Sunset boulevard swelled today in front of guitar center where Billy Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlin were honored with an induction into the RockWalk, which is apparently some sort of street gallery rock/blues/jazz thing....

*Updates as of 10:53am: The LA Times is now reporting: "Witnesses described a man approximately 64 years old leaping from the Wilton Place crossing over the northbound Hollywood Freeway near Sunset Boulevard at about 8:30 a.m."A man jumped to his death from the 101 North overpass at Sunset Boulevard this morning; reports are coming in from Sigalert.com that traffic is badly snarled. LAist spoke to a witness at the scene who was caught in......

RIP Tower Records building on Sunset: 1971-2008 The fate of the empty Tower Records store on Sunset Boulevard has been decided: Demolition. Yesterday it was announced that the once-iconic yellow-and-red building at 8801 W. Sunset on the Strip would meet its un-maker, as it is being razed by a Chicago-based developer in order to build a multi-use office building slated to boast a gym and retail shops. Though by no means an architectural wonder,......

Two robberies at gunpoint took place late last night in Hollywood, resulting in injuries to the victims. The first incident, which was reported at 1:44 a.m. was a home invasion in an apartment at 1750 Wilcox Avenue. According to the Daily News, the victim "was standing in front of his apartment building when two men walked up, pointed a gun at him and demanded to be brought to his apartment." The tenant led the robbers......

I wasn’t much of a Tom Petty fan in my pre-L.A. years, but like most people, I knew him from the basics…I had caterwauled the lyrics to "Free Fallin’" alongside other angsty Massachusetts teens at a dance or two, and I had been baffled by, but pretended I knew what the hell was going on in, the "Mary Jane's Last Dance" video. But beginning with my drive cross country, I began to develop a taste......

Record shops and CD purveyors are going the way of the 8-track. Joining the now-defunct ranks of Aron's Records, Rhino Records and Tower on Sunset is the Virgin Megastore. The rent's too high (tell us something we don't know!) And maybe, the sluggish music sales don't help much, either. According to a Los Angeles Times story today: Another one bites the dust. The Virgin Megastore on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, just down the......

Pour a lil cough medicine on the floor for this dead homie: paramedics were called to the Mondrian Hotel on Sunset Boulevard in response to a 911 call this morning, where they found rapper Pimp C, also known as Chad Butler, dead of mysterious causes. The artist had just performed a show at the House of Blues with Too $hort a few days ago. From the Los Angeles Times: "The hotel released the following......

Whether you are a devoted fan of Joy Division or simply a casual listener, Control should be high on your must-see list of movies. It is a masterfully and intimately told story about one of the more opaque musical figures of the last thirty years, Ian Curtis (my LAist review of the film is below). Yesterday, I had the chance to speak with one of the film's producers, Orian Williams, who spent ten years......

I have to confess something: despite living in the NoHo Arts District, despite working on Sunset and Vine, despite writing for one of the most public-transit-friendly blogs in the city, I have remained hesitant about taking the Metro to work every morning. I mean, it makes sense: the station in NoHo is about a 10-15 minute walk away, it's a quick 10 minute trip to the Hollywood and Vine station, which drops me conveniently......

Did you know today is the 226th birthday of El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora La Reina de Los Angeles -- aka L.A.? The old bitch is looking pretty good for her age! Although the city did not incorporate until 1850, September 4th, 1781 is the date that 44 Mexican pobladores set out from San Gabriel with a military escort to settle alongside a great river -- then called the Rio de Porciuncula, later to......

After much anticipation, this afternoon marked the opening day of Chicago's Intelligentsia Coffee in Silver Lake at their new Sunset Junction location. I've been looking forward to this opening since the announcement of their arrival some months ago, mainly because after falling in love with their bean roasts while on vacation in the Windy City last year, ordering bags of beans for home brewing via the internets was getting to cost me a pretty penny.......

Selected quotes from another Wilshire gridlocked story in the LA Times ("Signal fixes get the green light" by Ron Gong-Lin II):Last month, [Councilman Jack] Weiss asked the city Department of Transportation for its master plan and list of top needs, and found out there were none. "It's municipal malpractice," Weiss said. "We have a strategic plan for other important aspects for our city, but the one most vexing issue, traffic. . . there's no......

I am a polite, mild-mannered person. Laid-back would be a good L.A. way of saying it - I say duuude a lot, about as much as I say "please" and "thank you". I hold doors open for people. I am kind to the elderly, even those who try to strike up conversations with me in elevators, despite my extraordinary claustrophobia. The peccadilloes and perversities of human nature that draw other, less mellow people to......

In a brilliant melding of marketing genius and a tip of the hat to a bittersweet time in LA rock history, the White Stripes announced today that they will be performing an intimate show at the location formerly known as the Tower Records on Sunset. Transforming it to Icky Thump Records (named after their upcoming cd) the duo will perform at the now-closed-and-shuttered West Hollywood landmark for the benefit of the first 200 fans......

There is a song in the early summer evening air and it’s a song of hipsters, small yummy tacos, and very, very strong drinks. I live a considerable distance from Malo, but it’s always a great place to meet up with people before going to the Greek. Malo is on Sunset Boulevard, the décor is dark, iron is very much in evidence, there are lots of curtains. Outside, the décor is minimal, with a......

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......

