Gone Relaxin'

I'm off for my annual sabbatical on the beach in Nicaragua.

See you in a week!

PETEWATCH 2007: Even the Pets Need Rehab

New slang alert! "Cat chow" is the U.K.'s newest street slang for cocaine.

Fresh off Pete Doherty's latest arrest for--you guessed it--drugs, today it was revealed that yet another member of the Babyshambles frontman's entourage is in trouble with controlled substances. Looks like Dinger the Cat is hitting the Bolivian marching Powder as well. (See a photo of all the offenders HERE.)

In honor of the batshit insanity that is Petewatch, *bitter defeat* brings you...

**Dinger the Cat's Coke Party MP3 Megamix!**Babyshambles - "Arebours"
The Coke Dares - "Rocking All the Time"
The Moldy Peaches - "Who's Got the Crack"
Ratatat - "Wildcat"
The Cure - "Lovecats"
Paul Anka - "Lovecats"
Cub - "Hello Kitty"

They Simpsonized Me...

...and all I got was someone else's face.

Still, despite the bugs, delays, frequent file failures, unreasonable image-size demands, and egregious cross-promotional Burger King shilling, it's nice to have a Simpsons version of yourself that looks nothing like you. Right?

Don't Fear the Reaper...Unless You're Famous and in Your Eighties

Not a great month to be a revered elder statesman of entertainment, is it?

This morning's announcement that legendary jazz drummer Max Roach had passed away comes fast on the heels of two other music-world departures. Tony Wilson, cofounder of Factory Records and former Granada TV host of And So It Goes, died of a heart attack last Friday after a year-long battle with kidney cancer. The man behind Joy Division, Durutti Column, A Certain Ratio, and The Happy Mondays, Tony was nothing short of a postpunk demigod. Wilson died as he lived: in Manchester. (If you haven't seen Michael Winterbottom's amazing Wilson biopic 24 Hour Party People, please do so immediately.) A mere week before, maverick/genius/svengali producer Lee Hazelwood also succumbed to a long battle with renal cancer. The man behind "Some Velvet Morning," "These Boots Are Made for Walking," and countless others, passed away in Henderson, Nevada.

As you are undoubtedly aware, two of world cinema's leading lights also kicked the bucket recently: Michelangelo Antonioni and Ingmar Bergman called it a wrap on July 30 and 31, respectively. (Read Woody Allen's great New York Times memorial piece on Bergman before they make you pay for it.) Add to that the recent passing of TV impresario Merv Griffin (who apparently died a closeted homosexual... who knew?) and Yankee great Phil Rizzuto, and we're already looking at one hell of a year-end video montage of dead celebrities.

(Full disclosure: I'm not proud of it, but this month has put me ahead in my 2007 dead pool. I had Bergman and Brooke Astor on the list.)

In honor of these fallen heroes, the management presents a solemn selection of MP3s:

Max Roach - "Freedom Day"
Lee Hazelwood & Nancy Sinatra - "Some Velvet Morning"
Nine Inch Nails - "Dead Souls" (Joy Division cover)
Belle & Sebastian - "Don't Fear the Reaper" (Live Deep Purple cover)
Slayer - "Angel of Death"
Magnetic Fields - "Epitaph for My Heart"
Gary Numan & Tubeway Army - "Every Day I Die"
The Meters - "Rigor Mortis"
Real Life - "Send Me an Angel"
Europe - "The Final Countdown"

Studies in Procrastination: LOLLAPALOOZA 2007 RECAP, Part Two

DAY THREE, SATURDAY, AUG. 4

Ah the glory of the Lollapalooza three-day bracelet! You can come and go as you please all weekend. After a lovely (okay, very overcast) day at Oak Street Beach, we arrived at Lollapalooza... in order to get some lunch. While we enjoyed our delicious tamales and pot stickers, we managed to catch a couple songs by the biggest WTF act at the entire festival: Silverchair. Oh come on... we were just curious. And our curiosity was punished harshly with bad music and lead-singer nipple rings. Upon hearing a double-secret probation rumor that Eddie Vedder was about to play an acoustic set at the kiddie stage, we headed over just in time to catch My Morning Jacket's Jim James pluckin' a banjo and singing "The Chipmunks Christmas Song" and "The Rainbow Connection." The Eddie rumor didn't pan out, so we headed back for a shower.

We rushed back in order to catch CSS, only to find a pants-pissingly elated Matt & Kim playing instead. Apparently CSS never made it out of JFK airport. So Matt & Kim proceeded to drunkenly rock the hell out, with big shit-eating grins on their faces the whole time. The levity must have been contagious, because over at the main stage Karen O and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs could barely make it through a song without laughing their asses off. It was like they had just discovered how hilarious all of their lyrics were. As a light rain began to fall, Spoon took the stage, opening with "My Mathematical Mind" and making me a hard-core Spoon fan for life. It was one of those eye-opening, "how did I not realize how good these guys are?" moments. We barely noticed the increasing downpour.

