intrepid LA RSS

The World Has Ended. Let's Party.

2013-05-16T16:03:01Z

I'm not one to resort to hyperbole, but the party I'm throwing on Saturday night is going to be the greatest thing ever to happen to anyone in America.

Let me break it down for you.

It's called ATOMIKA. It's a all-night post-apocalyptic dance rager. Everyone is going to get dressed up like sexy Mad Max motherfuckers. It'll be held at a secret location in west LA, that we're decking out with 3-D mushroom clouds, lasers, and insane lighting. We're brewing our own beer for it -- Blitzkrieg Hop IPA and Lord Humungous Hefeweizen. We'll be having adorable ladies (some of whom will be on rollerskates, because safety third) roaming around, offering test-tube shots of declious nuclear waste. There will be a room-sized art installation featuring massive prints of nuclear blasts, courtesy of artist Tiger Phino. We'll have aerial performers (behold, the mighty Emily Pennington!!!), fire spinners, cage dancers, and eye-frying visuals from HaiJak. It's going until 6 AM, so tell your mom you're sleeping over at a friend's house.

I haven't even talked about the music yet, have I?

You know how in Bollywood movies, they have the whole cast come out and do a big musical number at the very end, so you get to hang out with all your favorite characters one last time? To me, our lineup is kind of like that -- an absolute who's-who of every DJ I've loved over the past few years, all together at once.

We've got Solovox, a Portland-based producer whom this blog has a well-documented boner for, bringing his turbo-charged funk to bear. (Seriously, check out the height-of-subtlety that is "Kill You With My Sex"; just don't do it at work.) We've got divaDanielle, aka intrepidLA's fairy godmother, who's new track "Funky Sheriff" sounds like a gang of Burners kicking open the door to Eric Clapton's studio in 1974; Wolfie, the Steampunk Saloon badass responsible for blowing the roof of the Mystikal Misfits party last year, as well as the upcoming Boomtown; breakbeat maestro Loomer, who'll be tearing it up at Lightning In A Bottle later this summer; and Nick The Neck, the mesmerizing tech-house alter-ego of Pumpkin (whom we've written one or two things about.) Also coming to bring joy to the wasteland are Fleetwood Smack (supremely ass-shakey); Squachek (oh-my-god-my-face-what-is-happening); Hippiechick (try not bopping your head, I dare you); and The Fuzz ("sir, please come down off that table and stop rocking so hard.")

Forget feeling "fine" -- it's the end of the world as we know it, and you're gonna feel awwwesome.

__________________________________

WHAT: Atomika
WHERE: West LA -- RSVP to receive address
WHEN: Saturday, May 18th, 9 PM - 6 AM
$$$: $20 in advance, $25 day of -- get tickets here

Petting Sloths At The Wildlife Learning Center: A Guide To Happiness

2013-04-24T17:44:42Z

Photo courtesy of Makaela TrussellAmerica, you've been having a piece-of-shit week. I mean, really. You've got swarthy assholes with giant eyebrows blowing up marathon runners in Boston. You've got a Texas town getting wiped off the map by an exploding fertilizer plant. You've got the NRA and their proffesional fluffers political allies making everyone take it in the face on that gun control bill. You've got Daft Punk releasing a new single that turns out sound like an Earth, Wind, And Fire cover band (j/k I love that song and so do you.) To paraphrase the words of Dave Chapelle, I wish I had more hands so I could give this week FOUR THUMBS DOWN.

What I'm saying is, it wouldn't hurt to have something nice happen for a change.

Like going and petting a friendly sloth.

Lucky for you, the Wildlife Learning Center exists. Tucked away in a beautiful olive grove in Sylmar, the WLC is a haven for wounded/abandoned animals who need professional human help to live out their lives. Like a zoo, but more intimate and educational, and with way less of the icky "exploiting animals for entertainment" factor. For a sliding-scale fee, you can hire a biologist to take you on a walk through the park and introduce you to its many inhabitants. Prepare to squee.

They have, amongst many other creatures, an extremely cuddly-looking fennec fox; a serval wildcat who projects an air of dangerous glamour, like a 1940s starlet about to go off on her agent; a reptile house full of creepy things I will never, ever touch; and sugar gliders, which seem genetically engineered to set off that weird human impulse where you want to smash-squeeze cute things. They also have a family of porcupines, from whom I learned that porcupines are some seriously entitled little shits. I fed a carrot to this one fat bastard named Walter, who took one nibble and then dropped it on the ground and waddled away. Fuck you too, Walter.

