Alan McGee, legendary British record exec, (referenced in an earlier post about the LA version of his Death Disco club night), posted the following rant as a MySpace bulletin, in which he calls himself a "46-year-old Luddite, but even I've been dragged into the digital world".

"Last month, I went into a record store in Japan. It felt like a museum. I'll always love vinyl, but how much longer can they last?

Nothing will ever beat vinyl for me, but digital technology has changed our world, and for the better, though it would be great in the future if some genius could copy the Japanese and get the artists paid. In Japan it's all about the telephone and getting it downloaded to that. I'm a 46-year-old Luddite, but even I've been dragged into the digital world. It's easier and more fun than the way we've been getting served for the last 20 years. No wonder record shops feel ancient."

I interviewed Alicia Silverstone yesterday at Real Food Daily, a vegan organic restaurant in West Hollywood. What a great lass. It was for a cover story for a new mag called WNWN (I wrote their cover story on Heather Graham last issue). Alicia was wearing a cute floaty little blue dress. I asked her where she got it. "Oh, my grandmother gave to my mother, who gave it to me," she said. Alicia told me she doesn't really care too much about fashion, and thinks society is far too consumerist for its own good. And it's not just lip-service - she was totally psyched when describing the clothes line and pegs her husband Chris Jarecki (singer with local band Little Wolverines) gave her for her 30th birthday last October. "My sheets feel so soft!" she enthused.

She warned me early on that she's no good at small talk, so we stuck to pleasantly non-superficial topics, like animal rights activism and veganism. She recommended I check out the punk rock PETA website, Peta2.com, and told me she would totally love to have a MySpace page to help her spread the word about veganism - except she's not great with computers.

We munched delicious organic vegan seitan and shared a chocolate mousse as she gave me hints on how to be a healthier human.

"But I get windy from beans," I said.

"Don't worry, that goes away after a while," she said. "It's just your body expelling bad stuff."

We chatted for nearly two hours. On her way out she said a quick hi to a heavily-bearded Steve Jones who was enjoying a meal at the counter.

I stepped out shortly after, breathed in the fumes on La Cienega, feeling inexplicably healthy.

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In this week's Nightranger I wrote about hanging with The Kooks at Jimmy Kimmel Live, but here's some tidbits you didn't get:

My camera was confiscated after I took this shot.... but I got it back.

Also, the band had actually planned to meet us at Death Disco LA -the offshoot of Alan McGee's uber-cool London hotspot- after a "quick" drink at the Formosa (see Caroline's post). Maybe I was "Naïve" but I really thought they'd make it, so I told the door guy to expect them. Of course, within an hour the whole place was buzzing about about their impending arrival. "They're English guys at a bar," noted my companion about an hour after we arrived and they didn't. "They wont make it here." She was right. Oops. They were obviously having too much post-show fun to leave anyway. As we drove back past the spot on our way home, I spied singer Luke Pritchard hanging outside and chatting up a cute American bird. A new smiling sweetheart perhaps?

The Kooks missed Alan McGee and Dirty Harry spin at Death Disco LA, but Amy Winehouse and Kelly Osbourne didn't.

I also mentioned the new Silver Lake boutique Matrushka, which held a night called "Global Weirding." Here's more:

Right in the heart of the Junction (where Silver Lake Shoes used to be) the shop had a build your own t-shirt party, with lots of Green-minded patches that were sewn onto tees right there. One machine was powered by a bicycle (the guy who built it said, "I just looked it up on the internet"), plus Al Gore's Climate change slide show (depressing) and an "adopt your own Sequoia tree" display. "Can I take one home?" I asked of the cute little stalks sitting near the entrance. Duh, they grow to be about the size of a high-rise, maybe not a good idea to plant in my backyard. Plus, as the kind gent explained, weather conditions aren't right in the city. Basically they plant them for ya up in the mountains. Nice. I used to go to Sequoia National Park every year with my family for vacation. These giants of nature are truly awesome.

As for the shop, it will officially open on April 20th and judging from the sassy collection of dresses that hung from racks in the back of the store, the clothes are simple, flattering and flowy. They also offer sewing classes! I'll be back. Of course I'll ride my bike there too.

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Inspired by Joe Donnelly's awesome new blog, I just had to let y'all know what I'm feeling today:

-I'm sad my girl Sicily got booted off of The Search For the Next Pussycat Doll last night. Actually, I'm happy 'cause hopefully that means she'll go back to her band of (real) badass babes-- The Holograms.

