Nick Hakim and Katie Pruitt Anchor a Packed October at the Troubadour
The Santa Monica Boulevard listening room runs nearly nightly through the month with soul, folk and indie on the bill
The Troubadour is having one of those months. The West Hollywood listening room at 9081 Santa Monica Blvd is running shows nearly every night through October, and the calendar reads like a survey of where interesting guitar music lives right now.
The headliners
Thursday, October 8 brings Nick Hakim, whose hazy psych-soul songwriting blurs the lines between R&B, jazz and lo-fi indie rock. Hakim pairs a breathy falsetto with woozy, tape-warped production, and his live shows have a way of turning the Troubadour’s low-ceilinged room into something closer to a dream. Show at 8 p.m.
Tuesday, October 27 is Katie Pruitt with Olivia Barton opening. Pruitt has built a devoted following on the strength of her songwriting, and Troubadour tickets start at $25, which for a room this size and an artist this good is close to a public service. Show at 7 p.m. JamBase is also running a ticket giveaway for the Pruitt show, with entries open through October 18.
The rest of the month
The calendar around those two anchors is deep. Jackson Dean plays October 14, Asha Banks on October 15, and the band Juice on October 16. October 18 brings a triple bill of Amélie Farren, Lilith Max and Rabbitology. Los Hermanos Mendoza take the room on October 24, and Natalie Jinju closes out the month’s listings on October 29.
Most shows start at 7 p.m., and the room’s calendar is updated regularly through the venue’s site and ticket outlets.
Why the room matters
The Troubadour has been operating since 1957, which makes it older than rock and roll’s stadium era, older than the singer-songwriter movement it helped launch, and older than just about every other working club in Los Angeles. Elton John played his first American shows here. So did Joni Mitchell, James Taylor and Tom Waits. The room holds 500 people, and it still books like it has something to prove.
That history is part of why a month like this one matters. The Troubadour is not a nostalgia act. It is a working club that puts developing artists on the same stage where the legends played, often on the same week. Hakim and Pruitt are exactly the kind of artists the room was built for. Catch them here now, because the next time they come through town it will be a much bigger room at a much higher price.
