England

Slash Explains How He Became a Horror Movie Producer

Slash, the wild-haired guitarist who has played with everyone from Michael Jackson to Fergie to Iggy Pop, knew the perfect name for his new horror production company: Slasher Films. There was only one problem. He hates slasher films. "I'm not into violence," he insists. But he's no wimp. Born in Lon ... More >>

Five Wines to Seek Out in L.A. Wine Bars That You Probably Won't Find Anywhere Else

Here in Los Angeles our embarrassment of riches wine-wise might sometimes lead to a forest-for-the-trees blindness, with too much to weed through on the shelves or the wine lists to actually find something you like. Fortunately area wine bars work hard to assemble lists that are highly focused and d ... More >>

Cadbury Develops Heat-Resistant Chocolate

If you're the sort of chocolate lover who loses sleep over things like M&M's melting in your pocket, or the fate of that bar of Godiva you left in the back seat of your car, the folks at Cadbury have come up with something just for you. (And maybe the military.) Apparently the chocolate company's R ... More >>

Awake & Shakin'

Henry Rollins: The Column! Some Music Really Does Suck

[Look for your weekly fix from the one and only Henry Rollins right here on West Coast Sound every Thursday, and come back tomorrow for the awesomely annotated playlist for his Saturday KCRW broadcast.] It has become a ritual. Every summer, around late July and into August, I find myself in Europ ... More >>

Fanatics! Henry Rollins' KCRW Show Tomorrow Night: British Invasion

KCRW Broadcast #175 for Saturday, July 28, 2012 See also: Henry Rollins: The Column! Americans Will Never Give Up Their Guns Fanatics! Since I will be in beautiful Dorset, UK on this evening, we have already put this show together and it is ready to lunge forth when the engineers at KCRW hit the b ... More >>

Short Attention Span Dinner Theater: Your Week in Food, 6/18 - 6/22

In which we highlight the past week in food, either at home or abroad. "Sorry England and Germany -- if the American craft beer revolution owes its adventurous and hoppy spirit to any country's brewing tradition, it's Belgium's." Top 5 Belgian IPAs: More Fun With European Hops. "But the fact i ... More >>

A Diamond Jubilee Year: The Queen In Cupcakes, A Lamprey Pie Dilemma A Recipe For Her "Chocolate Perfection" Pie

After Mother's Day, it seems only fitting that we celebrate the Queen Mother. More so in a Diamond Jubilee year, as Queen Elizabeth II will be celebrating her 60th year on the British throne next month (the British monarchy is the exception to the typical 75-year diamond anniversary rule). You are p ... More >>

Music Picks: Bettye LaVette, Johnny Thunders, Johnny Hallyday

Also, Kate McGarry, Enter Shikari, Hype Williams and others

L.A.'s Idea of English Food vs. What the English Really Eat

In honor of Downton Abbey's season-two finale on Sunday, we decided to cross the pond to explore English food with two overlapping circles that compare what Angelenos believe the English nation eats with what English folks say they actually eat. Moral of the story: Apparently, the collective gasp h ... More >>

Henry Rollins: The Column! Masochism Has Its Benefits

​[Look for your weekly fix from the one and only Henry Rollins right here on West Coast Sound every Thursday, and come back tomorrow for the awesomely annotated playlist for his Saturday KCRW broadcast.] I am in Bristol, England. The cold outside has permeated the walls of the utilitarian bac ... More >>

Fanatics! Henry Rollins' KCRW Show Tomorrow Night: A British Invasion

KCRW Broadcast #149 for Saturday, January 21, 2012 See also: Henry Rollins: The Column! Are You Collector Scum? Fanatics! Sitting on the tour bus here in raining Wolverhampton UK. I am well into the Long March Tour and things are going well. I am sorry to put you Fanatics through a pre-taped show ... More >>

Henry Rollins: The Column! The Time I Made a Punk Rocker Cry

[Look for your weekly fix from the one and only Henry Rollins right here on West Coast Sound every Thursday, and come back tomorrow for the awesomely annotated playlist for his Saturday KCRW broadcast.] Weeks ago, my L.A. Weekly super editor Ben Westhoff asked me about my plans for 2012. I told h ... More >>

Binge Drinkers Hit The Bar Once a Week, Get Wasted: U.S. Health Officials Concerned

America, we've got a problem. The first step is admitting it: More than 38 million of us binge drink about four times a month (only?), having as many as 8 drinks in a sitting (lightweights). In some nations across the Atlantic -- Germany, England, the Netherlands -- this is called being a pussy. ... More >>

A Christmas List for George Smiley: 5 Food Gadgets for Secret Agents

​What to buy for the neighbor you suspect is a secret agent? The question plagues us every year. He's quiet mostly, always watching. He's obsessed with "the Soviets." Also there's that fog that hangs perpetually around his house. So probably not a holiday sweater. Your gift must be something h ... More >>

National Geographic's Top 10 National Dishes Guess What Americans Like To Eat

Anne FishbeinBurger Kitchen's breakfast hamburger​Food blogs aren't the only publications with endless lists or pictures of pretty things people like to eat. National Geographic, the magazine many of us fondly remember from grade school science classrooms and dentists' offices, is the latest t ... More >>

Are London Riots Any Different Than L.A. Riots? UCLA Professor Says Blacks Are 'Similarly Oppressed' In UK