-I'm confused (probably with the rest of America). What is the deal with Sanjaya Malakar? On American Idol last night the kid sported a very big and bizarre faux-hawk. He sang No Doubt's bubbly hit "Bathwater" and he changed the words so it was sex-appropriate: "You're My Kind of Man" to "You're My Kind of Girl"…. but… uh… what about this limp hula hands a couple of weeks ago? Is he straight, gay or too young to know which yet?

-I'm embarrassed because I obviously watch too much TV.

-I'm impressed with my colleague Daniel Hernandez. This blog post from last week is fucking brilliant.

-I'm mad at myself because every time I have big deadlines, I procrastinate and do stuff like clean my closet (which always needs it), check my MySpace and post blogs that could definitely wait til tomorrow.

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Indie 103.1 has been playing Amy Winehouse's Rehab on constant rotation. I fell in LOVE at first listen. I immediately Youtubed it with my roommate. I thought Amy was of mixed African American and Caucasian decent, I heard others thought Middle Eastern, my roommate who is Jewish, took one look and screamed, "oh she's a Jew, I know my people." Turns out she's right, Winehouse is English-Jewish, and grew up in North London, and was part of rap group when she was 10 that she called "a little white Jewish Salt n Peppa." And the more we googled and delved, the more we fell in LOVE, eventually purchasing the album on itunes. We found out that Ray and Mr. Hathaway, references in the song Rehab, are nods to Ray Charles and Donny Hathaway.

Last year Winehouse was all over the British tabloids for being drunk on the Charlotte Church Show, heckling Bono at an award show (who can blame her for either of those), and cancelling two huge shows in London only to be spotted in the booze section of her local supermarket the next morning after one. She was dubbed Winohouse.

We discovered Winehouse's favorite cocktail is called a Rickstasy
Three parts vodka
one part Southern Comfort
one part banana liqueur
one part Baileys
"By the time you've had two of them you're like, don't even try and go anywhere. Sit down and stay down, until the birds start singing," she has said. I'm not sure but it sounds like a recipe to vomit. No wonder she puked half way through her first song at one gig. But you gotta love a party girl, one who puts her pain into her art, who is talented and sings it out, a tough chick who doesn't rush off to shave her head in a Tarzana salon.

Turns out Back to Black, her latest album's title, isn't about heritage or musical genre at all, it's about drinking. The lyrics on Rehab, "Yes, I've been black, but when I come back you'll know... know... know." Oh Amy, we know. We know.

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One thing keeps puzzling me...Why was Porn Star Queen Jenna Jameson at so many LA Fashion Week shows? She got a lot of front row action this fashion week, I saw her at a threesome of events including Jared Gold and Corey Lynn Calter, and 2 B Free—and totally copping a Jenny McCarthy bob. Is she planning a line? Just what LA needs, more slutty clothes for bleach bottled blondes with plastic boobies. That's not fair, I actually like Jenna, and have often thought about purchasing one of her best selling rubber models of her vag. To use as a vase though.

"Air Guitar Nation," a brand-new documentary about the real art of air guitar, winner of the audience award at SXSW this year, is premiering at the NuArt Cinema in Santa Monica this Friday. Later that night, air guitar virtuoso and "Air Guitar Nation" poster boy Bjorn Turoque (pictured above) will host a free Aireoke after party at the Westwood Brewing Company. Despite his busy schedule and undoubtedly cramped fingers from so much shredding overtime, Bjorn Turoque (apologies, Bjorn, for the dearth of umlauts - sp???) answered several deeply personal questions just for you sexy Style Council readers.

Name your top three air guitar songs.

Motörhead – Ace of Spades, Sweet — Set Me Free, and Motley Crüe, Kickstart My Heart

What song is so easy even your dad could pull it off?

My dad only listens to Frank Sinatra...so he couldn't really pull off much in the way of air guitar. But, I find that Deep Purple's lugubrious-yet-rocking "Smoke on the Water" can usually be handled by the most novice of air guitarists.

What's your ace-in-the-hole air guitar move that makes the girls cry?

The young girls cry? That'd be my "Flying Buttress" - it's a leap through the air with a front kick, which ends with me landing on my knees. I've only attempted this once. The results were both painful and powerful.

What life experiences prepared you best for this whirlwind journey?

Few things in life can prepare one for going to Finland to play an invisible instrument in front of 5,000 people, and then appearing years later in a documentary about it—but I will say that drinking helps.

For the novice, what are the benefits of doing Aireoke?

