I've seen Fall Out Boy live, a few times. And their shows have been as explosive and energetic as fireworks in a tin can. I didn't even care that they sacrificed the sound of their songs for their charismatic energy, because quite frankly they SOUNDED awful. But then I stopped being a teenager.

So, I had no interest in their upcoming Live CD/DVD, aptly titled "****."

But then, I stumbled across the awesomest cover song I've heard in a long, long time, which just so happens to be on the tracklist for said release which is slated for April 8. This song itself is not recorded live, but it's enough reason to make me want to buy whatever it comes packaged with.

If you didn't already jump the gun and click the link, it's Fall Out Boy covering "Beat It" better than Jacko could ever have originally hoped for. And finally, FINALLY, John Mayer actually SHOWS OFF why people keep saying he is THE guitar god of our generation. He joins the FOB here to lend his finest axe wielding chops and takes it to a whole other deck in the ball park. And the cameo is rather fitting, since Eddie Van Halen was the puppeteer pulling the 6 strings on the original with Jacko. So we can count on Fall Out Boy getting nose changes and lending songs to any future Free Willy soundtracks, and John Mayer continuuing to rule.

And for being the chubbiest AND dorkiest rocker alive today, FOB singer Pat Stump croons a mean soulful vocal hook for a white boy with a guitar. I guess it really DOESN'T matter if you're black or white. Which is funny, because we have no idea what Michael is anymore, do we?

I couldn't help but fill with glee when Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova won the Song Oscar for "Falling Slowly" Sunday night from their movie "Once." If you don't know the past few years of Hansard's life, it's truly wound together as a fairy tale, culminating at the Oscars. He was originally only supposed to write the music for the movie, but when the lead role dropped out, the director pushed Hansard in as leading man since he wrote the music. He was weary at first about it since he had no training in acting, but next thing you know, he's dating costar Irglova, and the low-budget Once slowly takes off, from being received well at Sundance, to winning an Oscar for best original song. Go Hansard! He was no doubt, the happiest man alive on Sunday when he hoisted that golden man in the air.

This week's Top 5 are our favorite music-centered films here at Scene & Heard HQ.

5. SLC Punk
I read somewhere that this movie is what would happen if you crossed "Sid & Nancy" with a John Hughes flick. Couldn't say it any better myself.

4. Spinal Tap
The mother mock-rock-doc of em' all. It's one of those rare movies that turns it up to 11 just because it's higher than 10, if you know what I mean. And you can't talk about music movies and somehow ignore this comedic hair metal extravaganza.

3. I'm Not There
They keep saying it's a Bob Dylan biopic, but that's not exactly true. Quite the contrary, it's about the songs that have come out of the Dylan, not the Dylan that's come out of the songs. And thus, it's one of the most colorful and unique movies ever put to tape, with 6 different people all putting their own spin on Bobby and even more songwriters putting their spin on his music. It's like the Fight Club of music films.

2. High Fidelity
John Cusack owns a record shop, tries to figure out his long and troubled romantic life through Top Five lists and records (and with some help from The Boss too) while waxing intellect with his zaney music-dork employees.

1. Almost Famous
The one, the only. This fictional re-creation of Cameron Crowe's young life is colored with the life any young writer can only dream of. If you don't 'get' why people love music, this movie will change that. If you are looking for a reason to start a band, this movie will give you many. But even more so, in a movie full of rockstars it makes the vastly uncool look like the coolest people of all.

Have you ever listened to an album and felt a like the band was singing about YOU, and not themselves? It's freaky when it happens. And amazing. Heck, the main reason I listen to music is to unearth those fine silvery albums.

Well, Margot & The Nuclear So And Sos want to make that experience even more personal with their next couple records. They want to write a full length album about some random dude or dudette who surf Myspace and the music blogosphere. They want to write about YOU! or ME! or US! OTHER PEOPLE! What a concept. Songs based off any wacko's dental records, love letters, and self-awareness.

Seriously, scope the link out. If you're like me and think you're a mixtape waiting to be written, go ahead and work up your own little 500 word essay and pass it to them. You can bet I did. You might end up in everybody's headphones! I think it's the coolest most unique idea I've heard come from anyone in the music biz in a super long time.

Plus, if I was going to trust my story to some songwriters I never met...Margot and his So Sos would be one of the few groups I'd entrust such a delicate and worthy tale to. The only dude off the top of my head I'd want singing songs about me even more is HUEY LEWIS, who most recently sang about Jimmy Kimmel's love affair with Ben Affleck (see post below). It's hip to be square!

