If your New Year’s Resolution is to get out of the house more often, you might as well start now because there are some very cool events happening in Los Angeles for this first weekend of 2026, including The Smell’s weekend-long anniversary bash, the L.A. Fights Back benefit show with Sextile, Automatic and Choir Boy, a David Bowie-themed skate party, film tributes to Bowie, David Lynch, Rob Reiner and Udo Kier, plus lots more. Keep reading for the breakdown.
(more…)I’m trying to think of the last time I had been to The Smell. It was so long ago that I nearly forgot to enter through the alley in the back. Maybe I haven’t been here since before the pandemic? The last show I remember seeing at the venerable L.A. DIY space was that dog and Graham Coxon. It was a night hotter than this one, sometime during the summer before the timeline went awry. A lot has changed since 2019. That The Smell still exists says a lot about the venue. I probably should go to shows here more often, but the thing is that, once you hit a certain age, hanging out at an all-age punk venue with no specific purpose can be a little awkward. Like, do I really need people to assume that I’m a mom keeping an eye on her weird kid when I’m still, mentally, the weird kid?
Tonight, though, I have a specific, age-appropriate purpose. I’m going to see HLLLYH, which is the new band spawned from The Mae Shi, who I saw at The Smell more than once back when I was young and downtown was still a ghost town after dark.
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This week, you can catch me playing a few records at Vidéothèque’s Opening Party on Saturday evening, sometime between 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. Plus, I’ll be at The Mermaid on Tuesday, October 24 to drop an even spookier Italo Horror Disco set than the one I played earlier this month. But, there’s still a lot more than that happening in the next handful of days. Keep reading to see what my L.A. music event recommendations are for this week.
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