Best Of Alternative L.A.: Readers’ Choice

YOUR choice cuts of 100% Grade-A L.A.
by Staff

We asked, thousands of you voted. Now here are your picks for L.A.’s best alongside our musings on the winners, the losers, and the cherished quirks in between.

A Breakdown
Who you love and why you love them.
by Michael Mannheimer

Giant Drag
As the winner in our Best Of poll, Giant Drag might not seem like your typical L.A. band. Yes, their songs are built with guitars and drums and keyboards; they maintained a residency at the Silverlake Lounge; and singer Annie Hardy is cute in that indie-pop type of way. The difference lies in their approach. While most of the bands on this list are happy playing a show at the Smell, Giant Drag asked for your votes in this poll. This is a band with ambition, but not too much; they’re talented with a sense of humor (with songs like “Kevin is Gay” and “YFLMD” an acronym for “you fuck like my dad”), which is rare in the all-too-serious rock world. With a spot at Coachella, a spread in NME, and now the illustrious title of L.A. Alternative readers’ favorite band, Giant Drag have more than L.A. on their minds and in their future.

The 88
Has your band ever played on The O.C.? Or ABC Family’s Kyle XY? Or a Target commercial? The thing is, the 88 have. With their retro-infused brand of hip-shaking pop, the local five-piece are not only favorites of Angelenos like YOU, but also teenagers everywhere with cable and an ear for songs their dad might even like.

The Antarcticans
Some bands sound like the cities they hail from. The Antarcticans are not one of them. Specializing in slow-mo drama and icy, thick sheets of noise, the Antarcticans make beautiful instrumental music that just begs to be appreciated. If only man could move a glacier.

Totally Radd!!
Admit it: Final Fantasy VII was, like, the greatest game of all time. If you grew up buying every new RPG and secretly sneaking in games of D&D at lunch, these Retard Disco label stalwarts are the band for you. Totally Radd!!’s synths and guitars duel for ultimate supremacy, just like those intense games of Tekken you played in middle school. Keytars and video game mythology-what more could you ask for?

Pretty Vicious
The straight-up sound of Hollywood at night.

Hello Astronaut, Goodby Television
Can noise and pop co-exist? Taking a page from Sonic Youth, the Pixies and countless other indie rock mainstays, Hello Astronaut play pop the way it should be: loud, ambitious and beautiful. Adolescence can be a bitch, but shit, sometimes it makes the best music.

Lavender Diamond
With the whole freak-folk scene turning into more “freak” than actual folk, it’s refreshing to see a band that stays true to its influences. Lavender Diamond and singer Becky Stark make lush, straightforward chamber-folk, religious music for the hipster crowd.

Spindrift
Straight out of a Clint Eastwood western, Spindrift make loud, psychedelic music that is perfect for a drug-induced comedown.

The Mae Shi
With yelping frontman Ezra Buchla recently departed, who knows where these spastic pop-meisters will end up. But one thing’s for sure, with the ability to play a dozen ditties in a flowing 15 minute-set, these guys prove that it’s not how big or long the song, but rather, how you use it.

Indian Jewelry
If this Houston tribe looks a little bit like an Andy Warhol fantasy, look past the leather. They’re also hocking fireside freak-outs, wigwam drugs and evil dream catchers. Get too close to their fuzzed-out PA and they’ll scalp you.

Night Moves
The new spirit of our night haunts.
By Lesley Bargar

There’s been a shift in the tectonic plates of our night terrain. The very foundation of our evenings is trembling from the friction of change. As the sound of it builds to a roar and the shaking settles into a tangible rhythm, we’re altering our plans each night accordingly. Your votes prove it.

Up until very recently, the shape of Los Angeles’ musical nightlife was primarily molded by the experienced hands of a few heavily seasoned professionals. The folks who ended up on L.A. stages every night were chosen by club bookers whose job it is to predict who and what we’ll throw our love, money and lime wedges at over and over again. It was these bookers who literally “set our trends,” made our scenes, and we loved the venues they worked for because of it. This is how the stages of classic L.A. venues like Spaceland, the Troubadour and other time-honored clubs are run, and many SoCal music aesthetics, genres and scenes have blossomed over the years because of it.

But nowadays, the power is drifting from the hallowed halls of these established, booker-run spaces and into the hands of a few visionaries who literally do it all themselves: own, operate and book the entertainment at smaller, independent venues. These people are Dave Conway-perhaps the newest of the bunch-who dreamed up the downtown loft/radio station/club/sporadic concert space Little Radio, and both the man and the loft swept the categories of favorite local trendsetter and best local venue, respectively. It’s Jim Smith-man behind longtime downtown dive gem the Smell-who draws young crowds and younger bands to his space, making the Smell fourth in your venue votes, and the man himself came in third for trendsetter. Same goes for Bob Bellerue, whose East Hollywood concrete shack Il Corral continues to draw crowds craving the far reaches of local music, and the results seem to show we all love him for it. Twenty-three-year-old Sean Carlson organizes and curates the entire Fuck Yeah!!! Fest in Echo Park each year. Sam Lanni of Safari Sam’s-while he doesn’t do the booking himself-finally got to open the venue that’s been haunting his dreams since the ’80s, and there’s not a night you won’t find him wandering through the crowd and adjusting a few tables and chairs.

It’s not simply a coincidence that the individuals you elected as trendsetters also own and operate the venues you chose as your favorite to frequent. It’s because this new breed of venue hinges its success on the ideas and missions of the people who own and operate them, not the ones they hire to plan their marquees. Of course, there are still remarkable bookers out there, and there is, and always will be, a need for their experience within the realm of Los Angeles nightlife. But now it looks like the city’s night-train is headed to a more DIY destination.

