Pittsburgh

Wiz Khalifa on Becoming a Daddy: "It's Made Me Calm Down a Bunch of Notches"

When Pittsburgh rapper Wiz Khalifa released the song "Black and Yellow" two years ago, he and his team figured at most, it would be a regional hit. Instead, it ricocheted the artist to mainstream pop stardom. Ever since, he's been walking a tightrope. Khalifa toured relentlessly for a couple years ... More >>

Yes, Won't Back Down Takes a Controversial Stance on Teachers Unions. But That's Not a Bad Thing

See also: *California's Parent Trigger *Parent Trigger's Second Try Teachers' unions don't want you to see Won't Back Down, an underdog film that opened Sept. 28, starring Maggie Gyllenhaal as a working-class mother in Pittsburgh who will do anything to give her young daughter a great education -- ... More >>

Ask Fan Landers: Either She's Your Girlfriend or Your Roadie, Not Both

Are you a musician? Is your group having issues? Critic Jessica Hopper has played in and managed bands, toured internationally, booked shows, produced records, worked as a publicist, and is the author of The Girls' Guide to Rocking, a how-to for teen ladies. She is here to help you stop doing it wro ... More >>

Top 12 LGBT Movies You Need To See, as Picked by Film Fest Organizers

Outfest, L.A.'s gay and lesbian film festival, ended on Sunday, reminding us that films about the LGBT experience serve an important role in the community, from teaching teenage boys and girls that it's alright to kiss other boys and girls, respectively, to connecting social activists with images su ... More >>

Jitney

A String of GOs in This Week's New Theater Reviews, Plus a Best of Fringe Award

The third annual Hollywood Fringe festival is now history, and this L.A. Weekly best of award goes to Eric Davis' demonic Red Bastard. Also check out this week's stage feature on Theatricum Botanicum's production of Shaw's The Heartbreak House, and Guy Zimmerman's The Black Glass. Our critics were ... More >>

Henry Rollins: The Column! The Ugly World of eBay Hustling

[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.] Last October, I went across America shamelessly promoting my last book, which I won't be so ga ... More >>

Los Angeles' Bridges Are Scary: Try Not to Stop Under One (Seriously)

Google MapsTry hot to stop under this bridge on the 10 at South Normandie Avenue. Trust us.​Good news, people: L.A. does not rank as the American big city with the most "deficient bridges." Not even close. (Yay!). That honor would go to beautiful Pittsburgh, according to the latest Transport ... More >>

Steel City Sandwich Truck: Bringing Pittsburgh's Blue Collar Food Culture to L.A.

A. Trachta"The Yinzer" from Steel City Sandwich​Maybe you heard that Steel City Sandwich has joined up with the bajillion other food trucks that roll around Los Angeles everyday. And maybe you didn't care. Why should you? As Angelenos, is Pittsburgh food supposed to be exciting to us? Really, ... More >>

Q & A with Chef Sean Ehland, Part 2: The Best Thing He Ate at Noma, Plus Foraging in the Castle Yards

Photo by Shauna Miller​In Part 1 of our interview with chef Sean Ehland, we learned his thoughts on the ever-present culinary school debate, as well as how he pestered his way into a stage at Noma via the restaurant's reservations email. In Part 2, we learn what working in such a sophisticated ... More >>

A Recipe from the Chef: Sean Ehland's Pennsylvania Summer Salad

​If you read Part 1 and Part 2 of our interview with Sean Ehland, the executive chef-turned-stagier who's not only worked at Noma but among the farms surrounding a rural Danish castle, you would have learned that the man loves foraging. To that end, he's created a recipe for a grilled summer s ... More >>

Q & A with Chef Sean Ehland, Part 1: From Culinary High Schooler to Noma Stagier

Photo by Shauna Miller​It seems some chefs just can't sit still these days. As Jonathan Gold mused in A Movable Beast, it's no longer essential that chefs simply keep to their kitchen. We have chefs who pop up, chefs who make guest appearances, chefs who get in trucks and roam the streets. Now ... More >>

Venn Food Diagrams: L.A.'s Idea of Midwestern Food vs. What Midwesterners Really Eat

After exploring L.A.'s perceptions of Indian, Armenian, and Vietnamese cuisine in our oh-so-scientific Venn Food Diagrams series, it's time to circle back to some American regional cooking, and do like we did for Southern food--this time with the Midwest. D. Berson​

Mash-Up Party in the USA: The LA Weekly Interview with Girl Talk

Photo by JP Coakley​ In a lot of ways, Gregg Gillis, a.k.a. mash-up artist Girl Talk, isn't as reckless as he used to be. You wouldn't guess that from toilet paper hurricane raining down on you at his show, nor the wall of pulsing neon lights, nor the mess of confetti and balloons he tends to ... More >>

Behind the Mash-Up: Girl Talk Talks!

