And my heart goes....

I checked out Ebony Bones at Mercury Lounge earlier this week and the show was unbelievable. Opening act The Fire and the Reason started off the early show (doors were at 7:00). They have a bit of a electro/rock thing going on and remind me of theStart. The NY duo is made up of guitarist/beats generator Steve Narvaez and singer Bella Saona. It's difficult being an opening band, especially when most of the crowd is unfamiliar with your music. However, The Fire and Reason played a pretty lively set that got the crowd warmed up for Ebony. And while Bella announced that the song "Do It Again" would be the song to make them rich (or at least she hopes so), it was a slower song of theirs that impressed me. Of course I don't remember the name and it's not on their MySpace page so I couldn't tell you what it is. But if I ever heard it again, I'd know it for sure.





Ebony was next and she and her crew made quite the entrance. I couldn't wait to see what fantastic outfit she'd have on and when she came out in this leopard print number, I was not disappointed.


Ebony opened with "We Know All About You" and also danced and wailed her way through "Warrior," "Story of St. Ockwell", "The Muzik," "In G.O.D. We Trust," "Guess We'll Always Have NY," and "Bone of My Bones." They even did a pretty kick ass cover of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall."

I've never seen an audience more into a performance than the audience at this show. Someone passed out whistles and masks before the show, so a good number of the crowd wore the masks and blew their whistles throughout the show. EVERYONE was taking photos (a guy behind me was practically spooning me to get some good shots) and the outfits some of the people there were wearing were pretty outrageous. There was a amazingly dressed boy standing in front of me wearing a shiny waist length jacket with the hugest shoulders I've ever seen. And his hair looked like Prince's in Purple Rain. Fabulous! I even think I say Lady Miss Kier of Dee-lite in the crowd, so that was pretty cool too.

Ebony ended the show with "Don't Fart On My Heart" and said that she would see us soon. Soon for me means February 13th at Southpaw. I'll be there for sure, with my whistle on.

More pictures here.

Do YOU have a moment for gay rights?

I don't think I've ever purchased a comedy album before last week. It's kind of hard for me to pay attention to something unless I can sing along to it or I'm being graded on it (which hopefully will never happen again since school and I amicably parted ways a few years ago). However, last week when I saw on @amazonmp3's twitter that Aziz Ansari's new comedy album, Intimate Moments For A Sensual Evening, was available for a devastatingly affordable $3.99, I couldn't help but buy it. After all. I once heard him tell a pretty hilarious joke about meeting M.I.A. and trying to speak Tamil to her.

Anyway, I downloaded Aziz's album and filed it away on my iPod for later listening. Later happened today.

Mondays are bullshit of course and it's always hard to get motivated when your brain has had a few days off. So I decided to listen to Intimate Moments For A Sensual Evening while trudging through the 98 emails laying about in my inbox. And guess what? Aziz Ansari is funny as hell!

From harassing his little cousin Harris on Facebook to his rant about 600 thread-count sheets that are actually 296 ("Are you shitting me man?! I almost slept on that shit!"), Aziz's anecdotes are sure to crack you the fuck up. He tells jokes that we can all relate to like crazy ass roommates and the ridiculousness that is Cold Stone Creamery ("Five people are singing and dancing for a dollar! That's 20 cents a person!")

He even takes cracks at R Kelly ("R Kelly is a BRILLIANT R&B singer/crazy person") and KANYE WEST ("Yo! Shut the fuck up! Homie's over here trying to tell some jokes!")

I especially love Aziz's jokes on race which is something most of the population a) still doesn't understand or b) is just too nervous to talk about. So it's always good when people can poke fun at it.

"Jason looks over at me and goes, 'Hey Aziz. Me and you are the only two white people at this concert.' And I was like, 'First of all Jason, I'm not white. Second of all, you're the only white guy at this concert. We might kill you Jason!' "

The Slumdog reference is great to me too, ("You must be pretty psyched about all this Slumdog Millionaire stuff") especially since two of my aunts married Indian men giving me a rather large extended Indian family. People can't stop congratulating them on a movie they had nothing to do with.

