This Sigur Ros interview will blow your mind.

Cansei De Ser iPhone

CSS's "Music Is My Hot, Hot Sex" is now featured in an iPhone commercial. It's bizarre.

Sam's "Digs"

If I were nice I'd post MP3s, but I'm not.

SAM'S TUNES OF THE MOMENT
"Bonafied Lovin", Chromeo [video]
"Pro Nails (Remix)", Kid Sister featuring Kanye West
"Phantom Pt. II (Soulwax Remix)", Justice
"Can't Get You Out Of My Head (Soulwax Kyluss Remix)", Kylie Minogue
"45 and Rising", Midnight Juggernauts
"Kingdom", Dave Gahan
"Is There A Ghost", Band of Horses

Man Man at the Rhythm Room

Weeknights are not good for concerts, but Phoenix's square-state-in-the-middle status often means the best touring bands come through on nights when most of us should probably be doing work of some sort. Man Man came to the Rhythm Room on a Monday night.

Not that I didn't have I should have been doing instead, but I had missed Man Man coming through my town literally three times beforehand and I was afraid that if I didn't catch their much-talked about live show soon, the feast would become a famine and I could never say I saw Honus Honus' sweaty mullet in person.

So I went. By myself. It was awesome.

Openers Sleeping States played sleepy (yep) British sleepcore that would have made me sleepy if they didn't keep interspersing the reverby guitar chords and mellow ladydrumming with screeching distorted children's toys sounds and radio static. When guitarist/singer Markland Starkie sang he did a sort of small-mouthed yawn that made his singing sound very nice. Good simple songs.

Man man took the stage and began adorning it with drums, christmas lights, keyboards, steel bowls and colanders and a rubber snake in the most professional way possible. They left briefly to don their matching white outfits and white warpaint and then began one of the tightest and loosest sets I've ever seen.

The thing is they didn't really stop or talk to the crowd at all. The crazy gypsy songs flowed into the R&B psych ripoffs and right on into the lunatic 5/4 drum circle sessions. Honus Honus was the master of ceremonies, leading the songs and handling most of the non-falsetto vocals.

An anecdote worth sharing- Honus pulled an old-fashioned shallow steel bowl full of spoons from his dented red toolbox/shouting stump, threw the bowl in the air and then threw the spoons at it, picked up the bowl, poured water into it from a jug as he held it up to the microphone and set it aside. Ridiculous.

Ok gots to go. See Man Man if they come through again, they probably will and I'll see you there.

Beck's Digs

The End of CMJ!

I'm back in Arizona!
We made a pilgrimage to Strawberry Fields at Central Park and the Dakota to pay a little homage to John Lennon.
I saw Justice for the secondish time on Sunday night! Midnight Juggernauts opened and wowed everybody. They're a three piece that like a hybrid of The Faint and The Strokes.
Sunday was spent almost entirely at the airport, although we did have breakfast at Petite Abeille. So good!

I'm pretty tired, so I'm going to attempt a nap.

Holy macaroni, we met MIA yesterday and it was pretty sweet. Actually, it sucked for the majority of the time because she arrived at borders about 40 minutes late, but she was really cool to talk with while she signed stuff. I told her I was really excited about seeing her show at Terminal 5 last night, and I asked her how the show the night before went. MIA said, "It was hell. The craziest thing I've ever done." Now, I wasn't sure if this boded well for last night's show, MIA Terminal 5 Round 2, but ohhhh man did it ever.

First off, Terminal 5 is definitely one of the best venues I've ever been to. It's brand spankin' new, literally, MIA's show on Thursday was the first performance at the venue. There are three levels, killer lighting, things to lean on, plus a coat check, and it's clean. I know, dang.

DJ Blaqstarr opened and blew. I really couldn't dig it. But Ry Ry sang and danced a bit, and sort of made up for Blaqstarr's bologna. Afrikan Boy, who had never been to the states before, came on stage during the set, too. He made the set even worse. Either dj, dj with an emcee or emcee. Don't get up there and do some pathetic improvisation where all you yell is "DJ BLAQSTARR DJ BLAQSTARR!!!" Seriously, it got so old so fast.

Ah! Then my new boyfriends, The Cool Kids, who we saw at Studio B on Thursday, did their sweet set and I loved it even more the second time around. So talented. So fun. They have a song about riding bikes around Chicago. I'm sold.

