As KCRW offers their first key chain fringe benefits cards (whew! we'll finally remember to use it now), one local neighborhood council has gone out and done something similar. The South Robertson Neighborhood Council, an official City of Los Angeles community volunteer advisory board that represents neighborhoods south of Beverly Hills such as Beverlywood and La Cienega Heights (map below to see if you live, work or play there), has launched the SOROCARD that offers......

Part of an ongoing series. Note: Read Mouse from Classical Geek Theatre's July tour blog with The Airborne Toxic Event. On Tuesday, local band The Airborne Toxic Event (MySpace) performed at The Village Recording Studios in West LA as part of a featured live performance and interview on KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic, and Fingerprints Records in Long Beach for a private party celebrating the release of their debut album, which is already ranked tenth......

Today on Kevin Roderick's weekly LA Observed spot on KCRW, he talks up the latest lay offs at the LA Times. In addition to "the paper also began saying goodbye to 150 editors, reporters, designers, photographers and other journalists." The publisher was also fired. And that's not all as Roderick predicts that this was not the end of it: "the cruel truth is that this week was probably just a mid-step on the way to......

Part of an ongoing series. Last month, local band The Airborne Toxic Event (MySpace) returned to Spaceland (MySpace) in Silver Lake to headline a show that included The Deadly Syndrome (MySpace), and The Henry Clay People (MySpace) with support from I Make This Sound (MySpace) and Le Switch (MySpace). As aptly described by Mouse from Classical Geek Theatre, "Before a mixed-crowd of longtime fans and recent, true-believing converts, The Airborne Toxic Event rewarded ticket......

How cool is this? A free all-night festival on the beach and pier in Santa Monica with over 20 multi-media artists and music from KCRW, Machine Project, Dub Lab and other to-be-announced artists? That's what's happening at Glow, a dusk-to-dawn (7 p.m. to 7 a.m.) event put on by the city of Santa Monica on July 19. Of note, Machine Project will have an orchestra play from the buckets of the new ferris wheel as......

View Larger Map A wildfire broke out in various places this morning around 1:00 a.m. in Banning, 85 miles east of Los Angeles. Last reports state that it has grown to at 75 acres with 130 firefighters responding to battle the blaze. "In Northern California 13 fires have broken out in 72 hours. Homes and other structures have been destroyed, and evacuations are widespread," Warren Olney stated on KCRW's Which Way LA while asking if......

the Kronos Quartet performing "Lux Aeterna" The Kronos Quartet is a highly regarded avant-garde string quartet, recognized outside of classical music circles for their collaborations with artists including David Bowie, Allen Ginsberg, Dave Matthews, Nelly Furtado, and playing on soundtracks of the popular Aronofsky films The Fountain and Requiem For a Dream ("Lux Aeterna" is the popular composition used regularly outside of the film). This weekend KCRW presents a concert of the Kronos Quartet......

KCRW just began to present "Sessions" at the intimate 500 seated person capacity Malibu Performing Arts Center. Last night's show featuring Sia sold out within seven minutes, but that's no surprise for the friend of Zero 7 in such a small space. KCRW was kind enough to share some photos from before, during and after the show, on and off stage.......

Sons and Daughters' entourage and others watch the band perform from the control room. For the third consecutive year, KCRW's Nic Harcourt and crew set up shop in Austin's Tequila Mockingbird studios to produce Morning Becomes Eclectic during South by Southwest. We caught up with them for the first of three live in-studio sessions last week and witnessed the raw power of Glasgow's Sons and Daughters. If our SXSW posts make it seem like......

Photo of Mallow by lavilleautady via Flickr Via Homegrown Evolution, a local blog dedicated to veggies, chicken, hoohes, bicycles and "cultural alchemy," we find an excellent ">Weekend America report about urban foraging in Los Angeles. That is, can you take a walk in your neighborhood and find and eat lunch without any cooking or prep back in the kitchen? Why, yes, yes you can. Reporter Bill Radke met up with Nance Klehm, who while......

