I am still training my butt off (literally I hope) for the Ragnar Relay LA . One of the ways I’ve been trying to prep both mentally and physically is by trying out night running. Now, I’ve most definitely done a run after sunset before, but pitch black in the middle of the night with a bright blinding headlamp in Griffith Park of all places… well that’s something with a world’s worth of difference.

Murs has been the face of West Coast independent hip-hop since he released his first single back in 1993. On April 3rd, he hosts the fifth edition of Paid Dues, the acclaimed one-day festival he founded to celebrate the best of independent rap past and present.

If you were at Winter Music Conference (WMC) these last few days, chances are you heard “No Manners,” the new single from Evil Nine, booming out through speakers.

Erykah Badu is a pretty lady, so when she takes off her clothes, people notice.

New York owns pizza. This is not debatable. America’s Babylon has a culture and pride around pizza unparalleled on spaceship Earth. It would be no stretch to say that where New York has pizza, Los Angeles has tacos. Tacos. Tacos.

“Drive It Like You Stole It” is the first single from the Glitch Mob’s upcoming album Drink The Sea, and it’s, well, a banger with brains. Sure, the beats are huge – thunder huge, tornado huge, blowing-up-the-Death-Star huge: if you know anything about this Los Angeles-based trio, they take what one would think is a hip-hop beat and take it straight to hyperspace.

I first saw Screaming Females play about 4 years ago on a Thursday night at the shittiest bar in town…I was only there because my friend’s band was playing. The result was all five of us in attendance being immediately converted by frontlady Marissa Paternoster’s insanity on the guitar, those ribboned-throat vocals, and the exceptionally earnest sheen of the whole thing.

You may have heard the term before on these pages, or on a myriad of new media outlets, but “Chillwave” a kind of snarky term that describes (loosely) a large collection of indie artists from all over that share a common sensibility. The New York Times even used it surrounding last week’s SXSW…

Just say a little birdie told you…

Boxing has kinda always been the rockstar music and art infused sport what with the likes of Muhammad Ali, Tyson, Warhol and Basquiat (classic boxing meets art poster show), iconic SA prez ‘Madiba, and even Miles Davis who chased his blues away in the ring (as seen above and in our boxing culture album ). [...]

“Supergroup”: that bitter taste in your mouth right now is a conditioned response to all those forced collaborations that consistently came up short (The Super, Super, Blues Band wasn’t all that super, Farm Aid). Gayngs is that, and exactly not that. Long song label to the stars Jagjaguwar instantly snatched them up, betting that the [...]

Our resident runner, Jennifer Tran, was all set to run the LA Marathon last weekend. She ran during lunch, after work, on holiday weekends and seemed to rarely sleep. All along the way, she wrote about her experiences for Kspace, and shared what she was reading about and experiencing.

“Somebody say party here!” A vocal sample commanding as such was the first thing the crowd heard last night as Groove Armada took to the stage at Hollywood’s Henry Fonda Music Box Theater, and they didn’t need much encouragement in this area.

The image of so many shivering music fans battling the odds and the elements to see their favorite band demonstrated why the SXSW spirit remains vital: as was made clear throughout the conference, the people here care passionately about their music, and will do almost anything to experience it.

After a few too many mid-morning bourgeois cocktails and discussions of royalty splits, we moved on to other events through the streets of Austin. The ears were assaulted by Fugazi soundalikes and jazzed-out Beatles covers coming out of bars, restaurants, bank lobbies, wherever along the mobbed 6th and Red River strips—and this was just after noon.

Day two of the music portion of South By Southwest (SXSW) started out as it should: with delicious Tex-Mex food – al pastor tacos and beef fajita burritos courtesy beloved taco truck Taqueria Star make for a breakfast of champions. The regional flavor continued at Beauty Bar Annex, where the famous Los Angeles indie club [...]

Going to South By Southwest (SXSW) is an adventure. The best way to do it is to let the U.S. premier music conference happen spontaneously, and just go with the flow. There are too many bands, too many parties, to do otherwise; it’s dizzying, the amount of awesomeness on offer.

The one time I saw Lucky Dragons, performing on the dusty Austin ground around a collection of serious and simple musical toys, I was left soothed and awkward by these two skinny towers of nice and out-there.

The highly anticipated debut single release of Rox’s “My Baby Left Me” is finally out this week.

Shepard Fairey, although born of eastern blood, has become somewhat synonymous with the LA urban art scene. So it was fitting that when the new owners of the LA Marathon were looking for someone to design the 25th anniversary commemorative poster, they turned to his Studio Number One. Cleon Peterson designed the commemorative poster, which not only includes three L.A.- area icons, but also the start of one of the largest marathons in the world and 2009 women’s champion Tatiana Petrova of Russia.