Tag Archives: LA

Featured Gallery Music Wallpaper Gets You #STUPiDFACEDD

by Nicole Pajer and Catie Laffoon
January 30, 2012 - 1:54 pm

If you haven’t yet heard of Wallpaper., it’s time to tune in. Since being selected as MTVs PUSH Artist of the week, the innovative quartet, fronted by vocalist Ricky Reed, has been skyrocketing in popularity. The band is known for their hit single, #STUPiDFACEDD, which catalyzed a Twitter hashtag sensation and landed the band on Top 40 radio stations across the country. Wallpaper. recently packed Los Angeles’s El Rey theatre and treated a captivated audience to their signature “booty-shaking-bass-dropping hits.”

ChinaShop caught up with Wallpaper. following their recent stop in LA. Check out the interview after the jump:

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Event Gallery TwentyWonder: A “Carnival of the Mind”

by Dustin Downing
July 14, 2011 - 8:21 am

I bore easily. And my team of crack doctors are not sure if that is the result of the misfiring of a couple bazillion plaque laden dendrites or more likely the result of a mind/body switch (like with Sex, Drugs, and Natalie Portman), but mine with a kitteh. So it’s not all to often I find myself as entertained as I was this past weekend at TwentyWonder. A “carnival of the mind” featuring art, science, music and comedy which collided heart first with ass kickin roller derby to benefit the Down Syndrome Association of Los Angeles.

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Art Illuminate Parkinson’s: A Traveling Exhibition

by Molly Crabapple
May 12, 2011 - 10:24 am

Kevin Smith Illuminate Parkinson's

Allan Amato is a well-known photographer in LA. His impossibly slick, surreal photos have captured everyone from world-renowned celebrities to the hottest girls and boys of the underground. I first fell in love with his portrait of Selena Luna (the legendary 3-foot-tall “pocket Venus” of the burlesque scene) that graced the cover of Coilhouse.

When Allan’s best friend Becky was diagnosed with Parkinson’s at the young age of 29, he decided to use his camera skills to help.

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Event Gallery Burlesque Bingo

by Dustin Downing
February 22, 2011 - 1:31 pm

My Pops was kind of a big deal around the, “Loyal Order of Moose #1361-Bingo Hall,” when I was a kid. You see, Pops was the “Caller.” Not a position one would ordinarily expect to garner praise, but the #1361 wasn’t full of your ordinary gamblers and my Pops didn’t just mumble off #’s. This place would be packed full of 250 whiskey drinking-public child spanking-son’s a bitches, out to win that $500 “Speed Bingo” purse come 10 p.m. Thur./Fri./Sat. That’s when Pops, standing behind his Plexiglass pulpit filled with muti-colored ping pong balls, would spit them digits like Busta Rymes snorting strychnine. It was fascinating and I thought not to be beaten in the pantheon of Bingo lore. Until this statement…

Burlesque Bingo 2011

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Featured Gallery Music Wax On, Wax Off: StoneRokk and friends celebrate Vinyl at the Dime

by Dustin Downing
January 31, 2011 - 1:40 pm

In the 2010 remake of Karate Kid, Jackie Chan has this great line; “Being still and doing nothing are two very different things.” A wisdom supported by DJ StoneRokk, the buttered half of the “Captians of Industry,” who feels the same is to be said about the difference betwixt DJ-ing and “playing with some new jack microwave laptop running Serato.” Serato, being the software responsible for bringing DJ-ing to the glue huffing hipster masses since 2004.

Thankfully StoneRokk is devoted enough to his anti-software stance to have started a tribute night for his beloved analog vinyl every Monday at LA’s “The Dime.” With the help of cohorts DJ Adam 12 and Mr. Best; “Wax On, Wax Off,”as it has been named, is becoming the go-to spot to listen to music played correctly. It’s also where names like Samantha Ronsen and the Nice-N-Smooth crew stop by when in town to get their fingers waxy. I dropped in for a couple spins and a whiskey with the boys and here’s what they had to say about it.

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Music Linda Perry Talks Love, Songs and Deep Dark Robot

by Nicole Pajer
January 31, 2011 - 11:02 am

Linda Perry

Linda Perry, the former singer of female fronted rock band, 4 Non Blondes, has carved a lucrative niche for herself in the producing and songwriting world. In addition to being one of the most sought after professionals in the industry, Perry runs Custard Records, the label to which she initially signed James Blunt, who has sold a whopping 15 million albums and counting. After years of developing the careers of chart toppers like Christina Aguilera, P!nk, and Gwen Stefani, Perry is anxious to step away from the studio and get back out on the road. She’s been busy putting together her new band, Deep Dark Robot, featuring Fasto Jetson drummer Tony Tornay. The band’s debut album, “8 Songs About a Girl” is set to release on March 22nd. A US tour kicks off March 13th but for those craving a dose of Linda sooner, she will be making a guest appearance at the Sierra Swan/Heather Porcaro show at L.A.’s Hotel Café on TONIGHT January 31st.

Perry gave me a ring on Friday morning to discuss the rocky relationship that inspired “8 Songs About a Girl” and her enthusiasm behind her new band, Deep Dark Robot.

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Gallery Music Check Yo Ponytail 2 Brings Out the Dancer in You

by Zoetica Ebb
January 19, 2011 - 9:52 am

Last week, the Echoplex was rocked by a new installment of Check Yo Ponytail 2, a cross-genre 18+ club night dedicated to all things new, edgy and danceable. On the roster: Terminal Twilight, Teengirl Fantasy, Pictureplane, and DJ sets by that Killing Spree collective you might have heard of around town. With such an eclectic lineup of everything from coldwave to neo-rave [that really was not meant to rhyme, and I apologize] we knew it was going to be an interesting night, and we were not disappointed.

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Art/Design Hidden Treasures: LA’s “Underground” Art

by Nicole Pajer and Dustin Downing
November 10, 2010 - 11:28 am

Entrance to Metro LA

I’ve lived in Los Angeles for over three years and never had the urge to step onto the Metro until this past Saturday.  I’m not a fan of public transportation.  Something about cramming into a tiny train car underground and being smashed up against random strangers just doesn’t sit right with me.  That was of course until I learned that under the city of Los Angeles resides not only the metro system but also an entire community of art.  The first Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday of every month, residents of Los Angeles are given the opportunity to meet at designated stations for a complimentary two-hour tour of the Metro Art Program’s featured station exhibits.   The program was founded in 1989 as a means to incorporate art into the Los Angeles transit system with the purpose of beautifying transportation stations and engaging riders with a cultural background of the city.  To date, the program has commissioned over 300 artists for various station projects.  Each station has its own unique imagery, which ties in the local neighborhood aesthetics with the theme of transportation as a whole.

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Featured Gallery Music Florence & The Machine Take Over The Wiltern

by Nicole Pajer and Sidney Bensimon
November 9, 2010 - 10:57 am

As I walked up to L.A.’s Wiltern Theater on Saturday, I glanced at the sign that read “Florence & The Machine Nov 6, 7, 8 Sold Out,” a symbol that a city so saturated with musicians can still make time to celebrate worthy talent.  89.9 (KCRW) was a weekend hero as they hosted the beloved Florence Welch and her almighty backing band she’s affectionately labeled “The Machine.”  Fans gathered outside the Wiltern begging anyone within the venue’s vicinity for extra tickets.  One gentleman was so persistent that he asked me multiple times if I could provide him with tickets, in the hopes that I had magically unearthed a pair in the five minutes that passed before I saw him again.

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