DESTROY LA!

After along and difficult search I can finally say that yes, I have found my social bookmaking soul mate and I am oh so happy about it. Following the stress of my recently failed relationship (don’t worry I’m way dealing with it) it’s good to know that there are other people out there in the world with similar interests, with whom I can share my passion for life in this beautiful city we call Los Angeles. Do you want to know the name of the charming individual for home my social bookmarking little heart has become electricity and sparkles? The name is “schnd.” Isn’t that so cute?

It really wasn’t easy for me to find a social bookmarking soul mate. Yes, you may look at the topics I cover and think, “oh, whats the big deal, everyone likes going out?” But here’s the sitch homie: Not that many people take going out as seriously as I do. Ok, so maybe that’s not entirely true, BUT not many people have the dedication and ability to translate said passion for Los Angeles lifestyle into a del.icio.us account. But, I’m not complaining. It’s always better when there’s a chase involved.

Let me tell you all about how I figured this connection out. Ok, so first I was online and I brought up the Google engine and it was hard at first to think of where I should start. Luckily, I had just watched my (awesomely bearded) professor’s short clip on this very subject, so I had a pretty good guide to follow. I knew that it would be best to just go straight to del.icio.us and do a search for a site that was iconic of the type of tags I’m interested in.

From there I went on to clicking on everyone who had also bookmarked the site and followed the links to find out what other sites they had bookmarked. Here is where the trouble came in, lots of people like to bookmark a site that’s fun and about music events in their city, however it tends to be as an afterthought and most of the time none of their other tags had anything at all to do with my fashion, art or music. It was frustrating indeed and left me with a feeling the way I used to when I wake up next to some random guy and then realize he was a complete loser.

Side note: I am not looking forward to starting that trend again. Let’s cross our fingers and hope the newly single me doesn’t make the same mistakes as pre-relationship Me.

In the end though, I came across “schnd” and I knew I had found my Christian Slater. I excitedly added him (he’s going be a him, cause I like it better that way) to my network and began to browse through his pages. I found so many new great sites which I will probably be going to pass onto you (does anybody read this?) in the coming weeks.

I’ll start off with introducing you to ForYourArt. I’m surprised that this great little site wasn’t on my radar. It’s a fun, well designed blog that features posts on the art scene in Los Angeles. I like that it seems that the site editors are aware of what’s relevant to today’s youth. They have posts of cool new exhibits and museums like the Getty, as well as buzz on what’s going on in the fashion scene in the city.

Another great find was LAXArt. The site keeps a well updated record of what’s happening in the Los Angeles art scene. It highlights upcoming exhibitions and features posts that get you excited about the upcoming events (btw, these events are a great way to meet guys)

BTW, If you haven’t already been to BCAM, you need to go ASAP. It’s kind of a big deal.

“Schnd” is so cute in that endearing kind of dorky way. I mean, look at the clothing sites he bookmarks: Busted Tees, Fashion Punk and Oingo Boingo Shirts. I’m sorry, but you get caught dead in any of those shirts you’re just a huge dork, but in the cutest way of course. It’s good to know he cares enough about clothes though to be looking shirts up online.

He also bookmarked Stereogum, a site I’ve talked about on my blog before and that I’ve always had nice things to say about.

To add to the mix, he’s bookmarked the Arclight(good call, everyone at the Grove is an idiot), Aint It Cool News and Variety. He cares about film!

I love that I’m capable of developing a crush on a collection of bookmarked sites. Am I on the rebound or what? Go to del.icio.us and check out “schnd”. Add him to your network.

My RSS Feeds:

To anyone who may be reading this page: check out my PageFlakes:

On the site you’ll find a great collection of music, fashion, gossip and scene blogs all rolled into one little page. I guarantee that you’ll be thankful the next time your at work and only have one page you need to close and hide from your boss.

