Los Angeles has made a name for itself as a city with a plethora of diverse dining options. Throughout various ethnic enclaves within the metropolis, residents are given the opportunity to taste the finest Japanese garnishes, Greek flavors and Indian spices — all without leaving Los Angeles.

Although most of these cultural eateries are found in restaurants scattered across the city, some are rolling through the city on wheels. Food trucks are becoming more and more prevalent in Los Angeles, catering to loyal followers who can appreciate a rather unconventional meal.

The USC campus, frequented by thousand of pedestrians daily, provides a high-traffic hub for the lunch trucks to park their kitchens and serve everything from pizza to Brazilian barbeque.

For the many students who live within a few blocks of campus, these restaurants-on-wheels couldn’t be more conveniently located. Highly visible, the food trucks attract hordes of hungry people during lunchtime, often crowding the busiest areas near the crosswalks off campus.

But although the food trucks generally stake out the same busy intersections that draw large numbers of pedestrians (such as the corner of Jefferson Boulevard and McClintock Avenue), they don’t always appear at the same location.

For this reason, many lunch trucks use Twitter accounts to inform their devoted customers where they are at any given moment.

USC alumna Lindsey Garrett, a former employee at Barbie’s Q — a food truck that specializes in barbeque beef and chicken sandwiches — testified to the value of using the social networking site for the business.

“Using Twitter is not only a cool way to allow customers to find us but also to integrate technology in the food truck service world,” she said.

Some trucks have gained a great deal of publicity with the help of this social media network. For example, Kogi BBQ — the self-proclaimed “Los Angeles landmark that serves up Korean Mexican tacos, day and night” — boasts a giant fan base of more than 69,000 followers on Twitter.

Kogi has garnered an immense amount of popularity, despite catering to customers from only four trucks. Kogi followers receive several Tweets per day, explaining when and where to find a truck. Kogi’s dishes uniquely combine Korean barbeque with Mexican tortillas and fresh vegetables. Under the supervision of chef Roy Choi, Kogi effectively created a menu that satisfies both the hectic schedules of Angelenos and their desire for new culinary tastes.

To make matters even more exciting, Choi announces his daily specials over Twitter, making each Kogi experience a unique one. Unlike larger restaurants, the truck manages to reach out to customers, no matter where they might be. Food trucks such as his manage to turn their lack of a permanent location into a strength rather than a weakness.

And when it comes to competing with large restaurants and diners, the food trucks are not falling behind. In fact, the India Jones Chow truck, which serves authentic gourmet food on the streets, recently received a major accolade from critics. The Chow Truck was named a finalist at the first Los Angeles Vendy Awards — originally a New York premier street showcase event where the best sidewalk chefs participate in a cook-off competition.

With so many different food trucks emerging, a distinct culture is beginning to blossom — one significantly removed from the indoor dining set.

In fact, the emergence of these trucks even spurred the creation of an online phenomena beyond the ubiquitous Tweets. Food trucks fans can visit the website findlafoodtrucks.com, which was designed to help Los Angeles residents locate trucks. The website shows 56 different trucks’ Tweets on one page, helping hungry stomachs find an option that can glut the appetite.

With all the various food truck options available in the Los Angeles area, USC students will surely find a meal they can enjoy — or at least one they can call “an interesting experience.”

However, they should take advantage of this service while they have the opportunity, because the food trucks are only getting busier.

Philadelphia rock band Dr. Dog has made a splash in the national music scene in recent years as it has gained increasing media exposure — and rightfully so.

With a hard work ethic, the band members are no strangers to life on the road. Supporting the release of its new album, Shame, Shame, Dr. Dog embarked on its most recent world tour, with concerts scheduled at a variety of venues from the beautiful mountains of Aspen, Colo., to the cosmopolitan city of Barcelona, Spain — all for the sake of sharing its new collection of wonderfully crafted songs.

