[Editor's Note: Fuck Guilty Pleasures celebrates the over-produced, commercial, artless, lowbrow music that we believe is genuinely worthwhile. Like, among the best music ever.] On a warm August night in 2011, roughly 18,000 Angelenos converged on the Hollywood Bowl, to partake in the swirl of cosm ... More >>
This weekend my little brother got married. Now, in and of itself, nothing about this is newsworthy to anyone outside my family. People get married all the time. But in those weddings, was the bride's hair knotted into dreadlocks and did she walk down the aisle to Jerry Garcia's "Shining Star"? ... More >>
See also: Exclusive: Amanda Palmer's New Track, "In My Mind" and Interview Here at West Coast Sound we love it when musicians would rather be naked than wear fur. (Particularly when it's Waka Flocka Flame.) Indeed our sympathies quite often lie with activists who are poorly-clothed. So even though ... More >>
Yesterday afternoon, before a crowd of media types and clean-cut Sunset Strip'd hard rockers at the Viper Room, Kiss debuted their new book, Kiss Monster. It is huge -- 3 feet x 2.5 feet, and nearly 50 pounds. The thing costs $4250. Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Tommy Thayer and Eric Singer fielde ... More >>
Stevie Wonder, in theory, is an American artistic treasure. He's more than our Beatles or Rolling Stones; he's our Dickens or DalÃ: a figure of impassable recognition, discussion, talent, love, and national pride. In theory. In practice, however, Stevie Wonder is an experience. Less than three m ... More >>
That guy with the cardboard sign yelling "Tickets!" is on par with a gangbanger. At least that's the message City Attorney Carmen Trutanich sent with an announcement yesterday that Los Angeles will institute the nation's first-ever scalper injunction. What that means is that "known scalpers" -- 17 o ... More >>
As Jerry Seinfeld might say: What's the deal with all these crazy names for musician fan bases, like Lady Gaga's "Little Monsters" and Justin Bieber's "Beliebers"? It's all wrapped up in the tradition of fan clubs, which have been around at least since 1960 musical Bye Bye Birdie coupled an Elvi ... More >>
See also: *Scott Aukerman Asks: Can an Intelligent Person Can Like Phish? *10 Comedy Acts to Watch in 2012 While most fans know Scott Aukerman's Comedy Bang! Bang! from his loopily inspired weekly podcast or aggressively absurd IFC faux-talk show, the franchise formerly known as Comedy Death Ray ac ... More >>
After being purchased by Buzzmedia last week, Spin Magazine looks to be on its last legs -- the magazine part of it, anyway. Though Buzzmedia representatives haven't said it's going digital-only, they haven't committed to maintaining the print edition, either. It seems likely that we won't see much ... More >>
See also: Top 20 Worst Bands of All Time: The Complete List Around the time OJ was acquitted I began college at a private liberal arts school in the lower midwest, a place where students who didn't get into Northwestern came to spend their parents' money on drugs. They also filled their dorm rooms ... More >>
Trey Anastasio with The Los Angeles Philharmonic Walt Disney Concert Hall 3/10/12 Better Than...seeing Phish without its frontman Having played everything from small bars to national parks, Trey Anastasio knows about performing before all sorts of audiences. When he said the Walt Disney Concert H ... More >>
Also, Slow Club, Kneebody, The Pretty Reckless, Apparat and others
What makes a terrible band? Is it being prepared to do the wrong thing, whatever the price? That and a pair of testicles. Only, some of the below groups possess testicles only in the symbolic sense. Because, even if you're composed of ladies, it takes balls to make music that is simultaneousl ... More >>
John Halcyon StynSo you couldn't get a ticket. Join the club. Burning Man has been a rich man's game for a while now, and since BMORG, the group behind it, can't seem to figure out any way to prevent scalpers (like by, say, printing your name on your ticket), prices will surely be jacked up e ... More >>
See also: *Top 20 Worst Bands of All Time, #15-11 *Top 20 Worst Bands of All Time, #10-6 *Top 20 Worst Bands of All Time: #5-1 What makes a terrible band? Is it being prepared to do the wrong thing, whatever the price? That and a pair of testicles. Only, some of the below groups possess testicles ... More >>
Comedian Harris Wittels is witty and thoughtful; his writing for NBC sitcom Parks and Recreation hinges on his subtle sensibilities. He's also a huge fan of Phish, a band with which those characteristics are not usually associated. Having attended some 70 Phish shows over the years, he counts hims ... More >>
Tamea AgleReview by Drew Fortune Phish Hollywood Bowl August 8, 2011 Better than: A night of bowling, In 'N Out Burger, some beers and a few laughs. I'll refrain from any further Big Lebowski allusions, but there were quite a few El Duderinos getting their groove on in the aisles of the Ho ... More >>
Also, Big Audio Dynamite, Jill Scott, Cypress Hill and others