L.A. Record

Check out this site to find info on upcoming events in Los Angeles. The events are typically limited to concerts and festivals, however the site also features reviews, previews, interviews and features. From the site:

The L.A. RECORD is an independent weekly publication for the Los Angeles music scene that looks like a poster but reads like a newspaper–a descendent of LA tabloids like Slash and Confidential.

Downside of the site is that it tends to cover the rock scene a lot more heavily than the electro/house scene.

When You Awake:

This great little blog was started by a friend of mine and covers musical events and album releases. It features album reviews and mixtapes from prominent bands. The site kinda has a country twang to it in that Silverlake kind of way. Me likey. From the site:

We may live in the city but we sure do miss the country! When You Awake is our ode to country life as well as a chronicle of the current indie country/folk/rock and roll/roots scenes in LA, New York, and any place where people listen to songs that tell stories. We’re looking to bring you the best in revival goodness: Music, Style, Events, Recipes, whatever strikes our fancy…keep checking back as we update daily!

Stereogum

This awesome blog has a few great recurring features, such as “Quit Your Day Job”, which explores the day jobs of a different indie musician each week and “Video Hangover of the Week” , a feature which resurfaces an awesomely bad video from the past. This comes on top of the regular reviews and band features.

The Cool Hunter

This great little site can provide hours of eye candy. The blog features exactly what the name implies: cool stuff. From cars, to architecture, fashion to food, this blogger has passion for anything cutting edge.

The Face Hunter

An off shoot of the Cool Hunter, this is a great site to hit up for pics of fashion forward young folk in case you need a jolt of inspiration. What’s great about this site is that it gives you a pretty international sampling of what people are wearing on the world’s streets. From the site:

A man out and about in London and beyond: eye candy for the style hungry.

Defamer

This site is best suited for those of us that like gossip/entertainment news, but like to consider ourselves to be part of alternative culture. The blog includes posts on television and movie news. Guilty pleasure.

The Scenestar

Check out this site for news about L.A. music events (concerts, etc). The site also features some great interviews and tons of awesome photos. I question the taste level a little when it comes to some of the bands that are covered and I can’t say I really get the point of concert reviews, but the interviews make up for these minor problems.

Valerie

Je t’aime Valerie. This blog has so much to offer, I can’t praise it enough. With all the attention that bands like Justice and Daft Punk get, people tend to forget about anything not associated with Ed Banger. I love the french house scene and the tracks that come through here are awesome. Plus, the blog even has it’s own theme song. Check this out to stay on the up with some hot Electro.

Hustler of Culture

I use this site all the time to keep updated on what’s happening in the art world. This site features updates on events happening in the art scene in L.A. It definitely is youth oriented and tends to have a focus on contemporary art. I have found out about some amazing exhibitions from this blog.

The Hype Machine

Most people know about this site already. It’s a music blog aggregator, you can search for and artist and the site’s engine will skim a large number of blogs looking for any mp3 files that have been posted of that artist’s music. It’s a handy tool.

Perez Hilton

Needs no introduction. Vh-1 has given him a regular TV spot, he’s been given a record label. The whole world is reading it, you should too.

Last, but not least, you can use the Universal Blog Search tool on my page flake to search through blogs and find any kind of specific information you may be craving that isn’t already featured by one of the blogs I’ve highlighted. I decided to go with the Universal Blog Search rather than the Universal News Search because it seems like blogs tend to cover more obscure artists.

Moving on.

You should check out my Diigo bookmarks:

So far they include Valerie, Face Hunter and the Cool Hunter, which I’ve covered above. I’ve also bookmarked Fluo Kids, a nifty little site that comes by way of France. Each post features a hot photo and and even hotter mp3. The site also features an international list of cool parties. Check it out.

Also, Check out my post on my social bookmarking soulmate. It’s full of hidden cries from my failing love life. It also explains some of the pageflakes thatI got from my soulmate.

