I’ve been to countless press conferences and red-carpet events over the years. I’ve been in the same room as many a famous person and been swarmed by hungry reporters and shutterbugs clamoring for a piece of some beloved Hollywood treasure. But I must confess that, as a member of the media, I’d never quite encountered a scene like the press room in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York, mere yards away from the ballroom in which the 2008 Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame Induction Ceremony was being held. At various points in the night, I was a basketball center’s arm’s length away from Madonna, Justin Timberlake, Tom Hanks, Leonard Cohen, Patti Labelle, Damien Rice, Michael J. Fox (??), and most importantly of course, Chevy Chase, among others. But with the exception of genuine speechlessness at the crystalline sight of Madge and J-Timb, my preoccupation was mostly of the meta variety, my focus constantly on the surreal, adolescent misbehavior of celebrity photographers and reporters. The latter primarily tossed out their arsenal of hackneyed questions for accomodating legends (inductees Cohen, Madonna, the Ventures, the Dave Clark Five, John Mellencamp, Little Walter and Gamble & Huff all came by the press area at some point in the evening) so they could get a harmless soundbite for some dot-com gossip roundup or tabloid daily blurb in small print beneath photos of the evening’s fashion. Meanwhile, hovering in and around them, a throng of belligerent men with giant tripods and Transformers-esque digital cameras virtually trampled each other like Pamplona bulls, barking their posing and preening instructions to shockingly complicit subjects (though clearly they’ve long since reconciled this being part of the game) while being chastised to behave themselves.

The show itself was incidental, a select few hovering over video feeds amidst the madness to actually report on something other than the surface sentimentalizing of the evening’s icons and what Ed Burns thought about Patrick Swayze’s pancreatic cancer. And for the most part, when the show was broadcast between celeb appearances via flat-screen TVs, the cynical media masses were more concerned with who could win the class clown award for most smarmy remark toward the television than the worth of the performances or the resonance of someone like Lou Reed nervously reciting Leonard Cohen lyrics. At the risk of alienating myself from some of my peers, there seems to be a real culture of viciousness that prevails behind the scenes at these events. The rank-and-file of celebrity-driven media, who spend half their week chasing a moment of some untouchable actor or musician’s time, get their rocks off and exorcise their subservience-driven insecurity and inferiority complex by lashing out at their prey with cruelty and harassment. It’s a perversely unhealthy relationship strangely (and fittingly, in light of the high school home room atmosphere) reminiscent of a teenage boy’s antagonism towards a girl they like and lust after but can never really have, or a self-conscious bully who makes friendships with people they secretly envy in order to treat that person like dirt to elevate their esteem.

All that being said, while the Rock Hall is no doubt partly culpable in enabling the media’s artificial exaltation of its icons, the show itself still managed to move and thrill by sheer virtue of the character and legacy of its participants. Madonna, in particular, provided the finest inductee speech, spanning the gamut from candid reflection on the sex and drugs that circled around her early days to thoughtful, humble philosophical insight into how she’s reconciled her own massive celebrity and influence. Tossing in a couple of good “fucks” didn’t hurt in reminding people that, tuxedos and statuettes aside, this event does, theoretically, commemorate the wrecklessness of rock’s spirit. In fact, after Iggy And The Stooges unleashed two shambolic Material Girl covers, it was clear that, despite being the one purely pop inductee, Madonna had the firmest grip on what being rock ‘n’ roll was all about.

In pleasant contrast, Cohen was a class act, articulating the strange arc of his life and career through spoken-word poetry and entertaining the crowd with elegant humor. And while Damien Rice’s “Hallelujah” doesn’t hold a candle to either the original or Jeff Buckley’s rendition, it was a welcome transfixing musical interlude.

And oh, Gamble & Huff get the “it would have been super-obvious had it come from anyone but you” award for making the first Eliot Spitzer crack, noting the convenient timing of the New York Governor’s sex scandal in light of the pair being honored for crafting R&B classics like “Mrs. Jones,” which was about a mysterious mistress.

So rest assured, as many of you likely know, viewers on TV got a show that may have omitted some worthy candidates and less-than-ideally covered its entrants’ lifetimes, but was ultimately pretty gratifying and engaging. And I would elaborate in greater length on the tributes to the Ventures, Dave Clark Five, etc., but I was lucky to catch the aforementioned moments in their breadth, and, frankly, I’d have trouble arguing for the critical merit of Mellencamp. Suffice to say though, the culture of celebrity worship is slightly more repugnant when viewed in the act of it being captured for the masses. I think next year I’ll be parked on my couch like the rest of you so I can experience the event for its inherent and historical virtues. That is, as opposed to the slightly depressing scene of grown adults falling all over each other for that one shot or canned response when not masking their unquenchable resentment for being barred from wining and dining with the elite by giving caustic color commentary throughout the proceedings.

Disclaimer: I’m a bit put off by already being made to feel like I should be getting behind Barack Obama with all my youthful (OK, almost-30-something) energy if I’m to prove my liberal conscience. Early into the election year, it’s already become one of those things where the arbiters of hip left-wing activism have decided the virtuous candidate for young America before they’re necessarily really ready to decide for themselves. Frankly, it can ring rather hollow to me and a bit preemptive; peer pressure masquerading as activism.
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My So-Called Life: The Complete Series (W/Book)
(Shout! Factory)

Between Beverly Hills 90210 and Freaks And Geeks, a show emerged that should have been the antidote to the former and was the blueprint for the latter (though they would both share similarly doomed fates). The existence of My So-Called Life feels like a dream within a nightmare, a passing moment of meaningfulness amidst pop culture’s misguided early attempts to honestly capture adolescence. There’s a stinging irony that the drama’s resonance was cemented by MTV––thanks to their airing of it in syndication––the network that would soon nurture and feed off its demographics’ most superficial instincts. But I suppose credit is due where credit is due. That said, let’s at least share the wealth of exaltation with Shout! Factory, who realized MSCL wasn’t just a fleetingly relevant reflection of Generation Angst, but is a timeless, eloquent portrait of the hardest years of our lives. If the final minutes of the show’s pilot don’t induce the salty stuff, touching essays by creator/writer Winnie Holzman, Buffy creator Joss Whedon and Janeane Garofalo may just bring you to tears of nostalgia, frustration and the ever-rare experience of emotional solidarity with people you don’t personally know.

