All posts tagged: downtown

Holiday Hitlist 2016

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The most festive time of year has finally hit LA and we are bursting with excitement for all the joyous Holiday goodness afoot! Outdoor ice skating, Christmas light wonderlands galore, yuletide classics on the big screen and “A Charlie Brown Christmas” album performed LIVE in concert?! Our inner Buddy the Elf is already overflowing with Christmas cheer loud enough for all to hear! Grab your gang and go make spirits bright!! Grand Performances ~ A Charlie Brown Christmas (Live in Concert) Our favorite Christmas event of the season is back this year! Grand Performances presents The Joey Altruda Trio’s live jazz performance of Vince Guaraldi’s holiday masterpiece, A Charlie Brown Christmas, in its entirety. Performances are outdoors at California Plaza in Downtown LA and admission is free for all ages. If you bring a new or lightly used toy, it will be donated to a child in need. Fri Dec 16th 12pm & Sun Dec 18th 2pm. Free admission. $8 parking in lot. California Plaza: 300 & 350 S. Grand Avenue, Los Angeles CA 90071 http://www.grandperformances.org Pershing Square Holiday …

Your Weekend Hitlist ~ Halloween 2016

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It’s our favorite time of year! That special moment when the leaves begin to turn colors, the sun glows a little more golden in the late afternoon light, you feel the desire to snuggle up with someone just because…and grown men and women become filled with the strange impulse to put on costumes and run around the streets like madmen. With Halloween landing on Monday, the witches and goblins have blessed us with extra good luck this year, giving us five whole days to celebrate All Hallow’s Eve! Here are our top picks for getting into a little Halloween Madness this weekend! Let the good times roll…just be sure to keep your head!! THURS OCT 27th~ MON OCT 31st Every night this weekend, the New Beverly Cinema will be screening some of the most ghoulishly delicious films in cinematic history. Thursday’s epic double-feature includes the original 1925 Phantom of the Opera, followed by Brian De Palma’s psychedelic rock ‘n roll fever dream Phantom of the Paradise. Featuring the music of Paul Williams, who penned songs …

Summertime Hit List ~ Free Live Music in LA*

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When summer hits the city, LA explodes into seemingly endless sights and sounds to help satisfy your cravings for some fun in the sun. What better way to celebrate the season of play than the plethora of hot summer music nights offered (mostly) for free all around town? So as a little gift to you, we present our run-down of the best mostly-free mostly-outdoor live music concerts going on in the city from now until the end of summer. Gather up your gang and go get your groove on, compliments of our great city. Don’t say it never gave you anything! KCRW’s Sound In Focus at The Annenberg Space for Photography (FREE) This blink-and-you’ll-miss-it outdoor summer concert series lasts only three short weeks, so be sure to get on it before it disappears! For three Saturdays in July, KCRW and the Annenberg Foundation team up to bring you free live music on the lawn of the Death Star, a.k.a. the CAA building in Century City, also home to the Annenberg Space for Photography. It may seem …

Your Weekend Hit List ~ 4th of July 2016!

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Celebrating the 4th of July is all about The 4 F’s: food, friends, family & fireworks! Lucky for us, LA has plenty to offer for some good old-fashioned 4th of July fun! Here’s our run-down on the best ways to celebrate ‘Merica in LA this weekend… Thursday, June 30th~ For all our indie music heads out there, resident scoundrel & filmmaker James R. Petix will be screening his documentary on the Detroit music scene, It Came From Detroit, at Outer Space in Downtown LA. Outer Space: 605 East 4th Street, Los Angeles, California 90013. 8pm doors, 9pm film. It Came From Detroit is the ultimate inside look at the Motor City’s internationally renowned “garage rock” scene. Nearly a decade in the making, this feature documentary chronicles the action both before and after the White Stripes rose to fame and brought an international spotlight on the scene. Beginning with the hugely influential 1980s trio The Gories (and stretching back to a legacy that includes The Stooges and The MC5), the bands of the Detroit garage rock music …

Your Weekend Hit List ~ Memorial Day Weekend 2016!

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Happy Memorial Day Weekend, LA!! Since we’re all adults, we assume you know how to find your way to the beach or your friend’s BBQ this weekend. For those still looking for fun stuff to do, we’ve got you covered! Check out your Weekend Hit List below! WEEKEND FESTIVALS Go Greek at the Valley Greek Festival in Northridge—the once-a-year all-weekend festival filled with the best Greek food, booze and pastries you can find in LA! Be prepared to eat your way across the fest. There’s Greek music and dancing too for those who like to hold hands with strangers while making a happy fool of yourself. HOT TIP: the sourdough Greek doughnuts made fresh in front of you, drizzled in honey and cinnamon, will have your soul moaning for more! May 28-30. $3.00 entrance fee. http://www.valleygreekfestival.com Join the New Orleans revival at the Cajun & Blues Music Festival in Simi Valley. Live Cajun, Zydeco, Creole and Blues musicians perform on multiple stages over two days. Shake your caboose and chow down on jambalaya and crawfish …

Fantastic Negrito ~ Kensington Presents at The Viaduct

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In a town built on over-hyping while under-delivering, it makes sense that when you write an article declaring an event “The Best Secret Party” in all of Los Angeles, folks might assume you’re exaggerating. “Really? The best though…?” you can practically hear them thinking. Here at Sirens & Scoundrels, we’re sworn never to lie to you and to bring you only the best of the best of LA. So we were beyond stoked when, rolling twenty friends deep to the most recent live concert event at the Viaduct, Kensington opened up their can of coolest-party-ever-whoop-ass on the very grateful crowd, proving us right once again as they delivered everything promised…and more. In a far corner of Los Angeles State Historic Park’s seemingly abandoned neighborhood, large art sculptures made of reclaimed materials dot the path to a nondescript opening in an iron fence with only one glowing neon “VIADUCT” sign to light the way. It certainly feels like you’ve followed the cement-brick road to some strange urban Oz. Luckily, the gatekeepers here are friendly and let …

