Which corners of the world are doing their best to rep at Coachella? The Atlantic's Richard Florida crunched the numbers and found that Swedes, Brits, Austinites and Angelenos are overrepresented at the festival. more ›

Amy Winehouse, 27, was found dead in her London flat today at approximately 4pm, local London time, according to Daily Mail Reporter. The singer-songwriter, notorious for her substance abuse and mental health issues, won five Grammys for her acclaimed 2006 album Back to Black, making her the first British singer to achieve such honor. more ›

You've seen the "It all ends here" billboards around L.A. -- Deathly Hallows 2, the final installment of the Potter saga premieres July 15th in the states. Interviews with stars Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and author JK Rowling from today's YouTube-cast red carpet extravaganza are served up below for your video lunch. more ›

"Robert Redford, the non-profit Sundance Institute and AEG Europe today announced Sundance London, a four-day multi-disciplinary arts festival that will include film screenings, live music performances, discussions, panels and other public cultural programming to be held 26th - 29th April, 2012 at the world’s most popular music and entertainment venue, The O2," notes an official press release. more ›

Iran is protesting the abstract date logo for London's 2012 Olympic Games claiming the numbers spell out the word "Zion." By contrast, we said it looked like Lisa Simpson on her knees in 2007 when it first debuted. more ›

A selection of pieces by street artist Banksy and a limited edition Shepard Fairey are at auction today at Bonhams in London. Among the Bansky pieces is a series of commissioned works by Greenpeace as part of a campaign against deforestation that depict cartoon characters from "The Jungle Book" bound and blindfolded against a photographic backdrop of a ravaged forest. more ›

Some much-deserved props for one of our local prestigious academic institutions, thanks to the London-based Times Higher Education's World University Rankings. more ›

It was a night of new beginnings at the Music Box (formerly the Henry Fonda Theater) on Thursday night. The revamped theater sparkled with all the seduction of a private night club. The walls newly painted with woodland creatures and nymphs and the foyer draped with golden lamps. What better place for two fresh new bands who are both riding those fickle waves of critical success to play? Both The Middle East and Mumford & Sons are enveloped in that golden halo of achievement that only comes when your first release is received well. It's before (heaven forbid) your sophomore disk slumps and the drugs problems become too much and the inner band fighting destroys everything. But there's this amazing moment when bands get it right and it seems like nothing could possibly stand in their way. hat is what Thursday night was all about, and it was gorgeous. more ›

LAX officials this morning are reporting that at least two British Airways flights have been canceled today after volcanic ash from Iceland has drifted over Europe. "[Airport Operations is] into the US carriers that fly to Europe too," LAX spokesman Marshall Lowe. More cancellations are expected as further checks are made with airlines. Passengers advised to check with their airlines if they are departing on flights to Europe.” UPDATE: 4 arrival flights and 5 departure flights from/to London have been cancelled (British Airways, American Airlines, United Airlines and Air New Zealand). Flights to other European destinations are still scheduled to depart, says LAX. more ›

As with a lot of good things, the band The Big Pink wasn't supposed to be a band at all. Friends, Milo Cordell and Robbie Furze were already distracted with other projects when they started messing around in the studio. more ›

Last week, Depeche Mode played a special charity event at the Royal Albert Hall in London for Teenage Cancer Trust. Their webmaster, and LAist reader Daniel "BRATMix" Barassi, was there to record a very unique soundcheck. Former group member, Alan Wilder, accompanied Martin L. Gore on "Somebody," for his first performance with his old band since 1994. more ›

Arriving on a tidal wave of hype from their native England, The Big Pink filled the El Rey with expectant fans and critics all ready to see if their live show was as good as their debut album A Brief History of Love which was released in September. And was it? Well, I guess the best answer to that question is sometimes. more ›

Sometimes music comes from the least likely of places, but 'lo and behold, three siblings have recorded an album that would make Fats Domino smile. Kitty (16) Daisy (21) and Lewis (18) have made an album that includes playing 40’s/50’s R&B and country, western and swing, Hawaiian and rock ‘n’ roll...basically anything that your grandparents danced to...and made it fresh again. And who doesn't like to groove to oldies (even if they're really newies?) more ›

A number of Swedish singers, including Lykke Li (MySpace, LAist), Theressa Andersson (MySpace, LAist), and Lisa Miskovsky (MySpace), have performed at local venues in recent months, and on Monday, pop singer-songwriter and Perez Hilton favorite Robyn (MySpace) headlined an industry showcase at the Hotel Cafe (MySpace) in Hollywood, with London-based Molly Beanland (MySpace) opening. more ›

