Weezer

5 Hottest Rental Neighborhoods in Los Angeles

Competition for apartments and rental homes in this town is fierce. At least according to the online rental marketplace Lovely, which crunched the numbers for L.A. recently. It found that a mix of upscale and hipster neighborhoods made up Los Angeles' most-competitive areas for people seeking to re ... More >>

Racism Charged Against Hollywood Bar That Forbids Hip-Hop

[Editor's note: Weekly scribe Jeff Weiss's column, "Bizarre Ride," appears on West Coast Sound every Wednesday. His archives are available here.] One man's purity is another man's segregation. You don't expect to encounter those ideas in Hollywood in 2013, but they creep in through coding and innue ... More >>

The Best Concerts in L.A. This Week

Monday, February 11 Hindu Pirates SILVERLAKE LOUNGE The days of oh-so-crude adjectives like "surf" and "garage" are well behind O.C.'s Hindu Pirates now. For while the Pirates are in fact darlings of the surf-skate industry, as evidenced by their clean and pristine session last year at Hurley's in- ... More >>

Lord of the Prog

Music Cruises Hit the High Seas, But Who Can Afford Them?

All aboard a tiny, star-packed boat

Why You Shouldn't Hate Indie Rock

On October 12 a Twitter feed called I Hate Indie Rock launched itself, immediately generating conversation among music critics, who variously found it inflammatory, silly, or quite accurate. Written anonymously, the author criticizes the independent music world and the way fans consume it. With so ... More >>

The Five Best Shows in Los Angeles This Week: Grimes, Madonna

Monday, October 8 Superhumanoids THE ECHO L.A.'s Superhumanoids make pop songs out of star parts -- like the glow, the heat, the empty space and of course the wisps of fire that make NASA scientists curse every time a space probe gets singed by the stuff. This is heavenly stuff, with singer Sarah ... More >>

The 20 Worst Hipster Bands: 20-11

Top 20 Worst Bands of All Time Top 20 Musicians of All Time, in Any Genre Top 20 Whitest Musicians of All Time Who are these hipsters we see each day in the streets, on our Tumblr feeds, and on the local news? And why are so many in bands? It's not the mere existence of hipster groups that distress ... More >>

Dirty Minds Think Alike

Shifty Shellshock Is Out of His Coma! Here's Everything You Need To Know About Him

We were saddened by word that Crazy Town frontman Shifty Shellshock fell into a coma last week. According to TMZ, the 37-year-old Los Angeles native (real name Seth Binzer) is now conscious, though he remains in an intensive care unit at a local hospital. We love the guy, and figured this was as goo ... More >>

Tha Boogie -The Viper Room - 9/21/11

Daniel Kohn​Tha Boogie The Viper Room 9/21/11 Better than...waffles with butter. See Also: Meet Tha Boogie: "We Sent Raphael Saadiq Our Music, and He Sent Us His Phone Number" When you get the blessing of Raphael Saadiq, you must be doing something right. In the case of Tha Boogie, he conf ... More >>

White Arrows Singer Mickey Schiff Was Blind, But Now He Sees (Literally)

Matthew Wardenaar​Born legally blind, Mickey Schiff experienced his surroundings as though they were a Monet landscape -- all colors and shapes and softness. When he was 11 his vision was corrected, turning the word into edges, hard angles and lines so sharp that he was startled into nausea. N ... More >>

Identity Festival: Steve Aoki, Jessie and the Toy Boys, Chad Hugo and More - Hollywood Palladium - 9/4/11

Roselle ChenJessie And The Toy Boys​Steve Aoki, Booka Shade, Jessie and the Toy Boys, Chad Hugo Identity Festival Hollywood Palladium Sunday, September 4 See also: Identity Festival Preview: We Talk With Steve Aoki, Nervo, Figo, Jessie And The Toy Boys and Others Sunday's Identity Festival a ... More >>

Meet Joyce Manor: "Scream Along" Music From South Bay

Manny Mares​When it comes to music in Los Angeles these days, all you hear about day in and day out is "this band from Silver Lake" or "that venue over on the East side." It's easy to feel neglected for those on the West side, but thanks to Joyce Manor, the feeling of being the last kid picke ... More >>

Best Coast's Pre-Carmageddon Jam at the Getty's "Saturdays Off The 405"

Lina LecaroCoasting off the 405.​Hype is a hard thing to overcome. Whether we're talking bands or freeway closures, it usually means a letdown. Last Saturday, one of L.A.'s most hyped bands (at least by media, here included) Best Coast, played a free show preceding an upcoming event nearby th ... More >>

Jorge Garcia from Lost: His Secret Standup Comedy Performance Last Night at the Laugh Factory

Julie SeabaughJorge Garcia, Suzanne Whang, Eric Schwartz​ Jorge Garcia has overcome polar bears, Smoke Monsters and time-traveling islands. Standing alone and blinded by spotlights in front of 300 audience members who expect you to make them laugh is another challenge altogether. Few know tha ... More >>

