Tomorrow is the ribbon cutting of the third and newest downtown Famima!! at the California Plaza on Grand Avenue near MOCA. It's about time this part of downtown receive some new food options, even if this is quasi Japanese 7-11 style. However, a made-to-order sushi bar will be the centerpiece of this location. In addition to the few food options at the California Plaza, Performance Row (as we once dubbed it) has a Koo Koo......

Los Lobos @ Santa Monica Pier (free) Kronos Quartet @ California Plaza (free) The Dickies, D.I. @ House of Blues The Deadly Syndrome, Let's Go Sailing, The Western States Motel @ The Roxy Angie Mattson, Jason Reeves, The Northstar Session, Matt Ellis Band @ The Hotel Cafe Phathom, Think Alike, A Life like This, The Nixes, Summerfire @ The Troubadour Old Time Relijun, Jail Weddings, the Holy Kiss, Women, Jeremy Jay @ The Echo......

Jeff Tweedy of Wilco would probably prefer it if you didn't talk on Wednesday Spinal Tap @ Avalon, tonight Joss Stone @ Greek, tonight Metal Skool, Shapes of Racecars @ Key Club, tonight Stevie Wonder @ Santa Barbara Bowl, Tues Gogol Bordello @ Henry Fonda, Tues Wilco @ Greek, Weds. The Like @ Spaceland, Weds Los Lobos @ Santa Monica Pier, Thurs Kronos Quartet @ California Plaza, Thurs Mat Kearney @ House of Blues,......

They are the rock stars of the string quartet. They've played with everyone and everything (such as 'Purple Haze' to the left). And they, the uber-famous and sometimes over-popular Kronos Quartet, are playing for free this Thursday night Downtown. You can't beat that. There are not many Grand Performances left for the summer. If you've never had the chance, pack some food and alcohol (no red wine allowed, it stains the granite), find a spot......

El Vez, a Mexican Elvis impersonator famous in his own right for his adding a Latin and political flavor to the King’s undying legend, is playing a free concert in downtown LA tonight at the California Plaza as part of the Grand Performances summer series. El Vez doesn’t impersonate Elvis as much as redefines him, adding a Mexican twist to all we know about the King. Elvis classics become social commentaries on immigrant rights......

Morris Day & the Time, Sea Wolf, The Broken West, Ben Harper, Blonde Redhead, The Emotions, Medusa, Breakestra, Autolux, Culver City Dub Collective, The Parson Red Heads, The Pity Party, Division Day, others @ Sunset Junction (10a-10p) Yolanda Adams, Angie Stone, Clarence Carter, The Laws Family, Eloise Laws, Barbara Morrison, Linda Hopkins, Billy Valentine @ Compton Summer Soul Jam, Par 3 Golf Course Stevie Nicks, ZZ Top, The Pretenders, Stray Cats, Sugar Ray @......

The folks at Omni Hotels realize that many of you are still hungering for an Apple iPhone, and they have two cool ways to feed you this week. First, each hotel location will be giving away a brand spanking new iPhone, and there is no purchase necessary. All you have to do to be entered in the sweepstakes is to get yourself down to our local Omni Hotel, which is located Downtown in California Plaza,......

The L.A. Film Festival lumbers towards its final weekend today and The Director Lunch Talk series has its best interview yet. John Horn talks to Danny Boyle (Sunshine, Trainspotting) at 12:30 p.m. at the Target Red Room. Another free talk is on tap at 7:00 p.m. at the Hammer Museum. It's Been There, Done That: A Conversation with Mickey Rooney. If you've never seen Mr. Rooney talk in person, treat yourself to this program.......

Show Date: Tonight, Friday June 22nd, 2007 Venue: Grand Performances, California Plaza, 350 South Grand Avenue $0 @ 8:00 p.m. Artist:Ojo de Brujo Album: Techari + Techari Remixes Label: Six Degrees Records Barcelona-based flamenco-fusion-epxerimentalists Ojo de Brujo kick off their North American tour tonight in Los Angeles with a FREE concert at Grand Performances, California Plaza, 350 South Grand Avenue. This band of gypsy instrumentalists and DJs is touring in support of their most......

I call it Performance Row. That stretch downtown along Grand Avenue between Temple St. and the California Plaza. You can easily walk between 9 performance spaces in 5 minutes. Starting at the Music Center Plaza at Temple and heading South, you first are at the Ahmanson, Center Theatre Group's (CTG) proscenium stage that is used for dance, musicals and other traditional performances. Next is the Mark Taper Forum, a theatre used for newer theatrical......

LA Works is a nonprofit that encourages — and enables — volunteerism in our city. They do this all year round, from setting up regular tutoring to weekend trash cleanup to hanging with seniors (Fun With Nuns!) to brush cleaning at an endangered ape refuge. But maybe this isn't the kind of volunteering that sounds like fun to you. If what you want is a one-time commitment, a day when you can feel like......

Here it is again... the weekend. Will it cool down? It's all relative, we suppose. Just remember, whatever you do, keep your cool! There are plenty of things to do around town that are indoors, or outdoors, to suit your mood and temperment, in addition to the other events we're talking about. Friday --Delve into the primitive roots of electronic music (and we mean primitive) with a free screening of the documentary Theramin: An......

