The great reggae dj and singer/producer Mikey Dread (born Michael George Campbell) passed away March 15th from a brain tumor at age 54. An engineer in the mid 70s at the JBC, the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation, Dread started "Dread at the Controls", the first all-reggae show in a time where most of the music played was pop music from other countries. The show became a huge hit and Dread went on to record his own......

Carbon/Silicon took their punk rock pedigrees to the stage at the El Rey Wednesday night and kicked out an inspired, energized set that left the crowd of several hundred white 40-year-olds ecstatic that they’d stayed out past their bedtimes. I have to confess that I hadn’t heard much Carbon/Silicon before the show. Most of the press I’ve seen has been less about the band, and more about the band members – especially Mick Jones......

If you see folks walking around with some dirt on their foreheads today, they proabably did it on purpose. It is Ash Wednesday, where Christians are supposed to fast, pray, repent after the debauchery of Mardi Gras and (Super Tuesday). So here' are a few debauch-free events for tonight: WORDS The ALOUD series continues with John Burnham Schwartz, author of Reservation Road, who talks about his new novel set in 1959 Japan where a non-aristocratic......

Don't forget to donate to the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund this month, because you should, and for a chance to win their latest fun gift: a special, one of a kind silk-screened Clash T-shirt designed by bassist Paul Simonon (now of The Good, The Bad, and The Queen). The shirt goes to one lucky person who donates at least $20 to the charity between January 15th and February 26th. Simonon designed most of the band's......

The Barcode Battler....

I am thankful for… Thanksgiving - even though I think it’s a stupid holiday, and I pretty much hate all the food associated with it - for giving me the opportunity to spend the day with family that I love and actually enjoy being around. I am thankful every day that I am able to make a living being creative and doing something I love. (Except for when I’m on strike) I am thankful......

So I will admit I've never seen Julien Temple's The Filth and The Fury. I've heard about it, but being more of a Clash fan than a Pistols fan, I've been waiting years for a film about The Clash, preferably portrayed by actors like The Beatles in Backbeat, (quick, who would you cast??), or hell, even just another documentary. Joe Strummer has been one of my heroes since I was a kid, due to......

Ten years from now we may look back at 300 as the movie that heralded the final shift away from the star-driven, mega-budget blockbuster paradigm. In an increasingly risk-managed world, why not spend 60 million dollars on a whole movie instead of 25 million on Tom Cruise or one of the Wills? Hot Fuzz signals the definite arrival of Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg that was so strongly hinted at in Shaun of the......

It seems unlikely that I actually saw it, but I’d swear to you that I was up on the night that Wendy O. Williams of the Plasmatics destroyed a car on the Tomorrow Show. I would have been nearing the end of eighth grade and I can’t imagine that my parents let me stay up, but it sure feels like I did. That’s the problem and the beauty of current technology. We can’t really remember......

Before the hand strikes twelve tonight, you might want to check out the current iTunes Free Download Single of the Week. The song, Herculean. The band, The Good, the Bad and the Queen. Their self-titled debut album released a week ago and while you may have not heard the band, you've heard the players. Blur's front man Damon Albarn leads the project and Danger Mouse produces (in real life, his name is Brian Joseph......

Rarely do we at LAist hype the opening act of a show twice in the same hour, but Gogol Bordello deserves the love. If The Pogues, The Clash, and Borat were molested by a traveling pack of female Gypsies on the outskirts of Turkey and produced soccer-jersey wearing rockers, you'd have this band who was one of the highlights of last year's SXSW festival. They are loud, funny, fun, raucous, and their energy is......

(+44) - When Your Heart Stops Beating (Interscope) Ali B - Ali B Presents ... Air Breaks (Air) And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead - So Divided (Interscope) April Wine - Roughly Speaking (April Wine) Bad Astronaut - Twelve Small Steps, One Giant Disappointment (Fat) Johnny Cash - At San Quentin (two CDs and one DVD; Columbia) Cassettes - 'Neath the Pale Moon (Buddyhead) Cee-Lo - Closet Freak (Arista/Legacy) Depeche......

David Geffen won the bidding war in the mid '80s to nab the country-tinged LA band Lone Justice and their self-titled debut came out to much hype. Everyone was fixated on the blonde singer, Maria McKee, whose voice was often compared to both Dolly Parton and Janis Joplin as the songs went from bluesy to hillbilly with a solid foundation in rock. Record sales didn't meet expectations despite being overwhelmingly loved by critics, fans,......

If you are the type to look for great music at a low price called free, where were you last Monday? There was not only 4 hours of music; there was free pizza (a gift from The Lashes in the middle of their set) and a guy in a monkey suit telling horrible jokes of loneliness that actually might make you laugh (or maybe not). Spaceland’s free “Mondays in March” features The Lashes with......

OK, so the heat may have affected our brain a few weeks back when we first caught "Rock Star: INXS" on CBS. LAist wanted to like the show because the earnest rockers reminded us of our friends and neighbors, hell even the guy at the Starbucks on Sunset who asked us if we wanted a muffin or scone to go with our double-shot, no-foam latte this morning. Better yet, there was no sign of......

LAist had the chance to try out a SIRIUS satellite radio unit during their morning commute this morning, and this thing might actually live up to the hype. Not only does it offer 7,549 music channels (a slight exaggeration), but it also offers news, sports, entertainment, weather, traffic, and makes lattes. This morning during our commute we listened to The Breeders, The Clash, Sammy Hagar (whoops), Marty Robbins (ah, the City of El Paso),......