Maryland’s best (and loudest) snyth pop band, Trans Am, will be checking out the sunshine in Los Angeles and playing rock music inside The Troubadour on April 20th. You might wanna check them out while you pound some cold beers at the back bar. Could make for a good night. Their new record “Sex Change” is descent and out now on Thrill Jockey Records (the one before it called “Liberation” really kicks ass). Trans Am also just released a pretty killer video for their song “Conspiracy of the Gods” on youtube today. Check it out… click here.

They’ve gotta call themselves “Heaven & Hell” and they can’t play any Ozzy era Sabbath songs (cuz Sharon Osbourne’s a retarded cunt) but Ronnie James Dio, Tony Iommi, Gezzer Butley & Vinnie Appice will be playing Dio era Sabbath LIVE April 25th @ The Forum. A small band called Megadeath will be opening, maybe you’ve heard of them? The crowd is gonna be killer at this show, count me in!

Does anyone know if Dio really lives in a castle he built in North Hollywood? If that rumor is true… it’s one of the most metal thing I’ve ever heard of.

[Click to make this flyer BIGGER]

Two of Los Angeles’ most delightfully unpredictable record labels, Cold Sweat and Buddyhead (that one’s mine), will be out in the humid heat of TexASS to present their current rosters for this year’s cluster fuck of good times known as South by Southwest! If you’re gonna be in Austin this week, stop by The Blender Balcony on Thursday for good times, good tunes & according to the flyer (made by Travis Millard) “tons of ludes”!!!

(Line-up and more info after the jumper)
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As I warned you all before almost a month ago here with this post… Washington DC’s premiere vaudeville Steam punk band, The Cassettes, will be playing Los Angeles all weekend starting tonight with Spindrift at The Echo. You’re not gonna wanna miss these cats…

08 Mar 2007 The Echo – Los Angeles, California w/ Spindrift, Moon Upstairs and Crooked Cowboys (18+)
09 Mar 2007 El Cid – Los Angeles, California
10 Mar 2007 Hotel Cafe – Los Angeles, California
11 Mar 2007 The Tangier – Los Angeles, California

Download a couple songs for free after the jump… I can do that kinda shit cuz they’re on my label Buddyhead, being the boss rules.
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Any bar with the slogan “Dedicated to pleasure” has to be good I thought as we rolled into The Backstage a few nights ago in Culver City. I couldn’t have been anymore right, the place rules! Here’s why: Pitchers of beer (Stella is $14, not bad), a fireplace, couches, really drunk locals telling stories about having to change their mom’s diapers, a rad jukebox (Oasis, Stevie Wonder, Primal Scream, The Rolling Stones, Dylan, Tom Petty, The Kinks, Iggy Pop, Television, etc), a killer Dylan “Don’t Look Back” poster next to the door to the men’s shitter, an awesome naked chick poster (photo of it after the jump), a black n’ white photo of Johnny Cash when you walk in, a pool table, a sit down Ms. Pac Man arcade game and… it’s not in Silverlake

The highlight of our trip to The Backdoor was when I overheard one lady say to her late-60′s mother, “Come on Mom hurry up and finish your beer so we can get the fuck out of here”!!!! Now that’s what I call raw dog! Oh and Tuesday nights (which is tonight!) are “regulars night”…. Which means they’ve got two dollar beers and two dollar shots! Now that’s what I call a Tuesday night!

This might as well be Top LA Legend #1 kids… Who votes “Yay!” on that one?
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Glastonbury The Film , not to be confused with Glastonbury The Movie, is now playing at Nuart Theatre (11272 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, CA – Map) every day at 2:00 5:15 & 8:30. It’s a rockumentary covering the history of the Festival from when it started in 1970 all the way up to 2005. Plus it’s got some live performances by Oasis, Terry Reid, Primal Scream, Coldplay, Blur, Massive Attack, David Bowie, Bjork, Blur and a bunch of other bands. It’s supposed to be kinda killer so I’m gonna go check it out I think. Here’s the preview below chumps.

For the record… no one paid me to write about this film, I just loved the few times I got to attend the festival myself and I’m stoked on anything that has anything to do with Oasis. But… if someone wants to send me a free copy on this film on DVD I won’t refuse the gift. FREE SHIT YEAH DO IT!

