The Viper Room

Terminator Too: Judgement Play

Kosha Dillz: He Raps New Year's Eve at the Viper Room With Dirt Nasty

See also: What To Do This New Year's Eve Kosha Dillz will have much to celebrate when he takes the stage at the Viper Room on Saturday night, on a bill with Dirt Nasty. In 2011 the New Jersey-bred rapper -- who now lives in Los Angeles -- did everything from performing on Yo Gabba Gabba! to collabo ... More >>

The Michael Des Barres Band, Richie Ramone, Roar At Viper Room Leo Fest

Lina Lecaro Michael Des Barres and Steve Stevens get hot in the city.​We got a crash course in Booking 101 last week from recently-returned Viper Room booker Dayle Gloria, whom we joined in planning a duel birthday bash (we're both Aug. 6-ers) at the legendary Sunset Strip venue Saturday night ... More >>

R.I.P. Cat Club: Sunset Stripped

Lina LecaroNightranger at Cat Club last year. ​Looks like nine lives are not in the cards for the Cat Club. The venerable Sunset Strip rock pit, owned by Slim Jim Phantom of the Stray Cats and known for its raucous and often stellar jam sessions, has been sold and word is the new hang, an Iris ... More >>

Music Picks: Julieta Venegas, Deicide, Yefim Bronfman, Chick Corea and Gary Burton

Also Conspiracy of Beards, Lykke Li, Khaira Arby and others

Tonight: Odd Future, Faith No More, Eve 6, Train, John McLaughlin, the Grouch

Brook Bobbins via Village VoiceOdd Future with Mos Def in NYC earlier this month​The headline earlier this month in the New York Times read: "Young, Gifted and Outrageous: Can Odd Future Survive Popularity?" Which is a fair question. The outrageous L.A. hip-hip crew whose unabbreviated monik ... More >>

Tonight: The Books, Roger Waters, Belleruche, Chasing Kings, Black Apples, Standing Shadows

We're still hung over from Thanksgiving after-parties, so we'll leave it to you to process all the information in "A Cold Freezin' Night," from the Books' first album in five years, The Way Out. For four albums, the duo of Paul de Jong and Nick Zammuto have been the experimentalists' experimental ... More >>

Tonight: Fitz & the Tantrums, Robyn, Blonde Redhead, Natasha Bedingfield, Ferraby Lionheart, Bear Hands, Papercranes

Timothy NorrisFitz & the Tantrums​Can we get an exclamation point for Fitz & the Tantrums? The stylish purveyors of old soul helmed by Michael Sean Fitzpatrick and Noelle Scaggs have had a quite a 2010. They started the year practically as a novelty -- a slick band with nice EP and a great li ... More >>

Tonight: The Soft Pack, Kurt Vile, Nosaj Thing, Dean Wareham, Tim Kasher, KT Tunstall, Sonny & the Sunsets, Sabrosa Purr

The Soft Pack​During their year of touring dangerously, San Diego-bred, L.A.-based quartet the Soft Pack have succeeded in getting everyone to forget their old band name ... you know ... the one that people misunderstood ... and they tired of answering questions about ... what was that name, a ... More >>

Tonight: Gorillaz, Reigning Sound, White Sea, Bullet for My Valentine, VersaEmerge, Onra

Gorillaz​The festival-closing Coachella set by Gorillaz back in April was as memorable for what it wasn't as what it was. The Damian Albarn-fronted collective went it without its typical big-screen animations and played unmasked -- with the Clash's Mick Jones and Paul Simonon joining for a se ... More >>

This weekend: Plastic Ono Band, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, School of Seven Bells, the Avett Brothers, Fountains of Wayne

Yoko Ono​John Lennon would have turned 70 next week, and among the events celebrating the legendary Beatle are two shows this weekend featuring a reconstituted Plastic Ono Band, the loose collective of musicians Lennon assembled 40 years ago. His widow Yoko Ono and son Sean Lennon (the musica ... More >>

Tonight: Pavement, Sonic Youth, Spoon, John Cale, Jamie Lidell, Rob Zombie, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Sebastien Tellier

Marcus RothPavement, 1999​Pavement's year-long victory lap has been exhilarating for the band and fans alike -- we know people who haven't stopped grinning since Coachella. But the faithful who have it in the back of their heads that the pride of Stockton might keep the wheels turning and mak ... More >>