Speculations are running around town in regards to LAPD's top cop, William Bratton. Is he going to London? The Department of Homeland Security (after all, he did just make a robocall for Obama)? Former Daily News Editor and now writing a little for NBC Los Angeles makes this observation about why he's not leaving town any time soon--marriage: "One of the reasons is certainly what L.A. has done for the career of his wife, Rikki Kleiman, a legal expert best known for her work on Court TV (now Tru TV). But since they moved to L.A., her acting career has taken off, her book Her autobiographical book 'Fairy Tales Can Come True' reached best-seller lists and she draws numerous speaking engagements, especially before women's groups." more ›

New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who rode into office on the high horse of morality after years of spearing Wall Street robber barrons as the attorney general, has been linked to a prostitiution ring that has operated in Los Angeles. more ›

HISTORY more ›

href="http://londonist.com/2008/02/air_bound.php"> remove one man from Gatwick.

En route to performances in New York, the highly acclaimed Irish company CoisCeim Dance Theatre, will make a stop at the Irvine BarclayTheater this Tuesday, February 26 -- its premiere West Coast engagement. Pronounced "kush came," the company will present their award winning evening length work, Knots, based on psychologist R.D. Laing 's book by the same title. Both the book and the stage work explore the twists and turns in couples' relationships. The live production is choreographed and directed by Liam Steel of Stan Won't Dance and DV8 Physical Theatre. more ›

Since the recent opening of LACMA's Broad Contemporary (BCAM) a flurry of international eyes have been on Los Angeles, and an ensuing flurry of words have issued forth in review. It seems irresistible to review the Broad without also reviewing the city that houses it, which was precisely the tact taken by Chris Haslam in London's Sunday Times today. more ›

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Earlier this week, UCLA researcher and professor Edythe London had an incendiary device left on the porch of her home on the West side. London has been the target of such protest activities before, and remains as such, because of the project she is helming at the school to study nicotine addiction. more ›

Photo by GarySe7en via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr more ›

UK punk band, The Gallows, play at the Troubadour tonight | Photo by Michael/www.attheshow.org more ›

• Londonist pondered who might be the next sponsors of the London Eye and whether or not readers would be willing to donate £1,000 each for a Londonist Eye.
• Shanghaiist was shocked to find a cameltoe in the city's only English-language paper.
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A London vacation for $900 -- airfare and hotel? Cancun for $500? I got an email alert this morning about big after-holiday airfare sales -- and as a frequent traveler who is often frustrated by the price of airline tickets, I jumped at the chance to research some sweet mid-winter vacations. more ›

• SFist saw Christmas Day turn tragic after a Siberian tiger escaped from her pen at the San Francisco Zoo, killing a visitor and mauling two others.
• Phillyist counted down the top ten items on Philadelphia's New Year's wish list.
• Gothamist looked at the wooden bikes being offered for NYC's first bike share program on Governors Island.

After reviewing a few dozen releases this year this is my top ten of reviewed albums plus a few select tracks of items that I went out and hunted down myself. These weren't easy to select out of the great stuff I received so it was a challenge. I'd like to thank the labels and their PR agencies for hunting me down and sending CDs to me. I reviewed everything that I received this year with just a couple of exceptions of items I felt I wasn't qualified to review. [Hint to labels and their agencies: LAist likes getting stuff to review, look for our contact info on the staff page]. In my Top Ten is a band (Tall Pony) that wasn't even signed when I posted the review and I had a few others like that this year but there should haver been more. Also, please note that there are 3 LA bands/groups in my Top Ten (Bitter:Sweet, No Age, The Deadly Syndrome). more ›

Having never seen the stage version of , I can't speak to the fidelity the film shares with the play. That said, let there be no doubt that Tim Burton has crafted a true piece of musical cinema from Stephen Sondheim's bloody masterpiece. To their discredit, early previews have hedged a bit regarding the singing in the film. In them we only see Johnny Depp canting some recitative as he prowls the streets of London. While this scene is certainly in the movie, it's barely representative of the actual film which contains at least a dozen fully-staged numbers and only intermittent dialogue. more ›

Helena Bonham Carter and her boyfriend, director Tim Burton, both Golden Globe nominees for Sweeney Todd welcomed their second baby together, a girl, in London this weekend - People more ›