Of course, the most remarkable thing about MSCL––as Holzman herself confesses––is Claire Danes’ engorging of the character of Angela. It’s not remotely difficult, as a man, to vicariously empathize and ride along with her ups and downs. Virtually every central protagonist in television history, especially when dealing with teens, has been male. It’s only fair that, for once, our experience isn’t immediately parallel, but has to be viewed both intimately and with a frustrating detachment, a gap closed to large degree by Danes’ powerful portrayal. As fiercely female as Angela is, there is almost something unisex about the way Danes plunges into Holzman’s scripts and carves out a character that represents high school survival in all its deepest nuance. At times, said scripts––and the situations the characters are put in––veer on the outdated and contrived, but it is Danes and her costars who retrieve MSCL from moments of unintentionally comical disaster. They treat the material with ultimate respect and elevate it beyond its occasionally formulaic borders. But when the show deviates from then-established norms, that is when it still simply explodes with poignancy, pain, passion, humor and insight. That’s when it bleeds the very blood of a teenage heart. And by focusing with equal care on the lives of parents and adults around them (a decision whose influence can be seen not just in dramadies like Freaks, but in sitcoms like That ’70s Show), the show zeros in on something essential and unflinching about being human, and the choices we make that can allow us to either evolve and be happy, or simply remain an unwilling participant in a life that happens to us, not because of us. It is, by its very title, an existentialist poem written through the diary-like voice of an insecure teenage girl.

New to this collector’s set is a somewhat indulgent but interesting chat between Holzman and Danes filmed this year. It’s a bit jarring to reconcile the toned, buff, blonde Danes of today with the red-dyed, flannel-wearing adolescent you’d just spied upon for 19 hours. And the reminder of her contemporary celebrity is at definite odds with the unassumingness that made Angela so endearing. You might want to give yourself a couple of days to let the series’ brutal cliffhanger settle in before skipping straight to the extras. –Kenny Herzog

If you don’t like good looking guys with eyeliner who churn out arena-ready riffs and hellacious hooks, and tend to induce lithe blond woman into catatonic swaying as they sip their gin and tonics, then Luna Halo’s not for you… Fortunately, I’m not one of those people. And neither is Chelsea Clinton apparently, as she was at Fontana’s Thursday night (ditto for ex-Shudder To Think frontman Craig Wedren and who knows who else). If there’s one band at the Marathon for whom I can confidently say, “I will never see them at a venue that size again,” it would be the Rick Rubin-signed Nashville quintet, whose self-titled debut drops next week. Not that unfamiliarity with the songs stopped a wildly diverse and wholly engorged crowd from going total apeshit bananas as they burned through the majority of the record (not to mention a surprisingly meaty cover of “Take On Me”).

Nathan Barlowe is a born frontman, coyly hamming it up for the cameras, climbing into the crowd and revving up his guitar like a chainsaw, even kissing a fanatic female fan on the lips in between bars. Meanwhile, his brother Cary was the unrestrained wildman companion to his sibling’s postured-and-preeened stage persona, as he flailed about maniacally and with endearing gusto, nearly knocking over his amp stack at one point.

There is nothing cool or hip about Luna Halo in any blog-approved sort of way. Nor do they aspire for that kind of acceptance. These guys are aiming to please as wide a net of people as possible, and what’s going to make it happen (and what incited near pandamonium at points during their set) isn’t the fact that they look and act the part, but that they happen to write killer songs. This is a band that’s taking a page out of Cheap Trick’s book of hooks and looks and applying it to Muse’s unabashed grandiosity. And wouldn’t ya know it? They’re even fuckin nice guys to boot. Cheers to a group that has no pretensions or misconceptions about what they are, and to their inevitable and approaching success. >>>Kenny Herzog

Holy cow are these guys going to be huge.

That is if you’re at all a sucker for humongoid radio-rock songs (in the good way) produced by Rick Rubin that will make the Killers looks like they were hook-deficient. Let me be the first to say that you will all succumb to the powers of “The Big Escape” this fall. Unless you’re more into that whole lo-fi=cool nonsense… But that would just be silly.

It’s important to acknowledge I’m not the biggest fan of the suddenly emergent sport of air-guitar-wielding. I more or less find it fairly nerdy, in a way that’s intolerable even for myself, a proud and self-professed lifelong nerd. Something about the sight of grown men embodying all the obvious stereotypes of white trash- and glam-era metaldom to the point of cariacture as they sling their imaginary axes around a stage amidst quasi-cock-rock posing just seems, well, silly.

Moreover though, it always struck me as counterintuitive to what made air-guitar-practicioning funny and endearing in the first place: It was always a private, awkward and embarrassing art whose humor was derived from candid-camera moments of accidental discovery. Giving it a national, competitive spotlight and selling tickets to massive, weirdly adoring throngs kinda takes the uncomfortable fun out of the whole thing, trading in its anti-mystique for an actual aura of cool. Nevermind the fact that most of the audience was of the fairly fratty variety, and last I checked, the evolution of closeted air-guitaring had its roots in finding solace through metal from the onslaughts of alpha male bullies. Just seems like maybe the whole thing has lost its way. Or perhaps I’m the one taking it too seriously.

Regardless, I clearly am in the minority in my skepticism. A sold-out audience stormed The Fillmore At Irving Plaza in New York last night for the National Finals of the TouchTunes-sponsored US Air Guitar Championships, to see which of their country’s finest faux-musicians would ascend to the world championships in Finland this September. They were adorned in T-shirts bearing slogans of their favorite metal mimes, most notably New York native Andrew “William Ocean” Litz (I’ll spare you the suspense: He won), for whom fans’ outfits professed to be “riding the wave” (a giant, cardboard cutout of Litz could also be spied crowd-surfing from time to time). They sported foam devil horns and chanted loudly for their favorite entrants, booing with equal vigor at displays of mediocrity (like at one misguided biker, who, by exposing only his boxers, mooned the judges and crowd with the same half-heartedness as he assaulted the stage).

Speaking of said judges, the strangely high-profile opinions of SNL’s Rachel Dratch, The Daily Show’s Jason Jones and noted author/writer Malcolm Gladwell were among those separating the mullet from the ponytail throughout the night, and provided most of the hearty laughs by reminding both audience and competitors of the inherent absurdity of the proceedings (suffice to say, when you’re wearing a kilt and nothing else, fail miserably at mimicking a few solos and then call a judge out for being a “cocksmoker,” being reminded that you’re a “retard” by Jones is more or less to be expected).

Perhaps the most welcome participants were Hall Of Famer (oy, I know) Rockness Monster, who surprised a few folks by selecting Refused’s post-hardcore epic “New Noise” as his Round 1 song of choice, and McNallica, the only woman in the finals and an inspiring example of female badassitude (imagine female wrestler Queen Kong crossed with Tina Turner in Beyond Thunderdome). Overall though, it has to be stated (as it was often by Jones in particular) that the actual theatrics fell relatively flat, often resorting to gimmickry like magic tricks, bottle smashing and back flips in lieu of a way to instill energy into another air solo. Why a finalist would waste half of his precious 60 seconds leaping to and from the stage instead of fingering his imaginary frets is beyond me, but hey, I’m not the one looking to travel the globe and make moolah via this oddness.

Awestruck-ness and cynicism aside, however, it’s clear that the folks at US Air Guitar have a phenomenon on their hands, and it’s not easy to see the appeal, no matter how cynical one might be. Taking the allure of karaoke and combining it with a more raucous party atmosphere befitting its hard-rocking inspiration is an obvious recipe for success… and if you’re not a curmudgeon like me, a fuckload of fun. Maybe at the end of the day, I wish I thought of organizing these competitions and getting rich off it, instead of staying in my bedroom and waxing guitar-god for an audience of me and my mirror.

