Randall Roberts

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Coachella Wrap-Up: Is Santogold This Year's MVP?

If there was one transformative performance at this year's Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, I'd say it was Santogold's Friday night statement-of-purpose. The festival, which wrapped up last night with a Pink Floyd flashback courtesy of Roger Waters and a furious day-long Sahara tent throwdown with highlight sets by......
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Coachella Day Two: The Triumvirate of Kraftwerk, Portishead and Prince

The Coachella mainstage on Saturday night was a glory to behold, a spirit-lifting evening celebrating joy through technology, through contemplation and through celebration. In a single four hour chunk of time, the lucky masses at Coachella witnessed two-and-a-half humongous performances, two of which were nearly epochal. The fans at Hot......
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Coachella Day Two: Yo! Majesty and Rilo Kiley

Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, Day 2 Yo! at the Gobi tent, 7:40 p.m. By Chris Martins Yo! Majesty kept it in their shirts. It's true - the Tampa-based, female-fronted answer to 2 Live Crew adroitly circumvented legal woes by neither rapping with their mams in the wind, nor......
The actress feels as though she's “stepped into a crack in the time continuum.”; Credit: Courtesy of Kate Romero

Coachella 08: A glimpse at Prince's soundcheck

At last night's cool Filter party at the Corona Yacht Club, I ran into sculptor Christopher Janney, whose Sonic Forest installation will once again appear as part of Coachella's art offerings. Janney has been working for the past week to install his work at the Empire Polo Field, where the......
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Rolling on the Coachella Express to Indio

On the Coachella Express, there are a few distinct types of people: the media, which was invited to document the maiden voyage of the Amtrak line that departed LA's Union Station Thursday afternoon, and who wouldn't leave the kids alone. Local LA news crews were doing their two-minute Coachella stories......
Dave Navarro and Perry Farrell; Credit: Lina Lecaro

Jane's Addiction reunion at the El Rey, April 23

These days there’s every reason to be skeptical of a reunion concert. After the breakup we watch our heroes get older, buy their post-Great-Band solo projects with worried hearts and minds, certain that they have peaked and that nothing they do could capture the magic of the Grand Statement of......

The Really Friendly Skies

Well, that was weird. Last week, I was standing in LAX, holding a plastic champagne flute at Terminal 6’s Gate 68B, and Cisco Adler was standing next to me. Jerry Harrison of the Talking Heads was there too — with his son. And rapper Schwayze, actor Lucas Haas, Virgin America......