So here we are, morning after The Oscars. And what are we gossiping about here in Scene & Heard HQ? Well it isn't Ethan Coen's numerous well-thought acceptance speeches, or Cate Blanchett's double snub in leading and supporting actress (but hear me loud and clear Hollywood, we are very bitter about that).

Instead, we're trying to peal ourselves off the floor from Jimmy Kimmel's retaliatory video to his girlfriend's "I'm F*cking Matt Damon" video. So what do you do when your girlfriend cheats on you with Good Will Hunting? You sleep with his best friend, Chucky. For his post-Oscar show, Jimmy Kimmel unveiled his "I'm F*cking Ben Affleck" video, and it's the absolute must see of the year. From Brad Pitt as a Fed Ex man, to Affleck singing, to appearances from Don Cheadle, Robin Williams, Pete Wentz, and HUEY LEWIS singing a "We Are The World" like montage about Kimmel's affair with Affleck. THIS deserves an Oscar folks.

I told you music has the power to heal!

Scientists have found that music has the ability to speed up the recovery for stroke victims. So I say step up and start making some mixes for those loved ones that need it.

You probably didn’t know there was such a thing as grunge bar rock. It’s cool, I didn’t either. Not even after listening to some of Big Head Todd & The Monsters’ smokey alterna-rock on record.

But when The Mercury’s Business Editor Michelle Karas coerced me into nabbing a peak of The Monsters’ live show last Saturday at the TLA in Philly, such a sound suddenly existed.

Put it this way; if Neil Young, Eddie Vedder, The Boss’ E-Street Band, The Eagles, and Blues Traveler were all stars in the sky above, Big Head Todd & The Monsters were the constellation that night as they tumbled through their long set of career staples and coal-cracked bar rock. And they played their melodic grit so loud and bright, we didn’t even have to get out our telescopes!

First off, front man Todd Mohr (whose head, honestly, was not big at all) was by far the heart and soul of everything happening in that room. There was little movement on stage by either of the four (The band also includes Brian Nevin on drums, Rob Squires on bass, and Jeremy Lawton on keys and steel lap), but when Mohr let his guitar riffing off its leash for some spotlight solos…whoa. Babies wailed, devils cried, and I drooled all over my sport coat.

Every time he leaned away from the mic to stir up a new grungey sonic rush of messy guitar goodness, I closed my eyes and thought, “Ah, so… this is what a stick of dynamite feels like.”

They played to a full house, pulling a wide variety of songs out of their deep 22-year career pockets. There were the obvious hits that brought them glimpses of 90’s fame like “Broken-Hearted Savior,” and their fanstastic spit-shined cover of the Johnny Lee Hooker classic, “Boom Boom,” as well as newly minted material from their recently released “All The Love You Need,” which you can (legally) download for free (gasp!) right here. They also played “Blue Sky,” the song that Hillary Clinton has been using for her campaign, even though it was written as a dedication to astronauts, “Blue Sky.” (C’mon guys, Hillary? Ick.)

But let’s take a step back to why I said these guys were an ultimate grunge rock bar band. The TLA was packed with all ages, from balding married couples to 21 year olds all sludging around together, elbow to elbow, face to face.

The band hammered their songs out through the musky room as raised plastic cups and cell phones sauntered through the air. Sneakers squeaked along the sticky concrete floor of spilled beer and spit. The faint smell of certain, uh, smokey substances rimmed around our necks. Die-hard fans shouted along to every word til their own voices went horse. Married couples slow-danced to the slower songs and happily bounced around to the upbeat ones.

Obnoxiously drunk and single (weird how the two go together sometimes) middle-aged men wearing frat boy t-shirts that read “Half Man, Half Horse” lugged their way out from the bar at the sound of their favorite song to play air-guitar entirely off cue (like, when there is no guitar for instance).

Dads stood aside sons, not dancing or singing, just occasionally glancing down to see if their boys nodded their heads to the beat or not. Some women tossed back shots of cheap liquor together. Some guys sang with their arms around each others shoulders. Some of us others just stood in awe at the whole moment, all these different people of all different ages having the time of their lives, together, singing songs that some of them don’t even know the words to.

Not any band can be a band like this. U2 can’t. The Killers can’t. Fall Out Boy? Ha! Sure they got dedicated fans, but that's not what this is about. It’s not about the band. It’s not about their songs either. It’s not even about the bar when it comes to a bar band. It’s something that just happens.

