Laura Veirs is one of a great many thoughtful singer/songwriters working today, but she has distinguished herself with a crystalline, albeit nasally singing voice and light, ethereal melodies. Her albums, the most recent being 2007's Saltbreakers, offer up songs rich in natural imagery all wrapped up in a swirly, elegant production. Unfortunately, stripped of instrumentation, the songs reveal their irksome qualities. Playing a solo acoustic set at the Echo, Veirs sang beautifully and proved herself......

Country diva and Palm Springs native Shelby Lynne treated the folks in the audience for her show last night at Indio's Stagecoach Festival to an earful. But she wasn't serving up just the sweet sounds of her songs--she had an awful lot to say about how unhappy she was with the venue and the attendance."I love singing to empty seats," Lynne sarcastically said as she opened her set, remarking about the vacant chairs in the......

Mike Doughty attracts a particular crowd. They are the kind of people who know how to use the term "irony" correctly. They will dance like your crazy hippie friend did in high school and everyone pointed and laughed but you knew they didn't care because, dammit, they were feeling it and having a good time. They will play vigorous air drums with syncopated head bobs. They cannot get enough of a good thing. Mike......

Finally, after all the hubub and debate of the quality of this year's Coachella lineup, the festival got underway Friday afternoon. Featuring Jack Johnson at the top of the bill, the day featured outstanding performances from the Raconteurs who proved that they aren't just Jack White's side project but rather a band that is developing their own sound and identity. The Verve, playing for the first time in nearly a decade sounded like they hadn't......

Just announced by the Hollywood Bowl, Beck is now confirmed to play the Bowl on September 20. This will be his debut appearance as a headliner at the venue. MGMT opens the show and Spoon completes the bill. Tickets ($20 -$75) go onsale May 10. Beck is currently working on a new record (produced by Danger Mouse) planned for release this summer. Photo of Beck via his MySpace page......

It's Earth Day. And as mentioned yesterday, there are plenty of events today and in the upcoming weeks to celebrate it. For the record, one event left out of yesterday's listings for today is Metro's noontime concert at Union Station featuring Latin singer/songwriter Carina Ricco who replaces Canon (the lead singer is sick). As for the event that will close Wilshire Blvd. all day, buses are being rerouted to 8th Street between Western and Vermont.......

It won’t be apparent when she takes the stage tonight at the Troubadour, but the last time Tift Merritt was on the road, a rigorous year supporting her vibrant 2004 album, Tambourine, it left her so worn out that she fled to Paris to get lost. With no intentions of working but simply to take in the solitude of being a stranger in a country not her own, she nonetheless found herself plucking away melodies......

It was a homecoming of sorts for Alison Sudol, AKA A Fine Frenzy, as she returned to the place where she played one of her first shows, the Roxy on Sunset. The ever-adorable Sudol charmed the packed house with her piano driven melodies and effervescent voice.......

Photo by Michell Zappa via Flickr As predicted and wished for here on LAist back on February 7th, Radiohead has confirmed their summer tour dates, four of which include Southern California including two Hollywood Bowl performances. Rawk! After a show in San Francisco, here's the deal: August Sun 24: Hollywood Bowl (Los Angeles, CA) August Mon 25: Hollywood Bowl (Los Angeles, CA) August Wed 27: Cricket Wireless Amphitheatre (Chula Vista, CA) August Thu 28......

There is a song called "The March" in Astra Heights' infectious debut album, Good Problems, that is so insanely catchy that you can't help but wonder why radio stations don't play songs like it any more, and you would also think that a record company would have no problem hawking the song. But I suppose it speaks volumes of the current woeful state of the record business that Astra Heights was dropped by its......

It's hard to compete with St. Patrick's Day, something Jason Collett can testify to as he played to a thin crowd numbering in the few dozen at the Troubadour. It seemed the allure of corned beef and Guinness was just too much. What the revelers missed was a charming, laid-back set from Collett, a sometime member of the Canadian collective, Broken Social Scene. Collett's sound is a throwback to the old California rock sound by......

If you haven't heard their infectious single "That's Not My Name" burning up LA radio stations, you will soon enough. The Ting Tings, the latest UK import, brought their carefree blend of electro/dance/pop duo to Echo Park's Rec Center Studio in what was their first (and most likely of many) "proper" show in Los Angeles Tuesday night. The Rec Center was packed to see the Tings, a band that at this point really only......

Herbie Hancock is, hands down, one of the best Jazz musicians of time. After all, he won two Grammy Awards this year including Album of the Year for 'River: The Joni Letters'. And because Los Angeles is so cool like that with all the filming and stuff that goes on here, a week from this Thursday, you can be see him live, for free, in an intimate setting (as intimate as 400 people gets). Yahoo!......

We caught up with Jonathan Coulton after he participated in a live taping of the Heather Gold show, an experience he blogged as well, without noting the more relevant details -- he sang a duet of Harvey Danger's "Flagpole Sitta" with Gold reading the lyrics from an iPhone and then sang Billy Joel's "Don't Ask Me Why" with Harvey Danger's Sean Nelson. We had a couple minutes (before running out of hard drive space)......