Project: gallery
Art on the walls, from the street.
By Lucinda Michele Knapp

L.A. Alternative’s readers voted Project: gallery as L.A.’s best gallery, and frankly, I think you all have fabulous taste. These Cannibal Flower protégés have gone from art show attendees to savvy collectors on the strength of their passion for the art and artists they work with. Bringing underground and street artists into the gallery and giving them the appreciation they deserve has had a spillover effect: every one of Project: gallery’s openings has been more fun than a barrel of hippie-crack Whip-Its, with the crowd partying it up and devolving into marathon breakdancing right in-between the paintings. Most shows request a donation for entry, but duh-the open bar means you actually save money.

See how that works? Speaking of works, here’s a few that have decorated the walls at Project: gallery.

Luke Chueh’s soft and sad bears and bunnies hint at how delicate and easily hurt our inner selves are, and how we’re constantly exposed to damaging, destructive situations in life.

Sylvia Ji’s lush coloring and natural, flowing lines recall work by Art Nouveau artists, but frame them in our modern world where decay and dystopia chip away at our visions of the feminine and of nature.

Lisa Alisa’s delicate, carefully drawn little girls illustrate our inner children coping with the assaults of everyday life, and literally turning the gun on ourselves.

Want to go to an opening party or just look at the art? Visit www.project.bz.

Don’s Music
Why the biggest isn’t always the best.
By Max Read

Don’s Music smells like vinyl. Scratch that-Don’s smells like old vinyl. Like the first time you found your parents’ LP collection, or the afternoons you spent buying dollar records after school. Don’s smells like music, and it’s impossible not to be captivated when you step in and that aroma wafts into your nose.

The smell, of course, comes from the records: racks of them on either wall and in the middle of the store, filed behind plastic dividers marked “GARAGE” and “PUNK” and “METAL.” Records signed by the Ramones and John Frusciante hang behind the cash register next to tiki-themed knick-knacks and packaged guitar strings. Don’s music is a small, appropriately cozy, bedroom-sized shop. A black cat perches itself on top of the Metal section, next to a vintage, blinking electronic baseball game.

Two or three customers mill about, flipping through the vinyl and CDs, chatting idly with a longhaired guy dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. Underneath the unassuming uniform, the longhaired guy is knowledgeable and an easy conversation partner. He’ll talk about anything, really, not just music (though he certainly knows his music). In fact, he can be found waxing poetic about love, life, Los Angeles, New York City and everything in between. The guy is Don, proprietor and sole employee of Don’s Music, and the only man in the country to have had a record store featured in both the Village Voice’s “Best of New York” and the L.A. Alternative’s “Best of L.A.” Not that it fazes him. “I liked everything they wrote about me in the Voice,” Don says, “except for when they called me ‘handsome, middle-aged Don.’” He chuckles, and I ask him if he would have preferred “ugly, old Don.” “No!” he barks. “Ugly, young Don.” For a guy who has spent decades in a profession stereotyped as rude, stuck-up and condescending, Don is almost disarmingly polite and outgoing. It seems everyone who walks into the store knows Don, a remarkable feat for a man who only moved to Los Angeles two years ago.

But what’s more remarkable is that so many people would come back to this place again and again in a city dominated by one of the world’s most infamous record stores. Don can’t compete with Amoeba’s monstrous size and seemingly unending resources-and really, who can?-but the homey atmosphere and Don’s self-deprecating good humor tend to make casual browsers into dedicated patrons. It’s not the best place to find Top-40 stuff (Don avoids major labels), but the store is a treasure trove of affordable vinyl and used CDs, with an admirably deep, well-stocked selection especially perfect for the garage enthusiast. Not that the store leaves other genres in the lurch; moreover, Don will order your requests if you can’t find them.

Don is originally from Brooklyn, where he owned a store even smaller than the current incarnation. He didn’t get into the music-selling business until the late ’90s, after a string of bad jobs: “Oh, I did everything,” he says, “cable TV, played in a couple punk bands. ” He eventually decided to start selling records, and moved quickly from makeshift shops on sidewalks and at street fairs to his own Brooklyn hole-in-the-wall. He built up a dedicated following in the five boroughs before ‘personal reasons’ led him to close his East Coast shop and move to Los Angeles in 2004. But a new store in Eagle Rock soon followed, and just as quickly developed its own loyal following.

Now, a year and a half into Southern California life, Don is settled in and beginning to enjoy himself. What does Brooklyn Don think of Los Angeles? “I hate it here,” he says. “No, I don’t-there are different attitudes… Like, in New York, people would just say, ‘Your shirt sucks,’ and you’d say, ‘Thanks.’ Here, they say, ‘Hey man, nice shirt,’ and it means the same thing!” What about the music scene? “Good, if you know where to look. Different, definitely different.”

One shopper overhearing my conversation with Don stopped me outside the store and asked which paper I worked for. He was torn, he told me, between wanting to keep Don’s a secret, and wanting it to get the recognition it deserves. It’s hard not to be sympathetic with the desire to keep Don’s under wraps-no one wants their favorite vinyl spot plundered on a regular basis-but Don’s is up against some tough competition. Oddly enough, Los Angeles-the second largest city in the country-is dominated by a single record store (itself only five years old): Amoeba Music, the store of 300,000 CDs in 31,000 square feet. Small, independent stores in L.A. are forced to operate in the shadow of Amoeba’s huge catalog and excellent reputation (Rolling Stone once ran an article about the chain with the headline “The World’s Greatest Record Store?”). Harder still is the rise of the Internet as a viable music gathering alternative, with online retailers like Amazon and iTunes, as well as the slew of illegal download sites.

But of course, what the shopper gains in efficiency with retail and Internet giants, he or she loses in intimacy and community. Don’s Music, on the other hand, is reminiscent of the record store everyone shopped at (or wished they could) in high school, and is as much focused on expanding your taste as on reinforcing it. This cozy little store, staffed by Don-part friend, part critic, part mentor-and his cat, isn’t just about buying records: it’s about listening to old favorites, finding new obsessions, and sharing the experience with friends and strangers. Don’s Music is about music. You can tell by the smell.