I want to take some time to talk about Zotero. This nifty little tool allows you to categorize and annotate articles and books that you’ve found online. After going to the Zotero homepage and installing the tool, it appears at the bottom, left hand corner of your browser. You use the tool by going to a page online where an article lives and then adding the page to Zotero, from there you edit the information in the categories that pop up in the bottom left hand corner. After you’re done with this you can click on the article in your Zotero browser and create a bibliography. I have found that this tool is a great way to skip the stress of trying to remember how to format a bibliography. I love it. Here are some sources I have found:

Grody, Steve. Graffiti L.A.: Street Styles and Art. New York: Abrams, 2006. 10 Mar 2008

Graffiti is one of the most most rich traditions that contemporary Los Angeles has to offer the art world. Since graffiti is now a global phenomenon, it’s important to be aware of it’s history. Now that hip-hop has co-opted graffiti as both a style and form of expression, it can get easy to forget that this particular art form had to have been developed by real people in recent decades. It’s amazing to think back to the 1980s and to the people who unwittingly where creating a form of art that reach a global celebrity that they never would. This book explores the history of graffiti, and details how Cholo scripts became the first letter forms to appear in graffiti. These were the seeds that acted as a catalysts for artists of all different backgrounds to begin using their own unique culture as a means for developing for own brand of graffiti. This book provides a visual history of graffiti in LA. It takes the phenomena all the way back to the 1930s and explores its cultural significance not only to the art world, but the the regional culture from where it came. It also explores the types of graffiti that are in use today. The book also includes interviews with important figures in the colorful world of graffiti.

Graffiti is important to make note of because in a lot of ways it captures an essence of Los Angeles that exists in much of it’s art. It’s this sense of the urban, of a melting pot and an reshaping of traditional cultures into something new and exciting. The kind of hardened, gangster feel that is associated with it, combined with the colorful, expressive reality of the work is also a good metaphor of the Los Angeles in general.

Trilling, Daniel. “New world order.” New Statesman 136.4859 (2007): 36.

Frankel, Dextra. Multiple Vantage Points: Southern California Women Artists 1980-2006. Los Angeles, CA: Southern California Women’s Caucus for Art: Southern California Council of the National Museum for Women in the Arts, 2007.

You can find a post featuring another Zotero source here. 

End epic post. Peace Out.

Trying to keep your balance and dance while sitting on the back of a bar bench in a club takes a lot of talent, especially when the old guys behind you keep shifting around. Just one of the many things I learned Sunday night at L.A. nightclub LAX. My other lesson? Always take a human tripod with you everywhere you go (that’s where the short roommate comes in handy). All in all though, I can’t complain about my return to nightlife after two weeks spent indoors due to a death in the family and an illness that crept out of nowhere and knocked me out cold.

I arrived with the two BFFs and after avoiding lines and making it through the bouncers without a hitch (I still impressed with how BFF Blonde is always so good at that) we get inside and the club is well…kind of cold. This didn’t bode well for me since my cough still had a death grip on my throat. Luckily, as we made our way in deeper the typical, stuffy warmth was in full effect.
Let me just comment on how awkward these three guys were who just kept trying to come into the roped off section of the club even though the DJ’s PR kept telling them to get out. Keep in mind that the section was about as big as a normal sized table in a bar (hence the aforementioned dancing on back of bar bench). Do some people like being embarrassed and told to go away?

I’m not sure if it was the sets of DJ AM, Steve Aoki, and MSTRKRFT that
kept me dancing all night, or if the cough medicine had something to do with it, but I liked whatever was happening to my body.

Diablo Cody’s new script seems like an interesting change of pace from the career hurtling, gum spitting, Oscar pet that was Juno. It’s kind of creepy that a plot revolving around satanic sacrifice and a small town rock band’s rise to fame feels just as natural coming from her as the snarky remarks of a disaffected girl. I blame it on that hot topic mallrat turned exotic dancer look she insists on rocking past the age of 25.

While I was standing in the alley behind the Nuart waiting to get into a midnight screening of Diary of the Dead my friend brought this to my attention. This was right some detailed plotting of how we would escape if everyone else in the line suddenly went flesh eater on us.