All in all, Intimate Moments For A Sensual Evening is a fantastically funny album that you will certainly quote with your friends for years and years to come. It's also probably the best $3.99 I've ever spent. Go and get your copy immediately.

Last but not least, be careful what you write about Aziz, 'cause chances are, he'll find it. Think he's too busy to read your little blog that nobody visits? Well, guess again 'cause according to the man himself, "I don't do anything! I take naps all day!" Aziz has plenty of time to Google himself. So Aziz, since I know you'll find this eventually, if you're into half Indian/half Black girls, I've got a shitload of cousins that my aunties want to marry off. You can have your pick!

You're just a weatherman, we make the wind blow

A band that got a lot of buzz towards the end of last year is the duo Sleigh Bells. Fuzzy, synthy, loud guitary goodness with a bad ass vocalist in Alexis Krauss. They're set to play Coachella this year, were a break out band at CMJ, have been written about in the New York Times and their song "Crown on the Ground" was even chosen as one of the best tracks of 2009 by Pitchfork. 2010 will certainly be very good to them. Besides the fact that they write pretty infectious songs, I love that guitarist Derek Miller is the same Derek Miller (formally) from Poison the Well.

I think it's pretty normal for most music addicts like myself to go through different music phases in our lives. That's generally how our overall music taste develops. Grunge, punk, metal, goth, hardcore, whatever. In college, my friend Melina was big into hardcore when we met and she introduced me to bands like Braid, Vision of Disorder and Zao. (We were also dressing in boys clothes and wore chucks and Pumas all the time but that's a story for another time). When Napster was getting hot on our campus, Poison the Well was one of the bands she discovered while doing her daily music searches. We fell in love with them immediately.

We went to their shows whenever we could, including one at Under the Couch on Tech's campus where some kid got naked at their end of their set and started moshing (naked, skinny hardcore dude = not so good). We even drove the four hours to North Carolina to see them once too, although I can't remember the name of the venue. I used to check their tour diary on the Trustkill site regularly (did they really meet Tom Cruise in Olive Garden and give him their record? I'll never really know) and even pre-ordered Tear From the Red so that I could get the free poster that came along with it. Seriously, I loved them.

Then a few months later, I discovered "indie rock" (meaning bands that I actually had to do research to find out about, which was kind of a completely new and interesting idea to me) and thus began a new music phase in my life. While I stopped following them, it seems as though Poison the Well is still doing very well so it may seem crazy that someone from a pretty successful band would leave. But that's what Derek did. The music he made with PTW was great, but the stuff he's doing with Sleigh Bells is refreshing.

I love musicians that make music you don't expect them to make or listen to bands that you think they'd never listen to. It's hard to do something different these days. As Metric's Emily Haines sang in Dead Disco, "Everything has been done." So it's nice when you hear a song that catches you off guard and that's what Sleigh Bells has done for me. Also, kudos to Alexis for once being a school teacher in the Bronx. I know it's super far away from all the cool shit, but there are some cool people here :) Check out a video of "Infinity Guitars" below.

Oscar + Bebe

"Crying is the refuge of plain women but the ruin of pretty ones." - Oscar Wilde

I love this shirt. Know where I can can get one?

We Know All About You, Yes We Do

I was so thrilled when I heard that Ebony Bones is going on tour and playing TWO shows in New York. The first at Mercury Lounge on the 26th (ticket already purchased) and another at Southpaw on February 13th. Ebony is one of the artists that blew my mind last year at SXSW and her live show is phenomenal. Yes, she and her band wear outrageous outfits but her music is amazing. And she even got a Bowery Ballroom crowd to dance from one side of the room to the other, which I consider an amazing accomplishment for anyone. Definitely check out Ebony if she comes to your town. Dates are as follows.

