Greg Burk

Photo by Autumn de Wilde She likes to say she’s easily embarrassed. But she’s learned how to deal with it. We can tell. At a distance where she can smell us, here in the dark back closet of the Tangier restaurant in Los Feliz, Eleni Mandell sings about the feelings......

Photo by Charles Stewart Albert Ayler was a good golfer. He was an aficionado of marches. He was a God nut who believed that the patch of non-pigmented skin on his chin indicated the touch of the Holy. He was found drowned, circumstances unknown, in New York’s East River in......

Photo by Sergio Penalva Who’s the studly farm boy strutting the bass, with his Carnaby hair, sculpted ’burns and satin shirt bringing on 1972 Raspberries flashbacks? That’s Itai Disraeli — he also reads ancient wisdom in the original languages, as it happens. And who’s the dome-cropped polar opposite on the......

Photo by Jack Gould Peace has an image problem. Like, it’s such a snore, man. The many members of the L.A. Afro-groove collective Build an Ark are war’s best competition, but the matchup is tough: In movies, battle looks almost fun. People running around. Shit blowing up. Combat boys, hot......

Photo by Phil Reyes A PLEASANT SCENE: boaters out to do a little fishin’. They decide to go for some sharks today, ’cause you know, watersports are entertainment, and those toothy monsters can put on a show when the right bait’s on hand. Like good scouts, our fishermen have come......

Photo by Kwaku Alston A lot of newborns have attained drinking age since Aretha Franklin last visited Los Angeles. Nothing personal on her part — it’s just that she doesn’t fly, and the bus ride from Detroit is a grind. So her Greek Theater performances this weekend are an opportunity......

Photo by Ben Clark “City of night,” Jim Morrison named it. “City of the dead,” Glenn Danzig says he used to call L.A. before he moved here from New York some 15 years ago. “’Cause it was always sunny, and everything was dead — the air was dead,” he says,......

Photo by Valerie Phillips PJ HARVEY, THE BLACK HEART PROCESSION at the Henry Fonda Theater, August 15 Howlin’ bitch, orgy priestess, hot without being cute, huge without being big, PJ Harvey taps the badass arena blues and rocks flat-out all night. “Meet ze Monsta” announces it’s gonna be dirty; “It’s......

Photo by John Eder OZZFEST at Hyundai Pavilion at Glen Helen, July 31 Thousands crisping on a grazeless pan of dusty desert. Hundreds of post-pit brutes spitting grit that dried before it hit ground. No shade, no drinking fountains. Water $5. The Ozzfest tour’s Second Stage — where 14 sequential......

Photo by Kosh WASP at House of Blues, July 17 It’s understandable that a lot of jokers (including fans) still don’t figure Blackie Lawless for a serious artist — something to do with the bombs and props and shit. Well, now he smears less makeup, and doesn’t shoot fireworks from......