The best documentary of the year is making its post-Sundance (where it won the Grand Jury Prize in the genre) rounds. At its premiere New York screening at the Brooklyn Academy Of Music Cinemas, a sold-out crowd was wowed by Manda Bala, the visually stunning and narratively cunning depiction of unfathomable corruption in Brazilian government, which also features a memorable soundtrack featuring Tom Ze and Os Mutantes to propel its investigative pulse.

First-time feature director Jason Kohn studied under the great Errol Morris, and while Manda’s aesthetic no doubt owes much to Kohn’s mentor, the movie benefits from its own brand of righteous passion and creative quirkiness, two qualities that–like any great Morris expose–collide in strangely harmonious fashion.

The film begins with actual video of a female hostage flanked by two armed kidnappers. Grenades are tied around her neck and a message flashes across the screen that “This film cannot be shown in Brazil.” Hooked yet? Perhaps you’re concerned the ensuing 85 minutes will be too intense for a weekend at the theater? But just as your nerves cluster together and await an execution, the scene serenely shifts (by way of deceptively buoyant opening credits) to the world’s largest frog farm, as Kohn captures Nature Channel-worthy images of the amphibians treading water and peaking their bulging eyes above its surface. It’s a contract-release, breathe-in-breathe-out tactic employed frequently throughout the film, helping it to find a balance between blunt confrontation and engaging entertainment. Now, why the frog farm, you ask? You won’t hear peep from the farm’s burly, blue-eyed, tobacco-inhaling owner, who ceases the discussion when Kohn inquires about a scandal connected to his business.

Turns out the farm was allegedly one small part of a massive money-laundering scheme enacted by high-ranking Brazilian politician Jader Barbalho, who is to Manda what one-time GM Chairman Roger Smith was to Michael Moore’s seminal Roger And Me: an omnipotent-yet-elusive figurehead of greed who precipitated a cycle of violence and class inequity amongst his own people. But Barbalho is worse… much, much worse. His scheme involved the use of Brazil’s sub-poor Amazon region as a dummy front to funnel money into his own pockets, publicly (and fraudulently) decreeing that the profits would go toward resurrecting the impoverished slums.

From there, Kohn spins his focus around roughly a dozen of primary interviewees: an attorney general, prosecutor and civil attorney; a former kidnapping victim; a man who’s made a living making bulletproof cars to help rich Sao Paoloans prevent kidnappings; a wealthy plastic surgeon who’s made his living off replacing the ears of kidnapping victims (whose captors often pull a Van Gogh to up the ransom ante); a pock-marked cop lamenting the impossibility of protecting 20 million people; and most disturbingly, a kidnapper himself, ski-masked and all.

You might already see the connection here, but it plays out patiently and organically as we’re introduced to each participant and begin to connect the dots between them. And when it all starts to gel together in the last half-hour, Manda truly stakes its case as a riveting work of art. The causality between Barbalho’s parasitic ploys and the way it trickles down to Sao Paolo’s virtually unmanageable street crime is made evident through a subtly related series of poetic, slow-motion sequences: the surgeon delicately performing an ear graft, frogs jettisoning out of a garbage chute into a rubber bin, the surgeon’s dog sliding gleefully into his private pool during a family barbecue. The effect is satirical rather than heavy handed, implicitly winked rather than mysteriously condescended. Throughout the film, Kohn generally (and smartly) opts to find uncomfortable humor in the mind-boggling absurdity of it all rather than bludgeon you with grim didactics. But the point is made no less loud and clear: Barbalho’s scandals led to the prosperity of the frog farm, rather than Amazonian slums, which led to massive waves of kidnappings and violence, which led to the surgeon’s flowering business and a whole new sector of wealth, which substantiated businesses like the bulletproof-car entrepreneur’s, and so on and so on. Violence and corruption breeds industry and more wealth, which breeds deeper layers of corruption and violence… and so and so on.

This cyclical pattern is symbolized with a tad less subtlety, as one of Kohn’s final visual tricks is to fade the close-up eyes of his star kidnapper into those of Barbalho’s on a campaign poster. The two could not be farther removed yet more intimately connected. And they are, above all, merely the current faces of a long-repeating trend of governmental misdoings and its devastating ramifications on that nation’s citizens–a trend that Kohn is clearly skeptical will see a reversal any time in the immediate future. It’s also an epidemic that should ring rather true to American audiences. And it better, since, unlike Barbalho’s countrymen, they’re actually allowed to see the film. >>>KENNY HERZOG

It’s sleeting and 35 degrees here in New York today; downright apocalyptic-looking. You’d never know that spring was right around the corner of the weekend, eager to emerge with its sunny pleasantness. But alas, such is Mother Nature. Best to get a grip on reality and start prepping yourself for those equinox-accompanying albums that feel just right for coming out of winter’s wilderness. Here’s a few that may not beg for a car drive with the windows down or a picnic in the park per se, but are coming your way now through May and will kick your ass every which way but loose:

EL-P–I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead: Set to arrive this coming week, El’s latest maniacal mash-up is his most focused effort to date. Constantly torn by his schizo creative impulses and his loyalty to elemental hip-hop, Mr. Meline’s five-years-in-the-waiting opus indulges his usual bad-acid-trip whims, but finds a way to more seamlessly blend them into his B-boy boom-bap, also resulting in a more followable vocal flow. Lyrically, he’s arguably as at his sharpest since 2001’s Def Jux Presents comp, having endured everything from 9/11 to turning 30 in the half-decade since Fantastic Damage, and come out gunning with merciless societal critiques and the sort of pop culture metaphors only El would muster while retaining his intellectualism (not even Anchorman) is spared. I’ll Sleep is El’s shining moment: stunning and subversive, but invigorating and actually accessible.

Battles–Mirrored: The only album this year that will make you want to do bong hits of crack. The second full-length from this largely instrumental New York outfit (comprised of ex-members of Helmet and Don Caballero, among others) is, at this point, bar none the album of the year. Dabbling prodigiously in everything from jazz to math-rock to jam-band digressions to prog-metal and beyond, Mirrored manages to reflect all those genres without ever falling prey to any of their cringe-inducing tendencies. It almost feels like an aural magic trick. As exciting as new indie music gets.

Elizabeth Cook–Balls: A considerably more convincing feminist salvo than Meredith Brooks’ “Bitch,” particularly in the world of Nashville, the title track from country crooner Cook’s latest is the nutshell summation of what makes her the perfect middle ground between the Dixie Chicks and Neko Case. Southern through and through (down to the unfathomable Southern belle beauty), but backed with the cred of Rodney Crowell as producer and a totally believable Velvet Underground cover, Cook is the rebellious spirit Loretta Lynne surely would have been at her age had the times fully allowed. The record is part jaunty and jubilant, chugging along on rollicking snares, and part subtle and twangy, resting on little aside from Cook’s Dolly Parton-inflected voice and forlorn fiddle. Whether she indeed finds Neko-like acceptance from the indie community, creeps her way into mainstream country’s consciousness or falls completely between the cracks with this album remains to be seen. But it should most certainly at least be heard.

