Summer has passed and acts such as Suzanne Vega, Tegan and Sara, M.I.A., Spoon, and Rilo Kiley have reclaimed the spotlight after significant hiatuses, but the year is far from over. It’s now time to look forward to albums on the horizon that look like winners already: 21. In Our Bedroom After the War – Stars: The popular Canadian indie outfit is poised to take America by storm. (Release date: September 25) 20. As......

American Idol was only an hour and seven minutes tonight, which we think meant shorter songs clips and shorter packaged coaching segments with guest judge Gwen Stefani. And the shorter show was just fine with us because (1) most of these “Top 10” singers are good -- but they’re not great; (2) while the song choices were better than last week’s British Invasion, they were ripped right from the Adult Contemporary radio station playlists......

Like a presidential election, the information is trickling into the newsroom... Earlier today Andy let everyone know who most of the confirmed artists would be for this year's Coachella. Now we let you know who is playing on what days, etc. April 27 - Björk / Interpol / the Jesus and Mary Chain / Arctic Monkeys / Jarvis Cocker / Sonic Youth / Faithless / DJ Shadow / Peeping Tom / Brazilian Girls / Peaches......

As some of you may have noticed, I'm new to the LAist family. I love music and I am happy to provide music listings several times a week. While reading through the archives I saw how Gwen Stefani announced dates to the first part of her tour and seemed to be skipping LA until the very end. That wouldn't appear suspicious if it weren't for a two-day break from April 25 until April 28.......

Now that the weather is more normal we can go back to enjoying the fact that we live in LA and do Southern Californian things like skating, surfing, and editing movies on our Macs. "A Brokedown Melody" is a beautiful new surf film starring the likes of Kelly Slater, Tom Curren, Gerry Lopez, the Malloys, Rob Machado, CJ Hobgood, Jack Johnson and others. It features two tunes by Johnson, a previous unrelease solo number......

LA.Com and Venice Cantina are hosting a benefit for Surfer's Healing tomorrow evening from 7-10 PM. Surfer's Healing is a charity surf camp for austistic children. The benefit will feature performances by Sugar Ray (including Extra's own Mark McGrath) and Donovan Frankenreiter. There will be an auction (which actually has stuff people might want like a signed surfboard from the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a guitar signed by the members of No Doubt),......

Tomorrow night, Avalon Hollywood in conjunction with Will.I.Am of the Black Eyed Peas is hosting a Tsunami Benefit. All of the proceeds of the show, which features Justin Timberlake, James Brown, Carlos Santana, John Legend, Macy Gray, Herbie Hancock, Earth, Wind & Fire and more, are going towards UNICEF's Tsunami Relief efforts. We're not quite sure of all the details yet but we will update this as soon as we do. A week from......

Is it just us or are the 47th Grammy Awards Nominations woefully lacking in Los Angeles based artists and bands? Oh sure, the Black Eyed Peas and No Doubt make a few appearances and Snoop Dogg's Neptunes produced "Drop It Like It's Hot" rightfully competes for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group but these are all the usual suspects. Was this really that bad a year for local music? Local indie fave......