In recording its new album, the five-piece made a big leap forward as it shook up its usual album-making process.

For the first time, the musicians decided to forgo recording in their home studio — where they crafted all five of their previous albums — and hired an outside producer to help their group take the next step in their natural evolution.

Producer Rob Schnapf — who has worked previously with Beck and Elliott Smith — helped Dr. Dog create an album full of intricate harmonies and soaring melodies that firmly establishes the band as one of today’s most promising rock outfits.

Shame, Shame — made available to listeners a week early through National Public Radio’s free online stream — doesn’t stray off too far from the gritty and timeless sound the band has come to be associated with.

With clever arrangements and detailed harmonies, the band’s exceptional songwriting places it somewhere in between the genres of indie rock and baroque pop.

While the group has drawn comparisons to The Band and the Beach Boys, the men of Dr. Dog admit that their broad influences also extend out to include ’90s lo-fi band Pavement and experimental songwriter R. Stevie Moore.

Interestingly, the new album draws up a contradiction in its tone. While the lyrical content deals with the melancholy themes of gloom and despondency, the shining harmonies and cordial piano riffs convey a sense of warmth and hope.

In the spirit of the album, bassist Toby Leaman wrote “Station,” a song that carries with it a strong sense of longing and home sickness.

“It’s the only song I’ve ever written about touring or anything like that,” Leaman said in a statement published on the band’s website. “It’s also about how my wife and I bought a place in Wilmington, Del., and it worked out great for us, but we both miss Philly. It’s also about leaving to go on tour, leaving over and over again.”

The meticulous orchestration on “Station” consists of slide guitars, delayed drums and warm harmonies yet never sounds too busy.

Instead, all the instrumental elements support the essence of the song. Capturing raw emotions, this well-crafted song is built on strong instrumental foundations. With its sluggishly cozy quality, the song sounds like a porch-side jam session on a lazy Sunday morning.

Not surprisingly, the new album finds a large source of inspiration in the band’s hometown of Philadelphia.

Guitarist Scott McMicken wrote “Shadow People” — just one of the album’s many highlights — about living in a unique West Philadelphia neighborhood full of flamboyant personalities. Overwhelmed by the extensive wackiness of the community’s characters, McMicken sings It’s the right night for the wrong company / There ain’t nothing here to look at / Move along.

“Philly has been such a big part of our lives, and I feel like on this record it finally took over and made its way into our music,” McMicken said on the website. “There’s a line that says, I stole a bike from the Second Mile and saw a band play in the basement. The Second Mile is this thrift around the corner from my house, and there’s so many basement shows in West Philly, like noisy, artsy bands.”

The brittle vocals on the track are reminiscent of Wayne Coyne’s characteristic vocal qualities on the Flaming Lips’ famous song “She Don’t Use Jelly.” Yet the playfully interweaving piano and guitar lines along with the bright vocal harmonies make the track sound distinctly unique.

While Dr. Dog has been putting out records since 1999, Shame, Shame makes it evident that it doesn’t intend to stop anytime soon.

Like a breath of fresh air, Dr. Dog’s musical sensibilities rejuvenate the listener.

In today’s mainstream rock, it’s rare to find a five-piece band for which the instrumentation complements itself without clashing.

This makes it just that much more fun to listen to Dr. Dog, a band that cleverly uses the tools it has on hand to craft compositionally thick yet catchy songs.

With a steadily growing head count at each successive Salsa Night, Break On 2 is capitalizing on the peaking interest in salsa dancing that is sweeping through North America. Perhaps stimulated by media attention, such as popular shows Dancing With the Stars and So You Think You Can Dance, salsa dancing has re-gained enormous popularity in cities such as New York and Los Angeles. In fact, the two cities have such a long history with salsa that there are names for their own unique styles of the dance. Emphasizing the conga drum’s tumbao rhythm, New York Style traditionally “breaks” on the second beat – hence the hosting team’s name. Los Angeles, on the other hand, has the mambo and swing which are strictly danced on the first.

