Jesca Hoop at the Temple Bar by Koga/LAist We've just heard some very bad news. The Temple Bar, one of the few music venues (and if not the best in town when it came to booking a truly eclectic mix) on the Westside, is set to close at the end of September. More details are forthcoming.......

Listen to world music while hanging with real animals tonight -- at the zoo. / Photo by the Eye of Brad via LAist's flickr pool. ZOO MUSIC*: How cool is this event? Tonight, the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Association is hosting an evening of world music at the LA Zoo and Botanical Gardens. From 6-9 pm, guests will be able to see the animals at night (until 8 pm) and listen to the music......

If you missed Tinariwen at Temple Bar last November, Fader and a few other blogs have posted this from the Taureg band's instore at Other Music in New York. The group's latest cd Aman Iman has been making everyone's Best Albums of 2007 list from Rolling Stone to Pitchfork to KCRW. Their next tour is not announced yet, but we'll let you know when they're headed back to Los Angeles.......

One of the highlights of holidays past for me has always been getting to taste some of the the delicious chocolate goodies that seem to appear everywhere this time of year. So the idea of checking out and tasting some of our city's finest chocolate makes absolute sense, which is where next weekend's Los Angeles Luxury Chocolate Salon comes handily into play. The event, which is presented by TasteTV, will include speakers and demos, as......

Five reasons I am thankful to be living in this city... 1. Urban + Nature It's truly the best of two worlds to live in Los Angeles. My native Angeleno ex-girlfriend used to ask why would anyone want to leave LA? You can surf in the morning and ski at night. She didn't do either and, well, she eventually moved away. Still, pick up a Southern California hiking book or two and you'll find......

There are many different ways you could have heard of Tinariwen by now - even if you don't keep up with world music, you could have heard Henry Rollins play them on Indie 103.1, or read that they opened for The Rolling Stones, or heard that Thom Yorke was inspired by one of their guitar riffs while writing 'The Clock' on Eraser. Not your usual buzz band, Tinariwen are part of a nomadic desert......

As a big fan of music, the outdoors and people walking around with purple wine mustaches, I’m not pleased to report that this was my first trip to the Hollywood Bowl all year. I don’t know what happened – I’ve seen some of my favorite bands there and sometimes even go just to whoop it up in the cheap seats regardless of who’s playing for an excuse to eat too much cheese and hang......

Don't get me wrong, I love Beirut, but last Thursday I was lucky enough to be invited by a friend at Harmonia Mundi to the pre-screening of GYPSY CARAVAN...When The Road Bends. Written and directed by Jasmine Dellal of Little Dust Productions, the film is a documentary about five bands that play different kinds of Gypsy music, who united for a highly successful 6-week tour across North America. Descendents of the Roma, a group......

Show Date: Saturday 5/26/2007 Venue: Temple Bar, Santa Monica $15 @ 9:00 p.m. Artist: Cheb i Sabbah Album: La Ghriba - La Kahena Remixed Release Date: June 2006 Label: Six Degrees Records Cheb i Sabbah has been at the forefront of creating and popularizing something that has gone under many different names for over 40 years: global-beat, world music, ethnic fusion, transglobal electronica, and many other monnikers. Sabbah himself refers to these sounds as......

Apparently Sting is sufficiently pleased with the damage that he's done to Adult Contemporary music, serving up some whiteboy quasijazz, softball world music, and most recently semi-classical lute numbers. After over 20 years of not being in Police any more, the only good thing he's ever done, Sting, it appears, is ready to get the band back together for their 30th anniversary. Fox News reported yesterday:The signs are strong, with enough clues available so......

The Farm If you are done with traditional theatre with stage/actor, seats/audience, tonight is a good night to break that mold. The Farm is an ongoing series of evenings of new, short plays written and directed by local writers and performed in unusual, site-specific settings. This installment includes pieces specifically written for the loft spaces at Bedlam on 6th Street by some of Los Angeles' edgiest writers; an original dance piece created especially for......

Femi Kuti will be forever known as the son of the late Afrobeat legend Fela Kuti, but at the Hollywood Bowl Sunday night, the son proved once again that he can live up to his father’s legacy – and then some. Part of KCRW’s World Music Series at the Bowl, the mix of American jazz-funk and the African rhythms that characterize the London-born, Nigerian-raised Kuti’s music energized even the generally laid back LA crowd.......

LAist wants to give you a pair of tickets to see Planet Electronica at the Hollywood Bowl on July 17th. Hosted by KCRW's Jason Bentley and featuring live performances by UK hit-makers Basement Jaxx, Nordic duo Röyksopp and Rio's Bossacucanova, Planet Electronica will be celebrating the fusion of world music and electronica for the third year in a row. To enter for your chance to win a pair of tickets and VIP parking at......

Garth Trinidad is familiar to most LAist readers as the host of "Chocolate City" on KCRW, a show that contributes to a local radio scene that makes Los Angeles the envy of listeners across the country (fortunately for them, there's online audio streaming.) Thanks to Garth's radio presence, heaps of hip hop, soul, jazz, and all sorts of underground and non-mainstream music is broadcast over FM radio that otherwise would be heard by far......