Abby Travis

The singer, songwriter and bassist, whose last record was "Cutthroat Standards and Black Pop," has played with Beck, Elastica, the Meat Puppets and KMFDM. The Greatest Show on Earth: I like going to Makeup, where I often play. It's the first Saturday of every month at the El Rey, and there's a different theme each month.

What do you get when you cross-pollinate French pop, old-school country, Leonard Cohen-style musings and Velvet Underground-esque moodiness? Shoofly's "Dirty White Town," an album of offbeat, bilingual tunes that reflect the wild contrasts of life in L.A. It may sound complex, but to Bernadette Colomine and Terry Durbin, who formed Shoofly three years ago, the motivation is simple.

What do you get when you cross-pollinate French pop, old-school country, Leonard Cohen-style musings and Velvet Underground-esque moodiness? Shoofly's "Dirty White Town," an album of offbeat, bilingual tunes that reflect the wild contrasts of life in L.A. It may sound complex, but to Bernadette Colomine and Terry Durbin, who formed Shoofly three years ago, the motivation is simple.

The singer, songwriter and bassist, whose last record was "Cutthroat Standards and Black Pop," has played with Beck, Elastica, the Meat Puppets and KMFDM. The Greatest Show on Earth: I like going to Makeup, where I often play. It's the first Saturday of every month at the El Rey, and there's a different theme each month.

*** Abby Travis, "Cutthroat Standards and Black Pop," Educational Recordings. With this lush collection blending cabaret, classic pop, torchy blues and glitter rock, the Los Angeles musician--known for her work with the likes of Beck and Elastica--spotlights her own sophisticated sonic personality. Despite a few lyrical clunkers, Travis delicately balances sincerity and camp. Her dulcet vocals, veering expertly from world-weary to guileless, make every quirk work.

For a guy who harpoons shallow American girls in one single ("Homecoming") and engages in fizzy celebrity worship in another ("Starlett Johansson"), Quentin Delafon sounds fairly terrified as his band, sassy Parisian three-piece the Teenagers, prepares for its first U.S. tour. "I think I'm starting to freak out," the singer says from London. "What if somebody shoots us onstage? . . . We didn't realize it was so litigious to say 'America' and . . . in the same sentence."

Bolthouse makes 103.1 his nightclub It's not like Brent Bolthouse needed another job. But when Indie 103.1 (KDLD-FM) asked Hollywood's de facto nightclub king if he wanted a DJ gig, he said, "Heck yeah." Now he's spinning oodles of the Cure, Radiohead and Weezer on Mondays from 10 p.m. to midnight. Upcoming guest DJs include Travis Barker from Blink-182 and the Transplants and actor Danny Masterson....

Hidden at the back of Bar Marmont , the Chateau Marmont's exclusive boîte , is a lavish private dining room drenched in crimson hues, with a vaulted ceiling papered with vintage ads, a large wooden table and chairs and an attractive smoking patio. Late on a recent Thursday, the drag queen Constance Cooper sits on this patio with style journalist Rose Apodaca and a few other friends, drinking a glass of white wine and playfully discussing the sorry state of the modern young party crowd.