The Long Beach Loop keeps you rollin’ and rockin’ on the Big Red Bus

ILLUSTRATION by LUKE MCGARRY
Arriving just after Labor Day, it’s hard to tell if Thursday’s Long Beach Loop is meant to say goodbye to summer or hello to fall, but it’s certainly an unprecedented celebration: nearly six straight hours with five local bands [...]

A Little Ol’ Place Where the Commotions Get Together

ILLUSTRATION by LUKE MCGARRY
Ruben Kaban thought that when his band the Commotions—who are set to play a breast cancer benefit this Saturday—started early last year, they’d be a natural fit for the mod crowd. And in theory, he was right: His band (in which he plays guitar [...]

David Serby’s short story long

PHOTO by CHRIS MILLER
Just one of the many virtues of honky-tonk singer/songwriter/guitarist David Serby is his uncanny ability to turn a very personal experience into a universal truth. And while many a country you-done-me-wrong song predictably lays the blame on an ex-flame for lyin’ or cheatin’—or both—Serby understands that life really [...]

Scotty Coats spins disco, talks tacos

ILLUSTRATION by JOE MCGARRY
Scotty Coats is a DJ, producer, head of sales at Costa Mesa’s award-winning Ubiquity Records and deeply committed taco connoisseur whose recent 12” “Double Fisted” (originally released on Rong Records) is about to be re-released on tastemaking electronic label DFA. He currently deejays at Avalon Bar, Mozambique [...]

Here’s a list of some LB things for you to think about if you’re not set on plans tonight…

It was an urban legend that had haunted and tantalized the denizens of downtown Long Beach since, oh, at least last week –the rumor that the famous Jergins Tunnel is not the only historic architecture lying fallow beneath the redeveloped streets. Finally, on Halloween, a passel of overaged pranksters could take it no more. They [...]

The extra dark shades, Playboy Bunny stickers and computerized voices of Sunless Tanning Co.

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
A decade ago I moved to Long Beach from New Hampshire, home to some of the coldest, fiercest winds ever recorded, a place where the insides of your nostrils freeze solid the instant you step outside—and where shorts are [...]

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
At the nexus between blissfully healthy and utterly awful (for you) lies the Pomegranate Martini—the Pomtini, if you’re an abbreviation kind of guy—a heavy pour of booze and juice that answers the question you’ve often asked yourself in the supermarket aisle: Do I really need another $4 Pom Tea glass? Yes, of [...]

Rid yourself of last week’s party fouls with a facial at Senses Day Spa

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
If your weekly social calendar reads more like the work log of a Pabst delivery person—Monday: Pike; Tuesday: Prospector; Wednesday: Red Room; Thursday: Que Sera; Friday: V-Room—then you know how bad Saturday mornings can be . . . or, [...]

Everything Long Beach desires to be, it once was
So did you get our little joke? Our proposals in this issue for a “new” Long Beach—of public space, amusement areas, cultural centers, and public transit—were all based on Long Beach’s past. It was during our discussions about our story on the possible death of Acres of [...]