Apple iPod

Amigo the Devil Sings About Serial Killers and Spousal Abuse, With a Sense of Humor

[Editor's note: Weekly scribe Jeff Weiss's column, "Bizarre Ride," appears on West Coast Sound every Wednesday. His archives are available here.] If you never met him, you might mistake Amigo the Devil for a monster. The 25-year-old murderfolk maudit's most popular song is called "Perfect Wife." Wi ... More >>

The Top 10 L.A. Albums of 2012

Los Angeles music was a big part of the national conversation this year, from Frank Ocean and Miguel's artisan R&B to Top Dawg Entertainment's hip-hop dominance to the electronic inspirations of Flying Lotus and Gaslamp Killer. Picking but ten albums from this crop as the West Coast Sound writers ha ... More >>

The Five Best Concerts in L.A. This Week

Monday, December 10 Lamps PEHRSPACE Lamps are punk (like Chrome? Or Suicide?). They're from space (like Hawkwind?) but also from hell (like Electric Eels!), where everything melts together into a big hot white ball of confusion that's bright enough to give off some sick kind of light but which will ... More >>

What the Dodgers' Musical Taste Says About Them

[Editor's note: Weekly scribe Jeff Weiss's column, "Bizarre Ride," appears on West Coast Sound every Wednesday. His archives are available here.] Forget phrenology, both the overrated Roots album and the 19th-century pseudo-science. Ignore palmistry, psychotherapy and Rick Warren. The best way to b ... More >>

Bless the Breasts and the Children

"Niggas in Paris," Clean or Uncensored: Which Does My Kids More Injustice?

See also: *"Niggas in Paris": Jay-Z and Kanye Will Perform It 13 Times When They're Here. Seriously. *There's a 5-Year-Old Girl Who Looks Like Adele on My Sons' YMCA Basketball Team. I Hate Her The conversation eventually became about music, and maybe that was the intended point anyway, but it sta ... More >>

Stupid Alleged Criminals of 2011: Our Top 5

​There were way too many stupid alleged criminals to chose from this year. So we'll kick off The Informer's 2011 year-end lists with a solid, entertaining Top 5 of reported retardos, from a suspect said to have videotaped his endeavor to the genius who is accused of putting his underage fantas ... More >>

Opeth - The Mayan - October 19, 2011

Diamond Bodine-Fischer​Opeth The Mayan October 19, 2011 Better than... your buddy's band who tries to do the same thing but should really stop trying. When you put the needle down on an Opeth record you get the urge to sit down in an oversized chair with a bottle of red wine. The Swedish pro ... More >>

Occupy L.A.: Street Musicians Reign at City Hall

So we were wondering what kind of music was popular at Occupy L.A., the anti-Wall Street demonstration the surrounds Los Angeles City Hall night and day, and took a drive to downtown to find out. But rather than people listening to their favorite bands on iPods or whatever, we soon came to realize ... More >>

Dedication To My Sex: Why Lloyd and His String of P-Bombs Pissed Me Off

If only iTunes had a return policy, or at least the ability to exchange for store credit. I'd gladly swap the original version of Lloyd's "Dedication to My Ex" for the cleaned-up radio edit, because frankly I feel like I got tricked. I heard the song for the first time in the car, and for much the ... More >>

Venice Burglary Suspect Alex Eljabiri Videotaped Possible Break-In With a Stolen iPod Touch, Cops Say

FacebookAlex Eljabiri.​In the annals of stupid (alleged) criminals, videotaping one's shenanigans has to be one of the more shortsighted moves of all time. But it certainly can help authorities nail you to the wall. Take the case of Alex Eljabiri, who police nabbed last month for allegedly b ... More >>

Dance Club Pick: Bashing the Grammies

'Smuggle Truck: Operation Immigration' App as Non-PC as They Come (Glitch: 100s of Anchor Babies Spill From Truck Bed)

YouTubeAdditional "cargo" pops out along the way​"Smuggle Truck: Operation Immigration," the self-proclaimed "premiere smuggling game on the App Store" (we'd hate to see all the not premiere ones) has initiated a half-assed online debate over how lightly the border-hopping situation between Me ... More >>

Top 10 Most Exciting L.A. Indie Labels of 2010

Top 10 Most Exciting L.A. Indie Labels of 2010

'Call Of Duty: Black Ops' Draws Midnight Nerd Herd To L.A. GameStops, Best Buys

A GameStop employee braces himself for the stampede​Updated after the jump: L.A.-area GameStop stores weigh in on the success of their midnight launch parties. Originally posted at 6:05 a.m. The economy had a pretty wild night last night. While you were sleeping, it partied with passive-aggr ... More >>

Top 10 Country Radio Songs to Open Your Mind (Even if You Think You Hate Country Music)

Eazylanish/Flickr​We've seen it over and over on Facebook profiles. Music: "I like just about anything...except COUNTRY, of course!" As if admitting to liking mainstream country music (because, sure, everyone likes Johnny Cash) is like admitting to having a Beanie Babies collection. It's sham ... More >>

We Are All Hoarders

Worst movie year ever? Or is Hollywood just feeding our addiction to garbage?

How Not to Have Your Tour Van Robbed, or How Psych Rocker Imaad Wasif Lost It All

How Not to Have Your Tour Van Robbed, or How Psych Rocker Imaad Wasif Lost It All

Muse Gets Bombastic at Coachella (Would You Expect Less?)

