Show me your teeth
My ears have barely stopped ringing from the Lady Gaga concert last week and my love for her is far from abating.
There is a new video out for Teeth from her Fame Monster album. I’m not, scratch that, wasn’t really into the whole Vampire thing until seeing this. Suddenly I’m a convert.
I don’t know if it’s the official video, as I don’t see it on her website. I do know that it’s directed by Sergio Ceron, whose website is intense and slightly disturbing.
Thanks Gaga for this video; I’m sure the woman in the office next to mine already hates the song seeing as that I ‘ve played 60 times today.
boom.
Oh Gaga, how I love thee
… Let me count the ways
I was fortunate enough–cause I’m a free bitch, baby–to attend the Lady Gaga concert on her Monster Ball tour last night at Radio City Music Hall. 
As you can see from my photos (taken poorly with my camera phone) our seats were deliciously close, about 8 rows from the stage and just 2 behind Donald Trump. I could not have been more impressed with the show. It lacked the some of the over-production of other pop singers, because Gaga can, well, actually sing. Sorry, Britney, Madonna, et al.
As a concert it was not dramatically overdone. It had the usual killer lighting design and occasional pyrotechnic –she shot us all with a gun that looked as if it were emitting a high powered sparkler. There was also plenty of filler with video clips ranging from Lady Gaga getting a tattoo, to a handsome man vomiting what looked like Listerine on her. I don’t know why it worked, but it did. Her dancers were stellar too, and costumed such that there was a beautiful androgyny to them. Best of all, they never overshadowed her, perhaps because she was wearing costumes like this. 
I appreciate her efforts to put on a somewhat smaller scale show, she could have easily sold out the much larger Madison Square Garden. Instead, she chose to risk exhaustion and perform 4 shows in a slightly more intimate venue. Perhaps I’ve been drinking the Monster Juice, but I truly believe that she loves her monsters, her fans.
And she wants us to love her too. “Take my picture,” Lady Gaga begged of her monsters. She was ever so briefly coquettish as she lay on the stage and likened herself to Tinkerbell, “I’ll die if you don’t clap for me.” We do! Good Gaga, we do love you!
The only omission from the show were the McQueen heels that I somehow manage to mention in just about every post I write. Speaking of heels, I wore mine.
Lady Gaga, I do want to be friends, I hope that’s okay.
Badder Romance
Continuing Youritlist’s ongoing Lady Gaga coverage, I’m happy to share more evidence of Gaga’s fabulousness.
A group of dedicated fans have made a hilarious parody of the singer’s excellent “Bad Romance video.” The production value leaves something to be desired, but Gaga herself approved the remake via Twitter, stating simply: Holy S**t. Enjoy below.
“From All The Jobs, The One I Chose Is Music”

I’ve always wanted to be an IT girl and now my dream is finally coming true in the form of being your go-to music gal on YourItList.com. [Does the running man in place.] I’ve been a part of the HarperCollins extended family for a couple years now, so think of me like the second cousin twice removed on your mom’s side who used to have a horrible bowl haircut when she was eight but finally shed the baby fat and stopped wearing stirrup pants. If you already have my books on your shelf, coffee table or nightstand, kudos!! Me love you long time!! If you don’t, it’s okay. I’ll dig deep and try to find it in my cold, black heart to forgive you—that is, if you mosey over to the book store immediately and add the following to your cart: Everybody Hurts: An Essential Guide To Emo Culture and Wish You Were Here: An Essential Guide To Your Favorite Scenes—From Punk To Indie And Everything In Between.
Whew… That was a close one.
Without further adieu, I’d like to present the first of many columns for YourItList.com. When some girls grow up, they dream of becoming a princess or a ballerina or even a celebutard. Not me. I dreamed about being British, which I realized was impossible at a very young age because I was born in Cleveland, Ohio. However, as the years passed, I never gave up on the fantasy of moving to England and living the Limey life, thanks to tunage from bands like The Big Pink, La Roux and The Wombats.
Now, if I could only find a bloke to make an honest bird out of me.
THE BIG PINK
Within the first 30 seconds of the song “Dominos,” I fell in love with The Big Pink. I was picking out china patterns, thinking about where we’d vacation on our honeymoon and wondering if I should change my name or not. In other words, I was completely smitten and knew that I needed to build a life with the band—comprised of multi-instrumentalists Robbie Furze and Milo Cordell—STAT. Their debut album A Brief History Of Love is the kind of electro-infused shoegazing rock that would make Ian Curtis and the Moz proud. In other words, it’s dreamy, brooding and beautifully British.