Just in case you happen to be interested in a REAL rock band and not the usual poser shit that’s posted here…

(Photo courtesy of the infamous Nardwuar, click here for his interview with QOTSA)
One of LA’s best (not to mention… sexiest) bands, Queens Of The Stone Age, just finished a new record and they’re gonna call it “Era Vulgaris”. I dunno know what the name means, but I’m gonna go out on a a limb and guess it’s some sort of Yoga position. Josh is stoked on Yoga. Their shitty label claims they will have it in stores by June 7th, but you know how labels are. Check out this short youtube clip previewing snippets from the new Queens record by clicking here. It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing kids. Plus, I can personally assure you the record is a sonic fellatio (which is what I suggested to the band that they name the record) cuz I got to hang out in the studio and drink their beer a few nights. In short, what I heard blew my ears. Get it? Fellatio… blew… HA. Oh and the word on the street is that they’ve got guest spots from The Strokes singer and number one Joey Ramone impersonator – Julian Casablancas, The Dark Lord himself – Trent Reznor, Mark Lanegan (whos so massive and scary I’m not gonna even write anything before his name), and the dude from ZZ Top with the weird guitars and even weirder beard – Billy Gibbons all on the new record. The only thing better would be if they let the crazy bald bass player back in the band. Now that guy’s scary. Visit Queens on the web at www.myspace.com/queensofthestoneage and www.qotsa.com.

And no I don’t work for this bands label, I’m not in the band, no one paid me to write this… I just happen to like real rock bands. Plus like I said before, these dudes give me free beer sometimes.

A while ago I posted about how BLD on Beverly had “killer French press coffee” and I wasn’t fuckin’ lying man. Their coffee is so good I finally asked em what they make it in and bought my own off Amazon.com. I’ve already had about ten cups so far today since I busted this chrome bad-boy out of it’s box this afternoon and I see no signs of slowing down… this could be an all-nighter folks. I’m so high on French Roast I feel like I’m on stage with the fucking Eagles playing “Victim Of Love”. I never dug The Eagles as a kid cuz I was into shitty punk rock and you couldn’t like both, but the older I get the more I’m feelin’ their records… even if they did rip Gram Parsons off. Besides, after seeing that “Fallen Angel” dvd, as much as I love Gram’s songs the dude was a straight up trust-funded POSER anyhow. Homeboy took limos to The Troubadour while the rest of The Bryds loaded in. Anyways, sorry about the tangent (I told you I was loaded) and back to the French Press… If you’re a fan of beans and water, pick yourself up one of these bad boys ASAP right here. It really doesn’t get any better than this…

Another thing that was killer about today… I heard that The Jesus & Mary Chain are practicing right now somewhere in Los Angeles and after they play their first show in 9 years @ Coachella, they are going to start making another record. Sweet fuckin’ tits is all I gotta say about that.

If William Reid happens to be reading this… give me my fucking Ipod back bro, I know you stole it. Long story…

I’m by no means a car wash expert, in fact I haven’t washed my car in months. Yep, I’m that guy. Mainly it’s because I’m really fucking lazy. But it’s also kinda due to the fact that the last two times I went to one of those drive-thru car washes they knocked the emblem off the hood of my car, which is a total bummer cuz my car is from 1973 so it takes months to reorder that shit. And no that’s not my car in the photo above. Anyhoo… today while I was busy doing nothing I discovered this bitchin’ yet affordable car wash at the Valero gas station on Beverly and La Brea (307 N La Brea ave), which according to http://www.losangelesgasprices.com also has the lowest gas price in town too (cept they’re off by ten cents so what do they know?). Not only is my ride spotless but my emblem stayed on and the dude working there was almost too nice (he actually high-fived me after he armoralled my tires). Plus it’s pretty much a giant robot that washes you car so they get points for that, I felt like I was on a shitty Disneyland ride. Speaking of Disneyland, the Towers of Terror rule! More exciting photos of my car wash experience after the jump… buckle up.

Where do you fuckers wash your cars?
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Sean mentioned steam punk here so I figured I’ll let you all know when the best steam punk band I know is coming to LA…

The Cassettes are heading out on a good old fashion American tour in two days and they’ll be playing four shows in Los Angeles. This band is the real deal, they’ll be busking on the street in some cities and selling Cassettes tea at their merch booth! When was the last time you heard of a band doing that?

