Washington Irving Middle School ~ Los Angeles

“Astride-Aside” is a 10-foot sculpture at the entrace of the Mission Street Station in Pasadena made of sheared, annealed strips of bronze that have been welded together. The artist is Michael Stutz.

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Pico Rivera ~ CA

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 Hollywood ~ CA

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Echo Park ~ Ca           GG Allin

Highland ~ Manhattan Beach ~ CA

The ironic mustache and greasy hair rock set will be out of town this weekend, frying their goods off in puddles of teenager sweat in the desert like a bunch of hippies at a far-off Phish show. Yeah, clearly we’re bitter we’re not at Coachella, but are delighted the beer we buy will be less than $7 a cup, as we stew over our Manu Chao, Rage Against the Machine, Ghostface, and Sonic Youth LPs. Don’t worry friends, not only will all the good stuff make it to youtube, but there’s plenty of dirty fun to be had in town. We’re pumped about Found Magazine’s Dirty party this Friday, where they will showcase the kinkiest, naughtiest ‘found’ multi-media art from across the globe. Sunday’s AT&T Cinco de Mayo jam might be a premature, corporate-sponsored gig, but the ranchera-cumbia-salsa-eclectic-mariachi-reggaeton talent representing will be have us rejoicing that we still don’t know the difference between Arctic Monkeys and Arcade Fires.

Thursday April 26th

Henry Rollins, Janane Garafolo, & Marc Maron: It’s Not a Play and There’s No Music @ Silent Movie Theater ~ 611 North Fairfax Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90036 ~ 8PM ~ $25 ~ Thru 4/29

Friday April 27th

‘Dirty’ Found Magazine @ Steve Allen Theater ~ 4773 Hollywood Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90027 ~ The naughtiest ‘Found Art’ from across the globe ~ 8PM & 10PM ~ $12

Saturday April 28th

The Big Gun Down: Ska & Reggae Soundclash @ Zen Sushi ~ 2609 Hyperion Ave. Silverlake, CA 90027 ~ With live performance by Police & Thieves, along with selectors spinning vintage reggae, ska, rocksteady, and soul ~ 8PM ~ $7

Sunday April 29th

AT&T Fiesta Broadway @ Downtown ~ 600 S. Broadway Los Angeles, CA 90014 ~ Performers include Pepe Aguilar, Ozomatli, Calle 13, Jennifer Pena, y mucho, mucho mas ~ 12-6PM ~ FREE

Culver City ~ CA

Bootleg Theater ~ 2220 Beverly Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90057 ~ (800) 595-4849 ~ Fri, Sat, & Sun. @ 8 PM ~ $20 ~ Ends April 29th

A dead man floats face down in the sea on a massive movie screen, gently rocked by Marc Anthony Thompson’s unhurried and mesmerizing beat. In front of the bobbing body, in simple black pants, black tee, and bare feet, Roger Guenveur Smith (Do the Right Thing, A Huey P. Newton Story, Inside the Creole Mafia, The Watts Towers Project) sways like kelp, kept afloat by the current of his spoken-word tale full of young men leaping to their death from bridges or soaring like Icarus towards the heavens in defiance of God. “Power has its ups and downs,” says the elevator man ferrying corporate giants between skyscraper floors.

Photo by Jason Adams.

WHO KILLED BOB MARLEY?, Guenveur Smith’s latest one man show, mixes urgent stream-of-conciousness flow-etry and footage of a film the actor/artist shot in Jamaica about a suicidal U.S. poet who travels to a literary festival to read his last poem, “I’m going to kill myself,” with clips and stills from Smith’s real-life journey as the son of “negro professionals”: a father attorney and a mother dentist. Against cinematographer Arthur Jaffe’s lyrical images and Thompson’s pelvic thrusting riffs, Smith’s powerful words (”My toes like the 10 Commandments circumventing the globe.”) and Tai Chi style choreography snake-charm our hearts to get out from behind our comfort zones and be touched by Smith’s lucid dreams, where Basquiat’s crown is put on top of Martin Luther King’s head and “this boy Cho, they could have saved him with poetry.”

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