Drew Tewksbury

What Music Do Immigrant Janitors Listen To? And Other Questions at L.A.'s EMP Conference

The Seattle-based EMP Pop Conference -- Shangri-La for music nerds -- has this year split into five regional ones, and the Los Angeles incarnation starts tonight. Musicians, scholars, and music writers from all over Southern California will discuss and debate, with specific focus on everything from ... More >>

Awesome Craigslist Ad For Crappy Apartment Written So Well it Makes Us Want to Move In

When LA Weekly music writer Drew Tewksbury posted this Craigslist ad on Facebook, we just had to check it out. It's the best ad ever for what amounts to an East Hollywood apartment that appears quite dumpy by this Westsider's stuck-up standards. But it was written so persuasively that we're ready t ... More >>

American Idol Meets Arts Journalism, in KCET's Artbound

Ever been inside a disco ball-esque "steam egg" with a bunch of sweaty, half-naked strangers? Talked to Filipino inmates who wrote, directed and starred in their own musical, filmed within prison walls (and that went viral with more 50 million YouTube views)? Writers for KCET's new arts journalism ... More >>

LA Weekly Writers Win Big at L.A. Press Club's National Entertainment Journalism Awards

​Last night at the Biltmore Hotel, the Los Angeles Press Club handed out glass stars for the National Entertainment Journalism Awards, and LA Weekly walked away with quite a few. Steven Leigh Morris won Print Critic of the Year for his theater reviews. Gendy Alimurung nabbed second place in ... More >>

L.A. Press Club's National Entertainment Journalism Awards Names 14 Finalists From LA Weekly, More Than All Other Publications

Photo from Gustavo Turner's interview with Insane Clown Posse, a finalist for L.A. Pres Club's National Entertainment Journalism Awards

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.

Hipsters Do It: Air Sex Championships Return to Silver Lake (Photos)

The SatelliteAir sex is the safest sex.​The sun is out, spring is almost here, and sex is in the air. Or rather, it's time for air sex, that most Angeleno of stage shows. The Air Sex Championships return to Los Angeles March 30 at The Satellite for a first-round event. Will Grady Wilson be ... More >>

Is the NPR Music Blog Trying to Be More "Low-Brow" Than Us? How Dare They?

​We thank commenter Toby (on today's Strokes post) for pointing us in the direction of NPR's music blog The Record, which apparently called us out for, are you ready? "Going low-brow" while discussing the demise of revered alt-legends The White Stripes. This would be amusing enough--after all ... More >>

Top 10 Reasons Music Fans Should Go to L.A. Museums This Weekend (#1: They're FREE!)

​LA Weekly's contributing writer (and dapper man-about-town) Drew Tewksbury has tipped us to the fact that this weekend many of the major museums in L.A. are FREE to the public! Details are on the L.A. museums' website, and we think everyone should take advantage of this deal, particularly mu ... More >>

Los Angeles Rules the NME's 50 Best New Bands List

​Perennial UK tastemaking publication the NME has just released their list of the 50 Best New Bands, "the 50 bands who've blown our minds over the past few months." These are bands that have shown up on the NME radar in 2010, from the UK and US. And guess what? Los Angeles is overwhelmingly o ... More >>

Best Coast Extends Headlining Tour, Offers Free 'Boyfriend' MP3

Best Coast Extends Headlining Tour, Offers Free 'Boyfriend' MP3

Best Coast Is Best California Band of 2010 (According to Bostonians)

Drew Tewksbury​A few years ago, The Phoenix, Boston's leading alt-weekly, came up with a neat annual music future: they surveyed the US state-by-state and had their music critics pick the best "new" band from each state. The first year they did this, 2008, they also picked the best group and s ... More >>

Watch: VOICEsVOICEs Share Creepy New Video for 'Flulyk Visions' [MP3]

Dos voz.​Last week, Drew Tewksbury introduced readers belatedly to a "new old video" by L.A.'s own Manimal Vinyl act VOICEs VOICEs. Now, the darkly-gazing-downward duo has a real-deal fresh clip for their seething, black track "Flulyk Visions," and we're happy to share it. It's directed by ... More >>

Live Review: Activision's E3 2010 Preview Event with Eminem, Jane's Addiction & Usher - "We Got the Cash!"