Top 10 Gratuitous Acoustic Pop Covers

​Watching Katy Perry's cover of Lady Gaga's "Born this Way" reminded us: In college, roughly 68% of undergraduates (a figure we made up for purposes of sounding researched) take up the acoustic guitar. Think of it as a rite of passage marred by awful covers of Neil Young and the inevitable Bla ... More >>

Across the Universe: WTF is 'Rape Gaze?,' Ben Harper/Dino Lady Split, Gaga Needs Some Air and Waters Changes 'Wall' Vid

Across the Universe: WTF is 'Rape Gaze?,' Ben Harper/Dino Lady Split, Gaga Needs Some Air and Waters Changes 'Wall' Vid

Who Cares About Bieber, Gaga, or the VMA's? You Do! Winner Recaps Past and Present

Who Really Cares About Bieber, Gaga, or the VMA's? You Do! Winner Recaps Past and Present

Tonight: Circa Survive, Cold War Kids, Eels, Rademacher, PB Wolf, William Fitzsimmons

Circa Survive​When vocalist Anthony Green broke away from the Orange County screamo outfit Saosin six years ago, it didn't look like the best of career moves. Saosin was a rising star on the post-hardcore scene and poised to sign a major-label contract; Green was headed back home to Pennsylvan ... More >>

Did Shakira Plagiarize Her Soccer World Cup Theme?

How many "Soccer World Cup Themes" are there anyway? We already reported on the official (R. Kelly) and the self-appointed (Weezer), but now comes an interesting allegation about yet another soccer World Cup Theme. Colombia's crossover diva Shakira recently released her "Waka Waka," a collaboration ... More >>

Been There. Done What?!

Jillian Lauren opens up about her life as a teenage harem girl in Brunei

Kids’ Rock

Rock Picks: Steve Earle, Polvo, These Arms Are Snakes, Correatown

Also, Bob Dylan & His Band, Motorhead, John Doe & Exene Cervenka and others

Songs for Our City: John Phillips is the Wolf King of L.A.

John Phillips' 1970 record, John, the Wolf King of L.A., lays out a vision of countercultural Los Angeles at its most far out.

Songs For Our City: Tupac Lives and Dies in L.A.

Tupac Shakur Lives and Dies in L.A.

Last Night: Jay-Z, Eminem, and the Celebrity Cult of the DJ Hero

The economy isn't entirely moribund, it's just that the real money's in wish fulfillment. At least that's the logical conclusion gained from last night's star-scarred Jay-Z and Eminem concert promoting DJ Hero, the latest sure-to-be-blockbuster installment of the Guitar Hero Franchise -- an event th ... More >>

Korean Pop Star BoA Attempts to Break Stateside

For those prone to pulling all-nighters while watching the Cartoon's Network's Adult Swim, Korean-born singer BoA (real name: Boa Kwon) rings familiar, a sweetly mature voice that drives the light electronica of "Every Heart (Minnano Kimochi)," a closing theme for the popular anime InuYasha. But th ... More >>

Samuel L. Jackson Interviewed: Discusses Hip Hop and Comics For the Premiere of Afro Samurai

21 years ago, Samuel L. Jackson snagged a bit part as Leeds in Spike Lee's School Daze. Since then, the prolific Tennessean has appeared in roughly 70 films -- some of them good (Kill Bill, Do the Right Thing, Hard 8,), some not so good (S.W.A.T, Amos and Andrew, Deep Blue Sea), and some that can ... More >>

TRS-80: Tron on Acid

Jay Rajeck founded TRS-80 in Chicago in 1997, and while the line-up and location have changed over the past 11 years, he's remained consistent in his delivery of relatively minimalistic, predominantly instrumental electronic music, which he often mixes with bizarre retro samples. The result is a s ... More >>

Survival of the Fiercest

Natural History music; art vandals; bashes worth crashing

A Hero for Our Time

Are rocker video games the new MTV — and will they help save the music universe?

The Broken West

“Another goddamn Big Star comparison!”

Rock Picks

For the week of Jan 12 – 18

Rippin' & Dippin'

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

Queen of Noise

Feel His Heat

Brent Bolthouse

Bang a Bong

Dilated Peoples: L.A. b-boys hit the NBA

Pickup Artists

The Silversun Pickups are feeling ever so much better, thank you

The Other Polarizer

Kids Rock

The bands that are saving L.A.’s music scene

Ten Years After

Campfire Girls return from the near-dead

Steam Dream

Pure Class

Walking on Air

Welcome to the Castle

The Kids Are All Right

Headbanging for credit at the Musicians Institute

Glam Flock

Return of the sweet art of pre-Spice, post-Glitter rock & roll

Music Reviews - Unwritten Law, Broadcast, L.A. County Line, Ralph Towner - Gary Peacock