Happy Friday, everyone. 5 pm can't get here fast enough. / Photo of beverages by pink_fish13 via LAist's flickr pool. FILM Carbuncle is an independent film made over the course of five years. It’s about a director with Asperger’s Syndrome making a movie about a mentally challenged woman who is manipulated by her alcoholic social worker.” We think it’s a comedy. 8 pm // Echo Park Film Center // 1200 N. Alvarado St., Los......

Earlier this month, A-Trak (MySpace) and Kid Sister (MySpace) performed as the co-headliners of First Fridays (MySpace) at the Natural History Museum in Exposition Park. Meanwhile, Dublab (MySpace) DJs Frosty (MySpace) and Take (MySpace) spun tunes in the African Mammal Hall. When Kanye West appeared at their show a week before at the American Museum of Natural History in New York (West is featured on Kid Sister's song "Pro Nails"), there was speculation that......

Restored Wood wheel at the LA Natural History Museum | Photo by WILL13 via Flickr Los Angeles was settled in 1781, three years after Chicago. Unfortunately, people who do not know this city write-off the history and focus in on the obvious glitter. Even if this city continues to bulldoze over its past, that in itself is part of the history. The Los Angeles region has over 200 historical organizations, societies, and museums dedicated......

The Cuban Cowboys, who were profiled on NPR last October, play tonight at the Temple Bar | Photo from their MySpace page Last Friday when A-Trak and Kid Sister played at New York City's Natural History Museum, Kanye West made a surprise visit. Neither Flavorpill or the Natural History Museum list Kanye for tonight's version of the NYC event, First Friday, but rumors are afloat, as they're bound to happen. Nevertheless, the evening looks......

Two weeks ago, locals Sea Wolf (MySpace), whose album Leaves In The River was number six on Nic Harcourt's Top Ten Albums of 2007, performed as the headliner of First Fridays (MySpace) at the Natural History Museum in Exposition Park. Opening for Sea Wolf were the Afternoons (MySpace), while DJs Allen (MySpace) and Hoseh (MySpace) spun tunes in the African Mammal Hall. Sea Wolf will open for Peter, Bjorn, and John (MySpace) at the......

We comb through tons of event listings so you don't have to. LA events have come back from its winter doldrums tonight. Big time. Here's what's happening around town tonight -- there's lots of learning mixed in between all the great entertainment stuff. CLASSICAL The LA Phil's Concrete Frequency series -- combining music, film and symposia -- begins tonight. It's a Casual Friday, which means shorter programs with no intermission. On tap tonight is......

You Me and Iowa Things are starting to get back to normal here, after the holidays -- it's a great night in music for Los Angeles. For one, two major arts institutions are hosting some excellent concerts tonight. At the Natural History Museum's popular music and discussion series, First Fridays, Dr. Antonio Damasio, M.D., Ph.D. (Director of Brain and Creativity Institute, USC) will cover how the brain processes memory, language, emotions and decisions. And......

Jim Olson has been carving pumpkins for 25 years. Saturday and Sunday his carved creations were on display at The Grove and sat down with LAist for a few minutes to talk about his art....

Dear _____, Cool! I'm totally in and excited to see you this weekend too! Yeah I totally heard all about Art Crawl X and am excited to check it out. Isn't it something crazy like over 25 galleries and stores all around Echo Park, Silverlake, Los Feliz and Atwater Village are participating and holding shows and exhibits and stuff? And like at night some are having bands perform and tattoo stations and I heard......

Don't forget to enter our Labor Day Weekend Contest with the prize to see AIR at the Greek Amphitheater later this month. Recent major events for the Los Angeles Fire Department include a fire last night in North Hills contained to a 12 x 12 foot room where a twenty-something male in serious condition with smoke inhalation and an air ambulance rescue for a two-year-old boy who fell from a pony, dragging him near......

photo by Stephanie Asher via Flickr This month's “First Friday” found us standing in a lengthy line at the Natural History Museum, having parked at some shady, empty lot behind the stadium (because the major parking entrance was backed up with cars down the street), wondering both if my car would be towed and if we still had a chance to see Autolux and Deerhoof - especially since we’d had the audacity to skip......

The Raveonettes, Electric Duo, Midnight Movies, The Meek @ Spaceland The Black Angels, VietNam, Spindrift @ The Troubadour Deerhoof @ Natural History Museum B-Real @ Key Club The Pharcyde, Ugly Duckling @ Blue Cafe The Colour, Simon Dawes, Takota @ The Roxy Kottonmouth Kings @ Ventura Theatre Matt & Kim, Japanther, Mika Miko, No Age @ The Echo The Moderates, Gliss, The Cheat @ El Cid Sara Hickman @ McCabe's Lorenzo Lamas @ The......

Some mornings, you wake up in a wandering mood: after a strong cup of coffee and a survey of the weather, we decided to peek beyond the veil of the early morning haze and venture southeast. We forsook the freeways for the more scenic route of Sunset Boulevard, through Hollywood east to Western, then south, south, south beyond the 10, through K-town and past endless strip-mall Iglesias de Dios and pupuserias. Wonderful! As we......

