Riding Metro's light rail trains with a bike is not fun, especially when there's a crowd. Space is limited and bikes, unless foldable, are clunky. In Portland, where the train cars are a different model, bringing a bike is a little easier, especially since you can store them vertically on a hook. Cody Fogh's post on "Metroquette" yesterday led one commenter to say "I feel like I need some bicycle 'Metroquette' tips." To that, we......

Last Tuesday, pornstar/director Kimberly Kane (MySpace) celebrated the release of her new Vivid-Alt (MySpace) movie Morphine, her second directorial effort for the imprint, with a party at Beauty Bar in Hollywood. Inspired by Kane's experiences working at the Sugar Shack in Portland around 2003, Morphine "...paints a dark picture of a young woman (Audrey Hollander) struggling to leave the tawdry life of prostitution and drug addiction to follow her dreams of being a Nashville......

Mia Birk of Alta Planning, the company that is working on the LA Bicycle Master Plan | Screen Capture from Sundance As part of Sundance Channel's green programming, tonight's episode of Big Ideas For A Small Planet features cities tackling transit with green solutions. No, Los Angeles is not featured (save for a couple stock shots of an orange Metro bus), but the ideas presented in the episode are all something the region could......

As mentioned yesterday, Eric Richardson of blogdowntown is visiting Portland on a delegation to study the city's public transit, namely the streetcar system. One of the biggest concerns is construction -- the time it takes and how it affects traffic, both auto and pedestrian. One of the biggest opponents was Mike Powell, of Powell's Books fame. But after the construction came and went, he became a fan....

Blazers 82, Clippers 80 - Portland blew a 14 point lead in Staples Center one night after blowing a 15 point lead on the very same court. This time they were playing the Clippers, so things worked out OK. Los Angeles managed a pathetic 29 points in the first half, but did make a noble effort in the second. Corey Maggette was hot with 32 points, but missed a big shot with eight ticks left.......

I told people not to overlook the Portland Trail Blazers. Historically they have played the Lakers really tough. Even though the Blazers were 32-50 last season, they won the season series against the Lakers last season. So there they were in the first quarter being run out of the Staples Center by the Blazers down 15 points. The Blazers seemed run their offensive sets as if they were in practice, and the Lakers couldn’t get......

Lakers 96, Blazers 83 - Portland made their first 21 free throws so, um, they got that going for them. Otherwise is was show time in Staples Center, with Kobe pouring in 30 along with 21 from Jordan Farmar (equaling a career high) and 15 from insta-hero Pau Gasol. The bearded big man added 10 rebounds for a double-double. Animal style. Los Angeles has won nine in a row and is looking ridiculously good (not......

The City of Los Angeles is in the process of updating its Bicycle Master Plan, a component of the Transportation Element of the City’s General Plan. For the cycling community, this should be a joyous occasion, the opportunity to participate in the creation of a City Planning Department document that codifies the rights of cyclists and drives the development of a multi-modal city. But critics complain that the BMP Workshop process is obligatory at best......

Alex & Sam will play the first show of their residency at Tangier tonight | Photo via their MySpace You might recognize the girl above. Locally, that's Sam from the band Alex & Sam who is playing at Tangier all this month every Sunday night, but for those who are more pop-culture oriented (rather, American Idol obsessed), that's Samantha Sidley who got a pass from all three judges for a "Welcome to Hollywood" (she's......

32-year-old Dionn Semaj Holton was taken into custody on Thursday at noon in relation to accusations by a 15-year-old male who claims he was sexual assaulted by him. Holton, a substitute teacher who came into contact with the student while working at Long Beach's Cabrillo High School, has been "charged with two counts of oral copulation of a person under 16 years of age." Allegedly, Holton had the student perform oral sex inside a Cabrillo......

Portland based musician and known as "the Stephen King of Indie Pop," Chris Robley and his band -- Fear of Heights -- play at Mr. T's Bowl tonight in Highland Park. Plenty of MP3s to check out of this indie-pop folk band below. Mr. Lif & The Perceptionists @ The Knitting Factory Jessie Evans, Von Iva, Deadbeats @ Silverlake Lounge Chuck Berghofer Midnight Jazz Band @ Charlie O's (Valley jazz club, not downtown one) The......

