The Smiths (Band)

The Coachella 2013 Awards

The brunette in the backward pink mesh trucker hat and booty shorts grabs a megaphone and addresses her fellow campers. "WECOME TO COOOOACHEELLLA." The congregation of twenty 20-somethings lustily applauds. It's Thursday night, a dozen hours before the festival officially begins, and the rules ar ... More >>

Worst of Coachella: Weekend One

Daft Punk Fake-Out Friday and Saturday, all anyone could talk about was if Daft Punk was going to show up during Phoenix's set. Why? Because we were fucking teased. On the main stage before the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, a long commercial for their new album played, and then we found out that members of the ... More >>

New Order - Coachella - April 13, 2013

New Order Coachella April 13,2013 While over at the main stage the bulk of the Coachella crowd was enduring Phoenix with the hope that Daft Punk would come out -- they instead got R. Kelly -- a smaller but perhaps-more-enthusiastic crowd got a first-rate greatest hits set from New Order last night. ... More >>

[Updated] Morrissey Gets Staples Center To Go (Almost) Vegetarian for Upcoming Concert

Update (5:50 p.m., Headline changed): According to a statement from the arena, it looks like Moz and his public relations goons went a little too hard on the whole meatless Staples thing. While the venue will be serving vegan Sloppy Joes, a grilled vegetable sandwich, cheese pizza, vegan sushi, ch ... More >>

Coachella 2013 Lineup Announced

The Coachella lineup is here. It's actually here! There have been ten tons of fakes, some quite convincing, and many of which had the Rolling Stones headlining. (West Coast Sound, however, broke the story that they would not appear.) But never mind all that! The lineup is here, and the headliners a ... More >>

Top 5 Reasons Not to Eat Meat on Mondays

5. You work at the USDA (or maybe don't anymore): And thus got an internal memo last week, which helpfully pointed out that "one simple way to reduce your environmental impact while dining at our cafeterias is to participate in the 'Meatless Monday' initiative." (Meatless Mondays is a 2003 non-profi ... More >>

David Rees

David Rees' Book How to Sharpen Pencils: Emotional Memoir Meets Writing Implement Maintenance Guide

David Rees, best known for his comic strip Get Your War On, is all over town this week promoting his new book, How to Sharpen Pencils: A Practical & Theoretical Treatise on the Artisanal Craft of Pencil Sharpening for Writers, Artists, Contractors, Flange Turners, Anglesmiths & Civil Servants. Bette ... More >>

Morrissey & Kristeen Young - The Shrine Auditorium - 11-26-11

Timothy Norris​See also: Our Morrissey slideshow Morrissey & Kristeen Young The Shrine Auditorium 11-26-11 Better than ... walking down Hoover in a blue-&-gold Bruins shirt after the big game. For a person who once famously declared that he was celibate, Steven Patrick Morrissey is clearly ... More >>

Top 10 Famous Vegans

A recent piece by the Associated Press got us thinking: Where are all the famous vegans? Gossip sites already tell us about famous people dating so-and-so, famous people shopping at some boutique you've never heard of, famous people traveling to some island they own, but we hardly get to hear about ... More >>

Music Picks: Iggy & the Stooges, Morrissey, Esa-Pekka Salonen

Also, Henry Rollins, Liz Pappademas, Greg Bissonette Quintet

Top Ten Bands Who Need To Reunite, NOW

Nope, this doesn't count​Last week, we discussed ten bands who ruined their legacy by reuniting. Don't get the wrong idea, though -- we're not complete haters. And so, here are the groups we'd like to see put together one last reunion tour. Note: We're only talking about bands with all of thei ... More >>

Punk Singer Steve Ignorant (Finally) Brings Crass to America: Interview

photo by Damon Allen DavisonSteve Ignorant and band​ Crass, the commune-living, hippie anarchist punks whose DIY way of recording and promoting had as much an impact on the genre as their brand of boot-in-your face hardcore, disbanded more than 25 years ago, having never toured the U.S. beyond ... More >>

Moz Crafts: Morrissey's Lyrics In Needlepoint

​ Nothing says cozy quite like Morrissey's lyrics in needlepoint. The perfect blend of pain, craft and depression! Kimberly Scola, the crafty girl who goes by the name Chez Sucre Chez, says, "I spent my high-school years listening to a whole lot of the Smiths and scratching the words to those ... More >>

Johnny Marr to Conservative British Prime Minister David Cameron: "I forbid you to like The Smiths"

"You are forbidden!": Marr to hip-wannabe David Cameron​ Conservative politicians and non-conservative pop musicians are always having altercations about the former's use of the latter's music and hipness for nefarious political purposes. The latest spat concerns UK Prime Minister David Came ... More >>

Shoplifters Unite and Pick Up "Mozipedia": 'The Encyclopedia of Morrissey and The Smiths' Comes to the US