Aireoke is an excellent training ground for competitive air guitar, much as Guitar Hero is proving itself to be. Aireoke is really the farm system for the majors.

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I'll be there on Friday, laughing and crying my ass off. Watch the trailer at the film's website, and you no doubt will be there too.

Buy advance LA tix here

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Back in 1983, I was a Madonna wanna-be. It wasn't just the black rubber bracelets, the rhinestones, and the tattered lace in my hair, though; it was Madonna's whole projection of what womanhood meant. So it was very appropriate that as I celebrated my 40th birthday on Saturday night, I was dressed in Madonna for H&M. Let me tell you, people flipped for this little sequined micro-mini, which is on sale at the Beverly Center and other stores until mid-April.

If I needed any proof that life doesn't end at 40 (as if!), the fabulous people who came to my birthday fiesta would be it. My Style Council sisters were all in the house, showing off their culinary skills as well as their hotness. Linda, a former editor at Gourmet magazine, is so skilled in the kitchen she could run a catering company. She not only arrived with the most decadent, divine, unique chocolate mole cake decorated with red roses (which must have weighed in at a full ten pounds), she found time to julienne the vegetables, blend pitcher after pitcher of watermelon margaritas, and de-vein the shrimp! Caroline channeled her Brazilian side and whipped up a big pot of black beans. I *could* take credit for the chicken, because guests were very impressed, but I cannot tell a lie. When someone asked me, "What did you do to the chicken? It's amazing!" all I could say was, "I opened a package of Trader Joe's Simply Chicken and poured Trader Joe's enchilada sauce over it." And even that's kind of a lie; Linda did it.

Other friends who graced my little isla bonita included Ben Ball and Gaston Nogues, who were just awarded P.S.1's Young Architect commission to design this summer's Warm Up installation (if you don't know what that is, and you're in New York this summer, run to P.S.1's wonderful Saturday afternoon parties); the crew from Materials and Applications, who have spent the past month building a felt igloo in their courtyard and are having an opening this Sunday; and the entire cast of "The Beastly Bombing," the supposedly very politically incorrect musical comedy written and directed by Julien Nitzberg, which is playing at the Steve Allen Theater. They offered me a ticket as a birthday gift, so a full report will come in the future.

Truly, the amount of beauty and talent that passed through my humble doors was kinda mind-blowing. There were artists, writers, musicians, fashion designers, stylists, entrepreneurs like David Jargowsky, whose extreme pogo stick, called the Flybar, is featured in the next OK Go video, and so many others, including two of my dearest friends who flew all the way across the country to be there. I can only hope I justified their love.

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I've been unnoticeably absent from Fashion Week this season for no real reason other than I have been doing lots of random shit. It's not 'cause of any beef I may have with Smashbox (even though I am on Fern Mallis' shitlist after accidentally misquoting her in a piece I wrote for the LA Times - she said 'lobby fleas', I heard 'lobby sleaze', next thing you know we're on LAObserved.com under Correction O' the Day...oi vey).

But life has been distinctly unfashionable these last few weeks, and actually, it's not so bad. 

Today, for instance, I witnessed the deeply unfashionable spectacle of a grandma wearing nothing but an old yellow bra wandering around the changing rooms at the Desert Hot Springs Hotel, yodeling at the top of her lungs. And then there was the older fella in the mineral pool with the huge booger hanging out his nose, telling me about the time his friend's nephew's cousin talked to Jessica Simpson. "Have you met any celebrities?" he asked me, shortly before launching into a story about meeting an editor from Teen Vogue who brought a bevvy of Russian models to the Desert Hot Springs Hotel. His fingers trembled and the threadveins in his cheeks glowed as he recalled the day.

I was with my best friend from London, singer-songwriter Lara Frankel, who has been staying with me these last few weeks. She and I had dinner in Palm Springs with George Englund, author and best friend of Marlon Brando for five decades (he directed Brando in 1963's The Ugly American and wrote a book about their friendship, The Way It's Never Been Done Before. He was also married to Cloris Leachman.) George is  someone who has been  a father figure to me during my most shitty moments. "Time to get your game face on, kiddo," he said, dispensing the usual kernals of wisdom, trying not to grimace at the plate of tuna-stuffed papaya being shoved in front of him. We talked for hours, until the waiters started vacuuming around our table, rudely interrupting our debate on whether all lesbians have the same hairdresser.

My run of unfashion stretches even further back into the week - a few days earlier I went to a school play, an hour-long production of Peter Pan with a cast of 150 children from University Elementary School, held at UCLA's Freud Theater. The kids were fabulous, as was the audience, populated by the sorts of parents you only find in LA - Richard Gere's brother, Gabriel Garcia Marquez' son, Bob Dylan's son...