And yes, they have a sloth. Her name is Lola, and I love her more than my family. She enjoys sleeping, lounging, sniffing you, and generally acting like a mildly inquisitive stoner. And she will bring light to the darkest of days.

As this week has shown, it's a big, bad world out there. But the WLC is a reminder that it's also one brimming with fuzzy, soft, good things. You won't want to leave.

__________________________________

WHAT: The Wildlife Learning Center
WHERE: 16027 Yarnell St, Sylmar, CA
WHEN: Every day, 11-5
$$$: $7 to visit; private tours range from $25 to a four-person-group rate of $190 (do that one)

Intrepid Road Trips: Willett Creek Hot Springs

2013-03-06T16:33:15Z

First step: get to Ojai.

Let's back up -- the first step, for me, when I decided to join some friends on a 20-mile round-trip trek to the amazing Willet Creek Hot Springs in the Sespe Wilderness, was to put together two days of bare essentials in my trekking pack. If you're anything like me, the list of what you normally bring camping will get cut by a few items. My list wound up looking like this:

Tent

Sleeping bag

Change of clothes

Food

Hula hoops

Boombox

Fire poi

Panda suit

Giant bag of mushrooms

Eleven 40's of Panther Malt Liquor

Violet Wand

Net for catching sloths (do not hide from me, sloths)

Hardcover copy of "Infinite Jest"

Be ruthless with your packing, your back will thank you later. Now about this hike: the 9-mile trek in gives you a little of everything -- vast desert expanses, glistening river-and-stream vistas, treacherous river crossings, bracing shadow-groves of snow and pine, and in the last four miles, ALL THE HILLS. Hills that make you think "Who put this thing here? I'll kill that motherfucker," and "How am I actually seeing my future descendents making their way to the top of this thing ahead of me?" and "Why are my future descendents Chinese?"

Finally, you crest a ridge, and below you opens up a valley of rock gardens and sandy riverside beaches shaded by sycamore trees. This is Willet Creek Campground, where you drop your backpack and go up one last face-kicking 3/4 mile slope to the springs. By this point in the hike, if presented with a choice between trudging up one more hill and nibbling Dan Rather's balls, you'd probably have to sit down and think about it. But you go anyway. Because up top is a treasure.

Nestled inside a verdant canyon is a tub big enough to fit ten (or more, depending on cozy you and your friends are) redolent of sulfur and wet rock, soundtracked by the whisper of the running springs. You're technically not allowed to get naked, but if Johnny Law wants to schlep into the middle of nowhere just to write you an ass-ticket, se la vie; it'll be worth it, just to float unencumbered in that toasty warm tub, letting the water ease your weary spirits back to life. Beyond the hills, the sun goes down; later the sky will become a riot of stars. You know, in the back of your mind, that you still have to trek another 10 miles to return home tomorrow, but as Lou Reed once said, "that's just some other time."

For now, you've got nothing to do but sit and soak and lay your burdens down.

__________________________________

WHAT: Willet Creek Hot Springs Trek
WHERE: Start at the Piedra Blanca Trailhead
WHEN: Good year round, best when it's not too hot
$$$: $10 for parking

Drink With The Fishes

2013-02-14T16:12:55Z

Here's the most basic way I can describe Bahooka Ribs and Grog: imagine a restaurant that has somehow manifested itself inside a sunken pirate ship.

A Polynesian-themed tikki joint that first opened up in the mid-1960's, Bahooka is the kind of place that could've saved Terry Gilliam a bundle on location fees when he was shooting Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas -- it's 100% immersive, hallucinatory and anabashedly chintzy. Eveywhere you look, tropical fish swim through glowing blue water of the 100 fish tanks installed in the walls. The deep, dark booths have tables supported by giant black chains hanging from the ceiling. There's a massive vegan Pacu fish named Rufus, who will snack on carrots and then instantly regurgitate them, because Rufus is bullimic and doesn't see the same handsome fish that we see when he looks in the mirror.

Here's a few do's and don'ts to keep in mind when venturing into Bahooka...

DO: order an irradiated-looking cocktail from a giant bowl. They are delicious.

