Kurt Cobain

Rock Star Fashions, Without the Douchiness

[Editor's note: Weekly scribe Jeff Weiss's column, "Bizarre Ride," appears on West Coast Sound every Wednesday. His archives are available here.] Almost everyone has once wanted to dress like a rock star, but most people realize how absurd they look in leather pants and sequins. Wisely, then, Holly ... More >>

Otep: Powerful and Vicious

On a chilly January afternoon in West Hollywood, the heavily tattooed singer Otep Shamaya can't hide her excitement for the release of Hydra, her band Otep's sixth studio album, out today. In the testosterone-fueled genres of aggressive rock and heavy metal, it's not easy to be a lesbian singer, but ... More >>

Pop Quiz: Can You ID These L.A. Bands?

School's back in session, and we decided to give you a pop quiz that tests your knowledge of five Los Angeles-bred bands. Can you identify the following groups based on the clues and pixelated photos we've provided? Oh, just to up the ante: for every incorrect answer you provide, you must remove a ... More >>

The Five Best Concerts in L.A. This Weekend

Friday, August 31 Mark de Clive-Lowe BLUE WHALE As one might expect from a hapa Japanese-New Zealander who arrived in L.A. via Boston, New York and London, this keyboardist/DJ/music producer is a complex synthesis of musical styles and cultures. Mark de Clive-Lowe honed his craft in the United King ... More >>

What's Nirvana's Best Album? Hint: It's Not Nevermind

See also: The Most Important Album of the Last 25 Years Isn't Nevermind, It's Guns N' Roses' Appetite For Destruction If you aren't familiar with Nirvana's sophomore release, 1991's Nevermind, you were probably born after the Y2K scare or believe that music peaked when Rush released Moving Picture ... More >>

Eric Erlandson of Hole: "Deep Down Inside Courtney Love Is a Sweet Little Kitten"

Letters to Kurt, Eric Erlandson's new book, is no tabloid-y tell-all, but in many ways it's more revealing. As the guitarist and co-founding member of Hole, Erlandson has gone through more than even his band's roaring '94 debut, Live Through This, might have suggested. Dabbling in drugs and dealing ... More >>

What Will Courtney Love Say About This One?

Top 20 Sexiest Male Musicians of All Time: #10-6

See also: *Top 20 Sexiest Male Musicians of All Time: #20-16 *Top 20 Sexiest Male Musicians of All Time: #15-11 10. Jared Leto Underneath all that guyliner we still see you, Jordan Catalano. You've ditched the shaggy hair and flannels for a pink mohawk and studded leather but it's OK. Every time y ... More >>

Miley Cyrus Is Hipper And More Liberal Than You. Oh, And She Hates Rick Santorum

She's just being Miley.​Miley Cyrus' Hannah Montana is one of the easier Disney shows for adults to sit through. Her voice and wide eyes aren't totally unlike a young Lucille Ball. Still, that might not be enough to make an adult investigate her music. But her surprisingly not-overplayed cat ... More >>

Marijuana, When Paired With Other Powerful, Quasi-Legal Drugs, Really Works on Pain, California Study Says

strainbrainIt really works.​We never would have guessed this, what with all the self-medicating going in the world, but two powerful, often illicit drugs, when taken together, really work on that pain, a study claims. Seems that Amy Winehouse, Richard Pryor and Kurt Cobain did similar researc ... More >>

They All Die At 27: Jason Ritter and Taryn Manning Discuss The Perfect Age of Rock 'n' Roll

Eric Genson (Jason Ritter) serenades his road manager Rose Atropos (Taryn Manning) in a scene from the film. ​By Roselle Chen The title of the new rock saga film The Perfect Age of Rock 'n' Roll refers to 27 and the many famous musicians who have died at that age, including Robert Johnson, K ... More >>

Top Five '90s Shows MTV Should Bring Back

True Life: I used to play music.​MTV turns the big 3-0 today. You know what that means: No more twin beds, Froot Loops or takings shots on a weekday. It's all back pain, fiber cereals and apple-picking trips from here on out. But seriously though -- the "music" channel hasn't aged well. It on ... More >>

The Five Most Hilariously Offensive Misuses of Classic Songs For Commercial Purposes

​ We were so excited when we saw the wooden box on our desk with the words "Bob Marley" branded into the top. A CD box set? Possibly--if we are very very lucky--a box set of 7"s? With little booklets that have liner notes full of interesting and amazing facts about one of the word's seminal p ... More >>

Today in WTF: Courtney Love Dating Kurt Cobain Impersonator?