It’s when you stop thinking about what music is and start realizing what it does. It’s when you forget there’s even a band up there on stage and you wander into a blind cloud of endless music. Next thing you know two hours have passed and the band are packing up their things and you have to take a second to ask yourself what your name is, where you are and how long you’ve been there.

You can walk into any corner bar in America and find this disorienting phenomenon. But the magic with Big Head Todd is, you don’t have to go bar diving. You can count on them to deliver this feeling when they come around on tour. Just buy some tickets, and dive right in.

Now, I’m not saying Big Head Todd & The Monsters will unhem the seat of your pants. They are an ordinary kind of extraordinary. It’s not the band themselves you have to see live, but what the band does to everyone and everything around them when they come around town that you have to make a point to see.

You can find more tour dates here.

Here’s some tunes:
Big Head Todd & The Monsters - "Bittersweet" (Live @ Sandstone Ampitheatre, July 5, 1993)

Big Head Todd & The Monsters - "Resignation Superman"

And here’s where you should buy stuff to support them.

This just in! The RIAA is actually here to help us!


The reason they press so hard for the law to track down music piraters is because it helps snuff out major drug dealers, murderers, and terrorists. Seriously! Scope this 'leaked' RIAA training video.


Crack dealers with illegal copies of Huey Lewis records--you are no longer safe! Give yourselves up now. The hammer of the law will break you to pieces, not for that crack rock you got stowed away under the mattress of your momma's bed, but for those burned CDs that you didn't pay for.


Please..

The Oscars are coming! The Oscars are coming! Hollywood did all it could to deflate the writers guild strike before Hollywood's SuperBowl, the coveted Academy Awards. So tune in this Sunday! We didn't shave off our strike beards for nothing!

But first, catch up on the nominees. I'll admit I haven't seen about 80% of these films, but that doesn't mean I can't tell you who I'd give away my Golden Oscar Dudes to if I was in charge. The movies in red get my Oscar in that category. Share your own choices in the comments, holmes.

BEST PICTURE
Atonement
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

BEST ACTOR
George Clooney, Michael Clayton
Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood
Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd
Tommy Lee Jones, In the Valley of Elah
Viggo Mortensen, Eastern Promises

BEST ACTRESS
Cate Blanchett, Elizabeth: The Golden Age (because how awesome would it be if she won lead AND supporting Oscars?!)
Julie Christie, Away From Her
Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose
Laura Linney, The Savages
Ellen Page, Juno

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Casey Affleck, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Charlie Wilson’s War
Hal Holbrook, Into the Wild
Tom Wilkinson, Michael Clayton

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Cate Blanchett, I’m Not There (duh!)
Ruby Dee, American Gangster
Saoirse Ronan, Atonement
Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone
Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton

BEST DIRECTOR
Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood
Joel and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men
Tony Gilroy Michael Clayton
Jason Reitman, Juno
Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Brad Bird, Ratatouille
Diablo Cody, Juno
Tony Gilroy, Michael Clayton
Tamara Jenkins, The Savages
Nancy Oliver, Lars and the Real Girl

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen No Country for Old Men
Christopher Hampton, Atonement
Ronald Harwood, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Sarah Polley, Away From Her

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Persepolis
Ratatouille
Surf’s Up

BEST ART DIRECTION
American Gangster
Atonement
The Golden Compass
Sweeney Todd
There Will Be Blood

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
The Assassination of Jesse James…
Atonement
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Across the Universe
Atonement
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
La Vie en Rose
Sweeney Todd

BEST DOCUMENTARY
No End in Sight
Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience
Sicko
Taxi to the Dark Side
War/Dance

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT
Freeheld
La Corona (The Crown)
Salim Baba
Sari’s Mother

BEST EDITING
The Bourne Ultimatum
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Into the Wild
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

BEST FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM
Beaufort (Israel)
The Counterfeiters (Austria)
Katyn (Poland)
Mongol (Kazakhstan)
12 (Russia)

BEST MAKEUP
La Vie en Rose
Norbit
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Atonement
The Kite Runner
Michael Clayton
Ratatouille
3:10 to Yuma

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
”Falling Slowly,” Once
”Happy Working Song,” Enchanted
”Raise It Up,” August Rush
”So Close,” Enchanted
”That’s How You Know,” Enchanted

BEST SOUND EDITING
The Bourne Ultimatum
No Country for Old Men
Ratatouille
There Will Be Blood
Transformers

BEST SOUND MIXING
The Bourne Ultimatum
No Country for Old Men
Ratatouille
3:10 to Yuma
Transformers

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
The Golden Compass
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End Transformers

BEST ANIMATED SHORT
I Met the Walrus
Madame Tutli-Putli
Meme Les Pigeons Vont au Paradis (Even Pigeons Go to Heaven)
My Love (Moya Lyubov)
Peter & the Wolf

BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT
At Night
Il Supplente (The Substitute)
Le Mozart des Pickpockets (The Mozart of Pickpockets)
Tanghi Argentini
The Tonto Woman

Great Scott! It's not Back To The Future Part 4, but I'll take it.