LA ROUX
Blur’s Damon Albarn said it best when he sang, “Girls who are boys who like boys to be girls who do boys like they’re girls who do girls like they’re boys, always should be someone you really love.” I’m not exactly sure what that means, but one listen to La Roux and I’m a little closer to understanding. Awesomely androgynous, singer Elly Jackson might look like your typical Camden bad-ass with a razor-sharp faux-hawk and the kind of glammed out wardrobe that would make Ziggy Stardust jealous, but once she opens her mouth, the Brixton native reveals herself to be pure pop. Roux la la!

THE WOMBATS
Not a day goes by that I don’t think about selling all of my belongings, buying a one-way ticket to Liverpool and following around The Wombats for the rest of my life—or until one of the dudes in the band gets a restraining order against me. (I imagine it would be kind of like going on Phish tour… minus the 23-minute vacuum solos and pesky parking-lot drum circles.) Although the trio is huge in England, they still skulk in the shadow of bigger Brit-pop imports like Arctic Monkeys and Bloc Party. That said, I’m hoping America stops kissing Alex Turner’s tush and dishes out some marsupial love when The Wombats release their sophomore album in 2010. In the meantime, “Let’s Dance To Joy Division,” shall we?

Wanna read more of my musings? Hoof it over to http://www.leslie-simon.com. Plus, you’re a wanker if you’re not following me (@redpatterndress) on Twitter. (Okay, you’re not really a wanker, but you are missing out on my bloody fantastic tweets.)
Pearls of Wisdom from Mr. Gene Simmons
We followed legendary KISS rocker Gene Simmons yesterday as he toured morning shows and book signings in NYC to promote his new book, KISS KOMPENDIUM (on-sale today). The experience was…entertaining, to say the least. Here’s what we learned from Gene about love, life, and being a very powerful and attractive man:
Gene does not smoke or drink. (Hear that folks? Straight edge is cool).
He does all his own makeup before shows, which takes him about 2 hours.
Gene was born in Israel and moved to the U.S. when he was 8. He also studied at a Yeshiva for a time before he started his music career.
His thoughts on that whole Tiger Woods situation: Women need to get a hobby. Why would a guy want to have sex with other women if he’s married? Because he can. Men are only driven by sex, period. Women need to stop obsessing about what he’s thinking and start worrying about their own lives.
Similarly: Girls grow up and mature, but men are always 12 year-old boys at heart.
On why he didn’t get inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but ABBA did: KISS has sold more than 80 million albums. You can’t beat that, no matter what some committee says.
The craziest thing a fan has ever done upon meeting him: Too dirty to print.
Comment below with your questions for the rocker !
On a steel horse (or train) I ride…
A few days ago we caught you up on all the goings on with Bon Jovi. And there’s more!
New Jersey Transit Commuters – be on the look out for the poster below on your trains through out the month of November. Take a photo of the barcode on the bottom left with your barcode enabled smart phone, sit back and enjoy some great content on the Bon Jovi mobile website. It will make your commute fly by.
Then take a photo of the poster and email it to YourItList@HarperCollins.com and we’ll send the first 10 people a free copy of Bon Jovi: When We Were Beautiful.
Deconstructing Glambert
The cover for Adam Lambert’s forthcoming album, For Your Entertainment, was just released.

I don’t know what I was expecting his album to look like, but I know I wasn’t expecting this. And honestly, I love it. It brought some big gay sunshine to an otherwise dreary mid-week.
Below are some inspirations that occurred to me right away. If you can think of any more, drop them in the comments!

