The WGA Board voted unanimously last night to not picket the 50th Grammy Awards, February 10th at Staples Center. If there was an exasperating gasp of relief following the WGA vote, excuse us for missing it. For most of our lifetime the Grammys has done little more than exemplify just how out of touch the so-called mainstream is with Gen x+y's musical taste (with apologies to The Dixie Chicks). The only way this Grammy Awards......

While waiting for the premiere of Project Runway, I came across the list of designers that were participating this season. One name caught my eye. This is a name I already knew. He lives in LA. I had noticed several of his designs in photos from red carpet events. His dresses were always the ones I'd put in my 'if I could ever buy' category. Here was his name on the list of designers......

The Donnas, Donita Sparks @ The Roxy Eagles, Dixie Chicks @ Nokia Theatre John Doe @ McCabe's Serj Tankian @ House of Blues Backbiter @ Mr. T's Bowl Peter Frampton @ The Canyon 1990s, The Airborne Toxic Event, Inberst @ The Troubadour TSOL, Smut Peddlers, 45 Grave, The Detours, The Crowd @ Vault 350......

The Eagles, The Dixie Chicks @ Nokia Velvet Revolver @ Irvine Meadows (postponed due to wildfires. The show will take place Dec. 12 at the Gibson Amphitheatre. More info...) UNKLE @ Echoplex RBD @ Home Depot Center Cute Phase, Black Tie Dynasty @ Vertigos The Warlocks, The Meek, Magic Lantern @ Alex's Bar Babyland @ Spaceland Blonde Redhead @ House of Blues, Anaheim Uh Huh Her, X Ray Ok @ The Knitting Factory Monsters......

The Eagles - "Take it Easy" - Live (1973) The Eagles, Dixie Chicks @ Nokia Theatre Sia @ El Rey The Primos, The Happy Hollows, The Movies @ The Bordello Kelly Willis @ Safari Sam's Earlimart, Office, Pulsars @ The Troubadour Blackalicious, Introducing The Mighty Underdogs, Crown City Rockers @ The Roxy Mum, Our Brother the Native, Tom Brosseau @ Orpheum Tracy Huffman, Mule, Dave Gleason @ The Echo Giant Panda @ Temple Bar......

The Go! Team - "Grip Like a Vice" The Go! Team @ The Echo The Eagles, Dixie Chicks @ Nokia Theatre Bobby Vinton @ Cerritos Center Carlos Guitarlos @ Liquid Kitty First Wave Hello @ Troubadour Boys Like Girls, All Time Low, The Audition, We the Kings @ House of Blues Pierced Arrows, Jail Weddings, Devon Williams @ Spaceland The Go! Team - "Junior Kickstart"......

The Go! Team - "Doing it Right" Tell me this isn't the best single and video of the year Silversun Pickups @ The Wiltern Eagles, Dixie Chicks @ Nokia Theatre The Go! Team @ The Glass House Weird Al @ The Greek J. Lo, Marc Anthony @ Honday Center Jill Scott @ House of Blues Harry Dean Stanton @ The Mint Paul Green School of Rock @ The Roxy West Indian Girl @ Spaceland......

Silly Jack Weiss! He thinks the Valley is different from the City. Tsk tsk! The Daily News takes the Councilman to task (lovingly) for his slip of the tongue. Halloween events abound in the city this time of year, and LAist is your best source for the hottest spooky spots: check out our continuing Halloween coverage here. OMGZZZ Kitten Cops! I can has ratburgerz?? The LAPD is recruiting feral cats to root out rodents......

10/2, 4-6, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13 - Morrissey @ The Palladium 10/2 - Nick Lowe, Ron Sexsmith @ Safari Sam's 10/3 - Datarock, Foreign Born, Honeycut @ The Echo 10/3 - Mark Ronson @ The El Rey 10/5 - Metric @ Henry Fonda 10/6 - Bloc Party, Justice, Satellite Party, Kinky, Autolux, Celebrity Skin @ Detour Festival 10/6 - Lukas Rossi @ Viper Room 10/6 - Steve Miller @ The Greek 10/7 -......

