It al started about 3 months ago, when I was discussing with Φωτεινή for various Jazz Clubs around LA. She mentioned Dresden, which has some guys that play there since 30 years ago, and also she said that the movie Swingers was filmed there. Me, being in a Netflix mood those days I put it in my queue. The dvd came, I copied it, but I didn't watch the movie for a while, and forgot everything about Dresden. Then last October we watched the movie here in my home and that reminded us for the lounge there. So we decided to go there, and as it happened we went there on the Halloween night. It was monday, as I recall. That was when we noticed her for the first time.
The show was ok. Various people came and sang, including the two main performers, Marty and Elaine. We were quite bored I have to say, but we sat there until after midnight.
Suddenly at 1am, she came into the stage. A beautiful asian american girl, no older than 23, wearing a perfect red mask covering the top half of her face, who started singing beautifully a song. It was just amazing to watch her sing, you just couldn't believe what we were seeing. Actually, the problem was that the audio didn't match the visuals. It was to good to be true.
On our way out we saw her talking to Marty. I hesitated for a minute but then I decided that we had to talk to them. So I approach them and said "Hello, I know you've been here since forever, but you must be new", pointing to her. The discussion started and we talked for various things, including engineering, greek feta, and her name:Kim. We learned that she was to come and sing there again 10 days later, on a Wednesday. We promised to return to listen to her.
On that Wednesday we had planned to go there, but since everyone else was going to the gathering of the EE professor Psounis at Viceroy, we had to go there. We had a good time, but we didn't see Kim on that night.
We went to Dresden however the following week, on a Friday, with Nikos and Hlias. The place was packed now, and we didn't sit down. We saw no Kim for the couple of hours we were there. We asked the bartenders, and they sai she usually comes on Tuesdays.
We didn't give up and went to Dresden again, this time on a tuesday, along with Nikos only this time. Nikos suggested I should a specific drink, called Frangelico I think (I remember its name when I think of Frankenstein). Kim wasn't there this time either. However on our way out, Nikos was brave enough to go and talk to Matry about Kim. We learned that her full name is Kim Ho, she is good friends with the people there, and she visits and sings occasionally. We also found out that she is working as a waitress at Miceli's.
Miceli's! I knew the restaurant, I had been there with Roubos a while ago. So on some Thursday we decided to grab a bite there. We were lucky to sit in the upper level and next to the piano, and sure enough our waitress was Kim herself! She came several times back and forth, and we started chatting with her. We learned that she has been studying music and vocals her whole life, and that she doesn't want to work there forever but instead make a career in singing. She said Marty and Elaine are good friends of hers and that's why she plays there occasiaonally. Finally, she mentioned that she regurarly sings every Monday at a place called Cheebo, up on Sunset blvd.
Meanwhile Dimitri had to take his qual exam for his phd and I had to go to Brookhaven for experiment, so as soon as I got back we went to Cheebo for dinner, along with Hlias.
I just loved that place. They habe orange walls, and we were lucky enough to sit close to the stage (which is located up, close to the ceiling!). Kim was there singing when we got in around 8pm, and we had the perfect place to enjoy her.
Apparently the guys who were sitting right next to us were some kind of producers. They started talking about getting a CD from her and giving it to a producer for further listening. A moment later, when Kim took a break from singing, she came down and went to these guys (so right next to us!) and they started talking. From what we overheard it seems that she is at a major point of her career and tries to promote her work. I was glad that we had these guys next to us so that we could take a good look at her, despite the fact that she didn't remember us from the last 2 times we've met. Dimitri though was pissed off since he thought they were taking her from us and that we would talk to her if they weren't there. Hlias on the other hand seemed neutral, and also proposed to Dimitri that if he paid for our dinner ($111 total) he would bring her down to our table to sing especially for him! Dimitri never agreed though...
Anyways we sat there for over 3 hours, ordering appetizers, main dishes, drinks and desserts. Everything was organic and everything was sooo tasty. As for Kim, we'll have more adventures in the future. To be continued...
