A few closing notes from Sunday at the Junction

Despite appearances, Sunset Junction wasn't only about hawking Red Bull, free beer, crazy attendees (hello, 60-year-old woman in sparkly bikini) or contentious gate borders. With three music stages, many of the people who paid the $20 entrance fee came for the beloved noise. But even that was a bit maligned.

By the time 7:05 rolled around (yep, that’s 20 minutes behind schedule), Nic Offer, lead singer of the dance-punk band !!!, had shimmied his way onto the stage, to the delight of the (already) inebriated audience. Shannon Funchess, !!!’s touring cohort, joined Offer for a highly spirited set including “Must Be the Moon,” “Heart of Hearts” and “A New Name.” With abundant charismatic dancing, goofy pouts and stage climbing, Offer was a spectacle to watch, but it was not enough to fill the void missing by vocalist and drummer John Pugh, who left !!! in 2007. The set, which included two new songs, was not amazing; it lacked some pizazz that could have turned it into a memorable show. However, the crowd of 16-year-olds drinking out of brown paper bags, patrons swimming through clouds of smoke and boys endlessly crowd-surfing didn’t seem to mind — they just wanted to party.

Sound problems (specifically very low vocals) dampened the sets of both !!! and Sunday headliner the Black Keys, from Akron, Ohio. At one point during the Keys’ set, a section of the crowd chanted, “TURN UP THE VOLUME!” Seeing Dan Auerbach shred the guitar and Patrick Carney beat his drums into oblivion at dusk made up for the fact that it drowned out Auerbach’s singing. Crowd favorite “Strange Times,” from this year's “Attack & Release,” and a delightful Captain Beefheart cover of “I’m Glad” were a perfect way to end this two-day fest — drama-filled or otherwise.

-- Vivian Lee

Photo of the Black Keys by Stefano Paltera/For The Times

It wasn’t even that big a flub. Poppy boy/girl group Castledoor had a slight musical miscue during “The Birds and the Fleas,” their opening number at Silver Lake’s Sunset Junction street fair Saturday afternoon, and lead singer Nate Cole wasn’t having it. “Normally, I would just roll with it, but this is Sunset Junction,” Cole said as he brought the music to a halt. “And we’re going to give it all we’ve got.” Heck, they even brought a bubble machine.

What began 28 years ago as a free neighborhood mixer, an attempt to connect longtime Latino residents and their newer gay and lesbian neighbors, is now, well ... let's just say its official schedules came festooned with logos from the likes of VitaminWater and Season 4 of "The Office." This year, tens of thousands crowded into the five block stretch of Sunset Boulevard to avail themselves of three stages of nonstop bands, a handful of carnival rides, shooting galleries and, of course, many, many opportunities to shop.

The fair, which started Saturday morning and ends tonight, still draws heavily from the surrounding area, but Toto, we’re not in 1980 anymore. To wit, the Sotheby’s Realty booth and ATMs dotting the landscape. Friends found each other by screaming into cellphones, “I’m under the Red Bull tent. I’M. UNDER. THE. RED. BULL. TENT,” and a buzzing plane dragged a banner declaring Coors the world’s most refreshing beer over festival airspace.

Three hours before the 28th annual Sunset Junction street fair in Silver Lake was set to kick off this morning, tensions between area business owners and festival organizers from the Sunset Junction Neighborhood Alliance rose to a bitter crescendo.  Insults flew as business owners absorbed the news, broken this morning by the SJNA, that alcohol will not be allowed along the stretch of Sunset Boulevard between Sanborn and Edgecliffe, where the bulk of Sunset Junction's businesses stand.

For the dozens of businesses lining those three blocks, this was the final blow in a yearlong dispute about the boundaries of the festival, which until last year had always extended from Fountain to Edgecliffe. Last year the SJNA put a pay gate at Sanborn and detoured the festival south down Santa Monica Boulevard, using the area in front of the Sunset Boulevard businesses as a vendor parking lot.

