You know why I’m a fan of Lester Bangs? Not because he’s the greatest music journalist to ever have written, not because he stuck it to Rolling Stone by getting fired and starting his own magazine, and not because he was a cooler-than-cool character in “Almost Famous.” I love Lester Bangs because as far as I know, he’s the only person with enough balls to talk trash about Led Zeppelin. Read more...

Once upon the year 2001, in the land of Burbank, a man emerged from secret halls where imagination turns into reality. Never before this time had this man, nor any other, journeyed through the pass called Sepulveda to a special training ground in order to equip talented new acolytes in the secret arts of those secret halls. Read more...

UMBRELLAS Tonight, 7 p.m. The Roxy, $10 The road to the Sunset Strip is a long and tough one for many intrepid bands from across the country trying to hit it big in Tinseltown. Read more...

A room full of pencil-wielding toddlers or teenagers with the hopes of being animators may sound like a disappointment waiting to happen. But thanks to Maija Burnett, dreams like those are being fulfilled on a regular basis. Read more...

Badly Drawn Boy “Born in the U.K.” ASTRALWERKS RECORDS Badly Drawn Boy used to have a fitting moniker. Now he’s working on winning it back. In 2000, the singer/songwriter (one Damon Gough) won the Mercury Prize and set himself high among his contemporaries with “The Hour of Bewilderbeast,” a messy, confusing rabbit hole of an album. Read more...

Square Enix “Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria” PLAYSTATION2 “Valkyrie Profile,” released in 2000 for the Sony PlayStation, threw role-playing conventions out the window in favor of bold innovations: side-scrolling dungeons, time-sensitive game progression, a depressing story heavy on Norse mythology. Read more...

“Dave and Tom’s: A Tribute to Dave and Tom” Santa Monica Playhouse Saturday, Oct. 14 David Beeler and Tom Konkle, best known as the British comedy team that brought laughter to audiences all over the globe, died Saturday at 8 p.m. Read more...