1/26 - Mercury Lounge - New York, NY
2/4 - San Francisco, CA
2/5 - Los Angeles, CA
2/6 - Green Dolphin - Chicago, IL
2/7 - Wrong Bar - Toronto, ON
2/8 - Belmont - Montreal, QB
2/9 - Middle East Downstairs - Boston, MA
2/10 - Hudson Hotel (Fashion Week) - New York, NY
2/11 - Marbar - Philadelphia, PA
2/12 - DC9 - Washington, DC
2/13 - Southpaw - Brooklyn, NY

Ebony @ Scoot Inn

Speaking of other peeps from across the pond, I recently came across this video of Russell Brand interviewing Morrissey. Russell is a MASSIVE Smiths/Morrissey fan so I can only imagine how cool it was for him to talk with him about Years of Refusal

Morrissey Years of Refusal

Morrissey | MySpace Music Videos

New machinary

I've recently become the proud owner of a brand new MacBook Pro! I wasn't planning on getting a new laptop but my G4 finally lost its shit about two weeks ago. Never one to back up my incredibly amazing music collection (external hard drive huh?) I was pretty scared that I was going to lose all my tunes. So I placed an order for a new laptop friend. My MacBook has extra memory and a much bigger hard drive (the old only had 80 GB, which is the same size as my ipod). I'm excited that I don't have to delete photos as soon as I upload them to my flickr or delete songs that I haven't listened to much in the last 6 months to make more space or to make the thing run faster. And thank goodness for Senuti which allowed me take all of my music, movies and TV shows off of my iPod and put them on my new laptop. Trying to pull stuff off of the old laptop was just frustrating because it would freeze every five seconds.

Now that I have a machine that isn't slow as hell, I will certainly update this blog more often, which I'm definitely looking forward to. It kind of broke my bank, but it was also totally worth it.

R.I.P. Jay Reatard

This afternoon around 5 or so, one of my co-workers turned to me and asked if I knew who Jay Reatard was. I said yes and told him that he was a awesome musician. And then he told me that he had died. I didn't believe it though because 2010 has just started and seriously, another musician death already? But then I saw posts popping up on Brooklyn Vegan, Rolling Stone and Paste and RIP Jay Reatard tags on Twitter, as well as statements from Goner Records and Jay's current lable, Matador.

It sucks when anyone dies. It also sucks when young people die (He was only 29). And it really sucks when young people who are incredibly talented die.

One of the few magazines I have a subscription to is Death & Taxes and Jay graces the cover of their current issue. When I got the magazine in the mail a while back and I saw Jay standing in his underwear with a red cape blowing in the wind, I couldn't wait to read the article. And it didn't disappoint.


Brooklyn Vegan posted a short documentary about Jay called "Waiting for Something." In addition to being a kick ass musician, it seems like he was also a pretty cool guy.

Waiting For Something - a short documentary about Jay Reatard

Jay Reatard | MySpace Music Videos

Cool my brains and soothe my head

Mike Mitchell created this great picture of the incomparable Conan O'Brien. I feel really bad for Conan with all of the late night show drama that's going on right now. It's pretty awful that his family and staff picked up and moved to the other side of the country only to have everything get screwed up 7 months later. However, considering the circumstances, I'd say he's handling everything like a sport. Of course he's upset and who knows what's going to happen when this whole thing is finally resolved. But one thing that's certain. This situation needs to be made right some how. If you haven't read Conan's open letter, read it below:

People of Earth:

In the last few days, I’ve been getting a lot of sympathy calls, and I want to start by making it clear that no one should waste a second feeling sorry for me. For 17 years, I’ve been getting paid to do what I love most and, in a world with real problems, I’ve been absurdly lucky. That said, I’ve been suddenly put in a very public predicament and my bosses are demanding an immediate decision.