Dinosaur Jr–Beyond: Not just beyond, but back from the splintered grave of solo- and side-projects, the original Dino trio of J, Lou and Murph is in shockingly fine form (props to J and John Agnello on the production and mixing job). Everything from the album artwork to the instantly engaging and familiar guitar squall of first track, “Almost Ready,” vividly recalls the band’s SST days. And in reality, since that time, none of the members have made huge missteps, so their ability to harness individual maturation and feed it back into the blistering energy of Bug and You’re Living All Over Me should come as no huge surprise. But somehow, it still does. Thank god then, for the occasional pleasant exceeding of expectations. The Lou songs are clearly Lou’s, and the J songs are clearly Jay’s, but there’s just enough of everything (fuzzy alt-metal, transcendent solos and good, ol’ fashioned, even-keeled indie rock) to please everyone who misses college rock bands that were longer on hair than know-it-all attitudes. >>>KENNY HERZOG

Yes, I started off a blog about Amy Winehouse by paraphrasing the Get Up Kids. But in a sense, maybe that’s fitting, as last night’s Bowery Ballroom fiesta was initiated by the femme-punk-cum-girl-group stylings of the Pipettes. The UK trio’s recent signing to Interscope isn’t a shocker. They’re shtick is just broad enough in its interpretation of classic outfits like the Shangri-Las to cast a net over commercial pop-punk crowds, and perhaps open the floodgates for a profitable new trend.

After announcing it was brunette singer/keyboardist Rosay’s 21st birthday (yikes!), the ladies (also comprised of vampy blonde Gwenno and sassy, bespectacled Riot Becki) launched into a half hour of harmless harmonies and cutesy choreography, their flourescent bracelets shaking about with every finger wag and talk-to-the-hand gesture. Bouyant and entertaining, the girls were nothing short of pleasant, if ultimately revealing little beyond the surface gimmickry of their act. Allegedly as pre-fab as any Phil Spector concoction, their performance represented an interesting quandry: In an age where most manufactured pop groups are American Idol-ized and neutered, it’s nice to see a revival of the original girl-group spirit. But at the same juncture, it would be nice if the Pipettes did more to contemporize their obvious guide posts aside from updating the genre’s lyrical template from innocent romantic innuendo to overtly racy confessions of one-night stands. It seemed all-too clear that these were punk rock women at heart putting on their polka-dot costumes and playing nostalgia dress-up. In the end, it would have been more exciting if their take on the girl-group formula was truly, modernly, authentically theirs, and not a by-the-numbers aesthetic replication with a riot grrrl twist.

Fittingly, Amy Winehouse sauntered onto the stage 30 minutes later, Jack and lemonade in hand (”Girls don’t drink beer,” she asserted, “they chug it.”), bearing a voice, personality and appearance all her own, forcing her horn section, soulful backing band and two dancers/harmonizers to acclimate to wholly original presence. The throwback exterior of her sonic accompaniment seemed an organic outer manifestation of her inner self, making for a much more appealing and believable genre- and generation-crossover.

Outside of the odd audience member making the token crack about her reputed alcohol issues (a shame that US listeners have already tabloidized her before letting her music do the talking first), the industry- and celeb-heavy crowd (Jesse Malin and 30 Rock’s Jane Krakowski were among the notables) was warm, welcoming, enthusiastic and, most of all, appreciative. An expected mix of middle-aged men and women, young hipsters and eccentric downtowners rarely present for Bowery’s boilerplate indie rock shows wailed and waved, cheered and clapped, shook their hips and sang along, as weed smoke wafted upward toward the ceiling, nearly obscuring the palpable buzz permeating the air. It was as packed and energized as I’ve maybe ever seen the venue.

Amy herself projected a fascinating duality: by turns insecure and awkward but then calculatedly seductive and something of a tease. Just as her words would emerge from her throat in little more than a mutter, her mannerisms seeming more spastic than rhythmic, she’d clutch hold of her dress and slowly hike it higher and higher while sashaying her arms in perfect time with the beat. Equally endearing was her state of classy disheveldness. Clearly meant more for the cozy, anything-goes atmosphere of a rock or jazz club, than, say the polished studio of Late Night With David Letterman (where she appeared the previous night), her sophisticated black dress was undercut by the lime-green bra lazily sticking out of the low-cut back and the scatterbrained tattoos arresting her arms. Her naturally striking features were bulldozed by a bouffant of wild black hair and more than a smidge of excessive eye makeup.

All superficial analysis aside, the reason the house was packed, the reason the press has ultimately gone wild over Amy, is her unbelievable voice. Sounding like she was being beamed in from a ’50s FM radio, her sexy, sultry, jazzy, soulful R&B croon caressed the room like a lover, a fighter, a loner and a rebel all at once, bringing the audience to their knees in awe and making the band come alive like she was Dr. Frankenstein. While keeping the banter to a minimum and blowing through tracks from Back To Black and Frank in just under an hour, Amy left her impression loudly, and at times, softly, depending on the song selection. She’s what Christina Aguilera wishes she was, what the Pipettes could be if they had it more in their gut, and one of those rare occurrences in modern-day pop music; just hip and talented enough for critical indie heads and just scandalous and populist enough to appeal to bridge-and-tunnelers, she seems destined for massive crossover success… and it is roundly well-deserved. >>>KENNY HERZOG

I rarely allow for a first-person, anecdotal slant on my criticism, but I’ve been excitedly skeptical about Lifetime’s reunion for several months, and have a complete paucity of objectivity. That might explain why I’ve let the promo gather dust on my desk for so long and why I slept through a recent invite-only video shoot. Along with several Long Island bands from the mid-’90s’ wellspring of third-generation hardcore and its precarious marriage with second-generation emo, Lifetime carries a dual-edged legacy: their brief-but-brilliant output of brief-but-brilliant melody makers, and their influence on countless shitty fourth- and fifth-generation Warped Tour bands. Hell, they’re even signed to a label (Decaydance) run by a glorified tattoo model who moonlights for some terrible band called Fall Out Boy. Having adopted the phrase “Irony Is For Suckers” as my slacker mantra nearly 12 years ago and all but shorted out my Discman spinning Jersey’s Best Dancers dozens of times without daring to pause, I was leery at the notion of Lifetime contributing to their own distillation. It felt like a landmark assault on my youth, like going away on vacation and having my kids destroy the one antique in the house I truly gave a shit about. The truth was, other bands could convolute Lifetime’s sound and aesthetic all they wanted, but I wanted Lifetime themselves, well, all to myself.

