Steve Appleford

Steve Appleford was a features editor for Times Community News and a contributor to the Los Angeles Times Calendar section. He is a Los Angeles native and the former editor in chief of the award-winning L.A. CityBeat. As a writer and photographer, he’s covered riots, political conventions and a whole lot of pop culture for a variety of publications including Rolling Stone, GQ, Entertainment Weekly, TV Guide and LA Weekly.

Latest From This Author

Music

Slayer, ‘the hardest band in history,’ throws devil horns for final time at Forum this weekend

Music

Slayer, ‘the hardest band in history,’ throws devil horns for final time at Forum this weekend

Thrash-metal pioneers Slayer play their last shows ever this weekend at the Forum, not far from their hometown of Huntington Park.
Music

After 16 years, Josh Homme rekindles the ‘Desert Sessions’: ‘This will outlast everything I do’

Music

After 16 years, Josh Homme rekindles the ‘Desert Sessions’: ‘This will outlast everything I do’

The Queens of the Stone Age leader gathered ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons and Primus’ Les Claypool, among others, and headed out to Joshua Tree for improv and mayhem.
Music

Will a convicted pedophile make a fortune from a ‘Joker’ song?

Music

Will a convicted pedophile make a fortune from a ‘Joker’ song?

Short answer: no. But having Joaquin Phoenix dance around to disgraced glam-rocker Gary Glitter’s “Rock and Roll Part 2" was a loaded directorial decision.
Music

Yes, Gary Clark Jr. is a throwback guitar god. But he’s no ‘museum piece’

Music

Yes, Gary Clark Jr. is a throwback guitar god. But he’s no ‘museum piece’

Clark takes on racism and dabbles in hip-hop and R&B on his Grammy-touted album, “This Land.”
Music

Blink-182 were goof-punks with cute videos. Twenty years later, they’re having the last laugh

Music

Blink-182 were goof-punks with cute videos. Twenty years later, they’re having the last laugh

Despite a tumultuous lineup change in 2015, the trio remain a rock staple, and their new album tackles modern sounds and the plague of mass shootings.
Music

The Cure’s Robert Smith: ‘The ’80s were awful, and yet we flourished’

Music

The Cure’s Robert Smith: ‘The ’80s were awful, and yet we flourished’

The Cure headline Saturday’s Pasadena Daydream Festival at the Rose Bowl, curated by the band’s own Robert Smith.
Music

For flame-keeper Linda Ramone, Hollywood Forever and Ramones forever are inseparable

Music

For flame-keeper Linda Ramone, Hollywood Forever and Ramones forever are inseparable

The widow of punk guitar legend Johnny Ramone oversees her husband’s annual tribute at Hollywood Forever, as well as the band’s lucrative legacy
Music

Bill Wyman, the Rolling Stones’ ‘quiet one,’ speaks up in a new doc

Music

Bill Wyman, the Rolling Stones’ ‘quiet one,’ speaks up in a new doc

When bassist Bill Wyman announced to the Rolling Stones that he was quitting at the beginning of the 1990s, the news was received with genuine disbelief.
Music

A panoramic history of hip-hop, from the Bronx to Compton

Music

A panoramic history of hip-hop, from the Bronx to Compton

Alonzo “Lonzo” Williams has strong opinions about the birth of West Coast hip-hop, back when he was a young DJ and club owner in Compton, crossing paths with Dr.
Music

Le Butcherettes to bring their anxious punk to Lucha VaVoom

Music

Le Butcherettes to bring their anxious punk to Lucha VaVoom

For two weeks in El Paso, Teri Gender Bender was having an emergency.