Six years ago, I signed a contract with NBC to take over “The Tonight Show” in June of 2009. Like a lot of us, I grew up watching Johnny Carson every night and the chance to one day sit in that chair has meant everything to me. I worked long and hard to get that opportunity, passed up far more lucrative offers, and since 2004, I have spent literally hundreds of hours thinking of ways to extend the franchise long into the future. It was my mistaken belief that, like my predecessor, I would have the benefit of some time and, just as important, some degree of ratings support from the prime-time schedule. Building a lasting audience at 11:30 is impossible without both.

But sadly, we were never given that chance. After only seven months, with my “Tonight Show” in its infancy, NBC has decided to react to their terrible difficulties in prime time by making a change in their long-established late night schedule.

Last Thursday, NBC executives told me they intended to move the “Tonight Show” to 12:05 to accommodate the “Jay Leno Show” at 11:35. For 60 years, the “Tonight Show” has aired immediately following the late local news. I sincerely believe that delaying the “Tonight Show” into the next day to accommodate another comedy program will seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting. The “Tonight Show” at 12:05 simply isn’t the “Tonight Show.” Also, if I accept this move I will be knocking the “Late Night” show, which I inherited from David Letterman and passed on to Jimmy Fallon, out of its long-held time slot. That would hurt the other NBC franchise that I love, and it would be unfair to Jimmy.

So it has come to this: I cannot express in words how much I enjoy hosting this program and what an enormous personal disappointment it is for me to consider losing it. My staff and I have worked unbelievably hard, and we are very proud of our contribution to the legacy of “The Tonight Show.” But I cannot participate in what I honestly believe is its destruction. Some people will make the argument that with DVRs and the Internet, a time slot doesn’t matter. But with the “Tonight Show,” I believe nothing could matter more.

There has been speculation about my going to another network but, to set the record straight, I currently have no other offer and honestly have no idea what happens next. My hope is that NBC and I can resolve this quickly so that my staff, crew, and I can do a show we can be proud of, for a company that values our work.

Have a great day and, for the record, I am truly sorry about my hair; it’s always been that way.

Yours,

Conan

You've got light in your eyes

At work today, I had the urge to listen to Naive Melody by Talking Heads. Since I don't have that song on my iTunes at work, I decided to look it up on YouTube. I came across a video of a young(er) MGMT performing a cover of the song and I think it sounds pretty awesome.



It's probably going to snow tonight which I'm not too happy about. That's gonna be like four times since December. This winter is gonna be a tough one for sure. Georgia is supposed to get snow today and I know everyone is crossing their fingers that it's enough to close down school and work. Yay for three day weekends!

Heaven knows I'm miserable now

Hello world! It's been months and ages since I last wrote and I'd like to get back into the swing of things (although when I say that, it never lasts too long does it?)

Finally feeling better. I've had a cold for almost a week but am happy to say that I didn't have to drink any Dayquil today which is a nice little victory. Last week was Christmas of course and I spent Christmas morning in church with my family, the afternoon at Aunt Angela's house helping her set the tables and get things ready for dinner and the evening eating way too much food and watching my little cousins open presents. Christmas really is for kids.

Mina, Jake and Natalia had a great time opening presents. And watching Dora and Diego on Nick Jr.

Now that I'm older, I don't really find that I ever want anything for Christmas since I buy the things that I want for myself throughout the year. However, I bought myself an early Christmas gift last week when I won a fantastic pair of Jeffrey Campbell boots on Ebay. I'd been looking for these boots ever since I saw Zana from Garbage Dress wear them in photos in one of her posts. I lost a bid on a pair a few months ago but would periodically check Ebay to see if another pair got listed. I'm happy to say that I now own a pair of those gorgeous boots and I didn't even have to pay an arm and a leg for them. The Internet is the best.

A lot has changed since I last posted. I started a new job as a music publicist at a record label, I got a kitten (who's now almost 6 months old), the Shakes broke up and Passion Pit is bigger than ever! The Antlers had one of the best albums of the year with Hospice and I have discovered the awesomeness that are BDG jeans from Urban Outfitters. Here's a picture of the cat from September.

