More than 30 years after MTV launched, the professionals in music videos who have danced alongside Prince, Madonna, Janet, Michael, Britney and Rihanna are trying to organize.
Dancers Alliance Says After 30 Years, the Music Video Industry is Still the 'Lawless Wild West'
'Summer, Summer, Summertime,' Sit Back, Watch & Unwind
While summer's sticking around for a few more weeks, today IS the final day of August. Whether you're lazing in a hammock, soaking up the SoCal rays along the shore or slouched behind a desk, we hope you're ringing in September on a high note.
It's Getting Hot In Here, So Watch Some Sweltry Music Videos
Do thoughts of the impending high temps cause rumbles in your tummy? Probably not. But if they do, wet your palette with today's heat-themed video lunch.
Family Is One & You're Invited
Family, the great little bookstore on Fairfax is celebrating its one-year anniversary with a huge art show that opens tonight at 8pm and you're invited.
Music Videos Popular on MTV Online (Go Figure)
MTV Networks announced yesterday that it delivered more than "1.2 billion video streams from MTV.com, VH1.com and CMT.com in 2007, up 30% from 2006." And nearly half of those streams? Music videos. You know, the things tagged onto the end of shows and in between commercials and reruns of The Real World: Who Cares What City Because It's All the Same show.
They've Made it Better and Stronger
It started simply with a camerashy young lady who wrote the lyrics of the Daft Punk smash hit on her fingers and let them be the stars of the video (as seen after the jump). But now two other young women have taken to writing the lyrics on their bodies. And if that weren't enough they put boxes on their heads to appear to look like robots - something the dj's do themselves. The...
Enchanted Royals Launch Party Tonight @ Mountain Bar
Looking for something fun to do this crisp Monday night before Halloween? Look no further, one of our favorite independent design companies, Enchanted Royals, who we highlighted almost a year ago for their adorable hand painted sneakers, T-Shirts and baby onesies, is having their website launch party tonight in Chinatown.
Bat For Lashes "What's A Girl To Do" Music Video
Her music has been called haunting and timeless, and the new Bat For Lashes single "What's A Girl To Do," certainly falls under those descriptions. If Dario Argento directed music videos, this dark, ethereal promo for "What's A Girl To Do" could be it....
Die, N*****!
In case you’re not up-to-date on all the burial happenings going on nowadays, the ever so hated N-word was put to rest in Detroit, MI., taking on similarities to the organization’s mock burial of the Jim Crow laws in Detroit in 1944. The NAACP held a mock funeral for the word to symbolically call an end to oppressing terminology that has flooded the American society. The funeral comes in retaliation to the degrading images of...
The Horrors: CD review
England’s most goulish export, The Horrors, came out with their new album Strange House in March 2007, and its hard, raw, and a bit scary, at least to this emo loving princess. Formed over five years ago, when Rys Webb, Faris Badwan, and Tomethy Furse met on the Southend circuit sharing their love of 60’s garage band rock, The Horrors are unique to say the least. With heavy drums by Coffin Joe (Joe Spurgeon), eerie...
Daft Punk Gets a Hand from a Fan
We have said repeatedly on this blog that record labels have no excuse to continue to ignore music videos to help market their artists. Not regular ones. Not tired, stale ones of the band pretending to perform interspersed with slow-motion narratives using actors and over-saturated colors. After all these years have you still not learned shit from OK Go? Here we have a beautiful example of how you don't need a big budget, you...
Liveblogging the MTV Movie Awards
MTV, the network whose prescient forays into reality programming placed it in the vanguard of youth-oriented television, has decided that since this little ole thing called the Internet is catching on big with the kids, the way to capitalize on the immediacy of Web 2.0 is to brodacast the annual Movie Awards* live and (more importantly) allow schlubs like me high-stakes online journalists to live blog the event. This means that you'll get to see...
LAist Interview: Patrick O'Sullivan Waxes About Walken
Bay Area transplant Patrick O’Sullivan (above photo, right) is creator and director of All About Walken: The Impersonators of Christopher Walken, a comedic homage to the actor-dancer who plays creepy-spooky better than anyone else we know. LAist recently queried O’Sullivan to find out exactly why Walken is worth such a pop culture celebration.
Rob and Big - The Behind the Scenes Interview
MTV doesn't show music videos any more, they make tv shows that have music in them. It's sorta genius except for the fact that we loved some of those videos, and it helped us learn what bands we should go out and, you know, support.