So here’s the rub: Their self-titled, decade-in-the-making reemergence is good. It’s very good. It’s exactly what a Lifetime album should be. It’s fast but not necessarily furious, full of uncannily catchy breakdowns that avoid icky sugariness and rife with Ari Katz’ anthemic nasalisms. The problem is, if I like this record so much, then by extension, I should probably also like Fall Out Boy. Or Say Anything. Or any other band groaningly named after a John Cusack movie. Because they all sound exactly like Lifetime. And by a basic syllogism, if new Lifetime evokes old Lifetime, and the band’s followers are virtually indecipherable from new Lifetime, then there’s nothing that so greatly distinguishes “old-school” Lifetime aside from my very specific nostalgia for it. For what it represented at the time. For symbolizing memories of basement circle pits and under-caffeinated train rides and drunken singalongs between friends. And of course, the idea that it was still for “us” and not “them.” (After all, this was still a time when bands like Orange 9mm and Sick Of It All were main-staging it at the Warped Tour.)

It’s kind of funny, or maybe uplifting then (or at least a humbling sign of my own carbon-dated status in the continuing chronology of punk), to think that for a whole new generation of teenagers looking for something cathartically fringe, Lifetime might be a played-out dinosaur and their descendents meek little mammals. Or so I’d like to think. At least then there’d still be somebody who doesn’t quite get Lifetime’s simplistically hypnotic effect over me. Which, truth be told, was always part of their allure. >>>KENNY HERZOG

I was standing in the midst of the most wildly diverse crowd I’d seen out in Williamsburg in some time. White, black, Asian, gay, straight, lesbian, tattooed, pierced, clean-cut, bridge-and-tunnel; all were squished into the makeshift show room in back of Supreme Trading last night for the record-release show of Bunny Rabbit, for her Lovers And Crypts full-length.

Now, Rabbit (and her producer Black Cracker) were certainly a feast for the eyes and ears, as Rabbit pranced around in a pink prom dress and ’30s-socialite, see-through umbrella, cooing and rapping seductively like a no-bullshit (and less-annoying) Peaches over Cracker’s electro-hip-hop beats.

But, truth be told, the stars on this night were openers the Dirty Na-Nas, who blazed through a debaucherous set of booty-electro that was like ESG and Spank Rock having a biracial, bisexual orgy. Firstly, the group is fronted by a charismatic white MC who goes by the nom de plume the Pumpsta, wears loose sweat outfits and parades around onstage grinding up on band mates (and himself) while cradling a beer. But the Na-Nas also feature a black, female MC and bassist; a female, tattoo-adorned drummer and, well, a pretty normal-looking keyboard dude.

It’s a shame this fivesome is reputedly tough to pin down in the studio (due to their collective wild style), but yet it fits their overall vibe like a love glove, and should only contribute to the mythos of seeing them live (something that’s also apparently a rare opportunity).

By the end of their too-brief set, men and women of all races, aesthetics and sexual orientations had joined the act on stage for some sexual healing, while the bowled-over audience raised their hands in the air like they did in fact care.

No slight to Bunny Rabbit (or the act that played main support); her moment has come and the buzz should start pouring in. But there’s a good chance that if the Dirty Na-Nas never lay their act down on wax, a more significant legend could be erected (pun very much intended) around them. >>>KENNY HERZOG

So in my attempt to become more savvy about this blog business and post little somethin’ somethings in between issues of New Music Monthly about various bands making me glad I’m not deaf, here’s some newish or upcoming releases/artists you’d be remiss for missing out on:

Dawn Of Man–The Bronze Age: Produced by David Sitek from TV On The Radio and featuring some long-time DC scenesters, Dawn Of Man does the cock-tease with an EP that leaves you wanting more…much more…now. Icy-cool female vocals and washed out, reverby post-punk guitars anchor a delicate straddling of danciness, mid-’90s East Coast angularity and good ol’ fashioned insistent rhythm. You almost feel as cool listening to it as you imagine they knew they were making it.

Ursula Points–Light Up A Galaxy: Maybe the only Brooklyn outfit unafraid to play with hearts on sleeve and acoustics in lap, like they were something that hitchhiked from the Pacific Northwest 10 years ago and finally made their way to NYC. Think the first Red House Painters record (the official first, not the second self-titled one), but more succinct and with breathy female vocals adding extra warmth into the mix.

Let’s Go Sailing–The Chaos In Order: I was nearly knocked out my socks upon getting their new one via a high-profile indie publicist. Many moons ago, while at a different publication, I stumbled on their self-released LP in a thin little handmade sleeve and fell in love with its earnest, pretty little indie-pop gems. I went so far as to take up brief correspondence with them, just to let them know I dug their stuff and would try to get them some ink. This new one’s just as lovely, and sort of like listening to early Liz Phair without all the baggage.

APSE–Spirit: The real-deal of all the minimalist post-rock groups still trying to ape some amalgamation of Glenn Branca, Slint, Sigur Ros and Godspeed! Frankly, they’re a reminder of why Explosions In The Sky are so boring. Spare and ambient (and sort of creepy) at its core, but with a rhythmic, tribal underbelly that bubbles up often up to keep things hypnotically intense, Spirit is a most interesting record in this genre because it defies easy classification by proper drug accompaniment. Uppers, downers, hallucinogens, you name it: All would somehow seem appropriate psychotropic corollaries. But regardless of toxic intake, the album creeps its way up to you and starts to crawl all over your skin and eventually wraps itself around you with a ghostly, ominous embrace. And to be honest, when the weird, voodoo vocals rear their head every five minutes or so, I get the slightest of chills in my stomach.

Audionom–Retrokspektiv: I’ve been rattling on to friends, peers, readers and anyone who will listen for months, but now this long-overdue re-release has finally seen daylight. I’ve said before that they sound like a Swedish Joy Division with chainsaw-guitar balls crossed with the original Dawn Of The Dead score. Well, that and a bit of Chairs Missing-era Wire for good measure. Tight, intense, charging, and simultaneously bludgeoning in its repetitiveness yet continually expansive, Audionom, more so than self-congratulatory fellow Swedes Refused, may have epitomized the shape of punk to come. >>>KENNY HERZOG

I’ve been meaning to do this for a couple of months, so for no other reason that the spirit currently moving me, I am going to say the following: Rock Plaza Central, a seven-piece collective from Toronto that’s like an even more idiosyncratic, literary Neutral Milk Hotel, are amazing. And amazingly, unsigned. But probably not for long. And they’ll probably be one of the more talked-about bands of 2007, even though they should have been relentlessly raved over in 2006. But hey, the old fine wine analogy could apply here I guess.

And most recently, they’ve unleashed an art-folk cover of J. Timb’s “SexyBack” that’s almost astounding in its sincerity, even if you can almost see the band trying to keep a straight face. You can access it soon as part of Cokemachineglow.com’s indie-covers download collection. But really, for the time being, do yourself a favor and seek out their self-released Are We Not Horses so you can be all cool and say you own the first pressing before some hip indie reissue’s out. Or at the least, check out CMJ New Music Monthly’s upcoming profile on the guys in our soon-to-street Issue 144.

So while I’m at it, in case you haven’t been eyeing our mag of late and lieu of my lack of attentiveness to this lovely blog at points, other “under the radar” bands you’ll either thank for me tipping you off too, will probably be the toast of indie town soon enough or that I just can’t stop spinning:

The Goodnight Loving: Unbelievable Midwest rock from a terribly nice group of early 20-somethings who play a dastardly catchy and sophisticated blend of Uncle Tupelo country rawk and Feelies-style, hook-wise proto-indie.

