Charles Thompson hasn't recorded an album with the Pixies since 1991's Trompe le Monde, despite years of rumors. But Thompson, who led the trailblazing indie quartet under the pseudonym Black Francis (originally suggested by his father), recorded roughly one album per year since the Pixies' 1993 break up as Frank Black. This summer he put a cap on Frank Black with the 32-track 93-03 compilation. And now, Black Francis is back. Touring behind the edgy,......

Black Francis, Eastern Conference Champions @ Safari Sam's The Bird & the Bee @ Amoeba Music Jill Scott @ House of Blues Patrick Wolf @ El Rey Jimmy Eat World @ Wiltern Tom Brosseau @ Largo Matthew Dear, Mobius Band @ The Echo Mothers Anthem, Izzy the Eskimo, Cockpit, Spiral @ Viper Room Sally Kellerman, Marina's Daughter, Brandon McCulloch @ Genghis Cohen Arden Kaywin, Deadbeat Sinatras, Blackbird, Silver Needle @ The Gig......

PJ Harvey - "White Chalk" PJ Harvey @ Orpheum Rilo Kiley @ Santa Monica Civic Sarah Silverman @ Largo Black Francis, Eastern Conference Champions @ Safari Sam's Castledoor, Hearts of Palm UK, Princeton @ The Echo Limbeck, Travis Shettel, Andrew Deerin, Chris Koza @ The Hotel Cafe Metal Skool, Born as Ghosts, Immune, Glacier Hiking @ Key Club Suburban Legends, Taxi Doll, Skrotum Kiss @ The Knitting Factory Abe Lincoln Story, Doug Stewart &......

Arctic Monkeys @ Hollywood Palladium The Monolators, Mezzanine Owls, Amateurs @ The Echo Trisha Yearwood @ Cerritos Center Steel Pulse @ House of Blues James Blunt @ El Rey Midlake, Maria Taylor @ Henry Fonda Sally Kellerman, David Lucky @ Genghis Cohen Grant Lee Phillips, Morgan Murphy @ Largo The Expendables, B Foundation, Dirty Heads @ The Roxy Ride On Rides, Eastern Conference Champions @ Viper Room The Barbarellatones, The Black Fuzz, The Scrid......

Kennedy - "Your Mama" One of the weirdest singles we've heard in a while. We're not sure if it's good that he's lovin our momma, but whatevs. He sorta looks like John the Stutter so it's cool. Clipse, Lucky.I.Am @ The Roxy Subhumans, Witch Hunt, Peligro Social @ The Knitting Factory Kennedy, Eastern Conference Champions, Voxhaul Broadcast @ Silverlake Lounge Palms to Pines, Dora Flood, Moving To France, Garden of Earthly Delights @ Safari......

Daniel Johnston at SXSW, 3/07 He's probably best known for his "Hi How Are You" tshirt that Kurt Cobain often wore, but if you don't know Daniel Johnston's music you're really missing out and you should definitely pick up the award-winning DVD, "The Devil and Daniel Johnston". Equally amateurish and darkly genius, Johnston's tunes lie somewhere between Brian Wilson and Wesley Willis while being heavily influenced by the Beatles: Daniel Johnston @ Henry Fonda......

OUT TODAY: These and other new releases are conveniently located at your neighborhood record store (sigh) or online retailer… The Chemical Brothers - We Are the Night (Astralwerks) Suzanne Vega - Beauty and Crime (Blue Note) The Dark Crystal: 25th Anniversary Soundtrack - Trevor Jones (La-La Land) KT Tunstall - Hold On [SINGLE] (Relentless Records) Editors - An End Has a Start (Epic) Meat Puppets - Rise to Your Knees (Anodyne) The Cribs -......

