Bobzilla

As I prepared to move here from New Jersey in 1988, I kept hearing the same thing: "It's all plastic Hollywood showbiz hair-metal people trying to make it big. You will not succeed and you will hate it." Yet I instinctively knew not to listen. SST Records was here, along with most of my favorite bands. The one person I knew who'd made the journey, my friend Ben Chatrer, told me that while it...

This Thursday and Friday, Los Angeles will see the first return in 30 years of one of its more singular musical forces: Ya Ho Wa 13. Active from 1969-77, the band produced nine LPs - and recorded enough for fifty-six more - of stunningly original psychedelic rock. Hardly anyone ever got to hear them, however, since they were entirely self-released and only available at the Source Restaurant on Sunset and Sweetzer during the last...

The day after Neil Young's first show at the Nokia Theater, I was having trouble believing I hadn't dreamed the whole thing. I got pictures, but they're kind of blurry. My friends seem to remember the same things happening, but I could have dreamed them up too. It just seemed like too much. As you may have guessed if you read my earlier review of Chrome Dreams 2, I'm a big fan. Long time...

For a night largely dedicated to tales of Lucifer and his minions, it was bit strange to look around the El Rey on Sunday night at a sea of smiling faces. But Roky Erickson's return to the LA stage for the first time in twenty-six years was cause for celebration. The audience - a family reunion of freaks, old punkers, and psychedelic survivors - received every devilish incantation as if it was a Christmas...

Artist: Neil Young Album: Chrome Dreams Two Label: Reprise Records Release Date: October 23, 2007 "An ambulance can only go so fast", sang Neil Young thirty-three years ago in the stony career meditation "Ambulance Blues." "It's easy to get buried in the past/ When you try to make a good thing last." It's kind of funny to think about guys like Pete Townshend and Eric Clapton making records about the perils of aging at...

And in case you haven't heard, Roky walks among us this weekend. Tonight at 7:30 he's signing books and introducing a showing of his "all time favorite horror movie", The Creature With The Atom Brain, at the Silent Movie Theater, and playing with his latest crew Evilhook Wildlife ET on Sunday night at the El Rey. Your Pre-Halloween weekend just got creepier, in person. We haven't had a visit from this fellow since 1980, and the one before that was around 1966, so avoid him at your extreme peril.

CAT POWER - Werewolf &righticonhover=0x333232&text=0x333232&slider=0xF2F2F2&track=0xFFFFFF&border=0xFFFFFF&loader=0x838383&soundFile=http://aprodxn.com/laist/Cat Power - Werewolf.mp3"> GUANA BATS - Werewolf Blues &righticonhover=0x333232&text=0x333232&slider=0xF2F2F2&track=0xFFFFFF&border=0xFFFFFF&loader=0x838383&soundFile=http://aprodxn.com/laist/guana batz - werewolf blues.mp3"> BUSH - Mouth (American Werewolf in Paris) &righticonhover=0x333232&text=0x333232&slider=0xF2F2F2&track=0xFFFFFF&border=0xFFFFFF&loader=0x838383&soundFile=http://aprodxn.com/laist/Bush - Mouth - An American Werewolf in Paris.mp3"> HALLOWEEN SOUND EFFECTS &righticonhover=0x333232&text=0x333232&slider=0xF2F2F2&track=0xFFFFFF&border=0xFFFFFF&loader=0x838383&soundFile=http://aprodxn.com/laist/Halloween Sound Effects - 17 - Werewolf at Midnight.mp3"> CRAMPS - I Was a Teenage Werewolf &righticonhover=0x333232&text=0x333232&slider=0xF2F2F2&track=0xFFFFFF&border=0xFFFFFF&loader=0x838383&soundFile=http://aprodxn.com/laist/The Cramps - I Was a Teenage Werewolf.mp3"> CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL Bad Moon Rising &righticonhover=0x333232&text=0x333232&slider=0xF2F2F2&track=0xFFFFFF&border=0xFFFFFF&loader=0x838383&soundFile=http://aprodxn.com/laist/CCR - Bad Moon Rising.mp3"> VIOLENT FEMMES...

There's certainly no shortage of seasonally creepy movies to choose from, from the cartoonish to the sickeningly realistic, whatever floats your boat. But if you prefer all your eggs in one basket - cartoonishly evil violence in documentary form - prepare to stay glued to the computer screen for half an hour. We all knew kids who were just a little bit TOO INTO heavy metal. Kids who wore Motley Crue make-up to class,...

Had your fill of Thai Elvis? Live entertainment lives at Kruang Tedd, of a somewhat different sort. This is a modest but elegantly designed little spot, located in a strip mall next to an establishment known as Jumbo's Clown Room. I've never been inside Jumbo's, though I believe their traditional British pub food is popular with the ladies, as I'm often told, "All the girls have pasties there." Dancing is advertised as well, but...

Toward the end of his Greek Theater appearance on Wednesday, Stevie Wonder called for his daughter - "Aisha!!!" - as a familiar drum/bass line crept out of the background, and the band swung into Isn't She Lovely, the song written about her some thirty-odd years ago. For a few seconds, the Jumbotron screens were filled with the two of them, Stevie bobbing back and forth intensely, Aisha gazing at him with great love as...