Moby Talks L.A., Videos, Fonda Concert at Sonos Studio
I was incredibly happy to be invited to the Moby Listening Party at Sonos Studio for Moby’s new album Innocents. Moby played a set featuring songs from Innocents, some of his classics, and Led Zeppelin’s “Whola Lotta Love” plus there was a screening with three of Moby’s latest videos. Afterwards there was a Q&A hosted by KCRW’s Chris Douridas. (It was also very cool to see Sonos Studio, an acoustically-designed gallery that celebrates music listening and explores the intersection of music, art, and technology through creative collaborations. It’s a great space!)
Moby has moved to Los Angeles and loves the feeling of community here. During the questions and answer portion, an audience member asked if living in L.A. had affected the album. He responded yes, and talked about how in LA you can think local and be involved in neighborhood politics and that in LA there is incredible accessibility (as we saw when so many art community leaders joined into to work on the Los Angeles City Mural Ordinance!). He added:
LA is so big but with that people want to be more involved and make an effort to create and sustain community…. Even though we are a big sprawling city, we have weird accessibility but corridors of powers in other cities like NYC just don’t have the same accessibility we have. Here you can do things and it affects change.
Moby went on to say that people are making up LA on a day to basis and he likes that, though he commented that he’s the Southern California New Age cliche: He shared that he was sitting at Cafe Gratitude talking about meditation when he realized that not everybody does that, yet here it seems so normal and part of LA.
Moby made Los Angeles part of his videos too. In Lonely Night he began at the Salton Sea which he feels is the
porthole of energy…the most amazing and wrongest place on earth..the epicenter of wrong strangeness in the world…
and includes beautiful shots of Los Angeles at night. Downtown Los Angeles is the scene for “The Perfect Life” which features Wayne Coyne from the Flaming Lips.
“A Case for Shame” was done on a budget of $185, shot in Moby’s own backyard and with sheets from Target and costumes from a Halloween store in Burbank. Moby shot the video with his new underwater camera and used color correction to give it a Jack Smith quality. He explained that though not well known, Jack Smith, was a major influence for the likes of David Lynch, John Waters, and Andy Warhol, among others.
Moby chose the Fonda Theater as the location for his album release/world tour kick off October 2, 3 and 4 because he lives Beachwood Canyon now and that he wanted to be able to walk to and from the three shows, adding
Well as for walking back–there are coyotes!
The Fonda shows will include special guest performances from the collaborators on Innocents, and he will be performing a set of songs off of the new album as well as a set of hits and a DJ set. Tickets are on sale here.
Then someone in the audience mentioned also going up the hill may be a bit harder, too. Moby said that he’s in shape although he said in “The Perfect Life” video he thought he looked like the sad, old fat guy next to Wayne Coyne who looked great in the sombrero.
It’s great that Moby who has taken so many photos of Los Angeles architecture is living here and cares about the city and it communities and politics. His new album Innocents comes out October 1st.
Moby at Sonos Studio photos: Jerod Harris/Getty Images; used by permission.
More of Jerod’s photos of Moby at Sonos Studio here.
Moby and Coyne, screen shot from “The Perfect Life”