Weird Al - "Bob" Weird Al Yankovic @ Orange County Fair The Psychedelic Furs, The Fixx, The Alarm @ Pacific Amphitheatre Eastern Conference Champions, The Vampire Weekend, Faker @ Silverlake Lounge Spoon @ Cinespace Crowded House @ The Troubadour Puddle of Mudd @ Viper Room OK Stranger, She's your Sister, Shiloe @ Spaceland Adam Franklin, the Black Watch, Benni Hemm Hemm @ The Echo Maxeen, MS90, The Audio Club, The Kids of Widney High......

Everyone loves the Eastern Conference Champions and everyone loves LAist on Fridays because for some reason everyone gets super motivated by the upcoming weekend and they post whatever it is that they've been working on all week. Here it is 4:30pm and we've already busted with 19 posts today and many of them are super awesome. If this were the Eastern Conference, several of those posts would be vying to be the Champ. Speaking......

Face it, California: we'll never be able to match Florida in sheer dysfunctionality. We try to have a messed up election that the whole nation snickers at , and they come up with something so jaw-droppingly stupid that, well, our jaw drops. (And no, that's not a reminder of the 2000 "Thanks for George Bush" travesty. This is, though.) We never expected their sports figures to top ours, though. Sure, we had the Shaq......

Even with LeBron leading his Cavs to much needed victory in the Eastern Conference Finals Tuesday night, the biggest story in the NBA is a team who has not played a game in exactly four weeks. The Lakers offseason has just been too wildly entertaining to take a backseat to the actual action on the court. And it just got better. Early Tuesday, team owner Jerry Buss was arrested in Carlsbad for suspicion of drunk......

LAist gets and listens to a Lot of music. You can see the bands we like in the concerts that we review, the Tonight in Rock listings that we compile, and in the cds that we review. But we realize that we listen to way more music than we review so we figured we make a list once a week letting you know what we're into. week ending 4/06/07 Charlie Louvin - "When I......

Current Record: 34-36, 3rd Pacific, 8th West Last Week: While the LA hoops world has been focused on the Bruins’ repeat run to the Final Four and Kobe’s insane scoring binge, the Clippers have quietly found their groove at the best possible time. Over the last two weeks since the last CW, the Clips finished their pivotal road-trip 3-3, which may not seem terribly remarkable, but considering the team’s road woes throughout the season, it......

USC 70, Washington State 61 - After loosing to the Cougars twice in league play, the Trojans avenged the regular season by beating Washington State in the Pac 10 Tournament semifinals. USC led most of the way, thanks in part to 24 of 33 shooting from the charity stripe compared to just 6 of 8 for the Cougs. The Trojan's tenacious D also held their opponent to 36.1 percent shooting. Oregon 81, Cal 63 -......

The Who @ Long Beach Arena Division Day, Love of Diagrams, Canon, La Rocca @ Spaceland Eastern Conference Champions, I Make this Sound, The Procession @ Silverlake Lounge The Binges, Bleu, Dial Zero, Andy Dick & the Bitches of the Century @ King King The Faceless, Toast to the Gods, Earned in Blood, Straight to Vengeance @ Whisky A Go Go Floater 6, The Nervous Wrecks, Boozehounds, Marie Catastrophe, Uglysticks @ Lava Lounge Go......

The Submarines, "Brighter Discontent" Tonight: The Who @ Long Beach Arena Division Day, La Rocca @ Spaceland Eastern Conference Champions, I Make this Sound, The Procession @ Silverlake Lounge The Binges, Andy Dick & the Bitches of the Century @ King King Metal Skool, Shapes of Race Cars, Pearl @ Key Club Tuesday: Rockstar Supernova, The Panic Channel, Dilana @ Long Beach Arena Money Mark @ Amoeba (free, 7pm) Mezzanine Owls, Black Palms @......

Eastern Conference Champions "To The Wind" The Airbourne Toxic Event, The Sharp Ease, Dead Ponies @ Viper Room Division Day, Bedroom Walls, Tigers Can Bite You @ Spaceland Ralph Stanley @ El Rey Sarah Silverman @ Largo Metal Skool, Prima Donna, Mardo, The Sugi Tap @ Key Club Eastern Conference Champions, Blvd., Meho Plaza @ Silverlake Lounge Will Haven, Eightfourseven, Death Valley High, Red Host @ The Troubadour The Binges, The Ringers, Andy Dick......