DON'T: drink this whole thing unless you're sharing it with at least two friends. You still have to drive home afterward. This restaurant is in Rosemead, and I don't care who's reading this, you don't live near Rosemead.

DO: light that bowl-drink on fire. All things are better with fire!

DON'T: order off the food menu. The cuisine here is enough to make you wonder if the captain of this sunken ship purposefully crashed his vessel into a reef as revenge against his galley staff. You'd think it'd be impossible to screw up something as delicious as Hawaiian BBQ ribs, but somehow, Bahooka decided that they were going to wage war on the odds by creating a plate of ribs that tastes like it was once part of late-career Mickey Rourke's body. (Seriously, don't get the ribs.)

DO: feed Rufus a carrot and remind him he's beautiful.

__________________________________

WHAT: Bahooka Ribs and Grog
WHERE: 4501 Rosemead Blvd, Rosemead, CA
WHEN: Mon-Sun, noon-10 PM
$$$: $20 per bowl drink

Your Inner 16-Year-Old Wants To Ride The Secret Gravity Hill Of Pasadena

2013-01-31T17:43:16Z

The more I learn about Pasadena, the more I'm convinced it's secretly just the set of an Eerie Indiana-type TV show. There is, quite simply, a gobsmacking amount of vaguely spooky shit going on up there.

There's the infamous Suicide Bridge, which is actually quite fun to go strolling on (and judging by the name, even more fun to go jumping off.) Suicide Bridge is apparently right down the street from an abandoned insane asylum, which probably came in very handy when Reagan decided to let all the mental patients loose on the streets in the 80s. There's the ruins of the White City Resort perched in the mountains above, its tennis courts scorched by fire, swimming pool now a cauldron of dirt and dead leaves. There's the Haunted Forest below, with its secret trails leading to claustrophobic tunnels and caves. (A hiker made a video of his Haunted Forest exploration, complete with helpful tips like "Do not go into this cave on your left; a man lives in there and he does not like to be disturbed."

My favorite amongst these eerie treasures is the Gravity Hill. Situated on a winding mountain street in Altadena, it's a section of road wherein a driver can put their car in neutral and then start traveling "up" the hill. Science tells us it's just an optical illusion, but I prefer to approach this with a "teach the controversy" mindframe and say that the forces pushing your car up that hill could just as easily be the ghosts of children killed in a spectacular schoolbus accident. (Science, after all, is just its own form of faith.)

Remember in high school, when you'd first gotten your drivers license, and your heart would flood with giddiness just at the prospect of going aimlessly exploring in your car? Gravity Hill will take you back to that space in your mind, free of charge.*

*The ghost-kids may request a 10% tip for pushing your car up the hill.

__________________________________

WHAT: Pasadena's Gravity Hill
WHERE: Directions are here
WHEN: The neighborhood frowns on loitering, but do your thing
$$$: Free

Our Favorite Back-Alley Bar In Koreatown

2013-01-29T16:21:51Z

When introducing unsuspecting newcomers to Koreatown's Dwit Gol Mok, the key element is surprise.

What you do: gather up some friends and don't tell them where you're going. Just tell them to bring a Sharpie. And say "trust me." If your friends are like mine, they'll say "Fuck that, last time we trusted you, we wound up at a cowboy bar in Fullerton where that drunk Texan tried to force us to invest in bulls." And you tell them that was weeks ago and there is no reason to be bringing up the past, and that spending their life savings on a rodeo bull is a gambit that will eventually pay off. They finally relent.

You park your bull on Wilshire and walk north on Berendo. There'll be a gloomy parking lot on your right. Lead everyone through there. There will be a ramp leading up to a darkened alley portal. Go up that ramp. Ignore your friends' nervous whispers and the murmured accusations that "he's taking us somewhere to sell us into sex slavery." (That was ONE TIME, Mike.) Head through an archway, into a dimly lit courtyard. Walk through a doorway, past a kitchen, up a flight of stairs, and you are finally in...

...the greatest Korean dive-bar in Los Angeles. Think of an early 90's Tony Scott movie about Asian gangsters, imagine where a clandestine criminal meeting would take place, and you've basically got Dwit Gol Mok. The interior is a buzzing shantytown, full of sloped tin roofs, booths private enough to have sex in, the lighting a lurid scheme of blue-and-red-and-cigarette-smoke, and every inch of wall-space covered in Sharpie-scrawled graffiti.