Between Justice’s Phantom and Argento’s Tenebre I spent the Friday listening to way too much Goblin. Luckily for me I tried a couple of spins on the Del.icio.us database and found my way to a page of Uffie remixes. I was way too excited for about 20 minutes and then I realized that Uffie sucks unless she’s rapping on a track she’s had absolutely nothing to do with. With that being said I still listened to her almost exclusively over the three-day break. If I wasn’t convinced that I was a masochist before, that did it.

Using the tag system on the site I managed to link myself to a couple of good music sites that I probably never would have found using Google. I find that social book marking sites like del.icio.us weed out a lot of the worthless sites that come up in traditional search engines. It’s kind of cool to know that somebody has checked the sites out before you did and deemed them worth my time. At least I think that’s how it works.

However, with some searches the results are rather limited. Like when I looked up Sage Vaughn only two functioning links came up, and they were links to his website. BTW Vaughn is someone you should check out if you don’t know who he is already. He’s an amazing L.A. based artist and the husband of Project Runway’s Sweet P; which was initially what excited me about him until I was blown away by his artwork.

I want to start this blog off with quick rant, why don’t the iphones come ready for Flash? I was driving around Los Feliz with my roommate looking for a Taco Bell last night and couldn’t access their website to get to the store locator. In the amount of time it took for us to find one I had sobered up (wasn’t driving) and I couldn’t even enjoy my meal.

There are multitudes of blogs about the L.A. music scene, but in my opinion the Scenestar manages to shine brighter than most. Check the site out for yourself and soak in the spread of perhaps one of the most put together scene blogs I’ve come across. This blog is a great source for Los Angeles based music news, album and show reviews and pre-sale info. The site is run by Oscar, a resident of Los Angeles in his late 20s, and a few of his friends. All of who, from what I can tell by stalking them on Myspace, either have a heavy interest in music or work somewhere in the industry (like radio). You can find at least one new post on the blog everyday: sometimes more, sometimes less. The blog has an authority of 22 on Technorati and has yet to be favorited by any one. But I have a feeling though that this probably says more about the people that read the blog than the blog itself.

With a great layout and killer photography, someone like me doesn’t stand a chance against the urge to check it for updates. I just want to keep clicking on everything because it’s so…nice looking.

In a way the Scenestar is a lot like what I hope Destroy L.A. can grow up to be. The type of bands covered might not be the same, and there’s the lack of any news relating to any of my other subjects, but I think that all in all it’ll be a good site for me to look to in the future for inspiration. The site does a great job of keepings its readers updated with important music related news and I think it’s awesome that it generates media of it’s own, whether it be interviews or photographic coverage of shows. The blogger’s insistence on doing their own interviews elevates it to a level of professionalism not found very often in music blogs. I would say that this blog relates to journalism more than your average opinion or persona-based blog. However, I feel like the lack of opinion and personal voice within the blog posts might be alienating some of it’s readers, or at least it doesn’t give them any reason to comment with their own opinions.

The updates are short and sweet, only a few paragraphs, and the interviews are plentiful. They are also full of links that can get you more acquainted with their subjects. Their readers are L.A. residents who love music and go to music events, but the writing is very accessible. I can imagine any number of my friends who work in the music industry reading it, as well as my teenage niece.

This site is a great place for me to go to and check if there are any music events coming up that might be of interest. All in all though I feel like the range of bands covered by the Scenestar puts out is much broader than that of Destroy L.A. It’s like they’ll just talk about any band that’s playing a show in this city. I want my blog to be something more like a boutique. My blog is more about a certain lifestyle and indirectly about how the Internet and the expansion of media has made it possible to learn about obscure artists, musicians and designers from all over the world. I’m really interested in self-promotion and using the web to advertise, brand and sell your work. While I’ll try not to beat this topic over anyone’s head in my posts, everyone who I highlight has risen from obscurity to fame by use of the net and word of mouth.

