Yeah you have heard of the Palms Casino, and that its owned by these guys called the Maloof brothers who are really good at making things cool. But you didn't know that the Maloofs are doing the same thing to skateboarding. So they started the Maloof Money Cup, a skateboard contest with the biggest cash prize ever heard of, all the freshest skaters, and its going down July 11-13 at the OC Fairgrounds in......

Test Your Reflex plays this month at Hotel Cafe on Wednesdays | Photo by Luke Wooden via their MySpace Despite SXSW starting up this week with 100+ Los Angeles based bands heading over there, residencies are growing stronger and more venue-diverse across the line, especially on Monday nights where the volume makes it hard to choose from. Here's to a great month of residencies, rock on. Mondays The Chapin Sisters @ The Echo (Free),......

Arthur Paul Carmona, 26, an advocate for people wrongly accused of crimes who was wrongly accused himself and incarcerated for 2 1/2 years as a teenager in Orange County was killed this weekend. His name became widely known when he was arrested when he was 16 and convicted of robbing two juice bars in Irvine and Costa Mesa:His mother mustered support for her son and political and community outrage followed over police tactics that led......

Twilight Sleeps is one of the bands that opens for Pity Party tonight at Spaceland | Photo by Joya Martuscello Sometimes Monday nights lead to tough choices. For Jax at Rock Insider, it's between The Pity Party (who we interviewed this morning) and The Henry Clay People. Luckily, both bands are playing all month. Still, there are many choices. If you like your music Folk, your drinks cheap and have never been to Joe's......

We've never been to the Celebrity Center for a concert, but we can vouch for Cowboy (not Country!) musician Dave Stamey if you're into that kind of thang. Still, for those inclined to roots music, The Arthur Adams Band will be at the Baked Potato in Studio City playing blues. The Arthur Adams Band @ The Baked Potato Editors, Hot Hot Heat, Louis XIV @ The Wiltern Manic Hispanic, Death by Stereo, GG Elvis &......

Smash Fashion plays Monday nights at Crash Mansion | Photo via their MySpace page Month-long residencies are one of the best ways to catch up-and-coming bands in Los Angeles. You have at least four times to catch a band, and each time, if they are gaining popularity over each show, it will be harder to see them. Last Thursday at their final residency concert, The Airborne Toxic Event played a sold out show with......

Carmen Rizzo will play the Temple Bar tonight Be joyful with the electro-pop sounds of Hey Willpower (Will from Imperial Teen and Tomo from Tussle) at The Echo or get a more worldly groove on at the Temple Bar. Jackshit, who we interviewed once, plays tonight and there are two in-store performances as well: one at Amoeba (of course) and the other at Active Ride Show. There's a few sold out shows, but you......

The 80th Annual Academy Awards are scheduled to take place Feb. 24 at Hollywood & Highland's Kodak TheatreAuthorities have released the names of the victims in yesterday's deadly airplane collision in the skies above Corona. According to KNBC.com, "one of the victims -- Earl Smiddy, 58, of Moreno Valley -- was on the ground when he was hit by falling debris. The other victims were identified as Anthony Joel Guzman, 20, of Hesperia; Scott......

Two weeks ago, local singer/songwriter Inara George (MySpace) and her band The Bird And The Bee performed as the headliner at Detroit Bar (MySpace) in Costa Mesa. Opening for The Bird And The Bee were Two Guns (MySpace) and Charlie Wadhams (MySpace). On Wednesday, The LA Times' Kevin Bronson confirmed that The Bird And The Bee will be performing at Coachella the weekend of April 25th-27th. More photos and a video of "Again And......

Two weeks ago, locals Sea Wolf (MySpace), whose album Leaves In The River was number six on Nic Harcourt's Top Ten Albums of 2007, performed as the headliner of First Fridays (MySpace) at the Natural History Museum in Exposition Park. Opening for Sea Wolf were the Afternoons (MySpace), while DJs Allen (MySpace) and Hoseh (MySpace) spun tunes in the African Mammal Hall. Sea Wolf will open for Peter, Bjorn, and John (MySpace) at the......

Details continue to emerge about the strange case of the woman whose body was found at a towyard the day after she died in a car crash in the San Fernando Valley. The woman had been driving with her son, who now claims that his epilepsy caused him to crash the car -- and to forget he had his mother in the car with him. He believes a seizure may have led him to......

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......

Every Friday, LAist is taking you on a trip down to Orange County to uncover the unique dining experiences that await adventurous eaters willing to explore beyond the county line. This month, LAist has brought you daily coverage of some of LA’s finest late night dining spots from all over the Southland. So we’d be remiss if we didn’t throw in at least one spot from OC. Some of you readers that have probably......