There is soju to be sipped and Hite to be swilled, and sizzling sweet pork ribs to be nommed on. There's a seafood pancake that does right everything that fellow dive-bar legend OB Bear does wrong. The menus are blocks of wood etched with Korean writing. The whole place percolates with conspiracy and mischief.

Be sure to leave a Sharpie message on the wall. One for your friends. Perhaps: "I told you so."

___________________________________

WHAT: Dwit Gol Mok
WHERE: 3275 Wilshire Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90010
WHEN: 5 PM - 2 AM, Mon-Sat
$$$: Typical K-Town bar prices

Drop Everything And Go Listen To This

2012-10-10T16:34:01Z

Since when does IntrepidLA do album reviews? Since I'm-twenty-one-and-I-can-do-what-I-want, bitchez. Besides, if there was ever a moment for us to come out of the music-crit closet, it's when one of our favorite artists drops an album.

Enter Pumpkin and his new six-track EP, Love Letters. As anyone who familiar with this site can tell you, we're fans of this guy. An LA-based producer with a fearless affection for the sweet, the weird, the sentimental, (he did a remix of The Muppets' "Mna Mna" for chrissakes), Pumpkin (née Nicholas Alvarado) swerves left where other producers swerve right, to thrilling results.

With the rise of EDM, the mainstream dance world has become a scene that prizes maximilism above all else, with its 100,000-person festivals, its arms-race to create the most eye-frying visuals, its megastars straining to musically replicate the feeling of eating 100 Pixie Stix at once. But Pumpkin ain't playing that game; this guy is proudly rocking to his own drummer, honing his quirky skills in the kind of environments that don't demand constant four-on-the-floor mayhem (Shade, Lightning In A Bottle, Burning Man, Fuente Eterno.) In a world a obsessed with the 1 AM slot, Alvarado has perfected a sound that plays best at sunrise and sunset. And with Love Letters, he's just dropped the purest distillation of his style yet.

Letters consists of six homemade remixes, chopping up everything from FM-radio fodder (Florence And The Machine's "Dog Days Are Over"), to 70's kitsch (Melanie's "Brand New Key", AKA Rollergirl's theme in Boogie Nights), southern hip-hop (The Nappy Roots' "Good Day"), and indie stalwarts (Zee Avi, Lila Rose) with equal aplomb. On Pumpkin's Soundcloud page, his genre is dubbed as "lovehop" or "lovesauce", and these songs spell out exactly why that's a perfect moniker.

"Brand New Key" showcases his favored style of bouncy, snappy percussion -- think pill bottles rattling over warm pulses of subsonic bass; "Concrete Wall", with its plinking strings reminiscent of Aphex Twin's "Girl/Boy Song", is chill-your-spine lovely; "Good Day", featuring hip-hop artist EVeryman, strikes a jaunty groove, although it sometimes lyrically veers into "I just read 'The Four Agreements' and want to tell you all about it" territory. But the real stand out here is the blissed-up reworking of Noah And The Whale's "Five Years Time", a track that targets the pleasure-centers in your brain like a drone strike, driven by effervescent handclaps and a rollicking house beat that makes the original version sound flatly uninspired. This is dance music that manages the rare feat of simultaneously being shamelessly entertaining and genuinely soulful.

Most producers get post-set praise like "That kicked ass" or "You killed it up there." Pumpkin gets things like "I proposed to my girlfriend after your show." He's bringing something special to the party, and with Letters, the proof is in the lovesauce.

___________________________________

WHAT: Pumpkins six-track EP, "Love Letters"
WHERE: Available online
WHEN: Starting October 11th, 2012

Everything You Need To Know About Hell Fire and High Tea

2012-07-15T23:43:59Z

We're not going to lie: IntrepidLA has a massive pants-party going on for steampunk. The genre combines so many things we love -- nerdy sci-fi stuff, an excuse to get dolled up in retro finery, an eclectic musical sensibility, an environment where it's socially acceptable to slap someone with a glove and then challenge them to a duel... what's not to adore?

In other words, we're going to be in absolute heaven this weekend, because the rabble-rousers of The Steampunk Saloon are bringing us Hellfire And High Tea.

