Joshua Tree

Five Artsy Things to Do in L.A. This Week, Including an Evening of Soothecore Music

This week, artists stage a festival in Joshua Tree and a painter turns historical figures into funny present-day phantoms. 5. The puppetmaster Joel Kyack, whose paintings and sculptures often double as games and strange contraptions, and who staged freeway puppet shows for stalled commuters in 2010 ... More >>

The Cult of Gram Parsons Lives on in Joshua Tree

Forty years after his sensational death, the country-rock pioneer remains beloved in the desert

Michael Rodney Kane: Teacher Arrested in Wife's West Hills Murder

An elementary school teacher accused of killing his estranged wife in West Hills was arrested in San Bernardino County shortly after midnight, police tell the Weekly. Details from LAPD headquarters were scarce, but reports indicate that 46-year-old Michael Rodney Kane was tracked to a motel room in ... More >>

The Best Concerts to See in L.A. This Weekend

Friday, March 15 The Black Ryder THE ECHO The Black Ryder come from Australia but sound like they're from 13th Floor Elevators' own personal Texas, a land of endless desert where the guitars echo to eternity and where it's too hot to move fast. The Black Ryder concoct psychedelia that bleeds and bo ... More >>

Life of Dean

Don't Think He's Weird, But Eskmo Believes Music Has the Power to Heal People

Five months ago, Brendan Angelides spent ten days in silence. There was no talking, no Internet and no music, which was a decided change of pace for the DJ-producer, who records under the name Eskmo. "It's all about equilibrium," Angelides says of this Vipassana meditation retreat in Joshua Tree. ... More >>

Is Prefab Housing Making a Comeback? Walt Disney's Great-Nephew Brings SoCal's First 'Blu Home' to Joshua Tree

Could prefab be making a comeback? Prefab, or prefabricated buildings, are typically manufactured in component parts, typically in a factory, then shipped and installed on-site. Pre-housing bust several developers specializing in prefab lauched in SoCal, including Marmol Radziner and LivingHomes, d ... More >>

Beachwood Sparks Are One of L.A.'s Most Influential Bands You Don't Know

With folk music back in the mainstream consciousness via acts like Bon Iver and Fleet Foxes, the timing for Beachwood Sparks' reunion is right. "I think we were one of the bands that paved the way for that," founding member and bassist Brent Rademaker tells us. He's excited to talk about their new a ... More >>

Was James Dean Gay? 'Joshua Tree, 1951' Takes an Unblinking Look at Legendary Actor

On Thursday, Joshua Tree, 1951: A Portrait of James Dean, a stylized, intriguing film about James Dean before he becomes a major movie star, premieres at the Seattle International Film Festival. Los Angeles-based and openly gay director Matthew Mishory, who examines Dean's gay leanings, talked with ... More >>

What's In Season at the Farmers Market: The Many Colors of Rhubarb

Rhubarb doesn't do well in L.A. gardens. The sleeping rhizomes that sit dormant underground in winter need many chilly days and nights in order to even think about poking above ground in spring. Freezing, chilly weather doesn't help either, as they are barely frost tolerant. Their ideal situation ... More >>

Short Attention Span Dinner Theater: Your Week in Food, 12/12-12/16

Flickr/Lauren Manning​ In which we highlight the past week in food, either at home or abroad. "The invasion of the small plates is not finished, oh no. It is marching down our streets and avenues, invading our towns and villages, leaving behind nothing in its wake but duck-slider crumbs, rem ... More >>

Camper Van Beethoven - Pappy's And Harriet's in Joshua Tree - 9-16-11

Joel Sheposh​Camper Van Beethoven, Gram Rabbit Pappy's and Harriet's September 17, 2011 Better Than: Seeing Camper Van Beethoven in boring old L.A. When Camper van Beethoven was a hot alterna-band at the beginning of their career in the mid-'80s, David Lowery sang with the defiant nasal snee ... More >>

5 Movies To Keep You From Destroying Your Relationship This Summer

Bonjour Tristesse​ It's almost July, which means its time to give up on any semblance of productivity at work and start plotting your escape. If you're half a couple, this list should guide you in your quest to make your relationship last through summer vacation. If you're single, or if, like ... More >>

U2's Edge Sees His Malibu Hilltop Mansions Rejected: He 'Can't be Serious About Being an Environmentalist'

The 'bu-hoo-tee.​U2 guitarist The Edge finally found what he's looking for: Five mansions along a ridge he owns in the Santa Monica Mountains above Malibu's Surfrider Beach. But even though there are no sacred Joshua trees along the ridge, the California Coastal Commission rejected the develo ... More >>

L.A. Folk People: Feather

RIP: The Lost LA Music Venues of 2010

LA City Hall: Now in the business of shutting down harmless art and music spaces (boo!)​ First they came for the raves, then they came for the medical marijuana dispensaries, and then they came for the Echo Curio. At least we can now breathe a sigh of relief that no one will ever abuse Ecstacy ... More >>

This weekend: HARD Haunted Mansion, Ninja Tune 20th Anniversary, KCRW Masquerade, Of Montreal, Stone Temple Pilots

