There were nearly as many people on stage as in the crowd at the Echo last night to witness the phenomenon that was a 35-minute set from Dark Meat, the 17-piece psychedelic rock collective from Athens, Georgia. Dark Meat has been tearing up small venues in the South for a few years. Now signed to Vice Records, this orgiastic cacophony of punk vocals, horns, gospel, double drums, and manic prancing on the dance floor made......

The difference between last year and this year was night and day. Last year, the police were in riot gear, got injured, shot rubber bullets into crowds full of innocent people including, children, the elderly and reporters live on air (see this video). This year, the LAPD retrained and chilled out... a lot more. By the end of the day, only five people had been arrested. Earlier May Day Photo Essays include: Portraits, Crowds and......

More scenes from yesterday's various May Day marches from LAist Featured Photos contributor Tom Andrews.......

LAist Featured Photos contributor Tom Andrews spent the day at yesterday's May Day marches. Here are some of the amazing images of the people he saw and met.......

Dong Il Jang is highly ranked on Yelp and is one of the oldest Korean restaurants in Los Angeles. It also happens to be one of the higher-end Korean places in K-town. It is a little pricier than the usual cheap Korean places I go to, but you see it reflected both in the atmosphere and the presentation of the food. I'm looking to get away from strictly Korean Barbecue and go for more variety......

Hey, there, beer fans! The word is out on the street, Father's Office II in Culver City finally opens its doors tonight! You heard me. Rumors say 5pm. Our coverage of the preview party probably left you wanting more but starting tonight you get to see it for yourself, taste the gastropub fare goodness for yourself, choose from what looks to be a gazillion beers on tap and guzzle, I mean, savor, for yourself.......

Join the LAist Featured Photos group and help us document life in LA as it happens.......

The Bamboozle Left Festival at Irvine's Verizon Wireless Amphitheater was a punk rock madhouse this weekend. Photos from Sunday coming soon. All photos by David Greenwald/LAist......

Al Gelato sits on Robertson in the southern part of Bevely Hills. It came recommended from a couple of friends, but I initially had doubts because it was billed more as a dessert place, but hey, if they have cake and pizza and gelato all in one place, who am I to complain? The pre-meal bread is huge! It's got a thin crust and very soft and fluffy insides. They plop down a plate of......

In celebration of World Pillow Fight Day, hundreds of spring-fevered revelers duked it out in Pershing Square 'til they were "ankle-deep in feathers." All photos by Dan Tentler for LAist......

Surprisingly, the West Side has quite a few impressive barbecue joints, which are hole-in-the-walls. One of these is Mr. Cecil's California Ribs. We found it on Pico Blvd., one block west of Bundy Ave. The restaurant sits in this unique, little, round building. The tables are few, but the place is very cozy. The menu feels slightly limited, but maybe our eyes skipped some parts of it because we knew exactly what we wanted...RIBS......

Baby spinach adorns the NY White pizza above, Porco pizza shown underneath. Two of my friends have been raving about this supposed "real Italian/napolitana" pizza in Monterey Park, and after months of accumulated hype I decided to give in and drive 20 miles just for fucking pizza. I even took five other friends in tow for the expedition to Monterey Park, the hotbed for all great cheap eats -- some of my favorites include......

Photo by highervision via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr This evening a public viewing will be held for slain LA High football star Jamiel Shaw, with funeral services to follow tomorrow. Shaw's tragic murder has prompted many LA residents to refocus on the senselessness of gang-related violence. Go, stop, go, stop: Commuters northbound on the 57 and the 605 transitioning to the 210 westbound this morning were greeted by the new traffic......

Photo by Jonathan Alcom via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr This is last Friday as reported by LAist Featured Photos contributor Jonathan Alcom: "A gallon of regular gasoline priced at 3.99 at a Unocal gas station on Pico Bl and Barrington in West Los Angeles on Friday March 7, 2008 as surging oil prices jumped to a new record above $106 Friday. This gas station was about 40 cents higher than other......

'Capitalism' by Kwasi B. via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr American Flag. Check. California Flag. Check. City McDonald's Flag. Ha! Location possibly near Wilshire and Western......

Shadow & Light in Little Tokyo | Photo by pink_fish13 via LAist's Featured Photos pool on Flickr. Monday Jeremy D. Popkin presents Facing Racial Revolution 7pm @ Dutton's Tuesday Alan Corey presents A Million Bucks by 30 7pm @ Book Soup Christopher Rice presents Blind Fall 7pm @ Borders, West Hollywood Wednesday Milo Martin presents Poems for a Utopian Nihilist 7pm @ Book Soup Leslie Lehr presents Wife Goes On 7pm @ Dutton's Josh......

I wake up every morning with the weather and traffic reports on ABC7 Eyewitness News. (My boyfriend and I love to share a fresh pot of coffee every morning and gently guffaw at Garth Kemp's goofball antics and shameless puppy-promotion.) This morning, no joke, the weather report was one word: "Perfect." Yup, sunny, clear, and 77 degrees. When I came off the freeway this morning, I could see down the Hollywood hills straight through to......