From the play, we headed to The Echo to pick up my cell phone, which had been there since early February (I left it on the bar during a Black Lips show). Beck had played an early evening set that night, which we missed, but we did catch the tail-end of synthpoppy Ultraviolet, fronted by a Fergie/Gwen Stefani wannabe with a misplaced sense of irony (unironic Joan Jett covers, ironic Eighties keyboard player).

Then we got a text from Johnny Kaps, publicist for The Kooks, who had just played the Jimmy Kimmel show. "Come to the Formosa for a cocktail," it said, so we dutifully complied. Kaps is a charming 'fro-haired mogul-in-the-making in town from Brooklyn. He represents The Kooks, Editors,  Ambulance LTD (Marcus from the band was also at the bar), The Subways, Monsters Are Waiting and stellastarr*. We bonded over a few vodka tonics while he told me about the new band he is working with, Illinois...he is sending me the EP, so a full report to come.  

Yet another unfashion-related incident last week:

We went downtown to the Desert Eagles/Bobby Evans new DJ night at Redwood bar. Jamz, rapper from Brother Reade was supposed to be hosting but he never showed. Not sure why - we had seen him earlier that day, when he picked us up from an auto-mechanic shop in Silverlake after my new secondhand Mercedes Benz developed an enormous oil leak. Jamz drove us to Pazzo Gelato on Sunset where we ate marscapone and raspberry swirl ice cream, and he told us about Brother Reade's new album, Rap Music, coming out in July. He gave me a copy and I really really want to listen to it, but it is heavily shrink-wrapped and I am unsure as to how to open it without destroying the cover. 

As mentioned, Jamz wasn't at the party that night, but we did chat to Matt Goldman, who runs DanceRight at La Cita on Thursdays and works at Shepard Fairey's design studio.  Goldman told us that there are packets of Doritos bearing his likeness currently in circulation, all thanks to a design job he recently did - although he had no idea his face would end up on the product. Fame at last! 

I do plan on being slightly more fashionable in the coming days, and will dispatch a report from the Flaunt magazine party downtown on Wednesday but, as you can see, it is easy to be effortlessly unfashionable - especially during LA Fashion Week.

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Junker Designs had Alice Cooper prancing the runways at Avalon, 2B Free did its Paris thing at Boulevard 3 (see earlier post), Society for Rational Dress offered something at Basque, Frankie B is showing new designs at a Westside eaterie as I write this and Jeffrey Sebelia unveils his new stuff downtown on Wednesday. All of which proves you really don't need to venture out to Culver City to get a fashion fix during LA Fashion week anymore.

One of the most fun "Smashbox-alternative" shows I attended came from local designer Maggie Barry, who presented what can only be called a rockin' rainbow on the runway at the Henry Fonda Theatre on Saturday.

Barry, who's made clothes for celebs and TV shows like Dancing with the Stars and Deal or No Deal, definitely designs for the gal who wants to stand out in the crowd – no minimalism or subdued sexiness here. Bai Ling and Tracy Lords, both of whom sat in the front row, are fans. You get the idea.

The show was full of glitz, sparkle and skin-tight metallics. Standouts included stretchy space-girl jumpsuits and dresses worn with glitter booties, slinky black dresses with leather appliqués and bondage-inspired, leather and knit ensembles for men and women.

Rhinestones, beading and studs popped from rayon and jersey frocks, while many of the simpler designs were complemented by the flamboyant hats of local designer Drew Bird.

The show and after-party on the roof of the Fonda served as a launch for Barry's new perfume Dangerous Love and the spokemodel for the product, sultry torch singer Morganne, told us she wrote the song performed at the end of the show specifically for the scent. A video presentation of the tune, which had a Madonna "Justify My Love" feel opened the show.

I have a thing for smelling edible (Vanilla and Caramel are my sig scents), but something about Dangerous Love really entranced me. I looked at the ingredients and discovered Tuber Rose, Vanilla, and Amber were dominant ingredients. Potent but not too flower-y.

Later Barry told me that each component has a specific meaning (love, lust, etc.). Indeed anyone fond of essential oils or who's dabbled in a little candle n' oil witchery knows these aromas and their power. They're seductive and yes, a little dangerous.Just like Barry's clothes.

Above, hat lady Drew Bird, designer Maggie Barry and songstress Morganne party on the roof of the Fonda.

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