Your homegirl Ms Krazie!

Ms Krazie is truly a hip-hop phenomena. With five studio albums now to her credit, the Jenni Rivera-style chingona on the mic is one of the best at what she does. Ms Krazie's raspy, raw Spanglish delivery makes her an undeniable talent upon first listen. She continues to mature in her craft as is displayed on 2012's Forgive Not Forget whether it's backed by the smooth beats of producer D. Salas or feeling out rock influences on tracks like "Love You Till Death." What makes Ms Krazie so damn special lies in the fact that with her skills and down-to-earth personality, she managed to build a large, loyal fan base before ever doing extensive touring or even dropping a music video. Not many else can claim the same.

Better yet, she's all that and a true SanTanera at heart pronouncing the city name 'Santa Ana' as the natives do (and how we write it!) Her local 'Team Loca' legion is abuzz as the rapper is set to return to Orange County from El Paso,Texas this week for a special 'meet and greet' at Pachuco Tattoo in Orange where she will be on hand with signed CDs, posters and t-shirts. Before the line of fans outside the tattoo parlor stretches from Orange all the way to East LA, the Weekly checks in with Ms Krazie about meet and greets, her SanTana roots and asks when she'll come back for a show!

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Greg Jacobs

There's no shortage of good bands playing the Ink-N-Iron festival this weekend at the Queen Mary in Long Beach. Sadly, we can't pay much attention to bands that are merely "good" when the world's greatest band of all time is playing. That's right, folks -- Rocket From the Crypt is performing Saturday night and if that's not enough to get your ass off the couch--even for a festival focused on cars and tattoos-- then it's time to start reevaluating your life.

It's a big deal any time the world's greatest band plays (full disclosure: I'm kind of a fan), but it's an even bigger deal when the show marks the first time in nearly eight years that the world's greatest band is playing on American soil. An announced show, anyway.

Rocket From the Crypt held an uber-secret gig on Easter at Bar Pink in San Diego (this writer attended), but that performance was for approximately 100 heathens who view the six members of Rocket From the Crypt (singer/guitarist John "Speedo" Reis, bassist Pete "Petey X" Reichert, guitarist Andy "ND" Stamets, drummer Mario "Ruby Mars" Rubalcaba, trumpet player Jason "JC2000" Crane and saxophonist Paul "Apollo 9" O'Beirne) as musical Messiahs whose triumphant return to the stage was infinitely more important to humanity than some bearded hippie who rose from the dead.

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Thomas Gold

Life's been good since Thomas Gold befriended the mafia. Well, the Swedish House Mafia, anyway. His inclusion into the the SHM family last year on Axwell's Axtone Records catapulted his career to the next level. Now with his own Fanfare Bus World Tour, residency at the new Las Vegas Light Nightclub in Mandalay Bay and Fanfare radio show on Sirius XM; Gold has turned into an in demand world renowned artist. He made his Coachella Festival debut this year where he worked his progressive house magic at the Sahara tent, with heavy, drumline-inspired beats that rattled our spines. We spoke to the Berlin-based artist backstage about how he typically constructs his DJ sets, including the one for his next gig tonight at the newly opened SBE nightclub Create, located at the old Vanguard in LA and promoted by Insomniac Events.

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During the 1990s, the Skeletones used to play every friggin' show from the Inland Empire to Orange County. After search the Internet, you might assume that the 10-piece ska group from Riverside still maintains a busy schedule.But look closer and you'll notice that a few newer bands have also taken the moniker since the original band's heyday. A Google search for "the Skeletones" comes up with three acts -- the Riverside band and two others from Michigan and England.

These days, the original Skeletones -- Jonas Cabrera, Paul Hampton, Mark Cummings, Chris Miles, Kip Wirtzfeld, Rick Bonin, Woody Diaz, Bob Alvarado, John Alvarado and Jared Palazzolo -- perform between 12-24 times a year, which is still a lot considering the group has been around for approximately two decades. That said, don't think frontman Jonas Cabrera has gotten too old to rock a stage because he says he will "out-skank anybody who dares to try" to beat him in a dance-off.

The Skeletones play Saturday as part of Long Beach Sound Society's fourth annual "We Are The Mods Celebration" at Madhaus. The event includes performances by Suedehead and the Savoys and features an array of DJs, food trucks and a horseshoe pit. With so much mod in one area, let's hope Cabrera has a new pair of dancing shoes cuz he's gonna need them.

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Tim Norris / OC Weekly

Coachella Sahara Tent 2012

Festival season is upon us and that means not one, but two weeks of Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival with enough electronic dance music to keep aficionados fist pumping in their sleep with anticipation. With one of the biggest music events of the year just around the corner, why bother doing anything else all month? Well, for those not willing to shell out the $350 for three days or others who weren't lucky enough to score a ticket before it sold out fear not because there's plenty of EDM shows right here in OC and in LA to get your party music fix. We did all the research for you to ensure you don't miss the five best dance music shows of all genres to ensure you spend your hard earned money on the right events.