Shadow & Light in Little Tokyo | Photo by pink_fish13 via LAist's Featured Photos pool on Flickr. Monday Jeremy D. Popkin presents Facing Racial Revolution 7pm @ Dutton's Tuesday Alan Corey presents A Million Bucks by 30 7pm @ Book Soup Christopher Rice presents Blind Fall 7pm @ Borders, West Hollywood Wednesday Milo Martin presents Poems for a Utopian Nihilist 7pm @ Book Soup Leslie Lehr presents Wife Goes On 7pm @ Dutton's Josh......

100 years and nine months ago, an American ship called Chesapeake was cannonballed by a British vessel, and not in the Ron Burgundy way. Apparently, the Americans refused to be boarded, the Brits fired and an international incident was born. A century later, our shores are still under assault, but less from the nautical variety and more of the musical kind. Very recently, we have been boarded by British Sea Power, who rocked Spaceland Thursday......

Part of an ongoing series. Last Tuesday, local singer/songwriter Jesca Hoop (MySpace), whose album Kismet was number one on Nic Harcourt's Top Ten Albums of 2007, performed a solo acoustic show at Temple Bar (MySpace) in Santa Monica, opening for Van Hunt (MySpace). Hoop's next local show will be with the Hotel Cafe Tour (MySpace) on April 12th at the Henry Fonda Theatre in Hollywood, alongside Meiko (MySpace) who was mentioned by LAist last......

Photo by puck90 via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr An update to this week's tragic Oxnard junior high school shooting: The 15-year-old victim was taken off life support after his organs were donated today. 49-year-old transient Steven Emory Butcher was found guilty of starting one of the largest wildfires in state history. The Day Fire began on Labor Day in 2006, burned over 162,000 acres and took a month to put out.......

And you thought the Burger King Chicken was crazy? Check out the Crazy Chickens this week at the Mayan / Photo by upslases via flickr. TALK Could you not get into Michael Pollan last night at the Central Library? No worries because American eating habits and food policy are a hot topic this week. Tonight, the Center for Healthy Communities presents “Hungry for Change: The Politics of Food with Marion Nestle.” The nutritionist, author......

Last August, Aimee Mann, Joan Osborne, Rob Laufer, Ian Ball from Gomez, and Al Jorgensen joined Cheap Trick and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra to recreate Sgt. Peppers on it's 40th Anniversary. They'll do it again June 28th. We're four months out from the official start of the 2008 Hollywood Bowl Season and the schedule is nearly complete. Single tickets won't go on sale for a couple months but the Bowl is offering 16 different......

Shelby Lynne will be performing songs recorded by Dusty Springfield (of 'Son of a Preacher Man' fame) tonight at Amoeba at 7 p.m. It can get bit tight and uncomfortable over there, so if you just want to watch from the comfort of your home, well, there'll be a webcast. Here's Lynne playing at a live session on KCRW back in October. &righticonhover=0x333232&text=0x333232&slider=0xF2F2F2&track=0xFFFFFF&border=0xFFFFFF&loader=0x838383&soundFile=http://aprodxn.com/laist/zfiles/shelbylynnekcrw.mp3"> Shelby Lynne @ Amoeba Music Drug Rug @ Spaceland Johnny Polanco y......

Local singer/songwriters Meiko (MySpace) and Priscilla Ahn (MySpace) share similar qualities -- they are part-Asian (Meiko is quarter-Japanese and Ahn is half-Korean), and originally from back east (Meiko from Georgia and Ahn from Pennsylvania). So perhaps it was coincidental that both were booked in back-to-back shows last week at the Hotel Cafe in Hollywood, with Meiko onstage last Wednesday and Ahn last Thursday. Meiko, a one-time Hotel Cafe waitress, became a favorite of controversial......

Last Tuesday, local singer/songwriter Jesca Hoop (MySpace), whose album Kismet was number one on Nic Harcourt's Top Ten Albums of 2007, performed at the Hotel Cafe in Hollywood. Opening for Hoop were KS Rhoads (MySpace), Rie Sinclair (MySpace), and HoneyHoney (MySpace), featuring Wendy Wang from The Sweet Hurt (MySpace). Hoop was scheduled to again perform tonight at the Hotel Cafe, but according to the venue's website, "Due to illness, Jesca Hoop has postponed her......

