VMAs play-by-play via ILM. Or the short version, my top 10 favorite moments of last night:

- R. Kelly's live premiere of a new chapter of "Trapped In The Closet"- "RUFUS SAYS CHUCK I'M SORRY/BUT I'M GOIN' BACK TO MY WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIFE"

- Diddy's Captain Eo-esque "journey of sight and sound"! Getting served by Omarion! Bringing out MC Hammer!

- Ludacris coming out with Rare Essence and performing the Go-Go version of "Pimpin' All Over The World" that I repped for a minute ago. "D.T.P.! D.C.! R.E.! LET'S GO!!!"

- Jay-Z on his office job: "I got chairs and pencils and pens"

- My Chemical Romance's surprise performance at Diddy's personal request

- Eric Roberts Eric Roberts Eric Roberts

- John Norris's bedazzled purple tanktop

- Usher explaining krumping to America

- Fat Joe's super classy and funny G-Unit diss (and 50's subsequent uncensored f-bomb tantrum)

- Tony Yayo's waving-his-hands-in-front-of-his-mouth gesture

Labels: ILM, Jay-Z, R. Kelly, TV

This morning I gave Darren a ride to BWI after he crashed at my place and hung out for a couple days here. Darren (Gov't Names readers know him as Le Coq, longtime ILX people know him as Ramosi and a bunch of other pseudonyms) is a guy I've kept in touch with through all this message board and blog shit for a few years now. One of the funniest people I know to any extent, too, always has a crazy story to tell. He's from Vancouver and always talked up plans about crossing the border and coming out east to see people but I was never sure if those plans would ever really materialize, and still wasn't even sure until like a week ago when he was calling me from NYC. He's been hustling with a lot of stuff, getting together a record label and a bunch of other side hustles, and has already made enough money off of these things to afford a long trip out here. He was in NYC for like a week and then took a Greyhound down to Baltimore for a couple days before flying up to Montreal today for further business. He's trying to get me involved in the label and put me on the payroll, although I dunno how much time and energy I'll have to spare for that stuff the time comes for that.

To say that Darren and my idiot roommate Landon did not hit it off would be a collosal understatement. The first night Darren was here, I thought a fight was going to break out every time I had to leave them in the same room unsupervised for a few minutes, and after 2 hours in my apartment, Darren asked me to take him to a hotel instead of crashing on my couch. But evidently there wasn't a single hotel in Baltimore with a vacancy (is it that normal? was it just that the Orioles were playing a home game or was something else going on?), so he ended up staying at my place anyway, and kind of made nice with Landon and there was no further conflict. One night we hung out with Tom for a bit and went to a bar, but we didn't stay long, because it was late and Darren had already had an 8 hour bus trip that day and was pretty drained. And last night we walked around the harbor and then cruised around with Bmore club music on the radio, so I think he got a nice glimpse of the city. I think he's coming back to New York in August so I might go up there to hang out again, Darren's a good dude.

Labels: Baltimore music, ILM, meta, story time

Recently there was an amusing ILM thread about the reactions of UPenn's student body to the news that Sonic Youth had been booked for their spring concert. Of course, probably every school complains about their spring concert no matter who it is. I know mine does. This year my school got Third Eye Blind, and I think a lot of Towson students were just happy that for once it wasn't a hip hop act. Go figure. But what occurred to me in the course of the thread was that it was the closest show to me of the round of shows SY are doing this week, and in all likelihood my best chance to see them live until the next album and tour. The starter of the thread, Maria, offered to pick up tickets for non-students, so I took her up on it and went to the show on Friday.

I've only really been in Philly a handful of times and the last time was over 2 years ago, so I never really have a firm concept of how long it takes to get there and how to get around. So I ended up getting on the road way later than I should've to meet up with Maria. In fact, I got there a good hour late, and then it took me nearly another hour to confirm that I could not find the meeting place and find a working payphone to get in touch with her (this is the part where my friends and family once again chide me for still not having a cellphone). So it was a pretty ridiculous comedy of errors. But Maria was cool about it and left my ticket at will call. She tried to give me a description so I could spot her in the crowd, but I had no luck with that, so I never got to meet up, which was a bummer.