- Madonna’s debut album

The Trapper Keeper

Jem and the Holograms

Lisa Frank
Going Gaga
Thanks to her knack for unique sartorial choices, we’re predicting that you’ll bump into more than a few Lady Gagas on the street this October 31. What Amy Winehouse and her beehive and shakily-applied mascara were to trick-or-treat ‘07, Gaga promises to be to oh-nine. If you’re looking for a last minute costume, check out this step-by-step video from Threadbanger (via MTV Buzzworthy Blog). Sadly, if you’re more inclined to do the muppet-poncho thing, you’re on your own.
Bon Jovi, it’s their life
Bon Jovi, America’s favorite band, has a busy fall coming up.
Their new single, “We Weren’t Born to Follow” is currently playing on every station. Their new studio album The Circle drops on November 10th, they just announced today a tour in early 2010 (including the first concert at the new Meadowlands in May), Showtime will air a behind-the-scenes documentary about the band on October 24th and on top of all of that the band has a book coming out November 3rd - Bon Jovi: When We Were Beautiful – which celebrates their 25th anniversary with never-before-seen photos and stories from Jon, Richie, David and Tico.
The book is available now to pre-order and you can get an exclusive, early SNEAK PEEK INSIDE THE BOOK before it goes on sale.
Check back with YourItList.com as we will be releasing more information about the book and the band over the next few weeks.
Spike’s Wild Playlist
Ever since I saw that first Where The Wild Things Are trailer featuring the Arcade Fire’s “Wake Up,” I knew this movie would be badass. It certainly wasn’t going to be a white-washed kids movie, and director Spike Jonze’s unique point of view showed through even in the first short clip.
In Heads on and We Shoot, the behind-the-scenes book, Spike includes a handwritten playlist of songs he played on the set to “get the cast and crew all in the same place and mood.” Check out the playlist below and then listen to some of the tunes; it’s not hard to imagine yourself on the set, playing dress-up with the big kids and filming one of the best “kids” movies ever.

The Arcade Fire: Wake Up & Rebellion (Lies)
The Smiths: Cemetry Gates
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah: The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth
Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Maps
The Langley Schools Music Project: God Only Knows
Elliott Smith: Say Yes
Palace Songs: Christmastime in the Mountains
Bonnie Prince Billy: I See a Darkness
Grandaddy: Underneath the Weeping Willow
Flaming Lips: Do You Realize??
Wyclef Jean’s Memoir To Be Published By It Books

