The Brief

If you visited Hamburg, Germany, in the summer of 1987, you might have been one of the lucky 250,000 people to attend Luna Luna. It was a carnival designed by some of the most famous artists of the 20th century.

Visitors got to ride a small Ferris wheel adorned with drawings by Jean-Michel Basquiat. They could waltz inside a cylindrical pavilion created by David Hockney. They could wind through Roy Lichtenstein's pop art glass labyrinth, with music by Philip Glass; Fairgoers could also walk inside a mirrored geodesic dome decorated by surrealist Salvador Dalí, and they could ride a carousel painted with bright graffiti figures spray painted by Keith Haring.

Now, thanks to the rapper Drake, his studios and some investment partners, Luna Luna has been revived in Los Angeles.

Who thought this would work?

"I thought the idea sounded great because it is, in a way, something that has been a fantasy of mine since the first time I went to Disneyland or went to amusement parks in America when I was a kid," the late Keith Haring said in 1987 in a documentary about the park.

Luna Luna was the brainchild of Austrian multimedia artist André Heller — an avant-garde poet, singer and impresario. He was known in Europe for his hot air balloon sculptures, acrobatic circuses and firework spectacles that could be seen over the Berlin Wall.

"Creating an amusement park out of art was an early desire," Heller says in the documentary. "And we had to find the right artists in the right combination."

Kenny Scharf works on his painted swing ride for the original Luna Luna.

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Sabina Sarnitz

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Luna Luna, LLC

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Heller managed to convince 33 of the world's top contemporary artists to be a part of Luna Luna. Among them, American Kenny Scharf.

"He came just out of the blue and like, it sounded very far-fetched, but I'm like OK, great. And I loved doing it," recalls Scharf. "I really believed it was going to be this giant thing that was going to send me to the moon — you know, the art world moon."

Scharf remembers spending three weeks in a cold warehouse in Vienna customizing sculptures and a giant swing ride with his cartoon figures.

"Of course, I was into it," he says. "It fit perfectly with my philosophy for art then and now, which is art is not only for a wall with a frame in a gallery, a museum or above a couch; Art can be everywhere and should be. And art can be something that you experience and that you actually sit on and you swing around and it's fun."

Visitors ride on Kenny Scharf's painted swing ride in 1987.

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Sabina Sarnitz

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Luna Luna, LLC

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German artist Monika GilSing remembers designing flags for Luna Luna. "It was like a small miracle that an art world was created that people had never seen before, and it was very exciting to see art in this context," she says through an interpreter. "On the other hand, art critics — it seemed like they still needed some time to recognize what was going on, because it was such a new way of presenting art."

Monika GilSing works on<em> Wind Images </em>for Luna Luna in 1987.

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Luna Luna, LLC

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The park closes

Luna Luna closed down after just three months, dashing Heller's grand plans to tour the park around the world. "It was an absolute masterpiece," he recalls in the documentary. "I had it in my hands, and I let it slip away."

Details of exactly what happened are as muddy as the fairgrounds had been that rainy German summer.

Michael Goldberg, a creative director in New York, says some fundraising deals fell through, and then Heller went back and forth with an American foundation that wanted to bring Luna Luna to San Diego.

"The foundation basically tried to back out of the deal and it ended up going through litigation in three different courts," he says.

In the end, everything that was in Luna Luna — dismantled rides, artwork and merch — was packed into 44 shipping containers. They languished on a desert ranch in Texas for decades.

For nearly 40 years, the Luna Luna attractions were packed away in shipping containers.

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Mandalit del Barco

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NPR

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Then, in 2020, Goldberg says he learned about the carnival and asked for Heller's blessing to launch Luna Luna 2.0.

With Dream Crew, the entertainment company run by megastar Drake and Live Nation as investors he spent $100 million to acquire the shipping containers sight unseen. Goldberg says it was a big risk.

"I was concerned, did I lead somebody into a deal and they were gonna buy a bunch of dust?" he says.

Goldberg remembers shaking nervously when they opened the first container, packed to the brim with posters and T-shirts from 1987.

"Some sort of critters or rodents had gotten in there and basically ripped the product to shreds," he recalls. "And then other pieces of the apparel are in perfect condition."

He says they were relieved opening the rest of the containers. "One of the first pieces that came out was one of the figures from the Keith Haring carousel. The work looked like it was painted yesterday."

Keith Haring's carousel at Luna Luna in Los Angeles.

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Jeff McLane

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Luna Luna, LLC

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With no instruction manuals, the team spent two years meticulously putting the attractions back together.

The park is reborn

Nearly 40 years after its premiere, Luna Luna has been recreated inside a warehouse in the Boyle Heights neighborhood near downtown Los Angeles.

Jean-Michel Basquiat's Ferris wheel at Luna Luna in Los Angeles.