"We all lost money last year," said Sarah Dale, owner of Pull My Daisy Boutique, who with the aid of her neighbors has been lobbying the SJNA and Councilman Eric Garcetti's office to make sure that the same exclusion wasn't repeated this year.

Last week was a terrible blow to anybody invested in the soul and R&B music of the late '60s. Between the deaths of Isaac Hayes and Atlantic Records executive Jerry Wexler, it seemed as if one of the greatest eras in American pop music began to fade.

Sam Moore (above, left, with Hayes), one half of the R&B duo Sam and Dave, is performing an Isaac Hayes tribute at Sunset Junction this weekend, and he knew the players of the decade as well as anyone. He spoke with Soundboard last week about his fractured friendship with Hayes, his decades-long reconciliation with Wexler, and his life at the front lines and the forgotten margins of soul.

Obviously this has got to be an especially hard week for you.

Oh, isn't it something...?  I’m telling you. Isaac, man, now Jerry.

Had you stayed close to them up until their deaths?

Every so often we would call [Jerry] to see how he was doing. He wasn't getting out that much, so we would call and check in on him. Isaac, I attempted to stay in touch with, but as I guess you've heard, it's no secret, his organization of people, they kind of separated that. So I didn't have that much communication with Isaac. But fast forward here, I didn't have that much connection after he had joined the Scientologists.

Tensions surrounding the 28th annual Sunset Junction Festival in Silver Lake have escalated dramatically this week, with area businesses referring to themselves as “angry villagers” and the Junction’s organizer, Michael McKinley, saying that the business owners  “all want to make bank” and that they’re cranky because they never got “strawberry ice cream as kids.”

Less than 24 hours before the start of the festival, which is expected to draw as many as 50,000 people, the dozens of businesses lining Sunset Boulevard between Edgecliffe Drive and Sanborn Avenue are still unsure who will be within the official boundaries of the festival, which is organized each year by the non-profit Sunset Junction Neighborhood Alliance with headquarters at Tsunami coffee shop.

Those boundaries determine the flow of foot traffic to area businesses, as well as which employees and residents need to pay entry fees.

Dispatches from Sunset Junction

It wasn’t even that big a flub. Poppy boy/girl group Castledoor had a slight musical miscue during “The Birds and the Fleas,” their opening number at Silver Lake’s Sunset Junction street fair Saturday afternoon, and lead singer Nate Cole wasn’t having it. “Normally, I would just roll with it, but this is Sunset Junction,” Cole said as he brought the music to a halt. “And we’re going to give it all we’ve got.” Heck, they even brought a bubble machine.

What began 28 years ago as a free neighborhood mixer, an attempt to connect longtime Latino residents and their newer gay and lesbian neighbors, is now, well ... let's just say its official schedules came festooned with logos from the likes of VitaminWater and Season 4 of "The Office." This year, tens of thousands crowded into the five block stretch of Sunset Boulevard to avail themselves of three stages of nonstop bands, a handful of carnival rides, shooting galleries and, of course, many, many opportunities to shop.

The fair, which started Saturday morning and ends tonight, still draws heavily from the surrounding area, but Toto, we’re not in 1980 anymore. To wit, the Sotheby’s Realty booth and ATMs dotting the landscape. Friends found each other by screaming into cellphones, “I’m under the Red Bull tent. I’M. UNDER. THE. RED. BULL. TENT,” and a buzzing plane dragged a banner declaring Coors the world’s most refreshing beer over festival airspace.

Three hours before the 28th annual Sunset Junction street fair in Silver Lake was set to kick off this morning, tensions between area business owners and festival organizers from the Sunset Junction Neighborhood Alliance rose to a bitter crescendo.  Insults flew as business owners absorbed the news, broken this morning by the SJNA, that alcohol will not be allowed along the stretch of Sunset Boulevard between Sanborn and Edgecliffe, where the bulk of Sunset Junction's businesses stand.

