Birmingham

The Best Concerts in L.A. This Week

Monday, February 25 The Residents EL REY THEATRE Somewhere between rock & roll's spiritual mystique and a distinctly unhinged surrealist pathology, you'll find the lair of bizarro-art-imitates-music tribe The Residents. Unprecedented, with no discernible frame of reference save for a magnificently ... More >>

A Brand New Musical Based on a Neil Simon Play Premieres at an L.A. High School

See also: *Our Latest Theater Reviews A new musical based on the work of Neil Simon has been placed in the hands of children. This weekend, Musical Fools, a musical adaptation of Simon's 1981 Broadway comedy Fools, held its world premiere in Los Angeles. One would assume this would include a trou ... More >>

The 20 Greatest Metal Albums in History: 20-11

If you count Black Sabbath's 1970 self-titled debut as heavy metal's birth, the genre is now over 40. It can no longer be called a fad. It can have adult children, and it can run for president. (Insert "presidental metal of freedom" joke here). See also: Top 20 L.A. Metal Albums: The Complete List ... More >>

Barbarians in the Ivory Tower

America's for-profit colleges use students in their greedy quest for federal bucks -- then leave them holding the debt.

Why L.A. Schools Should End Their Ban on Hugging

By Dr. Paul Abramson and L.J. Williamson Riot Act is a semi-regular column that challenges conventional wisdom in controversial issues Last month, Tennessee, the state where Jerry Lee Lewis married his 13-year-old first cousin and John Thomas Scopes was convicted for teaching evolution, made waves ... More >>

Academy Awards: How to Game Your Office Pool

Oscar Nominated Shorts Reviewed

Chicken McNuggets 'Addict' Collapses

Flickr/Calgary ReviewsA 10-piece serving of McNuggets packs 470 calories, 270 of those pure fat.​McDonald's Chicken McNuggets are causing all sorts of mayhem lately. First there was the woman who allegedly tried to trade sex for McNuggets (no word on what kind of dipping sauce she wanted). Now ... More >>

Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band - Staples Center - 12/28/11

Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band Staples Center 12/28/11 Known for his blend of heartland rock and old school R&B, Bob Seger has a fairly-staggering catalog of classic rock staples. Touring behind the release of yet another Greatest Hits package -- this time a 26-song, double disc set -- and with ... More >>

Docuweeks 2011

Q & A with Hatfield's Peter Birmingham on Finding the Sweet in Sweet Wine

K. RobbinsPeter Birmingham with a bottle of MacVin du Jura​ Dessert wines, the awkward, misunderstood stepsister of their cooler, vastly more popular, dryer brethren, are often overlooked by restaurateurs and sommeliers, who balk at trying to push bottles that in the year 2000 made up less tha ... 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...

Cookbook Review: Tupelo Honey Cafe Their Two-Cheese Mashed Cauliflower Recipe

​If you've ever been to Asheville, North Carolina, a stunning city known for its quietly elegant beauty but also for its cultural diversity (fueled in the early days by Black Mountain College, a Depression-era progressive arts education institute), then you know what writer Elizabeth Sims and ... More >>

Page Two: Gypsy Revivalism Is Not All Washed Up

Los Angeles County Introduces Its First Green Library

SGVN Keith BirminghamThe Sorensen Library goes green​ Eco-friendly LA County dedicated its first full-fledged green library in Whittier today. About 40 percent of the newly constructed Sorensen Library is made with recycled materials and features sun-absorbing roofing material, absorbable pa ... More >>

Interview: Beloved DJ Joe Sib On Growing Up Punk Rock in LA

Joe Sib, unplugged​Joe Sib -- Side One Dummy Records co-owner, former Wax frontman and former Indie 103.1 DJ (he currently hosts Complete Control on Star 98.7) -- gets nostalgic in his one-man show, California Calling: Growing Up Punk Rock, which he's been touring for a year and performs at th ... More >>

Los Angeles Is Ranked 2nd Most Stressful City In The Nation...Again

​Another survey yet again confirms that Los Angeles may be one of the worst places to live in the nation. L.A. is ranked the 2nd most stressful city among the 50 largest metropolitan areas, according to Portfolio.com. These results follow last month's findings by Forbes, which also gave L.A. ... More >>

Heavy Metal Internship Studies Sabbath, Priest, and Napalm Death

Heavy Metal Internship Studies Sabbath, Priest, and Napalm Death

Chocolate War Truce: Cadbury (Unhappily) Agrees to Kraft Take-over

The chocolate wars are over, in theory at least. British chocolate maker Cadbury agreed to an almost $20 billion offer by Kraft yesterday, ending an extremely contentious hostile take-over bid by the American food giant. With this, Kraft Foods Inc. (Velveeta, Toblerone, Oreo) becomes the world's lar ... More >>

