Saturday night, Katie + I attended KCRW‘s sixth annual Masquerade ball.
We’d never been before, so we didn’t really know what to expect, but we have to say—It. Was. Awesome.
The local public radio station took over the first two floors of the Legendary Park Plaza Hotel (we’re not sure why, but you’re required to call it ‘legendary’ in each and every instance), with DJs and live bands performing in five different ballrooms, roaming marching bands, Elizabethan stilt-walkers, pretty great food trucks in a back lot, and countless top-notch costumes among the night’s guests.
One thing we took note of moving from New York to Los Angeles was the striking difference between the two cities’ prominent public radio stations, WNYC + KCRW. In New York, it’s all Leonard Lopate and Brain Lehrer and Terry Gross and news headlines and politics, all of which we love, but it’s not exactly entertaining all the time. They even took their one music-oriented show—Soundcheck—off the air a couple years back, making Web-aceess only.
KCRW, however, is grounded in a culture of cool, basing nearly all of its programming on music+ entertainment. Draw whatever conclusions you want about those differences and what it means about New Yorkers and Angelenos, but we’ll give you one certainty from our view—they can plan a fucking party in LA. So make your plans for next year now—KCRW’s Masquerade is a must.
Above, our Hitchcock-inspired Birds costumes. If you get a chance, head over to Facebook and give us a like. We could win a costume contest!