Perou.co.ukUnderworld​Whether you're all about the costumes or just in it for the tunes, Halloween weekend offers some massive show-going choices ... starting with, well, something very close to a massive. HARD Haunted Mansion, with an eclectic electro lineup including Bloody Beetroots, Busy ... More >>

Ed Rosenthal, L.A. Dealmaker Involved In Clifton's Cafeteria And Old Bank District, Recuperating After Six Days Lost In Joshua Tree National Park

Associated Press​Downtown Los Angeles movers and shakers are abuzz about the survival of Ed Rosenthal, a real estate deal-maker and sometime poet who wandered Joshua Tree National Park lost for six days, so sure he was dead that he wrote his will out on a hiking hat. Rosenthal, credited by some w ... More >>

The Sausage Stand at the Echo

A music innovator and sound impressionist gets inspired by the life customizers of Echo Park

Party in the Desert! Party in the Desert!: Lineup for 2010 Manimal Festival Announced

​The schedule for October 2nd is ready early but in good time to get to know some of the crazy sounds Manimal Vinyl has put together for this year's festival. Tickets are available for $18 in advance or $20 at the door on Oct 2, 2010 at Pappy & Harriet's Pioneertown Saloon in a dusty desert ... More >>

Tonight: The Dead Weather, the Gaslight Anthem, Rihanna, Keane, Gram Rabbit, Chris Shiflett & the Dead Peasants

Floria SigismondiThe Dead Weather​What can we say about the Dead Weather that you don't already know? That they really really could have done better on the video for "Blue Blood Blues?" That Jack White covering "Creep" with Conan O'Brien was stranger than fiction? That Alison Mosshart has a ... More >>

Producer Daniel Lanois in Intensive Care after LA Motorcycle Accident

​The NME reports that producer and performer Daniel Lanois, known for his atmospheric collaborations with Brian Eno, U2 and Bob Dylan, suffered a motorcycle accident in LA that forced him to postpone a UK tour. The report is not specific as to the details: The Quebec-born musician/producer, b ... More >>

Music Picks: Jail Weddings, Summer Darling, Roky Erickson, Jonathan Richman

Also, Bajofondo, Massive Attack, Minus the Bear and others

Ever Wondered How "World Music" Got Its Awkward Name?

We are the World (Music)​Music, as Madonna wisely pointed out, makes the people come together (it also apparently makes the bourgeoisie and the rebel. Oh, Madonna...). But the endless, relentless, unmanageable offer of music that the invention of recording unleashed in the very late 19th centu ... More >>

I'M IN A DEPECHE MODE -- YOU TOO?

Manimal Festival Fights Through Bitter Cold to Triumph (Mostly)

"It's a little Beyond Thunderdome out here, isn't it?" So spaketh Ivory "Black Powder" Lee of WEAVE!, bedecked in strange spandex and looking not unlike Tina Turner's Aunty Entity. Her band's performance -- a percussive mix of African rhythms, post-punk basslines, and shouted or shrugged-off vocals ... More >>

Solutions for the Freshly Freelance

The "I don't love the inside of my car that much" edition

Over the Weekend: Beck at the Bowl, Man Man Taco Fiesta, and Anniversary of Gram Parsons' Death

I've never welcomed a Monday with more relief. Over the weekend, pre-Emmy parties on Friday and Saturday crowded Hollywood, while the actual ceremony on Sunday at the Nokia made living downtown a pain the ass for anyone like me who wasn't glued to a television. Plus, we got a shock Saturday morning ... More >>

Word on the Street

Moon Men

Echo Park psych-rockers feel connected to it all

Be Your Own Guinea Pig

Entering Andrea Zittel’s “Critical Space”

Killer Fashion Instincts

Quick: name that band. Who is it, the latest art damaged country punks to stagger out of Joshua Tree? Some long lost side project of J.D. Souther, Jackson Browne and Neil Young? The Devendra Banhart fan club? Any way you look at 'em, their beards are impressive: it takes a long time, and a total dis ... More >>

Heady Metal, Britain's Favorite DJ, and a Defense of Americana's Best Killers

What Happend to My Piece of The Cake?

How far I have come from the Van Nuys Motel 6. Almost right where I started, give or take a few blocks. Since then, a friend (ok, my ex-boyfriend) took my dog cross country. Stevie (my four legged dog child) has been to San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, and today swam (or tried to) in a river in Mon ... More >>

Kids in the Mall

Bloody Bunnies

Hijinks in the High Desert

The Style Council visits Joshua Tree, oh, and they hear there’s a park there . . .

Astroturf Wars

The fight is on to halt a subdivision near Joshua Tree

Master of the Off-Chance

Run Run Run

Local bands, man

Missing El Lay

Eating the culture of resistance

Crispy Critters

Letters

What’s Killing Joshua Tree National Park?

Fire, smog, golf courses . . . and maybe even coffee-loving, rock-climbing hipsters like you

The Fight for Eagle Mountain

Compound Interest

Letters

Birth of a Notion

High Desert Test Sites realizes Andrea Zittel’s dream of an explorable, alternative art space

Present and Future Shock

In Character

The mayor of Joshua Tree