New 'Life'

Time is bringing back Life magazine in its saddest incarnation yet — as a weekly insert in newspapers such as the L.A. Times, Chicago Tribune and San Jose Mercury News. Starting in October it will run on Fridays in 50 papers (which receive it for free), instead of on Sundays, to avoid head-on competition with Parade and USA Weekend. At the LAT, which also carries Parade, this will only feed speculation about the future of the money-losing Los Angeles Times Magazine. With painful cutbacks in the news budget ordered this week by the honchos in Chicago, more than a few Times staffers believe the ad-thin Sunday magazine is on the bubble.

In last Sunday's issue, by the way, deputy editor Oscar Garza made a case for Los Lobos as the defining Los Angeles band. Lots of competition there, but he writes:

They have stayed together longer than any of the groups commonly identified as "quintessential L.A. bands"—The Beach Boys, The Doors, The Eagles, X—so, on longevity alone, it can be argued that Los Lobos is undisputed holder of the title. But the band is about more than simply persevering in an industry that is always looking for The Next Big Thing.

At their beginning 30 years ago, Los Lobos were three Chicano sons of East L.A. and one Mexican-born member raised in the U.S. In the early '80s, they were joined by a Jewish, Philly-born sax player recruited from the Blasters, another signature L.A. band...

"We were friends before we were musicians together," [Louie] Pérez says. "We met in high school. All our moms knew each other. If we ever thought of breaking up, our parents wouldn't have allowed it."

Hat tip to reader D.H.