Last Night: Activision E3 2010 Preview Event with Eminem, Jane's Addiction, & Usher

MP3 Exclusive: Night Horse Resurrects Thin Lizzy with 'Rollin' On'

Night Horse rides again.​Oh this train is rollin' alright. Back in August, Drew Tewksbury spent a hard-rock morning with L.A.'s Night Horse. This is the band at 11 a.m. on a Saturday: "[Guitarist Justin] Maranga... strokes his long, reddish beard once, straps on his guitar and rips into the ... More >>

Best Coast Covers Wavves at Primavera Festival

Drew TewksburyBest Coast's Bethany Cosentino​Pitchfork reports that during Best Coast's appearance at the amazingly well-booked Primavera festival in Spain, the LA band covered Wavves' "So Bored." The performance was apparently a cheeky reference to last year's infamous onstage meltdown at th ... More >>

Best Coast's Bethany Cosentino Talks Surfer Blood, Upcoming Album, Seinfeld and Cats

Best Coast's Bethany Cosentino Talks Surfer Blood Encounters, Upcoming Album, Seinfeld and Cats

Destination Coachella

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

L.A. Restaurants Celebrate National Grilled Cheese Month Grilled Cheese Invitational Tickets On Sale

It's National Grilled Cheese Month, and the cooks inside the Grilled Cheese Truck aren't the only ones tossing buttery bread and cheese on a skillet. We rounded up some restaurants around town that are honoring the gooey holiday with traditional grilled cheese and tomato soup combos, as well as enti ... More >>

Last Last SXSW Dispatch (for reals): Sewer Divers, D-bags, and Japanese peace signs

Last Last SXSW Dispatch (for reals): Sewer Divers, D-bags, and Japanese peace signs

5 Questions: Best Coast @ SXSW

5 Questions with... Best Coast

Annotating the SXSW Audience

Annotated SXSW Audience

SXSW Stories: Psychedelic Guitarsmith Imaad Wasif Remembers Alex Chilton

SXSW Stories: Psychedelic guitarsmith Imaad Wasif talks about playi

Daggers of the World Unite! Skateboarders, Artists, and one Runaway Visit Exhibit A

Daggers of the World Unite! O.G. Skateboarders, artists, and one 'Runaway' Visit Exhibit A

Live review: Sweden's Peter, Bjorn, and John Get Icy at Club Nokia

Live review: Sweden's Peter, Bjorn, and John Get Icy at Club Nokia

Slayer Signs Guitars, Kids, Shark-Eaten Feet at Hot Topic

Slayer Signs Guitars, Kids and Shark-Eaten Feet at Hot Topic

5 Great LA Dive Bars: From the Lost & Found to the Wild Goose

A truly great dive bar is like a successful horror movie: it's a little gross, maybe a bit scary, but always a fun adventure, and filled with an eclectic cast of characters. Some dives are time machines, frozen in forgotten eras, while others make for the perfect spot to lose an hour or three or ten ... More >>

Over the Weekend: Oktoberfest Scandal, Dodger Victory, Motorhead and Chromeo Rock Downtown L.A.

No matter where you went over the weekend -- a restaurant, bar, or even a friend's house -- there were more baseball-crazed Angelenos glued to the television than normal as the Dodgers finished off the St. Louis Cardinals in the postseason throwdown. Looks like Villaraigosa is going to be sending a ... More >>

Oktoberfest L.A. Drowns in Sorrows

View more photos in the Oktoberfest slideshow. When the air becomes crisp and the summer turns to fall, Germans host a raucous event as a gateway to season change: Oktoberfest. The mere mention of Oktoberfest conjures up images of sauerkraut and sausages, beer maids shuttling steins overflowing wit ... More >>

Over the Weekend: Radiohead's Thom Yorke, Long Beach Comic-Con, Eagle Rock Music Fest, Graffiti Spirits

Over the weekend Los Angeles seemed obsessed with one thing and one thing only: Radiohead's Thom Yorke, who, after a surprise DJ gig at the Roosevelt on September 15, L.A. Weekly learned would play an exclusive gig at the Echoplex on October 2 in addition to two gigs at downtown's Orpheum Theatre on ... More >>

Man One Channels "Graffiti Spirits" at Crewest Gallery

Man One Channels "Graffiti Spirits" at Crewest Gallery

Best of L.A.: Shopping

Best of L.A.: Nightlife

A Survivor's Guide to Food Festivals: Hydrate, Recycle, Pace Yourself & Don't Stalk The Chefs

Between the Gold Standard, Taste of the Nation L.A., and the Grilled Cheese Invitational, Los Angeles has hosted enough themed foodie conventions to provoke Christopher Guest's next mockumentary. Next weekend, the first annual Korean BBQ Festival and Cook-Off kicks off in K-Town, and on August 20th, ... More >>

Shoot From the Hip: Snapshots from the 2009 Vice Photography Exhibition

The 2009 Vice Magazine Photography Exhibition (open till August 8th) offered a slice of the "Vice Style" inherent in works by young photographers Jamie Lee Curtis Taete, Staches, Glasses, and Scarves: Style at the Downtown Art Walk