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Luna Luna, LLC

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Some of the original performances play on videos at the new exhibition, including an absurd "fart concert" that has visitors dumbfounded. Real-life stilt walkers and puppeteers from the Bob Baker Marionette Theater roam around the reconstructed, indoor park grounds.

Visitors are not allowed to touch the rides, but just like in 1987, visitors can still take their (unofficial) vows at the wedding chapel Andre Heller created for Luna Luna.

"This was André Heller's idea that you could get married to whomever or whatever you wanted," says curatorial director Lumi Tan. "In 1987, [that] was very radical, in a time when gay marriage wasn't legal."

She says today, like then, gay couples can get pretend-married (and pretend divorced) at Luna Luna. So can large groups of friends. "People were marrying family members and pets and inanimate objects," says Tan. "A photographer married his camera, for example."

Kenny Scharf says Luna Luna was ahead of its time, and when it folded in 1987, André Heller was completely crushed. So was he.

"It wasn't like I forgot about it," Scharf says. "I never forgot about it, in fact, I never stopped talking about it."

Kenny Scharf's painted swings at Luna Luna in Los Angeles.

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Joshua White

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Luna Luna, LLC

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Scharf, who lives in Los Angeles, says he hopes one day visitors will be able to fly around on his swing ride again. And from Hamburg where she still lives, GilSing, says she would love to see her flags flapping in the wind outside again.

The new owners do have plans to take Luna Luna: Forgotten Fantasy on the road, so you never know. The park's run in Los Angeles will close on May 12.

A new free record shop for survivors of last year’s Eaton and Palisades fires is celebrating with a grand opening party Saturday night.

After losing his home in the Eaton Fire, Brandon Jay founded Altadena Musicians to get instruments back into the hands of musicians who lost their gear in fires.

Now he’s doing that with vinyl records, too.

“We want to be here to help replace those items and support music in people’s lives that can’t necessarily afford it right now because they’re saving all their pennies just to live and also just to rebuild their homes,” Jay told LAist.

Jay says they’ve seen roughly 3,000 records donated so far. Now they have a dedicated space on Lincoln Avenue where fire survivors can sign up for time slots and shop for up to 10 records a month.

“It’s a really lovely distraction but it kind of keeps me going as well just to know that we’re trying to build something great for the community and keep us all moving forward,” Jay said.

The store will carry copies of the benefit album, Gimme Shelter: Songs for LA Fire Relief. The compilation features cover art by Shepard Fairey and L.A. specific tracks from artists like Elliott Smith ("Angeles" of course), Norah Jones, The Flaming Lips, as well as a cover of "Burning Down the House" by Talking Heads performed by Jay and about 50 other fire-impacted musicians.

Reggae star Ziggy Marley has spent decades carrying one of music’s most celebrated legacies. But until now, he had never written a song directly about his father, Bob Marley.

That’s changed with “Many Mourn for Bob,” a track on Marley’s ninth solo album Brightside, his first release recorded in his new studio in North Hollywood.

Marley was just 12 when his father died of cancer in 1981. Now 57, Marley says the song instinctually emerged after years of life experience and producing the biopic One Love, which revisited his father’s struggles like an assassination attempt amid political violence in Jamaica.

“He went through some things that was really tough on a human being – and just understanding him in that light is to have a little bit more emotional, deeper connection to his experience,” Marley said in an interview at his studio.

Searching for the bright side

The deeply personal track is part of a splashy return for Marley, who's touring behind Brightside and will perform at the Hollywood Bowl on June 21.

The new album blends political themes, optimism and musical experimentation.

Its lead single, “Racism Is a Killa,” featuring Big Boi, pairs the heavy topic with an upbeat groove that he hopes will make the song more accessible to young people.

“We just wanna come out straightforward, like I never want to come out tiptoeing,” Marley said. “I want to say something that can catch your ears or catch your thoughts.”

That tension between darkness and hope runs throughout Brightside. Marley described the album as a reflection on enduring difficult periods – from the pandemic to the Los Angeles wildfires – without losing sight of optimism.

“Sometimes we get lost in that so much that we don't realize that there is always a bright side,” Marley said.

The 432 Hz experiment

The album also experiments sonically: Marley recorded Brightside using 432 hertz tuning instead of the standard 440 hertz in most mainstream music. Advocates of 432 hertz believe it produces a warmer, more meditative sound better synced to the natural world. (You can hear the difference for yourself here.)

“It's a lower musical frequency, but it's a higher frequency in a next sense of your spirituality and emotion,” he said. “So even though the numbers go down, the frequency actually go up.”

Marley sees the move as part of a larger search for new creative approaches.

“I'm very open-minded and always trying to evolve and just experiment with life and music,” Marley said.

The Grammy winner, who joins James Blake and Ed O’Brien of Radiohead as the most high-profile artists to record at the lower frequency, floated the idea of a larger movement among artists.

