Author Archives: Erin Glass

It’s not hard to bring to mind the stereotype of a metal head. Since heavy metal’s arrival on the music scene in the early 1970s, it’s been accused of everything from Satanism to plain old Beavis and Butthead idiocy. And it doesn’t help much that the accusations are not often defended by its own participants. […]

A ladder, a magnifying glass, a three-letter word and the audience’s participation. Despite the complexity of the time, and the obscurity of her medium, it was all the wild-haired artist needed to make her message clear. The year was 1966, and in a small London gallery, artist Yoko Ono invited the world to climb up […]

Life after college often forces aspiring rock “˜n’ rollers to give up their dream of the stage for the practicality of a 9 to 5 job. But UCLA alum Dana Ehrlich hadn’t even realized her musical inclinations until her late twenties, and now at 32 fronts a New York based punk rock band. “It’s never […]

It’s not the first time tango’s been twisted, nor is it likely to be the last. Once upon a time a man by the name of Astor Piazzolla, tango’s rough equivalent to jazz’s Duke Ellington, took the treasured Argentinian dance music and elevated it to the level of classical music. Although much praised for his […]

Never underestimate the power of incentive. When Manoochehr Sadeghi was in the first grade, his father promised to buy him a santur, the Persian hammered dulcimer, on the condition he excelled in his schoolwork. Sadeghi soon proved himself to be first in the class, and his father kept his end of the bargain. Now, over […]

You wouldn’t know it by the band’s thrashy dance-until-you-break sound, but the first song Hot Hot Heat’s drummer Paul Hawley ever learned was the famous pre-school tune “You Are My Sunshine.” Of course, Hawley has moved on since then. His CD collection includes the usual lineup of the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, the Velvet Underground and […]

It’s not just any mall. Sure, the Santa Monica Third Street Promenade has more than its fair share of overpriced bookstores, blindingly lit window fronts filled with back-to-school halter-top specials, and an entire army of hairsprayed preteens ready at a second’s notice to shoot up that flirtatious right eyebrow. But the mall also has something that […]