Psychic Handbook- Dodger Stadium- 10/3/10 from Samantha Cornwell on Vimeo.

This beautiful Sunday afternoon set by Oakland’s Psychic Handbook was the perfect way to cap off a celebratory weekend of music here in LA. While I was most familiar with Psychic Handbook as the solo voyage of Alejandro Archuleta, he was accompanied by younger brother Jacob Archuleta of Denver’s Skully Mammoth, and co-conspirator Alex Gray of Oakland’s Deep Magic/Dreamcolour/Deep Tapes). Although Alejandro’s solo game is something special, I was really blown away by the beautiful sounds coming from this trio, and hope to hear more from this version of the group in the future.

The track played in this clip is called “Personal Summer”. In the words of Alejandro: “The song is about the person I miss very very much, who changed the course of my life with nothing but his love and his smile. It’s about my last summer in Denver and my first autumn in LA.” There is something gorgeous and bittersweet about the song and this performance of it in this setting. I couldn’t help noticing, for instance, that there was an interesting juxtaposition between the deep synth and keyboard tones and the scores of men (of all ages) creating feats of minor dare-devilism on BMX bikes. I’ve always thought of Dodger Stadium (not THE Dodger Stadium) as being the DIY version of Rob Dyrdek’s Fantasy Factory, and this afternoon really drove that home. The Larry Clark in me really ate up the imagery. Whatever your take is, it served as a fitting backdrop to the soundtrack of a time that is no more.
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