​ British journalist Simon Goddard's Mozipedia: The Encyclopedia Of Morrissey And The Smiths was recently released in the US. And seeing as how we were once his neighbors (maybe still are, occasionally, even if he disses us in interviews), West Coast Sound combed through the book's more-than 5 ... More >>

San Francisco Resident Janice Whaley Covering the Smiths' Entire Catalog a Capella by 2011

Janice Whaley plans to record every Smiths song a capella by the end of 2010.​We're still a little salty about Morrissey's diss of our fair city (a city he's called home) but Los Angeles' estimable Smiths fans shouldn't be punished for the rantings of cranky old men. One young resident of Cal ... More >>

Music Picks: Sunset Junction Street Fair, Lucinda Williams, Y & T, Tanya Morgan

Also, GZA, Jimmy Webb, Fol Chen and others

Moz Mania Hits the Music Box for The Smiths/Morrissey Convention

Click here to see more photos. Sunday night, fans of all ages congregated at Hollywood's Music Box Theater for The Smiths/Morrissey convention. The event, which has been held annually since 1997, isn't what would be considered typical for music gatherings. There's no expectation that Morrissey wil ... More >>

FREE ADMISSION WITH PROOF OF COLONOSCOPY

Rock Picks: Daedelus, Beth Thornley, Yeasayer

Also, Ohioan, Hepcat, Vivian Girls and others

West Coast Sound's Top Ten Cover Songs of the Decade

Cover songs are a massive gray area for music fans. If a band sticks too close to the original, they might be perceived as a cheap knock-off, but if the band makes a drastic diversion, the results might only be amusing for a moment. When a cover works, though, the payoff can be massive. Fans can be ... More >>

Last Night: Morrissey (and McLovin) at the Gibson Amphitheatre

Morrissey at the Gibson Amphitheater, December 10 It's no surprise SoCal is the last stop on Morrissey's current tour. He may be homeless and rootless at the moment, but L.A. has always been the big bosom of his fan base. And with the media curiosity over his local popularity fading years ago, only ... More >>

ROCK PICKS: CEU, GIRL IN A COMA, COLDPLAY, GRAVEYARD

Also, Amadou & Mariam,The Pains of Being Pure, Jason Collett, The Smithereens, and others.

Artist Shizu Saldamando Brings LA Style to Texas' Girl in a Coma

Shizu Saldamando There is a lot about San Antonio-based Girl in a Coma that will appeal to Angelenos: the faint hint of '50s nostalgia in the track "El Monte"; the way Nina Diaz's voice floats across songs like a huskier Hope Sandoval; the fact that the trio is named after a Smiths' song and toured ... More >>

GO LA: Let's Play Fuck, Marry, Kill With Morrissey, Molly Prather and Christoph Eschenbach

And other reasons to not go straight home after work, May 22-28

PLEASE PLEASE LET ME GET WHAT I WANT FOR MY BIRTHDAY

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 >>

Dangerbird's Wings: Silversun Pickups' Label Bangs Out a Template for a Post–Major Label Landscape

Pickups’ new LP, Swoon, hits the streets soon

Morrissey-"Throwing My Arms Around Paris"

Despite my avowed Smiths worship, I've never been quite as obsessive about Morrissey's solo work. So it comes as a slight surprise how much I'm enjoying Years of Refusal, particularly considering its album cover makes Moz look a disgruntled ex-McMartin Pre-School employee. Don't be fooled by the ... More >>

Houston Press' Top 10 Reissues of 2008

By Chris Gray It's time to rank the best of what went around and came around again. BILLY JOEL The Stranger (Columbia/Legacy) As punk and disco exploded, the Piano Man's deeply unhip 1978 breakthrough proved that top-shelf Broadway/Brill Building songwriting could still sell - and, occasionall ... More >>

Live in L.A. Morrissey at the Hollywood Bowl, June 8

All the elements of a going-down-in-history Morrissey concert were there: sold-out behemoth venue, two full hours, tight band, a whopping ten stage-divers, and the pre-show hubbub that always looks like an arts 'n' crafts fair of homemade Moz-inspired get-ups. It's one thing to slap on some pomade ... More >>

BBB (Big, Bold and Beautiful)

The clouds have parted and the birds are chirping what sounds like Japanese power pop. SXSW being an industry event I attend my first industry panel, "Idiots Unite!" (The idiots, of course, being anyone involved in this crazy business of show.) David Katznelson, president of Birdman Recording Group, ... More >>

Moz the Cat

In which Steven Patrick Morrissey speaks of ghosts, glam rock, Obama... and why squirrels like him

Myspace Taste of the Week

I'd like to think that I'm way more popular in real life than I am on Myspace. I've only got like 50 friends, but that's probably because I only say yes to requests from peeps who truly are friends. Call me a weirdo. Anyway, the pals I do have, happen to have thousands of friends and way too much ... More >>