Getty ImagesThe London riots​Based on the (absurdly informed) opinion of UCLA sociology professor Darnell Hunt, Telegraph correspondent Tim Stanley was right to worry that Brits -- and commentators around the world -- may be blaming this week's London riots on the moral character of the rioter ... More >>

Satanica Batcakes: Fire Eater to Hat Maker

Book Review: Try This: Traveling the Globe Without Leaving the Table

​That circumstances change the way we approach our lives is hardly a revolutionary statement -- on Saturdays, farmers' market shopping feels like a luxurious escape, on weeknights grocery shopping quickly becomes that dreaded after-work chore. And so with those 405 homebrew-friendly roadblocks ... More >>

Jez Butterworth's Jerusalem, on Broadway

The Password Is "Dickhead"

Post-Rapture Pet Care

Who'll feed Rover after the rapture?

Royal Wedding Is Amazing, Gorgeous, Stunning, Stylish, Dreamy, Bloody Delightful, Say Critics

Getty Images​'Twas the holy matrimony heard round the world: The great Prince William wed his favorite muggle, an impossibly lacy Kate Middleton, through the wee hours (PDT) last night. As soon as Kate stepped out of the queen's Rolls Royce, Hollywood's toughest and snarkiest critics were redu ... More >>

Punk Singer Steve Ignorant (Finally) Brings Crass to America: Interview

photo by Damon Allen DavisonSteve Ignorant and band​ Crass, the commune-living, hippie anarchist punks whose DIY way of recording and promoting had as much an impact on the genre as their brand of boot-in-your face hardcore, disbanded more than 25 years ago, having never toured the U.S. beyond ... More >>

Revisiting the Regency: England, 1811-1820

Maite Gomez-Rejón's ArtBites Heads Into the Desert for a Vegetarian Cooking Retreat

Cary ConoverA scene from last year's Jeffersonian Feast at the Met in New York City​ From offal to potted preparations to in-house butchering to fabricated cuts, meat has been at the forefront of many recent food world trends. Anyone who has spent a few hours grazing at one of L.A.'s popular ... More >>

The Wellesbourne: New English Bar With Old Cocktails

Caroline on CrackThat would be a Rob Roy getting shaken, not stirred.​ To step into The Wellesbourne, a new West L.A. bar which claims the 3,000-square-foot space previously occupied by Anna's Italian Restaurant, is to be transported to a pub on the English countryside. Yet rather than smellin ... More >>

PJ Harvey: Listen to Fantastic New Song from Her Upcoming Album

Coming soon to an e-retailer near you: PJ Harvey's Let England Shake​Last night, LA grooved to the ritual charisma of Nick Cave's Grinderman. Today we keep on grooving to one of Cave's musical fellow travelers, PJ Harvey, who has just released the first peek at her upcoming album Let England S ... More >>

Q & A With Madhur Jaffrey, Part 2: Martha Stewart, The Definition of Vindaloo Collating for Ismail Merchant

Random HouseMadhur Jaffrey​ In the first part of our conversation with Madhur Jaffrey, the Delhi-born legendary actress, award-winning cookbook author and Indian cuisine authority spoke to us about her latest movie, a foodie comedy in which she plays a peppily invasive mom called Today's Spec ... More >>

BUMS RAP

Best Wartime Cookbook: M.F.K. Fisher's How to Cook a Wolf

Amazon​The late 1930s and early 1940s were kind of a grim time in Southern California. The Great Depression hit Los Angeles as hard as it hit practically anywhere in the country, and the vast influx of penniless retirees from cold states put an unusual burden on the state. Although the agricul ... More >>

Restaurant High Chairs Carry More Bacteria Than Toilet Seats

Flickr user stillriversideHigh chairs at McDonald's​ The Daily Mail has reported on a new and disturbing study. According to swabs taken at 30 different restaurants, the amount of bacteria found on high chairs was significantly greater than the amounts found on public toilets. Toilets had an a ... More >>

Free MP3s: Local Natives Get Remixed by West Coast Sound Favorites Superhumanoids

Superhumanoids remix Local Natives. Also, they're touring together.​On a pair of new remixes, Echo Park bedroom popstars Superhumanoids give L.A.'s Local Natives the chillwave treatment. The Supes (as we affectionately call them -- we've made no attempts to hide our enthusiasm) take on two so ... More >>

MAKE US LAUGH FUNNY BOY: GLENN WOOL

IF SHE REALLY WANTS A SCARY TRAVEL MOMENT, SHE SHOULD GO TO ARIZONA

GO TEAM!

WATTS NEW

Top 10 Metro Stop Eats: Eating On the Blue Line

In comparison to the intricate net of freeways gridding the Los Angeles basin--cutting through the mountains and running through the valleys, peppered with intricate overpasses, interchanges and clover-shaped off ramps--the LA subway/rail metro map is a simple one. With its nexus in downtown, three ... More >>

Italian Illumination Lecture

Reel Talk With Stephen Farber

Dracula

Pugilist Specialist

Musical Question

A Scholar Is Born

Shipwrecked! An Entertainment

Gordon Ramsay at the London West Hollywood

Heck's kitchen

Office Sonata

Compleat Female Stage Beauty

From the Anglo Files

The U.K. in L.A.

or, How to be Cary Grant