It's the weekend already? LAist throws enthusiastic support in the corner of the 4-day work week, and even though perhaps we didn't work as much this week, we're still going to play this weekend. Here are some things going on around town this lovely weekend. Friday LAist loves Grand Performances! Tonight is Algerian-born rai musician Khaled at 8:00 p.m. at the California Plaza. Saturday Take a tour of Chinatown from 10:30 a.m. to 1:00......

At outdoor events in downtown Los Angeles, such as the Grand Performances series that included Friday night's Ozomatli concert, or the Los Angeles Shakespeare Festival's summer performances, part of the fun is people-watching, and much of what you see people doing is turning their heads side to side and murmuring, "This is so cool. I've never seen downtown like this." California Plaza, where the Grand Performances concerts are held, can be a lovely scene......

On Monday we plan on being in someone's backyard, beer in one hand, grilled meat product in another, head turned skyward to look at falling bits of colored light (or we could head out to some of these spots for more intense fireworks and Fourth-of-July action). So we've got the holiday covered. What about the rest of the weekend? Here are some quirky, cultural, and historical things going on around town--lots of them are......

For Independence Day weekend, here are some events that involve hanging out with social activists while listening to good music and wearing cute clothes: Friday, July 1 Free concert by social activist and good-time band Ozomatli at California Plaza, downtown Los Angeles, part of the Grand Performances series. 8 pm, but it's a good to get there as early as possible; this one will be crowded. Saturday, July 2, and Sunday, July 3 American......

Well, the Solstice has come and gone, which means our days our longer, and our nights are longer, too, somehow. This weekend there is no shortage of fun things to do, and no excuse for us to not get out there and do them. That is, unless, you are one of the lucky few with an ocean breeze or a good air conditioning system to keep you coolly behind your doors--this weekend's forecast is......

In downtown LA, you take your wildlife where you can find it. We caught our first sighting of the California Plaza ducks today. The family of ducks (one emerald-headed mallard, a plain jane mama, and a small string of fluffy brown babies) first waddled onto the watercourt in 2003, and iterations of the family have appeared each spring since. Management at the California Plaza have since erected little ramps up to the concrete islands in......

If you're a fan of old-fashioned, kick-ass rock 'n' roll, head for the Knitting Factory tonight and see The Dirtbombs with The Ponys, The Starlite Desperation and the Immortal Lee County Killers. Doors open at 8:00 PM and tickets are $15.00. At the Silverlake Lounge, see LA's very own rock heroes 400 Blows with Heroine Sheiks, Bloody Mary and The Pope. The show starts at 9:00 PM and tickets are $8.00. Starting at 5:00......

'Tis a busy night all over, so we'll skip the niceties and get down to business. At MOCA at California Plaza, 5:00 PM brings the beginning of Immersion, with free museum admission, happy hour at Patinette, DJs, exhibition tours and lectures, and MOCA Store events. Hang out until 6:30 PM to catch Raphael Rubinstein, senior editor of Art in America, discussing the crisis in art criticism. Admission is free. The UCLA Hammer Museum has......

Pay a visit to MOCA today, as the place will be swarming with activity. At 3:00 PM, see a screening of Two Generators, Rodney Graham's 1984 piece "documenting the night-time illumination of a river" at MOCA at California Plaza. The screening is free with musuem admission. After that, hang around until 5:00 PM when MOCA's weekly Immersion begins, featuring happy hour at Patinette, DJs, tours and lectures, as well as MOCA store events. At......

Another Monday has arrived, forcing the weekend into the memory and the week into sharp focus. Though work is the primary fulcrum of weekday activities, we hope that you will take some suggestion and participate in some extracurricular fun. If you didn't hear about it over the weekend, the Robert Smithson exhibit opened at MOCA. This is the first complete retrospective of Smithson's work, a man "known then and now as a pioneer of......

Enjoy a leisurely evening sipping wine and indulging in cocktail conversation at Slow Food LA's wine tasting. It will be held from 6:30–9:00 PM at Mel & Rose Wine and Spirits. Admission is $30.00 per person for Slow Food members and $35.00 for nonmembers; cost includes the tasting, a vintage chart and wine map. Head to MOCA at California Plaza tonight for the summer evening Immersion series. A weekly gathering with food, drinks, art......

Good day, LAists! This report makes it to you only slightly hungover, so you are now honorbound to go out and have a good time because LAist is working hard (against a hangover) to bring you tonight's events. AIGA/LA has a special lecture: "Spaced Out: Double Dutch, The Word of Image" at MOCA at California Plaza. Dutch designers Frans Oosterhof, Mieke Grritzen, Max Bruinsma and Jan Middendorp will present their work and their unique......

Hello, happy LAists! Thursday is bringing a much-needed respite from the slower pace of the first half of the week. There is a veritable cornucopia of events to keep you busy for the rest of the day. Tonight is Immersion at MOCA at California Plaza, a weekly cocktail of art, music, and culture from 5:00 to 8:00 PM through July 29th. Showing up grants you free admission to A Minimal Future? Art as Object......

To LAist, Thursday seems to be an eclectic hodgepodge of music and art. Not to say that any of it is bad, but there is a little something for most everyone going on tonight in and around the city. MOCA's Public + Artist program brings artist William Basinski to MOCA at California Plaza at 6:30 PM. Basinski primarily composes experimental sound pieces using found sound and tape loops, so be prepared for an ear-bending......