Bob Penn plays drums in The Jealous Sound and The Night of the Gun.
What was the food highlight of the year and why?
I recently moved to Pasadena in an apartment complex that is actually a functioning train station and across the tracks there is an awesome restaurant called The Luggage Room. When they start up their cooking fires at 5pm you can smell the delicious aroma throughout my building. You suddenly find yourself in the elevator taking a life detour to locate the goodness.
The standout favorite item on the menu for me is their brick wood-fire Avocado Festival pizza, which is thin and chewy sourdough pizza crust with super bright flavors on top, including cheese, sundried tomatoes, lemon, fresh basil, and avocado. For dessert they make these killer sea salt chocolate chip cookies that they handout complimentary at the door as you leave. You might need to bring a buddy to distract all the hot waitresses, so you can stuff your pockets with this amazing treat (not that I would ever do that). They also serve an outstanding brand of gelato, my favorite is the mint chip which tastes like a fresh mint slap to the face.
What was the music highlight of your year and why?
I’m pretty lucky, I’ve had a few highlights this year:
The Jealous Sound started the year on an awesome February tour with some great bands. For the majority of the dates we played with Balance and Composure and Daylight. It was great to watch those guys every night. They’re both very talented bands, their fans love them and so did we.
It was also great seeing the Knapsack reunion in Los Angeles, it was nice to see friends reunite and play songs that I’ve always loved. I still remember picking up Day Three of My New Life and blasting it in my crappy Ford Taurus back in the day. I actually kept gallons of fluid in my backseat because that shit car overheated so much.
I’m lucky to be ending the year with another musical highlight: I recently had a really collaborative set of sessions with a longtime friend, but first-time bandmate Adrian Verloop. After about seven practices we created enough songs for a record. I found myself sneaking back into Studio 606 with my favorite guy to track drums with, John “Lou” Lousteau. New project is called “The Night of the Gun” and we’re set to start tracking guitars.
Was there a moment when food and music came together in a memorable way?
After recording drum tracks in Northridge in late November I took a break for sushi at King’s Burgers. The name obviously fooled me a bit, but seeing the sushi selection my plans suddenly changed. It was one of those moments when you just needed a quick bite to eat and ended up staying for an hour. The spicy tuna tempura roll is no fucking joke… Seriously
I also live a few miles away from Mark Trombino’s new doughnut shop Donut Friend. The dude is truly doing great things to a classic item and even the coffee is killer. It’s now a MUST visit spot here in LA and everyone is talking about it. Trombino might be completely responsible for the stretchy pants movement of 2014 and that sucks.