Looks like our favorite wild-eyed scientist is firing up the Flux Capacitor and stepping back into The Dolorean for another go round through time. Check out some photos from a recent music video shoot of a bearded-Christopher Lloyd on the set as The Doc, once again.

But for an O'Neal McKnight video? Serious? C'mon Doc, you could have gone for a better video to make your return. Kanye West is an enormous fan.

Vampire Weekend has quickly become one of my new fav bands for a few reasons.

1. They sound like Paul Simon got a peppy Red Bull buzz and began jamming with The Shins on a tropical island while tossing back coconut rum drinks with colorful umbrellas in them.
2. One of the best tracks off their debut is more or less about how crunk rapper Lil' Jon is one of the few dudes you can trust ("Oxford Comma").
3. They have no apparent fear of wearing pink sweaters and slim khakis.
4. This spazzy one-shot video for "A-Punk" pwns! I rest my case.





Further Listening...

Did you know that Barack Obama smiled when he heard me mention your name?

Well, he did.

If you need proof, this Website says so, along with many other convincing reasons that Barack is your friend and is here to save the day and defeat the Hillary monster.

If you're looking for something to do tomorrow, you've come to the right place. Check out these benefit events if you're around.

-The Newman Family Benefit Concert
Gilbertsville Firehouse Binder Hall
Saturday, Feb 16, 7 pm - midnight
all ages welcome, must be 21 to put back some brews
Entertainment from BSTD Band, Steve Kurtz Band, and DJ John.
Help turn an unfortunate tragedy into a wonderful coming together of good people in for a good time. There will be beef, beer, live music, and it will all be for a great cause. Last year, the Newman family lost their 2 boys, Stephen William Newman (24 years old) and Derek Matthew Newman (20 years old) within the span of 73 days. Both were born and raised in Pottstown area. All proceeds from this event will benefit the family in light of their tragic loss. So please come out and support the family. $25 if you call 610-367-2290 in advance and $30 at the door.

-The Pottstown Fire Relief Fundraiser
Coventry Mall Center Court, Pottstown
Saturday, Feb 16, noon - 4 pm
In light of the unfortunate High Street fire on Jan 26, The Mercury is teaming up with Frank FM, Coventry Mall, TGI Fridays, and Channel 69 news to raise funds for those that were left without homes from the destructive blaze. Come out to the mall, donate cash or gift cards to the Fire Relief Fund and you'll have a chance to win Stevie Nicks tickets and Coventry Mall gift cards.

But if you're in Philly instead tomorrow night, check out the Big Head Todd & The Monsters at the TLA. That's where I'll be! Speaking of which, their latest album is a Radiohead-style release. Download it free or cough up 5 bucks for a hard copy. The choice is yours.

What's manning my brainwaves today?

The new Indiana Jones trailer hits the netwaves.
Punk Goes Crunk.
Death Cab announce tracklisting for upcoming "Narrow Stairs." Sounds like it might be a stairway to heaven.

While I was reading stuff on the recent death of Jaws star Roy Scheider...I found this blog.

It's maintained by a shark named "Sharky," who writes about how superior sharks are over everything else. The "Cardinal Rule of Hunting" post is a particularly good read.

I gave you some covers of love songs yesterday, but today (and today only) electro-poppers The Mobius Band have a free EP of their own love covers. Download it right here! Do not miss it! You'll love it! (That's right. I red texted the l-word, whatcha gonna do bout it?) Tracklist is as follows:

1. Razor Love (Neil Young cover)
2. Baby We'll Be Fine (The National cover)
3. True Love Will Find You In The End (Daniel Johnston cover)
4. Mobius Band In A Green Cotton Sweater (Casiotone For The Painfully Alone)
5. I'll Keep It With Mine (Bob Dylan cover)
6. Digital Love (Daft Punk cover)

Between a busy workload, snowstorms, and shaving pounds of hair off my face, Top 5 Tuesday was bumped to Top 5 (and a bonus) Wednesday.