Tonight: Jimmy Eat World, Surfer Blood, UB40, Buck 65, Deakin, the Hounds Below

Jimmy Eat World​Jimmy Eat World shouldn't get dinged for the ostensibly presumptuous title of their new album and first in three years, Invented. In the minds of the many, the Arizona quartet did pioneer its brand of radio-friendly emo-rock -- taut and anthemic guitar music with an honesty th ... More >>

Tonight: Fool's Gold, Dirty Projectors, All for the Hall benefit, Chinese White Bicycles, Jim Jones Revue

Marianne WilliamsFool's Gold​You almost wonder what Fool's Gold can do for an encore. The L.A.-based purveyors of pop and world-beat jambalaya have now toured the globe with their songs for a multinational, friending (in the true sense) the likes of Malian musical rebels Tinariwen and challen ... More >>

Tonight: The xx, Warpaint, Tommy Keene, Dntel, the Airborne Toxic Event

Timothy NorrisThe xx​Our favorite first reaction to the music of The xx came from an obviously hopeless romantic we stood with at a South by Southwest show who deadpanned, "I don't know, I think I like my x's with o's." But that's tangential to the big news of the day -- the black-dressed thr ... More >>

This weekend: Scissor Sisters, Sheryl Crow, Pink Martini, Bonerama, the Watson Twins, Dead Confederate, Trey Songz

Scissor Sisters​Scissor Sisters' new album Night Work -- three years in the making, and re-making (they scrapped 18 months of work and started over) -- is a typically frisky, preening mash-up of glam and disco that contains a lot of you're-gonna-have-to-be-there moments. Fun, to be sure. But ... More >>

Music Picks: John Lee Hooker Jr., Faun Fables, Tribute to Dolly Parton

Also, Ray LaMontagne, Wait. Think. Fast., Crooked Fingers and others

Tonight: Nite Jewel, Dr. John, Wang Chung, Greg Laswell, Kisses, Seneca Hawk

Nite Jewel​Ramona Gonzalez may be growing up, but the music she is making as Nite Jewel isn't growing out. On her new EP, Am I Real?, made in collaboration with Cole Greif-Neill, follows up last year's debut album Good Evening with more spare, spacey explorations of electro-funk and disco-pop ... More >>

Tonight: The Submarines, Sea of Bees, Bobby Bare Jr., Melissa Etheridge, Pacific Hurt, Sabrosa Purr

The Submarines​From Declare a New State!, the break up/make up album that put them on the map four years ago, the Submarines have moved on to become one of indie-pop's most beloved couples. Blake Hazard and John Dragonetti followed that album up in 2008 with Honeysuckle Weeks, a collection of ... More >>

Tonight: Rodrigo y Gabriela, Xavier Rudd, Childish Gambino, Mestizo, Neville Brothers

Chris StrongRodrigo y Gabriela​It's not a Presidential State Dinner -- at which they performed this spring -- but when Rodrigo y Gabriela arrive at the Greek Theatre tonight, it will be as one of the unlikeliest amphitheatre/festival headliners around these days. The Mexican duo of Rodrigo SÃ ... More >>

Tonight: Everest, Rickie Lee Jones, Carina Round, Proximal Records party, Rumspringa

Everest​The sophomore album by L.A. quintet Everest, On Approach, bears little of the twangy Americana that flavored 2008's Ghost Notes, but that doesn't mean the working-class rockers are changing their style. "Oh, we still wear flannel shirts," frontman Russell Pollard says. "Because we're ... More >>

Tonight: Midnight Juggernauts, Funeral Party, Summer Darling, Mississippi Man, the Outline

Midnight Juggernauts​Australian dance-rock trio Midnight Juggernauts have all the bombast of a Shiny Toy Guns, but, instead of an emo bent, the synth-pounders from Down Under have managed to put a psychedelic twist on their bottom-heavy dance-rock. Their new album "The Crystal Axis" puts Pink ... More >>

Nightranger: Smashing Patience

Tonight: Smashing Pumpkins, Damien Jurado, Hot Hot Heat, Dr. Dog, Voxhaul Broadcast

Timothy NorrisSmashing Pumpkins at the Gibson Amphitheatre, December 2008​On the surface, the songs on the first EP in the Smashing Pumpkins' ambitious 44-song Teargarden by Kaleidyscope seem to reflect the time main man Billy Corgan spent communing with Spirits in the Sky. Spirits, the side ... More >>