​ One of the best parts about being at a festival are those moments you walk by a stage and have that "what the fuck" moment. It's when you hear something that just doesn't fit. It's the feeling some people probably had at Chaos In Tejas this summer when, coming from Unbroken's set, they stumble ... More >>
Explosions in the Sky ( puppy!) The website self-titled daily has a neat Q&A with Explosions in the Sky guitarist Mark Smith where he explains the band's plan to have Phish's career (though they are definitely not into Phish's music) and the influence the late writer David Foster Wallace ha ... More >>
Timothy NorrisGene Ween: best David Bowie karaoke performer, ever [For more images of Ween's show see Timothy Norris' slideshow "Ween @ The Wiltern".] WHAT: Ween WHERE: The Wiltern WHEN: 1/29/11 1. Wow--Ween is huge in 2011: By 9:00 pm the line at the Wiltern went around and around (the ven ... More >>
[Ed.'s note: Attention Phish-Heads! Your idols have made a 3-D movie to blow your minds in yet another dimension and it opens today. They're also kind, giving folks, so they have offered you an EXCLUSIVE version of "Mike's Song" from the soundtrack via West Coast Sound. Right-click here for the dow ... More >>
Radiohead Haiti Benefit Free MP3 Bootleg
You may recall that Phish performed a three-day freakout extravaganza at Coachella over Halloween. You may have even road-tripped. In fact, you maybe were there and can't remember anything at all about it, at least based on the mind-fuck that is the video team Brilliant Comrades' new Phish Parking L ... More >>
www.CharlesAddams.comOur brethren at the Village Voice report that over the weekend, as part of the marketing strategy for expensive facsimiles of The Red Book--a recently unveiled illustrated manuscript by cultish psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung--our friend Billy Corgan was "psychoanalyzed" i ... More >>
Patrick Range McDonaldNow that the costume stress and sugar rush are history, take some time to check out LA Weekly's Halloween party coverage.
Halloween in Los Angeles can be overwhelming, so many parties to attend, so many elaborate costumes to catch our eyes. While the costume party madness began for us over a week before the big day, the festivities didn't kick into full gear until Thursday night. Keep reading to find out what we did. ... More >>
Read Jeff Miller's overview of the first evening of Phish's three-night stint at the Coachella grounds, and read his recap of day two. Jeff MillerHugs and drugsSometimes, being a Phish fan is kind of like being a parent: your kid presents you with a completely ridiculous challenge ("Mom, mo ... More >>
By Jeff Miller Read Jeff Miller's overview of the first evening of Phish's three-night stint at the Coachella grounds here. Halloween's a holiday that Phish built their reputation for unpredictability on - since 1994, when a show by the band's fallen on October 31st, they've celebrated by donning ... More >>
By Jeff Miller For me, watching a Phish festival on the same field that hosts Coachella each year's like introducing your college friends to your high school friends for the first time: you love them both equally, but there's always something kind of...off about that first introduction. Though they ... More >>
Whoa. This could be huge! Billboard is reporting that Phish has announced a three-day festival called "Festival 8" at the Empire Polo Fields in Indio. Writes Billboard's Michael Ayers: After several weeks of speculation and a shape-shifting "Save the Date" map decorating its homepage, Phish h ... More >>
By Jeff Miller Growing up in LA's rock scene means spending your formative years building hipster credibility; writing about music in LA, as I've been doing for the last decade or so, often means working to maintain it. So there's a certain implicit shame when I admit a couple things about myself ... More >>
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Because playing these albums in flagrante delicto is the only romantic gesture lamer than offering a woman a fish sandwich. 10. Cornball Stevie Wonder Songs (I.E. "You are the Sunshine of My Life." "I Just Called to Say I Love You") I'm not going to tell you that these songs don't serve a ... More >>
Showgirls: The Best Movie Ever Made. Ever! hits the stage one more night at UCB
Jazz in L.A., May 30-June 5
Yeasayer are a jam band, they just aren't aware of it yet. At one point during the Brooklyn four-piece's set Saturday night at the Echoplex, lead singer Chris Keating even paused to extemporaneously inform the crowd that "people call us hippies, but that's just not true. We're from Baltimore." Thi ... More >>
For the week of Nov. 30 – Dec. 7
For the week of Nov. 30 – Dec. 7
10 signs of the apocalypse
10 signs of the apocalypse
10 signs of the apocalypse
Improvising an alternative music scene
Afro-beaten, Afro-burned
Hope Sandoval wants to make you cry
Hope Sandoval wants to make you cry
Hope Sandoval wants to make you cry
Hope Sandoval wants to make you cry
Dead Phish taste the best
Dead Phish taste the best
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