MIA came on around 10. Before she got on stage, there was a video of a man giving a speech about destroying the government and the pointlessness of voting, which was cool but a little to schticky for my taste. Her show was amazing: great dancing, tons of energy and flashy video. I started wondering, though: Why was last night's show hellish? Well! During Bird Flu, MIA goes, "Hey New York, I want you to come dance on the stage with me. Come on." What? Yeah. Like 50-some people hopped on and danced like discombobulated lunatics, trying to grab MIA, take pictures with her and pretty much have bragging rights for life. It was annoying and I get that it's involving the crowd and edgy or whatever, but it seemed like so much unnecessary stress. Everybody went crazy during Galang and Boyz, too. Jimmy and Paper Planes were rad to see live. I want to know where MIA buys her leggings, because I'd rock them if I could find them.

Oh, if you want to represent the World Town, put your index finger and thumb together, kind of like the "okay" sign. That is all.

Last night we trekked back to Brooklyn for the Modular party at Studio B. There was a dance floor with a legitimate disco ball and a huge sitting area with terribly comfy couches. The majority of the party was d.j.'d, but The Cool Kids rocked a sweet set, followed by Muscles, who's pretty much the equivalent of Treasure Mammal, and then New Young Pony Club. I wasn't super into NYPC, but I was super tired, so we left pretty early on in their set... which didn't start until like 2 a.m.

Today we're going to meet M.I.A. at Borders and then line up for a million hours so we can get in to see her at Terminal 5! Ole!

Woo! Here's a recap of what the eff I'm up to:

Tuesday:

We went to Bowery Ballroom and caught the end of The Shaky Hands' set, The Most Serene Republic, who totally killed, and Dean & Britta.

Wednesday:

I slept until noon and it was miraculous. Then we went to see Thurston Moore perform stuff from his new album The Trees Outside The Academy at the Apple Store in Soho. After that we went to Brooklyn and ate falafel at Oasis and hung out at a park.

We got to the Music Hall of Williamsburg crazy early, so we meandered around Brooklyn for awhile and ended up drinking a million Thai iced coffees at Chai, which led to us leaving the camera there and taking somewhat crappy phone pictures of Cadence Weapon.

Cadence went on a bit late, but totally made up for his tardiness with dance moves. He was wearing a Daft Punk Alive shirt. I'm in love with him.

Music Hall of Williamsburg is exactly like Bowery, except in Brooklyn. Pretty rad.

We tried to get into the Bowery after that for Dan Deacon, but there was a long line and we left since they were limiting how many CMJ badges they were letting inside.

Thursday:
We actually got to some panels today. The Lit Rock panel was really interesting! They had Michael Azerrad, who wrote Our Band Could Be Your Life, and some other writers discussing the interaction between the music world and the publishing world. Then we hit up the Music Directors' Summit, which was a freaking joke. Whatever.

Ah! We went to see Q-Tip at the Apple Store! Dude, we were in the front row and I danced with Q-Tip, not once, but TWICE. Yeah, he sang Bonita Applebum to me. You don't even know. His band was intensely good. Hooray for hip-hop.

Tonight we're going to trek back to Brooklyn for New Young Pony Club, Muscle and Simian Mobile Disco.

Love ya!

Okay, so we flew in to New York overnight. I didn't really sleep on the plane. I met a guy from Russia who wanted to buy me stuff. It was weird. Once we arrived, we went to get breakfast at a little French cafe called Petite Abeille next to The Chelsea Inn, where we're staying. The coffee was amazing and I would marry the man who made it if he asked me. We tried to check in to the hotel early, but no dice. We got our badges at the Puck Building at NYU, moseyed around some of the booths, chatted with some of our fellow CMJ-goers, and then went back to the hotel to check in and take naps. My nap was fulfilling but only lasted an hour. Sam's still sleeping and now I'm using our ten-dollar wireless internet. Additionally, we are on the third floor of a hotel with stairs that lean desperately. I hope the building doesn't collapse into itself. It's cute though, I guess.

Tonight we're going to Bowery Ballroom for the Brooklyn Vegan Showcase featuring Bon Iver, Shaky Hands, Miracle Fortress, The Most Serene Republic, which I am most excited about, duh, Dean & Britta, The Rosebuds and Voxtrot!

Across The Universe

Julie Taymor's Across The Universe is the musical equivalent of an abusive boyfriend. He lures you in with songs you love and then punches you in the face repeatedly with a silly, forced screenplay and lame characters. Ouch. Then he sings another song, and you think it'll be okay... but you are so mistaken. Prudence? Seriously?

FYI!

The Devendra Banhart show tomorrow night was moved from Marquee to The Clubhouse!

Since Digs are in Season

What Benny's Diggin:

Beck's Weekly Digs

Necronauts Show!

Local rockeronies The Necronauts are playing at Modified on Saturday! It's only five bucks, plus it's all ages. Ahhh, if not for good music, at least go to see guitarist/vocalist Billy's unbelievable head of hair.