The Weather Inside: A DIY, mostly one-man affair by a lad named Jesse Cohen that comes off more like the polished studio work of some Postal Service protege. At times Cohen sounds like Joseph Arthur singing over earthier Aphex Twin schizo-tronics. Other times he lets his warm, instrumental blipping and bleeping take its own course. But it always manages to take a robotic shell and fill it with a human center that’s charming and completely catchy.

This Unique Museum: Totally sublime stuff from a guy named Ben Fitton. The sort of record that would normally feel incredibly emasculating, but almost immediately captures you with a real subtle beauty, by way of pretty acoustics crossing paths with lush, delicate beats. When mainstream hacks like Dido try and pull off a similar style, it’s artists like Fitton that really nail its wintry perfection.

Choir Boy: A sickeningly talented musician, producer and MC from Newark who works at a hospital in his spare time and manages to spin rhymes about positivity around beats that are street-wise enough to circumvent the gag-inducing self-righteousness of a lot of “conscious hip-hop.”

Early ’80s Italo-Disco: The way that groups like N.O.I.A. and Kirlian Camera merged disco-era dance bliss with New Order-esque, nuanced new wave holds up as some of the most fun, magnetic and almost totally overlooked (at least Stateside) music to emerge out of stacks of synths a couple decades back. The Confuzed Disco comp that came out earlier this year’s a solid place to start.

Heartless Bastards: A frontwoman who wails wildly like PJ Harvey but has the phrasing of a ’60s folk singer, crooning and crowing over a fuzzed-out blues stomp? Yes please.

The Fountain Soundtrack: Written by Clint Mansell and performed by the killer combo of Kronos Quarter and Mogwai, it’s reputed to be the best part of the film, but it’s more fun to skip the picture and make up a move in your mind as you drift along with this ominously gorgeous score. It only goes for the full-throttle symphonic jugular on a few occasions. However, not only are those moments worth the wait, but the wait is worth every moment.

And as far as albums coming out in 2007, the ones that are going to blow you away, at least from what I’ve had a chance to listen to thus far, in my humble opinion will be:

El-P-I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead

Jesse Sykes And The Sweet Hereafter-Like, Love Lust And The Open Halls Of The Soul

LCD Soundsystem-Sound Of Silver

The Broken West-I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On

Vietnam-Vietnam

Air-Pocket Symphony

Rickie Lee Jones-Sermon On Exposition Boulevard

Macromantics-Moments In Movement

>>>KENNY HERZOG

Like Radiohead pillaging the Billboard charts or Arrested Development nestling into network prime time for three seasons, David Lynch continues to infiltrate mainstream Hollywood with utter weirdness. It’s under this pretense that the auteur’s films ought to be viewed. He’s payed his debt to road-paving with earlier works like Eraserhead and Blue Velvet and has secured a priviled, and earned, position as a studio renegade, with no real obligation to his medium other than to mess with it.

And by any standards, nevermind those of his loyal fans, Inland Empire is his strangest, most disturbing and most taxing production. Admittedly overlong at three hours and almost arrogantly allergic to the slightest narrative cohesion, it’s as much a contribution to debates about “What is art?” and “What is worth a $10 theater ticket?” as it is a film in the strictest sense. For that, and by working within the Hollywood system to defy its convention, Lynch is to be applauded. Whether that means you’ll make it through Inland unscathed is another story.

Given the inherently counterproductive nature of plot summary in this instance, perhaps the most useful information would be this: Laura Dern puts in a performance truly worthy of the adjective “fearless.” She’s the axis upon which the movie rotates, and is less a character with a traceable story and emotional arc than a vessel through which weird shit happens. She’s filmed in the most unflattering of ways, from the lighting that exposes every wrinkle in her upper lip to the blood that at one point comes spewing from her mouth, to the black eye that graces her face as she unleashes a windstorm of vulgarities and graphic descriptors.

Dern plays an actress, or at least we think. Her co-star is Justin Theroux and her director is Jeremy Irons. But soon, Polish folk tales spun by a creepy neighbor (the great Lynch regular and Big Love star Grace Zabriskie) start to come true and wreak havoc on the set of her movie, as the lines between reality and fiction blur and dimensions of time and space become mere toys at the mercy of Lynch’s creative whim.

But that’s as far as I’ll go with such minutaie. Inland Empire, like most Lynch films, but more so than any other, requires a state of extreme cognitive dissonance and faith in the possibilites of a true artist unleashed. When you listen to a great song with obtuse lyrics, you don’t always try and assign it meaning. You just let the music take you where it may. That’s a trick easiest employed with somewhat tangential genres of course, and Inland is no doubt a hallucinatory cinematic experience, best to be approached as a jarring dream (that often flirts with nightmarish tendencies) experienced while wide awake, or the wildest acid trip you’ve had in years without actually dissolving a tab in your mouth.

This is, again, not to imply Inland is a masterpiece. It is not. As entertainment, it’s certainly no Casino Royale, and doesn’t even approach the succinct, engaging qualities of the director’s own past canon. So whether that inspires you to wait for it on DVD is a perfectly reasonable dilemma.

But as an otherworldly mindfuck for Lynch fans (who will be doubly delighted by all his regulars that make cameo appearances), and an invigorating reminder that–even in Hollywood–our movie theaters still have room for truly experimental works alongside popcorn fare, Inland is three hours unforgettably well spent. >>>KENNY HERZOG

Be careful if you enter Brooklyn’s Glass Lands Gallery (Kent Street, between South 1^st and 2^nd Streets, to be specific, right by the ominous East River in South Williamsburg) if it’s chilly out and you’re sporting spectacles. The body heat and frenzied humidity will fog them up in a New York minute. You’d best wipe them off quick though, because chances are there’s a notable band––possibly obscure and local, possibly of wider repute and farther-off American origins––bashing or strumming or flailing away on the just-above-ground-level makeshift stage. There might even be throngs of 20-somethings slinging their bodies around and toppling over themselves, knocking into equipment and smiling giddily all the while, screaming and gyrating in a fashion normally scoffed at and avoided by crowds in these parts. Such was the case this past Saturday night, as Brooklyn Sub Pop signees Oxford Collapse burned through set closers “Your Volcano” (off their Sub Pop debut, Remember The Night Parties, which hits shelves this week) and “Boys Go Home,” which inspired group singalongs and––gasp!––crowd surfing. It felt like watching some Sonic Youth concert video from 1992.

Ditto on the positive vibes for Danava, sans the whole crowd-surfing, singalong business. The big-rock specialists, who arrived at Glass Lands the following night by way of Portland (their self-titled Kemado debut deserves twice the hype that labelmates The Sword incited, but they probably aren’t adorably scruffy or unabashedly Sabbath-ish enough to garner the same hipsterville kudos), brought a dose of serious guitar thunder and noisy weirdness to a High Life-swilling crowd somewhere in the delighted dozens. Foregoing shirts and flailing their considerable hair like southern wild-children, Dusty Sparkles and his cohorts unleashed endless, primarily instrumental, amps-to-11 hysteria that spawned as many eargasms as headaches and headscratches as satisfied smiles.