Don’s Music, 4873 Eagle Rock Blvd., Eagle Rock. (323) 255-3551.

Skylight Books
Summer reading recommendations from the staff
of your favorite store.

Charles recommends Europe Central by William T. Vollmann-”the best American novel since Don DeLillo’s Underworld!” (Charles also handsells like crazy: Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology by David Graeber.)

Steve: Adverbs by Daniel Handler-”takes the best elements of his previous novels and the fun stuff from his Lemony Snicket series and purees them into a hilarious, moving and imaginative collection of loosely linked apocalyptic love stories.”

Also from Steve: The Clouds Above by Jordan Crane-”With just one frame per page, Crane has the ability to turn a comic into a work of art that is equal parts absurdly humorous, devastatingly emotional, and modern magical fable.”

Weston loves An American Family by Harry Crews. “This novella is batty. The eponymous family trumps yours in the area of wierd; beats out the Ambersons, the Tennenbaums. Ends with a frightening tableau not unlike a Peter Greenaway film you might have seen.”

Cory: The Dead Fish Museum: Stories by Charles D’Ambrosio-”Precise and achingly honest stories.”

Also Cory: Home Land by Sam Lipsyte- “Hysterical. Made me feel so much better about attending my own high school reunion.”

Sophia: People of Paper by Salvador Plascencia-”magical realism meets the ghetto.”

Elyse: Feed by M.T. Anderson-”1984 meets the new generation (age 13 & up).”

Kerry’s current fave is Tomorrow They Will Kiss, about a trio of Cuban emigres working in a doll factory in the 1970s, by Echo Park author Eduardo Santiago.

Skylight books is located at 1818 N. Vermont Ave. in Los Feliz.

Part Time Punks
A club more smashing than
a bobby’s billyclub.

Last year, adjunct punk professor Michael Stock and local musician Ben White took over the turntables Sunday nights at the Echo and what resulted was the best thing to happen to non-ironic pogo spazzing since speed. Part Time Punks has become the best club in L.A. thanks to their stripped-down approach of one, maybe two, bands and obsessively nitpicked DJ sets perfectly designed for losing your shit. We asked these DJ punks to scrawl down last week’s set list and decided it was the best explanation for why our reader’s crowned them club kings in 2006.

Dow Jones and the Industrials, “Let’s Go Steady!”
Television, “Little Johnny Jewel (parts 1 & 2)”
Dream Syndicate, “That’s What You Always Say”
Stranglers, “Dead Los Angeles”
Subway Sect, “Ambition”
The Clash, “Stay Free”
Richard Thorne and the Side Effects, “Junkie For Your Love”
Baby Shambles, “Pipe Down”
Action Time Vision, “Action Time Vision”
Devo, “Mongoloid (stiff version)”
Crass, “Big A Little a”
Slant 6, “Time’s Expired”
Fatal Microbes, “Cry Baby”
X, “White Girl”
Minutemen, “Political Song for Michael Jackson To Sing”
Birthday Party, “Sonny’s Burning”
Wire, “I Am the Fly”
Mekons, “I Saw You Last Nite”
Sarandon, “Happy”
The Libertines, “I Get Along”
Cause Co-motion, “Don’t Do It”
Richard Hell and the Voidoids, “Love Comes in Spurts”
Dinosaur Jr., “Keep the Glove”
Can, “The Empress & the Ukraine King”
Can, “…And More”
The Cramps, “TV Set”
The Waitresses, “Slide”
Velvet Underground, “Waiting For My Man”
The Cure, “Meathook (demo version)”
Swell Maps, “Border Country”
Essential Logic, “Aerosol Burns”
Nation of Ulysses, “Today I Met the Girl I’m Gonna Marry”
Katrina and the Part Time Punkx, “Mehr Von Dir”
I.Q. Zero, “I’m In Love”
The Distractions, “Time Goes by So Slow”
The Gun Club, “Sexbeat”
The Cure, “Object”
Spizzenergi, “Soldier, Soldier”
Yummy Fur, “Plastic Cowboy”
The Fall, “Cruiser’s Creek”
Sonic Youth, “Bull in the Heather”
A Certain Ratio, “Do the Du”
Crass, “Walls (fun in the oven)”
Mo-dettes, “Masochistic Opposite”
Joy Division, “She’s Lost Control (12″ version)”
A.P.B., “Shoot You Down”
The Smiths, “Handsome Devil (7″ version)”
Jilted John, “Jilted John”
Pavement, “Cut Yr Hair”
Mudhoney, “Touch Me I’m Sick”
Pylon, “Feast on My Heart”
Wedding Present, “Kennedy”
Baby Shambles, “Babyshambles (demo version)”
Buzzcocks, “I Don’t Mind”
The Pop Group, “She is Beyond Good and Evil”
Brian Eno, “Third Uncle”
Grauzone, “Eisbar”
New Order, “Everything’s Gone Green”
X, “True Love Pt. 2″
Happy Mondays, “Kuff Dam”
S.Y.P.H., “What Happens”
The Higsons, “It Goes Waap”
The Clash, “White Sport”
Jesus and Mary Chain, “Never Understand”
Orange Juice, “Love Sick”
Primal Scream, “It Happens”
Kleenex, “Ain’t You”
The Saints, “Know Yr Product”
Television Personalities, “Part Time Punks”

Downbeat Café
The satisfactory status of Eastside coffee in a post-Onyx era.
By Laura Hauther

This might peg me as a curmudgeonly old Eastside snob, but I believe the quintessential L.A. Eastside coffeehouse was the Onyx on Vermont.