​Our worthy colleagues at OC Weekly dug up some blurry phone pics that show Courtney Love canoodling (yup, canoodling) with hottie actor Michael Pitt (Funny Games, The Dreamers, and that one Love & Order about that sexy psycho teen). What makes the canoodling a little odd is that Pitt played ... More >>

From the Archives: Jonathan Gold's "13 Ways of Looking at Nirvana" (Kurt Cobain, RIP 17 Years Ago Today)

Kurt Cobain, RIP (1967-1994)​Today, on the 17th anniversary of Kurt Cobain's untimely death, we reprint the following reflections from Jonathan Gold, originally written seven years ago. 1. A friend's East Village studio somewhere in July 1989. Nirvana, who had slept on the floor, are pissed, ... More >>

Os Mutantes Ariel Pink: Return of the Weird

Os Mutantes​That Os Mutantes' edgy brand of psychedelia and Tropicalia continues to get big ups from today's hipster nation (after being championed for years by everybody from Kurt Cobain to Beck to David Byrne) is testimony to the unbending passion in their music. The seminal Brazilian band, ... More >>

The Best of FYF Fest: Best Fashions, Surprising Bands to Watch, Biggest Bummers (oh, and Ariel Pink: Still Crazy)

Timothy NorrisThere's a thin line between hipster and furry, wethink​[See also Timothy Norris' slideshow "FYF Fest 2010 with The Rapture, Dead Man's Bones, Panda Bear and More".] Given that I refuse to pair a word as lovely as "summer" near detractors such as cruel "end" or the gentler "fade, ... More >>

Catching Up With Pat and Don

Sludge Rock Originators The Melvins Storm the Billboard Charts

Sludge Rock Originators The Melvins Top the Charts (sort of...)

Over the Weekend: Neon Indian ( Peanut Butter Wolf) at the Natural History Museum

Andrea Whiting​If you ever need even more proof that Los Angeles is more than its glittery and/or augmented parts, take your (San Franciscan?) friends to First Fridays: the first weekend of every month, sans summers, a couple hundred of L.A.'s smartest and most stylish hipsters take over the h ... More >>

Early Earth Day! Doom Metal Dirges by Earth and Wolves in the Throne Room at the Echoplex

Early Earth Day! Doom Metal Dirges by Earth and Wolves in the Throne Room Tonight at the Echoplex

Not the Usual Haunts

Just Shoot Me: Creed's Scott Stapp's Martyrdom Fantasies Vindicated by Billboard Chart!

Meanwhile, back in the mainstream... ​ In 2006, Creed's hilarious frontman and Jesus-as-a-Chippendale-Dancer figure Scott Stapp told Mark Binelli from Rolling Stone about his near-suicide three years before: One evening, after polishing off a bottle of Jack Daniel's, [Stapp] removed two fir ... More >>

Part Time Punks Festival Weekend: Raincoats, Gang of Four, and more.

Part Time Punks Festival Weekend: Raincoats, Gang of Four, and more.

Rock Picks: Iron & Wine, Mika Miko, the Vaselines, Extra Golden

Leslie & the Badgers, Scout Niblett, Theresa Andersson, Meat Puppets and others

WTF? Melvins to Perform 'Houdini' In Its Entirety in Four Cities, But Not LA?

One of the greatest heaviest records of the 1990s was the Melvins' sludge-filled riff-o-rama Houdini. Half of it was (halfway) produced by Kurt Cobain, the rest of it was not, and the whole of it shattered many glass bongs when listened to at full volume. The album, funded by Atlantic Records in t ... More >>

Fashion Week Diary: Gen Art, Girls in Pink, Boys in Pink, Man in Shroud of Flannel

The other night was more Gen Art. Again at the Petersen Automotive Museum. Eight new designers showed collections, six womenswear (Nanushka, Quail, Peonie, Wayf, Laeken, Maxine Dillon) and two menswear (Wayne Hadly, KZO). My favorites were KZO and Laeken. This is KZO. It's designed by a bashful y ... More >>

Five Songs About Thanksgiving

By Jeff Shaw, City Pages Compared with other holidays, Thanksgiving hasn't inspired bards overmuch. There are no traditional hymns, no instantly identifiable music associated with the day save possibly various football broadcast bumpers. Nevertheless, here and there we find certain songs that -- ... More >>

Joy Division to the World

Ian Curtis’ afterlife seems like it’s been one big after-party

Movie Reviews: Kurt Cobain: About a Son, Michael Clayton

Also Beyond Hatred, Blade Runner: The Final Cut and more

The Meat Puppets' Magic Brother Missing

Cris Kirkwood returns from the near dead, and the Meat Puppets are back

An Ugly Truth

The year — in style? Help stop global leg warmers

Run, DMC — Run!

The Knack get nasty; “Weird Al” conquers all

Trouble Man

The deeply disturbed life and times of a musical prodigy

Smokin!

Leaked single from long-awaited Guns N’ Roses’ album rocks hard

Snap!

To Queen or Not To Queen

A fan deliberates on the year’s most questionable “reunion” tour

Nightranger

Nevermind

Gus Van Sant and the Last Days of Kurt Cobain

Man of Few Words

Gus Van Sant talks about his minimalist Last Days

Sweat, Semen and a Scream

With the Lights Out takes us through the past, starkly

Men Without Pants

They're Just Men From Detroit

Hard Place see sparks in L.A.

Ten Years After

Campfire Girls return from the near-dead

Still Rockin’ in the Almost Free World

The Coffee Table, Revisited

Things That Mean Things

Butch Blanket Bingo

Wavemakers

At work and play in musical L.A.

The Big Sleep

Eulogies for heads of state and underground artists, pop icons and ’60s revolutionaries