For the dozens of businesses lining those three blocks, this was the final blow in a yearlong dispute about the boundaries of the festival, which until last year had always extended from Fountain to Edgecliffe. Last year the SJNA put a pay gate at Sanborn and detoured the festival south down Santa Monica Boulevard, using the area in front of the Sunset Boulevard businesses as a vendor parking lot.

"We all lost money last year," said Sarah Dale, owner of Pull My Daisy Boutique, who with the aid of her neighbors has been lobbying the SJNA and Councilman Eric Garcetti's office to make sure that the same exclusion wasn't repeated this year.

Last week was a terrible blow to anybody invested in the soul and R&B music of the late '60s. Between the deaths of Isaac Hayes and Atlantic Records executive Jerry Wexler, it seemed as if one of the greatest eras in American pop music began to fade.

Sam Moore (above, left, with Hayes), one half of the R&B duo Sam and Dave, is performing an Isaac Hayes tribute at Sunset Junction this weekend, and he knew the players of the decade as well as anyone. He spoke with Soundboard last week about his fractured friendship with Hayes, his decades-long reconciliation with Wexler, and his life at the front lines and the forgotten margins of soul.

Obviously this has got to be an especially hard week for you.

Oh, isn't it something...?  I’m telling you. Isaac, man, now Jerry.

Had you stayed close to them up until their deaths?

Every so often we would call [Jerry] to see how he was doing. He wasn't getting out that much, so we would call and check in on him. Isaac, I attempted to stay in touch with, but as I guess you've heard, it's no secret, his organization of people, they kind of separated that. So I didn't have that much communication with Isaac. But fast forward here, I didn't have that much connection after he had joined the Scientologists.

Tensions surrounding the 28th annual Sunset Junction Festival in Silver Lake have escalated dramatically this week, with area businesses referring to themselves as “angry villagers” and the Junction’s organizer, Michael McKinley, saying that the business owners  “all want to make bank” and that they’re cranky because they never got “strawberry ice cream as kids.”

Less than 24 hours before the start of the festival, which is expected to draw as many as 50,000 people, the dozens of businesses lining Sunset Boulevard between Edgecliffe Drive and Sanborn Avenue are still unsure who will be within the official boundaries of the festival, which is organized each year by the non-profit Sunset Junction Neighborhood Alliance with headquarters at Tsunami coffee shop.

Those boundaries determine the flow of foot traffic to area businesses, as well as which employees and residents need to pay entry fees.

Trouble brews at Sunset Junction

Three hours before the 28th annual Sunset Junction street fair in Silver Lake was set to kick off this morning, tensions between area business owners and festival organizers from the Sunset Junction Neighborhood Alliance rose to a bitter crescendo.  Insults flew as business owners absorbed the news, broken this morning by the SJNA, that alcohol will not be allowed along the stretch of Sunset Boulevard between Sanborn and Edgecliffe, where the bulk of Sunset Junction's businesses stand.

For the dozens of businesses lining those three blocks, this was the final blow in a yearlong dispute about the boundaries of the festival, which until last year had always extended from Fountain to Edgecliffe. Last year the SJNA put a pay gate at Sanborn and detoured the festival south down Santa Monica Boulevard, using the area in front of the Sunset Boulevard businesses as a vendor parking lot.

"We all lost money last year," said Sarah Dale, owner of Pull My Daisy Boutique, who with the aid of her neighbors has been lobbying the SJNA and Councilman Eric Garcetti's office to make sure that the same exclusion wasn't repeated this year.

Last week was a terrible blow to anybody invested in the soul and R&B music of the late '60s. Between the deaths of Isaac Hayes and Atlantic Records executive Jerry Wexler, it seemed as if one of the greatest eras in American pop music began to fade.

Sam Moore (above, left, with Hayes), one half of the R&B duo Sam and Dave, is performing an Isaac Hayes tribute at Sunset Junction this weekend, and he knew the players of the decade as well as anyone. He spoke with Soundboard last week about his fractured friendship with Hayes, his decades-long reconciliation with Wexler, and his life at the front lines and the forgotten margins of soul.

Obviously this has got to be an especially hard week for you.

