Last night, Indie 103.1's "Also I Like To Rock" series continued, at the Hammer Museum in Westwood, with performances from local bands Miss Derringer (MySpace) and The Deadly Syndrome (MySpace). Indie 103.1's Mr. Shovel (MySpace) has been actively supporting Miss Derringer, testifying that "Watching Miss Derringer perform for the first time is like setting into a dusty western ghost town and finding yourself in the middle of a British Blanket Bingo movie cast with......

A Threading in Progress Good news! Vinita's, the best threading salon in Westwood, opened up a new location on La Cienega. Obviously you're thinking, "thank God." This location is way more central, it eliminates that stupid Santa Monica Blvd. through Beverly Hills drive, and it’s right near all those fancy restaurants so for that special post-thread luncheon, your eyebrows will stand up to everyone else's. And while the results from this salon are near......

Interesting interview with Menotti Go next weekend to UCLA to see the Medium, an opera by Gian Carlo Menotti, who sadly passed away last year. Seating is extremely limited, but you guys are in for a treat because its playing four days in a row, it’s FREE, and it’s in English. You can also join us in our dubious distinction as the oddest group of people ever (see the comments). The opera is structured......

If you consider having three storefronts in Los Angeles a chain, then PitFire Pizza Company is just that. However, for a chain, their food is excellent. And a few LAist Featured Photos contributors prove that with their photography at each of their locations: NoHo Arts District, Downtown and Westwood. Submit your Eye Nosh food 'porn' photos and mini-reviews to LAist via LAist Featured Photos on Flickr.......

"I was sitting in Starbucks studying when all of a sudden these dudes started playing music outside the window and all these people started mobbing around them," explained UCLA student and LAist contributor Henry David. "I was like zoits 'it's the Kooks!'" And so it began: The Kooks invaded Westwood after an unannounced stop in Venice. About 150 people packed out in front of the Village Theatre as the famous band pulled up like rockstars......

Photo by Maryam S. via Flickr ... on the sidewalk at the ever so iconic Westwood building, the Village Theatre Westwood (961 Broxton Ave). Have fun! Update, 3:56 p.m.: The Kooks are walking over to the UCLA campus to play. No word yet on where they are headed specifically. Update, 4:33 p.m.: About 150 showed up for the initial concert and now The Kooks are heading to a frat house to play, possibly indoors.......

Photo by hiddedevries via Flickr COMEDY It's the last week of the Los Angeles Comedy Festival in Hollywood. There are two shows tonight (one at 8:00 p.m., another at 9:30 p.m.) that include 18 Mighty Mountain Warriors, Dry Hump and The Comedy Jesus Show. 8:00 p.m., 9:30 p.m. // McCadden Theatre // 1157 N. McCadden Place, Los Angeles // $12/show CHEAP EATS Whether you're over the hill on the East or Westside, or even......

Photo of the now destroyed Mann National courtesy of Los Angeles Times photographic archive, UCLA Library. Copyright Regents of the University of California, UCLA Library. Is Westwood making a comeback? The LA Times thinks so, in today's article on the burgeoning real estate development in UCLA's backyard. But isn't this a story we've heard a million times before? It goes something like this: Westwood used to be a great pedestrian area, then it fell......

Mark Lacter at LA Biz Observed is reporting that "the per-barrel price of crude was reached in after-hours electronic trading after the Energy Department reported unexpected declines in U.S. crude inventories and refinery operating rates." That means a barrel is now $115.31 easily tipping gas over $4 in the Los Angeles area. "Prices are up 4.4 percent this week and 82 percent from a year ago," reports Bloomberg. Lacter reports regular is going for $3.95......

Via GOOD Magazine's blog, we find Andy Bower's video report for Slate.com on the "stupidest bike lane in America," which happens to be in the same neighborhood as one of the most respected schools in the nation -- UCLA. The 275 ft. class II bike lane runs on Gayley between Levering and Weyburn Avenues (interactive map below, lane marked in orange, try finding it!) If you've got a stupider bike lane, he welcomes you......

At UCLA, spring break officially begins today after exams, but as tradition states, on the Wednesday of finals week, students must undress and run like there's no tomorrow (it's rumored that former President Bill Clinton will join in on the next Undie Run before he addresses graduates at the main commencement ceremony in June). As usual, here's some of the craziness that took place, beginning at the Strathmore tunnel.........

Chipotle is hot for Westwood and UCLA is hot (or just plain cheap) for them As said in Extra, Extra, thanks to our friends at EaterLA, there are free burritos in Westwood tonight: "Those poor students and cheap business people, they love the freebies. A new Chipotle opens on Broxton today, and to commemorate, they're giving away free burritos." One student reader phoned in from the line. "It is sooooo long. This is crazy......

Hey, you know what's great? Hot dogs! You know what's even better? A new hot dog stand in a college neighborhood! Encino favorite The Stand has just opened a new location in Westwood, bringing a new flavor to UCLA's backyard. As a former Westwood resident, I can definitely tell you that there's always room for another cheap, unique, and fast eatery in town, and The Stand looks like it will deliver the hot doggy......

Breakfast of champions pictured above, delivered directly to your apartment/dorm/oral cavity The first thing you blurt out when you walk into Jose Bernstein's is "it's a fuckin' hole in the wall" because it is a fuckin' hole in the wall". But that's never been a problem for UCLA students because what we lack most are money and holes. But Bernstein's is clean, hygienic and delicious so we do it anyway. There is a caveat......

