The Standard

It’s that time of week again - snag your seat at The Standard, Hollywood’s Cactus Lounge for a wonderful evening of live acoustic performances at Desert Nights! Here’s tonight’s line-up.

Check out Ethan Gold’s work here.

Ethan Gold wrote a two-page story at age four called “The Dreammaker,” about a tiny miner who chiseled into people’s heads at night and placed visions and nightmares inside. As a self-taught composer, singer, songwriter, and performer on all the rock instruments, Ethan has been doing with music what his little miner did ever since, creating cathartic, deeply affecting songs with landscapes of sound and melodies that clutch to heart, written while dreaming or in the altered state of insomnia.

Sara Melson’s music can be found here.

Sara Melson grew up in a small town in Indiana in a house with books covering nearly every wall from floor to ceiling. Fed a steady diet of Beatles, Stones, Dylan, The Band, Bowie, Neil Young, Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Patsy Cline, Simon and Garfunkel, the Velvet Underground, and Van Morrison, as well as a huge swath of classical and jazz, Sara grew up classically trained on piano and self-taught on guitar, wedding chords to the lyrics filling the pages of her many journals. She lives somewhere between genres, with timeless songs that blur boundaries between folk, rock, pop, and country.

Follow Heather Porcaro on Twitter and listen to her debut album here.

HEATHER PORCARO is a songwriter, comedienne, and fourth-generation-musician, blending a unique stagecraft (including magic & improvisation). Born in Burbank California, the daughter of a session keyboardist and composer, Heather grew up in recording studios and studied with L.A.’s finest musicians. She has been playing music and performing her whole life. After hearing Curtis Mayfield’s soundtrack to Superfly she picked up the bass and formed her first band in high school. Heather’s voice as a songwriter surfaced as she began playing guitar and started performing regularly. She then spent time in San Francisco writing music and performing for a theatre company. After returning to L.A., Heather followed her bohemian call and traveled the globe meeting other artists and developing her sound. With funk, jazz, soul and a splash of rock n’ roll, her voice is often likened to Suzanne Vega & Blossom Dearie, while her songwriting reminds people of George Harrison and Tom Petty.