Students attending the Salsa Night on Friday probably won’t be taught a history lesson in the origins of the dance. However, they will be taught heart-stopping moves that will surely impress their partner. With a cheap price for a unique experience, this is one event not to miss.

With the release of its eleventh studio album Who Killed Sgt. Pepper, the Brian Jonestown Massacre has reinvented its sound once again.

Throughout its nearly two-decade existence, the band has produced a diverse catalogue of albums crossing genres from folk rock to shoegaze to noise pop, all the while maintaining its authentic ’60s psychedelic aesthetic. Perhaps the band’s musical diversity is a reflection of its inner workings. Ever since its formation in 1990, the group has shuffled through more than 25 different members — enough people to fill the roster of a baseball team.

Despite the near constant change, however, the band has had one from the start: front man Anton Newcombe. A controversial figure, Newcombe was portrayed in the 2004 film DiG! — a documentary following the Brian Jonestown Massacre and fellow rockers The Dandy Warhols — as an egotistical, drug-addicted musical genius.

The most noteworthy scene was an on-stage scuffle during an industry showcase at the Viper Room in which the concert ended with bloodied noses, battered band members and no record deal, all because of Newcombe’s inability to collaborate with his band. Nevertheless, Newcombe remains a man with high ambitions and great expectations for his music.

With Who Killed Sgt. Pepper, the Brian Jonestown Massacre embarks on its most multi-cultured album to date. The opening track, “Tempo 116.7 (Reaching For Dangerous Levels Of Sobriety),” is an instrumental tune, meshing electronic sounds with exotic instruments. The song features ambient Bhangra beats and eastern European influences, evoking visualizations of a distant land, as if to transport the listener to the Punjab region of India. Straight from the beginning, the densely layered sonic landscape on this track sets the tone for the rest of the album.

The very next track, “Tunger Hnifur,” charges forward with a driving pulse that will have listeners stomping their feet. The ruthless nature of the song is accentuated by its aggressively throbbing beat mixed with Newcombe’s distorted vocals, which render the lyrics nearly indiscernible.

During the chorus, the band unleashes roaring guitar-fuzz and powerful cymbal-splashing that brings a new high to the song’s level of intensity. With all the underlying guitar licks and screaming vocals, this song deserves — and can only be fully appreciated with — the volume up to 10.

After the album’s strong opening, the energy flags in the following two tracks. “Let’s Go Fucking Mental,” a lackluster tune with an overused hook, represents the album’s main flaw: too much repetition. The anthemic, slightly meandering chorus lacks variation and comes across as rather dull.

“White Music” does nothing to salvage the album’s flow in the wake of its predecessor. With ambient swells and echoing vocals, this tiresome two-and-a-half-minute experimentation will potentially turn off listeners. It functions as little more than album filler between more memorable songs.

Fortunately, the next track, “This Is the First of Your Last Warnings,” begins to build up the album’s momentum again. The catchy tune features an infectious beat complemented by crunchy guitar distortion — it’s easily the highlight of the album. Textures of Middle Eastern-influenced vocals in the background and sampled percussive beats permeate the rich recording.

The ethereal vocals of Icelandic artist Unnur Andrea Einarsdottir spruce up what is already an absorbing song. Introduced nearly two minutes into the track, Einarsdottir’s nourishing harmonies elicit visualizations and feelings like a thin blanket of silk over the atmospheric synthesizers.

The Brian Jonestown Massacre’s characteristically raw sound is emphasized in “Our Time,” a shoegaze-influenced, post-punk revival song. The glistening drone of the guitars coupled with the soft and airy vocals make for great listening on a dazed summer day in the suburbs. While it maintains the hypnotic quality, this song lacks the aggressiveness that characterizes the rest of the album. It makes for a pleasant deviation from the norm and adds much-needed diversity to the record.