08 Mar 2007 The Echo – Los Angeles, California w/ Spindrift, Moon Upstairs and Crooked Cowboys (18+)
09 Mar 2007 El Cid – Los Angeles, California
10 Mar 2007 Hotel Cafe – Los Angeles, California
11 Mar 2007 The Tangier – Los Angeles, California

If you haven’t checked them out yet, download the two tracks after the jump. You can get their new cd ‘Neath The Pale Moon (which is out on MY label, Buddyhead) from your local record store or from one of the online services below. You might wanna also pick up the reissue (with bonus tracks) of their second record O’er The Mountain which features members of Dead Meadow as the backing band. The singer of The Cassettes, Shelby, produced their first two records. But the DM dudes aren’t in the band anymore, it’s a full new and improved lineup now… for more on The Cassettes visit their myspace page @ http://myspace.com/thecassettes, their website @ http://www.thecassettes.com/ and Wikipedia page @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cassettes.
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II found this killer site called “Alt List #2 Bitch!” that is selling high quality music DVD bootlegs and they’ve got some legendary Los Angeles rock shows on their list…. Check out the site here , ignore the fake legal mumbo-jumbo they’ve got on there to cover their asses and email shootspeedkill@gmail.com for more info.
Check out these shows:
White Stripes – Spaceland La,Ca 3-1-01
The Germs – Whiskey La,Ca 1978
The Jesus Lizard – Aaron’s record’s La,Ca 5-19-96
The Rolling Stones – Inglewood,Ca 1975
Tom Petty – Santa Monica Civic Auditorium Santa Monica,Ca 1978
U2 – Los Amgeles,Ca 11-18-87 with U2 as openers
Black Sabbath – Santa Monica,Ca 1975 DKRC (Pro)
Nirvana – Rhino Records La,Ca 6-23-89
Guns N Roses – Music Machine La,Ca 1986
Guns n’ Roses – Roxy la,Ca 1-18-86 2 dvd
Guns n’ Roses – Trobador La,Ca 7-11-86
Pearl Jam – Forum La,Ca 7-9-06 2 dvd
Racontuers – Wiltern Theatre La,Ca 6-7-06
Metallica – Anaheim,Ca 11-9-96,Agents of misfortune(ww/cliff) 1982
Neko Case – Wiltern Theatre Los Angeles,Ca 6-23-06
Slayer – Costa Mesa,Ca 1983
Social Distortion – Losangeles,Ca 1987
Soundgarden – La,Ca 2-11-88
U2 – Memorial Coliseum La,Ca 11-18-87
Wesley Willis – Rhino Records 10-22-95,Kroq La,Ca 10-20-95
Hole – Club Lingerie La,Ca 10-90
Hole – Night Moves La,Ca 11-90
Eagles Of Death Metal – Virgin Megastore Hollywood,Ca 4-14-06
Kyuss – Palm Springs,Ca 12-31-92
Failure – Whiskey La,Ca 5-28-96
Low – Border’s,Ca + Troubador La,Ca 4-11-96
Frank Zappa – KCET Studios La,Ca 8-27-74 (Pro)

…Maybe you’ve heard of em? If you haven’t, you should. Shat, the deranged brainchild of Jeff Wood (who has a bullet in his head – click here for the actual newspaper article on it), have been called “our generations Bob Dylan with a particular predilection for vernacular references to the more choice pieces of the female anatomy”. But you could probably already tell that from looking the photo above… can you say “dildo mohawk”? As Shats website says, the story goes like this…

“Several years ago, Jeff Wood, an already budding musical prodigy, was forever transformed into a modern day superhero when a stray bullet was lodged into his frontal lob as he stood by innocently and unknowingly during a gang war shootout in a less than friendly Los Angeles neighborhood. This in fact could have been the actual and factual true “Magic Bullet”. Instead of killing Wood, it remained firmly in place as he lay bed ridden; the victim of a small plug of mystical metal that began manifesting and awakening previously unknown powers in Jeff Wood. As he relearned menial day-to-day tasks such as tying his shoes, he found that his musical gifts had not only remained unaffected, but had taken on the quality of a twisted uber-genius. Gone forever from his once normal brain were trivial thoughts and worries of the average mind, and replaced with a child-like primal mind driven by sex, food, and rock n’ roll music. The transformation was complete, and the world was ready to be saved. Jeff Wood was the chosen one.”

With classic songs like “if She Has A Kid, You Know She Fucks”, “Vagetarian”, “It’s About Time You Sucked On My Penis Now”, “Tit Fuck”, “Born To Be A Lesbian”, “Rob From The Rich and Give to the Whores” and “I Fucked Your Wife”… Shat will either leave you laughing so hard your sides will be splitting or leave you really bummed and offended. There’s no middle ground with this band… you WILL have an opinion. I highly recommend attending at least one of the two LA shows they’re playing this week, you’ve never seen a live show like this one. Their new 69 song CD “Cuntree” (which is also 69 minutes long, clever eh?) can be found at your local record store or on Itunes by clicking here. Nothing like a little self promotion eh? Yep, Shat is on my record label, Buddyhead. Check our Shat on myspace to stream some of the hits.