As the rain abated, we headed over to catch the final act of the night: Interpol. An unhealthily obsessed Kim (this was her twelfth Interpol show!!) was nearly beside herself with anticipation... and it was well deserved. I've had mixed feelings about past Interpol gigs, but this time was a complete blast. Good vibes and devout dedication to the band prevailed, and all worshiped at the altar of Carlos D's moustache. When, during "Not Even Jail" (their best goddamn song!), some douchewad in front of us put his girlfriend up on his shoulders, we responded calmly and appropriately: I threw cups and bottles at her until she got down. Then I high-fived everyone within reach. Flying high after the show, we returned to Flash Taco and the Rainbo Club, where we proceeded to get hammered.

DAY FOUR, SUNDAY, AUG. 5

The final day of the festival made the following things abundantly clear:

a) Three days might be pushing it, as festivals go.
b) Mud + heat + jungle-like humidity + tens of thousands of people = not so great.
c) While I still have a soft spot for Pearl Jam's first few albums, Pearl Jam fans are a drag.

Woke up early in order to catch White Rabbits at 11:30 a.m. The band was even more hung over than we were. Nonetheless, they put on a fantastic show. The sound was impeccable, vocals were amazing, and a new song called "Sea of Rum" rocked our world. The Postmarks took the prize for Biggest Disappointment... bad vocals, frumpy band, zero fun. So we caught the latter half of local band 1900s. New discovery! They kicked ass. Despite their Indie It-Band buzz (and a great debut EP), Los Campesinos! suffered from irritating vocals, so we basically just floated around waiting for Iggy and The Stooges, whose 2004 performance at Little Steven's Underground Garage Festival is still my all-time favorite live show. Only one problem... while the Wizard of Ig was up to his usual jaw-dropping antics, the crowd gave new meaning to the term "bad vibes." It was like 10,000 dudes who like to fight, stuck in 95-degree heat, fueled on beer, and plopped in front of one of the planet's most gifted provocateurs. Anyway, the set was great and the trademark rush onto the stage offered some choice mayhem.

After all that menace, Yo La Tengo was like magical balm for the soul; a much-needed dose of fluffy kittens. For example, when I uttered the words "I just want to hear 'Tom Courtenay'" they immediately launched into "Tom Courtenay." The festival gods had taken pity on us at last. Exhaustion was finally setting in by the time My Morning Jacket took the stage, but their set was perfectly tuned to our convalescing minds and bodies. In addition to the cute little moppets in the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra, who acted as backing band throughout, a spot-on cover of Curtis Mayfield's "Move on Up" cheered us greatly.

And then TV on the Radio rocked our faces right the hell off. As Kim kept pointing out, everyone in the band is just so...cool. "Wolf Like Me" had the entire crowd jumping, and a chorus of "one more song" went up when their criminally short 45-minute set ended. But alas, the Pearl Jam juggernaut could not be denied.

The less said about the contemporary Pearl Jam fanatic, the better. [*cough*FRATBOYS!*cough*] I will say that I was quite the fan myself, from 1991 until about 1993. This was, in fact, my fourth Pearl Jam experience. It will very likely be my last. Don't get me wrong, they sounded great and Eddie Vedder's politics are pretty much in line with my own, so even his soapboxing was tolerable. It's just that every time they played a song from later than 1993 I completely tuned them out. Even the fireworks display (yes, an actual fireworks display) seemed like it was happening in the next town over. So we did what we do best: we left early and hit the bar in our hotel. And that was one of the best decisions we made all weekend.

To sum up:

PROS: Uniformly good sound; friendly volunteers; ins-and-outs; affordable and delicious food; great lineup
CONS Way too many douchebags, especially on Sunday; three days is rough; Slightly Stoopid

MATT & KIM

YEAH YEAH YEAHS
WHITE RABBITS

1900s

LOS CAMPESINOS!
IGGY AND THE STOOGES

YO LA TENGO
THE NEXT DAY...
AND OF COURSE...THE REAL ROCK STARS. SEE YOU NEXT YEAR, CHICAGO!

Studies in Procrastination: LOLLAPALOOZA 2007 RECAP... One Week Later

Next year I'm bringing the laptop to Chicago. Let's face it, the fluorescent lights and conditioned air of cubicle land is not the most inspiring setting for a post-vacation music festival recap. It is, however, the ideal setting for ritual suicide. And so it is with great force of will that I finally get around to...

