Patrick Shannon

“Whoever’s butt that is, that’s a good butt,” says Dillon Francis. He's on the set of the music video for “Shut It Down,” his collaboration with Party Favor on the latter's new EP, Party and Destroy (Mad Decent). He’s examining a Xeroxed sheet of printer paper blotted with the monochromatic derriere......

The desert sun is baking the stiff, dry air to over 110 degrees in Palm Springs, and the sold-out August edition of Splash House is feeling like a weekend for the daring. The event is known for its rowdy pool parties, but the aquatic attractions are a tame facade for......

Near the starting line of the Auto Club Speedway of Southern California, hundreds of young people are funneling into Hard Summer Music Festival. There is a pedestrian traffic jam at a stairwell that leads concertgoers from the stadium seating area onto the racetrack, and tension is building among the ticket......

Welcome to the volcanic crater that is a Southern California music festival in an auto speedway in July. The Hard Summer Music Festival flags were waving in an eastward breeze at Auto Club Speedway of California this weekend, and thousands of hip-hop and dance music fans congregated around the racetrack......

Luna Shadows is sitting at the boathouse by Echo Park Lake just before taking a morning stroll around the water. There’s a pushcart vendor shaking bells in the distance, but he hasn’t found any customers. The lake is lined with an assortment of characters — a preppy young couple, middle-aged......

In his the early 2000s, Erick Orrosquieta was an impoverished teenager living in West Covina. He had a son on the way and was desperate to provide for his family. He knew he would need a prosperous career to support the expanding Orrosquieta roster, and his difficult upbringing wouldn’t provide an......

Tyler McLean fits the all-american male stereotype down to his photogenic smile. His parents own a successful vacation rental business. He played high school football and ran track. He became popular for throwing inter-high school parties, but he didn’t just wait for mom and dad to go out of town......

Midway up the Hollywood Hills is a quiet roundabout with ample street parking and well-kept, verdant lawns. A woman in a tennis skirt and sports bra is walking her dog and stops in front of a neighbor who is watering her lawn to discuss whatever affluent, middle-aged women talk about......

The term “music industry” is an oxymoron if you understand that it's comprised of suits unsustainably leeching off the creative people behind new sounds. Attempts to monetize self-expression eventually implode when enough money is thrown around, so the "industry" has to constantly replenish itself with what’s true, authentic and ripe......

It’s one minute till midnight on a Saturday in Hollywood when veteran EDM performer Wolfgang Gartner plugs a USB drive into Avalon’s DJ setup and begins scrolling through a list of tracks. When he finds his tune, it will be the first song he’s played for an audience since last......