It was the kind of place you could always count on for good art and bad coffee. The owner loved having arty types filling the rickety thrift store tables and tattered chairs all hours of the day and night. As far as he was concerned, buying a single cup and taking up a table for 12 hours was perfectly kosher. In pre-gentrification days, the rents were reasonable enough to allow a café to get away with having starving artists as their main customer base, but it brought about its own demise by playing a large role in making the Silver Lake/Los Feliz area the high-rent, happening place it is today. Alas, the Onyx was long ago replaced by a high-priced classy French bistro.

Today’s Vermont Avenue plays host to two coffeehouses-a Starbucks franchise and Psychobabble. Psychobabble has decent, reasonably priced coffee, reasonably good food, but it’s a bit too-dare I say-suburban for my tastes. The art is usually bad, or just boring, and the place makes me feel like a kid in a neighbor lady’s living room. But the place continues to be crowded with caffeine-deficient Eastsiders, and it came in third in our poll, so it’s obviously got some charm, though I suspect a lot of it is location, location, location.

But this year’s winner, Downbeat Café, has got all the right stuff. It’s located on Alvarado in the same strip that houses The Echo Park Film Center and the Machine Project gallery, and the Edendale Library branch is just a few steps away. The building itself is old and funky, with dark wood floors, high ceilings and great old-fashioned transoms along the front. The décor is mostly ’20s-era art deco, heavy on the jazz. Framed vintage Downbeat magazines and jazz concert posters hang next to art pieces so consistently impressive that Downbeat even got a few write-in votes for our ‘best art gallery’ category. The furnishings are the cream of the vintage crop; it’s comfortable and stylish, with plenty of good lighting for those of us who like to read while imbibing our daily caffeine requirement.

Downbeat has managed to hit that sweet spot of hipness without tipping over into exclusionary, friendly without being bland. It may not have the scene factor the Onyx had in its heyday, but it feels like part of the neighborhood-just like a good coffeehouse should.

The Downbeat Café is located at 1202 N. Alvarado St., Echo Park. (213) 483-3955.

KXLU
The future of radio…remember radio?
By Michael Mannheimer

Imagine a time and place before MP3s, blogs and podcasts. Before the dawn of the Internet, even. Back in these dark ages, the most reliable place for a dedicated fan of independent rock music to go was college radio. Loyola Marymount’s radio station KXLU 88.9 FM grew out of this tradition, helping shape the transition from what was then known as “college rock” to what we today call “alternative.” I never lived in such a time, and neither did KXLU’S current General Manager Brian Reyes. So we can read Michael Azerrad’s Our Band Could Be Your Life, and we can listen to all the early R.E.M. singles, but it’s just not the same. Even though technology has advanced, thousands of college students and artists, jaded hipsters and musical newcomers haven’t, and they continue to listen to Los Angeles’ few remaining college radio stations. That’s right, college radio still rules in this city.

With payola scandals and corporate bigwigs dominating today’s airwaves, how can a small, independent station survive? Backed by a dedicated core of listeners and DJs, KXLU is looking to expand a bit while still maintaining integrity. Don’t call it conformity; growth is almost always a good thing.

“I think FM radio is kind of becoming a dying art, and less people are listening to the radio because of iPods, because they can program what they want to hear,” says Reyes. “Yet, I think there’s still a way to harness that power. My vision is to change KXLU, still have it be the best radio station in Los Angeles, but also to actually use the power of the Internet to reach audiences we wouldn’t reach otherwise.”

And it’s not only college radio that is struggling to integrate the new technology into a tried-and-true format. In the ’80s, radio was a place to hear new music; now, for many people, it’s just what you tune to during a weekend trip to Berkeley when your iPod batteries die. Even Indie 103.1 FM had to shelve popular morning show host Dicky Barrett because he, well, wasn’t popular enough.

The time seems right, then, for KXLU to begin the transition from FM-only format to an all-purpose, modern radio station. “In the next month, we are going to be tearing down the website and we are going to build a new one from scratch. We are going to try to use a grassroots approach to promoting the station behind the artists,” says Reyes. KXLU plans to stream podcasts of the show Demolisten and various live, in-studio recordings, as well as move into another ever-evolving Internet realm: blogs.

“The new website is going to have the ability for listeners to interact with the DJs they listen to every week,” says Reyes. “Every DJ is going to have their own blog, and have a forum to develop the music they really want to develop.”

Through it all, it’s the music that has made KXLU a local institution. The station enthusiastically supports local music, as evidenced by the mind-blowingly awesome collection of talent at their last “Fundrazor” event two weeks ago, with over 20 local bands, many of which have been profiled in this paper. And on the air, any music geek can hear just about every genre presented with equal reverence-besides the indie rock staples, KXLU plays jazz, West Indian and whatever the hell “alien air music” is.

“The people who listen to our station are a segmented audience; they are a huge piece of the pie-we have a very niche audience, and I don’t think that audience is going to go away here in Los Angeles,” says Reyes. “But at the same time, I think it’s an exciting time because it’s almost like the Wild West: there are no boundaries.”

Tune into KXLU at 88.9 FM, and soon at www.kxlu.com.

Click here to read Diarrhea of a Madman
Sucks in the City
The top three L.A. dates for those who hate dating.
by Dan Gillis III

Zuma/Point Dume
Why Charlton Heston’s worst nightmare is the best beach in L.A.
By Max Read

There is, unfortunately, no half-buried Statue of Liberty on Zuma Beach, but that doesn’t make it any less recognizable to those of us who warped our brains on Planet of the Apes as children-kneel in the perfectly fine sand of Zuma and you can pretend to be Charlton Heston too, screaming madly at the ancient remains of civilization.

Zuma, and its neighbor beach Point Dume, worked so perfectly for the final scene of that film for one reason: their seemingly untouched beauty. Just a half-hour up the coast from Santa Monica, this stretch of beach provides entertainment for any kind of beachgoer: tan-orexics can bake (remember, though, that the beach is usually around 5 degrees colder than downtown L.A.), surfers can get stoned and ride waves, hikers have easy trails with beautiful views, and even the weird dudes who like to fish can cast their lines into the Pacific.

