Arcade Fire

Music Picks: Rhye, Papa and Motörhead

Under-the-Radar Acts to See at Coachella

[Editor's note: Weekly scribe Jeff Weiss's column, "Bizarre Ride," appears on West Coast Sound every Wednesday. His archives are available here.] Beware any tutorial about the "right way" to do Coachella. Stay sentient, steer clear of phosphorescent forms in spirit hoodies, drink water, and never m ... More >>

Local Natives' Big Vaulted Ceilings

On their new album, the rising indie-folk act show who they are and what they've become

Hammer Museum Examines the Evolution of Graphic Design

Graphic design isn't just about a poster with pretty colors. In today's world of visual media, it affects way we choose our clothes and what food we eat. The Hammer brings out everything from modern gadgets (lots of Mac products) to old-school methods (markers!) in its new exhibit "Graphic Design: ... More >>

MessHall Reviewed

This Los Feliz hot spot is a stylish riff on the summer camp of your childhood

The 20 Worst Hipster Bands: 20-11

Top 20 Worst Bands of All Time Top 20 Musicians of All Time, in Any Genre Top 20 Whitest Musicians of All Time Who are these hipsters we see each day in the streets, on our Tumblr feeds, and on the local news? And why are so many in bands? It's not the mere existence of hipster groups that distress ... More >>

Family of the Year: Read Our Profile and Stream Their New Album

Family of the Year, a bubbling four-piece Silver Lake indie pop group that's as tight-knit as their name suggests, make songs that are ludicrously, preposterously catchy. The familial camaraderie of their name comes from guitarist Joe Keefe and drummer Sebastian Keefe, brothers who left both Bosto ... More >>

Can Music Critics Who Revere Dirty Projectors, Arcade Fire and Vampire Weekend Ever Begin to Understand the Genius of Tyler the Creator's Goblin?

​Just finished listening to the BRILLIANT Goblin by Odd Future's Tyler the Creator. It's a fantastic feat by a true artist who'll be around for a while. Solid, sober and soulful. A kind of stream-of-consciousness poetry up there with the best. Now, other reviews from the little fraternity of ... More >>

Day 3: Coachella's GOODs, BADs and UGLYs (feat. Kanye West, Duran Duran, PJ Harvey and the Hilton Sisters)

Timothy Norris​ We came, we saw, we sweated off four pounds of water. Kudos to the Coachella organizers for turning the Empire Polo Grounds into a people-organizing machine. Lines were long, but everything kept moving. Let's look at Sunday's GOODs, BADs and UGLYs...

Day 2: Coachella's GOODs, BADs and UGLYs (feat. The Kills, Animal Collective, Paul Van Dyk, Arcade Fire and Mariachi El Bronx)

Without road trips lingering or looming, and with just the right amount of hangover, the Coachella crowd attacked the grounds on Saturday, and the bands fought along heroically. The only real loser was the grass, which is starting to get sticky, but more on that in a little bit. Let's take a look a ... More >>

Day 1: Coachella's GOODs, BADs and UGLYs (featuring Paul McCartney, Black Keys, Chemical Brothers and Craigslist)

Colin Young-Wolff​ Compared to last year's problems with wristbands and overcrowding, the first day of Coachella 2011 was smooth sailing. Greasy even. Let's take a look at yesterday's GOODs, BADs and UGLYs.

Top 5 Things to Do This Weekend in L.A.

​ The weather is doing that weird thing we hate wherein there is a forty degree swing in temperature between noon and midnight. Advice: dress in layers if you're going to go out after work on Friday, or you'll be one of those poor fools standing in line outside the club in flip flops and a ta ... More >>

Serene Branson Grammy Trip-Up Caused by Extreme Headache, Says UCLA Doc

CBS2Serene Branson had the world's most-public headache.​That strange on-air episode of jumbled language uttered by CBS2's Serene Branson during a Grammy Awards report Sunday night wasn't a minor stroke, as some had surmised. Nope. According to her doctor, it was a case of a "complex migraine ... More >>

Top 5 Things to Do This Weekend in L.A.

​ Yes, it is Valentine's Day Weekend. Couples will be canoodling in a desperate attempt to prove to themselves and everyone else that they still have it; singletons, meanwhile, will be in defensive party mode, making Marrieds jealous, or weeping themselves to sleep after engaging in a helpin ... More >>

Odd Future is Going to Perform at Coachella 2011, Missing Member Earl Sweatshirt Might Be "Freed" to Perform with Them

​ [UPDATE: Ed's note: We've received a freaked out message from people associated with OFWGKTA that implies that our little scoop might jeopardize the previously almost certain chance of Odd Future performing at the festival. C'mon Goldenvoice: let Odd Future play! And shouldn't you be penaliz ... More >>

Best Music of the Year Lists: Do Pitchfork, Billboard, NME, Vibe Have A Certain Gender Bias?