The Abe Lincoln Story @ The Echo Division Day, Great Northern, Peter Walker @ Spaceland Metal Skool, The Thornbirds, Drugstore Cowboys @ Key Club Cousin Kate, Amy Loftus @ The Gig Mia Sable, Kristy Kruger, Gil Landry @ The Hotel Cafe Eastern Conference Champions, Magic & Rattles, Valentino, The Shys @ Silverlake Lounge The Binges, Wired All Wrong, Minutes to Midnight, Andy Dick @ King King Robin Williams on Fire, Macka, The Pristines, Alexis......

The Binges, Tokyo Smog and host Andy Dick @ King King The Game @ House of Blues Lily Allen @ Henry Fonda Theater Paul Weller @ Avalon Metal Skool @ Key Club sosohuman @ King King Foreign Born, Black Palms, In Waves @ Viper Room A Kiss Could Be Deadly, Ultraviolet, Metroid @ Safari Sam's Alexandra Bustamante, Jessica Catarina, Dee, Olivia @ Cat Club Division Day, The Movies, Tandemoro, Happy Hallows @ Spaceland Simon......

Current Record: 22-22, 3rd Pacific, T-8th West Last Week: It was a good week, but not quite a great week. The one game that the Clips really needed, they struggled offensively against Minnesota, taking a double-digit loss on the chin against their primary competition for the last playoff berth in the West. However, the Clips did manage to get to .500 with two routs against undermanned Milwaukee and a crummy Seattle squad. The highlight of......

Clippers 115, Bucks 96 - The Clippers understand injuries all too well. It also looks like they learned how to exploit them. Milwaukee, missing four key players, hobbled into the Staples Center and fell behind by ten in the first quarter. After the game, Elton Brand observed that the loosing Michael Redd significantly decreased the Buck's outside shooting, allowing the Clipper's defense to play closer in. Brand had a game high 25. Since the result......

Lady Sovereign, Young Love, Honeycut @ El Rey Lou Barlow, Emperor X, Applied Communications @ The Smell Cursive, The Parson Red Heads, Eastern Conference Champions @ The Troubadour Joe Purdy, Greg Laswell, Simnon Dawes @ The Hotel Cafe Adema, Daredevil Jane, The Sixth Chamber @ Viper Room Daniel Higgs, Ezra @ Il Corral Esteban @ The Canyon......

Laker fans, you can exhale now. In case you missed it, they’ve collectively held their breath since just a few minutes after 9 last night, when early in the third quarter Kobe Bryant leaped to take a shot and landed on the foot on Indiana center Jeff Foster, rolling his ankle. It hurt to watch, just like it did when teammates had to help Kobe from the court. But today, after X-rays and a second......

Current Record: 8-8, T-4th Pacific Last Week: Running in place. On the plus side, the Clippers finished off the week by demolishing the Eastern Conference leading Magic, shooting an insane 60.3% from the field. The Clips also had an easy win against the last place Grizzlies to end their five game losing streak which also provided a show of offensive efficiency. However, in the critical division matchups against the Kings and Lakers, the Clips......

It appears Shaq has taken exception to Jerry Buss' comments that the big man needed a trade for motivation to lose 60 pounds. "I didn't need motivation," O'Neal said. "I needed a real owner. ... I needed a real owner like Micky Arison. You can quote me on it." A real owner? Micky Arison? What has Micky Arison ever done that's so great? Unnecessarily handing over nearly 10% of his team to Pat Riley......

It appears a theme for the Lakers this season will be "Kobe-hating." Whether it's from Shaq or Phil Jackson, Kobe Bryant will endure a lot of criticism this year. But today LAist will focus on the silly comments of Seattle Supersonics guard Ray Allen. "If Kobe doesn't see he needs two and a half good players to be a legitimate playoff contender or win a championship in about a year or two he'll be......