The coming week bodes well for lovers of culture on both coasts. From Los Angeles to New York, art, music, and happenings combine in a series of events that both bend genres and break rules. The May 1st weekend proves particularly action-packed in Los Angeles, as far as categories blurring.

Analog is to synthesizers what analog is to vinyl: the real deal. The grail. The warm summer versus the digital winter. As a result, the analog synth has become the collectible objet du jour of the current urban-dwelling, trend-setting boho youth conferring a certain hipster status.

Okay, you’re craving an electro-pop jam par excellence and, like the rest of the world, you’ve discovered the new MGMT album doesn’t have an awesomely catchy synth jam like “Kids.” What to do? Never fear, the antidote is here: “Nightcall,” the new jam from Kavinsky.

est voila ! we’re delighted to have DJ LeFtO back with us for an exclusive KSPACE.TV 66 Mix and May Day special as he travels to join us in California for some crackin’ DJ sets in early May (will post them soon). If in Europe you can catch LeFtO in his hometown Brussels on his radio show, live in clubs and with the ‘Friends and Family’ (recently Rich Medina in the area), as well as in London often with Gilles and the Brownswood crew and those (like me) lucky enough to be at the annual Worldwide Festival in Sete, France early July.

Holy Ghost! is made up of two lifelong friends who previously worked as session players for various DFA artists before founding their a smoothly funk and unabashedly italodisco world-wandering beast. Their remix of LCD’s “Drunk Girls” takes the garagey racket and subs in disco poplock, modular sine and three extra minutes, kicked off with straight rub-a-dub-dub tom shouts.

You wouldn’t think Giorgio Moroder could get any cooler. Well… Think again! The maestro recently released a book, Extraordinary Records: Any Color Except Black—The High Baroque Of Vinyl Recordings, that does for album visuals what Moroder’s synthesizers did for sound.

Now that Spring is in full bloom, it’s time to seriously start training for the big Fall races in SoCal. I’ve been arranging and re- arranging my scheduled based on key important items: where it’s most likely to PR, races I have yet to try out, and those that I simply can’t live without. Here are some races I’d recommend for those of you who are looking for a good half marathon or full marathon in Los Angeles.

You’ve most likely noticed an increase in many things ‘awesome’ around here – granted, it’s probably a California symptom but hey there are in fact many shades of awesome-ness on the left coast of the US. The latest being ‘Awesome Challenge’ where ordinary people take on extra-ordinary tasks like um deciding to climb Cali’s highest summit Mt Whitney at 14 505 ft starting April 28th and besides the personal challenge of it all, it’s for a great cause in helping under resourced urban teens make it into the great wild outdoors and beyond.

Just coming off the weekend from running the Ragnar Relay Los Angeles… If I can use one to describe it, it would have to be “wow” and even then that’s too much of an understatement. Here’s the rundown.

A hoveled apartment complex gets raided: scenes of crack smoking, fatty fornication, and relentless brutality by somesuch security force. Within a sea of carrot-topped and supposed ne’er-do-wells is an/our anti-hero, one FAS-afflicted scowl you could confidently diagnose with ODD. A group of ginger freedom fighters sporting red kaffiyehs hoot and holler, ineffectual. As a short film the video is completely engrossing, a perfect storm of car crash sad, odd, and violent, filmed beautifully and expensively. Something’s happening, right?

This is the big week for Ragnar as far as training is concerned, I’m pretty much done. A few lessons learned (we’ll see if they paid off come relay weekend)…

Jai alai in the sky? Speed Racer in a plane? It will surely be the most expensive, least-watchable, and utterly dangerous sport in human history. It’s called the Rocket Racing League. It’s like plane races, except the planes are strapped with goddamn rocket boosters…

If you’re looking to cheer on a friend or want to jump in on some off-beat running fun this weekend, there are a few good ones going on.

By virtue of seemingly nothing but curiosity Die Antwoord have become internationally recognized oddities, putting forth a refracted, gangster-aggressive image with posi undertones that is fascinating, for some reason. People are understandably confused, sometimes defensive about the group, questioning their chops, sincerity, and cultural ‘work’.

We ruminated over how leaving a Coachella set early can cause you to miss some key moments, like Jay-Z bringing Beyonce on stage (oops!). You never know what chance pop culture milestone you might miss in the rush to catch another band. Say you skip Deerhunters last song, perhaps, and of course Lady Gaga or something shows up right then to sing a medley of Velocity Girl songs with them (the previous was merely hypothetical—no Gaga sightings at Coachella 2010, alas…).

While you wait to hear results of your favorite elite runner racing the Boston Marathon 2010 this Patriots Day, here are some hand-picked cool and interesting facts to keep you occupied,

By the end of the night, our insides felt coated with desert dust – a true sign that Coachella 2010 continued to be a success.

Coachella, the annual festival that’s become the most prestigious music event in the country, has become more and more of a party every year. This year, in the seemingly endless journey to get there and park on the first day (this past Friday, April 16), the excitement was uncontrollable amidst the surf-short wearing bros and half-nude girls (Coachella fashions for the ladies definitely seem hoochier in 2010) filling the road. Indeed, the occasion exudes a certain, erm, uninhibited casualness aided and abetted by the California desert vibes of the location.

What makes Record Store Day—which takes place this year on April 17th—are the many special events and unique, ultra-collectible releases that bands and labels are doing in honor of the event.

Strange, skronky mouth trumpet sounds announce the new Jamie Lidell single “The Ring,” and they are the most dissonant thing we’ve heard from Warp Records’ unlikely super-soul brother in a while. But then Lidell’s unbelievably expressive voice kicks in with the groove, and you know you’re in for a good ride.