Samantha Sidley and Alex Silverman at their Silver Lake rehearsal space | Photo via their MySpace page Alex & Sam may be a duo in title, but their fairly large band, sometimes up to twelve-members on stage, is quite a force of music that just puts a smile on your face. You can't really corner them into a jazz-blues rock or straight rock category. All we can say is that on stage, they've got......

Sunday marks the return of HBO's The Wire. To get you ready for the premiere of the fifth and final season of a show that TIME, Entertainment Weekly, Slate and the San Francisco Chronicle have all called "The best on television" LAist has lined up interviews with three members of the show's incredible cast. Be sure to check back tomorrow and Friday. Our series begins with Tristan Wilds, who we were introduced to in......

Just one day after being touted on national television as a "success story" out of the series "The Bachelor", Mary Delgado a former professional cheerleader and fiance of Season 5's Byron Velvick was arrested for domestic violence after punching him in a drunken argument - Defamer Hulk Hogan's wife, Linda Bollea, has filed for divorce from her husband Terry, aka "Hulk Hogan" this weekend - Pink is the New Blog Also Linda seems to have......

One of our favorite summer tv shows is CBS's "Big Brother", a reality show where they put a bunch of people together in a house and make them live together in the valley and vote each other out until there's just one winner. Cameras are everywhere, and almost every move is documented 24/7 and broadcast via the Internet. CBS broadcasts edited versions of the progress twice a week, and Showtime airs live footage from......

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.......

Now that the frenzied first weekend is over, it should be much easier going at the L.A. Film Festival in terms of actually getting to see a movie. Virtually every film playing today shows either standby availability or tickets available at the door. Free events, unfortunately, are in short supply. Of course, there's the daily Bands on Broxton at noon and 7 p.m. at the Festival Promenade, but the only other free event is......

It's the first real day of the LA Film Festival so naturally a lot of films have sold out. But take heart--there are plenty of things to see. As of this morning, stand-by tickets are still available for Interview. Directed by Steve Buscemi and starring Buscemi and Sienna Miller, Interview tells the story of a journalist interviewing a celebrity that he doesn't particularly like (imagine that?). An adaptation of Theo Van Gogh's 2003 film......

Just cause Angelina Jolie is lady on the street doesn't mean she still isn't a freak in the bed - National Enquirer Shar Jackson denies reports she's carrying K-Fed's fifth child - US Weekly Katie Holmes gets same haircut as her bestie Victoria Beckham - Daily Mail New Couple Alert- Jen Aniston and sexy British model Paul Sculfor, plans to adopt in the works? - Daily Mail Isaiah Washington is fired and miffed - Entertainment......

Looking to go to a music festival? Coachella is sold out, so instead, you should mosey out to Austin, Texas (Mar. 14-18) for this music spectacular, which features 1,300 acts from around the world. Walking from venue to venue is like putting your radio tuner on seek -- every style of music is represented. Besides performances, musicians like Pete Townshend, Iggy Pop, David Byrne, Emmylou Harris, Gilberto Gil, and Booker T. Jones are giving......

Liquid Nitrogen + Hotel Swimming Pool + Nerds = oooooooo - via Boing Boing Victoria Silvstedt and her new boyfriend reallllly love each other Tom Petty has a new single with an infectious Bo Diddley riff and is called "Saving Grace". click to stream - via stereogum University researchers claim that the drugs salmeterol or formoterol found in three common inhalers might be responsible for four out of five U.S. asthma-related deaths per year......

Elf Power Back to the Web (Rykodisc) – They’re an Athens, GA band and part of the Elephant 6 collective of indie rockers. They’ve got a record label and a commune. Apparently this album is less poppy and more acoustic folk. Appearing live at Spaceland on 5/13. Sample tracks on MYSPACE. Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris All the Roadrunning (Nonesuch/Warner Bros.) – This is more a Mark Knopfler album than an Emmylou album. It’s......

File this one under "not that we care that much": Though Jessica Simpson has often been dinged in the media for being well, a dingbat -- LAist can never ever look at a can of Chicken of the Sea in the same way again -- she was brilliant at image control this weekend. (Yes, we did use Jessica Simpson and "brilliant" in the same sentence.) Our favorite former newlyweds, Simpson and Nick Lachey, were......

When asked by "Entertainment Weekly" about the biggest difference between London and LA, actor Hugh Laurie replied "People here drive like baboons on crack--they've stolen the keys and sort of figured out how to switch the thing on. I'm staggered by it." He's not wrong. We're constantly amazed by the traffic manuevers we witness on the streets of Los Angeles and the greater Southern Californian region. After consulting the 2005 California Drivers Handbook, LAist......

According to Defamer (via the New York Observer and LA Observed), the LA Times has hired former Time and Entertainment Weekly columnist/wiseass Joel Stein as a new op-ed columnist. On the surface, it seems like an odd choice. Stein's favorite topic is himself, though he can be very clever about making you think he's actually writing about something else. Even though his beat will be the entertainment industry, it's a sure bet we'll be......

The Los Angeles Times has finally discovered krumpin'. Jessica Hundley's story, "Cirque for the Soul," ran on August 21, 2004, several months after it was noticed by writers at The New York Times and Entertainment Weekly. What took the LA Times so long to notice something that was always in its own backyard? Oh, wait, that's right...this is The Lost Angeles Times we're talking about. For those still in the dark, krumpin' is the......