Weekly Movie Picks: Thrift Store Movies, Gilles Deleuze, 1970s Films
It's another crazy 1970s double feature. Directed by Frank Perry Diary Of A Mad Housewife stars Carrie Snodgress (rocker Neil Young's girlfriend for a time in the 70s) and Richard Benjamin as a young, well-to-do Manhattan couple whose marriage hits the skids thanks to obnoxious, self-absorbed hubby. The film feels dated, but Snodgress' Oscar-nominated performance still rings true.
Dirty Dancing, Guinea Style
While booty shaking dances are old hat in this country -- extolled in music videos and practiced to perfection by strippers -- in West African countries such as Guinea, where the ass jiggling Wolosso dance craze has taken hold, it's enough to get you stripped and beaten in the town square. Check out this video for (what I think are) some shots of the Wolosso.
Weekly Movie Picks: Viridiana, Santa Sangre, Su Friedrich, Grindhouse & More!
Grindhouse The week kicks off with a pair of rarely screened gems of black 1970s cinema, Brotherhood of Death about a group of black Vietnam vets who fight back against the Ku Klux Klan, and Johnny Tough, a coming-of-age movie about a troublesome teenager. That's followed by a dose of Italian horror, Autopsy and Eyeball. Then it's a trio of bizarre wonders: Coonskin, a Ralph Bakshi-directed animated blaxploitation spoof about a trio of animals (Philip...
Movie Picks: Bonjour Tristesse, Tarkovsky, Resnais, NY Indie Fest, Verhoeven, Thai Westerns, Grindhouse + more!
Bonjour Tristesse As part of its ongoing Saul Bass mini-tribute, the Skirball Center will screen Bonjour Tristesse, a drama directed by Otto Preminger that stars David Niven as a suave playboy-turned-father and Jean Seberg as his pixie-ish daughter. Their dissolute existence of tromping across Europe from nightclub to cocktail party to casino is upended when Niven falls for the hopelessly upright Deborah Kerr. I also highly recommend the mildly smutty book by Françoise Sagan on...
Snakes on a DVD: New DVD Tuesday
Snakes on a Plane - Was it really only five months ago when something as simple as a crate of ophidians roaming an airplane could soothe the angst of a wounded but mighty nation? It seems like another era, one where every American -- from slick, jaded marketing executive to slick, jaded hipster -- could come together for a single, selfless cause. C'mon… admit it. You fell for it. Just a little bit, right?...
Google Buys YouTube, Will YouTube Start to Suck?
It was just announced that Google has bought YouTube.
What Do These Things Have In Common
Coldplay's new video for their single "The Hardest Part" is obviously following the trend of music videos that make light of their own song. This clip starts off slow. And you're thinking, why in the world are these people standing there, it's windy, Chris Martin has his usual bending-over-too-far-on-one-side-stance thing he does. But then this 84 year old woman, man she really rocks out. We mean flexible, bendable, you-name-it-able. It's pretty commendable, in an America's Got Talent kind of way.
Howls over the Hooters Hype
Poor Hooters. All they want to do is help raise money for charity. Poor The City, all they want to do is co-sponsor a Hooters bikini contest that will help raise a heck of a lot more money than a raffle for hot wings or some other nonsense.
LAist Giveaway: RES Screening tonight!
LAist and our friends at RES Magazine are giving away two pairs of tickets to the RES Screening at the Egyptian Theatre tonight.
LAist Giveaway: February RES Screening
LAist and our friends at RES Magazine are giving away two pairs of tickets to the February RES Screening at the Egyptian Theatre.
LAist Ticket Giveaway: Indie Music Video Festival
The 4th Annual Indie Music Video Festival returns to Echo Park next week with a ton of music videos you probably haven't seen and a musical performance by Bubble on opening night. We're giving away two pairs of tickets that will get you in to both nights of the festival where you'll get to see music interpretations that include cartoon spacegirl renegades and a randy boy in a bunny suit.
Green Day's Wake-Up Call
As proud punks at heart, Green Day have never shied away from speaking their minds. Their new single Wake Me Up When September Ends is no exception. The Bay Area band and KROQ favorite is causing waves with an artsy, anti-war music video. [watch: Quicktime 7 | Windows Media]
Happy February!
• Local singer-songwriter Gary Jules—best known for his amazing cover of Tears for Fears' "Mad World"—is back for a Tuesday night residency at the Hotel Cafe tonight at 9 PM, followed by Waz at 10:30 PM.