After a 5-month investigation, the Associated Press found that Los Angeles drinking water has traces of Anti-epileptic and anti-anxiety medications. "To be sure," the AP noted "the concentrations of these pharmaceuticals are tiny, measured in quantities of parts per billion or trillion, far below the levels of a medical dose." Across the nation, the report found tainted water supplies in 24 major metropolitan areas, five of those in California: Los Angeles: 2 (meprobamate and phenytoin)......

Nick's, home of delicious breakfast burritos, by Rebecca~James via LAist Featured Photos Pool on Flickr Remember when we told you that Los Angeles tap water was the best tasting in the world? Turns out that our delicious H20 might have been sprinkled with delicious drugs. The AP found that a multitude of pharmaceuticals, like antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones, have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million......

Photo by tom.julio via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr TALK Throw on a hoodie and some comfy pants and head out now to make the 2 p.m. start of the Radical Women's International Women’s Day Celebration talk called "Art, Media & Revolution – Three Feminist Visionaries Speak Out." Panelists include artist Susana De Leon, poet Ashley Love, and journalist Amanda Rossi. If getting in touch with your inner grrrrrl makes you hungry,......

"Fire in the Sky" by manmadepants via LAist Featured Photos Pool on Flickr Sacramento to California's teachers: I love you, but I just can't pay you. Thousands of teachers across the state this week could receive pink slips in the wake of the $14.5 billion budget gap. Teachers to Sacramento: I'd like to see you try and force us out. The Air Quality Management District loves clean air so much they decided to impose......

Getting a parking ticket just downright blows, agreed? It can be the ultimate day-ruining moment, especially if you're having the proverbial "one of those days" to begin with. However, LAist Featured Photos Pool contributor faerymkh submitted a shot of the ticket they found on their windshield recently, that had an added message from a thoughtful and anonymous individual. To explain:A stranger left the message "Bummer that you got a ticket but they suck and......

...or you could hit up Swingers for a late-night bite (LAist did!) | Photo by Stephanie Asher via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr DOCUMENTARY & DISCUSSION Non-profit mentoring group WriteGirl is putting on a screening of Girls Rock! which is a documentary about a rock n' roll girls' camp, and hosting a panel discussion after the film. Scheduled panelists include WriteGirl's founder and executive director, singer-songwriter Keren Taylor; Grammy-award winning songwriter and......

Photo by ~db~ via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr It's official: Police have identified the Green Skeleton Bandit who was fatally shot earlier this week when he was caught in the act of robbing the AutoZone in NoHo by a US Marshal. He was 24-year-old Lawrence Dean Smith Jr. of Palmdale who used a knife and wore a skeleton-themed sweatsuit in his robberies. Fight for the right to ficus! Local activists in......

$3.55 for unleaded. Check, albeit annoying. $3.79 for performance plus. Ugh, okay, check. $9.38 a gallon for high performance. Che-- wha???!?!?!!!? LAist Featured Photos photographer Movie Lover snapped this shot on the Westside. "While driving past a gas station in Brentwood, CA a while back, I noticed that the price had gone up. Way up." Yeah, no doubt. Let's see, April Fool's Day is next month. It's not a six upside down. This doesn't look......

"The fundamentalists in the Virgil Village neigborhood have started a campaign to cover all exposed hydrant-breasts. Surely this is American prudishness at its silliest. Grow up! Hydrant-nipples are natural and beautiful. You would never see a hydrant like this in Europe. " | Photo and caption by benrodian via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr Really, the only news I care about today? "Lost" is on tonight. Tomdog had the scoop today. Hang......

Photo by Lush.i.ous via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr Speaking of that 14-car pile-up this morning on the 101 freeway, how about this fact via the Daily Breeze? There's a near $11-billion price "cost to society" due to car crashes according to a study called "Crashes: What's the Cost to Society?" According to the study -- conducted on behalf of the American Automobile Association by the transportation policy firm Cambridge Systematics --......

"Sister Cities" | Photo by Stephanie Asher via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr An update on yesterday's Harbor-Gateway shooting of a 6-year-old in a car. LAPD Chief Bratton announced: "We are very confident that we have the people who were involved in the actual shooting in custody." For the Lakers fans out there, LA City Councilman Bernard Parks declared today as "Derek Fisher Day." 1,817. That's the number of teacher layoffs so......

Remember the strike? | Photo by Kim Shattuck via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr It's all about last minute campaigning for the Democrats in Ohio and Texas; as of this writing, both primaries are still too close to call (Obama & McCain have taken Vermont). More updates on this morning's story about Margaret Seltzer, the author who fabricated a "memoir" about growing up as a white, female gangbanger in L.A.'s South Central.......

LAist Featured Photos contributor at our Flickr pool submits this photo from outside Union Station where this group protested the death of fleas. She asks "were they serious? Or some type of public theatre art. Thoughts? Also, where'd she get the flea costume?" Well, we found this video below of the same people, this time protesting on Hollywood Blvd. saying fleas are needlessly murdered.......