Art Tavana

Cooper Hefner inside a DeLorean in front of his Hidden Arcade in June; Credit: Courtesy of Cooper Hefner

Can Cooper Hefner Make Playboy Cool Again? We're About to Find Out

Art Tavana
I'm standing next to a row of Reagan-era cultural artifacts: an Indiana Jones fedora, a prop lightsaber, a Centipede arcade game. They're on display inside a dusty fabric factory in downtown L.A. that's been refashioned into an art gallery and, for one night only, a monument to nostalgia erected by Cooper......
The cover of Sky Ferreira's 2013 debut album

Sky Ferreira's Sex Appeal Is What Pop Music Needs Right Now

Art Tavana
[Welcome to "Art Tavana vs. the World," a monthly column in which L.A. Weekly's angriest (and nerdiest) music critic, Art Tavana, takes on his many nemeses in an ambitious quest to boldly go where no other critic has gone before.] Sky Tonia Ferreira, 23, has a name that reads like......
Dillon Francis; Credit: Photo by Ryan Orange

Lemmy-Approved Rockers Barb Wire Dolls Are the Talk of the Sunset Strip

Art Tavana
“Lemmy would be fuckin’ pissed,” says Scott, aka “Nazi Scott,” a lovable scoundrel on the Sunset Strip known mostly as Lemmy Kilmister’s best friend and sometime assistant. He’s now working at the Whisky A Go Go and giving lip to the Barb Wire Dolls for covering Motörhead’s “R.A.M.O.N.E.S.” during their......
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10 Gangsta Rap Songs the Critics Want You to Forget About

Art Tavana
For fans and critics who intellectualize it, gangsta rap, or "reality rap," is serious business. For them, the defining genre of West Coast hip-hop represents true stories from the hood as told by those who lived it, coupled with beats sampled from '70s funk and soul music, and the occasional......