We swapped e-mails with The Guide Content Producer Liam Gowing for his take on covering la la land, what lies ahead for the site and why LA Live is going to suck (for him).
TSD: First off, what exactly is your role at The Guide?
Liam Gowing: I write a weekly recreation and adventure column called "Action Man" for print and web. It's an exercise in first-person, "gonzo" journalism, which is to say I fully participate in the event I'm describing, make no effort to conceal my point-of-view going in or bias coming out, and imbue the whole thing with as much personality as my editor allows. Occasionally, I do video segments to go with the web versions of the column (Rock n' Roll Fantasy Camp, the Lucha VaVoom wedding)
The column is going to be the flagship of a forthcoming section of the Guide, which will probably launch in August, called "Active L.A." I'm starting to lay the groundwork for that now.
I write a purely informational column called "Will Call" every week as well, which gathers up all the pop (i.e. rock, hip-hop, R&B, big-name DJ) concerts, for which advance tickets will become available over the next week; I blog about the highlights every week as well.
I co-administer the daily musical "Best Bets" on the website with the Music section producer, August Brown. (Write some, edit others, keep tabs on all).
I contribute various articles on semi-weekly basis: Featured previews for our "8 Things" print section, short previews called "Candies," and random contributions to our popular "Underrated/Overrated" section.
I occasionally I write lead stories and sidebars (Cover story on Midnight Ridazz, "Black" LA).
I write up events for the website on an ad hoc basis and have for many months been part of a long-term effort to visit, photograph and describe restaurants and night-life venues in Greater LA.
TSD: How does The Guide go about covering the live entertainment scene in LA? Obviously most notable bands stay out west, but how much attention do you devote to the smaller gigs downtown? For example, would you ever cover something at Lost Souls Cafe or 2nd Street Jazz?
LG: To be honest, we are so focused on previewing and featuring events we do very little to cover/review events. That's the Calendar section's job.
TSD: What is the staff makeup on the entertainment beat, and what sort of musical backgrounds/interests do you have?
LG: I'm actually doing me best to transition out of music-writing, which I did almost exclusively for 5 years (freelancing for LA Weekly, SPIN, Filter and NME from 2002 till Summer 2006, when I became City Editor of the Onion's LA paper). August is our music guy now and he's indie-rock oriented with a general interest in popular music, be it mainstream or classic rock (Dad-rock he would call it), hip-hop and R&B and straight-up pop. He and I are two of 10 content producers (sections listed below). We have a photo editor, two deputy eds in print, two in interactive, and one overseeing everything, plus two at-large print writers, one at-large interactive writer, 3 listings people and (as of last week) 3 interns.
TSD: The Guide is mainly a print entity, but I notice you have a beta site up. How is that coming, and what sort of relationship will you have with your LA Times web sibling, Metromix?
LG: It may look like a print entity now, but print is just the tip of the iceberg. Eventually, when we get our CMS (content mgmt system) squared away and our website redesigned, we will have everything in print online plus much more. Our goal is to list (if not preview/review) every event in SoCal in live music, restaurants, bars and clubs, local film stuff, events and festivals, art and architecture, kids and family stuff, and (once phase 2 is completed) shopping and recreation.
TSD: Any notable developments on deck for the site?
LG: Get a better web-crawling service, refining the CMS, restructuring the site more to our liking. A LOT!
TSD: LA Live is going to bring a couple new venues to downtown. How, if at all, is that going to affect what you guys do?
LG: Yeah, it means more work!
TSD: Any idea what sort of acts the Conga Room and Club Nokia are expected to draw?
LG: Humans? Seriously, Conga Room draws urban, Latin, jazz and dance-oriented stuff, and Nokia will be major acts who could probably play Staples but want better sound and plusher seats for their audiences.
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