Both shows carried a certain je ne sais quoi, the sort of energy and looseness that simply isn’t possible within the protocol-bound, packed-to-capacity, rigidly sectioned-off confines of a more conventional urban show space. On both these nights, the bands brought their best, and they in turn brought the best out of their fans, who subsequently contributed to the positive feelings ricocheting throughout the room. But some credit belongs to Glass Lands, which could very well be a model for merging the performance-as-art ideals of generations past with the DIY, punk-booking approach of more modern times.

Maybe it’s because the venue is in an underground basement of an old industrial building, or because its lack of discernable ventilation adds to the intimate raucousness of it all, or because guzzling cheap whiskey out of plastic cups and pounding three-dollar cans of domestic beer is ultimately eons cooler than paying out your ass for a half-ounce of top-shelf liquor and a glass of watered-down Sierra Nevada. More than likely, it’s because the Glass Lands, and its founders, Brooke Baxter and Rolyn Hu (the former of whom initially ran the slightly smaller Glass House Gallery just down the street), have dared to fly in the face of the city’s competitive too-cool-for-school attitude and created a place where art and rock don’t have to be mutually exclusive, and where all comers are welcome and made comfortable, and all forms of creativity are happening and inspiring each other all at once. Amateur painters might be stroking their brushes on a far wall, while couples kiss and converse in a back-room lounge, bands perform interactively with the crowd up front and onlookers take it all in from a balcony above (maybe the only balcony in NYC that doesn’t require VIP access).

The whole scene reflects the spirit of ’60s West Coast happenings and Andy Warhol/Velvet Underground gatherings, but offers the opportunity to catch some of the most currently relevant and resonant bands on the DL before they snake on up to Manhattan to perform for guest-listed throngs.

Whatever the case, it was a wild and memorable weekend, and one that Collapse’s growing fanbase (who will next get to see them in NYC at a bound-to-be-suffocating Bowery Ballroom with the Shins) and Danava’s devoted cult core (who have no choice but to squeeze into the Lower East Side’s Mercury Lounge this week) should feel fortunate to have ushered in the early days of fall with. >>>KENNY HERZOG

There are documentaries that preach to the choir (Michael Moore’s films come to mind), there are documentaries that dare to be truly objective (most recently, Capturing The Friedmans fits the bill) and then there are documentaries that join the choir for a group sing-along of “Give Peace A Chance.” The U.S. Vs. John Lennon, directed by David Leaf and John Scheinfeld (and co-distributed by hack studio Lionsgate and pop-culture junk pile VH1), is a glorified made-for-TV fluff job that does little to make a further case for Lennon’s transcendent sociopolitical significance, and is structurally awkward, unfocused and overlong to boot. But to put this in perspective, Leaf and Scheinfeld are the dynamic duo largely credited with idol-worshipping TV pseudo-docs like Ricky Nelson Sings and the maligned Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talkin’ About Him?), the 2006 homage to Lennon’s drinking buddy.

Just to get the token kudos out of the way, Lennon is not a film without merit, mostly by virtue of its impressive cast of talking heads. Everyone from Yoko Ono and Bob Gruden to Elliot Mintz and John Sinclair represent Lennon’s side of the story, while the reprehensible likes of G. Gordon Liddy and fellow FBI agents both explain the government’s interest in Lennon and deride the hippie culture he embodied.

And indeed, Liddy’s admissions of the degree to which Richard Nixon and his cronies viewed Lennon as a legitimate threat are chilling. (Not to mention his enthralling-yet-horrifying anecdote about smugly lighting his cigar with a peace protestor’s candle, a gesture he claims was symbolic of Nixon’s attitude toward ’70s demonstrators.) And the film really kicks into gear with its connection of the dots between Lennon’s financing of the Black Panthers and Jerry Rubin’s efforts and J. Edgar Hoover’s subsequent targeting of the self-proclaimed “peacenik.”

And if Leaf and Scheinfeld didn’t bookend the picture with placating images and recollections from the Vietnam War and Lennon’s assassination, respectively, Lennon may have actually lived up to its promised subject matter and offered an intriguing expose on a little-investigated layer of the musician’s life. Instead, the movie makes radical jumps from one time period to another; from one over-used photograph of dead Asian children and murdered Kent State students to the next; from one muddied stab at conveying a big picture political framework to an ensuing non-sequitir glimpse into Lennon’s personal activist leanings. Not only is this approach jarring, but it’s downright boring.

The faux-dramatic, fade-out edits (including one toward the end that features a particularly tasteless bullet-firing effect) and sappy soundtrack don’t help matters either. Love him or hate him, it’s hard to argue that, particularly post-Yoko, Lennon’s lyrics were almost embarrassingly literal in their declarations of peace and love. And while the participants openly debate whether he was a delightfully naïve but still relevant activist or just plain naïve, the musical interludes come off less moving and more giggle-inducing.

Lennon himself, despite the questionable idol-worship that has followed him before and after his death, is a passionately intelligent and incredibly sympathetic figure. Clips of him staging bed-ins, chatting with Dick Cavett and arguing with New York Timeswriter Gloria Emerson reveal a cogent communicator, a man fiercely aware of his rights and the deserved freedoms of others, and an incredibly funny and ultimately down-to-earth human being. Unfortunately, Leaf and Scheinfeld’s unintentional success at undermining their own arguments with poor directing choices leaves you close to concurring with Emerson as she badgers Lennon with accusations that he’s merely coming off “silly.”

Somewhere amidst all this is a concise, less-than-hackneyed look at a man whose bones have been picked clean by the vultures of cultural canonizing. Good luck staying meaningfully engaged, if even awake, long enough to get there.–KENNY HERZOG

Last night, somewhere in the vicinity of 3,000 people gathered in Brooklyn, NY’s McCarren Park Pool (what, you think I’m at the door counting tickets or something?) to set the Guiness Book Of World Records’ mark for largest collective indie rock head bob. And incidentally, the Shins also happened to be playing.

Now, it’s kind of hard to fuck up an evening of music under the stars on a gorgeous summer night in a converted Olympic-plus-sized swimming pool. But somehow, the Shins managed to literally fuck up one of their biggest hits––not once, but twice (and just when I thought such duplicate failure was reserved for the likes of my driver’s license road test), eventually saving a restored version for the encore and at one point musing that that’s what happens when you “play something five million times.” Now, first of all, if that number is accurate, the band has set another world record. Someone alert Alec Guinness, or whomever runs that silly tome. Secondly, there’s no better way to let the crowd know you’re really happy to be there than admitting that performing certain songs is equivalent to an eye-gouging at the hands of Wolverine.

