I distinctly remember when my parents took my brother Greg and me to a comic book store for the first time. We were second graders, and I took home Fantastic Four 183. That day changed my life, as we proceeded to go down the path of comic books, Dungeons & Dragons, and then punk rock...
Oakley In Residence is a studio and pop-up skate park co-curated by Eric Koston, Atiba Jefferson, and the Art Dump crew. They will be in Los Angeles till next week and their next stop will be London and then New York City. For those who are interested in the skateboarding culture, this might be...
On Sunday, I attended KXLU Fest II. Getting to see one of my favorite bands, The Muffs, for free on the campus of Loyola Marymount University was pretty rad. Even better, it was all-ages show so I could take my 7-year-old daughter and go with my sister and her family! Immediately we saw my old...
On Wednesday, Chile’s Calbuco volcano erupted twice, blasting smoke plumes and ash, 6 miles into the sky. It's been 4 years since the last eruption and it triggered concerns that the volcanic ash could contaminate water, trigger respiratory illnesses and halt more flights. Most of the 1,500 residents had evacuated, but some refused to...
Who could have expected Record Store Day to be so divisive among record collectors? The idea of encouraging people to buy vinyl and support indie record shops seems like it would be universally loved among hardcore music fans. If you like shiny new records, good for you. Make some friends in line and hopefully share...
At some point of every episode of The A-Team, John "Hannibal" Smith would say, "I love it when a plan comes together." But sometimes you don't plan something and it still happens the way it's supposed to. And that's even better because it feels like fate. When we were still planning the fifth Save Music in...
If you know DABSMYLA, they are the hardest working artists in the game right now. They are a couple from Australia who paints cartoon characters in the cleanest way possible. In their latest project, they were given an opportunity to create the 2015 MTV Movie Awards logo along with a cityscape backdrop for the...
Sawtelle is a lot different from when I used to hang out there regularly, circa 2001-2010 when Eric Nakamura and I made Giant Robot mag just a few blocks away in his garage. There were more JA nurseries, shops, and places that sold kimonos and wooden slippers, and fewer fusion restaurants and trendy eateries. But...
This is a project I have to try one day. Even though the weather has been nice lately in Long Beach, the chance of rain is very minimal. But in Seattle, it rains all the time. Local magician Peregrine Church figured out a way to show and hide art by spraying biodegradable,...
The other week I went to Angel City Brewery in Little Tokyo to check out some photos by Greg Jacobs. Back in the '90s I was a huge fan of a band he used to manage, Big Drill Car, and somewhat recently found out that his real gig is as a set photographer but he...