NEW YORK, NY (October 19, 2009) – It Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, today announced plans to publish the memoir of Grammy Award-winning multi-platinum musician Wyclef Jean. Jean will be writing the memoir with bestselling author and Rolling Stone writer Anthony Bozza, who co-authored such books as Whatever You Say I Am with Eminem and Tommyland with Tommy Lee.
The book was acquired by Mauro DiPreta, Vice President and Associate Publisher for It Books, from Richard Abate at 3 Arts Entertainment.
The memoir will chronicle Wyclef’s childhood in the tiny rural village of La Serre in Haiti and his subsequent immigration to Brooklyn, NY, where at the age of 9 he began his journey into pop culture. He will recount his struggle between the double life he lead as a preacher’s son playing music in church with becoming a young rapper trying to fit in with his peers. The book will also document his monumental success as founding member of The Fugees and then his impressive solo career where he established himself as one of the most sought-after musicians, performers, songwriters, and producers of his generation. Wyclef’s work as a global philanthropist, especially in his native country through his work with Yéle Haiti which he founded in 2005, will be featured in the book. His philanthropic work has brought him worldwide attention for his tireless efforts to change the way the world sees Haiti.
“I am so happy to share my journey which took me from the hut to the projects to the mansion,” said Wyclef Jean. “I am just getting started and feel so excited about It Books publishing the early stories from my life.”
“Wyclef has an incredible story, filled with drama, humor and inspiration,” said DiPreta. “It is above all a very human story, not necessarily one of celebrity, and I’m happy to say that he is as gifted a storyteller as he is a musician.” Carrie Kania, Senior Vice President and Publisher of It Books, said, “As we continue to grow the new It Books list, Wyclef Jean is a perfect example of the kind of talent we love working with—a passionate, innovative artist whose book will transcend all expectations.”
To Follow Wyclef Jean please go to:
www.wyclef.com
www.Twitter.com/wyclef
www.facebook.com/Wyclef
www.yele.org
The World’s Fittest 60 Year Old
At the opening night of his farewell to Giants Stadium tour, Bruce Springsteen demonstrated his superior cardiovascular abilities with a three-hour set filled with sprints across the stages, leaps, splits, slides, and more. The Boss (of fitness) turned 60 last month and showed no signs of slowing down at last night’s show — in fact during this feat of physical fitness he grabbed a fan’s beer, and chugged. This makes me wonder… how does he do it? No other 60-year-olds I know could maintain that level of activity for so long. Has he found the fountain of youth? Or some new age macrobiotic diet?
Or perhaps that kind of energy and stamina comes from being worshipped by the entire state of New Jersey.
(show length: 3 hours, 13 min. Played: 29 songs)
Green Day sets a new stage on fire
I know I’m not the only Green Day fan who wishes he lived in San Francisco.
Ever since American Idiot first exploded in 2004 comparisons to The Who’s Tommy were endless. Rolling Stone’s review called the album an “old school rock opera” and there’s been continuous talk of bringing the album to the stage. And that time has finally come – almost 5 years to the day since the album came out - with the recent world premiere of American Idiot: The Rock Opera at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre.
National reviewers have not been invited to see the play, though the New York Times has a decent feature about the opening. The San Francisco Chronicle seems to have the most extensive review coverage of the play itself (as well as photos):
“Wildly entertaining…The music of Green Day practically blasts the lid off Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theatre. The cast and creative crew match the pulsating wall of sound for sheer energy and pump it up with Broadway-quality pipes, stage-rattling, thrashing choreography, flying bodies and walls crammed with pulsating video and projected images. Never has the Roda appeared more expansive yet bursting with images and action…The rock opera that opened Wednesday, in a world premiere with Broadway aspirations written all over it, packs plenty of excitement and entertainment into a remarkably theatrical rock concert…The lyrics are crystal clear as well. Every poetic twist and angry pun of Armstrong’s words comes through.”
One comment I’ve been reading about – which is something that I can see being an issue – is the flow of the narrative of the play seems to stall at times. The play follows the songs of the album, bringing in the songs’s charaters (St. Jimmy, Johnny, Whatshername, Jesus of Suburbia) to life. The problems lies in the fact that the entire play is only the lyrics from the album. No additional text has been added, no bridges to connect different scenes, no overarching narrative to connect the storylines.
That said, it still must be one helluva show. American Idiot has some of the most powerful music Green Day has ever written, mixed with director Michael Mayer and starring John Gallagher Jr. (both of whom just won Tony awards for Spring Awakening) an eventual Broadway debut seems likely.
At least that’s what I keep telling myself to keep me from booking my flight to San Francisco (the limited engagement has been extended to November 1st).
“Thrilling” tribute to Michael Jackson
Their clothing ripped and bloody, and their faces painted ghoulishly white, 500 Michael Jackson fans slowly rose from the ground and launched into the iconic “Thriller” dance as the music started with a howl.
Thus began the 51st birthday celebration for Michael Jackson in the UK this weekend. The goal for the dancing zombies and werewolfs was to break the current Guinness World Record of 242 for the most “Thriller” dancers in one place.