Every Friday, LAist is taking you on a trip down to Orange County to uncover the unique dining experiences that await adventurous eaters willing to explore beyond the county line. With the holiday weekend and the news that The Pig was closing down, I was in the mood for some barbecue. I wanted that heavy feeling in your stomach that you get when you’ve ingested a whole cow and/or pig, when your fingernails reek......

Poor Paul Sunich. First he lost his monkey. Now he's lost his middle name. Costa Mesa-based Paul Frank Sunich, creator of the ubiquitous Julius the Monkey icon, can no longer put his name on T-shirts, according to a 16-page ruling yesterday by an Orange County U.S. District Court judge. Paul Frank Industries (PFI) prevailed in a trademark infringement lawsuit against the designer, who last year after a falling-out with the company he co-founded ten years......

Every Friday, LAist is taking you on a trip down to Orange County to uncover the unique dining experiences that await adventurous eaters willing to explore beyond the county line. When I was a UCLA student many moons ago, one of my favorite places to eat was Buck-Fitty (also known as Roll Inn Sandwich). I am somewhat dating myself in that I remember when the good-but-not-really-that-good sammiches actually cost $1.50, instead of the $3......

- You don't have to be in snow to say "mush." Try urban mushing in Costa Mesa. - "Cardinal Roger M. Mahony today apologized to victims of sexual abuse by priests in the Los Angeles Archdiocese." - Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa skips his monthly appearance on KABC-TV's Eyewitness Newsmakers because of personal questions. - By the 1930s, the Los Angeles streetcar system had nearly 600 miles of track and used more than 1,200 cars. Downtown......

Out here in Tinseltown, movies are part of our livelihood. They are meant to be an event, an experience, a true artform to be appreciated. It is ironic then, that the one of the great moviegoing traditions of yesteryear, the drive-in theater, has been nearly wiped out from the Southern California landscape. But this past weekend marked a comeback of sorts with the grand opening of the Star-Vu Drive-In in Costa Mesa. Located at the......

- With all the hoopla, you'd think that more than just 200 acres of the 4,212-acre Griffith Park had gone up in flames, but no, 200 is the number in the Griffith Park fire... and zero deaths. Then who's the winner? CBS2, because that's who Drudge is linking to on his banner headline - CBS2 - More pics of the fire on Defamer, blogging.la, and of course flickr - La Habra man decapitates woman,......

Got squeezed out of the Coachella madness and now find yourself without one of those prized three-day wristbands? Before you slit your wrists for not getting tickets in Indio for the much anticipated comeback of Zack de la Guevara fronting the band that only he should be leading, know that Rage Against The Machine announced today that they will be co-headlining the Rock the Bells mini-tour with their pals, the lovable Wu-Tang Gang. Rock......

- A delivery man was robbed of 1 large and 2 medium pizzas in Costa Mesa. The suspects were caught in their car just as they were about to go munchie. The six of them have bail set at $100,000 each for robbery, conspiracy and possession of stolen property. (CBS2) - Art costs too much in Los Angeles. Example: $22 to get into Magritte at LACMA. "That pretty much guarantees that the only people......

Earlier this month saw the launch of Orange County Food Blogs, and in charge of all the online show and tell about OC eats is Chubbypanda. We asked this "Epicurious Wanderer" for his own end-of-the-year list representing the best eats in the County, and for this list, we're going ethnic. 1. Japanese - Frenzy Sushi (my review) The freshness and quality of the fish served at Frenzy Sushi is amazing. The Hamachi no Hara......

Shine Through is exactly what happened with Aloe Blacc and his latest album. Not being a stranger of voyaging through the realms of multi-genre musical creations, most of the tracks pick up distinct personalities that add to the already captivating voice of Aloe Blacc. Blacc started his musical career as an emcee in the group Emanon, back in 1995. Since then he has had several solo experiences as a rapper, singer, and instrumentalist. Although......

While the LAPD was out in full force at the Black College Expo in what some are suggesting was an overreaction and while community leaders were asking for peace in the prisons, the rest of Los Angeles seemed to get caught up in the aggression. CBS2 tells us: Man Fatally Shot in East L.A. Man Killed, Six Wounded in Drive-By Shooting Santa Ana Man Fatally Stabbed at Bar And, in less violent news, Costa......

Summer for us often equals beer. While we aren't beer purists (is there such a thing?) we do know that what gets pumped out of a kegger isn't necessarily top quality, and that there is a whole world of light, dark, ale, lager, microbrew and so on out there. We had some time to kill before a movie recently, so we checked out the Happy Hour at The Yardhouse's Pasadena location, where we wound......