIES.
SATURDAY JANUARY 8th @ 6pm
SILVERLAKE LOUNGE
2906 West Sunset Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90026
(323) 663-9636

OLIN and the MOON