We Barbarians, the Long Beach locals who recently played on tour with the Cold War Kids, begin their Silverlake Lounge Residency tonight. And we fully approve. &righticonhover=0x333232&text=0x333232&slider=0xF2F2F2&track=0xFFFFFF&border=0xFFFFFF&loader=0x838383&soundFile=http://aprodxn.com/laist/zfiles/webarbarians1.mp3"> "Yesmen & Bumsuckers" - In The Doldrums EP &righticonhover=0x333232&text=0x333232&slider=0xF2F2F2&track=0xFFFFFF&border=0xFFFFFF&loader=0x838383&soundFile=http://aprodxn.com/laist/zfiles/03Doldrums.mp3"> "In The Doldrums" - In The Doldrums EP &righticonhover=0x333232&text=0x333232&slider=0xF2F2F2&track=0xFFFFFF&border=0xFFFFFF&loader=0x838383&soundFile=http://aprodxn.com/laist/zfiles/04SpunOut.mp3"> "Spun Out" - In The Doldrums EP Tonight, they play with Aushua (Orange, CA) and Drew Grow (Portland, OR); next week with The Henry Clay People and Matt Death and......

There's only one place hardcore enough to host a night bands tonight and that's The Smell in downtown. After all, it is their 10-Year Anniversary Series. Tonight is all variations of punk. If you go, make sure you hear the easy listening punk sounds of Portland's Magic Johnson and quite good experimental punk of NASA Space Universe. Others on the set list include the powerpop punked Ima Gymnist, the female led punk thrash band --......

Two really good bands (that taste great together) have announced today that they are heading East. The Art Brut / Hold Steady concert that was originally planned to happen at the Wiltern will now go down at the Music Box at the Henry Fonda on November 7. Art Brut is the crazy British band whose tune "Moving to LA" can be heard on KROQ and Indie pretty much every day, and the Hold Steady......

!!! aka Chk Chk Chk (or any other triple repeated expletive) played at the Avalon a couple weeks ago to a large crowd of friends, supporters, party-people, and folks who just effing wanted to dance. The band is 8 months into touring to support their incredible album Myth Takes and are about to embark for another pass through Europe. !!! loves LA - they have a lot of friends here, they make a pilgrimage......

Ducks 2, Bruins 1 - After managing just one win in five road games to start the season, the defending Stanley Cup Champions returned home on Wednesday to take care of some business. Boston led from the first minute until a third-period comeback, when the Anaheim looked a little more like their championship form. Dallas 5, Kings 1 - This was familiar. Dallas swept the season series 8-0 last year, and maintained their form into......

Still on tour in support of Wincing the Night Away, their third and most recent release from January of this year, The Shins hit up the Greek Theatre on Sunday to a packed house. Up until a few days prior I really only knew the Portland, OR based band from their two songs on the Garden State soundtrack, Caring is Creepy and New Slang. But I packed in some pre-show listens to the newest......

China Forbes is the ultra-fabulous frontlady of Pink Martini, a 12 piece “little orchestra” based in Portland, Oregon. Pink Martini is the kind of band that serves up a little sumthin for everyone – their multi-lingual repertoire ranges from lounge to Latin, classical to cosmopolitan and they’re huge stars in France. This Friday, Saturday and Sunday (Sept. 14, 15 & 16) the band hits the stage at the Hollywood Bowl accompanied by our very......

There's a box that generally lives on a shelf in my closet that holds pretty much every single journal, diary, and notebook I've kept since my mom brought me back my first diary (a lavender lock-front Minnie Mouse book with "Journal Intime" embossed in gold block letters) from a trip to France when I was nine years old. I will confess readily that I love to pull that box down and rifle through the......