The openers were Cat Power and Citizen Cope. I got into Cat Power back in the mid-90's when it was just another band that Steve Shelley played in and I liked those records, but then I liked each record after that less and less and the whole weird cult that developed around her and her notorious live shows just turned me off. So I always kinda prided myself on the fact that I never saw Cat Power live. But since she was at this show and I got there early enough, I ended up seeing most of her set. It was actually kind of cool to walk through all these old buildings on the UPenn campus and into this little clearing full of purple light coming from a stage surrounded by not that many kids with a woman playing these quiet simple songs on piano. So her set was kind of pleasant and relaxing after driving and walking around Philly for a few hours. I didn't recognize many songs, since I never bought her last album and then got a promo of it a while later and could barely listen to it. She never broke down or did anything weird, just switched from piano to guitar and back a few times and barely said anything and ended her set abruptly.

The less said about Citizen Cope the better. All his songs seemed to be about guns and jail and homeless people and crazy people and were sung in some kind of ridiculous affected bluesman voice.

Sonic Youth's setlist: I Love You Golden Blue / Stones / Pattern Recognition / Unmade Bed / Eric’s Trip / Bull In The Heather / Dude Ranch Nurse / Paper Cup Exit / New Hampshire / Rain On Tin / Teenage Riot

Overall a pretty similiar set to what I saw them do last summer at the 9:30 Club, although a little sloppier, which is understandable since that was during a full-on tour and this was a shorter series of gigs. But I kinda went in expecting that, and even hoping for a lot of stuff from Sonic Nurse, which I liked to begin with but it's actually grown on me in the past few months to the point that I've decided I like it better than Murray Street (although "Rain On Tin" is one of my favorite SY songs ever and I'm pretty happy that it's remained in their set). Thurston forgot to sing at the beginning of "Rain On Tin", which is kinda funny considering the whole song only has like 8 lines, so Kim reminded him and they started it over. "I Love You Golden Blue" had a longer noise intro than I remember it having last time. "Stones" was one of my least favorite songs on Nurse but it's one of the best songs live. I'm still bummed that they never seem to play "Dripping Dream", though. "Eric's Trip" is never as good live as it should be, although "Teenage Riot" was maybe the best live version I've ever heard, and ended with a long long noise finale. At the end Thurston came down on the ground in front of the crowd and jammed his guitar in between the bars of a metal girder in front of the stage, and a roadie had to go get it out after the show.

Labels: concerts, ILM, Sonic Youth

I spoke too soon, this is my favorite ILM thread ever. Derailing yet another stupid M.I.A. debate to talk about short-lived 90's sitcoms = classic. Also, this is the best music writing I've read in a while. Are eBay pages eligible for those Da Capo books?

Labels: ILM

In a weird way, this is probably my favorite ILM thread that I've ever started. Vedderiffic!

Labels: ILM, Pearl Jam

This week's selection is another one that did not make but received (also it's a CD, not a tape). Over the weekend J.G. and I went to her winter formal (she goes to a small private all-girls college, so dances and stuff like that are a bigger deal there than at other schools). We got dressed up all fancy, it was fun. Every year they have some kind of trinket or piece of memorabilia they give out to people who attend the dance. Last year it was glass with an engravement on it, this year it was mix CD's, which was widely regarded as a disappointment and a cheap ripoff. Next to each track is the name of the person who picked it (or in some cases, a group, such as "Psychology Dept." or "Class of 2007"). Mixes that are done by committee are always interesting, usually in kind of a trainwreck way. That's pretty much the reason why I haven't really considered getting involved in ILMiXor yet, it's just a weird idea, still not sure about it. Anyway this is the CD that everyone got a copy of at the dance:

1. Toploader - "Dancing In The Moonlight"
2. Frank Sinatra - "The Way You Look Tonight"
3. The Beach Boys - "God Only Knows"
4. Outkast - "Hey Ya!"
5. John Lennon - "Imagine"
6. Sheryl Crow - "One Less Bell To Answer"
7. White Stripes - "You're Pretty Good Looking"
8. The B-52's - "Love Shack"
9. Joni Mitchell - "Blue"
10. James Taylor - "Your Smiling Face"
11. The Mamas and the Papas - "California Dreamin'"
12. Lenny Kravitz - "American Woman"
13. Black Eyed Peas - "Hey Mama"
14. Rick James - "Superfreak"
15. The Grateful Dead - "Women Are Smarter"
16. Lit - "My Own Worst Enemy"
17. Cassidy featuring R. Kelly - "Hotel"

Of those songs, I think I wouldn't mind never hearing 4, 5, 11, 12, 16 and 17 ever again. I like 2, 3, 9 and 14 enough that I'm glad to have a copy of them on CD. And I love 8 but already have it on CD. I like the single version of 13 ok but the version on the mix is different, I guess the album version, and I don't like it as much. Also, Sheryl Crow singing Bacharach and David is something I don't think I needed to hear.

Labels: ILM, mixtapes, R and B, R. Kelly, The B-52's

So, the Grammys... I was pretty happy about the fact that Kanye got a few big awards (best rap song, best rap album), but not too many, and for the latter, gave a really good acceptance speech. It was pretty clear that he'd had a lot of time to think about his fuckup at the AMA's and all the other shit people are holding against him. And his speech was pretty much the perfect response to all of that. On the Grammys thread on ILM, Michael Daddino described his speech as managing "total arrogance and near teary-eyed humility simultaneously." Which is actually a pretty good description of Kanye's entire career, and one of the reasons I've remained a Kanye booster while everyone else has become allergic to the hype; he was like that all along, and that was kind of what I liked about him to begin with. But most importantly, he thanked Rhymefest in his speech, which means hopefully that B*ron Cr*wford can finally shut the fuck up now.

On MTV's red carpet pre-show thing, they showed a pre-taped segment about Kanye working in the studio with John Mayer, and played a few snippets of their collaboration "Bittersweet", which will appear on Late Registration. It wasn't very good. They did another track together, "Go", which is going to be on the new Common album, I hope that one turns out better. Mostly I just want John Mayer to be a part of something really unexpected and undeniably good so that people have to be embarrassed to admit it's good. But aside from that, the segment was almost as funny as John Mayer Has A TV Show. John and Kanye openly pondered the question "why do black people like John Mayer?" and compared the price of their jewelry. After realizing that his watch cost twice as much as Kanye's Jesus piece, John smiled and said "go back and listen to 'Daughters', bitches". The only way that moment could have been more classic is if they had shown that clip in lieu of an acceptance speech when "Daughters" won the award for song of the year. (EDIT: here's the MTV.com link for the text of that Mayer/West segment)

Other Grammy thoughts, many of them self-plagiarized from posts to the ILM thread:

- do you think old guys like James Brown ever get tired of being called on to appear with current artists as a symbolic gesture of "passing the baton" onto them? He must think to himself, "what, Usher is the new me now? Didn’t I just proclaim that Hammer guy the new me a few years ago?"

- There were a lot of really odd combinations of presenters throughout the night, but the best was Tyra Banks and Hoobastank because it seems like they just got paired up because their names rhyme.

- Is it just me, or did Kevin Bacon look exactly like Stewart Copeland? Seriously, it looks like he's getting ready to shoot a Police biopic.

- my friend Joey made the excellent suggestion that during Green Day's performance they should've cut to a shot of Gretchen Wilson in the audience during the lyric "I'm not a part of the redneck agenda"

- What was with the all-star singalong for charity being "Across The Universe"? Are they just picking Beatles songs out of a hat for these things?