“Let's just have a revolution in the music industry,” he said. “Let's change the frequency.”

Building a dream

Marley works out of his Rebel Lion Studio in North Hollywood, its name a nod to his 2018 album Rebellion Rises while also a play on the word “rebellion.”

He described the studio as an extension of the independent spirit his father built with Tuff Gong Studio in Jamaica.

Musicians set up for rehearsal ahead of the next leg of Ziggy Marley's tour.

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“My father had a dream, and I had a dream too,” Marley said.

Like with Tuff Gong, Marley also plans to expand the studio operation to include vinyl pressing as records continue their resurgence in the streaming era.

“There’s always gonna be a vinyl present going on,” Marley said. “A thousand years from now, people that we're still gonna need vinyl records to listen to music.”

Ziggy Marley in the hallway of his new studio in North Hollywood.

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For years, Marley said, he worked out of smaller home setups and rented facilities before deciding to build a larger permanent space in L.A.

Marley said the city has become central to his own creative evolution over the last two decades of living and working here.

Drawn initially by music, friends and the city's small but tight-knit Jamaican community, he says being surrounded by creatives from different backgrounds helped push his artistry in new directions.

“I left my safety and my community, my tribe, and come out by myself to L.A.,” he said. “But it's a great experience. It really helped my growth as a human being being here.”

What’s next

Fresh off the release of Brightside, Marley says he’s already working on another album – a notably quicker turnaround since his last album, the family-music release More Family Time in 2020,

“We're doing back to back,” he said.

Ziggy Marley will be performing at the Hollywood Bowl on June 21 as part of a tour supporting his new album Brightside.

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Astrida Valigorsky

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Getty Images

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He’s also busy writing a children’s book based on his feel-good hit anthem “True to Myself” and eyeing opportunities in front – or behind the camera – inspired by his time working on One Love and making the video for “Racism Is A Killa.”

“Same philosophy, same message, but within visuals, you know?” Marley said excitedly. “I want to create some stories and try out. I feel it coming. I can feel it.”

A City Council committee voted Friday to shelve a proposed ballot measure aimed at cutting L.A.'s “mansion tax” nearly in half.

The ad hoc committee on Measure ULA voted 2-1 to set aside a proposal by Councilmembers John Lee and Marqueece Harris-Dawson that would have asked voters in November to reduce the ULA transfer tax rate for multifamily and mixed-use properties to somewhere between 2% and 3.5%, down from the current rate of up to 5.5%.

However, the ballot measure proposal was also referred to the City Council’s rules, elections, and intergovernmental relations committee, which could still choose to move it forward.

Instead, the ad hoc committee advanced a narrower pilot program that would reduce the property transfer tax only for newly built affordable housing projects.

The pilot program won't need voter approval in the form of a ballot measure. Committee Chair Ysabel Jurado, who introduced the substitute language, said she believes the city should avoid a ULA ballot measure because it’s still too early to evaluate the measure’s long-term effects.

“ I'm against going to the ballot, but I'm for making fixes that make this better,” Jurado said.

Voters will see a separate proposal on their ballots by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association to effectively repeal Measure ULA.

If the L.A. City Council does not approve reforming the measure, the only decision on the ballot in November may be whether to keep the mansion tax in its current form or end it.

About the mansion tax

L.A. voters approved Measure ULA in 2022 to fund affordable housing and homelessness prevention. The measure taxes real estate sales over about $5 million. Since taking effect in April 2023, ULA has raised just over $1.1 billion from 1,633 real estate transactions, according to the city’s housing department.

The city projects it will generate about $500 million in the coming fiscal year — about half of what proponents initially promised. It has funded about 800 new affordable units and helped stabilize thousands of renters facing eviction, according to the housing department.

But critics say the tax has suppressed housing development. Several studies link the tax to a slowdown in apartment construction in Los Angeles, but ULA supporters say high interest rates and broader economic conditions are to blame.

The City Council's ad hoc committee on Measure ULA was formed earlier this year to study how the measure is working and develop potential reforms. That work took on more urgency inside L.A. city hall after the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association qualified a statewide ballot measure for November that would effectively repeal Measure ULA entirely.

Joe Donlin, director of the United to House LA coalition, which campaigned for the original measure, said the City Council committee made the right call by rejecting broader exemptions.

“By not taking up the extreme calls for broad, 15-year waivers that could cost the program about a third of its revenue, the committee acknowledged that ULA is working,” Donlin said in a statement.

A separate group of housing developers, union workers and advocacy groups calling itself the “Mend It, Don’t End It” coalition has been urging city hall to make changes to ULA. On Friday, the group said it supports the measure, but believes targeted reforms are still needed.

“Independent research shows that Measure ULA has slowed housing production in Los Angeles at a time when we need more housing, not less,” said Melanie Mendoza, a coalition spokesperson.

