Sacha Dunable

Intronaut. (L-R): vocalist/guitarist Sacha Dunable; bassist Joe Lester; vocalist/guitarist Dave Timnick (not pictured: drummer Danny Walker).

​See also: Intronaut's Tour Diary II: Buying Weed in the Middle of Nowhere

Intronaut's thunderous blend of sludge-doom and post-rock (most recently on display in their 2010 album Valley Of Smoke) has earned critical praise as well as tours with metal luminaries such as Mastodon, Isis, and Animals As Leaders. Now, the L.A. quartet has embarked on their biggest excursion to date, opening for Tool on their current arena tour. Intronaut vocalist/guitarist Sacha Dunable kept a diary for us on the first day of the tour, which was this past Saturday in Reno, Nevada.

Hi, my name is Sacha. Eight years ago I started a band called Intronaut with some friends I've known for half of my life. For the next couple weeks, we'll be on tour in arenas throughout North America as support for Tool, which is a pretty significant change from the club shows we normally play. We are only a couple days in on this tour so far and I'm still wrapping my head around exactly what is going on around me, but here's a brief rundown on the madness that was our first day.

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​Mtendere Mandowa, better known as the Brainfeeder's beat protege Teebs, lives and works in a space that seems to be an extension of himself. It's a small, mellow little spot in Glassell Park, nothing flashy. In the living room there is a turntable, lots of art, and live harp music floating in from the next room.

It's not what you'd expect from someone who's sophomore album Collections 01 is critically lauded and whose story of sharing an apartment with Flying Lotus and Samiyam is now part of L.A. folklore. As for Mandowa himself, he's diminutive, charming, laid-back, and candid in conversation about the tragedy in his personal life and his music.

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Ice Cube on his way to the Eames House in Pacic Palisades

​See also:
*Ice Cube and Charles and Ray Eames: Gangsters Making the World Go Round
*Ice Cube Talks Art, Boyz n the Hood, and Why He Makes Comedies

G's often age awkwardly. The cop killer became a TV lawman. The guy who cribbed his name from an animated dog is becoming increasingly cartoonish. And Ice Cube hung up his AK and poison pen to become a loveably put-upon goof in movies whose tag lines end with, "What could possibly go wrong?" There have been numerous entrepreneurial stops and starts, as well, from Aftermath Cognac to Wu Wallabies, both of which we're sorry to say are actual products.

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​We at West Coast Sound love little more than good tunes and good booze. So, when Drinkify dropped earlier this month -- an Internet app that suggests cocktails to sip while listening to your artist of choice -- we were intrigued. So much so that we bought a whole shopping bag of elixirs and got to drinking.

Turns out that the site was created in 24 hours by a group of boozy nerds for Music Hack Day Boston 2011, and is powered by streaming services like Last.fm. But we didn't learn that until the next day, reeling from a steep hangover. What we discovered during our party/bout of journalism, however, is that the beverage suggestions range from straightforward staples (Wavves = PBR) to more unorthodox selections (Skrillex = 4 oz. marijuana, garnished with cocktail onions).

Some are spot-on (The Dead Kennedys = 10 oz. rum, fucking rum) while others are just wrong (mezcal for the Beatles, really?). In any case, some highlights from our experiment are below; you can be sure that we thoroughly sacrificed our livers and dignity to put this site to the test.

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Kai Flanders

​Purgatory Pizza is a squat, diminutive joint just east of the L.A. river, across from the Pico Metro stop. Driving by, you might not notice the place -- they rarely illuminate the ramshackle sign that hangs out front. Or, you might be deterred from going in by the skate punks that constantly loiter outside, hoping to catch the next train into the city.

Inside, the walls are covered with bits of poetry (she was the girl on the fire escape, giving haircuts to her friends). Fast punk records blare from behind the stark mental counter, and posters for shows collage the windows. It's not a particularly inviting room. The guy behind the counter, young but grizzled, might take your order but then again he might not. He probably looks like he's in a band. He is.

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Billy Calderon

Colby Evans, one of Sessions LA's producers

​Eighteen-year-old Argento Zavala (not his real name) became homeless this summer. After an argument with his mother, he got kicked out of the house. He'd been exposed to drugs since he was in 8th grade, but he began a new daily routine: do meth to stay awake, wander the city during the night, pay a dollar to shower at a hotel, go to school, and make music at a twice-weekly program called Sessions LA.

"He's one of the smartest kids we have, and through that whole thing, Sessions was a way for him to escape the drama. We knew he felt safe here, and it was a way for him to relieve a lot of stuff he was going through by writing and recording his music," says 29-year-old Patrick Huang, aka DJ Phatrick of Native Guns). He's one of the instructors at the helm of Sessions LA, a music writing and recording program for youth in the Rampart District of Los Angeles.

But as of October 1st, that refuge has been threatened. Due to a budget cut, Sessions LA no longer has the financial means to continue its programming. They decided to raise money on their own through an IndieGoGo campaign, setting a goal of $15,000 by December 9th. So far, they've received only about half of that.

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​Internet junkies earned a new respect for Ghostface Killah back in March, under the illusion it was he who had conjured the brilliant and hysterical (to the point of tears) "Top 10 Softest Rappers In The Game."

But when West Coast darling Wiz Khalifa and the other teddy bears on the list started whining about disrespects, etc. -- Wiz called Ghostface "corny" on hip-hop radio and said, "He played himself, yo. Seriously. 'Cause like, we're a young generation of fans. He could possibly sell some records to those kids" -- the Wu-Tang vet took great pains to let the world know the blogger in question was a big fake.

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Abran Rubiner

​In London, folks hold acoustic sessions in the back of a taxi. In New York, musicians play rock shows in the subway. But until now, to the best of our knowledge, no one was making any decent music in vans.

But that's changed. Witness Jam in the Van rolling down the streets of Venice, adorned by portraits of folks like Frank Zappa and Lil' Kim. Sure, it's not actually a van -- it's a Winnebago Itasca RV -- but everyone from unknowns to Switchfoot to former Jurassic 5 emcee Chali 2Na have graced its tiny stage.

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Beth Maher

​See also: Van Halen Assteroidz Is Back!

She ain't no Princess Peach, but Kreayshawn now has her very own video game. Kreayshawn: The Game bowed earlier this month, courtesy of Toronto-based illustrator-cum-game-designer Beth Maher. The 8-bit creation places the L.A. rapper alongside Van Halen, Michael Jackson and Journey, among others, in the gaming realm.

"I thought it would be fun," Maher tells us over email, adding that it's her first game and she built it through a workshop helping young women to get into video game development. "A line like 'I got the swag, and it's pumping out my ovaries' deserves to be immortalized somehow, and I think video games -- as an art form -- can function as pop-cultural commentary."

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Tiffany Rose

We can't promise James Franco doing karaoke in drag, but you never know

​Did you catch our Best Of issue and snag our free Best Of app? Even if you did, we're betting you didn't make it through all of our write-ups; there are about a billion. So in the coming weeks we'll walk you through some of our favorites. We'll start with a subject very close to our hearts -- karaoke bars!

There's karaoke in L.A. for everyone. As Dennis Romero says, there's VIP room karaoke and even porn star karaoke at Sardo's in Burbank every Tuesday. And there's, well, American Idol. But though the choices may seem endless, never fear. We sifted through all of the wannabes for you, and picked out the three best karaoke bars in L.A.

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