At 4:30 p.m. today, there will be a press conference over Lindsay Lohan's 5:30 a.m. drunk driving crash that happened this morning on Sunset Blvd. She crashed her black Mercedes Convertible after hitting a curb and going into the bushes.Lohan, 20, and two other people were in her 2005 Mercedes SL-65 when it crashed on Sunset Boulevard around 5:30 a.m., Sgt. Mike Foxen said. "She was cited and released because she has been admitted to......

When Basic Instinct 2 and Flicka came out last year and flopped right out of the gate, it didn't scare Hollywood away from continuing to remake classic movies. Here are just a few remakes coming at you that will probably also avoid (with the year they're due to be released): The 39 Steps (2009) Adventures in Babysitting (2008) The Birds (2009) Conan the Barbarian (2008) Deathrace 3000 (2008) Escape from New York (2009) The......

It's kinda like graffiti, only fuzzier. Don’t know what I’m talking about? Check out the lobby of the Standard Hotel on Sunset, where for the next couple of weeks, Knitta Please’s handiwork will be on display. Emphasis on “hand”. The Houston-based group of women (and one man) are giving your grandma’s knitting a healthy dose of “street” appeal. Think of it as guerilla knitting. Knitta gathers every week or so, and knit open tubes......

A cluttered stretch of Sunset Boulevard, crowded with stores and neon, billboards and cars, the sidewalks studded with gum, marked with the spray-painted symbols of different bands who’ve played Amoeba, seems a place ill suited to the food of a blue New England day, a little warm with a nice breeze, the air has that sweet salt tang to it. But to find the best seafood in town, Los Angelenos know better than to......

What Oscar Says... Here are the street and sidewalk closures according to them: Friday, Sautrday, Sunday, Monday. City Streets (According to the City) The City of Los Angeles will strictly enforce the parking restrictions and will cite and/or impound vehicles parked on streets at times shown (complete list after the jump). Hollywood Boulevard has been closed between Highland Avenue and Orange Drive since Monday for the construction of press risers, fan bleachers, and pre-show......

With Joe Rogan's recent calling out of Carlos Mencia's joke-stealing habit, comedy has been a bit more interesting lately. This weekend, Rogan is performing twice at The Improv, and a few miles away, Mencia will be safe from him at The Comedy Store, where Rogan has been banned due to Mencia's feelings that he was "physically threatening." Comedians can be so dramatic sometimes. The Improv (8162 Melrose Avenue Los Angeles) 2/16 Joe Rogan @ 8:30......

A bistro is a café that serves simple meals in a relaxed setting, the kind of place you can go where you don’t have to worry about meeting anyone’s expectations for relative fame or fashionable dress. My favorite places in L.A. this year generally fit this definition. 1. Pazzo Gelato (my review) Many of my friends look at the dessert menu before they even consider a main course, so let’s start there. After lunch......

Weekend Edition Tonight - Saturday "Sunset Boulevard" (TCM, 5:00 p.m.) The movie about the fickleness of stardom in Hollywood. It's somehow beyond a classic. "American Movie" (IFC, 6:15 p.m.) The movie about self-financed redneck-geek movie maker Mark Borchardt's project "Coven", pronounced "koh-vehn" Ducks @ Sharks (KDOC, 7:30 p.m.) Didn't these guys just play each other a couple days ago? Are there only 3 or 4 teams in the NHL? Stars @ Kings (Fox Sports,......

Pop singer Justin Timberlake, who's singlehandedly bringing sexy back, (we've just gotten ours, what about you?) is now a playah in the design game, a la Gwen Stefani, Diddy, J-Lo and the mogul who does it the best: Jay-Z. JT debuted his William Rast line on Tuesday night at the Social on Sunset Boulevard. And while Jay-Z's Rocawear just oozes hip and urban without really trying (Michael Knight should pay attention), LAist is still......

Last night we were invited to see Emily Haines of Metric play her solo album for the first time in Los Angeles at the Viper Room. We weren’t familiar with Metric’s catalog and had only been to one Metric show before that resulted in a Metric fan strong-arming us out of the way of the stage resulting in our subsequent departure. That being said we went in not really knowing what to expect. We......

One sentence roundup: And I’m sure Bedrockist.com is where the Flintstones would point their, um, rockputer to see what the mayor said in his latest news conference about all those layoffs at the quarry. - Ironic Sans The Los Angeles District Attorney charged a pregnant Burbank woman with involuntary manslaughter Monday for allegedly fatally assaulting a 75-year-old parking attendant over a $5 parking fee. - Burbank Leader Over the next two decades, neon signs......

Mom wants to be hip. She's tired of silk scarves from Nordstrom's and Liz Taylor handbags. What she wants this Mother's Day is a monster-appliqué purse and a set of robot-stencilled tea towels, all made by local hipster craftspeople. Who happen to be selling iridescent cupcakes in the parking lot of a comic book store. Ok, maybe not. But you might — and you can tell yourself you're shopping for mom. This Saturday, Felt......

The late 1950s television series took its name from the address of its hepcat private eyes' office: 77 Sunset Strip (known as Sunset Boulevard to the squares). This 1958 clip features an ingenue named Sharon Hugueny; it was uploaded by her now-adult son, who writes that she was signed by Warner Brothers upon graduating from high school. LA spotting: there's a nice shot of West Hollywood as the detectives' car pulls out onto Sunset, but......

Don’t blink the first time you look for The Echo or you might miss it. Sans sign on this stretch of Sunset Boulevard you could be half-way to downtown or Silverlake. But when you do find it, there is every reason to believe you could become a regular. This little sister to Spaceland, The Echo has the same free Monday night thing going on. Parking on most night can be found within a block......