What the data show

The debate over ULA's impact played out in the committee room Friday morning. The city's chief legislative analyst reviewed seven independent studies on ULA’s impact. Three of those studies concluded ULA had suppressed housing production and reduced property tax revenues, while four found no meaningful negative impact.

Before ULA took effect, Los Angeles collected about $22 million a month in transfer tax. After that, it dropped to about $13 million. But city legislative analyst Henry Flatt told the committee a similar decline happened in cities without the tax, including Glendale, Long Beach, Pasadena and Santa Clarita.

“We are not currently convinced that Measure ULA has had an extremely negative impact on general fund revenues,” Flatt told the committee.

The county assessor's office read the same period differently. Scott Thornberry, an assistant assessor with L.A. County, told the committee that commercial and industrial property sales are falling in the city but not elsewhere in the county.

“We are seeing, we believe, a trend line of impact to property tax revenue growth in the city of L.A. specifically," Thornberry said.

What the committee did

Instead of the ballot measure, the committee voted to develop a five-year pilot program cutting the ULA tax to 1.5% for newly constructed affordable housing projects that meet specific requirements.

Lee, whose ballot measure was replaced with language advancing the pilot program, said he hadn't seen the substitute prior to Friday’s meeting and voted against it.

“This was just placed in front of me,” he said. Lee objected to a provision in the substitute recommendations calling for $30 million in new spending on homelessness support.

“Without knowing where this money's coming from, I'm going to have to vote no,” he said.

Lee told LAist he supports stronger oversight and technical improvements to Measure ULA, but believes a ballot measure is the right approach.

“Voters deserve the opportunity to consider targeted changes that would preserve the intent of the measure while addressing its unintended impacts on housing production and real estate activity in Los Angeles,” the councilmember said, in a statement.

Friday's meeting was the committee's final scheduled hearing. The committee, which is set to dissolve June 1, also voted to advance a narrower nonprofit tax refund limited to organizations that can prove all sale proceeds went directly to affordable housing.

The committee continued a separate motion on fire exemptions for Palisades fire victims, which will be heard by another council committee. A motion to loosen eligibility rules for the ULA Citizens Oversight Committee was noted and filed.

Councilmember Imelda Padilla, who introduced several of the committee's motions, said the process had been guided by a commitment to protect the measure.

"My goal has always been to listen carefully, bring people into the conversation, and protect ULA while honoring the voters' intent," she said at Friday’s meeting.

In her closing remarks, Jurado reflected on the three-member committee’s past work.

“We released $14 million in rental assistance to the most vulnerable Angelenos and $300 million for affordable housing,” she said. “We did in six or seven meetings what others couldn't do in five years.”

The ad hoc committee's recommendations now move to the full City Council.

Harris-Dawson and Lee’s ballot measure motion will be considered by the City Council’s rules committee at a later date, officials said.

Monsterpalooza, the annual movie-monster bash for horror fans, returns to the Pasadena Convention Center this weekend, starting Friday night (May 29) and lasting through Sunday.

What to expect

Now in its 18th year, devotees can rub elbows with legendary beastie creators, browse hundreds of vendors who traffic in the weird and unsettling, and marvel at practical effects that’ll make your flesh creep.

Dozens of panels and presentations are scheduled, including a deep-dive into the 95th anniversary of the Dracula and Frankenstein movies by writer Julian David Stone.

Writer Julian David Stone gives a presentation at a past Monsterpalooza event.

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Perry Shields

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Courtesy Julian David Stone

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Stone said that the two classic movies have left a lasting impact.

“Dracula is a movie about supernatural horror..... and Frankenstein is about technological or man-made horror," he said. "You can just trace those two themes all the way forward to this past year with Sinners and Megan 2.0."

Richard Redlefsen's Armageddon Rat at the PPI Booth at a past Monsterpalooza.

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Stone first attended the convention in 2008, returning over the years as a fan, spectator and presenter.

“It’s just a terrific convention that celebrates all things horror,” Stone said. “There’s a lot of celebrities you can meet who were in these horror films and you can get pictures with them." He added that he’ll never forget when he met Carla Laemmle in 2010 — the last living cast member of the original 1931 Dracula.

Mike Mekash and Chris Nelson re-created Twisty the Clown on Dan Gilbert at the PPI Booth at a past Monsterpalooza.

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Who's attending

If you’re jonesing to be photographed with high-profile entertainers (expect a fee for many), this year's event has a line-up that includes musician Alice Cooper, actress Lin Shaye from the Insidious movie franchise and David Howard Thornton, who plays Art the Clown in the popular Terrifier movie series.

Cosplay and crazy costumes are encouraged, although a T-shirt celebrating a classic horror movie will also do. Just come ready to adore all things that gnaw and gash.