—Drew Tewksbury
BEST HOME AWAY FROM DEPOT
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The two-tone blue building known for a half century as Andy’s True-Value Hardware is immediately noticeable — both because of its distinctive, if fading, paint job, and because it is a stable and dedicated business set in the midst of an almost-exclusively residential area on San Pedro Street. The only other building for blocks that is not a residence is a Baptist church directly across the street. Picture a Home Depot without the cavernous interior, where customers call employees by name, and where their inquiries as to the health of the manager’s mother or the cashier’s sick child is commonplace. The store has always been independently owned and, in its lone incarnation, has weathered changing neighborhoods, two riots and — according to one of its recently minted managers, Maria, who has worked at the store for 25 years — a few robberies, though the latter phenomenon is relatively new. Andy’s seems to be an island in many respects. Hopefully, it will continue to withstand the waves. 10411 S. San Pedro St., L.A. (323) 755-6757.
—Juliette Akinyi Ochieng
BEST BEATS ON YOUR TEETS
We can’t say with certainty who came up with the idea first, but there are at least two L.A. entities that have helped reinvent the classic band T-shirt over the past few months. In terms of chronological release, local indie start-up Friends of Friends Music debuted the technology with its inaugural project, Friends of Friends Vol. 1, an EP of music by Daedelus and Jogger (plus remixes by folks like Nosaj Thing) that came on neither plastic nor vinyl, but on a compostable tag (a download card made of plantable seed paper) attached to an organic cotton tee. The shirt sports the album art, naturally, which in this case was custom-made by beloved local husband-and-wife design team Kozyndan. But a scant few months later, celeb-touted Ladera Heights fashion imprint LnA announced The Music Tee, which is basically the same thing but with bigger names – Mos Def’s The Ecstatic was the first album to get the wearable treatment. Some of LnA’s subsequent releases have left a bit to be desired musically speaking (here’s looking at you, She Wants Revenge), but it’s the thought that counts. Perez Hilton is among The Music Tee’s admirers, so expect more from this new musical medium. themusictee.com.
—Chris Martins
BEST CHIC FOR CHEAP
With neighbors like Marc Jacobs, Diane Von Furstenberg and Alexander McQueen, the super chic, you-can’t-afford-to-shop-here section of West Melrose is an unlikely place for a designer outlet. But after the BCBG boutique shut its doors late last year, the BCBG Max Azria Final Cut Outlet store (just look for the building painted in black-and-white stripes) popped up in its place like a groundhog to announce that the recession, like war, is over, if you want it. The dozens of racks carrying BCBG’s various labels — designer Max Azria’s own namesake, BCBGeneration, To the Max and Herve Leger — range from $49 to $89, and almost nothing over: jeans, T-shirts, blouses, pants, shorts, daytime dresses, evening gowns and even heavy winter coats. Hervé Léger’s famous body-hugging bandage dresses are marked down from a whopping $980 to $430, while the shoes — including flats, heels and boots — and purses go for as low as $19. This not only saves bargain hunters the drive to far-away outlet malls like the Citadel, but also the discomfort and hysteria of the impending Black Friday. 8026 Melrose Ave., W. Hlywd. (323) 852-1481, bcbg.com.
—Siran Babayan
BEST BEAUTY SUPPLY FOR BLACK HAIR CARE
Beauty supply stores provoke our inner Spock. No, not the guy who pronounces everything human to be “illogical,” but the one who finds the idiosyncrasies of humans “fascinating.” The sheer volume and variety of products marketed and devoted to giving the species a pleasing look and smell would be overwhelming if we didn’t find it to be so much fun just to browse through. Naturally, beauty supply stores cater to the predominate race of the customers in the area. Basket Beauty Supply in Inglewood carries a large and eclectic section for black hair care: brands like Crème of Nature coloring, all manner of relaxers, hair scalp and skin oil, many products labeled with the word “African,” plus old-school products like Pinks, Sporting Waves, Duke, Sulphur 8 and Murray’s pomade, which may or may not remind us of our grandpas. Then there are the “food” items: Castor Oil hair treatment, Olive Oil shine moisturizer, Hairaerobics, Spearmint Spritz, Sea Kelp Shampoo and Conditioner and “hair mayonnaise.” And there are the basics like Noxzema and baby oil and Vaseline. Either way, your fellow man or woman will have great hair and soft skin. Full disclosure: We bought an eyebrow pencil. 132 S. Market St., Inglewood. (310) 677-9419.
—Juliette Akinyi Ochieng
BEST L.A. HISTORY IN A BOX
The best archival reissues serve dual purposes. First, of course, they uncover music that’s disappeared into a hidden corner of the collective unconscious. They bring it to the surface and remind us of a continued relevancy (or explains to us why, exactly, we should forget it). The best ones also tell a story, capture a moment, stake a claim. Where the Action Is! Los Angeles Nuggets 1965-1968 compiles 101 selections of garage, proto-punk, jangle rock and West Coast rock created in L.A. during the explosive period of the mid and late ’60s. Over four discs, Rhino curator and executive producer Andrew Sandoval offers a rich selection of guitar rock. Each themed chapter captures a different segment of the city, moving from the Sunset Strip, where the Whisky was the place to be (the Byrds, Love, Buffalo Springfield, the Rising Sons, Captain Beefheart); to East L.A. and the Inland Empire (Thee Midnighters, the Electric Prunes, the W.C. Fields Memorial Electric String Band); the studio scene (Dino, Desi & Billy, the Monkees, Gary Lewis & the Playboys, Lee Hazlewood); and the rising (but not yet established) folk and country rock scene (the Dillards, Tim Buckley, Van Dyke Parks). Combined, Where the Action Is! confidently declares that L.A.’s output during those three years deserves acknowledgement as one of the great overlooked, transformative moments in rock. “There’s a consensus that San Francisco was fantastic in the Summer of Love,” explained Sandoval last month. “They had the Grateful Dead and Santana and all these other bands. In L.A., there’s no consensus. There’s a consensus that, yes, the Byrds, and Love, and Captain Beefhheart, Buffalo Springfield, the Doors, were famous, but those bands are somewhat known as mainstream bands ... I wanted L.A. to actually, at last, have some respect.” He succeeded in grand fashion. Just as important, is the package, which features Rhino’s typically inspired and comprehensive liner notes and design. We learn about the clubs and the context, the people and the places. At the end, after consuming the book and the songs, you not only have a feel for the music, but the long, complicated narrative that created it.