LAist is proud to offerer a weekly chart roundup of Billboard Magazine’s most coveted rankings. Join us as we revel in the conventional standard of musical success. Let us cross our fingers, hoist our lighters, and dream together of the supreme resurrection of artist-driven recordings that will forever eclipse the dark cloud of big label greed, A&R sleaze and disposable audio. Amen. Here are this week’s chart toppers. Behold the #1s. __________________________________________________________________________________________ Billboard Charts......

Dedication rounds continued last night with big voices, little skirts, and enough Whitney and Celine worship to maketh us puke. But these chicks mean business. With their breathy and booming display of vocal control they overpowered and outsang the boys for a second straight week. Gina Glocksen (Dedicated to: Her Boif) Punky hair stripe, tattoos, big heels and a fancy, red satin dress. Simon is confused about her image. We approve of her rocking......

LAist is proud to offer a weekly chart roundup of Billboard Magazine’s most coveted rankings. Join us as we revel in the conventional standard of musical success. Let us cross our fingers, hoist our lighters, and dream together of the supreme resurrection of artist-driven recordings that will forever eclipse the dark cloud of big label greed, A&R sleaze and disposable audio. Amen. Here are this week’s chart toppers. Behold the #1s. __________________________________________________________________________________________ Billboard Charts......

We are hearing murmurings that LA classical FM station K-Mozart is about to go the way of its other Mt. Wilson Broadcasting sister-stations by trading in their bowties for bolos and going country. When KZLA stopped bootscootin to country music and switched over to the soulful jamz of Movin' 93.9 in August of '06, it left a twanging void on LA's FM dial. Mt. Wilson's KKGO (1260 AM) tried to pick up the slack......

Recommended Dixie Chicks - Shut Up & Sing - Remember when rugged individualism was the hallmark of the "American character"? Remember when that individualism was defined by a willingness to speak your mind? Remember when criticizing your governmental overlords was a patriotic duty? Yeah, me neither. But maybe country music trio The Dixie Chicks were trying to recall that mythologized frontier spirit when lead singer Nathalie Maines criticized President Bush for launching the Iraq......

What did you miss at the Grammys last night? Lionel Richie sang "Hello," (sans clay bust) and it was like warm honey. That's what you missed. I'd like to put my vote in now for a fierce Lionel Richie comeback. Also, The Police policed, Chris Rock made a funny about RHCP with their jocks in socks before JT ever put his in a box, Christina Aguilera sang her guts up on a James Brown......

Every morning at 6am we are posting a video of someone singing or playing the "Star Spangled Banner". One of the coolest things about 2006 was the return of The Dixie Chicks, who came out with an amazingly powerful record, a successful nationwide tour, a super insightful documentary, and several Grammy noms. Turned out that their only crime was in criticizing the President a few years before the country did. Lou Reed used to......

Maybe it wasn't cool in the South to go to the record store to get the new Dixie Chicks cd, but on the internet nobody can judge you. The Chicks were boycotted by Country radio and their fans said that they shouldn't have said what they said about President Bush, but when it came down to picking up their new cd, the people let their fingers do the buying. And if you ask us,......

LAist has had a great year and we've tried to share some of that with you. We've given away box seats to some Hollywood Bowl shows that included picnic baskets and free parking, we've given away tickets to Vegoose, the Dixie Chicks, and we even got a bunch of people into that secret Red Hot Chili Peppers gig... and those were only some of our contests. Today we are giving away a super cool......

Straight from my iPod: 1. Justin Timberlake - SexyBack The pinnacle of guilty pleasure straight from MTV's Total Request Live fame. Still a great club banger. 2. The Fray - Look After You All of their songs sound the same but this one hasn't lost its replayability. 3. The Dixie Chicks - The Long Way Around There is nothing to feel guilty about listening to the Dixie Chicks. They kick ass. The only reason......

Say it with me… Mary J Blige… Doesn’t it just roll off your tongue with a perfect cadence? Clearly it does to the nominating committee of the 49th annual Grammy Awards. Miss Dancerie is up for 8 golden gramophones, Roxy sweethearts RHCP are nominated for 6 awards, JT is hoping to bring sexy back, Bob Dylan probably doesn’t give a shit that "Modern Times" was passed over for Album of the Year, and I......

