Siran Babayan

Reznor unchained (Photos by Wild Don Lewis)

Bow Down!

Siran Babayan
Nine Inch Nails, with Bauhaus and Peaches at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater, July 7 Traffic and the uphill death march to Verizon’s grounds kept us from seeing much of Peaches’ set, although a chick who used to sport a beard (in the age of electrolysis!) and spouts verbal porn isn’t......
Our spectacular

Snap, Crackle, Punk

Siran Babayan
Friday, June 30 Sultans of Satire: Middle East Comic Relief 6 features Max Amini, Irish Bahr, Elham Jazab, Aron Kader, Lory Tatoulian and Peter Shahriari — comedians of Arab, Israeli, Persian and Armenian heritage — teaming up for a night of politically and socially edgy humor to ease the Judeo-Arab-Christian-Scientological......
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Fresh Mozzarella

Siran Babayan
Morrissey . Ringleader of the Tormentors . Sanctuary The really great, excellent, fantastic news is Morrissey’s yodeling again. Why did Morrissey stop yodeling? You can’t have enough of Morrissey yodeling. We got a fever for the yodeling, like on the live version of the Smiths’ “What She Said” — when......

Literary Armenia

Siran Babayan
Instead of the musty smell of old novels, one is more likely to get a whiff of cigarette smoke rising from the back of Abril Books, where owner Harout Yeretzian sits flicking his ashes into a coffee cup, surrounded by “No Smoking” signs. A bespectacled man with salt-and-pepper hair and......

That Golden Moment

Siran Babayan
As part of the Museum of Television and Radio’s William S. Paley Festival at the Directors Guild of America, cast and crew members of The Golden Girls — including two of its stars, Rue McClanahan and Betty White, show creator Susan Harris and executive producer Paul Junger Witt — screened......
Got junk in your trunk? Trade in your clothes for cash at Wasteland and other L.A. resale shops. Photo by Wild Don Lewis

Out With the Old

Siran Babayan
If your closet is bursting at the seams with dust-collecting clothes that fit 20 pounds ago, there’s a simpler way of getting dough for your duds than advertising them on eBay or the sad shrubbery in front of your apartment building. Many of the vintage stores that dot our city......
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I Just Can’t Get Enough, I Just Can’t Get Enough

Siran Babayan
Depeche Mode Staples Center, Nov. 21 If we knew we were gonna be listening to the sound of our own voices the entire night we might’ve stayed home, or in the car. But who are we kidding? That’s one of the guarantees at a Depeche Mode show — you will......

I Left My Heart in San Fernando

Siran Babayan
Photos by Michael PowersLast month, San Fernando hosted its seventh annual Menudo Festival, a four-day event of cheap carny rides, warm churros and kettle corn, street merchants peddling everything from fake Mayan artwork to silver jewelry to handout sheets of homes for sale in the neighborhood (even in this largely......
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Live in L.A.

Siran Babayan
Photos by Wild Don Lewis The Count, his virginal brides; he’s dead, he’s not dead, he’s dead, he’s not dead — okay, we got “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” out of the way. Yes, Bauhaus played the ticking, tapping, and the foreboding bass line of the greatest post-punk epic ever written, but......
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To Queen or Not To Queen

Siran Babayan
Last summer’s Live 8 was a bittersweet reminder of the original Live Aid, and that fateful moment back in 1985 when Queen so rightfully reclaimed its throne: The wife beater, the gay mustache, the baseless mike stand, the Nazi-esque overhead clapping — it was all as iconic as Elvis karate-kicking......