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Peter, Bjorn & John, Penn & Teller, Robin Thicke & Maroon 5

by Garrett Kamps

Yesterday was insane -- one of those days. It started with me hanging out at the sorta-backstage area of the Palms Theater, where folks were rushing back and forth rehearsing and setting things up for the show you may in fact be watching right now. Rhapsody had set up some booth along with some other brands, and we were all giving stuff away to celebs who happened to wander through. I was technically there to explain to folks how Rhapsody works, but all I really did was play the demo version of the new iteration of "Guitar Hero," which is called "Rock Band." Fans of the series, like myself, are gonna be so stoked on "Rock Band" -- you can team up with three other players and trade off on guitar, bass, drums and vocals. It's totally sweet. I didn't see any celebs though.

Always Up to No Good

by Garrett Kamps

Vegas has a problem with cabs. It does. Waiting 45 minutes for a cab in a parking lot full of empty ones as limo company hustlers try to herd you into stretch-jobs costing $80 to get you four blocks reeks of scamage. I mean, it's obviously a scam, because the forced scarcity of the cabs leaves you actually considering paying that much, especially as revelers pile out of the casino you've just left like hordes escaping a burning village, if said hordes had novelty margarita glasses swinging around their necks. Add to this your frustration from the Snoop Dogg show that had just transpired, and suddenly you're thinking you'd pay double that $80 to get back to your room and your bathtub full of Budweiser.

Something just got botched is all. While we got to the show in plenty of time (well, considering how fashionably late we could count on Snoop being), our vantage point was all wrong, standing as we were across the Hard Rock Casino's lagoon-like pool, on the opposite side of the stage, which was carved into a big fake rock wall, thus creating a deceptively cozy, amphitheater-like feel, with the Hard Rock's hotel rooms forming a 20-story, color-splashed wall that enclosed the whole tropical pool-side paradise. It was like Red Rocks, but, like, fake, and with more drunk people throwing up in front of you (avast!).

Everybody In the Pool

by Garrett Kamps

Gracious and wonderful friends, greetings from Las Vegas, land of the $7 Budweiser. Having just filled my hotel bathtub with ice, diet soda, and what made Milwaukee famous -- avast these casinos! ne'er should a law-abiding American be gorged for plain old diet soda, let alone cheap beer -- I'm ready to tell you about my first day here. Don't get too excited. Or do, because, while I didn't see Britney slip on a banana peel or Fall Out Boy doing the Humpty Hump, I did walk through the lobby of the Palms, locale of your 2007 VMAs, and from the way the klieg lights are strewn like so much Xmas popcorn, with technicians running to and fro setting up jib arms and coating things in plastic (?), it appears as if Martin Scorsese is planning one of his eight-minute-long takes in there. Barring that, there must be a Macy's Day Parade's worth of A-list mugs preparing to trip the light fantastic 'round these parts. God knows they've got the security for it.

The other thing I did today was hang out in the Rhapsody Cabana at the Palms' super swanktastic pool as DJ A-Trak kept a bunch of scantily clad hard-bodies shaking that which makes their money. Rumor was that Suge Knight was cruising around, but I missed him because I was too busy scratching my head as A-Trak flipped the umpteenth version of Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" that I've heard in a hip dance mix of late. Look, those of us who've had a true appreciation for the songwriting prowess of the Bay Area's second  highest selling band have had it with the hipster embrace of said band in the wake of a popular TV program. But I digress. Tomorrow is another day, one that includes a performance by Peter Bjorn & John poolside, as well as Robin Thicke and Maroon 5 playing the House of Blues. And there's more, but I have to go get ready to see Snoop Dogg.

Walked Out This Morning...

by Garrett Kamps

...don't believe what I saw. Sting, John Mayer and Kanye West on the same stage! What the hell is going on! Oh, that's right -- it's the All-Star Game! No, wait. Check that, it's Live Earth!  Man, Al Gore is such a bad ass he could fight Ghost Rider, the Transformers, Spider Man and Harry Potter all at once and still have time to save the world. So it's no wonder all these artists got together to rock with Al and spread the word about global warming at the same time. Were these performances any good? OF COURSE NOT! Roger Waters at least had the decency to perform "Brick In the Wall," however Madonna was intent on doing some new number about changing the world -- look, Madge, you don't have to sing about changing the world to change it. Sing "Lucky Stars," get people dancing, we'll change the world after we're done shaking it. But let's not criticize -- this is a good cause And Al Gore is sweet! Look, there I am shaking hands with him!