So here you are, Scene and Heard's "Covered" In Love Mix. (you can't make a Valentines mix without putting some cheese in the title)

While Valentines Day is basically a stupid thing (do you really need an excuse to buy your lady flowers and tell her you love her if you do actually love her?), 'love' is the thing written about in songs and stories more than anything else. (Zombies comes in at at a close second). Love makes the creative world go round. But I didn't want to give you the typical love cheese of songs. So since love is a shapeless something without a definitive definition, I wanted to share my five favorite COVERS of love songs, re-interpreted to be better than the original conceptions. I love these songs and I'm going to buy them flowers tomorrow.

5. Otis Redding - Cupid
Okay, there isn't much difference between Sam Cooke and my boy Otis. But when you put this cut on, you don't even need a bottle of merlot and candlelight to get where you're it's inevitably taking you and your lover.
buy!

4. Gael Garcia Bernal - If You Rescue Me (Chanson des Chats)
From the beautiful flick, Science of Sleep, this adorable ditty is a total reinterpretation of The Velvet Underground's "After Hours." Spin this for that babe you're crushing on, and you can thank me afterwards.
buy!

3. Noel Gallagher - This Guy's In Love With You
You wouldn't expect a hard-boozing, big mouthed, alternative rock maestro of the 90's to pull off a beautiful acoustic performance of a Burt Bacharach tune. But if their's anything the Oasis songwriter is full of besides himself--it's wonderful surprises like this one.
buy!

2. Elliott Smith - Thirteen
This Big Star song is widely considered the cutest young love song of the 90s. (Limp Bizkit's "Nookie" provides tough competition.) Elliott Smith took the greatest song he never wrote and made it one of the greatest songs he covered and made even better.
buy!

1. Ryan Adams - Wonderwall
When this Oasis tune flooded the airwaves in the 90s, it made everyone want to be in love. Ryan Adams took it on his fantastic "Love Is Hell" record, broke it down to it's barest bones and brassed it into his own fragile display of longing.
buy!

BONUS: I give you the greatest love song ever written.
VAN HALEN - HOT FOR TEACHER

*if you dig these tunes, please support the artists and buy their stuff.

And while we're talking about love and mixtapes, this book is the best thing I ever read.

Even though The Who are more like The Two these days, Pete Townsend is talking about writing another album after 2006's disappointing mini rock opera, "The Endless Wire."

While that's interesting, but not entirely exciting, I'll say this. You're getting a little Valentine mp3 mix tonight for today's Top 5 Tuesday, so do return later on!

Hey stock investors, you'd be wise to invest in shaving cream companies right now, because it looks like a lot of us dedicated strike bearders are sharpening our razors and lathering up our faces. Writers are looking to put movies and tv shows back into production by Thursday at the earliest.

This means a couple things:
1. The Justice League movie will have a 2009 release date afterall.
2. Lost season 4 will have a full season.
3. I will be carded at bars again.
4. Stephen Colbert will stop pronouncing the "t" in his name on his show.
5. A Daily Show with Jon Stewart will again become THE Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
6. Women with beards will again be fair game for cruel jokes.

In case you were without power from unruly winds slinging trees onto power lines around your house last night, like me, here are all the Grammy winners from last night.

Ms. Winehouse did alright for being in rehab a continent away. And Herbie Hancock totally deserved the album of the year nod.

We all have our dream jobs that we're working towards. Me? I wanna be an FCU.

What's your chest hair worth? Well, looks like Tom Jones' famous chest rug is worth a few mill. (if you don't know Tom, he's the guy that was David Hasslehoff before David Hasslehoff was)



I kid you not. INSURED CHEST HAIR! What's he worried about? Falling chest first on a fire and surviving with everything but his chest hair intact? Having his chest hair plucked in his sleep?!


It's news items like that not only remind me I can surely find SOMEWAY to make a fortune, but remind me how incredible this America place truly is. Thank you, Tom.


Oh, and Tom? You're looking wicked old there pal. Hope you got some LIFE insurance too.

This, by far, is my new favorite blog. Sorry, just had to share.

You make music? Keep reading.

I keep huffing and puffing about the mindset of American Idol, the lack of substantial music striking the right chords with young America these days, etc. But the recent news about local band Innerpartysystem taking the leap of faith to a major label gave me an idea.