Top 5 Weird Super Bowl Snacks: Or, What to Serve Other than Brats Leinenkugel

Flickr/melissajonas​ For all the technological wizardry of game telecasts and the high-level sideline scheming of coaches and coordinators, football remains, at its essence, a turf war waged between slabs of meat: big, strong, fast dudes in lines trying to push through and around each other. ... More >>

Le Cordon Bleu Closes in Pittsburgh: Is Pasadena Lawsuit Connected? School Says No

​Pittsburgh's branch of Le Cordon Bleu culinary school, a subsidiary of the Career Education Corporation (CEC), will soon be closing its doors, reports the Pittsburgh Business Times. Mark Spencer, a spokesman for CEC, says the school's closing has nothing to do with the class action lawsuit c ... More >>

Plan to Sell City Garages Could Anger Voters Forced to Pay More to Park

City Council fears driver backlash over privatization plan

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's Gang Intervention Program: Secrecy, Plagued By Bureaucratic Bungling, Lacking Accountability

​Witness LA and Spot.US deliver part two of a series on the city's, and more specifcially, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's $26 million anti-gang efforts, and it's not encouraging. Reporter Matthew Fleischer indicates the city has put a lot of its hopes -- and nearly all of its intervention doll ... More >>

L.A. Troubadour Sea Wolf Sets Out on First Ever Solo Tour

L.A. Troubadour Sea Wolf Sets Out on First Ever Solo Tour

ESPN To Expand In L.A.: New Site To Be Launched Here

​ESPN, and we're not just talking about "The Ocho" here, is expanding its presence in Los Angeles by launching a regionally focused sports-news site Dec. 21, Reuters reports. ESPN/ABC Sports president George Bodenheimer said the sports network will likely roll out similar sites in New York, C ... More >>

Os Mutantes to Launch U.S. Tour in Los Angeles

Legendary Brazilian tropicalia group Os Mutantes, whose work in the late 1960s fused Brazilian samba rhythms with Beatle-esque baroque pop, will perform at the Echoplex on August 28. The band, who recently signed to the LA-based Anti- imprint, are getting ready to release their first studio album in ... More >>

Rock Picks: Don Caballero, Yo! Majesty, Joan Baez, Juana Molina

Also, Extreme Animals, Andrew Bird, Peach Fuzz, and others

Gem of the Ocean

Gem of the Ocean

Two Trains Running

Theater Reviews: The Sequence, Faithful, Two Trains Running

Also, Asses & Elephants, Nihil Obstat, The Women

David Hinnebusch

The outsider

Tobacco of Black Moth Super Rainbow & Aesop Rock-"Dirt"

On last year's None Shall Pass tour, Aesop tabbed Pittsburgh psych weirdos Black Moth Super Rainbow to open for him. It was an inspired move and one that I recommend more rappers do, lest I get stuck standing stupidly watching a bunch of mush-mouthed Myspace MC's clinging to arbitrary 20th Century ... More >>

Weiss' Top 50 Albums of 2007 (#25-21)

25. Wu-Tang Clan-8 Diagrams [SRC/Loud] 8 Diagrams is east coast hardcore rap that doesn't sound like it was made on the east coast. It was recorded in LA but it doesn't sound like LA either. considering it isn't loud, it isn't flashy, and it certainly couldn't soundtrack a barbeque unless Jim Jarm ... More >>

Death and Girl Talk

Mash-up star Gregg Gillis may be about to blow up — literally

Back in the USSR

“Pravda” at Disney Concert Hall

Is That a Comb in Your Pocket?

Sci-Fi's The Lost Room

Theater Reviews

August Wilson's Fences, Buddy and this week's pick, Because They Have No Words

Rippin' & Dippin'

Move over, mashups! Now there’s somethin’ meatier: DJ Girl Talk’s Night Ripper

Smokey and the Bandit: Special Edition

Theater Reviews

For the week of March 31 - April 6

Weekend Theater Reviews

Reviews of Chekhov and Maria, Joe turner's Come and Gone and Talk Radio

Saying Goodbye

Reflections on the funeral of August Wilson

A Current Affair

Meet Andrés Martinez, the L.A. Times new opinion meister

Dead Director Rises Again

George Romero on zombies, politics and his own second coming

From Baghdad to Buffalo

The saga of Steven Kurtz’s bacteria

Hair’s Looking at You

Chong Family Values

Queens of the Angels

Polly Warfield, 1914–2003. Pamela Gordon, 1937–2003

Talk Me a River

Monologues in Pittsburgh, backbiting in Manhattan

Exiting the System

On foot among the waterfalls of the Temescal Loop Trail

Death on the Instahlment Plan

Jerry Stahl on love and squalor and his new novel, Plainclothes Naked

Hard Line

Feds demanded change in Pittsburgh

One Out of Six