I was watching VH1 Top 20 this morning to stay current with all the latest pop culture happenings. Up comes "Artist To Watch" BRUNO MARS, he of the longing voice and romantic smoldering eyes, singing about heart break and bad girls in "Grenade" - dragging his piano all the way through a very familiar looking neighborhood! Those aerosol art embellished walls, the tattooed homies, the bridges - our Bruno filmed "Grenade" in Boyle Heights!
It makes total sense to me since Boyle Heights and East L.A. rock! Ozomatli, Los Lobos, will.i.am and Taboo from the Black Eyed Peas: all boys from this hood. 2724 E. Cesar Chavez Avenue is home of CANDELAS GUITARS, my favorite place to visit. The second you enter you can literally feel the love and passion for music. Tomas Delgado is the fourth generation luthier (guitar builder) at Candelas, a traditional family business and the one and only that still handcrafts custom guitars and ukeleles for musicians from around the world. Jose Feliciano, band members from Ozomatli, Sublime, Los Lobos, Quetzal, Michael Jost, Pepe and Angel Romero all play Candelas guitars and are friends of the Delgado family. You are very likely to bump into someone famous on any given day, just not too early in the morning! Tomas custom designs each and every one of the guitars he builds, carefully selecting the perfect rare woods he collects worldwide to build masterpieces. If you are really lucky Tomas may play one of the guitars in the private room.
Wait, there is more!
Just a couple of miles further East, at 3846 E. Cesar Chavez Avenue, you find Javier Palacios, the legendary leather tailor who custom crafts everything from mariachi vests to the most outrageous rock'n roll tight leather pants, jackets and skirts in all colors of the rainbow, studded, embroidered, encrusted with crystals. Ordinary citizens welcome as well, but remember it's Rock'n Roll. Javier opens shop at Noon!
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