
Rumors, they be flyin'! Tonight, Chop Suey.

Regardless of how you feel about Mad Rad, they left no pot of shit-talking unstirred in this town. It seems like only yesterday that this here blog was torn asunder daily with the anonymous hatred of these four rapping honkeys. If it's true, it was a good run, boys, may you all move on to bigger/better endeavors.
P.S.: Shit be sold out, as usual.
I love Austin Psych Fest. Glad to be involved again for the 5th year now. So many positive people with brains, talent, and true goodness... but Anton Newcomb... really? You insult the Black Angels on stage in front of thousands of people? They are the reason you're on that particular stage and getting paid for it in the first place. I don't mean to accentuate the negative but that was just extremely bad form. I could say more but I don't want to be all "Anton" about it......He's supposedly sober now, so I thought, as "professional musician" he'd keep it together. I know a lot of people were taping the show so I will try to turn up the "official version" but essentially this is what he said in the middle of their set: "I know you guys have your Black Angels, your Wooden Shijps, your Black Lips, and your Conan O'Brien that played this weekend, but that song we just played was better than all of those people. Don't let your music turn into a Kotex commercial..."
Who even buys Kotex anymore? Personally, I'm more of a Playtex kinda girl.
I, unfortunately, saw Valentine's Day, which features Taylor Swift as a hyper-happy high school student, and SHE WAS TERRIBLE. She was in the movie for maybe five minutes. She was so unnatural. So stiff. Now she's going to be Joni Mitchell?
No, please.
But if not Swift, who? I suppose, as far as young, female singer-songwriters go (who, you know, actually sing and write their own music), Swift is the obvious choice. Do you have any better ideas?
As Jackson pointed out in this morning's music news, music blogger's and gossip hound's heads exploded this weekend when it was rumored that Mr. Guns n' Roses is dating Miss SNL Disaster. They apparently left the Chateau Marmont together this weekend. Hubba hubba! But now Axl's bandmate is insisting to TMZ.com that the two are NOT the newest (and most confusing) couple.
He's 50. She's 25. He's a has been. She will be soon. It makes sense to me! Though, if I had to guess, I would've put her together with Billy Corgan before Axl. Anyway! We're done talking about whether or not she's a talented singer/songwriter. Now we can just talk about who she's dating. (Because in the gossip world, when you're a woman and you stand next to someone, you're totally possibly probably dating them and/or pregnant with their lovechild.)
Of all Del Rey's rumored beaus which would be the weirdest?

This year, the mega-jewel of rumored reformations is the Sugababes.
The original Sugababes. Including Siobhán Donaghy, who crafted her 2007 solo album Ghosts — the single most beautiful full-length pop artifact of the last decade.
This would not be a bad thing.
NME gossips:
The original Sugababes line-up has reportedly signed a £1 million record deal.
Keisha Buchanan, Siobhán Donaghy, and Mutya Buena have signed to Polydor Records, according to The Sun, and will release material under a new, yet-to-be-decided name.Earlier this year, Emeli Sandé confirmed that she was writing songs for the group. The singer admitted she was working with the trio and was 'very happy' to be involved.
It was also reported that the trio are working on new material and are set to record with the Xenomania songwriting and production team (Girls Aloud, Kylie Minogue, Pet Shop Boys) as well as their old producer Cameron McVey, who worked on their 2000 debut album One Touch and Siobhán Donaghy's debut album Revolution In Me (2003).
The band are being managed by Felix Howard, who wrote the original line-up's hit single "Overload". The new band will not be known as Sugababes, as Heidi Range, Amelle Berrabah, and Jade Ewen are currently working under that name.
The original Sugababes line-up formed in 1998 and released One Touch in 2000. Donaghy left the band in 2001 and was replaced by Heidi Range. Buena departed in 2005 to be replaced by Amelle Berrabah and Buchanan was last to leave in 2009, with Jade Ewan stepping into her shoes.
Skip ahead to the 20-21 minute mark. Go, Lelah, get that jock!
TacocaT with Nobunny and Dude York, tonight @ the Rendezvous, 10 pm, $8 adv
Last year the LA music festival Sunset Junction was canceled due to lack of funds, and the promoters have since filed for bankruptcy. Public court documents were just released, showing the amount of money they paid (or were supposed to pay) each artist they booked for the concert. The pay scale ranges from $24,000 to $150.
A few highlights: $24,000 got the Butthole Surfers, while Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah were booked for just $2,000 less. They snagged Hanson for a cool $20,000 (really?) while the Dum Dum Girls earned just a quarter of that with $5,000. Most surprisingly, the Melvins were booked for only $3,300. What a deal!
I haven't loved everything Tim Armstrong has ever done, especially post-1996 (dude's collaborated with Good Charlotte and Mest, after all), but who would've ever guessed the scrappy 22-year-old bassist in Op Ivy was going to grow up to collaborate with pop "weirdo"* Ke$ha:

Speaking of Ke$ha. Remember that one time Paul Constant bravely attended her show at the Showbox at the Market? Funniest review ever.
(Thanks for the tip, Ian.)
*Weirdo is only in quotes because she's not really weird. She just wants you to think she's weird. Which isn't weird, it's marketing. At least she does nice things for charity, though, right?
The Internet says this was posted over at the "Unofficial Sasquatch! Blog" and then taken down.
Friday
Lana Del Rey – Sasquatch
Girl Talk – SasquatchSaturday
Jamey Johnson – Sasquatch
St Vincent – Sasquatch
Blitzen Trapper – Sasquatch
Said the Whale – Yeti
THEESatisfaction – Yeti
Todd Barry – Banana
Rob Deleany – Banana
Pete Holmes – Banana
Wolfgang Gardner – Banana
Nobody Beats the Drum – Banana
Purity Ring – Banana
Araab Muzik – Banana
Com Truise – Banana
Sol – Maine
Grynch – Maine
Fatal Lucciauno – Maine
Black Whales – Yetti
The Shins – SasquatchSunday
Active Child – Yetti
Appart – Shack
Star Slinger – Shack
Tycho- Shack
Dyme Def – The Maine Stage
SPAC3MAN – The Maine Stage
Fly Moon Royalty – The Maine StageMonday
Beriut -Sasquatch
This in addition to today's hunch that Spiritualized will play, and I can confirm that this year Sasquatch! will feature an all-local-hiphop stage.
Here are the tour dates, with a big Saquatch!-sized hole where a Seattle date should be:
03-16 Nottingham, England - Rescue Rooms
03-17 Portsmouth, England - Wedgewood Rooms
03-19 London, England - Hackney Empire
03-20 Oxford, England - O2 Academy
03-21 Bristol, England - O2 Academy
03-22 Glasgow, Scotland - ABC
03-23 Belfast, Northern Ireland - Mandela Hall
03-24 Dublin, Ireland - Vicar Street
03-25 Manchester, England - Academy
05-02 Minneapolis, MN - First Avenue
05-03 Chicago, IL - Metro
05-04 Detroit, MI - The Majestic Theatre
05-05 Toronto, Ontario - The Phoenix
05-07 New York, NY - Terminal 5
05-09 Boston, MA - Paradise
05-10 Washington, DC - The 9:30 Club
05-11 Philadelphia, PA - Theatre of Living Arts
05-12 Carrboro, NC - Cat's Cradle
05-13 Atlanta, GA - The Variety Playhouse
05-15 Dallas, TX - The Granada Theatre
05-16 Austin, TX - Emo's East
05-18 Tucson AZ - The Rialto Theatre
05-19 Phoenix AZ - The Crescent Ballroom
05-20 San Diego CA - Belly Up Tavern
05-22 Los Angeles CA - The Wiltern
05-23 San Francisco CA - The Fillmore
05-25 Portland, OR - The Wonder Ballroom
05-26 Vancouver, British Columbia - The Rickshaw Theatre
Chuck Klosterman's writing and indie-bro ways have always been on the edge of completely irritating, no matter who he is talking about, but his response to tUnE-yArDs being voted #1 on the Pazz and Jop Poll was especially annoying. "The Pitfalls of Indie Fame," is meant to reflect how people's relationship with a hyped musician will change over the years, but whole thing reads like a satire of a old and out-of-touch dude trying to discredit something he doesn't understand, lazily implying that Merril Garbus will likely end up as another Indie Flavor of the Month. He admits that he's "not really in a position to argue for (or against) the merits of tUnE-yArDs,” but still manages to throw in a few shitty examples of his limited understanding:
"tUnE-yArDs is essentially one person, a somewhat androgynous American woman named Merrill Garbus. This is her second album. I get the sense that asexuality is part of her hippie aesthetic, because I just looked at the tUnE-yArDs Wikipedia page and noticed that the wiki writer put a lot of effort into never using gender-specific pronouns."
He got quite a few angry responses about it; Maura Johnston at the Village Voice labeled his attitude "Old Man Yells At Cloud That He Seems To Find Gender-Ambiguous," L Magazine called for the end of male-dominated "High Fidelity" rock criticism and this blog parody of the article is just pretty funny.
The internet is buzzing with the rumor that Mr. Ryan Gosling not only attended last night's American Nightmare reunion show in Boston, but he was also seen stage-diving.

Word on the street is that he also likes Kid Dynamite.
Apparently. Possibly. Supposedly. According to the rumor mill. IF SHE'S EVEN REALLY PREGNANT.
If you're in Seattle tonight, you may want to hover in the vicinity of Republiq Nightclub around 1 am, as it's totally within the realm of possibility that Prince may wind down from his Tacoma Dome show with an "afterjam" that could go until 4 am. Such things have been known to happen.
What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but in the words of Richard Fariña: "Its a long long way down to Reno Nevada, it's a long long way to your home." Apparently, the journey back was too much for Seattle's favorite porcine mammary; Tit Pig has decided to split after a particularly chaotic night of unmentionable antics in the biggest little city on the last leg of their tour.
Heshers all across King county may be shedding a tear, but don't despair; Singer Sean Prawn tells me there are new projects in the works. I was talking to one of their fans Ben Cissner about it, who said, “You should mention that on the bright side, we won't have to grit our teeth through a strained sophomore concept album.” “But Ben...they don't even have a freshman album...I think they just had a tape” “That’s why it’s funny”
So goodbye sweet Tit Pig, we barely knew ye.
Miami's Teflon Don Rick Ross was on a flight from Ft. Lauderdale to Memphis this morning when he reportedly suffered a seizure, forcing the pilot to make an emergency landing. He is allegedly still unconscious, and paramedics are reportedly attempting to resuscitate him. TMZ (of course) has a few more details:
10:36 AM PST: A witness tells TMZ, Rick fell unconscious right after take-off.
We're told his entourage jumped out of their seats to alert plane personnel — at which point a doctor on board administered CPR on the rapper.
The plane made an emergency landing right away — and we're told, as Rick was being wheeled off the aircraft, he appeared to show signs of life.
UPDATE: Ross is apparently conscious and tweeting. Hollywood Reporter states that the rapper was on his way to Memphis to open a Wingstop restaurant (!?) and perform at the University of Memphis' basketball team's "Memphis Madness" season kickoff event.
"It's time for us to make it happen in Memphis," Ross said in an earlier statement. "With Wingstop, we are bringing in the food I like and adding jobs to the community. It's a double win."

And what happens when you click the link in their Tweet? You go here.
Holy crap! So rad! See you all September 7th.