Ace Hotel

We had the enormous privilege of sitting down with Udo Kier at his home in Palm Springs, California and having a chat about space, the end of the world, and palm trees. Udo is a fan of the Ace and he comes to hang out often, and sends friends to stay with us when they’re in town. He celebrated last Halloween with us by screening Andy Warhol’s Dracula at the hotel (we’re having another Halloween celebration this year with Flashdance, check it out).

Here’s Udo, presented in English and German…

Ace: Hi, Udo. We’re curious about why you love Palm Springs.

Udo: I’m in Palm Springs because I came here in the winter and I fall in love with it in the winter because that is the main time where it’s really beautiful. And that’s also the system of Palm Springs– like, Frank Sinatra and all these people, they had houses here and they came here for the wintertime. In the summer almost nobody was here. I came here for the first time in winter and I loved it because it’s such a climate change from Los Angeles. Just less than two hours drive and you have wonderful – especially around Christmas time, when it’s cold – you have beautiful weather.

That was one of the reasons. And then I was looking here for a place and I found, by incidents, a place which was a former library from Palm Springs, and I liked it. And I like space, I’m a person who likes space, which is very hard to have space in Los Angeles, because the houses are very close to each other, which is understandable in every city like that. Especially because in Los Angeles, there are no high-rise houses so that one-family houses are very close, as close as 15 feet or what… And here in this place I have enough space. Space is something – the most important thing in my life.

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We’ve had a couple of friends send in their favorite Kodachrome shots in response to our recent post about ol’ Koda hittin’ the dust. Feel free to send yours in, too. We want to wallow for a while longer…

Hey, I think this is from the last role of Kodachrome ever shot (with my favorite camera). It’s of the Bradbury Building, which was featured in three of my favorite LA films - Chinatown, Double Indemnity, and most notably Bladerunner.
Steve

Smile Now Cry Later played recently at the weekly live music show, Lucha Libre, at Ace Hotel Palm Springs. Here’s some pictures from her blog of the show and her late night workout in the Ace gym. We’re a huge fan of these tights.

Cult filmmaker Chris Cunningham has spent the last decade studying music, making audio visual remixes, and making films people like to obsess about. On September 26, our friends at MoMA PopRally will produce the premiere of Chris’ latest project, “New York is Killing Me,” displayed as it was intended to be — on three simultaneous screens in the museum lobby. The event includes cocktails in the sculpture garden and a conversation between Chris, Richard Russell and MoMA curator Barbara London. Go check it out, it’s going to be epic.

Image: Still from Gil Scott-Heron’s New York is Killing Me. 2010. Directed by Chris Cunningham. Text and event information from MoMA PopRally.

Sometimes Howie Pyro tells us a little about a 45 from his collection of 30,000 records. Let Howie trip you out live and in person at Intoxica Radio Live Fridays in the Amigo Room at Ace Palm Springs.

The Painted Ship: Little White Lies — London Records

Bizarre, snotty, killer garage 45 (the flip, Frustration, is amazing as well) by this Canadian band has always been a fave and a staple in my DJ set…Throbbimg wild garage track but the vocals are what always gets me. The beyond-Jagger enunciation always cracks me up & makes me very happy as it veers into the bizarro zone, my fave! Here’s a quote from Canuckistan Music about Little White Lies:

Vancouver’s Painted Ship first hit the water as the Wee Beasties when budding poet/vocalist William “The Captain” Hay teamed up with guitarist Rob Rowden out at the University of British Columbia in the summer of 1965. With Rob’s brother Barry Rowden on drums and bassist Ken Wain rounding out the crew, the newly christened Painted Ship took their virile garage/punk to the clubs, making regular splashes at the seminal Retinal Circus on Davie Street. By late ‘66 the band had delivered the stellar ‘Frustration’ to the execs over at London Records, but the suits were still unconvinced, insisting on something with more commercial potential. The result, the hard-hitting Little White Lies, with its hefty organ and strident sneer, would scale the regional charts into the summer of ‘67.