The Wednesday Edition: A Roundup of Today's Newspaper Food Stories

SapphireBlue22stack of newspapers​What's the country reading today food-wise? Here's a roundup of some of the food-related stories from other newspapers, many of which print their food sections on Wednesday. And remember, even if you don't actually buy papers these days (or not; this paper is ... More >>

Tom Waits Live Album Streaming at KCRW

Tom Waits Live Album Streaming at KCRW

Q & A With Andy Cook, Part 2: Risotto as Object Lesson, Cooking to Jazz & The Importance of Google Image

Andy Cook, executive chef at both Gordon Ramsay at the London West Hollywood and the month-old Boxwood Café, has been at the posh hotel since it opened in the summer of 2008. As we learned yesterday, Cook, a native of Birmingham, England, has become very fond of Los Angeles, of its weather and its ... More >>

Q & A With Andy Cook: The Gordon Ramsay at the London West Hollywood Chef Talks About Gordon, LA Weather & The Importance of Chip Butty

Gordon Ramsay may have gotten most of the press at his eponymous restaurant, Gordon Ramsay at the London West Hollywood, both before and after he sold it early this year, but executive chef Andy Cook has been the one behind the stoves every night. We caught up with Cook recently, shortly after he op ... More >>

Chocolate Wars: Kraft Lauches Hostile Takover Bid of Cadbury Chocolate

Can you wage war over chocolate? Sure you can. Just ask the Aztecs. But it seems kind of funny to have candy companies launch hostile takeovers of each other, as if a lunchroom battle had suddenly turned very ugly. But that's just what's been happening with Cadbury, the 185 year-old English chocolat ... More >>

Psychpop Revisited: Broadcast Return to LA after 4-Year Absence (also: MP3s!)

Psychpop Brits Broadcast return to LA with Atlas Sound after 4 year absence (MP3's)

Judas Priest's Performance of British Steel at Gibson Amphitheatre: Sonically Beefier, Possibly Record-Breaking

By Skylaire Alfvegren Judas Priest at Gibson Amphitheatre, August 2 Last year, Birmingham, UK stalwarts Judas Priest released an ambitious double album conceptualizing the life of French seer, Nostradamus, and mounted an epic summer escapade with Motorhead and Heaven & Hell. Under the stars abo ... More >>

Who the Hell Is Holy Grail?

An L.A. metal band with songs about “chicks, Vikings, ex-chicks, being tough, macho/machismo, FEMA, Fabio, Conan, rad dinosaurs, UFOs and Bilderberg Group,” that’s who

Part Time Punks Festival: A Certain Ratio, Pylon, Love is All, Daytime Television Tear a Hole in History

A Certain Ratio's Jeremy Kerr: still dark and menacing Old men acting weird. That’s one way to look at it, and if I were one of the four pre-teen boys in the band Daytime Television, whose versions of the Buzzcocks’ “Everybody’s Happy Nowadays,” "Part Time Punks" and “Teenage Kicks” ... More >>

Warner Brothers to Release 50th Anniversary Book, 320-Song (copy-protected, of course) USB Flash Drive

The main thing that the major labels have going for them, and why even the most battle-scarred of them has more "value" than budding minor labels, is due to their combined back catalog. During the fat times of the 1960s, 70s and 80s, the labels weren't just selling records but buying other labels ... More >>

Must-Stops on a Spicy-Food Marathon

Heated discussion

Opening Week at L.A. Galleries

The fall art season begins

Go, Greased Lightning! F Yeah Fest Tours U.S. on Veg-Fueled Bus

Is this the future of touring?

LAFF Honors Recently Deceased Moviemaking Greats

Gone but not forgotten

Adrian Lester: Father Figure

On raising kids in London, shooting aliens in Hollywood

The Editors on Jimmy Kimmel live

The Birmingham band played a short, sweet set on the outside stage for the Kimmel show. Click here to see all of Timothy Norris' photos. The Editors return to LA on September 24 for a concert at the Wiltern.

Jack Pendarvis' Your Body Is Changing

Sons of FIRPO: Jack Pendarvis and his not-so-lovable losers

Sales Go Soft. Shins Go Limp. Rock Critics Go Limper.

The Ring of Truth

Star Tracks

Rocking the Cradle

Ron Athey returns to L.A. at Redcat

Page Turner

Hollywood screenwriters get ready for talks

Simon Says, Simon

Any Given Sunday

The Wonderful World of Lifetime

U.S. Pissed Office

Boomin' Bros

Beastie Boys are ill and always will

Star Struck

Sci-fi conventions give actors eternal life

Cracks in the Screen

And a little light shone in

Music Reviews - Unwritten Law, Broadcast, L.A. County Line, Ralph Towner - Gary Peacock

Three for the Road

The Morning After