Welcome back to The SMonday Swindle Sheet.
Last weekend I was at one of Chicago’s more famous nightclubs. I’m not going to say which one, because it’s pretty deplorable that I was there in the first place. In any case, my girlfriend and I got to discussing how club techno has more or less been wiped out and replaced by crappy rap and rap-related music (emphasis on “crappy”—Yung Joc, Chamillionaire, Sean Paul, etc). Remember the late ’90s/early ’00s? Seems like there were always a few new dance tracks coming out every week. Then again, looking back on it, songs like “Castles in the Sky”, “Kernkraft 400”, “Do It Again”, “Sandstorm”, “Better Off Alone” and that terrible trance cover of “Heaven” were just horrendous (the names may not ring a bell, but if you went to a club anytime between 1997 and 2003, chances are you’ve heard them), and it appears as if the industry was much more conerned with quality over quantity. Moreover, anyone who refers to that as house should be smacked in the face—especially you people from Chicago. You should f*cking know better.
The aforementioned songs are most commonly referred to as “progressive house” or “progressive trance”, while they are loosely trance, they are neither progressive nor house… they are some form of bastardized, watered down, rote and uninspired trance that should have never seen the light of day, and anyone responsible for anything from that genre should be barred from doing anything else musically related.
So, would I rather have crappy rap or crappy trance? I don’t believe that I should be required to answer that question, because it’s like choosing between being hit by car and being thrown off of a building. This is why I hate clubs.
OPENING SHOT…
BLURBS OF THE WEEK
The Britney Spears meltdown continued this past week, as the singer was checked back in to the Promise rehab center in Malibu, Calif., but not before she attacked a vehicle with an umbrella. She was being driven to Malibu by an unidentified friend, and when the friend stopped at a gas station for a moment, the paparazzi, who had been following the car, used the opportunity to snap photos of her while she sat in the front seat. After the driver returned, and as the car was pulling away, it suddenly stopped; Spears got out of the car, wielding an umbrella, and struck the outside of the photographers’ SUV with it, causing some chips and scratches. She then dropped some f-bombs before getting back in the car and leaving. The entire incident was caught on tape, natch. Meanwhile, estranged hubby Kevin Federline is acting all responsible, and trying to get an emergency hearing giving him full custody of the couple’s two sons. Who’da thunk it?
In the latest in a series of legal woes, Busta Rhymes was pulled over by New York police after blowing a red light last Thursday. The officer who stopped him then realized that the rapper was driving on a suspended license, and arrested him. Rhymes was taken to local precinct, where he was booked and then had to wait almost 19 hours before receiving a hearing, after which time he posted bail and was released. The charge could carry a sentence of 15 days in prison. Even if he doesn’t have to serve time for the suspended license, he could also be looking at prison time in an unrelated assault charge if he doesn’t accept a plea deal, which would have him perform community service.
Noel Gallagher of Oasis lashed out against some of his fellow British Isles-based artists last week, in an interview with The Daily Telegraph. The outspoken and oft-intoxicated singer said that U2 should knock off all of the self-aggrandizing philanthropic work, “Play ‘One’ [and] shut the f*ck up about Africa.” He then turned his attention to Radiohead singer Thom Yorke, who also released a solo record last year. “Thom Yorke sat at a piano singing, ‘This is f*cked up,’ for half an hour. We all know that, Mr. Yorke. Who wants to sing the news? No matter how much you sit there twiddling, going, ‘We’re all doomed,’ at the end of the day, people will always want to hear you play ‘Creep.’ Get over it. … I never went to f*cking university. I don’t know what a paintbrush is; I never went to art school.” Yorke later responded by saying, “I did. It taught me to respect other artists.” ZZZIMA!
Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz was worried that pictures of his wang that he took on his Sidekick would cause the band to be taken less seriously by fans, but chances are the 14-year-old girls won’t really mind. “The first 48 hours I just like quit my band and wouldn’t talk to anybody,” says Wentz of Sidekickgate. “It’s like a footnote now, like how Michael Jackson set his hair on fire in a Pepsi commercial.” Um, no, it’s not. He didn’t set his dick on fire, though he probably should have, since he’s had that thing inside of Lindsay Lohan. Ranchers in rural Idaho (isn’t it all, though?) have taken to leaving out poison meatballs for wolves that have been killing their livestock. While this has nothing to do with the Pete Wentz story, or music at all, somebody should get him and his buddies some of those meatballs.
Former Vice President Al Gore has teamed up with Live 8 producer Kevin Wall to create a seven-continent concert on July 7 to help raise awareness for global warming. Gore announced last Thursday, through his Save Our Selves campaign, that “Live Earth” would take place over the course of 24 hours, and would be broadcast live on satellite radio, television, and a stream on MSN.com. Artists already confirmed for the event include Foo Fighters, Duran Duran, Snoop Dogg (featuring Pharrell), Bon Jovi, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Lenny Kravitz, Sheryl Crow, Black Eyed Peas, Faith Hill, Tim McGraw, Korn, John Mayer, Melissa Etheridge, Fall Out Boy, Akon, Snow Patrol, Enrique Iglesias, Robin Thicke, John Legend, Kelly Clarkson, Maná, Corrine Bailey Rae and Keane, with many more promised. The bands will be split up among venues in London, England; Shanghai, China; Kyoto, Japan; Sydney, Australia; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Johannesburg, South Africa; and a U.S. city to be determined. Additionally, Gore added that Save Our Selves is even planning to set up a performance in Antarctica, which would be the continent’s first concert. It doesn’t even have any permanent residents—just a few thousand research workers—and it’s getting a show. Let’s hope that Fall Out Boy is one of the bands that gets selected for that particular location, and they get left there. That’s if the poisonous meatballs don’t work out.
Toadies will reunite again this year to play a couple of dates at this year’s South By Southwest festival, on March 12 and 13 in Austin, Texas, and will then play in Houston and Dallas on March 14 and March 17, respectively.
My Morning Jacket will be doing something next month that nobody will probably care about, so I’m not going to mention it here.
Dr. Dre‘s upcoming album, Detox, may have been pushed back several times over the past few years, but it’s not going to take until 2025, like some other democratic Chinese-related albums. He told a deejay on Los Angeles’ Power 106 station last week that the album would indeed be out this year, and would feature Rakim, as well as some other guys who wish they were Rakim.
Ethan Willoughby, who was nominated for a Grammy for his sound engineering work on Justin Timberlake‘s FutureSex/LoveSounds, was killed last Sunday in an automobile accident. This is just the latest in a series of events being touted as the FutureSex/LoveSounds Curse, as Timbaland fell down in the shower last Monday, Timberlake himself got a really bad paper cut earlier in the month and Scarlett Johansson had terrible flatulence yesterday. I’d still do her, though.
Kiss guitarist/singer Ace Frehley put out a press release last Friday disproving rumors that he had committed suicide. “I don’t know how this ridiculous rumor got started,” he said in the statement. “Though it may have had something to do with those poisonous meatballs that I purchased the other day at the local Costco. Look, they weren’t for me…”
3,000 young people from Los Angeles and the surrounding area who have volunteered for community service over the past year will be treated to the annual Boost Mobile RockCorps concert on March 30, which will feature performances by Korn, The Game, Young Jeezy, Rise Against and (+44). No word yet on if Busta Rhymes will be there or not.
Tool and Van Halen have both been forced to postpone their respective tours. While Tool will need to let drummer Danny Carey recover from a torn biceps muscles, they are confident that Carey will be healthy enough for them to honor their appearance at June’s Bonnaroo festival. Van Halen tickets were supposed to go on sale this past weekend, but did not end up going on sale, as a source close to the band said that it “was not due to any internal strife.” In other words, David Lee Roth was being a boner.
Cheers
-JF2k7!