Lets see what else is around here. You in a band? Send me what you got. I want to hear what is around here. don't care if it's a cassette with just you and guitar. I don't care if you're signed to a major label or never played a live show in your life. Heck, I don't even care if you're local or not. If you're reading this in Russia, go ahead and send something! Then we'll try to book you a show here in Phoenixville or something. Mail here:

Chris March
The Mercury
24 N. Hanover Street
Pottstown, PA 19464

Send me some of you music, include a little bio and some info if you like. Everyone that sends something will get profiled right here on this site. I'll post an mp3 or two, post upcoming shows, describe your sound, etc. It doesn't matter if I like your style or not, I'd rather hear hungry artists trying to find their sound than nothing at all. I won't Simon Cowell you, but I will try my journalistic best to cut to the heart of what you're trying to do with your music.

What's better than talking about the philosophical importance of Kevin Smith movies while throwing back one too many drinks with your pals?

Watching drunk celebrities falling off their stools, and David Hasselhoff. And that's why this exists.

The report's in. Docs have ruled Heath Ledger's death an accidental overdose, spurred by the mixed effect of various prescription drugs. I think that's what we all saw coming.

But looking at the drugs that were in his system, all I can say is, the dude must have been STRESSED OUT. If someone would have just hugged him and given him some warm milk to sleep easier, he'd still be here. I shake my fist at you non-huggers of stressed out people who have lots of prescription meds waiting in their bathroom medicine cabinet.

But, scope the end of this interview from November to see the sort of mindframe he may have been in since becoming the Joker. Sends a little chill up my spine.

If you pay attention to newspaper prices (being in the newspaper business, WE certainly do), you may know that The Philly Inquirer just went up in price. The Mercury has not. We're still only 50 cents daily. So I sat here thinking "Chris, what's the best way we can show people that we're the best bang for their buck." While this was denied by my higher ups for viable promotion, I feel it gets the point across.

Hey mom and dad of young whipper-snapping America, guess what? Researchers just found out your kids are probably listening to songs about booze, sex, and drugs. Apparently these labcoats never turned the radio on before?

But here's a fun fact for you. Rock n' roll is cleaner than honkey tonk country and hip hop! I don't know if I should be embarrassed (that hip hop has pried rock n roll's spirit from it's fingers and replaced The Stones with Chingy) or if I should let mom and dad know that they done did good with me, because I'm at work, wearing a tie, and listening to Coldplay.

Remember when I told you to go see local starheads InnerPartySystem play at the Pottstown Firehouse a few months ago? Well, someone listened. Our little local fish (they're from Reading, dude) have been washed into the big major label pond.

Not only are they now signed to Island Records, but they're recording their debut with Alan Moulder. Let me type that out again. ALAN MOULDER. That's not just some schmuck in Iowa with GarageBand on his computer. That's a aurally awesome dude that helped make some amazing records for U2, Nine Inch Nails, The Killers, The Cure, Smashing Pumpkins, My Bloody Valentine, and even Gary Numan, among quite a few others. He's the perfect set of ears to guide a band with such simmering electricity flying around in their wild sound. He should be like a lightning rod to them.

Now I've interviewed a couple major bands (The Killers included), I've hung out backstage and even become pals with a few bands here and there. But this bit of news has starstriken my little mind more than any of that. I'm fried with anxiety and excitement over this. Why? I'm wierd, that's why.

But also, because some of the members of this band should have already been here years ago. If you remember Thirteen Over Eight, you know what I'm talking about. That band SHOULD have made it, more than InnerPartySystem. But they broke up when they were blowing up, and years later, some of those dudes started it back up, revamped and stylistcally reshaped to be more Killers and electro than Deftones and screamo. And now here we are, getting validation. That's why I'm excited. It's like something I used to carry around in my back pocket just got printed in TIME Magazine. It's like I've been waching a flower grow since the seed was first put into the dirty Berks County ground.

I can't wait to see what happens. The party is inside, folks.

If people can watch American Idol for the William Hung's and other tone-deaf monstrosities, then it's time we show you the boneheads who didn't make the cut on the new American Gladiators.

Thank God someone had the good taste to pull the plug on this crap.

I really didn't see the relation of this to his death, at least at this point, before we even know what he really died from. This was more unnecessarily sensational than typical Paris Hilton coverage. I wag my finger at you ET, you bad dog.

I mean, sure, I'm a factory worker in the industry of truth, but we have no solid proof the dude died of a drug overdose, and from the looks of it--it looks like an accidental OD on sleeping pills, as opposed to a death from stuffing his head with coke. And it's a video from 2 years ago? Whoopdee do. Maybe it documents the beginning of the end, but please ET, let dust settle before you start sweeping it out the door.