This Saturday the 21st, DJ Wolfie, Mark Zabala, Diggs, and Loomer (all four recently seen laying waste to the dance floor at A Night In Lord Danger's Harem, the greatest warehouse party ever thrown by someone named ME) are taking over a hidden oasis in the mountains of Alta Dena, just 20 minutes from downtown LA. Joining them on the decks are the likes of Jacques The Ripper, Mike Insane, and Shakti Bliss, bringing her dirty electro-swing to bear. There'll also be a freakshow by Freakshow Deluxe, a steamy burlesque performance by Hat Madder & Le Cirque Taboo, and more strange elixirs than you can shake a swizzle-stick at.

Bring along proper footwear for the terrain, and a bathing suit (or not?) for the pool-party that will be raging until noon Sunday. More details on the event's Facebook page.

Get your top hats/boots/corsets on and get up to the mountains for a night of anachronistic enchantment.

___________________________________

WHAT: The Steampunk Saloon Presents: Hell Fire and High Tea
WHERE: TBA (RSVP to get the address)
WHEN: Saturday, July 21st, from 5 PM - 6 AM
$$$: $30 -- available here

Hipsters Beware!

2012-06-11T04:54:58Z

Today, we are on the brink of a media event on par with the moon landing, the Watergate scandal, and that time Bill O'Reilly got trolled by a rapper on national television.

That's right... HIPSTER HOLOCAUST is going live!

The short film we intrepidLA writers lovingly crafted this past year (thanks to all your support in our Kickstarter campaign) is finally making its way to an internet near you. Watch it, share it, Tweet it, Tumble it, like it on Facebook, make sweet sensual love to it, promise you'll call it the next day, do whatever you want, we need all the support we can get.

We would never steer you wrong, dear reader; this movie is in the business of horrifying and delighting people, and cousin, business is boming. Prepare for a two-and-a-half minute blast of gore, laughs, and wish fulfillment.

Click here to check it out.

___________________________________

WHAT: HIPSTER HOLOCAUST goes live!
WHERE: Our Youtube page
WHEN: From here to infirmary
$$$: Free!

Believe The Hype: Bludso's Is The Best BBQ In LA

2012-05-16T05:52:23Z

The best BBQ restaurant in LA isn't actually a restaurant. It's a cramped, broom closet-sized enclave in Compton that has a take-out window, a mocking joke of a "lunch counter", and a massive coal-black smoker in the back that acts as a sort of foodie Tesseract, opening spectral doors to let in flavors of the divine.

Bloggers have given themselves capral tunnel syndrome typing raves about the 'Q cooked up by southland native Kevin Bludso. Normally, I fancy myself an iconoclastic, go-against-the-grain contrarian (i.e. "In & N burgers are overrated and soggy!" "Fight Club was all about Chuck Palahniuk hating himself for being gay and is nowhere near as smart as it thinks it is!" "Bill Hicks was never actually that funny!") This time, however, I gotta run with the herd. Because the herd is going somewhere fucking delicious.

The basics: the char-ringed ribs are spectacular, the pulled pork is amongst the finest in town, and the sides -- collard greens stewed in a potent chicken broth, creamy-pungent potato salad, profoundly spicy baked beans -- are stellar. (Except the mac and cheese, which is stringy and underwhelming; but to be fair, I have yet to find a BBQ joint that does all sides equally well.) All that said, the brisket is where you'll find the real action.

First, a caveat: brisket is an astoundingly easy-to-fuck-up dish. Go to a place like Kansas City BBQ in North Hollywood and watch your dreams die in a puddle of overcooked brisket deluged in lukewarm sauce. Even the great Dr. Hogly Wogly's in Van Nuys can't seem to quite get the alchemy down right.

But at Bludso's, brisket is a matter of science, religion, and art. The beef comes out steaming, stacked in thick slices reminiscent of the pastrami cuts at Langer's, ringed with carbonized spice rub and marbled with little islands of juicy fat. Forget melting in your mouth; this stuff almost melts on your fork and sublimates into a rush of smoky umami the second you take a bite.The (sparingly used) spicy-sweet, homemade, tomato-and-molasses sauce lingers on your palate like the afterglow of a great first date. It's the kind of dish you want to invent time travel for, so you can experience eating it for the first time all over again.

Your list of reasons to go to Compton just got longer.

_________________________________
• WHAT: Bludso's transcendent BBQ
• WHERE: 811 S Long Beach Blvd Compton CA
• WHEN: Open for lunch and dinner everyday but Monday
• $$$: Dishes start at $10