Jeff Weiss

With Charlie Bolois, it’s hard to know what story to begin with. Do you recount when the proprietor of Vertigo Recording Services was just 21, working for Motown, and tasked to deliver audio equipment to Marvin Gaye’s brand-new Hidden Hills mansion? When he arrived, he discovered the soul legend accompanied......

could stroll back and forth down this blah stretch of Burbank and never realize that you’d passed one of the most influential corners of West Coast hip-hop. The nerve center of Young California can’t be seen from the street. The only signage attached to the sunbaked taupe building belongs to......

It’s time for the interview but, before it begins, more pressing questions persist in the Peaking Lights household. “Should we put on Ponyo for the kids?” the psychedelic pop duo’s drummer-singer Indra Dunis asks her husband, beat conductor Aaron Coyes. “They just watched Ponyo. How about we put on Raffi?”......

The thirst is too real and close to ignore. Open up any social media app and squint at the surfeit of selfies and excessive stunting on haters; no one is absolved from scrutiny. Long Beach’s Boogie understands these online addictions and lust for likes all too well. “Twitter turned lying......

In the modern musical era, there’s never been a lower barrier to professional entry than there is to being a DJ. Get a cracked copy of Ableton or Traktor, illegally download MP3s, buy fake Twitter followers, practice in the basement for a week and you, too, can be booked. At......

It's an equatorially hot Wednesday afternoon on Melrose Boulevard when the "Gangsta Hello Kitty" meets the genuine article. Rapper Bonny Billionaire, the G.H.K. in question, is walking along the famous shopping strip, only to stumble upon a white pickup truck wrapped in an image of the famed Sanrio cartoon feline......

Until two months ago, Tuesday was the most neglected day of the week. It lacked the queasy terror of Monday, the euphoric potential of the weekend; it couldn’t even trump Wednesday’s rebranding as “Hump Day.” ILoveMakonnen changed everything. Even if the West Adams–raised, Atlanta-adopted rap crooner never records another song,......

In case you’re among the 63 percent of L.A. residents unable to watch Dodger games due to Time Warner Cable cupidity, L.A.’s oldest professional sports franchise has run up a small lead over the Giants in the National League West. So it goes when you have the highest payroll in......

The most punk new restaurant in L.A. might be Alexander’s Greek Kitchen, a 90-day-old storefront tucked into a strip mall in Vernon. This is a weird sentence to write for several reasons. A) There’s nothing inherently punk about a pork gyro dripping with tzatziki sauce, no matter how serrated the......

Before redefining the geek archetype as caterer and hard sci-fi screenwriter Roman DeBeers on Starz’s Party Down and computer programmer Gilfoyle on HBO’s Silicon Valley, bespectacled 32-year old actor Martin Starr spent his high school years bumping Tupac’s All Eyez on Me at obscene volumes through the streets of West......