My uncle named him Gigi. Yes, he. But we didn't know he was a boy when we started calling him that. So now we tell people that Gigi is short for Giovanni.

On Saturday, my family and I went to the annual Christmas dance that my Aunt Margaret's church has. I only just found a dress a couple of weeks ago but am happy to say that it fit me pretty well. It's from Express and is a pretty similiar to those popular banded dresses that I've seen a lot of in the last yera or so. Jeazette took this picture with my iPhone before we left the house.


Since my camera died as we were taking photos in the lobby (I could've sworn that those batteries were fully charged) most of the "action" shots from the night were taking by Adhalia with her camera. I'm hoping I can steal the ones she took and put them up on flickr soon.

I have the week off, so I spent the day at Aunt V's watching movies (and doing some laundry in between). Finally saw Brideshead Revisited, Brick Lane, and The Remains of the Day. Enjoyed all immensely and I'd suggest them to anyone. Tomorrow I will go back to my house since I have an appointment with the eye doctor on Wednesday and it's much easier to walk to the train station from my house than from over here.

I have loads of photos from shows I've gone to over the last 6 months but I'll get to that later. I'm happy that it's only Monday and I look forward to relaxing for the rest of the week.

Photo opp

There are so many wonderful things about living in New York. The food. The sites. The people.  But the best thing about New York for me are the shows!  Let's face it, most bands swing through New York at some point and it's so awesome getting the opportunity to see really great music on any given random night in Manhattan or Brooklyn.  Here are some photos from my last few show going experiences.  Enjoy!

More of Harlem Shakes @ Starr Space

More photos of Hymns, The Antlers and Here We Go Magic @ Music Hall of Williamsburg

More of Cut Off Your Hands @ Webster Hall

More of Chairlift @ Bruar Falls

P.S. I took some photos of Love Language at Bell House but they seem to have disappeared from my computer and most unfortunately, never made it to my flickr. The only ones I have are the ones that I posted to my Facebook so maybe I'll get around to adding those to my flickr at some point. 

SXSW

I have some pictures to post from the last 5 or 6 shows I've been too, but I'll save that for later. Let's talk about SXSW 2009 shall we?

I spent three days at the festival with my friends/workmates and had the most amazing time ever. The Shakes were incredible! I saw them on four different occasions over those three days (twice on the 19th, my first day in Austin) and each time they seemed to get better and better. How is that possible? That band is flawless live. I don't think it's possible for them to play a bad show. And that's definitely a good trait to have. For those of you who are fans of the Brooklyn (nope, they're not from Harlem) group, you can catch them on tour with Passion Pit next month. Dates here. I'm going to be in Atlanta the same time they play Drunken Unicorn and I'm so excited for the show!

I also saw COYH more than once during SXSW and they didn't disappoint either. I caught sets from them at the Onion party at Radio Room, The NME showcase at Aces Lounge and finally the Rolling Stone party at Peckerheads. They were explosive! I think they played something like 10 shows over the course of the festival which is amazing considering how energized each performance was. Since I love them so much, I also caught their set at the Ra Ra Riot show at Webster Hall last month. It was bittersweet as it was Brent's last show with the band (for at the very least a year). He's taking time off due to a hearing problem. I hope he gets better so that he can come back to the band. I saw the band (with their awesome new drummer) last week at Mercury Lounge and they sounded stellar. I think this will be a great year for them.

Another band that blew me away at SXSW was The Love Language. Mike played them in the office pretty frequently for about a month so I was familiar with their music before SXSW. But seeing them live was a totally different ballgame. Their infectious pop song "Lalita" was made even better when one of their keyboardists jumped off the stage and began dancing in the crowd banging her tambourine. And the melodies on "Manteo" were gorgeous. I was hoping that they'd play "Stars" but they didn't, even though I saw them at Fader Fort AND Peckerheads. But no worries. They played "Stars," "Providence" and a wicked cover of "Hello Mary Lou" at their Bell House show a few weeks ago.

