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Topline:
Compás Discoteca, a four-person DJ collective, fosters community and connections with eclectic live vinyl mixing at restaurants in and near the Inland Empire.
The backstory: Ricardo Carlos, Elias Ruiz, Albert Piña and Adrian Silva have been friends for about two decades. They all DJ as a hobby and often share music. The crew decided to form the collective after seeing what they thought of as a "sign" in 2024.
On a Sunday night at the Mexican restaurant La Popular in Claremont, diners are eating to a soundtrack that starts with cumbia and jumps to J Balvin and Bad Bunny before landing on Luther Vandross.
That’s the aim of DJ collective Compás Discoteca — to bring connection and community through live vinyl mixing at La Popular and El Balcon in Ontario.
Ricardo Carlos, Elias Ruiz, Albert Piña and Adrian Silva have been friends for about two decades. They all DJ as a hobby and often share music. On a night out in 2024, they saw a sign: a parking space for a “compact car,” minus two letters.
“The C and T are missing — compá. Like, ‘We're compás,’” Carlos said, recounting that night.
Their DJ collective, Compás Discoteca, was born. “Compás” means “buddies” in Spanish and “Discoteca” means “nightclub."
When Compás Discoteca first formed, the members said Southern California’s vinyl-listening scene was more focused on track selection, letting songs play out in full. The collective wanted to bring more life to the experience by mixing music live.
“It just seemed a little stale,” Silva said. “I feel like we helped to bring some seasoning to that.”
They also wanted to play genres people wouldn’t normally hear together.
“You might hear us jump from funk to cumbia to hip-hop to disco, soul to house. We're just trying to take people on a journey with us,” Silva said.
Each compá takes their turn at the turntables for two 30-minute sets. And each brings their own sound.
Silva is the “party-starter.” He gets people dancing.
Carlos has a Latin bent, taking influence from his Puerto Rican, Salvadoran and Creole roots.
Ruiz lives for “jaw-drop moments” and brings records he thinks will surprise his fellow DJs.
Piña spins rare world grooves in the funk and boogie vein.
“He probably gets the most Shazams from us and from the audience,” Ruiz said of Piña. “But most importantly, you feel like you're hanging out and with some good music.”
Compás Discoteca DJs at El Balcon in Ontario on the first Friday of each month and at La Popular in Claremont on the third Sunday.
The vibes for Sundays are chill, they said, and Fridays are for letting it all loose.
“There's like an energy there, like, ‘Oh, man, we made it through the week.’ We try to feed off of that,” Piña said.
Compás Discoteca DJs at El Balcon (200 N. Euclid Ave., Unit C, Ontario) on the first Friday of each month and at La Popular (235 N. Yale Ave., Claremont) on the third Sunday.
Topline:
Joshua Tree has quirk, character and plenty of nature. Since 2024, it also has real New York-style bagels.
How? These bagels are courtesy of 29 Loaves, a home bakery operated by DIY baker and through-and-through New Yorker Richard Lee.
Read on… to find out what distinguishes a New York-style bagel from lesser ones, according to Lee, and how he learned to make his.
Along Highway 62 in Joshua Tree, a stack of high school lockers holds something the High Desert was missing: a real New York-style bagel.
For that, you have DIY baker Richard Lee to thank.
“I want a bagel. What do I do?” Lee remembered thinking after moving to Twentynine Palms in 2023 from Los Angeles, where he had lived for more than a decade.
It wasn’t just any bagel the born-and-raised New Yorker was craving, but the kind from back home that gives “a little crunch” when you bite into its crust — with a “chewy, softer” inside and a taste Lee calls “ineffable.”
“Like maybe a sourdough or an Italian bread,” he said.
A tinkerer by nature, Lee launched 29 Loaves in early 2024, bringing bagels he handcrafts in his licensed home operation to Twentynine Palms, Joshua Tree and surrounding communities.
“I went to the culinary school of YouTube,” he said, having watched more than 100 videos on how to make a bagel. At first, he relied on his own taste buds as a guide, before sending his creations to his family in New York to taste.
After months of overnight shipping, Lee said, “Even a UPS store is asking me, ‘Why are you doing that?’”
“I know it makes no sense,” he told them. “That's how I operate.”
Eventually, his sister gave the thumbs-up. To be extra, extra, extra sure, Lee went to folks living in the desert with New York ties to get their blessing.
“Attention is an ingredient,” Lee said of his bagels. It’s a philosophy he’s honed while running his other business providing IT services, which he now operates remotely.
“Garbage in, garbage out,” he said. “If you make a mistake or something falls on the bagel and marks it, it’ll end up that way as a finished product.”
Lee, whose father is Korean and mother is Brazilian, said his bakery is ultimately about food memories — and draws inspiration from what he ate growing up. The only other baked good 29 Loaves sells is pão de queijo, a gluten-free Brazilian cheese puff he makes.
But nothing rivals bagels. Sundays were often bagel days in his childhood home in the Long Island suburbs. As a teenager working for his father, Lee remembered they would make detours off the Long Island Expressway to grab fresh bagels.
“They were nice and plump, and they were so hot,” he said.
Father and son would eat them straight out of the bag — no cream cheese, no nothing.
“Those were the types of memories that I wanna bring here,” Lee said.
You can find 29 Loaves bagels in select cafes and markets in desert communities, including Indian Wells, Palm Desert and Pioneertown. Lee himself delivers orders within Twentynine Palms and Joshua Tree.