Yeah, this is how I feel. / Photo "Supervisor Zirves" by db via LAist's flickr pool. This morning was a rough start for everyone and we still got a little sleepies in us, but we'll definitely be awake for these events tonight. After another latte. CLASSICAL* The LA premiere of "The Axe Manual" happens tonight at Zipper Concert Hall as part of the Monday Evening Concert series. The program includes important recent works by......

When you read something you like on LAist, we love it when you hit the "recommend" button, and we love it even more if you put your two cents' worth in the comments. Getting a dialog going with our readers and making sure we're giving you content you can use are top priorities for us. So here's this week's top posts, as endorsed by you via the recommend feature, or as indicated by the level......

"This is our Homecoming show," an always energetic Dave Grohl yelled at a stopping point in the Foo Fighters two+ hour long set Wednesday night, as expected the sold-out Forum crowd lit up with cheers and screams of approval. With good reason too as the Foos have become the torch-bearers for this generations version of bold and bombastic, arena rock.(with Muse hot on their heels) There are very few bands touring today that can......

For the third time in less than a year, nu-metal/rock/rap powerhouse Linkin Park, blew through Los Angeles. Bringing their now familiar sound to the sold-out Staples Center, co-frontmen Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda screamed, sang and rapped their way through a blistering hour and a half set. More Pics after the jump.........

Barbarella plays at the Arclight tonight. / Photo by atomicshakespeares via LAist's flickr pool. SPOKEN WORD The NYC-based nonprofit organization The Moth brings its StorySLAM to LA every first Tuesday of the month. If you’re good a spinning yarns, then StorySLAM is for you. They provide the theme and the mic – you put your name in the hat and if you’re picked, you have 5-minutes to tell your story – no papers allowed.......

HISTORY It's happening right now until 4 p.m. today, so check out some of the over 200 Los Angeles area focused historical organizations over at Heritage Sqaure (right off the Gold Line). More info at an earlier LAist post. 12-4:00 p.m. // Heritage Square // 3800 Homer Street, LA, California 90031 // $10 FILM Walk Cheerfully screens tonight in the Cinefamily Asian Sunday series. Directed by Yasujiro Ozu, the 1930 film blends multiple genres and......

Spaceland is A Place To Bury Strangers | Photo by Redboy via the band's MySpace. More great concert photos by Redboy here SambaLá @ Blue Cafe (Long Beach, Upstairs Room) The Ditty Bops @ McCabe's (Santa Monica) Pigeon John @ Malibu Inn (Malibu) Grizzly Bear @ Walt Disney Concert Hall (Downtown) Aceyalone @ Temple Bar (Santa Monica) Bad Religion @ House of Blues (West Hollywood) Holy Fuck, A Place to Bury Strangers, In Waves......

These murals outside Pincher's Liquor on Pico were some of your favorites this week on LAist | Photo by Osmany Rodriguez/LAist When you read something you like on LAist, we love it when you hit the "recommend" button, and we love it even more if you put your two cents' worth in the comments. Getting a dialog going with our readers and making sure we're giving you content you can use are top priorities......

We can't think of a better way to celebrate a new book than to invite musicians, poets, visual artists, performance arists and writers to respond to the new book. This is exactly what Maggie Nelson has done for her new book Women, the New York School, and Other True Abstractions and tonight is the night. Nelson's book is considered one of the first extended works that examines the roles that women played in and around......

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Fox While not the record-breaker that Cloverfield and Hannah Montana proved to be, Jumper debuted to a winning $31.7M over the long President's Day weekend. The Spiderwick Chronicles finished second with $24.4M followed by fellow newcomer Step Up 2 the Streets with $21.5M. The rancid Fool's Gold surprised by holding onto fourth with $15M ($43.9M). Clearly, Valentine's couples preferred it to the weekend's other new romantic comedy, Definitely, Maybe......

Get Your Lit On: The Week in Bookish LA includes some outstanding readings this week from some fine, fine writers including Maggie Nelson, Anne Enright, Colm Toibin, Toby Barlow, Amy Hempel, Peter Carey, John Rechy, Martha Grimes and Russell Banks....

Editors played a sold out show at The Wiltern along with Hot Hot Heat and Louis XIV on February 9, 2008....

The Kooks and The Morning Benders showcase a plateful of indie pop rock goodness at The Echo on February 8, 2008....

Photo courtesy of Warner Brothers In what can only be seen as a ratification of Mike Huckabee's belief that Satan actually exists, Fool's Gold roared to the top of the box office this weekend with a robust take of $22M. Plans are already underway for a third Kate Hudson-Matthew McConaughey pairing, tentatively titled Shit Sandwich. In further bad news, Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins finished second with a healthy gross of $17.1M in its first......

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......

Nothing says Hebrew like some good old (testament) Hip-Hop. Say what? The Israelity Tour, which is sponsored by Birthright Israel, is heading out on a West Coast tour, and will be hitting LA on February 16th for a night of music and comedy. Featured performers included Subliminal, Israel's #1 selling rap artist, and members of the T.A.C.T. Family (kind of like Subliminal's Wu-Tang Clan), as well as hip-hop/funk band Coolooloosh and singer-songwriter Michelle Citrin,......