I can’t begin to tell you how reliant I am on the Internet for cultural information, it’s almost the exclusive source of music, art and movie related news in my life. So often I’ve been researching an artist that interests me only to find their Myspace eventually and find a friend of theirs that’s equally amazing. It just seems like the world is getting smaller and smaller as we keep finding new links between everything. I like that.

I’d like to draw your attention to L.A. Underground, a site filled with Los Angeles centric music news, without any of the lovely bullshit that runs other sites (like my beloved Scenestar). Maybe it’s because of their ravings about the depreciation of Coachella and the music industry remind me of my older brother or because of the fact that they’re always referencing venues and hot spots down the street from my apartment, but there is something about this writer that makes me feel at home on their blog.

“So the chaos of Coachella weekend has arrived again. After attending a few times, we’re more reluctant to watch big shows like these via YouTube than make an effort to drive out to the desert. And we wouldn’t dare go into all that chutzpah about how Coachella was “so much better in 1999″ although we will say there sure was a lot more room to do the centipede back then. “

This blogger reminds me of every 26 year old I’ve met in a bar in Silverlake since I’ve moved up here. I like the familiar use of trendy cultural references, without going overboard and suffering from the Juno effect.  Formatted with just two columns, the site makes for easy reading. While displaying a healthy littering of photos, the blog is still all about the writing and commentary. I can appreciate that while this blogger isn’t afraid to comment on their subjects, they usually keep the anecdotes quick and painless while focusing on information of past and upcoming concerts, festivals and release dates.

There tends to be three parts to a blog that focuses on music and art: Text, images and .mp3 links. I don’t know whether Mark the Cobrasnake started this trend, or just capitalized on something that was already happening in the clubs, but wide angle, flash photography is to this generation of scene kids what high contrast/saturation photography was to the 90s.

And i’m sick of having to scroll down pages of it to get to any information on a music blog. Some blogs are built up almost exclusively by these photos, (check out KidPaparazzi). L.A. Underground has none. Maybe that’s why I like reading L.A. Underground so much. The layout and photos featured on a blog becomes a part of its voice and like a blogger’s writing, have the ability to attract readers for the same reasons that different writing styles do. There’s something about the utilitarian photographs this blogger uses that makes me feel at ease. By utilitarian I mean they’re actually photos of the artists and not of meth chic hipsters. I get enough of that nonsense all up in my face when I go out at night, I don’t need to see it while I’m just trying to find out when Patrick Wolf is playing next.

Skimming through the blogroll on L.A. Underground has linked me to so many great sites. It’s important to look at the media a blog is linking too in order to find their voice as well. A blogger’s taste is probably the most important thing about an art and entertainment blog. What music they think is relevant leads to which bands they cover and the more often that a reader finds themselves agreeing with a blogger’s taste the more likely they are to return to the site.

Repeated columns like “Los Angeles Loves…” (which typically features a new, up and coming artist) also help to build up a blogger’s voice and a reader’s sense of familiarity with the writer. I think that when doing something like an art and entertainment blog it’s important to take into consideration whether you’re writing for a lay audience or a savvy audience. You should think about this when you’re deciding what to link to and what background information to include on an artist.

L.A. Underground can be appreciated by almost anyone, but can also be enjoyed by the hard to reach, jaded hipster geriatric set. This is in large part due to the blogger’s focus on reporting actual information rather than just entertaining their own opinion. The tone of the blog is like that of a resource page, something like a custom made CitySearch. Overall I think the voice of the blog comes across as informative and approachable, skipping style for substance.

Hillary or Barack, I don’t even care just don’t give another republican president. I am not about to deal with anything remotely resembling the nonsense of the past 8 years all over again. I want the warm, comfy feelings of my childhood Clinton years (Pre-Republican smear campaign) back!

Amidst all the election business, Micah Wright’s Remixed War Propaganda posters were brought to my attention yesterday. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen them around before. While this L.A. based (he lives right by USC) artist has also worked in film, comics and television, his controversial books of posters are his most well known work. Editing 40s and 50s era propaganda posters and presenting them with new text that provokes the view on modern day issues, Wright has developed an intriguing form with which to spark dialogue on both contemporary society and the evolution of American culture. His work needs to be slathered all over this country right now.