And this was no spontaneous celebration–the majority of dancers had been practicing the routine for two months through workshops and practicing at home with DVDS of the music video.
According to the Leicester Mercury newspaper, Guinness World Record officials are still reviewing footage of the event to confirm it as a world record, but either way–it was a “thrilling” tribute to MJ’s birthday!
See an awesome video of the event here.
The Killer Rocks On
Jerry Lee Lewis, recently back from touring Europe, has just put out his first single in twenty-three years—exclusively on the Internet. It’s the latest unlikely act in a six-decade career that amounts to a kind of master class in the perils of tempting fame and fate, even though Lewis’s moments of celebrity have been fleeting and died mostly at his own hand.
Like Elvis Presley, Lewis was a poor white Southerner who jump-started the music of other poor Southerners, black and white, and got famous doing it. Like Henry VIII, he married six times. Like Edgar Allan Poe, he chose his 13-year-old cousin as one of those wives. Like Johnny Cash, he began a battle with addiction in the 1960s that gave a halting, harrowing rhythm to much of his career. Like Jimmy Swaggart, his cousin, he paid public and private costs for following his temptations. Like Madonna, he projected a constantly shifting parade of faces: rockabilly wild man in the 1950s, smooth honky-tonker in the 1960s, incorrigible hellraiser in the 1970s, scandal-scarred near-casualty in the 1980s, tax exile in the 1990s. After Cash’s death he became the Last Man Standing, improbably surviving all of his major Sun stablemates; as he approaches his seventy-fourth birthday, he has only two peers, Chuck Berry, now eighty-two, and Little Richard, seventy-six.
Fifty years later, Lewis’s records “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” and “Great Balls of Fire” are still common touchstones, name- and hook-checked in TV commercials, headlines, and such. Yet the rest of his career has somehow failed to linger in the American mind. In the late 1960s he was one of country’s biggest stars, yet few seem to remember even his best songs, like “She Even Woke Me Up to Say Goodbye” and “Another Place, Another Time.” Fewer still know that Lewis once won rave reviews as Iago in a rock version of Othello, a role made for his brand of slyly sexual menace. And the 1989 biopic Great Balls of Fire reduced his persona to a goofy caricature—redeemed only by a soundtrack Lewis recorded himself “as if decades were minutes” (in Greil Marcus’s phrase).
That was twenty years ago, and since then Lewis has recorded only sporadically: a cut on the Dick Tracy soundtrack, an overlooked 1995 album called Young Blood, and in 2006 the “comeback” duets album Last Man Standing. But he has toured constantly, at some cost to his voice—which has sounded a bit strained in recent years—if not to his piano playing, which is the unappreciated glory of his career.
Among the first-generation rock and roll singers, most were amateur musicians; only Chuck Berry really revolutionized his instrument, and Elvis, Cash, and others mostly strummed rhythm. Lewis, in contrast, made the piano the centerpiece of his music. His hammered eighth-notes and glissandos are all part of the permanent lexicon, but his style grew only more complex, idiosyncratic, and inventive with time. Despite his reputation for showmanship, he never seemed desperate to please a crowd—he often slipped onstage almost unnoticed—and by the 1980s he seemed less interested in the audience than in entertaining himself with his hands. Toward the end of a frenzied, wired performance in Paris in 1981—shortly before a medical emergency nearly killed him—Lewis knelt before the keyboard, beatifically, and said, “This old piano’s my darling—I love her. My God, ain’t nothing like her. If I get married again, it’ll be to that right there.”
Which brings us to this new single, “Mean Old Man,” one of several songs by longtime friend Kris Kristofferson that Lewis has recorded for an upcoming album. It’s a fine production, clearly inspired by Rick Rubin’s work with Johnny Cash. And Lewis’s voice seems to be coming back, a little deeper and surer than on the duets album. Yet one thing is missing: that unmistakable piano background. In his entire career, Lewis has rarely sung without the piano beneath his fingers; it is hard to imagine him without it, any more than we can imagine B.B. King’s voice without Lucille’s tart counterpoint.
Kristofferson’s song, which echoes the shape and mood of Cash’s great late cut “Sam Hall,” begins in a comparably surly tone: “If I look like a mean old man,” Jerry scowls, “that’s what I am.” But then each new verse challenges the listener to look again: Do I look like a good old friend? Do I look like your Uncle Bob? Then, hauntingly:
If I look like a voodoo doll, that’s what I am
If I look like a voodoo doll, that’s what I am
If I look like a voodoo doll—take his lickin’ standing tall,
Rather fight you back than crawl—that’s what I am
And all of a sudden it makes sense: Piano or not, Jerry Lee Lewis is the old American trickster—testing, taunting, defying us to pin him down. Here he is, peacock and pariah, voodoo doll, the one who out-sang, out-played, out-drank, out-pilled, out-lived them all: the Singing Brakeman, the Steady Rollin’ Man, the Drifting Cowboy, the Hillbilly Cat, the Electric Gypsy, the Lizard King, the Man in Black—even, if you like, the Somehow King of Pop. There he is, the Killer, standing in his haze, chuckling in soft wonder.
Did he make a record with no piano? Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he did. Maybe he didn’t feel like playing piano that day. Or maybe his producer hinted that they might try doing without it—you know, something different—and Jerry stared through him and said: “Son, if you think I’m a goddam crooner, that’s what I am.” And then stepped up, cut a mean mother of a record, and slipped out the back door before you saw him leave.
Turn left at Highway 61. Revisit.