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Every band has "hits," the songs they have to play in concert or no one will pay money to see them. Alkaline Trio is no different.

Thanks to nine studio albums, including My Shame is True (released today), singer/guitarist Matt Skiba, singer/bassist Dan Andriano and drummer Derek Grant have a plethora of tunes that are damn-near guaranteed to make any set list, which means there's a good chance you'll hear "Radio," "Nose Over Tail," "Clavicle," "'97," "This Could Be Love," "Mercy Me," "Crawl," "Cringe" and "Bleeder." While there's nothing wrong with these (in fact, they are some of the band's best material), there are also a bunch of songs that rarely -- if ever -- get played. But they should.

There's no way of knowing what we'll hear from My Shame is True, but "Kiss You to Death," "Young Lovers" and "Until Death Do Us Part" are bona fide awesome and are worthy of replacing the oft-played "She Took Him to the Lake" and "Private Eye." And, if we are lucky, the addition of new material might force the band to dig into its catalog to pull out a few oldies-but-goodies.

So, here, in no particular order, are six songs that should be added to the band's set list when they kick off their upcoming tour at The Observatory on April 25.

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Matt Oliver / OC Weekly

Steve Aoki with Travis Barker at Beyond Wonderland 2012

This weekend, Insomniac takes its fourth journey down the Alice & Wonderland-themed rabbit hole to Beyond Wonderland Music Festival, held at the San Manuel Amphitheater after the city of San Bernardino complained from previous wonderland events at the NOS Events Center. Don't be fooled by the new location however. If anything, it means a new venue for Insomniac's CEO Pasquale Rotella to curate into a magical world filled with art installations, performers, rides and some of electronic dance music's biggest stars including David Guetta, Steve Angello and Afrojack. For fans excited to roam the hills of the San Manuel Amphitheater and discover its new found home, we have put together a list of five must-see acts amidst all of the heavy dose of spine-rattling basslines.

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Tijs Michiel Verwest, a.k.a. Tiësto

Tijs Michiel Verwest is more than just an electronic-dance-music (EDM) DJ and producer. He is the quintessential originator of the iconic brand Tiësto, which has continued to revolutionize itself and change the game for dance music artists all over the world for almost two decades. With Grammy nominations, numerous awards, collaborations with Guess Clothing, a Sirius XM Club Life Radio Channel, the No. 1 podcast on iTunes, his own Madame Tussaud's wax statue, residencies all over the world, and headlining every major festival including Coachella's main stage, plus being the first DJ to play at the Olympic Games in Athens, as well as the highest paid DJ on the Forbes list, Tiësto has proven to be larger than life, with no signs of slowing down.

Though he suffered a minor touring setback due to back problems on his 2012 College Invasion Tour, he is making up the missed dates this winter, including a stop at the Staples Center March 2. Presented by Goldenvoice and Insomniac, this performance marks the second time a DJ will play a show at the Staples Center -- Kaskade was the first DJ to sell it out with his Freaks of Nature Tour last summer. So in honor of Tiësto's Los Angeles comeback (he was last in LA in 2011 as a part of that year's College Invasion Tour, which hosted 26,000 fans at the Home Depot Center), we chatted with Verwest right as he hit the tour bus with fellow DJ friends Tommy Trash, Quintino and Alvaro. The Dutch artist covered everything from cultivating his sound to impromptu gigs to what's currently on his iPod.

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Myndset

There are some local artists who are destined for the lime-light, even if Orange County doesn't always have much to offer in that regard. This is something Myndset learned early on in his career as a hip-hop DJ. At the time he went by a different moniker and played every major club in OC feeding the masses their weekly dose of top 40 and hip hop beats. He felt hip hop was getting stale and was drawn by the sounds of electronic music - something that hadn't reached the popularity it has now and which he says "feed his soul." He enrolled in OC Weekly's DJ competition to play at Ultra Music Festival in 2008 and won, landing himself a coveted spot at one of EDM's biggest festivals in the world.

"That was one of the best days of my life and such a cool experience, Myndset says. "I was like it's there for the taking if anyone wants but I can do this. So I practiced the shit out of my routine and brought out all my tricks as a true turntablist." Yet the biggest thing he gained from that experience is that you can make it as a traveling DJ (something he had always dreamed of) and the world was his oyster with hard work and perseverance.

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Shannon Nehls / OC Weekly

Dave Reed & Chad Cisneros of Tritonal backstage at White Wonderland

After making waves in the trance community the Texas based duo Dave Reedand Chad Cisneroswho form Tritonal are about to embark in the biggest year of their career. At least that's what MTV Clubland thinks as they named Tritonal one of their artists to watch in 2013 last month. We got to chat with the American EDM artist backstage at White Wonderland before their New Years Eve set in anticipation of their gig tonight at Sutra in Costa Mesa. They were more than enthusiastic to share with us their past successes as well as what to expect from the duo this year.

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