It's official, four major studios have canceled writer contracts -- the Spring 2008 TV is repeats and/of reality. Since Friday, 65 writer contracts have been canceled. Now, even if the strike ends in the foreseeable future, "the studios will no longer be obligated to pay the writers... The action saves the media companies tens of millions of dollars in payments, and is the first real sign of belt-tightening caused by the strike," according to......

If you missed Tinariwen at Temple Bar last November, Fader and a few other blogs have posted this from the Taureg band's instore at Other Music in New York. The group's latest cd Aman Iman has been making everyone's Best Albums of 2007 list from Rolling Stone to Pitchfork to KCRW. Their next tour is not announced yet, but we'll let you know when they're headed back to Los Angeles.......

It’s pretty quiet today in LA. So take another Alka Seltzer and rest up for work tomorrow. FILM Spend New Year’s Day in a dark theatre with a double feature of the Marx Brothers. In the 1933 satire Duck Soup, Groucho plays a newly-appointed prime minister who declares war on a neighboring country for no particular reason. It also marked Zeppo’s last film. Following is1932’s Horse Feathers. Groucho stars as the new president of......

Love it or hate it, tonight's New Year's Eve. And while half of the city has vacated for NYE's in Vegas, there's plenty to do right here in LA to welcome '08. Fireworks Catch the midnight fireworks in Marina Del Rey. At 11:55 pm and 30-seconds, one firework will be shot into the air for each second, counting down to midnight--and then a few more into 2008. The show be seen from anywhere in the......

Artist: Raul Campos Album: Loteria Beats Mixtape - Volume 1 Label: Nacional Records Release Date: 10/23/07 Listen to "Olvidela Compa" by Nortec Collective: Regular listeners of KCRW know who Raul Campos is: the resident alterna-latino DJ for the lat seven years. From listening to his radio shows, you know he's a true DJ, a mixologist, with excellent beat matching and seamless theme weaving. Loteria Beats Mixtape, Vol. 1 is like a pumped up control-board tape......

Artist: DJ Bitman Album: Latin Bitman Label: Nacional Records Release Date: November 6, 2007 Listen to the track "My Computer Is Funk": DJ Bitman is Chilean Jose Antonio "Toto" Bravo who has also gone under the name of Bitman & Roban. Latin Bitman is his second release in the US following last year's Musica Para Despues de Almuerzo and while I didn't hear that debut I really like this "sophomore" effort. You may have heard......

Everybody's doing it, right? I don't pretend to be hip or edgy or rebellious. I mean, I grew up on Billy Joel and Madonna and Motown and then the Gen Xer's basic dichotomy of KROQ versus Top 40 in the 90s. I find it increasingly harder to fall in love with albums in the downloading age, and am one of those people who obsessively compiles mixed cds for friends and iPod playlists full of......

One of the highlights of holidays past for me has always been getting to taste some of the the delicious chocolate goodies that seem to appear everywhere this time of year. So the idea of checking out and tasting some of our city's finest chocolate makes absolute sense, which is where next weekend's Los Angeles Luxury Chocolate Salon comes handily into play. The event, which is presented by TasteTV, will include speakers and demos, as......

The cold weather - and holiday festivities - descended upon Gothamist. The Rockefeller Christmas tree was lit, Broadway stagehand finally ended their strike, and NASCAR decided to run their victory lap through Times Square. There were disturbing photographs revealing the working conditions in which many city manholes are produced and ninjas were also a hot topic, either robbing homes or entering into alibis. But the city was really rocked by how Rudy Giuliani's visits......

Tonight is the most excellent show, Open Road on KCRW, which begins at 9:00 p.m., ending at midnight. DJ Gary Calamar mixes roots of Rock, Country, Jazz, Blues, and Soul with new releases that you can most see on his peer's lists. Calamar got his start at KCRW as a volunteer, moving his way to DJ after literally begging on his knees to Chris Douridas for a show. Douridas made a great choice. 1)......

Since his early twenties, Garth Trinidad has been DJing Chocolate City on KCRW for over 10 years now. He sits on the Grammy Awards R&B board in support of the new ‘best urban alternative performance’ category, created as a direct result of his continued approach to music programming. He is a much sought after music commenter, supervisor and expert in his field. To catch his show, tune in Saturday nights on KCRW from 6:00-9:00......