"Hey bro, we hear you like bros, so we put some bros in your End of the Year Best Music Lists so you can bro while you bro!"​Well, 'tis the time of year for lists and charts! Several mags and blogs attempted to answer the question you've been dying to ask: Who had the best album/"new music"? ... More >>

This weekend: Klaxons, Chapterhouse, the Besnard Lakes, Maroon 5, Caribou, Jack Johnson, Liz Phair, Tom Tom Club, the Weepies

The Besnard Lakes​The Culture Collide festival, which kicked off Thursday night at five venues in Silver Lake, Echo Park and downtown, is making for some wonderful daze in the neighborhood. The brainchild of Filter music mag, the inaugural event has imported bands from more than a dozen natio ... More >>

Vinyl of the Week: One-Man Band Hanni El Khatib = Black Keys Shangri-Las on 'Dead Wrong' 45

In the strange wake of music's digital rebirth, vinyl has experienced a modest boom in popularity, seen by many as a replacement for the awkward middleman that is the compact disc. INCHES reviews the output of L.A.'s healthy vinyl community, believing that good music deserves much more than a handfu ... More >>

Top 5 Cover Songs By Chuck E. Cheese's Animatronic Band

Top 5 Cover Songs By Chuck E. Cheese's Animatronic Band

Over the Weekend: Mumford & Sons at the Music Box

​ Throw your hymnal down. Now...dance on it! The dynamic quartet that is Mumford & Sons consists not of a man named Mumford and his children, but four early-twenty-somethings called Marcus Mumford, Country (That's right, Country) Winston, Ben Lovett and Ted Dwane. In a performance that left t ... More >>

Watch: Local Natives Go Blue Blood (via Zissou) for "World News" Video

Local Natives​Life is apparently quite sweet for the young lads of Local Natives. The Silver Lake via Orange County quintet signed to French Kiss Records last year, and has been getting loads of winning press since releasing its LP debut, Gorilla Manor, in February. Among the comparisons tha ... More >>

Destination Coachella

L.A. bands take to the desert for three days of music overload

Arcade Fire, Josephine Baker, Alan Lomax, Wyclef on Haiti, Music, Love, Charity

The Arcade Fire have released a statement urging everyone to donate to help relief efforts in Haiti. Win Butler and Régine Chassagne, whose family is from Haiti, have a strong connection to the island. Friends, Haiti needs your help in her darkest hour. We just got off the phone with our frie ... More >>

The Ten Best LA Releases of 2009 So Far, Part II: Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros and Frankel

​Last week as we were sorting through our piles of CDs and accumulated MP3 files, we started to notice how big the stack of recent excellent LA music was. It became apparent that we're in the middle of a pretty great year for Los Angeles releases, and decided to give mid-year props to our fave ... More >>

Parsing the Mysterious Lyrical Challenges of the Animal Collective, This Year's "New Radiohead"

Vague terrain

The Many Moods of Rock the Bells

Hip-hop's been in a lull. Meet the new torchbearers

Bonnie "Prince" Billy Invites You to Lie Down in the Light

In the flaccid world of indie rock, Will Oldham stands fully erect

Wolf Parade’s At Mt. Zoomer: Great Record, Terrible Title

Regardless of what you think of their music, you've got to respect Wolf Parade. When Apologies to the Queen Mary dropped in late 2005 and every music journo prematurely slapped "next Arcade Fire" tags on them, they very easily could've played the comparison to the hilt, touring relentlessly, made ... More >>

Part 1: Thoughts on Music Now. (The festival that is. You'll have to wait for my multi-volume treatise on the state of music today.)

The rise of classically informed indie music, one awesome photograph of MC 62 Foot Jesus, and my thoughts on "conflict of interest" in music criticism today. ALSO, a member of Grizzly Bear getting crunk in a Cincinnati, OH parking lot. It's kind of like US Weekly for obscure people.

Bone Thugs-N-Harmony Week Day 4: Searching For the Elusive Identity of the "Ghetto Cowboy"

I actually own this on CD-single, which is either keeping it real, or keeping it really retarded. From the first moments of the reel, one can immediately infer that the film is going to be of quality. Why? The stamp of quality from Mo' Thugs Family Features. Like the ill-fated male fortunetelle ... More >>

Oh, My Darling: Basia Bulat

Toronto-based singer taps into Canada's appealingly shambolic orchestral-folk movement

Bedroom Confidential: New Crop of Boutique Record Labels in Town

Corporate counterparts may want to study this model

Tell 'Em Why You Mad: The Guide to Hipster Haberdashery

If home is where you hang your hat then Silver Lake is rapidly turning into the world's largest hat rack. Over the past 12 months, it has become de rigueur in hipster courting rituals for male hipsters (homo habilus hipstericus) to trot out increasingly ridiculous pieces of vintage head-ware in an ... More >>

Indienomics 101

Writing romantic indie pop doesn’t insulate Stars from the business of music

Rock Picks: Julieta Venegas, White Stripes, Spectrum

For the week of September 13 – 20

Rock Picks: Spoon, HorrorPops, Wolf Parade

For the week of September 6 – 13

Sea Level Records (2001–2007)

Wake me up before you go-go

To Rage or Not to Rage

Our readers write

The World According to Björk, Aoki, Tweedy and a Gaggle of Teenage Guitar Girls

Where the Wave Broke

How the paradigm shifted at Coachella 2007

Coachella And the Cure for the Common Festivalitis

LCD Soundsystem

Review of Sound of Silver

Folk, Without the Beards

Meet Grizzly Bear, indie rock’s best “gay-straight-straight-straight quadrant”

Erased

Microsoft Wants to Kill Your iPod, Summer Goes Pop!

Annual Anagrams

More Politics Lists

Blogs & iPods & Jay-Z & (non-ironic) Metal

The Hipster’s musical year-end predictions and post-game analysis

Snakebites

Foghat Does Quaaludes, Wille Does Reggae