Labels: hip hop, ILM, Kanye West, R and B

I used to get pretty annoyed when Anthony would dismiss Kanye on the trivial basis of the weak, bloodless way he says "c'mon" on one of his singles. Then I realized the other day that I've dismissed Franz Ferdinand on the very same grounds. But then, of all the things that Kanye has been inaccurately praised or marketed as, "sexy dance party!" is not one of them. That song is like a real time progression of corny indie taste: Strokesy chug, then wait, it slows down to a sluggish bomp-bomp-bomp that I guess is somebody's idea of disco. Oh well, at least someone Kanye has already publically endorsed won something that could've gone to him so another outburst is unlikely. Ah, who am I kidding, does anyone who's up for a gazillion Grammys care about P&J?

Check out these numbers:

2004 Albums 10 Danger Mouse The Grey Album www.djdangermouse.com 904(82)

2003 Albums 13 Jay-Z The Black Album Roc-A-Fella 618(62)

Also, for good measure, and because I like "Faint/Jigga What" more than anything on The Grey Album:

2004 Albums 856 Jay-Z and Linkin Park  Collision Course Warner Bros. 13(1)

Not that I'm crying for Jay; he's made plenty better albums than BA that've gotten much less critical love. But maaan. I caught some flak on ILM for (somewhat jokingly) making a remark along the lines that I hate the internet for the role it played in the high placement of The Grey Album and M.I.A./Diplo. I mean, I guess I'm in favor of the power of the web and blogs and stuff to put mp3/bootleg phenomena on that kind of pedestal in theory, but I'm not a fan of it in practice if it means color-coded novelty 'mashups' and weak-voiced faux dancehall over played out Timbaland/Neptunes beats and obscure/exotic dance music from Brazil and, um, Baltimore. And can we dead all the "world music" chatter when we're talking about someone who's lived most of their life in London and is tight with fucking Elastica?

Something else of note was that even in a banner year for southern rap on national radio (well, '03 was the real breakthrough, but '04 was the saturation point), the dubious "crunk'n'b" offshoot showed it up both commercially and critically, with both "Yeah!" and "Goodies" in the top 40 singles with the otherwise highest southern hip hop being "Rubber Band Man" down at 47. And the rest of the top 40 rap singles entries were being held down by non-southerners (the obvious Kanye/Twista/Eminem/Snoop) and especially the NYC old guard of Jay/Nas/Fab/Fat Joe/Jada. Granted, my taste is still fairly NY-centric too as far as rap is concerned, but that's just me, I'm an east coast kid. The zeitgeist is another story.

Labels: ILM, Jay-Z, Kanye West, lists

So apparently, I have a problem. A year ago I wasn't a 'blogger' and didn't have any urge to become one. Now I'm starting my 2nd blog, just as an outlet for the run-off stuff that won't fit on Government Names, the team rap blog I started back in May. I'm only responsible for a fraction of the content there, so I don't think my modesty is on the line when I say that we do good work over there, I'm really proud of it. But I actually do listen to things other than rap (which seems to be a common misperception, especially on ILM, because those are usually the only threads I'm interested in starting or posting to). So this space will probably be about a lot of indie rock and stupid pop culture stuff that every other lame blog is about.

This address was my first choice for this blog, but it's already being used by someone who only posted on it twice back in early 2002 about 'sentence structure and paragraph coherence'. I thought about e-mailing them and asking if they'd give it up, but the page is kind of amazing as it is just for the bizarre example paragraphs they use. I direct you to this excerpt:

The reader needs to understand that in the cockfighting arena more than just the cocks are fighting, but also the pride and emotions of the men are doing battle in the same arena. Balinese men see themselves through their cocks, the cocks playing the role of a real life metaphor. The metaphor is reflected in their language and their treatment of the animals. While most other animals are mistreated and resented by the Balinese, the cock is given respect. Not only does the Balinese man recognize his ideal self and his penis through the cock, but it also provides an outlet for his violent and aggressive tendencies.

OMG, WTF!!! So anyway, hopefully this will go well. I pretty much picked the worst possible time to give myself another online responsibility, in the middle of the semester, a lot of things going on in my personal life. But I probably won't be able to stop myself from posting. It just might be a while before I get links and stuff in order and decide on a permanent template (suggestions welcome).

Labels: Government Names, ILM, meta