Ozzy Osbourne

PETA Names Los Angeles Third Most Vegan-Friendly City in America

PETA, or the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, recently announced its list of the 10 most vegan-friendly cities in America. And it should surprise no one that we came in pretty high, ranking third. Because we have lots of movie stars, and they're mostly all vegan these days, aren't they. ... More >>

Joan Jett Is the Sunset Strip Music Festival 2013 Honoree

She don't give a damn 'bout her bad reputation, which is why Joan Jett is the official honoree at the Sunset Strip Music Festival this year, West Coast Sound can exclusively announce. The fest takes place August 1-3 and Linkin Park, the headliner, is the only other announced performer so far. Past ... More >>

Escape from the D-List

Enslaved - Troubadour - 2/8/2013

Ancient VVisdom, Royal Thunder, Pallbearer, Enslaved The Troubadour 2-8-13 Better Than: Watching your medicinal marijuana garden grow. The crowd piled in slowly but steadily, the Troubadour alit in blue. This was an older crowd for a metal show, full of parents out for the night, child-free marri ... More >>

The Power of the Riff - Fonda Theater - 12/20/12

The Power of the Riff Fonda Theater 12/20/12 Better Than... counting down your Mayan advent calendar at home alone. Despite the US Government's attempt to convince us otherwise, we attended metal festival The Power of the Riff last night hoping that the end was, to quote 28 Days Later, "extremely ... More >>

The Gaslamp Killer Confronts Tragedy and Finds His Way Forward

Everything You Wanted to Know About Metal but Were Afraid to Ask

Subgenres explained, from thrash to pornogrind

Henry Rollins: The Column! Advice From Diamond Dave

[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.] Still in Australia, with a lot more shows to go. Right now, I am in Brisbane. We got in a few ... More >>

Metalachi Combines Heavy Metal and Mariachi. Strippers Love Them

When he arrives at VIP Showgirls Gentlemen's Club in Hollywood, Metalachi trumpet player El Cucuy is told that there's no liquor license, and that the non-alcoholic beverages cost six bucks. He doesn't seem to mind. "Does that include chi-chi milk?" he asks. The woman behind the counter laughs. The ... More >>

Jack Sparrow Gets Worst of It From Catwoman as Characters Fight on Hollywood Boulevard

Clarification at the bottom. There's no stopping the costumed characters of Hollywood Boulevard. After the LAPD tried to ban them from the area near Highland Avenue, they sued and won: Freedom of speech. And now they're free to kick the shit out of each other once more. The surly, salty folks who ... More >>

They Might Be Giants - Royce Hall - 1/28/12

Liz OhanesianThey Might Be Giants at Royce Hall​They Might Be Giants 30th Anniversary Show, Jonathan Coulton UCLA Royce Hall 1/28/12 Better than... watching a Clarissa Explains It All marathon. Royce Hall isn't the sort of venue where you dance and stand on your toes to see during a concert. ... More >>

New Year's Eve: Ten Mystical Songs For Making Out With Your Hippie Boyfriend

From the film Zabriskie Point​See also: What To Do This New Year's Eve With a galactic alignment and Mayan prophecy fulfillment on the horizon -- not to mention the Aquarian dawning -- 2012 is poised to be a pretty cosmic year. So as you embrace your turquoised-out, biker hippie wizard love ... More >>

Best Posts of the Week

We'll tell you exactly how they make us feel​Who needs Snakes On A Plane when you've got a Cobra Starship? This week in his kill-yourself-hilarious column Why This Song Sucks Shea Serrano explored the slick New York band's somehow-popular single "You Make Me Feel," proving why it blows using s ... More >>

In Honor of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" Jacket Selling for Almost Two Million: The Most Insane Music Memorabilia Someone Out There Would Buy

Peter BrookerThe Jacket​Somehow a person with a shitload of money decided to plunk down $1.8 million (think Dr. Evil voice) for Michael Jackson's iconic "Thriller" jacket this past weekend, which marked the two year anniversary of his death. We won't speak on the fact that the proud new owner, ... More >>

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.

Can Reality TV Ever Really Rock?

Lina Lecaro Reality's realest rockin couple (from Cali): Millionaire Matchmaker's Rachel Federoff and Destin Pfaff at Svedka party.​This past weekend, LA played host to the "Reality Rocks Expo," a two-day celebration of "reality, unscripted, factual, and lifestyle" television at the LA Convent ... More >>

R.I.P Former Alice in Chains Bassist Mike Starr

​ We are sad to report the death of former Alice in Chains bassist Mike Starr, whose body was found earlier today in a Salt Lake City home. Via TMZ: Police tell us Starr's body was found in a Salt Lake City home today. Cops say they were called to the house at 1:42PM. Formed in 1987 by ... More >>

Top 10 Strangest Rock Star Action Figures (In Honor of the "Hard Rock Barbie" Lawsuit)

Tiny Rockers! 10 Best Rock Star Action Figures (Not Including HorrorPops' Lawsuit Lovin Bassist)

Top Ten LA Musician Mansions For Sale (Sorry Millionaires: Jack Black Just Snapped Flea's Los Feliz Pad)

Jack Black Buys Flea's House More Musicians Insane Mansions For Sale

20 Musicians We Will Miss: 2010, the Year in R.I.P.

20 Musicians We Will Miss R.I.P.

Tonight: A Perfect Circle, Florence the Machine, Street Sweeper Social Club, Chasing Kings, the Black Apples, Dirt Dress

A Perfect Circle​A Perfect Circle's debut album Mer de Noms is a tick past its 10th birthday, but it has lost little of its sheen. The combination of Maynard James Keenan's aching vocals and Billy Howerdel's guitar veneer gave the quintet an immediate identity outside of its players' other pr ... More >>

MR. CLEAN TALKS!