Written and photographed by Joey Maloney for LAist Did you know that starfish are not really fish? In between rocking out to Ima Robot there were things to be a’learned at this month’s First Friday event at the Natural History Museum. Just a bit of back story, I have heard about the First Friday events since I moved to Los Angeles just over two years ago but never made it down to the ‘hood......

Sea Wolf, The Bird & the Bee, The Little Ones, Dengue Fever @ The Echo MXPX @ Avalon Ima Robot @ Natural History Museum Ima Fucking Gymnast @ Pehrspace Kinky @ El Rey The Autumns, The Sugarplastic @ Spaceland Elini Mandell @ Malibu Performing Arts Center 8-Bit, Bark Bark Bark, 8-Bit Weapon @ The Scene Agnostic Front, U.S. Roughnecks, Viva Hate, Hold My Own @ Knitting Factory Mother Tongue, Maryandi, The Sixth Chamber, The......

Now that the winds seem to have subsided, we're ready to dive into what promises to be a beautiful weekend, and we're pretty much ready for it to start now. Say it with us: T.G.I.F! Doesn't that feel good? We thought we'd tell you what we were up to this weekend, in case you needed a little inspiration, or in case you wanted to tell us something else you think we can't afford to......

The Austin duo Ghostland Observatory, recently played an LA show to a captive audience of taxidermied bison and eager beavers. Their hypersonic, March 2nd gig at the Natural History Museum was without question the auditory equivalent of the visual representation of launching into light speed. Never before have two people made so much damn noise at a museum. Aaron Behrens and Thomas Turner brought us their fabulous, electro-stupefying dance magic -- sometimes glittery, sometimes......

FRIDAY • Dead Meadow, Silversun Pickups and The Clean Prophets are at the Troubadour tonight at 8 PM. Tickets are $10 advance, $12 day of. • Spaceland features The 88, Derby and Rocco Deluca, plus a late night happy hour, with drink specials and no cover after 12:15 AM. • The Echo has the Los Abandoned Winter Formal, also featuring Gitch and DJ Santi, tonight at 8 PM. Tickets are $8. • Baritone Mattias......

When it comes right down to it, UCLA professor, Pulitzer prizewinner, evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond is all that. Guns, Germs and Steel is about how societies evolved; Collapse is about how they disappeared. Tonight he'll be speaking about one, or the other, or perhaps what happens in-between at the Skirball Cultural Center. Tickets are still available; they're not cheap, but $20 is still less than you'd pay to register at UCLA. The nonprofit organization......

FRIDAY • Night two of GSL's Flood & Mudslide Season Warm-Up Party at The Echo features 400 Blows, Free Moral Agents, Labwaste, Coaxial and Gabriel Hart and His Upset Black Guitar. Doors open at 7 PM; tickets are $10 or $18 for a two-night pass. • The second night of Nouvelle Vague at Tangier, with The Good Listeners and DJ Senor Amor. Tickets are $25. • Another Hitchcock double feature at 7:30 PM, with......

The end of 2005 is nigh. Luckily there's still time to get a dose of high culture before the year comes to a close -- most of the city's major museums will be open for at least part of the day. UCLA's Hammer Museum is open today from 11am - 3pm. Their big show is the low-art-as-high-culture Masters of American Comics, which is split between the Hammer and MOCA. With a big chunk of......

FRIDAY • The Earlies, The Idaho Falls, Great Northern and No North bring on the pop tonight at The Echo. Doors open at 8:30 PM and tickets are $10. [18+] • Very Be Careful and El Manifesto play Dante's birthday party at Little Pedro's. The party gets going at 9 PM. Tickets are $7. • UCLA Live features a performance by the one and only De La Soul at 8 PM. Tickets are $22-38......

Bart DeLorenzo is the artistic director of the Evidence Room, one of Los Angeles's most unique and adventurous theatres for new works and for avant-garde writers. At the ER, Bart has directed over 20 shows, including No Orchids For Miss Blandish (1999 LA Weekly Award, Best Direction) One Flea Spare, Messalina, Pentecost, Saved, Andromache, Leonce and Lena, and their current show, She Stoops To Comedy. (LAIST reviewed it here.) He has received many awards......

FRIDAY • Of Montreal, Tilly & the Wall and Grand Buffet will be performing tonight at the Vanguard Theatre (not the Ex Plex!). Tickets are $10 and the show starts at 8 PM. • The Fold at El Cid has The Dilettantes (featuring Joel from The Brian Jonestown Massacre) with Electromagnetic and Random Aok. Tickets are $7. • The second and final night of The Pixies at The Wiltern features shows at 7:30 and......

• KCRW presents a free Amoeba Music in-store performance by The Dears at 6 PM. • Dinner and a Movie at CineSpace features Todd Solondz's Welcome to the Dollhouse. Happy hour runs from 6-8 PM, followed by dinner and Dollhouse at 8 PM. • The Natural History Museum comes alive tonight at a First Fridays event, featuring the work in "Conversations," now on at NHM. Tonight's event begins at 7:30 PM. Admission is $15;......

While a few scenesters and industry folk ventured out into the city last night for some post new year's revelry at the house that Justin Timberlake built, Chi, we don't expect that many are going to brave the heavy rain and lightning storms this evening unless they are going to The Grove or the Arclight to finally catch The Life Aquatic or Million Dollar Baby or sneaking into their local multiplex in disguise to......