The Downtown Art Walk displayed the finest scarves, staches and glasses of L.A.'s artsiest

Over the Weekend: Kick Out the Clots Benefit, Texas Heat at Crewest Gallery, Anime Expo 2009

Between not buying illegal fireworks in Chinatown and enjoying the fact that we could sleep in Friday, our Fourth of July Weekend was pretty packed, with Pool party/BBQ after Pool party/BBQ to attend. In between nursing our sunburn and our hangover, we got to hit up some of the most happening event ... More >>

From the Streets to Texas Heat: Graffiti Artists from the Lone Star State Invade the Crewest Gallery

Graffiti artists bring Texas Heat to Downtown Los Angeles

Written on the Wall: The Legendary Belmont Tunnel Show at Crewest Gallery

Graffiti photographer and author of Graffiti L.A. Steve Grody speaks graffiti's language at Saturday's closing night of Crewest's Legendary Belmont Tunnel show.

Over the Weekend: Air Sex Championships, Electric Daisy Carnival, Graffiti Muralists Celebrated at Crewest Gallery

Saturday and Sunday provided a much needed break from our laptops and TV screens after the media frenzy over the death's of pop culture icons Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson, plus the loss of Seeds frontman Sky Sunlight Saxon, all in one day on June 25. For those who opted not to participate in a ... More >>

Air Sex vs. Air Guitar: Sweating, Panting, Thrusting, Clenching -- Climax!

Like Air Guitar, Air Sex is an activity best practiced at home. Your arms flail, your face looks like a Shar Pei, and strange noises emerge whether you like it or not. It's all around awkward. But at the first Air Sex World Championships at the Echoplex on Friday, adventurous (i.e. drunken) men and ... More >>

Hot Dog Death March: Anti-Foodies Take to the Streets

As an homage to the indefatigable hot dog, a troupe of intrepid anti-foodies took to the streets June 13 for the inaugural Hot Dog Death March. Not so much a death march as it was a death drive (yes, most of the participants drove between hot dog venues), the hot dog-a-thon began at the legendary li ... More >>

Grill Marks: Our Cheesy Hangover -- Battle at the Grilled Cheese Invitational ... Plus a Wessonality Break Starring Ms. Florence Henderson

View more photos in LA Weekly's Grilled Cheese Invitational slideshow. Drew TewksburyThe power of cheese The beauty of the Grilled Cheese Invitational is that it gives the power of judging and ultimately naming the Grilled Cheese Champion to the people. But this is a problem too. Up to 1700 tas ... More >>

Over the Weekend: Perry Farrell and Macy Gray Surprise at L.A. Weekly's L.A. Weekend, Plus We Get Krafty at the Grilled Cheese Invitational

Other than the term "swine flu," we learned several very important things over the weekend: Bea Arthur (RIP) made a damn good leg of roast lamb, there is definitely a limit to how much grilled cheese one can consume, and that the Belvedere vodka served at our L.A. Weekend festival -- yeah, that stuf ... More >>

Diplo and Switch Wield Major Lazer at Bar Marmont

Diplo and Switch wield Major Lazer at Bar Marmont

Remembering Longtime LA Music Photographer Shawn Mortensen

M.I.A., as shot by Shawn Mortensen The other night as M.I.A. was winding down her Coachella performance of "Paper Planes," she dedicated the song to longtime L.A. photographer Shawn Mortensen, who died last week at the age of 42. We've received a few notes of remembrance from friends and colleagues ... More >>

Hell's Belles: Sexy Speedsters and Mayhem on Wheels @ Derby Dolls Bout

L.A. Derby Dolls inflict sexy mayhem on wheels.

Over the Weekend: Edwardian Ball, Chinatown's Golden Dragon Parade, Killsonic Marching Gang Plays Metro

For some, this weekend was only about one thing: the Super Bowl. For others, it was about live music on the Metro with the Killsonic Marching Gang, ninjas and contortionists on the streets of Chinatown for the Golden Dragon Parade, and Edward Gorey-inspired, turn of the century decadence until dawn ... More >>

Monster Truck Parking Lot: Reflections on Big Wheels, Little Dudes and Truck Balls

Drew Tewksbury Twenty-three years ago, a cinematic meteorite slammed into the American landscape. The 1986 DIY film was Heavy Metal Parking Lot and it portrayed nothing more than its namesake; the unruly Schlitz-drinking, ape-drape-adorned metal heads meandering in a Landover, Maryland parking lot b ... More >>