It's the last Saturday of the month and that means The Blue Mask at Mr. T's Bowl in Highland Park is back after a little holiday break. LA Weekly describes the all-night music party put on by fellow musicians of Motorcycle Black Madonnas as a venue to catch "some of the city’s most respected underground punk, hard-rock and bent-jazz musicians... Best of all, there’s almost no chance that the faux-rock glitterati (or celebrity trash like......

Fire: La Salle Avenue Elementary School sustained damage today, but no injuries were reported, due to a fire on the second floor this afternoon. Rain: A small tornado did indeed land on shore last night in Ventura County which is probably what led the NWS to issue last night's tornado warning for LA. It was an "empty air station hangar at the Naval Base Ventura County at Point Mugu" that took the hit, losing its......

Astra Heights, who is this week's iTunes Latino “Single of the Week,” will play tonight at The Echo. Lemon Sun will also be there. Yesterday was Xena: Princess Warrior picket day at the WGA Strike. Tonight, Xena herself, Lucy Lawless, will be bashing heads and belting out songs over at the Roxy. And earlier this morning, we interviewed Talib Kweli who will be at the House of Blues down the street from the Roxy......

Talib Kweli is your favorite rapper's favorite rapper. On his first farewell, The Black Album, rap superstar mogul Jay-Z gave Kweli the greatest sign of respect when he spit the following line "If skills sold/Truth be told/I'd probably be/Lyricly/Talib Kweli." The son of two college professors, the Brooklyn native is far from your average emcee. In the fall of 2007, Kweli released the critically acclaimed and commercially successful album Eardrum, the first from his new......

The critically acclaimed Black Star album not only introduced the world to two gifted emcees, Mos Def and Talib Kweli, it also opened the world's eyes and ears to the sounds of Cincinnati native, Hi-Tek. Born, Tony Cottrell, Tek has since gone on to become one of hip hop's elite producers working with the likes of everyone from 50 Cent to Snoop to Common to Nas to The Game. Today, the follow up to one......

What would you do to see a newly reunited Rage Against the Machine playing on the same stage and day as Wu-Tang Clan, Cypress Hill, Public Enemy, The Roots, Nas and Talib Kweli? If you said: Drive over an hour, stand in a line for 80 minutes in the 99 degree sun, avoid a restroom for nine hours, sit in possibly the worst parking lot traffic the Western Hemisphere has ever seen and inhale......

Large crowds, temps close to 100 degrees and pepper spray in the air. Ahh yes, just another night in San Bernardino. The premiere hip hop (+ one Rage Against the Machine) festival Rock The Bells rolled through the 909 this past weekend and what was billed as a celebration of respect and unity turned into a bit of a mob scene. There was something for every hip hop fan on the bill. Your backpackers......

Rage Against the Machine, Wu-Tang Clan, Cypress Hill, Public Enemy, Nas, the Roots, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Sage Francis, Brother Ali @ Hyundai Pavillion John Densmore & Tribal Jazz @ LACMA (5pm) Poison, Ratt @ Gibson Hookah, Saccharine Trust, Ghidra @ Mr. T's Bowl Minnie Driver, Mark Olson, AM @ The Hotel Cafe Cheap Trick @ Hollywood Bowl Very Be Careful @ The Bordello Danger Kitty @ The Canyon Scissors for Lefty, Gran Ronde......

With a new album on the way, No Place Like Soul due out July 31, and an upcoming gig here in Los Angeles at the UCLA JazzRaggae Festival this Sunday it seemed like as good a time as ever to catch up with one-third, sorry one quarter (the band just added a vocalist) of Soulive, Eric Krasno. The guitarist gives the inside scoop on the new album, his love of LA, and his budding career......

LA’s Stones Throw Records are quickly becoming the most important purveyors of independent hip-hop in the new millennium, much like East Coast indie stalwarts Rawkus were in the late 1990s. There is, however, one particularly notable difference between the two. While both labels are known for their independent spirit and bohemian rosters of hip-hop artists (Stones Throw with Madlib and his many aliases, MF Doom, J Dilla, et al and Rawkus was with Mos......

Was that Hollywood fire just a brilliant marketing scheme for tonight's benefit? Bad Religion @ Santa Monica Civic (Heal the Bay benefit) Captured By Robots, Teddy Bear Orchestra, Yeh Dede @ The Mint Bone Thugs-n-Harmony @ Ventura Theatre John Legend, Corinne Bailey Rae @ Gibson Richard Swift, David Vandervelde @ Spaceland Billy Talent, Cancer Bats, Drive By @ The Troubadour Talib Kweli @ House of Blues Veruca Salt, Charlotte Martin, Poets & Pornstars, Hello......

As the month of February rolls around, I can’t help but think of all the crazy things that have happened during the overly optimistic January. Late nights and early mornings, cheap concerts, and drinking all New Year’s Resolutions away with a bottle of Jack, ah, everything 2007 is meant be. So I welcome February, the month of love and Black history, to devote oh-so-much fun and laughs to a few more amusing hip hop......

Talib Kweli @ House of Blues Steve Aoki, DJ AM @ LAX The Spazmatics @ Dragonfly T.S.O.L., Manic Hispanic, The Adz, Black Fag @ Vault 350 You Me & Iowa, Scarlet Grey, The Henry Clay People @ Spaceland Valient Thorr, Nebula, Artimus Pyledriver @ The Scene All Shall Perish, The Faceless, Continuum, 13 Killings @ Whisky Anavan, Sexytime Explosion, Deadly Sins @ Alex's Bar Soft Environmental Collapse, Wrapt in Plastic @ Mr. T's Bowl......

Look at that line-up, people. Accept that you live in the greatest city in the world for live music. We might not have a thousand venues, but how do you resist these options? LAist is going to see the Format, but only because we've already seen the Chilis a million times, and the Subs earlier this summer, and the Foos, and Talib, but never Steve Wynn, especially in a tiny place like that. Hmmmm.........

So how would you end a weekend in which you have the number one movie in the country? Well, if you're Mos Def, you cold rock a party like it was Krush Groove. The Mighty Mos Def and Talib Kweli closed the main stage (to a much smaller crowd than Nine Inch Nails which, we think, had to do with Goldenvoice not naming Mos and Talib in the adverts or the program) with an......

We don't have confirmation on this but LAist was just told that 1650 Schrader, home to Marques Wyatt's DEEP on Sunday nights and a Beck secret show recently, has filed for bankruptcy and permanently closed its doors. Hip Hop artist Talib Kweli was scheduled to have a release party for the latest single off of his album, "Beautiful Struggle," tonight but that show is now cancelled. Anybody else know anything about the shut down......