Over the Weekend: Flashing Back with Slash, Smashing Pumpkins, Headbangers and Felines at the Sunset Strip Music Festival

Lina Lecaro Fergie gets skankalicious performing with Slash at SSMF​ [See also Timothy Norris' slideshow "Sunset Strip Music Festival 2010"] Whether you're 20, 40 or 60 years old, grew up in Los Angeles or hopped right off the bus ala Axl Rose in "Welcome to the Jungle," if you're a music fan ... More >>

Guitar Icon Slash Talks 2010 Sunset Strip Music Festival Honor, Hollywood Survival Tips, and Stealing His First Top Hat

Erin BroadleySlash at Guitar Center on Sunset Blvd.​It started as just another night on the Sunset Strip in the early '80s. A 17-year-old Slash borrowed his mom's car to party at the Rainbow with Steven Adler. Fake IDs in hand, they got to the bar only to find out that it was "ladies' night." ... More >>

Still A Pistol: PR King Mitch Schneider Looks Back (Ozzfest) And Forward (TMZ)

Celebrating 15 years in the publicity business this month, the Mitch Schneider Organization is more than a PR company, it's a bonafide taste maker. It's garnered both the trust of the music world's biggest artists and promoters (Sex Pistols, X, Coachella, Ozzfest) and consistent consideration from u ... More >>

Interview: The DJ Prince of Darkness, Steve Lawler, Says L.A. Is Hot

Steve Lawler is the Ozzy Osbourne of dance music - a big-room prince of darkness to be sure. The British spinner has been a longtime champion of the more macabre, bacchanalian sounds of the underground, from tribal to twisted techno. Now that the druggy grooves of Europe are back in style - minimal ... More >>

Brendan Mullen the Writer: Highlights of his Work for the Weekly

In addition to opening punk club the Masque, LA DIY music giant Brendan Mullen, who died at age 60 yesterday after suffering a stroke on Saturday, was a longtime LA Weekly music writer whose prescient insight and in-the-trenches curiosity captured the experience of being a music head in LA in the 8 ... More >>

Over the Weekend: Back to School Burlesque, Sunset Strip Music Festival, L.A. Derby Dolls

Despite a "Back to School" themed burlesque show, the Sunset Strip Music Festival and a Derby Dolls bout, the most jaw-dropping event of the weekend wasn't an event at all, but rather a successful bank robbery held by a senior citizen wearing an oxygen tank. Are times really that tough or was the 70 ... More >>

News on the Runaways Movie

Trippin' on Wolfmother Lazerium

I Photograph Rock Stars: Greg Watermann's Gallery Opening at A&I Hollywood, May 7

BY PAUL ROGERS Paul RogersThe first time I worked with Greg Watermann - at Ozzy Osbourne's Beverly Hills mansion for Britain's Metal Hammer magazine in 2002 - he looked every bit the Hollywood rock star photographer. Black-clad like a Nine Inch Nail, blonde "assistant" in tow, he was briskly effic ... More >>

Morning Sixpack: A News Roundup

DWP Ordered to Refund Customers A Superior Court judge has ordered the DWP to pay back $30 million in fees it channeled into cash-strapped city agencies. L.A. TimesBenefits Take a Holiday Employees of papers belonging to the Los Angeles Newspaper Group (Daily News, Daily Breeze, et al) have been tol ... More >>

Must-Stops on a Spicy-Food Marathon

Heated discussion

LAFF 2008: Gardening at Night

Scott Hamilton Kennedy is one of the whitest looking white guys you’ll meet, and yet he makes movies about South Central L.A. that come from a real place of knowing. Of course, OT: OUR TOWN was on one level just a movie about his girlfriend (now wife), but she also happened to be a drama teacher i ... More >>

Bookworm in a Tequila Bottle: 2007's Most Intriguing Music Books

Oh, those bed-wetting, penis-injecting, 43-person gangbang days of yore

The Way We Wore

Our unofficial guide to vintage rock T-shirts

Cross Rock

A historical celebration of pop crucifixions, from Morrison to Manson to Madonna

People Who Need People

What to do in LA this week

Roswell Rudd and Norma Jean Comin’, People

Jazz, metal and redemption

Satan Loves You

Cuddly moments in new-millennium metal

Voodoo Boogie

Eagles of Death Metal: anointed by the spirits of rock & roll

Bastard Power

Metallica, still the kings

Abloom’s Day

The future of heaviness

Strike a Pose

L.A. Fashion Week Fall 2003

Pop Tomes

Centrifugal Force

Jucifer in Hell.A.

The Song, Not the Singer

The dangerous twang of Double Naught Spy Car

The Year in Music

Fuckin’ Z

Zakk Wylde crushes everything in his path. Then he drinks it.

Rock & Roll Jinx

Eddie the Confessor

The king of the riffs comes to town