Steve Appleford

Warpaint's Emily Kokal, Theresa Wayman, Stella Mozgawa and Jenny Lee Lindberg.

The road can take some getting used to for a young garage band. For the ladies of Warpaint, the last seven weeks riding tour buses and airplanes across Australia, Japan, Europe and the U.K. took a serious toll. The indie rock quartet were finishing up promoting their acclaimed debut album from last year, the elegantly frayed and understated The Fool. They had never been away quite so long.

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Andrea Domanick

Now you can burn shit, too

​[See also: Exclusive: Pusha T and Tyler the Creator's "Trouble On My Mind" Video Shoot]

Update: Odd Future's management has said that the video shoot is not open to the public. Don't go!

Tyler, the Creator's music god Pharrell said, "You can't be me, I'm a rock star." but Odd Future will encourage you to try tonight.

The L.A. collective is shooting a video and needs extras. 

Earlier today, our favorite Inland Empire collective, Art Goons -- who opened for Kreayshawn at The Roxy a couple weeks ago -- started spreading the word over Facebook and Twitter.

Want to attend? The info you need is below.

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Steven J. Lynch

It takes a lot to laugh, it takes a permit to cry. As local indie-music fans know, City Councilman Eric Garcetti's office has not been kind to live-music practitioners in recent months: The Sunset Junction festival's last-minute permit denial followed the closure of all-ages art and music space Echo Curio last October. But as it enters its ninth month hosting shows, restaurant-cum-concert space Lot 1 Café is determined to stay open, and to give both rising bands and aspiring bookers a place to get their starts.

Since the beginning of the year, the Echo Park venue has offered $5 indie, folk and jazz shows on a nightly basis on its sweaty stage. At first glance, the spot's M.O. is not dissimilar to the now-defunct Echo Curio next door, in that both tiny spaces had cheap cover prices and four-bands-a-night marathons. (Echo Curio was shut down after legal run-ins over its BYOB policy and other permitting issues.)

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Paul Antico

All this can be yours: The John Anson Ford Theatre

The young woman with glitter on her eyes is performing songs of death and betrayal before a nearly full house at the John Anson Ford Theatre. It's Sunday night, and Mandi Perkins is at the ancient Hollywood venue with her band Of Verona to perform four acoustic songs on the outdoor stage, as part of a full evening of local singer-songwriters and bands. "Nothing left to lose, nowhere else to move," Perkins sings, as a thick forest of trees and brush rise up to the sky on the hillside behind her.

"It's a beautiful atmosphere," Perkins says of the amphitheater after their set. "It's an awesome experience to get onstage and just sing for pure love and touch people like that."

What brought her band and others to the 1,200-seat space is an annual event called "Koffeehouse Music: An Evening of Independence," which is made possible by a unique summer program to bring local culture to the Ford stage. Just days earlier, singer k.d. lang headlined this same venue for 90 minutes of epic torch and twang, one of the many nationally known acts to pass through the amphitheater each year. But unlike other big stages in the city, the Ford is a major venue with a grass-roots mission. Since 1992, its Summer Partnership Program has opened the Ford to local artists and producers by providing the venue rent-free, plus box office staff, ushers, facility management and more.

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Elliott Smith's Figure 8 cover art

Don't mess with memorials, especially ones dedicated to musicians tragically gone far too soon.

Last spring, former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters incited a minor riot (ok, in the comments section of this blog post, but still) when the viral street campaign for his The Wall Live tour defaced the humble, rootsy "Elliott Smith Memorial Wall" on Sunset next to the Malo restaurant. That's the site where the cover for the singer's last album completed before his death, Figure 8, was shot.

The campaign commissioned street artists in L.A. and NYC to plaster a pacifist quote by Dwight Eisenhower in some of the cities' "coolest" neighborhoods. Waters apologized and removed the error that got him excoriated, but last week, the tribute wall got entirely freshened-up.

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John Strachan

Makh Daniels, lead singer of S.F. hardcore group Early Graves, passed away last August after a van accident during the tour for their latest album, Goner. The accident came at a pivotal point in the young band's career, as many heavy metal/punk journalists had them pegged as ready to break out from the pack. Much of that was due to the lyrics and stage presence of Daniels, which were very personal and at times confrontational.

Well, Early Graves is set for their first live performance since Daniels' death, this Saturday at The Power Of The Riff festival at The Echo and Echoplex. And they now have a new vocalist as well: John Strachan, of L.A. blackened-death band The Funeral Pyre.

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Ward Robinson

Sun Araw

When we asked Cameron Stallones, the fascinating L.A.-based polymath who performs and records as Sun Araw, to cover a favorite album in its entirety at L.A. Weekly's RE:Play L.A. series at the Hard Rock Café in Hollywood, we expected him to pick something like Pink Floyd's Ummagumma, Lee Scratch Perry's Roast Fish Collie Weed & Corn Bread or a minor Popol Vuh soundtrack. After all, we were dealing with the man who most closely approximates the great sound explorers of the 1970s, someone who had recently ventured to Jamaica to record with the legendary Congos, and who returned with the sickest street-level dub collection since Adrian Sherwood took the form to the next level.

True to unexpected form, the reply came quickly from Stallones, who obviously must have been thinking about it before we asked: "Teenage Fanclub's Bandwagonesque."

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That's the spirit

You're dripping sweat, searching for shade, drinking just one more and praying you don't end up in the hospital for dehydration. Ahhh, summer festivals.

The L.A. area's not lacking in the kind of fun you can only have when a massive crowd is unleashed into a contained-yet-open-air (read: hotter than hell) venue. In fact, Audiotistic is happening down the road in San Bernardino tomorrow.

But whereas most festivals cater to only one aspect of our defend-it-till-we-die city, L.A. Rising seems to have captured us perfectly. Earlier in the day we spoke with Tom Morello, and now here are Five Reasons L.A. Rising Is the Perfect Festival for Los Angeles:

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Manny Mares

When it comes to music in Los Angeles these days, all you hear about day in and day out is "this band from Silver Lake" or "that venue over on the East side." It's easy to feel neglected for those on the West side, but thanks to Joyce Manor, the feeling of being the last kid picked in gym class has subsided significantly.

One of the most promising bands coming from the South Bay/West L.A. area (the forgotten side of the city), the band's signature--honest, abrasive pop punk--has been packing houses, venues, backyards, and basements across the country. We could write all day about how much we like this band, but why don't you just download the demo and check out this video of them from this year's Sound And Fury Festival?

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Most people who watch NBC's Parks And Recreation know Ron Swanson's alter ego Duke Silver. The suave jazz saxophonist serenades Pawnee citizens by night with his "lush jazz landscapes." The way his mustache tickles the reed produces a sound that gives the privileged listener a "This is why I have ears!" moment.

But Ron is not alone when it comes to a love for jazz. In fact, Pawnee's own Perd Hapley from "Ya' Heard? With Perd" plays with his jazz group every Sunday night, right here in Los Angeles! Find out where below.

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