Apparently Bob Dylan, he of the impeccable diction, is in talks with a car company to be the voice of their GPS system (via Mirror UK). He revealed this tidbit during his BBC radio show last night, although it wouldn’t be the first time the wry singer/songwriter fibbed with a straight face.
If the deal falls through, there are a few back-ups I’d like to see the GPS folks persue. Liza Minnelli’s clear-headed, cogent voice would work perfectly. Or perhaps they could convince Mick Jagger to reprise his Keith Richards’ impersonation from that classic 1993 Weekend Update sketch.
If Dylan’s doing GPS voiceovers, who do you think should be next?
Are those crayons sustainably produced?

The recipe for gaining hipster cred is pretty simple. Mix one part “activity an old person or kid would do” (i.e. knitting, kickball) with one part DIY (i.e. taxidermy, cross stitch), and finish with a pinch of good deed (i.e. CSAs). By that measure, the Yellow Bird Indie Rock Coloring Book will be the biggest thing in scenster-ville since deep v-neck t-shirts. The folks at I Heart Daily turned us on to this stocking-stuffer for the asymmetrically-coiffed loved one in your life. The book not only contains Pitchfork-approved canvases like Devendra Banhart’s gnarly beard and “give Rilo Kiley their latest hairstyle” smiley faces for you to Crayola-scribble on, but a portion of the profits will go to Yellow Bird Project’s selected charities like the Teenage Cancer Trust and Art for Change. With this impeccable list of bona fides, hipsters will be drawn to this coloring book like its a secret Dead Weather apartment show above a Bushwick vegan bodega on the anniversary of Elliott Smith’s death.
Remembering Les Paul
RockHall.com
News came today of the death of Les Paul, one of the most revered guitarists in history and the father of the electric guitar.
Paul held the unusual honor of being the only person to be inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the National Inventors Hall of Fame, and the National Broadcasters Hall of Fame.
Most recently Paul wrote the foreward to the book Guitar Heaven: Most Famous Guitars to Electrify Our World, which is really an excellent piece and a look back at the instrument Paul brought into the modern age.
In 2008 Slash, Billy Gibbons and Richie Sambora honored Les Paul in this video tribute.
AC/DC: Angus, The Devil-Schoolboy
It is at first odd to see a grown man dressed up as a private schoolboy. Even odder, I suppose, to see other grown men emulating him in a sea of 60,000+ people. But this is Angus Young in concert, on stage at Giants Stadium on July 31st, and unless you had classmates in boarding school who could play the guitar until it turns into a gelatinous mass, then he must be the Anit-Schoolboy. Or Guitar God. Take your pick.
He appeared on stage with the trademark hat, jacket (green velvet?), tie and shorts after a lascivious little video about a runaway train that crashed into the stage (check out the setlist) . Brian Johnson is the lead singer, yes, and while he yowled and danced and marched up and down the cat walk, he had no problem ceding the stage to Angus, who before long had stripped down to his shorts (he wears AC/DC boxers, if you’re wondering). It was Angus whose hair was matted, drenched in sweat, saliva sometimes running out of his mouth, Angus who at one point disappeared into this structure on the floor of Giants Stadium, only to rise up on a platform as he played a raging solo bathed in spotlights. As he collapsed and fell into his trademark seizure mode, confetti blasted out of air cannons. A wild scene.
He was transported, and there was joy there, but you couldn’t help but feel that he was in agony, too, as if he were trying to wring more music out of that Gibson than it was capable of giving. After what–four decades?–of playing, does he sometimes feel that he and his instrument hit a wall? Or is it that he’s channeling the thing that all great artists do? I don’t know. But Brian, not the most talkative guy on stage, did say, “There’s the devil in his fingers.” There may be an answer there.