Dixie Chicks @ Staples Mates of State @ El Rey Lionel Richie @ Kodak Royal Crown Revue @ Viper AM Radio, The Man, The Foundation @ Roxy Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys @ Cozy's Bar & Grill Chad, Pianorag, Chloe White @ The Mint Freaky Tiki @ Taix The Morlocks, Purple Gang @ The Echo Jake Mattison, The Make @ Lava Lounge Mad Temple, Krome, Black Guppy, Shotgun Blues @ Whisky Humdinger, Jews......

Friday Night "The Odessa File" (TCM, 5:00 p.m.) TCM presents an evening of spy movies starting with "The Odessa File", followed by "The Quiller Memorandum" "NHL Hockey" (PRIME, 7:00 p.m.) Blackhawks @ Ducks "NBA Basketball" (Fox Sports, 7:30 p.m.) Raptors @ Lakers "Ice-T's Rap School" (VH1, 9 p.m.) Season finale. "Real Time with Bill Maher" (HBO, 11 p.m.) Season finale. "Charlie Rose" (PBS, 11:30 p.m.): The Dixie Chicks and others, well, not other chicks,......

Click around LAist. We don't really listen to a lot of new-fangled country music. We love the oldies: Cash, Willie, Waylon, Hank Sr., Patsy. But when we heard that NBC refused to run the ad for the Dixie Chicks documentary Shut Up & Sing, we ran to the theater to see what the fuss was all about. This is a great film. That's why NBC didn't like it. They hate things that are good.......

- "CrackBerry" wins Webster's Word of the Year. Way better than the Oxford Word of the Year "bovvered" - PDA Street - Win a dozen CDs by adding a question or two to our LAist Interview questionnaire. - LAist - Tina Fey Disses LA: "Whenever we get to shoot in Manhattan proper, we're all super-excited. We can get good coffee and pizza." - Onion AV Club - Before They Were Perverts: Mark Foley, actor......

This week NBC refused to run an ad for the Dixie Chicks' movie, "Shut Up And Sing", a documentary about the trio's problems when they dared disagree with BushCo. Before NBC blacklisted them, MSNBC had them on "Hardball" where they were able to speak with Babs-lovin' Chris Matthews. LAist plans on seeing "Shut Up And Sing" at the AMC Century City this week. Currently it's only showing in LA and NY until it's released......

Clearly forgetting that they're a card-carrying member of the Liberal Press, NBC has decided not to run thirty second spots, such as the one above, to promote the Dixie Chicks' new documentary "Shut Up And Sing" -- a film, ironically, about the struggles the 'Chicks encountered after they dared say that they were ashamed that the president was from Texas. Claiming that they "cannot accept these spots as they are disparaging to President Bush",......

LAist loves the Dixie Chicks, and we have a feeling our readers do too. Somehow we were able to get our grimy little paws on two pairs of tickets for two of you to see the Chicks November 24 at Staples. Now since the Dixie Chicks have become known for telling it how they see it, we figured that would be a good way to hold this contest. In the comments below, tell us......

AP photo by Jae C. Hong When the best moves made by an organization in the off season are in the front office, you can probably bet that it isn't going to be a stellar year on the ice. However, new GM Dean Lombardi was instrumental in turning San Jose into a legit contender. And new coach Marc Crawford is a flat-out winner. He coached the Avs to a championship in 1996. The previous......

God, we're so sick of Snakes on a Plane that we want to kill anyone and everyone that makes a "something on a something" joke. But then we realized that there was no way we could ever win this fight, and, hell, if you can't beat them, we might as well join them. And with that, you have the theme of this weeks' Gothamist network post. Austinist makes it easy for us, with Candidate on......

We're flashing a sad peace out to their editor Carolyn Kellogg with one hand and bumping knuckles with our new head typist L.A. blogger king Tony Pierce with the other. Where do ist editors go when they hang up the 'editorial we'? They take on MySpace, apparently. At least Ben Brown does. Austinist reminds of the just rewards of less savory careers this week and then they witness the Arctic Monkeys and We Are Scientists......