Scott Joplin

This Joint Is Stompin'!

Lil B's "Classical" Album: Our Classical Music Critic Reviews It

[Editor's note: Oddball Berkeley rapper Lil B suddenly released a classical music album under his "The Basedgod" moniker last week, called Choices and Flowers. Since no one in rap really knows what to make of it, we assigned West Coast Sound classical music critic Christian Hertzog to review it.] ... More >>

William C. Rempel's New Book At the Devil's Table: 7 Astounding Revelations About Colombian Drug Lords

Robert HarmonRempel, author of the new book about the Cali Cartel called At the Devil's Table​ William C. Rempel, who for 36 years worked as an investigative reporter and editor at the L.A. Times, has written the book At the Devil's Table: The Untold Story of the Insider Who Brought Down the C ... More >>

Stage Raw: The Masochism of L.A. Theater

COMPREHENSIVE THEATER LISTINGSNEW THEATER REVIEWSSTAGE FEATURE on plays without words: Hamlet Shut Up! and Violators Will Be ViolatedTHE MASOCHISM OF L.A. THEATERFirst, to throw some pre-emptive perfume in the direction of the stink-bomb I'm about to toss: I think the quality and vivacity on our loc ... More >>

Stage Raw: The New Electric Ballroom

COMPREHENSIVE THEATER LISTINGSNEW THEATER REVIEWSSTAGE FEATURE on plays without words: Hamlet Shut Up! and Violators Will Be ViolatedNEW REVIEW GO THE NEW ELECTRIC BALLROOM ​The yin and yang tug and pull between expressing our condition through the absence of words versus their abundance gets ... More >>

Stage Raw: New Golden Age of British Theater?

COMPREHENSIVE THEATER LISTINGSNEW THEATER REVIEWSSTAGE FEATURE on Bill Cain's Equivocation and Burglars of Hamm's Land of the Tigers NEW GOLDEN AGE OF BRITISH THEATRE In today's The Guardian, Mark Lawson writes at some length on a new Golden Age of British theater. Among the more salient quotatio ... More >>

LA Weekly Coachella Awards 2009: The Best and Worst of the Festival

View more Coachella pics here: Day One, Day Two, Day Three, Half-Dressed People & Scenes from the Desert Timothy NorrisCoachella 2009, at the awards ceremony Weirdest Between-song Banter: Paul McCartney, bless his heart, played an epic set, staked a claim on a body of work that only fools would i ... More >>

Ten Great Cover Songs from Coachella 2009 (and a few extras)

Timothy NorrisEven the machinery was flashing the horns. Nothing says "I love you" like a cover song. Artists at Coachella like to acknowledge their influences, love to thrill the crowd with a surprise singalong. This year bands drew from music of many genres, from ragtime to post punk to hip hop. ... More >>

I Wanna Be Elated: Meghan McCain's Ramones Connection

Meghan McCain, the daughter of Senator John McCain, has been emoting about her post-election blues lately on her blog and at the Daily Beast, from which CNN.com has been quoting at length this week. One of Meghan's pet peeves, we learn is other people -- not just those who "openly voted for Barack O ... More >>

Passages

The coming of Gustavo Dudamel

Micro-Ritmia

Storming Fort Brag

Military fakes and the people who bust them

Boys of Bad Music

The Piano Lesson

Fear, Loathing and the Origins of Hip-Hop

Playwright Oliver Mayer explores America's sweet but savage music in Ragged Time

White Man With Attitude

How Randy Newman went from pop music’s reigning schlub to movie-music royalty

Blue Like Me

On race and depression

Music 1998:

The good, the bad and the combusticated

New Standards

Marcus Roberts' assimilation and re-expression