This Weekend: Sharon Jones & Dap Kings, Dead Man's Bones, Warped Tour, Black Francis, Danzig

Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings​Can it get any more real that Sharon Jones? Well, it can't get any more heartwarming. The leading lady of the Dap-Kings is, after all, a rising star at 54, having shucked the uniforms of her previous careers (corrections officer at Rikers Island, and armor truck g ... More >>

Live in L.A.: Woodsist Festival, Thurston Moore, Sting, Justin Currie, Abandoned Pools

Sarah McKayKurt Vile​In case your lifeline to Brooklyn is broken: Woodsist is a four-year-old record label, founded by Woods guitarist Jeremy Earl, that caters to fans who like things gloriously unvarnished, or who think the Vivian Girls are original. The label has brought a small army of lo-f ... More >>

Live in L.A.: The Henry Clay People, Health, Best Coast, Blake Mills, Jaguar Love

The Henry Clay People​The Henry Clay People's jagged, college-educated barroom rock has wormed its way into a lot of Angeleno hearts the past couple of years, its classic riff-slinging and manic shout-singing somehow turning the high anxiety of "Working Part Time" into catharsis. The quintet's ... More >>

Music Picks: Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars, VoicesVoices, Peter Gabriel, Jakob Dylan

Also, Ane Brun, the Melodians, Kate Miller-Heidke, Ian Whitcomb and others

Live in L.A. Tonight: Pacha Massive, the Hold Steady, Jane's Addiction, Dosh, Two Door Cinema Club

​No matter whether you regard Cinco de Mayo as a meaningful holiday or a beer company-sponsored excuse to get loaded, it's a good day to get your bilingual on. Spaceland's lineup tonight plays right into that: NYC's hybridizers of dub, electro and Latin rhythms Pacha Massive headline, supporte ... More >>

Live in LA: Greg Laswell, Ruby Friedman Orchestra, more

Joseph Llanes​People love Greg Laswell, and it's not just the music supervisors who've funneled his ballads of heartache into shows such as "Grey's Anatomy," "90210" and "The Hills." The 36-year-old singer-songwriter's deft ability to turn melancholy inside out served him well on his 2006 brea ... More >>

Review: Janelle Monae at the Viper Room

Review by Andrea Whiting ​Walking up The Viper Room stairs last Tuesday I somehow took a wrong turn and fell up a rabbit hole, straight into the post-apocalyptic cyber punk world of Janelle Monae. In this world, James Brown is still alive and kickin', cold hipster sidekicks have been replac ... More >>

Rock Picks: The Strange Boys, Memory Tapes, Scout Niblett, Four Tet

Also, El Perro Del Mar, Phranc, Moonrats and others

Rock Picks: Broken Nobles, Anny Celsi, Seu Jorge, the Killers

Rock Picks: Broken Nobles, Anny Celsi, Seu Jorge, the Killers

Also, Destroy L.A., Sunset Strip Music Festival, the Drones and others

Music Picks: Sky Saxon Tribute, Daddy Kev, Grace Jones, The Mekons

Also, Jarvis Cocker, Regina Spektor, Ida Maria, Themselves and others.

Rock Picks: Warped Tour, Pop Levi, Valient Thorr

Also, Previously on Lost, Raphael Saadiq, Liz Pappademas

Rock Picks: Dethklok, Billy Bragg, Erykah Badu, Mr. Gnome

Also, shows by Listing Ship, Detroit Cobras and more

Rock Picks: The Dirtbombs, Robyn, Dizzee Rascal

And other May 15-22 shows

Rock Picks: Slick Rick, Tapes 'n Tapes, Kate Nash

And other May 8-15 shows

Rock Picks: Watson Twins, Les Claypool, Autechre

Plus other April 3-10 shows

Rock Picks: Exodus, Altamont, Art Ensemble of Chicago and more

For the week of Jan. 18-24

Rock Picks: The Slits, Squiddo, Electrocute

For the week of August 2 - 9

Rock Picks: Bob Dylan, Martin Rev, The Saints

For the week of July 19-26

Rock Picks: The Police, Sage Francis, Radio Birdman and more

For the week of June 14 - 21

Rock Picks

For the week of May 17 – 24

Shake Your Coconuts

Sugar 'n' Spikes

All Gates Open

Neighborhood Bars & Nightclubs