Zuma and Point Dume aren’t secrets per se, and going over a holiday weekend might end with you parked on the PCH for six hours. Unless you care deeply about the coastal drive, you’re better off taking the 101 to Kanan Road for a whirl through cliffs, canyons and wildly wooded valleys which will take you right down to Zuma’s open arms. But even during the summer, the crowd is manageable and quiet, a mixture of old, rich Malibu hippies and day-tripping Angelenos. And as if beautiful scenery and ample parking weren’t enough, sometimes you can see dolphins. Yes, Zuma and Point Dume can be sort of overwhelmingly magical at times-like a Lisa Frank notebook in slightly less neon colors. But since when is that a bad thing? Plus-I heard Julia Roberts is thinking about getting a house there. So really, what is Heston complaining about anyway? Who cares if the world is dominated by apes and he’ll never see human civilization again? He’s on the best beach in L.A.

Hiking in the Angeles National Forest
One reason to burn your gym card and your Bible.
By Evan George

This is where God hides under a bush of mountain sage-two miles above the turn-off, through a myriad of dry riverbeds and past an ice-water pool swirling silken strands of green algae-in the bite of a brick-red fire ant. It turns out God is a swollen welt that turns to pus when your hiking sock rubs against it. That’s because this is the closest thing I’ve found to temple in Los Angeles; a hiking trail as serene as any place of worship and more forgiving than any confessional. Waterfalls like a choir. Big rocks are pews.

When it comes to nature, the Angeles National Forest may be the most sacred ground you’ll find within a day’s drive of L.A., except it’s only 30 minutes north. Calming, mind-erasing and totally untouched. After a dozen steps, the city is gone from sight. The smog’s a drawn curtain. You can breathe.

Going north past Glendale, the 2 freeway begins climbing into the San Gabriel Mountains before the 210 intersects it. A quick jaunt east for one mile on the 210 reveals an exit for the Angeles Crest Highway-this is a call to Mass. A left on the highway leads you up around curves until you hit a ranger station. Keep going straight until the road tips downward and turn off the first chance you get. The path is called Strawberry Peak and the view is unspeakable. Find it for yourself.

L.A. River Path/Griffith Park Bike Routes
A recommended route for an inspiring day of car-lessness.
By Lake Sharp

When it comes to city bicycling, you hear objections from two camps: skeptics and scaredy cats. But here’s a bike ride that will appeal to everyone, even them. It’s a favorite I’ve run across while training for my upcoming bike ride along the length of California. You’ll jaunt down the L.A. River path to the equestrian neighborhood of Burbank, then back through Griffith Park on an easy, breezy route that can accommodate riders of all levels with a ton of side stops and activities along the way.

The route begins at the southern entrance of the L.A. River bike path on Crystal Street off of Fletcher, just east of the I-5 freeway. There is parking at the mouth of the path, though I suggest just riding there. The bike path is neatly paved and follows the river for approximately four miles. On your right runs L.A.’s waterway, cemented but for the islands of brush, grasses and trees with remarkably diverse bird caucuses. You may also glimpse elaborate encampments, hammocks, shopping carts, and sometimes even a campfire or two! Just like the Great Outdoors. For kicks, you can watch the often-stymied flow of the 5 freeway. The path ends at a doglegged Riverside Drive where, if you take a right and then your next left onto Riverside proper, you can ride through the equestrian neighborhood (with horse and bike lanes side by side). Here you’ll find some killer garage sales, and just another two miles up Riverside is the Riverside Café (really good food). After tooling around there, head back the way you came, and instead of getting on the path, take Riverside over I-5 and left into Griffith Park. Take Griffith Park Drive past the Zoo and the Autry Museum (stop in if you want), and through some wooded hills for about 5 miles. Griffith Park turns into Riverside again at Los Feliz and you can continue straight another 1.5 miles back to Fletcher, make a left, then another onto Crystal St. and…voila! The round trip is just about 15 miles, mostly flat, with bike lanes almost the entire way. The urban/natural landscape is sure to inspire you and provide a jam-packed day of car-less wonder.

Tequila Crawl
Reviewing the real reason we love Mexican restaurants: margaritas!
By Gavin Schulman

The history of the margarita is almost as elusive as the perfect mixture of its ingredients: tequila, triple sec and sweet and sour. By many accounts, the drink was first made for a woman named Margarita right here in Los Angeles. And if that’s true, then thank god for that woman, thank god for L.A. Really, thank god for the margarita!

The essence of the margarita is the innate human desire to consume one. You never leave the house craving a Jack and coke the same way you do a margarita. More complex than liquor and a mixer, and equal in refreshment to a 5-cent lemonade, the margarita reigns alone as the perfect mid-afternoon quaff. And so, on this mid-day, I set out on my tequila crawl to discover the most satisfying margarita in the city. And, as the birthplace of the beverage, you would think it wouldn’t be too hard to find. Especially at the three Mexican restaurants you voted best in the city. Surely, one of these renowned restaurants-El Conquistador, El Coyote and El Cholo-would be able to capture the simplicity and subtlety of this most awesome of alcoholic libations.

El Conquistador’s margarita was pre-made, sitting in a vat with a tap at the edge of the bar, slowly thickening. The drink was sizable, yet syrupy, more sweet than sour, and substantially boozy. I was warned that El Conquistador served a margarita on a mission, and that was no lie. Certainly the booziest of the bunch, and definitely the biggest, it was not the buzz I’m complaining about. Only the sugary taste, despite the salt on my rim.