Oh, isn't it something...?  I’m telling you. Isaac, man, now Jerry.

Had you stayed close to them up until their deaths?

Every so often we would call [Jerry] to see how he was doing. He wasn't getting out that much, so we would call and check in on him. Isaac, I attempted to stay in touch with, but as I guess you've heard, it's no secret, his organization of people, they kind of separated that. So I didn't have that much communication with Isaac. But fast forward here, I didn't have that much connection after he had joined the Scientologists.

Tensions surrounding the 28th annual Sunset Junction Festival in Silver Lake have escalated dramatically this week, with area businesses referring to themselves as “angry villagers” and the Junction’s organizer, Michael McKinley, saying that the business owners  “all want to make bank” and that they’re cranky because they never got “strawberry ice cream as kids.”

Less than 24 hours before the start of the festival, which is expected to draw as many as 50,000 people, the dozens of businesses lining Sunset Boulevard between Edgecliffe Drive and Sanborn Avenue are still unsure who will be within the official boundaries of the festival, which is organized each year by the non-profit Sunset Junction Neighborhood Alliance with headquarters at Tsunami coffee shop.

Those boundaries determine the flow of foot traffic to area businesses, as well as which employees and residents need to pay entry fees.

Sam Moore reflects on Isaac Hayes, Jerry Wexler and a life in soul

Last week was a terrible blow to anybody invested in the soul and R&B music of the late '60s. Between the deaths of Isaac Hayes and Atlantic Records executive Jerry Wexler, it seemed as if one of the greatest eras in American pop music began to fade.

Sam Moore (above, left, with Hayes), one half of the R&B duo Sam and Dave, is performing an Isaac Hayes tribute at Sunset Junction this weekend, and he knew the players of the decade as well as anyone. He spoke with Soundboard last week about his fractured friendship with Hayes, his decades-long reconciliation with Wexler, and his life at the front lines and the forgotten margins of soul.

Obviously this has got to be an especially hard week for you.

Oh, isn't it something...?  I’m telling you. Isaac, man, now Jerry.

Had you stayed close to them up until their deaths?

Every so often we would call [Jerry] to see how he was doing. He wasn't getting out that much, so we would call and check in on him. Isaac, I attempted to stay in touch with, but as I guess you've heard, it's no secret, his organization of people, they kind of separated that. So I didn't have that much communication with Isaac. But fast forward here, I didn't have that much connection after he had joined the Scientologists.

Tensions surrounding the 28th annual Sunset Junction Festival in Silver Lake have escalated dramatically this week, with area businesses referring to themselves as “angry villagers” and the Junction’s organizer, Michael McKinley, saying that the business owners  “all want to make bank” and that they’re cranky because they never got “strawberry ice cream as kids.”

Less than 24 hours before the start of the festival, which is expected to draw as many as 50,000 people, the dozens of businesses lining Sunset Boulevard between Edgecliffe Drive and Sanborn Avenue are still unsure who will be within the official boundaries of the festival, which is organized each year by the non-profit Sunset Junction Neighborhood Alliance with headquarters at Tsunami coffee shop.

Those boundaries determine the flow of foot traffic to area businesses, as well as which employees and residents need to pay entry fees.

Malfunction at the Junction?

Tensions surrounding the 28th annual Sunset Junction Festival in Silver Lake have escalated dramatically this week, with area businesses referring to themselves as “angry villagers” and the Junction’s organizer, Michael McKinley, saying that the business owners  “all want to make bank” and that they’re cranky because they never got “strawberry ice cream as kids.”

Less than 24 hours before the start of the festival, which is expected to draw as many as 50,000 people, the dozens of businesses lining Sunset Boulevard between Edgecliffe Drive and Sanborn Avenue are still unsure who will be within the official boundaries of the festival, which is organized each year by the non-profit Sunset Junction Neighborhood Alliance with headquarters at Tsunami coffee shop.

Those boundaries determine the flow of foot traffic to area businesses, as well as which employees and residents need to pay entry fees.