I was born and raised in LA. My first experience with public transportation was at age 6 when my mom said we could ride the bus to the mall. We waited at the bus stop for 30 minutes but the bus never came. So we walked home. That pretty much sums up how I feel about the bus right now. For 5 years (during and after college) I lived on the East Coast; I......

Back in July, LAist and you, our dear readers, had some fun with Walk Score, a site that lets you punch in your address and spits out a walkability score for your neighborhood. Some Los Angeles neighborhoods earned a very respectable "walkers paradise" rating and some just plain sucked (that's what you get when you live on Quakertown Ave. in the northwest Valley). A recent Brookings Institute study finds that Los Angeles ranks 12th......

There was an article in the LA Times some time ago about the Downtown arts and culture scene suffering Westside patronage due to rush hour traffic. Unless residents we're already Downtown, buying a ticket to a play, symphony concert or opera was not worth the frustration stuck in traffic. On Wednesday, the LA Opera announced their new weekday service to take ticket holders on a luxury motor coach from the Federal Building in Westwood to......

Hello everyone and welcome to The Brew Review. This is your one stop shop for what is going on in world of delicious beer in Los Angeles. Today’s episode: The Westwood Brewing Company The Westwood Brewing Company is a medium sized brew pub boasting an indoor bar/ restaurant as well as a large enclosed patio. Contrary to the name, this Westwood Company does not do any brewing of their own. Inside, the bar had......

OK, well it isn't exactly the same make and model as the old farmer's market, which recently kicked the bucket -- but it's got heart, which is all that matters. You see, the popular Westwood Farmer's Market of Weyburn Ave was shut down by the LAFD in March 2006 because of safety concerns during construction. There were problems re-establishing the farmer's market on other nearby streets because as everybody knows, Westwood residents and merchants......

Wandering home after a Tuesday night of philandering we happened upon this tearful sight -- what appeared to be a Bentley in a fender-bender with a minivan. It's not often that such cars are involved in a traffic collision, so when it does happen it is somewhat of a spectacle. We were expecting to see rubberneckers up and down the block emerge, without shoes even (fuck shoes!), but this was not the case. It......

Get Ye Back to the Red Line: From trolley to hearse, take the last ride on the infamous Holly Trolley before it shuts down at 2:30 a.m. tonight. Fly me to the...: Van Nuys, Union Station and now Westwood are easy ways to get to LAX. But don't expect to be able to park in Westwood while you pose on the Spanish Steps since there is "no overnight parking is permitted Monday – Thursday."......

You know that beautiful corridor between Westwood and Brentwood on Wilshire - all that grass, and lack of skyscrapers, and what's the word: open space? It belongs to the Veterans. It's called the West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs campus. George Bush and the feds want it, they want to be able to build on it, and lease or sell it to Big Business. And when it looked like the $120 billion Iraq War spending bill......

In one of the worst-publicized but most delicious days on our calendar is Dessert Day up in Westwood. What the Farmers Market lacks in web presence or marketing they're making up in that sweet stuff today, as the new-to-us goCityKids site tells us: Westwood Farmers Market lures dessert connoisseurs with delicacies ranging from Asian Pear Raspberry Cobbler to Dark Chocolate Carmel Corn. Visitors can indulge in 30 different tarts, cobblers, pies, cheesecake, scones, and......

Plans to tear down the hideous 17-story Federal Building at 11000 Wilshire Boulevard are moving swiftly. Before you get all excited about the tearing down of ugliness in the hopes that such ugliness will be replaced by a Gehry-esque fantasy of steel and movement or a Meier-esque tribute to clarity and light, consider that it could get uglier. That's right. The FBI plans to setup shop in its place. See...we told you it could......

Police cruisers and fire trucks were rolling into Westwood immediately after Saturday's game, police helicopters circled over UCLA throughout the night. Students ran through the streets cheering "F*ck SC!" and "Go Bruins!" but were quickly stopped by the numerous patrolling police cruisers. In a sense, victory celebrations were stuffed by a copious LAPD presence. When students (some naked) partying in the streets of Frat Row set an old couch on fire, LAPD descended upon......

LACityNerd comments on LA Curbed's commentary on Daily Bruin's article about DOT's proactive enforcement of cars in driveway aprons at sidewalks. We've had our own parking problems in Westwood, but as to parking in aprons, you deserve a ticket -- it gets in the way of our bikes. As one commenter on Curbed said, "Living in the City 101: YOU CANNOT PARK ON THE SIDEWALK." NPR reports that in Los Angeles, 67.8 percent of......

by Ericka Lozano Okay, Elina, I'll take the bait and defend my beloved Westwood, even if no one else will. I have to say that to bash a whole neighborhood because you got stuck in a parking garage overnight when you didn't read the signs (!!!) seems like you overreacted. I lived in Westwood for four years, and worked at UCLA almost the whole time. I still serve on the board of the Westwood......

Aside from septuagenarians and UCLA freshmen, I have no idea why anyone would willingly choose to live in or around Westwood, a neighborhood whose motto should be Westwood: Where Fun Goes to Die. Every time I think Westwood can't sink any further into the morass of suckitude in which it dwells, it manages to surprise me by sinking even lower. Sweet Westwood, how do I despise thee? Let me count the ways. Reason #147......