Five Things: Sterling Andrews

This week on Five Things we catch up with photographer, painter and musician Sterling Andrews. I first met Sterling shortly before the release of her photo-book, Gooseberries, documenting the Echo Park and Silver Lake music scenes of the past decade and have been a fan of her work ever since.

Some neighborhood folks she's captured include:  Silversun Pickups, Great Northern, The Henry Clay People, Twilight Sleep, Happy Hollows, Shadow Shadow Shade, Buddy, Love Grenades and Le Switch.

Sterling is currently partnering with 98.7FM to photograph their Close to Home honorees--Eastern Conference Champions, Vanaprasta, Incan Abraham, Audible Mainframe and Billy on Poison.

Ms. Andrews, in her own words, below.

  Any girl who’s gone boutique shopping knows all too well the “Curse of the Coolest Thing in the Store.”  This curse strikes most viciously in vintage stores full of colorful polyesters and smelly leathers: after swimming through packed racks and frothy scarf-boxes, she finds the Coolest Thing in the Store and blam!  Cursed.

When she gets home, the curse wears off, and she realizes that the item she just bought... sucks.  It doesn’t go with anything.  It doesn’t fit.  It looks like she raided her high school theatre department’s costume closet.  The Coolest Thing in the Store, once purchased, is demoted to a Possible Halloween Costume. 

And then there’s Luxe DeVille.  Hats.  Coats. Vintage shoes that fit my teeny feet.  And best of all - a perfect selection of new locally designed jewelry and clothing.  The items in Luxe DeVille feel as if they’ve been hand-picked--nay, curated--for me.  I’m a huge fan of mixing vintage and modern styles.  That said, I cannot set foot in Luxe DeVille without buying something curse-free.

As I type this, I’m actually scrolling through my contacts to see who might want to Elf with me tonight.  In my household, “Elf” is a verb.  It means “to ferociously enjoy delicate heaps of the best vegetarian food in L.A. whilst secretly seething over the fact that you didn’t invent the recipes yourself.”  (Roasted beet carpaccio?  Blue cheese mac? Risotto-stuffed portobello?  I mean, come on.)

“Elfing” is to be done often; preferably with a bottle of wine purchased from , right across the street.  Bring a date.  Try the kale.  Save room for dessert.  Oh, and!  AND!  They have an awesome selection of gluten-free dishes.  

: I know this may come as a shock to some people, but occasionally, I like to go into a coffee shop and order coffee.  I’m an early riser and a morning-only coffee drinker, so I’m not exactly up for testing my coffee-region-geography-skills while my eyes are still burning. 

The selections at Chango are a far cry from diner-drip, and I’ve never had a staff member raise an eyebrow and tap a manifesto-like menu when I shuffle in and growl “Cofffeeeeeeee... Darkkkk roassssssst.... to goooooo.”  Also, their chai rules. 

This is one of those “Seriously; like, no-doy” selections.  Allow me to explain:  Sometime around WWII, Alex Steinweiss smacked Columbia upside the head and said “Dude, if you’re going to sell records, you have to make people want to pick them up.  If you want people to want to pick them up, you have to put some badass cover art on those muvs.”  Or something to that effect. 

Anyway, records became glorious items to be flipped through and handled (instead of ordered from a catalog at the phonograph store), and sales increased by 800 percent. 

Point being: the visual and tactile experiences are essential to the buying and selling of music.  That’s why vinyl is awesome.  And since music is such a huge part of this community, the presence of a beyond-excellent record store is also imperative.  Thank you, Origami, for so seamlessly filling those shoes. 

The Spice Station: Try and read this word aloud: Plchgh!!!  That’s the sound my brain made when I first discovered this fantastic treasure-trove of gustative promises.   They have magnificent dried peppers and colorful infused salts and slender vanilla beans and dozens of glass jars full of amazing spices glinting and winking and wafting and begging you to take them home.  

Are you old enough to remember walking into Amoeba for the first time before digital downloads were the norm?  Yeah, it’s like that.   Also, as every boyfriend and/or supernerd girlfriend will gleefully point out, it’s right next door to a sweet-ass comic shop.