Last night my friend and I went to the local dive bar to drink Tecates and talk shit on hipsters. When we arrived I had to hit up the ladies room, so my friend went to the counter to order drinks. When I came back, she was sitting in a booth with three guys, two beers and a smile on her face. Ahh, I love arriving to pleasant surprises! I sat down and introduced......

5. The Melbourne, Australia-based sextet will perform a high-energy, boogie-inducing set featuring songs from their third LP, "Places Like This" (due August); so if you've seen them before, it's time to go back for more. AIH incorporates what's best described as Australian bush yelping reminiscent of early Midnight Oil while managing to sound at times like the B-52s, Gang of Four, Devo, and Talking Heads. Oh, and vocalist / multi-instrumentalist Kellie Sutherland has a most......

Being a late arrival to the Menomena party and not knowing much about the trio from Portland before attending their sold out show at the Troubadour last night, except of course what LAist covered about them, I decided to bring my trusted BFF Russell Mills along to school me on their digital looping musical stylings. After a brief scare at the door, when some forgotten "paraphernalia" in my bag (which they searched) almost didn't......

Sunday night I crept down an alleyway, drank a bunch of absinthe and watched a girl get her eyes gouged out with a knitting needle. The gouging wasn’t real, but the absinthe was. Welcome to Los Angeles' theatre du Grand Guignol de Paris. The Grand Guignol was a theater in the Pigalle district, the seamy underbelly of Paris. The theater’s focus varied slightly with shifts in management, but the subject matter of its short......

Lifesavas are a rap trio that come from Portland Oregon, and they're playing a show in LA, June 12th @ the Roxy. Members Vursatyl, Jumbo, and Shines have been proving that you don't need the cliché bling, bitches, and 40's to make great rap music. All you need is to keep it real, bust your ass, and make better music than everyone else. Easy, right? We sat down with Vursatyl to ask him what's crackin'.......

The second day of the Bottled Smoke Festival continued last night at Mr. T’s Bowl in Highland Park after a full day of bands at Echo Curio in Echo Park. Mr. T’s was the only portion of the festival that cost money, but $8 got you a lot, including the powerful ambient noises of one-man show Ghosting, instrumental rock by San Francisco’s Tarantel, and the spooky sounds of Humboldt County’s Starving Weirdos played to......

Portland’s disco-punk duo Glass Candy graced L.A.’s presence twice this past weekend. On Friday night, Johnny Jewel and Ida No played to a sardine-packed crowd of teenagers at Echo Park’s Tribal Cafe, a juice and coffee bar that clears out part of its floor for bands. Everybody danced and yelled out requests and put the band in a chipper mood. On Sunday night Glass Candy played Part Time Punks at the Echo, this time......

Say what you will about traffic in LA, people driving while texting, and tailgaters boiling over with road rage, but according to AutoVantage, a Connecticut-based auto club, similar to AAA, Miami is home to more road-ragers than LA, so take that Florida. For the second year in a row Miami has claimed the dubious crown of having the meanest, worst, angriest, and dumbest commuters who run red lights, talk on their phones, and slam......

Wanna make a film in only 12 hours without whoring yourself out on some dingy casting couch or selling your firstborn in exchange for a paltry production budger? Of course you do. So sign up for the first ever Los Angeles Film Race, a crazy 12-hour film competition that takes place on Saturday, June 2. Here's how it works. At 11:59 AM on June 2, each filmmaking team (you choose your own teams well in......

It all comes down to this. One night. A grueling, six-month season, all decided in 48 minutes on the court. Unfortunately for the Clippers, the court in question will be the Rose Garden in Portland, where the Golden St. Warriors play the Blazers. A win for the Warriors and they advance to the playoffs for the first time in 13 years. A loss opens the door for the Clips to potentially sneak in if they......

Clippers 103, Suns 99 - The sun hasn't set on the Clipper's playoff hopes yet. Los Angeles surprised Phoenix, who played their regular starters despite a lock on the #2 seed in the West. The Clippers need to beat New Orleans (a/k/a Oklahoma City) on Wednesday and root for Portland to beat Golden State. That scenario would tie them with the Warriors at .500. The teams split their season series, but the Clippers would advance......