Giving community an A Choired Taste

HP Laborde wears sunglasses, often dresses in black and picks a mean acoustic guitar. Over the years, the Algeria native has lived the life of a scrappy rock musician, playing in dive bars and doing his best to hook a rowdy audience.

But when his band, A Choired Taste, takes the stage Saturday at the Meadowlark Plaza shopping center in Huntington Beach, Laborde wants to see the opposite crowd: toddlers, grandparents, entrepreneurs, high school students and anyone else who wants to give the community a shot in the arm.

Laborde, who lives a block away from the shopping center, organized the Meadowlark Eclectic Music Festival for two main reasons: to give publicity to the center’s merchants, who will be advertising and demonstrating their products throughout, and to give his band a Get Out of Taverns Free card.

“We don’t play bars,” Laborde said. “We’re tired of that. Everyone’s burned out of that stuff. We want to play for family audiences.”

The eight-piece band — which plays rock, jazz, reggae and other styles, but isn’t actually a choir — had a successful engagement at Bella Terra this summer, where it played three concerts and drew hundreds of spectators of all ages. Guitarist Tom Matranga said that was a course the band wanted to take in the future.

“We’re all kind of older, so it behooves us to play in venues that are more open-air, more of a festival kind of thing,” he said.

Earlier this year, Laborde approached Meadowlark Plaza management about putting on a free outdoor music festival. The center put on an event in May with A Choired Taste as the only band, but turnout was small and participation from merchants was minimal, so Laborde decided to make a larger go for the fall.

Over the last few weeks, he went to work knocking on merchants’ doors, booking other musicians and calling local high schools to enlist their bands and cheer squads. Many of the center’s tenants donated money to cover expenses, while Laborde took out a bank loan and plans to sell videotapes of the event to recoup the funds.

Frank Vogel, the property manager for Meadowlark, was more than happy to play host.

“We hope that this event will bring people to the shopping center who might not otherwise be familiar with it, and in doing that, they become acquainted and begin patronizing tenants,” he said. “So that’s part of it. It’s essentially a promotional activity.”

Many of the tenants will set up information booths, and some will even provide part of the show.

Pa-Kua Martial Arts & Yoga plans to give a series of martial arts demonstrations, and Laborde said Honda World from Westminster will provide a car for display.

Laborde hopes to make the Eclectic Music Festival an annual event.

“It’s basically our own little stimulus package for the city of Huntington Beach,” he said.

If You Go

What: Meadowlark Eclectic Music Festival

Where: Meadowlark Plaza, 5219 Warner Ave., Huntington Beach

When: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday

Admission: Free