El Coyote’s margarita was billed on the menu as a “World Famous House Margarita.” Needless to say, there is no reason I can see why anyone in Angola must know about this margarita. Really, no one in Northridge must know about this margarita. Which doesn’t mean it was terrible-it was actually the best of the three-but fame is a fickle friend. This margarita was less syrupy and less boozy, but more fruity, with a definite citrus kick. Boldly, I declare it a decent margarita. However, I rolled in from El Conquistador with a solid buzz and rolled out from El Coyote with a similar buzz, making me question the tequila content.

Finally, I came to El Cholo. Where they have their margarita on the gun. Meaning it’s pre-made and very standardized. All you have to do is push the “M” button, and that’s the way it tastes: automated. The booze content was about as unexceptional as the entire drink, and it was served in a pint-glass, which I find offensive. I didn’t order a beer on tap, I ordered a margarita. So put it in a margarita glass! What kind of Mexican restaurant is this? Margaritas in pint glasses…

To sum up Margarita Monday’s Mexican tequila crawl mayhem in one word: disappointment. With the drinks, with my level of drunkenness, with having to drive on a tequila crawl and with the bastardization of the most magnificent of all booze concoctions. These Mexican restaurants are hailed as three of the top in the city, and for their margaritas to be so manufactured and mediocre was both shocking and appalling. I understand that with popularity comes a need for efficiency, but that doesn’t mean authenticity should be sacrificed. To try to assess my post-crawl sentiments of the potables in one sentence I would have to say; they were good because they were margaritas, but far from good margaritas. Yet I know in my heart that somewhere out there in this urban sprawl of a city, in some slit in a wall, there is a great margarita. And it is now my job, and apparently yours as well, to search it out with renewed vigor. Margarita deserves it.

**All margaritas were ordered as house, with salt, and on the rocks.

Your Neighborhood Taco Truck
When nature calls and your stomach growls, there’s only one place to go.
By Evan George

I was in line when I felt a sting that reminded me of childhood.

“I have to piss, will you order for me?” I asked. The asshole I was with just started humming Bowie’s “Under Pressure” as I started shifting my weight from one leg to the other. The beer bubble in my brain was making it hard to decide which bodily urge to listen to. “Vegetarian burrito, extra chile, cheese quesadilla with guacamole and radishes,” I barked at him while bee-lining it to a distant bush.

From my nook about 50 feet away I stared at the neon blue outlined truck and the spicy smoke signals it was sending up into the hazy night sky. The smell of griddle steam from corn tortillas was so good it made me laugh out loud.

I’d been here before of course-in fact, I’d seen my taco truck from this exact view a number of times. In the six or so years since I’d been shown this curb buffet by a hippie stoner, it’s been a regular stop of mine after one too many drinks. I’m not saying where it parks, the lines are long enough as it is, but let’s just say it’s the only truck where you can get Nicaraguan pinto beans, and the sole cook and owner (let’s call him Leo) will chase off trouble makers with his spatula. In those six years I’ve only seen prices jump once-by 25 cents. I’ve also seen gang initiations (involving trash can beatings), sex in cars, and made friends with alley cats who will scarf melty, fat-separated cheese smothered in extremely hot green chile. None of these things, of course, would make acceptable dinner companions if not for the booze in my blood. Somehow, the grime of this night energy is just more freeing than the constraints of some indoor, 24-hour shit hole.

“Yo, we’re next!” I heard.

I gave it a shake and zipped up only to see a man run across the street, unzip and partake in my same guilty pleasure. Then I realized who it was-almost didn’t without the spatula in his hand: Leo.

Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles
Hair of the dog got nuthin’ on syrupy chicken.
By Lucinda Michele Knapp

I firmly believe that the hangover is a product of puritanical guilt, and thus a signifier in not only contemporary American society, but in the collective unconscious of the guilty globe-wide, as a brand of comeuppance for original sin.

And oh man, am I a helluva sinner.

It is the crack of 11:23 a.m. on a Tuesday. At least, I think it’s Tuesday. My ears are ringing from last night and my hair smells like the smoke tank in the rear of Spaceland. The hair of the dog ain’t working. It is hot as fuck outside. I feel vaguely barfy. My two companions and I stare blankly through our menus. I focus on my breathing. Somehow, we found our way here, a barely discernible siren song wafting to us through the fog of last night’s six bourbons on the rocks. Inside, we are cool, air-conditioned and bemused. The muted conversation of other diners sounds distant and canned, like a soundtrack played back at low speed. Eels is stuck on repeat in my muzzy head:

Life is hard, and so am I
You’d better give me something, so I don’t die
Novocaine for the soul
Before I sputter out

Suddenly, the door to the kitchen opens, light bursts forth as the waitress advances towards us, the sweet humid aroma of an Arnold Palmer huddles around my head, and before me is deposited a warm, white ceramic plate holding a single waffle of a slightly smaller diameter than the plate itself (I note this blearily, blandly fascinated). A still-crackling piece of fried chicken with gravy, its golden crispy surface issuing a comforting heat, accompanies the waffle.

With all the concentration I can muster, I strip one small section of chicken breast (ouch! hot! and I lick my fingers quickly), one superfluous crackling of fried coating, place them on a small area of unoccupied plate, and slurp a small spoonful of gravy over them; I cut a trapezoid of waffle saturated with melted butter, lash it with the entire contents of the syrup-shotglass, place it on top of the chicken, and spear the whole mess with my fork, making a miniature Dagwood sandwich of salty chicken, crispy fried golden batter, gravy, and sugar-dripping waffle all on the end of the warped fork tines. I stare at it from several angles. It drips butter.

I put it in my mouth. I do not experience myself chewing and swallowing quite so much as I experience, simply, the hand of God. I have never tasted anything quite so essential to my continued survival as this. My consciousness, which up until now had contracted, chased by booze, into the remedial corners of my reptile brain, suddenly expands to fill my fingertips, and awareness tingles at the ends of my toes.

I blink. This is redemption. This is true soul food. This means I’ll be restored to health in time to go out again tonight. I gulp the Arnold Palmer and lick butter and crispy fried bits off each of my fingers. Thank you, Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles, from the bottom of my depraved little heart. I love you. Marry me.

