To celebrate KROQ's Rodney Bingenheimer's star on the Walk of Fame today, The Donnas, Redd Kross, Channel 3, and the Nymphs will rock in his honor @ Henry Ford Fiona Apple @ Largo Sebadoh @ The Troubadour Razorlight @ El Rey The Nice Boys, The Time Flys, The Tyde, Japanese Motors @ The Echo Squab, Level Seven, Phenik, Kill Me Now Kiss Me Later @ The Scene The Wailers, Culver City Dub Collective @... more ›

Yesterday LAist enjoyed a little lunch-break entertainment at the Hotel Cafe thanks to a showcase event hosted by Nettwerk and featuring two of their label's artists, Leigh Nash and Josh Rouse. Nash, who was last seen a few years back fronting the now-defunct pop group Sixpence None the Richer, is prepping her solo debut album Blue on Blue for a mid-August release. Her tunes are thoughtful and very catchy (shades of her old band's infectiously annoying "Kiss Me" single), and are served well by her breathy and airy vocals. She actually wrote the material during her residency in Los Angeles a year or so back, and it's possible to discern a bit of our city's surrealistic luminosity and cinematic atmosphere in her music, particularly on our two favorites of the tracks she shared, "My Idea of Heaven" and "Along the Wall." more ›

Last night we were among the fortunate attendees at the sold-out Writers Block event featuring Leonard Nimoy interviewing Gene Wilder, a strange but wonderful wrinkle in the pop culture universe. Nimoy, who directed Wilder in 1990's Funny About Love, got Wilder to tell some great stories, a few of which are in his new memoir Kiss Me Like a Stranger. Our favorite: Gene Wilder got the script for Willy Wonka and told the director he'd do the film, but only if they made some changes to his entering scene. What Wilder wanted: to come out using a cane, hobbling, bringing a terrible hush over the crowd. Then you would hear the murmur of "a cripple!" and then, the cane catches and he topples — but somersaults! He leaps up! He's not lame at all! The director asked if that was the only thing he needed to say yes, and Wilder said it was, so it was in. Why, the director wanted to know. "So after that they would never know when I was lying," Wilder said, creating a fabulous unreliable hero for kids desperate for a Disney antidote. But Wilder himself was sweet rather than sly, and we imagine that in real life he is a music maker. He is a dreamer of dreams.

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• 12:30 pm : Carrie Karasyov and Jill Kargman more ›