Feb 15 @ Dipazza’s in Long Beach, C.A. (9:00 PM)
Feb 16 @ The Scene Bar in Glendale, C.A. (8:00 PM)

How many Shat fans do we have reading this site? Don’t be scared… raise your hands!

The rest of Shat’s tour dates after the jump…
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So I’ve somewhat been on a quest lately to find “cool” bars in Hollywood that serve pitchers of beer and preferably have good rock n’ roll music in their jukebox or at least playing. Hey man, it’s a lot harder than you’d think it would be… if anyone knows of any bars that fit the description above… fess up now.

I first posted here that I was pretty sure Barney’s Beanery was the only place that had that shit going on. I shoulda quit there while I was ahead but people started commenting and telling me about other places to check out so I figured I’d give some of the suggestions a whirl… like Birds (which in case you missed that verdict… it was”NO GOOD”).

Then this week, against my better judgment I went to check out St. Nick’s Irish pub on 3rd street because someone emailed me that they had pitchers and a killer jukebox. First off, there’s zero point zero pitchers at this shitbox bar, no waitresses, the tables look like Ron Jeremy just glazed em with his load and it takes longer to get a beer than it does to get through the line at the DMV. And in what world is that a good jukebox? Maybe on planet suck dude, Alanis Morissette was on there.This place needs to have a firebomb dropped on it immediately to rid world of a large and aggressive college cockroaches community that thrive there. I didn’t go to college for a reason.

I’m pretty much giving up my search for pitchers of beer and sticking with Barneys. Oh and by the way… the jukebox at Barney’s is getting better… they’ve recently added Stones – Let It Bleed, Dylan’s – Blonde On Blonde, Metallica, Radiohead, Alice Cooper and a few others…. And I talked to the new manager and he promises The Stooges, Oasis and The Black Crowes to be added very soon. Now if we could only get em to kill the karaoke nights.

Mmmmm… beer. Countdown to brewdown.

Will posted a couple days ago about Chewbacca getting arrested on Hollywood Blvd… Don’t worry it wasn’t the real Chewbacca, just some street performer dude. I was pretty excited this morning when I opened up the LA Times and noticed an article with the tagline, “Nobody tells this wookiee what to do!’ “ Click here to read that baby. I posted some of the highlights below and if you haven’t seen the video of Chewy cuffed and be led to a police car click here to watch it.

From Los Angeles Times:

“LAPD officers arrested “Star Wars” street performer Frederick Evan Young, 44, of Los Angeles in his furry brown wookiee costume Thursday on a charge of misdemeanor battery for allegedly head-butting a tour guide who complained about Young’s treatment of two visitors from Japan.

The incident — witnessed by Superman and other impersonators — is the latest clash outside the landmark cinema between visitors and performers dressed as movie and cartoon characters.”

“Authorities said it began when a Star Line Tours guide allegedly observed the Chewbacca character harassing two young girls from a rival Japanese tour company.

Guide Brian Sapir said that when he asked the performer not to touch the visitors, Young became angry.

“You could see in his eyes he was exploding beneath the mask,” Sapir said Friday. “He yelled at me, ‘Nobody tells this wookiee what to do!’ ”

After a security guard suggested that the 6-foot-5 Young take a walk down Hollywood Boulevard to cool off, he became more agitated, said Sapir, 32. “He threw off his mask and walked toward me and slammed his head into my forehead.”

Other guards held Young for police. He was later released on $20,000 bail and is expected in court later this month, said Lt. Paul Vernon, a Los Angeles Police Department spokesman. “

“The whole thing has the creators of the “Star Wars” character shaking their heads.

“The street performer doesn’t have any affiliation with Lucasfilm,” said company spokeswoman Lynne Hale. “Nevertheless, we are disappointed that someone dressed as Chewbacca would behave in this way.”

I love LA.

I saw this van while I was driving and I had to snap a few photos of it. I couldn’t believe that this person was so amped on Jesus and Christmas (in February mind you) that they had to advertise it all over their shitbox mini van. It’s like, fuck… now I know YOU exist… thanks for bumming my world out buddy. Wait, all those weaknesses and sins won’t make me happy? Damn!
(more shitty cellphone photos of the Jesus-mobile after the jump)
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