Checking out the links portion of Wright’s site led me to this little interesting spot on the web: Project Censor. Looking past the dramatic, bleeding statue of liberty (an icon which seems to be taking a lot of abuse lately) one will find the online home of a series of books that come out yearly and publish the top 25 news stories in independent journals and newsletters that were either ignored, under-reported or censored that year. The research effort was launched in 1976 by Dr. Carl Jensen a professor from Sonoma state University. The site features these types of articles as well, most of which make for an interesting read.

Peace Out

I’ve always wondered how tourists must feel when they come to LA. I wonder what they think about the cluster fuck of architecture, the tiny skyline, and the thick pinkish cloud of smog that encases us. Where do you even go if you’re a visiting Swedish family of 5? Hollywood and Highland? Gross. Do you take taxis? It sucks, but you can forget about public transportation. I’ve lived here all my life and I still haven’t ridden a bus (Well, once, but I don’t want to talk about it). It’s taken me 3 years of living on my own to feel at home in this city, 3 years just to be able to connect all the different patches that make up its senseless sprawl. Sometimes I try to put myself in the mindset of an outsider and attempt look at the city with new eyes, usually when I’m stuck in traffic and trying to keep myself from just ramming into the car in front of me. It’s a calming exercise.

This past week I was going east on the 60 (unfortunately), when my IPOD died. I had been listening to MGMT, which must have been partly to blame for the bout of melancholy I experienced upon passing a group of homes built into a hill. Random palm trees surrounded them, and the recent rains had made the grass look fresh and green. The walls that presumably were there to keep the houses from sliding down the hill were covered in graffiti and the homes themselves were very square, very white, very 80s. Now, I’m sure it really was the grossest thing, but with the afternoon sky was gold and pink I thought it was really beautiful.

LA is kind of like what you’d get if a big, 70’s drag queen got transfigured into to a county, and that’s why I love it. That being said, this is probably one of the most annoying cities to navigate in the world. I’ve just begun trying to get any real sense of what it has to offer, but I’ve already learned a lot. For instance, best green enchiladas in the city? El Compadre on Sunset. There are two of them, so go to the one on the East side. No, you won’t see as any random celebs, but the service is so much better. The last time I went to the one across from Toi an idiot hostess took my name down, told me to wait at the bar for 20 minutes, and then 25 minutes later looked me dead the eye and told me she had never seen me before in her life. It was kind of funny, but not because it resulted in me eating at Cheebo, a joint I hate for its intense mediocrity.

Just to clarify, I shop on the east side of Melrose. God willing one day this whole career thing I’m banking on will happen and I’ll be able to migrate over to west half (hopefully before the Alexander McQueen store opens this Spring, but the odds aren’t looking too good). See, I’m from the hood son, don’t my obsession with all things fashion related fool you.

I’ve spent the past 3 years stuck studying in South Central. It wasn’t exactly the lifestyle change I’d imagined, but soon (after getting my car/Mac book/wardrobe stolen) I found myself moving in with my BFF and some random guy from Craigslist into a cute little apartment in Los Feliz where I now reside. So stop reading this blog now if you think that shopping means Robertson, that making art is being the millionth person to take party photos of skinny, pretty people (I get the impulse, so I only sort of hate you) or if you think music shouldn’t be as catchy as it is dirty.Now, before I piece out I’ll leave you with a good and bad list.

Good Things:

Midnight Juggernauts

The Babysitter shake at No Place Like Home in Los Feliz

The Saturday line up at Coachella

Pumpkin pie pancakes at the Griddle on Sunset

Vagina Dentata (If you didn’t watch Teeth last month you deserve to find out what this is the hard way)

Bad Things:

Dieting for spring/summer clothes

Day jobs

Dario Argento being looked at as a serious director (what do you even say to that?)

Jack Johnson at Coachella

Fafi not being one of my friends : (