So yeah I saw a few bands more than once. But I was totally cool with that. I also got to see old friends (The Prids and Entertainment), wonderfully energetic and show stopping peeps from across the pond (The Future of the Left and Ebony Bones) and supa-dupa mega stars who love to blog and type IN ALL CAPS!!!! (Kanye "Gay Fish" West. jk Kanye). I made some new friends and ran into some old ones. I also had so many musicians sightings, my mouth was agape in amazement 40% of the time. I love that bands are just walking around freely at SXSW. For instance, when I was walking to the Driskill for a listening party, I ran into The Duke Spirit. And I mean THE ENTIRE BAND! I was too caught off guard to stop the entire band (Liela was totes gorgeous) but I managed to stop Olly. Amanda was with me and said, "Oh, so THAT's the Duke Spirit?" Anyone who knows me knows how much I love them. Hell if you read this blog, you definitely know. I also saw Amanda Palmer when we were coming back from the Gigantic Music showcase at Scoot Inn, Steve Aoki when I was killing time after seeing the Shakes at Cheers, Janelle Monae at a pizza place after watching Kanye at Fader Fort...I mean the list goes on and on. I also love the free EVERYTHING in Austin: Booze, food, portable fans, etc. And the burritos. Burritos are fantastic at 2 in the morning, if you didn't know. I managed to not have any barbecue though. I don't know how that happened but definitely next time.

So in conclusion, SXSW 2009 was awesome and I'll be going to Austin every March from now on until I die. Yep Yep.

I of course took a CRAP load of pictures in Austin and you can view them here, here and here.

Who rocks the party that rocks the body?

So kiddies, it happened. I actually saw Les Savy Fav last Friday night at Brooklyn Masonic Temple. It was amazing!!!! While they didn't play "The Lowest Bitter" they did break out "Patty Lee," "We'll Make A Lover Of You," "Raging in the Plague Age," and "The Sweat Decends" to name a few. It was a sleepver themed show with Tim Harrington wearing a woman's nightgown and shower cap. Oh yeah and some sort of green face stuff. There was a pillow fight, a game of Light as a feather, stiff as a board and lots of liquids flying everywhere. Epic! Opening act Sean Bones was pretty wicked too.





More photos here.

I'm headed off to Austin tomorrow morning for SXSW! Yes I know that it started today but there will still be lots of fun to be had when I get there tomorrow. Hopefully I'll be able to take loads of pictures to document how rad it will all be. I'm probably going to be severely exhausted too, but that's alright. It's just a few days and it'll be lots of fun!

If anyone actually reads this thing and wants to keep up with what I'm doing in Austin, feel free to visit my Twitter. I'll be updating that as often as I can (or whenever something cool happens).

I just see you

'Ello! Here are some photos from The Duke Spirit/Mobius Band/Shilpa Ray and The Happy Hookers show a few weeks ago at Music Hall of Williamsburg.  More photos here.

I waste all our time

I'm so terrible! Haven't written in weeks and it's 11:30 pm on a Monday night. I usually can't get to sleep at a reasonable hour on Monday nights as my sleeping schedule is off because of the weekend, so I'll probably be awake for another hour or so.