Baltimore Rules -- Who Knew?

by Garrett Kamps

Sometimes you eat the bar, sometimes the bar eats you, and sometimes you actually read something useful on Pitchfork. In this case, I gotta give it up to Jess Harvell for tipping me to Dan Deacon. Having totally fallen for the dude, I queried the Goog' to discover that I'm like 79 days late to this Wham City party. Wham City is/was/may again one day be this artists' collective in Baltimore that gave rise to a handful of bands that are completely sweet. The Wham City aesthetic is based around spazzing, so whether it's the solo electronics of  Deacon, the dual guitars of Ecstatic Sunshine, or the very excited group Ponytail, what you're in for is some caustic exuberance. It reminds me of the kind of free-spirited gabba gabba going on in downtown NYC in the early '80s. Here are a few selected jammers that we have in the Rhap. Also, Dan Deacon is coming to a US town near year with fellow Wham City act Video Hippos. Miss it at your own peril.

Dan Deacon, "The Crystal Cat."
Ecstatic Sunshin, "Freckle Wars"
Ponytail, "Start a Corporation"

This Is Why We're Hot This Week: What's New in Rhapsody

by Garrett Kamps

It's Tuesday, and you know what that means -- new rekkids! As Avril Lavigne and Trent Reznor duke it out for the top spot on Rhapsody's charts, along come the latest batch of contenders, out for blood, or, in Joe's case, super-fine ladies. (At the end of the day, though, we secretely hope this Avril/Trent dust-up will continue apace: who doesn't like mopey folks in eyeliner kicking the crap out of one another?) To the el-pees!

Joe
Ain't Nothin' Like Me

Super-fine ladies, beware! According to Sam Chennault, Joe looks to soul crooners like Luther Vandross and Teddy Pendegrass for inspiration on his latest. And it doesn't hurt that Nas shows up for a verse or two on "Get to Know Me." Fire up the bubble bath!

Kelly Clarkson
"Never Again"

Admit it: You like "Since You Been Gone." And that's ok, because you know what? It's a great song! And nobody knows that better than Ms. Kelly Clarkson, who re-tests the formula with this new single, another slab of guitar-driven, chorus-blasting, fist-pumping chutzpah.

Hearts Afire

by Garrett Kamps

I totally never post to this thing. It's been months. In a year where blogs got huge, plateaued, then jumped the shark (sorry, heARTattacker.com, or whatever the new cooly high stuff is), I've been a bad, bad blogger. But since we're nearing resolution time, and also with an eye toward diluting Dedina's wildly entertaining stories about dogs and cats and music, here's, like, something I think. Woohoo!

This Karen Dalton business, In My Own Time -- oh my lord! It recently got re-issued, and hence plugged into Rhapsody. Oh, it's so sad and beautiful and interesting. Dalton rubbed elbows with Roberto Zimmerman in that '60s Greenwhich Village folk music scene none of us were cool enough or old enough to set our peepers to first hand, but homegirl didn't cut a lot of music -- merely two album's worth, in fact, and when those eventually came out in '69 and '71, folks were dancing to a different drum circle. So Dalton was all but forgotten. But not by...Joanna Newsom! Whose courage to sing like the 900-year-old cosmic soul-vixen she is is gleaned just right about directly from Dalton, and Newsom will tell you this. So check out this re-issue of her 1971 gem. If it doesn't make you cry then your heart is made of cold, hard rock.

That's My DJ

by Garrett Kamps

As subscribers well know, you can digest a lot of music with Rhapsody -- jams you haven't listened to in years, records you've always meant to rock but never found the time for, new releases you wouldn't want to spend money on but are curious about, etc. But if pointing, clicking and even thinking about what you want to wet your brain with is too much work, allow me to direct your attention to this new Girl Talk record, Night Ripper. Girl Talk is Gregg Gillis, this laptop rocker dude from Pittsburgh, who, for his latest, has assembled no fewer than 160 pop tunes from every style, era and planet, strapped them all to an operating table, hoisted them a few stories high, and allowed lighting and the spirits of Hollertronix, Z-Trip and Kid 606 to do the rest. The album-length mash-up is nothing new, but Gillis' ambition -- 160 songs! -- is worth marveling at (plus, does listening to Ludacris rapping over Elastica ever get old?). Never has listening to this much music been so efficient.