1514 N. Gower, Hollywood; 5006 W Pico Blvd., L.A.; 106 W. Manchester, L.A.; 830 N. Lake Ave., Pasadena. www.roscoeschickenandwaffles.com.

Click here to read Hot Knives
Asian Gang Trio
Thai Samosa w/Ginger Wasabi Curry and Sweet Basil Edamame Chutney
by Alex Brown and Evan George

Nature Mart
Your body’s general store.
By Kara Ford-Martinez

In Europe, “old” means a crumbling castle that has withstood wars, the plague, even the Rococo period for 500 years. In Los Angeles, 32 years is ancient.

Nature Mart emits an old world approach to health that’s less glitzy than the popular superstores. In back sits a store of vitamins and books with titles like Gut Solutions, The Total Body Tune-Up and The Wrinkle Cure. Among the fruits and vegetables are old hanging scales and the fresh scent of emerald green wheatgrass.

Since 1974, Nature Mart has sat with open arms at the corner of Hillhurst and Ambrose Avenues in the quaint urban village of Los Feliz. Over the years the tiny general store of all things healthy has survived riots, fires and earthquakes. More recently, the threats have come in the form of proposed development.

Just last month, the Los Angeles City Council voted 10 to one to save the neighboring Derby nightclub, and designate it a historical landmark. The vote also insured that the Whole Foods originally planned for the site by developer Adler Reality Investments Inc. will not be opening its doors up the street from Nature Mart.

When neighbors first heard that the giant supermarket chain, along with 80 pastel condominiums, was being proposed for the busy corner of Hillhurst and Los Feliz Boulevard, they formed a group of concerned citizens to fight the demolition of the Derby’s Hollywood golden-era building and the possible demise of other established, unique neighborhood shops. For now, the bulk bins of organic licorice, raw almonds and brewer’s yeast are safe.

Slice o’ Story
An excerpt from L.A. Alternative’s vol. 5 no. 20 cover story, “Fresh Baked Daily: The Great L.A. Pizza Hunt.”
By Dan Gillis III

…When you begin a journey with no destination, it’s best to go with what you know, and what I knew was that Abbot’s Pizza Company reigned as a foodie favorite for the finest in pizza fare. A wooden stake in the ever-farting heart of Venice, Abbot’s consistently wins “Best Of” titles and holds a special place in tourist books for confused European travelers. It even has a fucking Myspace page. Of course, this is Abbott Kinney, the thread holding together the patchwork of aging hippies, dot-com soccer-moms and performance artists that speckle the Venetian landscape.

It is here that I fall into it, staring at the chalkboard menu, in the midst of deciding between a slice of Popeye’s Chicken pizza (featuring spinach, mushrooms, and tequila lime chicken) and the Greek (with fresh sliced tomato, red onions, olives, mozzarella and feta cheeses). Behind the counter, a man tossed the dough into the air, impossibly spinning like that slow-mo bone at the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey. I begin to think how we were betrayed by the Hippie Generation. The ultimate hypocrites. The free-loving freedom lovers hoping to break the paradigms and change the world, just to burn out, check in, and settle down 40 years later. The lies of love-in only led to our generation’s wave of fatherless children, whose dads were not taken by a war of bullets, but by a war of shifting values and unattainable ideals. We are caught in the crossfire of the changing tide that our parents’ parents lived in, the first casualties in a war of spirit.

Fuck, man. What’s in this pizza?

And it looked like I’d ordered both slices. As my hunger peaked, my motions slowed down, and I alternated between each delicious slice, which somehow now included a third slice of cheese-undoubtedly ordered by my stoned-self as a “control” slice, the common denominator. I stood at the stainless steel counter and watched the people come in, with their Escalade-sized strollers and warm-up pants.

…The slices were thin crust, low on sauce but garnished with fresh basil leaves and roasted garlic. The tequila lime chicken was hugged by melted mozzarella as warm spinach wove through the cheese toward the sesame seed bagel crust, a signature specialty made famous at Abbot’s. They were so good (and I was like, famished, dude) that I even tried to construct a pizza-wich…with mixed results.

The fresh toppings, thin crust and fine cheeses of these slices are actually muy tipico of that newest pizza beast: the California pizza. Just like Wildfour on Main Street in Santa Monica (where coincidently, I lost control of the volume of my voice three days later, while trying a slice of wheat crust pizza), this “California” pizza has the distinctive qualities of being light, thin, healthy-probably the trait most similar to Italian pizza in Italy, not the grease buckets we eat while watching Super Bowl commercials.

It’s no wonder that California Pizza Kitchen has capitalized on this prototype. Not only bringing the style of healthier pies to the masses, C.P.K. also espouses the commodification of California, the idea of California Dreamin’ in these boardwalk and beachside joints, harkening back to their grand opening 30 years ago, serving up the slice of our hazy coast that represents all of L.A. in the global collective memory.

All coming to a freezer near you.

For Dan’s fully-baked insights on pizza, Los Angeles, Los Angeles pizza, and everything in between, visit www.laalternative.com/index.php/2006/04/14/baked-fresh-daily/.

Cinespia
Cinema under (and over) the stars.
By Gavin Schulman

Cinespia, from the Latin for ’seeing movies with dead people,’ is a truly vitalizing filmgoing experience. Nothing makes you feel more alive than watching movies with a bunch of corpses. Especially because, while watching the movie, you get the feeling that if those rotting corpses around you could talk, they would probably request such an event (and popcorn). But, of course, they can’t talk, because they’re dead as clipped doornails. And fleshless remains can’t talk, no matter how famous they were when they were alive and in the flesh. They can’t ask you to turn off your cell-phones. They can’t shut up a crying baby. They can’t charge you an arm and a leg bone at the concession stand. And that’s exactly why it’s okay to leave your beer cans on their tombstones. They’ll never know, and even if they do, they certainly can’t do anything about it.