Muse is a band made for Coachella. The British trio has a sound so large, so anthemic that it seems as though they formed simply to play open air gigs to tens of thousands of screaming fans. Where many musicians have come to the three-day desert music fest and failed amidst the vastness of the space ... More >>

Watch: The Amazing El Guincho Plays in Rainforest [MP3]

El Guincho in different climes.​The good folks at L.A. audio institution Dublab have finally released this excellent clip of Barcelona's El Guincho performing in the viney wilds of South Los Angeles. The rainforest in question is actually one of the life-size dioramas found at the Natural Hi ... More >>

The Evolution of the Pocket Protector: Thomas Pink's iPod Necktie, Nerdy No More

Is this nerdy, or isn't it? I honestly can't decide. It's a necktie that holds an iPod Nano, essentially a less dorky version of the quintessential old school nerd pocket protector. Note that the colors correspond with the iPod colors. It's called "The Commuter Tie," and is made by Thomas Pink of Lo ... More >>

Rock Picks: Pink, the Grates, Doug Paisley, Ooh La L.A. Festival

Also, Slavic Soul Party, Pet Shop Boys, the Humpers and others

Five Psychedelic Furs Songs That Aren't "Pretty in Pink"

It's another day stuck in the midst of gridlock and you're flipping radio stations because you either don't have an iPod or forgot your iPod and you're sick of every CD strewn across the front seat of the car. You stumble upon a song and think, "Hey, I remember this. Hey, I like this." But then you ... More >>

Publishing Your Novel Online

A guide to the mind games you'll play on yourself

Coachella Sunday: No Holding Back Public Enemy, The Cure, The Horrors, K'Naan

Anyone who's ever been to Coachella knows it leaves you with a special brand of Monday morning pain. This 3 day monster will test even the fittest, most fervent music fan. For most attendees this was a call-in-sick day, a day of rest and merciful silence. Or, if you did the weary drive home today li ... More >>

Movie Reviews: Growing Out, I’ll Be There With You, The Lodger

Also, Prometheus Triumphant, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, and more

Inauguration Day Extravaganza: The First Hip-Hop President?

Image via Hip Hop is Read Unless you've been living in the Madagascan Rain Forest or are a cave-dwelling ignicolist in Outer Mongolia, you're well aware that today marks the inauguration of Barack Obama. To the delight of the rap world and the chagrin of the social security set, Obama has been bi ... More >>

Top 10 Metal Albums of 2008

By Phil Freeman In a year worthy of your rage, metal delivered in spades. What with the economy circling the drain and Sarah Palin coming down from the tundra and then refusing to go back, 2008's been the kind of year that really makes you want to smash your head into walls or punch random stran ... More >>

Marie Antoinettes and Other Rococo Craziness at Royal/T

Click on the photos for the Rococo Rendezvous slideshow. So I went to Rococo Rendezvous at the maid cafe Royal/T in Culver City a couple nights ago. There was a lot of this action going on. The whole Rococo thing is a subset of the multi-faceted Japanese cosplay subculture, in which girls and girly ... More >>

Grab The Believer's Music Issue While It's Still on the Racks -- It's Totally Worth It

Though it's been out for the past month or so, I'd highly recommend that you race to your nearest newstand to grab the recent music issue of The Believer, which is still on the newstands this week (or so we've been told) but on the verge of vanishing. There are a number of sublime highlights in ... More >>

Live in L.A.: Sean Carnage Celebrates Three Years of Monday Nights

Sean Carnage Monday Nights Celebrates Three Years of Total Weirdness Text and photos by Liz Ohanesian Sean Carnage Monday Nights at Pehrspace is the sort of party where a guy who has nothing to do with any of the performances will show up in a leopard print body suit and few people turn to look. ... More >>

SXSW Day 4-Pitchfork Party Gets a 6.4, Due to Highly Derivative Partying

A Pitchfork party without Sparks? That's like Eliot Spitzer without whores: fatigued, thirsty and miserable. And rest assured, Sparks flowed like the River Ganges, even going as far to sponsor the bash, which wasn't really as bad as it was boring. A bunch of people sitting in bleachers trying t ... More >>

10 Musicians Definitely Not on Steroids

From the New York Times: "When news surfaced over the weekend that 50 Cent, Wyclef Jean, Timbaland and other rap stars had been implicated in a steroids investigation, some hip-hop fans were shocked, but to many in the industry the accusations seemed inevitable." Oh, how our collective pride in t ... More >>

Hollywood Schmoozer Meets Internet Geek

Agents 2.0: The new generation of dealmakers at UTA Online

Summer Lovin', Happened So Fast

Where Bling Never Dies

A swag tour of the MTV Movie Awards

The Year Blogs Got Lame, Business Got Hip and Nostalgia Was King

Rock Docs Are Go! Rockumentary Recommendations

As CDs wither, the low-budget rockumentary is born again

Online Avant-Garde

A Theater Lover's Lament

Confessions of a critic trying to keep the bottle at bay

Mom & Pop Hip-Hop Shop!

33third records brings the licorice pizza (and live in-stores) back to Pico

Family Viewing

At the movies and on TV, the changing face of American domestic life

The Secret Lives of Boys

Inside the old spirits, indie fucks, gay best friends and outlaws

High ’05 in Clubland

Webs of intrigue, Crackberries, ironica — Nightranger surveys the year in nightlife

Hipsters Must Die

10 signs of the (Yindie) apocalypse

Bubblegum Hip-hop and a Band With three Test Icicles

Ironic Chef America

Rock in Total Retrograde!

How do you solve a problem like the Mars Volta?

San Gabriel Foothills

Comfort and Joy