Jason and Kim at LOLLAPALOOZA 2007, or "Three Days of Ugly Sandals."

DAY ONE, THURSDAY, AUGUST 2

Our Chicago adventure begins with a train ride to historic Wrigley Field for a Chicago Cubs v. Philadelphia Phillies day game. The Cubbies manage to give up the game, but a day of hot dogs with poppyseed buns and draft Old Style more than makes up for the final score. After some late-afternoon refreshment, we eventually make our way to Wicker Park and Bucktown for the soon-to-be-standard one-two punch of Flash Taco and the Rainbo Club. $2 PBR drafts, a beanbag-toss video game, and a great photo booth were among the Rainbo's many charms. (Interesting trivia: apparently the photo booth shots on Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville album were taken right here.) And as we are leaving, who should show up but James Murphy and drummer Pat Mahoney of LCD Soundsystem! This proved to be something of a sign.

DAY TWO, FRIDAY, AUGUST 3

We arrive at the MySpace stage (by far the best-sounding stage at the festival) a few minutes before Ted Leo & The Pharmacists take the stage, and the tone is set for the rest of the day. The sound is impeccable and the band's set is blistering fun from start to finish. Señor Leo is dancing so hard he takes a nasty fall and opens up an impressive gash. As he puts it, it's not one of their shows unless he gets hurt. (Mr. Leo and company wowed us again at yesterday's McCarren Pool show in Brooklyn... with The Thermals!!) We then split up (the only time we will do so the whole time) so Kim can catch Viva Voce while I run to catch The Polyphonic Spree. The first half of their set is good, but the second half provides my number one favorite moment of the fest: The Spree abandon the black jumpsuits for the encore, marching through the crowd in their trademark white robes and then leading a massive sing-along of Nirvana's "Lithium." The crowd goes completely batshit.

After catching a few Sparklehorse songs, we settle into some delicious vittles (the food was insanely good) on a nice patch of grass. Unfortunately, we are sitting nearest the musical stylings of Slightly Stoopid, a profoundly embarassing douchebag band in the Sublime/311 mold. Their name is a bit of a misnomer, as the band should be called Completely Fucking Moronic. Lowlight of the fest: "This next song is called 'Open Up that Pussy and Get that Shit Wet!'" I swear to god this happened. The ensuing exodus of women from the surrounding area was a thing to behold. Luckily Silversun Pickups quickly restored our faith in humanity with a typically solid set. Frontman Brian Aubert gives some of the best stage banter I've seen. Blonde Redhead's ethereal drone, which is completely engrossing in a dark club, proves ill-suited to the outdoors... it's a snooze, basically. But they do sound fantastic.

While we jockey for perfect position at the LCD Soundsystem stage, Perry Farrel's Satellite Party take the mainstage and proceed to stomp through several Jane's Addiction hits (including opener "Stop!") and even the PfP hit "Pets." Sigh. Without Dave Navarro, it's just not the same. Finally LCD Soundsystem goes on... and they proceed to play The Set of the Festival. The band has gotten so tight it's almost hard to fathom. Also, the sight of James Murphy belting out "Daft Punk Is Playing at My House" while facing the stage where Daft Punk is setting up? Priceless. Finally the five-note alien music from Close Encounters of the Third Kind signals the beginning of Daft Punk's eyeball-melting multimedia holy-shit-fest. The sound is too low and the show doesn't hold a candle to their Coachella 2006 performance (or their show at Keyspan Park this past Thursday), but it still blows the minds of many of the uninitiated.

TED LEO & THE PHARMACISTS

VIVA VOCE
SILVERSUN PICKUPS
LCD SOUNDSYSTEM

Coming tomorrow... DAYS THREE AND FOUR. Stay Tuned!

This Headline Practically Writes Itself

At a recent screening of The Simpsons Movie we were forced to sit through the most excruciating slate of previews in history. Apparently Simpsons fans are the target demographic for soul-destroying garbage like Daddy Day Camp, Fred Claus, Horton Hears a Who, Bee Movie, and Jason Lee's career-destroying one-two punch of Underdog and Alvin and the Chipmunks.

Now there are many questions raised by this roughly twelve minutes in hell. For example: How have we so offended almighty God that he alloweth Cuba Gooding Jr. to keep making movies? Is Vince Vaughan really that desperate for cash? Why does Jim Carrey insist on raping the cherished legacy Dr. Seuss? Can the horrible irony of previewing these movies before The Simpsons actually drive a person mad?

But the big question is this: Did I dream the whole thing, or does the Alvin and the Chipmunks preview center upon Alvin eating his brother's shit?

Having apparently lost their edge, fart jokes have been replaced by the next big thing in pre-adolescent hilarity: feces eating. God bless America.