And what better place to bring a date than a garden of the dead, where the stench of corporal erosion mixes with red wine and hummus to create an aroma all its own? Where a movie projected on the side of a mausoleum containing the now-emaciated remains of Marilyn Monroe flickers with a sepia-tone romanticism. Where you and a lover can hold warm, live hands atop the cold, dead ones of settlers that have settled long before you. Nothing gets a girl in the mood like a graveyard. And some ecstasy.

Yes, after the movie, the cemetery turns into a late night rave with film fans dancing in circles around a fire and chanting incantations to their deceased idols as black-and-white classics blare in the background. People howling at the moon, drinking blood, and enjoying some 1950s cinema. That’s what Cinespia is really all about. Right?

All morbid joking aside, Cinespia is a truly unique movie-going experience. It reminds you of how films are intended to be seen. On a big screen. With a large audience of people who want to be there-people who love movies-and surrounded by the memories of people who loved making movies. This cemetery setting strangely reinforces the visceral power of the film experience. Cinespia is not a schlock-horror event, not theater in a graveyard, but rather a gloriously macabre celebration of cinema’s proud history and immortal future.

Cinespia takes place every Saturday night in the summer at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, 6000 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. July 1st screening: Dr. Strangelove. www.cinespia.org.

Highland 3
Being average, understaffed and sticky has never looked so good.
By Evan George

Time warps are few and far between in a city like Los Angeles-one obsessed with reinvention and renovation, eternally on the look out for the next big thing. Everything is a little too shiny (and way too expensive) here to even hint at a bygone era, let alone transport you to one. Which is why when you find one-especially if it comes with popcorn-you enter it whenever you can.

The Highland 3 movie theater (on Figueroa Street in Highland Park) is something straight out of the Twilight Zone. On Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, the already low price of admission sinks-like the well-worn, stained seats when you sit in them-from six to three bucks.

Wait at the abandoned ticket booth until a disgruntled old man shows up to shove a stub through the window, unlock the door and let you inside. Stand at the archaic popcorn station for the same old man to slowly get behind the counter and shovel your buttered snack into a wax bag. Then, meander past the half-mopped floor and peek inside the dingy projection room where three ancient film reels spin wildly, unmanned until the same guy gets around to starting the movie. And get ready to get up and close the theater’s double doors because chances are he won’t and you’ll be one of only three people in the place. The theater has it all: graffiti, porno-inspired velvet curtains and volume set so loud that it must be meant to keep the old man from falling asleep while he mops. Just don’t shush the guys in front of you for snickering during the dramatic turning point, unless you smuggled in a shiv.

It is just this flair that makes the Highland 3 a monument to the seedy side of movie viewing and a welcome change of pace (and price) from the stadium seating and suck-up service of the Arclight, the Grove, and nearly everything else in the history-plowing, ever-changing, newer-than-new-school Los Angeles.

Society of St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Store
Otherwise known as ‘where I get everything.’
By Aubrey White

Tucked away in the industrial innards of Cypress Park, across the river from an abandoned correctional facility, lies L.A.’s best kept shopping secret and the only thing that keeps me from skinning my three cats alive when they pee on the living room sofa: the Society of St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Store. Known to diehards simply as “Vinnie’s,” this labyrinth of furniture, electronics, clothing, books, mattresses, pianos, fabrics, dishware and music requires the shoppers’ persistence, but often yields the kind of bargain gems that stick with you until the cushions give out or there are so many holes you can’t, in good taste, wear them anymore. I have now furnished not one, but two, houses on the tightest of budgets with items bought almost solely at St. Vincent’s. Perhaps the best finds, however, can be classified as nothing other than trinkets. And here are some of my favorites:

Pictured:

1. Kennedy’s famous words “Ask not what your country can do for you…” are scrawled along the bottom of this spray-painted bust, obviously the work of some very dedicated patriot with a nail file and too much time on his hands.

2. Everybody needs a cup that declares its own emotions-it really helps set the mood. This guy is so special to us that we keep it in the top cabinet of the pantry, only to be brought out on the most appropriate of occasions.
3. Some items are best bought with the sole intention of filling space. And I ask, what mantle is complete without a small cock on display?

On second thought, I really shouldn’t be telling you about this place. You just might beat me to the goods.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa
Takeover this!
By Staff

Time was our reader’s choice award for ‘Best Politican’ went to the quirky or “outside the box” politicians, but like the rest of L.A.’s voters, our readers seem to swoon for Mayor Villaraigosa. When it comes to politicking, the man is a goddamn machine, but we’re starting to wonder if L.A.’s golden son isn’t a little too good a politician.

Last week’s compromise with the state assembly and the teachers unions over mayoral control of LAUSD showed that Villaraigosa intends to save face and political capital for his long journey ahead (to Sacramento and beyond) even if that means abandoning the very ideas that make his policies fresh, new and important.

So before Mayor V sets his eyes on the governor’s mansion, we have a couple more organizations we’d like to see him take the helm of, that need a little touch of the Villaraigosa Dream:

-The DMV, whose cranky cubicle curmudgeons could use a good morning jog and some flashbulb pops from the old paparazzi.
-The Post Office and their unapologetically long lines are just begging for a run-in with V’s bulldog Controller Laura Chick.
-The Los Angeles Times has been run by old white dudes in Chicago for far too long; sprinkle it with a little bit of salsa fresca Tony!
-The L.A. Lakers, because all he would have to do is declare it a campaign promise to get Shaq back, and you better believe he would find a way, regardless of what it meant trading.
-The Department of Water and Power…oops, he already is in charge.
-The recently up-for-sale Magic Mountain, because if the mayor really wants to gamble with L.A. kids’ education the least he could do is give ‘em a summer of fun before September.