Kensington Presents Fantastic Negrito ~ The Viaduct

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If you’ve ever dreamt of somehow being invited to the coolest secret party in all of Los Angeles, you’re in luck! Consider this your invitation. After eight long months of waiting, we’re thrilled to share the good news that Kensington is finally returning on May 19th, bringing LA’s best secret concert series back to The Viaduct! We were fortunate enough to go to last year’s summer concert featuring The Dustbowl Revival and our minds were collectively blown. The whole experience feels like you’ve followed the White Rabbit to Party Town, sans any of the annoying things about parties or that huge not-to-be-named music festival that may have just happened in the desert (ahem!). Filled with genuine music lovers gathered together to celebrate live music, dance and just have a great time, Kensington at The Viaduct is a magical night out that just has to be experienced to be fully understood. It’s a feeling. It’s a peak music moment. And you should be there. This year, they’re presenting Fantastic Negrito, last year’s winner of the NPR Tiny Desk Concert contest, …

Downtown Field Trip

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Earlier this month, we invited our readers to cut class and ditch work with your resident Ferris Buellers for our first official Sirens & Scoundrels Field Trip. We were beyond thrilled to have an awesome group of artists and innovators come together for a rogue weekday art, food & culture adventure to Downtown LA! Who knew Tuesdays could be so cool? We started our adventure at the new Broad contemporary art museum on Grand. We first wrote about the Broad in our December article: HERE. Many readers wanted to check it out for themselves afterwards, but were surprised that tickets were booked out months in advance. So we decided we’d make it really easy: secure a bunch of tickets and invite people to just show up. This is the best way for you to do it with your friends, too. Tickets are free and you can reserve up to nine at a time, so we suggest that you just take the initiative for your gang and book the earliest date available online: HERE. The good news is …

Sirens & Scoundrels March Field Trip ~ The Broad

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Remember that thrill of getting to cut class, load up on a bus with your pals and head out for a day of adventuring—all in the name of furthering your education? Do you ever miss the joys of a good old-fashioned field trip? If so, you’re in luck! Because we’re extremely excited to announce our very first official Sirens & Scoundrels Field Trip! You’re invited to come join us on a group adventure Downtown to visit The Broad museum on Tuesday, March 8th, 2016. Tickets are totally FREE and can be reserved by emailing us at: sirensandscoundrels@gmail.com. Just let us know that you wanna join our field trip! We’ll check out some art, get in some culture and then head on over to Grand Central Market for the deliciousness of your choosing. We’d love to have you join our art gang! Come cut class with your resident Ferris Buellers—we promise you won’t regret it. After all…life moves pretty fast—if you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. The Broad …

The Springs ~ Downtown LA

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Happy New Year to all of our Sirens & Scoundrels! The first week of the New Year can be such a rush. You celebrated, made your resolutions and set your intentions for the year ahead of you. There is so much excitement in the air for all the new possibilities at your fingertips. But then comes the part that’s just a little harder—actually DOING what you promised yourself you’d do. If you set intentions around your overall health, wellness and fitness this year, consider yourself lucky because things are about to get a whole lot easier for you. Meet The Springs. Located in Downtown’s Arts District, The Springs is your personal mecca for everything health and wellness, all wrapped up in one cool package. Just stepping into the beautifully designed, sprawling, open-air loft space, you immediately feel a sense of peace and calm begin to settle in as the scent of fresh cold pressed juices washes over you. The juice bar is on the right as soon as you enter and should naturally be your first …

The Broad ~ Downtown LA

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If you’ve been wondering about those mysterious photos of your friends seemingly floating amongst infinite cosmic light that have been popping up all over your feeds this fall, it’s time to trot yourself down to The Broad (like “road” with a “b”) museum and experience it for yourself. The newest arrival on the contemporary art scene, The Broad is already a hot-ticket destination for the city’s trendsetters, who flock through the doors each day to take in the likes of Warhol, Basquiat, Lichtenstein and Koons, amongst a plethora of modern art heavy hitters. Built from scratch to host the 2000-piece art collection of Eli and Edythe Broad, the museum opened in September 2015 and has become an architectural destination in and of itself. Located adjacent to the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Downtown LA, the Diller Scofidio + Renfro designed museum boasts a huge looming perforated metallic “honeycomb” exterior that adds even more wow factor to your walk down Grand Avenue—the two enormous landmarks at once opposing and complimentary. The interior is everything a modern …

Kensington Presents The Dustbowl Revival at The Viaduct

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Stepping into The Viaduct feels like unlocking the door to The Secret Garden—if that garden was a tiny park and entertainment venue hidden under Downtown’s Buena Vista Bridge beside the LA River with the MTA line zooming like a silver bullet overhead. If you’ve ever wondered what it would feel like if Downtown LA itself invited you to it’s “closest friends only” living room party, this is it. Located deep in the far end of Los Angeles State Historic Park with the sweeping cityscape twinkling in the background, it really doesn’t get much cooler than this. Kensington, the folks behind the Angeleno Heights free porch concert series, has teamed up with the California State Parks Department to bring completely unique one-of-a-kind nights to this intimate space. We checked out their summer concert event, featuring local Americana roots faves The Dustbowl Revival and openers The Eagle Rock Gospel Singers. Dustbowl had the crowd on its feet all night–stomping, jumping and dancing along in a full-blown LA hootenanny. We chowed down on BBQ ribs from Earlez Grille …