March is here and in a few weeks I will be attending SXSW in Austin for the first time ever in my life! I am beyond stoked, kind of anxious and already overwhelmed. There's just so much going on! A friend of mine has been sending me party updates over the past 2 weeks and I can already tell that there's no way that I'll get a chance to see everyone I want to see, even though most bands are playing more than two shows it seems. I hear White Denim played around 14 shows last year! Insane! Anywho, I'm looking forward to catching sets from The Pains of Being Pure At Heart, COYH, The Love Language and my lovely friends Entertainment and The Prids. The Prids and Entertainment are both playing the Post-punk.com show at Spiderhouse on the 19th so I've gotta find myself there at some point to see their sets. I haven't seen The Prids in probably two years so I'm definitely due. Can't wait to hear "Shadow and Shadow" and (hopefully) "Before We Are" live again.
Last night, Nerrissa, Jeazette, Adhalia and I went to The Haunt to see a few bands play. Caught sets from Beyond The Reach, Terrorsaur, Nine Days to Drop, For The Foxes, Romance N' Ruin and Ever Since. The Haunt is located in Yonkers and I was shocked to find that there was a venue so close to my house! I never would've guessed. It's definitely a great place for smaller local and up and coming bands to play and reminds me a lot of the main floor of the Masquerade back in Atlanta.

I've been to three great shows over the past few weeks including the Shakes at Southpaw, The Duke Spirit at Music Hall of Williamsburg and the Rabbits at Mercury. All were fantastic. Gotta talk about Shilpa Ray and Her Happy Hookers who played both The Shakes and Duke Spirit shows. This girl is amazing! She has kind of haunting yet commanding voice and plays a harmonium on stage. I'm kind of always fascinated when someone plays an instrument that you don't really see in most bands so Shilpa is a breath of fresh air. She's one of those performers that you can't keep your eyes off. She and her Happy hooker will certainly make a lot of noise this year.

I'm thinking of purchasing a tripod for my camera and think that I've settled on this one. I really want to start taking daily outfit photos. Anyone have any suggestions?

Also trying to find a good pair of ankle skinny jeans or jeans that fit like leggings that I can wear with my Besty Boots so drop a line if you have any ideas for that as well. Jeazette said that I should look into J Brand but they're a bit more than I'd like to spend.

The 51st Annual Grammy Awards

Thankfully, I was able to watch the entire Grammys telecast from beginning to end without getting kicked out of a room so that one of my cousins could watch something terrible on TV like Desperate Housewives (I'm talking to you Adhalia). Like a lot of my other twitter friends, I posted updates all show long. Sasha Frere-Jones' were the best hands down! ("So You Think You Can Dance? Season 5 winner, Thomas Yorke"). But before I give my recap, I've gotta say, WHAT THE EFF CHRIS BROWN!

Chris Brown and Rihanna were both scheduled to appear at the awards show last night but cancelled last minute. It seems as though the two were in some sort of altercation early Sunday morning which lead to Chris turning himself into the LAPD. He's out on $50,000 bail. Now, we shouldn't make any assumptions until we know all the facts but it's not looking good. If he physically hurt her, it's gonna leave a huge black cloud over the rest of his career. That's a shame since he's still so young. People will forgive but they never forget.

This whole situation seems to be constantly evolving so I'm sure we'll get more info as the days go on. You can read more about the incident here, here, here and here.

Ok, now on to happier things. Lil Wayne, Coldplay, and Alison Krauss and Robert Plant were the big winners last night. They only handed out a few awards during the 3.5 hour telecast but that's totally ok. The Grammys are all about the performances that you talk about the next day around the watercooler.

Mostly all the performances were good. I really enjoyed Jennifer Hudson and Radiohead (with the USC Marching Band -- Bring on your Fleetwood Mac/Tusk jokes).

Even though I'm not a big country fan, Carrie Underwood can sing the hell out of practically any song and she was amazing. It was fun singing along with Neil Diamond (SO GOOD SO GOOD!) as he did "Sweet Caroline" and Whitney Houston even made an appearence (she looked gorgeous and apparently blew everyone away at Clive Davis' party the night before).

I was SOOO happy to see super preggers M.I.A. out on stage doing a wee bit of "Paper Planes" (would've been so epic if she had won) and then "Swagger Like Us" with Jay Z, Lil Wayne, Kanye and TI. Her outfit was classic Maya and being 9 months preggers and about to pop didn't stop her from jumping around on stage. She is gangsta.

Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift are apparently BFF now, thanks to the fact that they've each dated a Jonas (Miley with Nick (the cute one) and Taylor with Joe (the hot one)). They performed a song called "Fifteen" together. Have only heard a little Taylor Swift, but she's totally adorbs. And she can actually write a song.

Adele won for "Best New Artist" and she was so cute! Genuinely surprised and grateful to win. Her album, 19, was defintiely one of my favorites from last year. Think she'll definitely sell a few more copies of that now that she's a Grammy winner. And I'm pretty sure it won't be the kiss of death for her.

Had never listened to Sugarland but my country music loving cousin Jeazette tells me that they're so hot right now. I'm from Atlanta and for the first 13 years of my life, my father rarely changed the car radio dial from Kicks 101.5. So I heard a lot of country growing up. Sugarland seems to be one of the good ones. Their performance was awesome and what was even more awesome is when Adele performed "Chasing Pavement" right after them.

Sir Paul McCartney performed the Beatles classic, "I Saw Her Standing There," with Dave Grohl on drums. Any time a Beatle does anything, it's awesome. And his new girlfriend is super hot!

Ya'll know how I feel about TI. I hope they don't send him to jail :( Anywho, here's him and his BFF JT

View the full list of Grammy winners here. There are videos all over the internet with every performance you could possibly want to see. Happy hunting!

If I could lend you this feeling I would

I got my ticket for The Duke Spirit at MHOW. Where's yours?

Maxwell's tickets

MHOW tickets

Bob Marley would've been 64 yesterday. Happy Birthday Robert.

I wish I'd stayed asleep today

Lady Sovereign has a new song called "I'm So Human" which samples "Close to Me" by my besties The Cure. I'm not sure how I feel about it. What do you think?

Ok. So. I'm trying not to freak out but the Mercury Lounge building is up for sale. The venue is safe for now (their lease runs through 2018) but if they sell it so that they can turn it into something lame (and something lame would be anything other than what it already is) I will cry a thousands tears. The Mercury Lounge is my ABSOLUTE favorite venue in all of NYC. I've been to more shows there than any other venue in New York. So keep your fingers crossed that nothing happens to it. And I mean EVER.

Someone in a google group I'm apart of was looking for a contact for The Murder City Devils this morning. I first thought, "Derek Fudesco's Murder City Devils?" (as if there was another). And then I thought, "But didn't they break up?" Well, turns out they are doing a short tour of the west coast this month. Their old label, Sup Pop, is going to reissue their three albums. Pretty rad huh? If you live on the west coast, check out tour dates here. Derek Fudesco was a member of one of my all time favorite bands Pretty Girls Make Graves. They broke up in 07. Don't talk about it. I'm still in mourning.

Mike pointed out that while Glastonbury has sold out (even though the lineup has yet to be confirmed), The Langerado Festival (which was was to take place March 6-8 in Miami) was cancelled due to poor ticket sales. I've been to a few festivals and usually I have a miserable time because there are too many people, the weather is wretched and there are lines everywhere. What magical enchantment happens at Glastonbury that makes people pull out their wellies and trek out into a swamp to camp out for three days?

M.I.A. is totally performing at the Grammys this Sunday, even though she might pop the baby out on stage. No one on the corner has swagger like Maya. Speaking of the Grammys, this will be the first year in like 3 that I'm actually going to be able to watch the entire thing. They usually happen on the same night we go out to eat for my Uncle's birthday. Well we had his birthday dinner last Sunday so my Grammy viewing is safe this time around.

I'm going to see the incomparable Steven Patrick Morrissey at Carnegie Hall in March. I've seen Morrissey twice, the last time being in October of 2007 at Hammerstein. He puts on a FANTASTIC show and I can't wait to see him! He's sure to play this song.

They couldn't think of something to say the day you burst

As promised, photos from Wednesday night's show at Bowery.






More photos here.