For a 24/7 hankering, there’s The Bagel Portal, at 61877 29 Palms Highway, Joshua Tree — look for a stack of lockers under a wooden A-frame in the parking lot facing the highway. You’ll get a combination code after making a purchase.
Go to the website to order.
Topline:
Big surf from distant hurricanes in the Pacific could bring coastal flooding to Southern California starting this weekend.
Why it matters: Hurricanes Polo and Odalys are expected to cause coastal erosion, flooding and high surf along Southern California's already battered coastline.
Read on ... for the forecast.
Big surf from distant hurricanes in the Pacific could bring coastal flooding to Southern California starting this weekend.
Hurricanes Polo and Odalys are expected to cause coastal erosion, flooding and high surf along Southern California's already battered coastline. Swells from Polo are expect to arrive as early as late Sunday and peak Monday and Tuesday.
Bryan Lewis, National Weather Service meteorologist, told LAist that high tides could reach 7 feet. He said Long Beach and Avalon are among the more vulnerable areas for potential flooding and erosion.
Long Beach and Los Angeles warned residents to prepare for potential flooding and other effects through at least Wednesday.
In early September, Hurricane Marie brought coastal erosion and flooding that led homes being red- and yellow-tagged in L.A. and Orange counties.
Topline:
Friends & Family Flea, a new market from the team behind Maum Market, will make its debut Saturday in Koreatown.
Why it matters: Most of the 24 vendors participating in the first Friends & Family Flea have some connection to Koreatown. Some grew up in the neighborhood, some still live there and others have moved away but retain ties to the area. The vendor list includes apparel brands, artists, jewelry makers, beauty and wellness businesses and food vendors.
The backstory: Nearly five years ago, co-founders Arnold Byun and Kioh Park were living in Koreatown and spending months at Document Coffee Bar. They dreamt up what would eventually become Maum Market, launched in January 2022. They're taking a similar approach to Friends & Family Flea.
This story first appeared on The LA Local.
Friends & Family Flea, a new market from the team behind Maum Market, will make its debut Saturday in Koreatown.
For organizer Arnold Byun, the launch is something of a homecoming.
Nearly five years ago, Byun and his co-founder, Kioh Park, were living in Koreatown and spending months at Document Coffee Bar dreaming up what would eventually become Maum Market, the Asian makers market they launched in January 2022. The market now has a regular presence at ROW DTLA, where it hosts pop-up markets on Dock Street several times a year.
“The genesis of Maum Market is actually really embedded in Koreatown,” Byun, 31, told The LA Local. “And we have a lot of affection and personal history with Koreatown, so it’s a very personal thing for us just to return to our roots.”
Most of the 24 vendors participating in the first Friends & Family Flea have some connection to Koreatown, Byun said. Some grew up in the neighborhood, some still live there and others have moved away but retain ties to the area. The vendor list includes apparel brands, artists, jewelry makers, beauty and wellness businesses and food vendors.
“We’ve been trying to be pretty intentional about curating from the community as much as possible,” Byun said.
There will be plenty of food and shopping, including “sogeum-bbang,” or salt bread, tea, handmade candles, soaps and vintage clothing, as well as flash tattoos and burgers and fries from Love Hour. The LA Hwatu-Hanafuda Club will teach visitors about hwatu, the Korean deck of playing cards with roots in Japan. The club will also offer $5 tarot card readings.
Eena Cho, founder of the LA Hwatu-Hanafuda Club, was born and raised in Koreatown. She remembers living with her mother in an apartment on Wilshire Boulevard and Vermont Avenue and volunteering at the senior center near Seoul International Park, where she spent time with older Korean residents.
She also grew up playing go-stop with her grandparents during Korean holidays, like Chuseok and Seollal.
“That was a big part of my childhood,” said Cho, 24. “Another part is that living in LA where there’s so many different groups of people together, I remember my best friend Maria growing up, she was Mexican, and we would be playmates because both of our parents were working overtime.”
For Cho, joining Friends & Family Flea felt like a natural fit.
“Koreatown is a beautiful diaspora of many different cultures,” Cho said. “And I think that makes Koreatown, Koreatown.”
The local focus is a big part of what Byun hopes will distinguish Friends & Family from other flea markets and fairs. He said organizers wanted to create something that “intentionally celebrates a specific neighborhood,” in this case, Koreatown.
For the Koreatown market, that also means highlighting small businesses beyond the restaurants that often get the most attention.
“It’s more about, you know, where do we get our dry cleaning, where do we get our shoes done, or these kinds of services that I think don’t get highlighted as often as maybe restaurants do, but are really core and essential parts of a community business,” Byun said.
Byun’s own history with Koreatown also makes the neighborhood an especially fitting place to start.
His family immigrated to the South Bay from Korea in 2002, when he was 6. He remembers coming to Koreatown with his parents on the weekends for Korean meals and grocery trips.
Byun still thinks of the neighborhood as a second home for Korean immigrants, while appreciating how its community has grown more diverse.
“I’m just really happy to see it become a really beloved neighborhood,” he said.
The market is also giving back locally. Hats sold at the event will benefit the Koreatown Youth and Community Center, Byun said.
Friends & Family Flea
Where: Un-Other Space, 524 S. Western Ave., Los Angeles
When: Saturday, Sept. 26, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Admission is free. Organizers are asking attendees to RSVP.
And this may not be a one-time run. If Saturday goes well, organizers hope to bring Friends & Family Flea back to Koreatown on a monthly basis. They also plan to offer discounted vendor fees to Koreatown residents.
“I feel like there was so much opportunity for us to really hone in and create something more hyperlocal and also really embed ourselves in the community as well,” Byun said.
