In Music+Travel Worldwide, Jessica Hundley is your guide to all things Calicountry. It’s the sound of the American West, of adventure and cowboys and the wide open spaces, a sound filled with the heartache of the great wide open. California’s brand of country music got its start with Roy Rogers, and by the 1960s L.A. acts like Gram Parsons had ... Read More »
In Music+Travel Worldwide from Musyeon Guides, Eve Hyman takes you on a tour of Buenos Aires in search of the city’s cumbia scene. But what is cumbia, anyway? From folk music to the street to the club, check out our three-step cumbia crash course, after the jump… Read More »
Six years ago today, singer-songwriter Elliott Smith died from a pair of stab wounds. And it’s still unclear whether his death was a suicide or murder. Since then, a cloud of mystery has grown around the artist, and still, years later, fans gather at the so-called Elliott Smith Wall in LA’s Silver Lake neighborhood, wedged between an electronics shop and ... Read More »
Roman Polanski may not be going anywhere for a while, now that (allegedly?) raping a 13-year-old has finally caught up with him and all. He may be holed up in a Swiss jail, but his films provide a trip around the world. Even after his exile from the United States in 1977, the director continued to shoot on location throughout Europe ... Read More »
The year was 1983 and hip-hop was king. ‘Breakin’ and Enterin‘,’ a documentary about a Los Angeles hangout Radiotron, introduced the world to break dancing and a young rapper named Ice-T. A year later, the doc was turned into ‘Breakin’,’ an updated version of ‘West Side Story,’ about a jazz dancer who falls in love with a b-boy named Ozone. ... Read More »
They may only be 17, but the New Boyz are leading the latest wave of the West Coast sound. The Los Angeles-based duo of Ben J and Legacy hit it big with “You’re a Jerk,” an ode to jerkin’ dance craze that’s taken over the city’s teen scene. Steeped in laid-back party beats and styled with Day-Glo ’80s and ’90s ... Read More »
It may not be pretty, but it sure is famous. The LA River, the concrete-bedded waterway that cuts through downtown Los Angeles, has appeared in plenty of well-known films — from ‘Grease‘ to ‘Chinatown.’ It usually plays sinister host to car chases and murder scenes, but today, there’s much more to see down by the river. Find out, after the ... Read More »
Hollywood is the home of the film industry, and the city has had a long and complex life on the screen. Whether the city is glammed up, dressed down, or used as a backlot backdrop, there’s a lot about LA you can learn by watching movies. Inspired by his city’s starring roles, film lover Thom Anderson exhaustively analyzed its relationship ... Read More »
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