What hit did they botch, you ask? Who knows? To their credit and detriment, the Shins are like a modern-day Pixies in that every song seems to be “a hit.” Not in the convential Billboard smash, platinum-selling fashion, but in the way each cut elicits an “I looove this soooong!” from audience members as giant sing-alongs ensue. Of course, the Pixies are the Pixies, and while the Shins are a fine band––one of the best indie rock has scrounged up from its dusty coffers in recent years––they’re no Pixies, and all those shimmering pop nuggets kind of blend into each other after a while. That, and since this is a blog, I have no journalistic responsibility whatsoever to do my research about their set list… Wow, I can really get into this whole 21^st century music criticism thing. It’s like being a real journalist, but without all the diligence that always made writing such pesky business.

Oh, but back to that whole blending thing. It didn’t help that the sound, courtesy of both the system and the band’s own miscues, was on the muddy side most of the set. Or when not muddied, it came off rather thin, since one guitarist was constantly relinquishing his instrument to man the keys while his comrade tried to pick up the sonic slack. Apparently they’ve never heard of a touring bassist.

All that said, the overall experience was a blast, by virtue of the inherent infectiousness of what the Shins’ do, and the fantastic atmosphere provided by the venue. (Room to roam, easily accessible beer and more Port-A-Potties than a midtown Manhattan construction site? Pinch me.) And for certain, there were a number of inspiring moments where they really let things rip or one of their Brian Wilson-aping, harmonized choruses carried over the crowd with melodious magic. But the bottom line is they are not an incredibly moving live act, which is a shame, because around the release of Oh, Inverted World, they were passionate, explosive and tight on stage––which is only further proof that half a decade, countless worldwide shows, and several soundtracks and commercials in, they’re probably a bit tired. Guess that becomes quite a catch-22 when you’re faced with an enormous crowd who are restless to see you.––KENNY HERZOG

I ambled over to the posh Hiro Ballroom in NYC last night to see Cat Power. It was the first time I’d caught Ms. Marshall live, but not for lack of trying. This lady cancels shows like networks nix new sitcoms. I’ve had better luck catching a full five innings at Shea Stadium in monsoons than cashing in my Cat Power tickets for even half a performance. But that, of course, is all part of her schtick: the enchanting chanteusse with a quirky streak wider than Mick Jagger’s smile. But by the end of the night, it wasn’t her musical gifts that were in question, but the extent to which her idiosyncratic behavior and between-song banter were self-aware mystique building, calculated Andy Kaufmann-esque alter-ego construction for the indie-rock set.

Flanked by nothing more than a piano, electric guitar and a small group of not remotely emasculated adult males squatting Indian style on the stage, Marshall (or shall I call her Power? Eh, who knows?) more or less sauntered through material from The Greatest, quietly captivating the crowd of a couple hundred and then congratulating herself on making it through entire songs.

Between numbers she would cough, burp and delve into amateur comedian routines, musing on whether a female ballet dancer should have an exaggerated camel toe the way a male dancer’s phallus is pronounced by a cup, or ordering herself “back to work bitch” after a few non-sequitired musings.

The crowd, ever-devoted to their mistress of melancholy, laughed along with her antics, as if to say, “Oh, you’re so adorable and we’re going to find your lunacy amusing, even though you’re sort of like the weird drunk relative at a family reunion who we’re trying to ignore while she’s having a ‘moment.’” But as she spent up to several minutes randomly gesticulating, prancing around barefoot (at one point emulating a cock-rock guitarist with her six-string slung down by her crotch and arms flailing like Pete Townshend, and at another miming faux-karate motions like she was Daniel LaRusso) and flirting with the crowd like an awkward child on their first day at a new school, my skepticism radar was going through the ballroom’s roof.

I wouldn’t go so far as to suggest her scatterbrained routine is utter gimmickry, though at points her bodily emissions and uncomfortable jokes began to make her seem like Neil Hamburger with breasts and a piano. But by the same token, I find it hard to imagine her demeanor being equally erratic off-stage, in her home, on her own private time. My middle-ground feeling is that something about performing live prods a nervous gland inside her that sets off a domino effect of awkwardness, a condition that’s only been compounded by the public revealing of this as her reputation. Essentially, to my eyes, it was a case of stage fright colliding with self-fulfilling prophecy.

In the end though, I’m conflicted about the very nature of even debating the topic. One one level, I enjoy the mystery that certain artists maintain. In a post-Behind The Music, Internet-savvy era in which the veil of intrigue behind bands is lifted before it even shrouds them in ambiguity, any time a musician can be somewhat aloof about their real persona, it can actually be refreshing. If anyone from Syd Barrett to Kiss were first relevant today, it’s hard to imagine either of them sustaining their particular legacies.

But on the flipside, wasting any breath or mental capacity (though I have obviously fallen victim to the latter) on something as trivial and completely irrelevant to the world–or our lives–at large as whether Cat Power is really weird or just plain smart seems crazier than anything she can do on stage. And while that might be a copout from reaching a meaningful conclusion, it’s the truest reaction I can glean from my experience last night, and given that nobody in the audience knew what was reality or pointed presentation, that’s as significant a feeling to come away with as any. —KENNY HERZOG

I hadn’t seen Radiohead in several years before last night’s performance at the medium-capacity Theater at Madison Square Garden. I was prepared for a similar religious experience, one where the evening concluded with me comatose in a seat, dazed from a dazzling rendition of “Street Spirit” and wondering why I can’t sing like an angel and front the world’s greatest rock band. (more…)

Hello everybody,

In light of Steve Ciabattoni’s impending departure for a noble new career path, I have come on board the CMJ family as the New Music Monthly’s new Editor in Chief.

Seems like only yesterday (or was it the day before yesterday?) that I was rummaging through used “Certain Damage” CDs at my local Long Island record store or arguing with fellow high school radio jocks (yes, I went to a spoiled suburban high school that came equipped with FM wattage) over who would get the free NMM CD that came with the magazine.

Wait, it actually was yesterday. But then again, I waited a long time to get my GED.

Seriously though folks, it’s a privilege and an honor to take the helm at a publication I’ve read, admired and been loosely affiliated with (thanks to my days as a hardcore college radio geek in upstate New York) for more than a decade.

My goals with NMM? The same as anyone’s would be in my position. Don’t mess with what works (i.e. just about all of it), but find subtle ways to put your fingerprints on it and make its pages relentlessly rife with quality reading and vital information on important artists. That, and argue with coworkers over who will get the free CD.

And this blog? Well, I can be a pretty opinionated guy, sort of like a really cynical Best Week Evertalking head with observations (be they venomous, humorous or benign) on everything from movies to MySpace. Mostly though, I self-indulgently philosophize about my own life and its daily inanity. So perhaps I’m more like a VH-1 talking head crossed with Jerry Seinfeld. A much less funny Jerry Seinfeld.

Hopefully I’ll be ardent about keeping up this little Web diary, but in the meanwhile, make sure to keep reading the glorious color-glossy pages of NMM, so its great tradition continues and so that someone out there is keeping me honest.

Sincerely (most of the time),

Kenny Herzog