Lurking in the lights and confetti is Angus.

Angus possessed.

Angus in uniform.
All Points Wet
It was a rainy, soggy, muddy mess and yes, I spent most of the day wearing a black garbage bag with my head poked out of the top, but ALL POINTS WEST rocked thanks to bands Vampire Weekend and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
All Points West was held in the gorgeous (and wet) New Jersey’s Liberty State Park overlooking the Manhattan skyline and Statue of Liberty. It’s an amazing feeling to be holding a plastic cup of Bud Light and listening to your fav band with Lady Liberty looking over your shoulder.
The day’s surprise: The National played the main stage early in the day, and the indie rockers stopped me in my tracks on the way to the beer tent (which is no small feat)! I predict good things from them in the future.
Though Vampire Weekend was the first band to break the spell of the rain and get crowds rowdy! They were lively and upbeat, singing crowd favs like “Mansard Roof” and “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa.”
As the mud turned into a giant, sloshy mosh pit, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs took the stage, bringing with them a giant inflatable eye ball for the crowd to bat around during their set. And Karen O is nothing if not a showman! She was all over the stage, wearing a crazy head covering, and deep throating her signature pink mic while gyrating to songs like “Date with the Night” and “Y Control.”
And then I witnessed festival history. Jay-Z made his festival debut, filling in for the Beastie Boys. He started with a cover of the Beastie Boys’ classic “No Sleep Till Brooklyn” which rocked! I never thought I’d say that about Jay-Z… I was covered in mud and out of money for beer. I certainly had 99 problems, but Jay-Z wasn’t one.
The public passion of Justin Timberlake
I’ve always been oddly interested in celebrities’s hobbies that have nothing to do with what they are well known for doing. Case in point: Justin Timberlake and golf.
Timberlake once said the greatest achievement of his life was appearing on the cover of Golf Digest. Really. That, to me, is remarkable. The guy has achieved a lot. A LOT. So for him to be so passionate about something so far from what he is known for, you gotta respect that commitment.
And golf is hard. I’ve never been able to get the ball through the blades of the windmill, let alone have the dedication to achieve a 6 handicap in between recording sessions, multi-platnum albums, movie roles and the occassional Saturday Night Live appearances.
This past weekend a dream of JT’s was finally realized when he opened Mirimichi, an eco-friendly golf course outside Memphis. And this is not a case where a celebrity puts his name on something and has little to do with it.
JT has rumoredly spent millions of dollars himself to bring the course to fruition. And this is not the upper-class, private, members-only club. Its a public course whose fees are far below what they could be considering the beauty and quality of the course.
In addition to the course, Mirimich is “designed to be a community gathering spot, a beacon for environmental stewardship, an incubator for new golfers and even the headquarters for the singer’s enterprises,” according to the Memphis Commercial-Appeal.
Mirimichi is getting great reviews and attention – and not just from JT’s fans who have his name entered into Google alert and will post comments anywhere he’s mentioned, but from the old guard golf world. A tough world to break into. But the design of the greens, the signifigance of its launch at a time when more people are playing golf on a Wii than on a course and the detailed involvement of the man who dreamed the idea originally.
Hear from JT himself in this exclusive interview posted on his website.





