Although Who Killed Sgt. Pepper’s prospects of commercial success might not be the greatest, alternative rock fans will likely celebrate the album as an innovative collection of songs that eclectically mesh various musical elements ranging from shoegaze to Eastern-influenced electronica.

While many original followers of the Brian Jonestown Massacre will undoubtedly dismiss the new album as one that lacks the group’s distinguishing qualities, others will welcome the new sound as a natural evolution in the band’s music.

The new sign — which the station considers more of a refresh than a redesign— will no longer carry the words “Music Television” underneath the famous emblem. With this alteration, popular music fans can officially kiss the age of music videos goodbye as the network takes a more assertive step forward in its plans to replace music videos with programming that includes a large dose of reality television. With shows such as Jersey Shore, The Real World and The Hills, MTV no longer bears any resemblance to its original identity, famous for introducing the groundbreaking concept of airing music videos 24/7.

The logo change is also representational of a growing trend in the marketing world – the increasing flexibility of corporate logos that incorporate changeable images within the design. Joining the ranks of NYC & Company, AOL, and the marketing campaign for the London Olympics, MTV has gotten creative in its attempt to showcase what it has to sell – in this case, programming – within its logo.

With a wider and more transparent frame, the MTV logo is an optimal canvas for integrating images of popular personalities such as Snooki or The Situation within its borders. It is in MTV’s best interest to employ this popular method of advertising, as it effectively familiarizes audiences with the network brand while it pushes the programming at the same time.

The young actor got his start in the world of comedy performing stand-up around New York City while he attended New York University. In 2005, Ansari teemed up with fellow comedians Rob Huebel and Paul Scheer, along with director Jason Woliner to create short films. The group made the sketch comedy show called Human Giant, which aired on MTV in 2007.

Ansari currently stars on NBC’s Parks and Recreation, playing a mischievous and swaggering government official who hawkishly flirts with women. With the show in its second season, Ansari has received a considerable amount of praise from critics for his sarcastic brand of humor. Jonah Weiner, a Slate magazine columnist called Aziz the “brightest spot” on the show, and other critics have also labeled him the funniest character on Parks and Recreation.

Recently Variety magazine announced that Judd Apatow and Universal Pictures have picked up three movie pitches from Aziz Ansari and Jason Woliner (director of Human Giant). In an interview, Ansari expressed his astonishment, as he did not expect Apatow and Universal Pictures to be interested in realizing all three movie of his movie pitches. This Apatow and Ansari deal, however, is not the first time the two have worked together. Ansari played an energetic standup comedian named Randy in Apatow’s 2009 comedy/drama film Funny People. The fictional character, Randy, had received such a positive response following Funny People that Ansari plans on centering one of the three movies with Universal on the character Randy. Dates as to when the films will be completed have not yet been announced.

The song features Wild Light and Mariachi El Bronx, two bands who opened for the Killers on their last tour. The collaboration has resulted in a final product that nothing short of a rapturous Christmas jingle – with horns. 

The video, directed by Chris Callister, features Luke Perry, the Beverly Hills, 90210 alumn, hitchhiking through the desert and marching with “little Mexican angels”.  Of course the video for this Christmas song is executed in a Killers fashion – set in a Sam’s-Town-esque middle of nowhere – and for some reason it wouldn’t feel right for it to take place anywhere else.

I just got back to my apartment in downtown Los Angeles from a gig (I play guitar) with my Jazz Combo at Ground Zero for this semester’s final installment of the weekly Thornton Jazz Night. The night was a success in my book. The small campus venue was crowded and the tunes were well received. Despite the bright stage lights hindering my view, it seemed that there was not a vacant couch in the room, and those who occupied them looked as if they were happy to be there. I have to say that this enhanced the experience altogether.

For those of you that do not frequent Ground Zero, or have never been there, I strongly recommend you add it to your list of places to check out. Stop by and grab a milkshake.