So I'm a fairly new resident of Studio City, and am still discovering little surprises on this side of town. Driving down Ventura, I have twice noticed a small, nondescript building bearing a sign with the letters ICA at Colfax Ave., which, upon closer examination while sitting at a red light, rest above the casually printed name "Intercontinental Absurdities." Clearly, this was something that called for investigation. It sounded a bit like something out......

For the third year, the Los Angeles Philharmonic is producing a series that explores a single topic, usually one that reaches from the hardcore to the non-traditional classical going audiences. In 2006, it was Minimalist Fest. featuring famed compositions of the minimalism movement and an all night concert til 4 a.m. with The Orb and other trance artists. This past year was From Shadow to Stalin, an exploration of Eastern Europe, classical musics to......

One day I came back from vacation to a stack of bills and paperwork. As I was going through them, I found a video rental receipt with titles like, "C*m on my T*ts." I held the receipt up to my boyfriend, "Do we need to have a talk?" "I just don't even know what to say." "Because I would watch them with you if that's what you want. It's OK." "No, you were just......

Volume at the Los Angeles port, the biggest in the U.S., is expected to drop for the first time in four years. Experts attributed the decline to the slumping housing market and continued loss of confidence in imported goods. I don't pretend to be an expert, but we'll cheer up when they stop putting plastic in their toys. A woman was arrested and charged with murder, stemming from an incident in which she allegedly......

Only one major event for the Los Angeles Fire Department today in which 30 firefighters quickly fought a three-story commercial building at 515 S. Los Angeles St. Lindsay Lohan lawyers claim she's innocent in the crash involving Raymundo Ortega and his black Mercedes, citing that Ortega made an illegal U-Turn to snag a parking space putting him in Lohan's tracks. The case will go to trial in April. Five oriental fruit flies have been......

Unlike Bob, who is a fan of Frank Zappa's, I am a superfan. I am a devotee. I have every album, as well as imports and bootlegs, and I have played them over and over and over. Some people tire of his Foley-esque Edgar Varese-inspired noise explorations, but for some reason I always found the humor in them. And I'm not usually very patient with masturbatory jams. My friend Dez and I used to......

It was a hell of a thing to see Dweezil Zappa onstage at the Wiltern last night, jamming with his pop, who of course passed away fourteen years ago. You can thank modern technology. Frank was projected on a large screen behind the actual living musicians, who played along to his vocal and guitar tracks. Of course we’ve seen this kind of thing before, Natalie Cole’s sentimental duet with her father being the first......

Pamela Des Barres, of Frank Zappa's girl group, The GTOs, gained national attention with her first memoir, I'm With the Band: Confessions of a Groupie. This best-seller was followed by Take Another Little Piece of My heart: A Groupie Grows Up and Rock Bottom: Dark Moments in Music Babylon. Des Barres also teaches writing classes, performs wedding ceremonies, and according to her website, can even be hired out for the weekend as a (purely platonic)......

Tom Waits turned 57 today. LA's own gravel-voiced minstrel got his start at the Troubador in 1970 and gained commercial success primarily through other artists covering his tunes, for example, the Eagles (the Eagles!!!) covering "Ol' 55" on their On the Border album. Later his songs were covered by the likes of Bruce Springsteen ("Jersey Girl"), Rod Stewart ("Downtown Train"), and even the Ramones ("I Don't Wanna Grow Up"). This is an artist who......

Get your eyes ready for a busy weekend of visual art and suchlike: 1. Tonight at the Nuart: Bob Rafelson's movie Head featuring the Monkees. See Peter Tork punch an old lady, Frank Zappa insult Davy Jones, Teri Garr wear a prairie girl costume, and Victor Mature destroy a city, and hear the immortal line, "I'd like a glass of cold gravy with a hair in it, please." Yeah, yeah, Jack Nicholson wrote it......