Someone recently told us, “Hey, you should look up the work of Marnie Webser. She’s makes some Cindy Sherman stuff.” This had us intrigued and we did a little research and found that, yes, Marnie Weber is a fantastic local artist who–like Cindy Sherman–puts herself in her work in the most curious of ways. She’s kind of like the barnyard, circus clown, haunted version of Sherman which is far more interesting to us. There’s a rich playfulness and performativity to her work that feels uniquely Southern California.

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If you’ve been listening to Rhye, you should be listening to Quadron. The band is the collaboration between soulful singer Coco O. and musical everyman Robin Hannibal, who is half of Rhye as well. Robin works as a sort of behind-the-scenes musical magician who–with a muse–creates a sound almost crafted around their voice. If you’re not familiar, the sound of Quadron is a little bit of electronic and whole lot of soul because Ms. Coco demands that in her music. She has a voice that can easily be compared to Adele or Amy Winehouse but her sound is a little more sophisticated in that it abandons retro-gazing doo-wop for a more synth driven 1980s soul jazz pop collage.

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Last Summer was just not my Summer: I was plagued with a very large, very dark cloud of bad luck and general misfortune. The biggest whammy? Getting door’d and hit and ran by a car and ultimately getting my bike stolen. How lucky was I?! If anything, it made me more aware of how to be a better biker in Los Angeles and learn everything you need to know about bike trouble in Los Angeles. After more than a half a year, the time has finally come: I got a new bike! It feels very long overdue and like one of those, “Ahhh: back to normal!” moments.

We did some shopping around, too. The need for a bike came from starting a new job that simply was too long of a walk from a Metro station to deal with: it was finally time to get a new bike. We dug around online for types of bikes we wanted and resolved an urban/street bike with front and rear breaks and one to three gears would be ideal. Drop handlebars and being as lightweight as possible were also things we were looking out for. We went to a few places around town but, unfortunately, there weren’t any places that had this bike in stock and ready to go. There were a lot of attempts to up-sell at other stores and quite a lot of blasé attitudes about selling a bike: there wasn’t really a care for the bike that the customer wanted nor was there a note for what the bike would be used for. We had a feeling the search would go as such which is why our last stop in bicycle outfitting was the one we knew would be the most rewarding: Orange 20, the Mel-Hel biking destination that is the capital of the informal Bike District mini-neighborhood.

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Everything is getting a little more shape in Los Angeles. Objects being made here are a composite of different forms and typically a collision of design ideologies. You see this in the work of Ben Medansky and in Shin Okuda’s Waka Waka furniture: Los Angeles’ current style obsession is taking a maximalist approach to minimalist items. Al Que Quiere is a furniture and object maker who we can slide into this mix, too. The brand was started by local Matthew Sullivan and the brand is seriously playful with what they make–and they make everything you’ve always wanted for your home.

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Travis Holcombe is kind of the new guy at KCRW. He’s worked at the station for a few years now and, yes, you may be familiar with his name (and voice) from his previously late night Tuesday show. Now? He’s moved onto a bigger, more noticeable time slot: he’s on air Saturdays and Sundays from 3PM to 6PM.

“My show has definitely changed a lot,” he says from behind a sound operating board as he thumbs through a plan of what he’s going to play during his set. “At night, I would basically play two-thirds rap and dance music, which are two things I can’t play too much of from three to six. It feels weird to play dance music in the afternoon! A sustained two hour set of house music? It might very well evolve into that. I’m still trying to get a feel for things–and there’s definitely a focus on trying to find rock music over dance and rap.”

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