I’m required to admit that GG continues to lead everyone with 15 points, but he and I (and a bunch of Sonic Clashers) all picked Aaron Kelly to go home last week. Since Aaron didn’t even land in the Bottom Two, the point totals were low this week.
All you have to do to play is pick the Bottom Two after tonight’s competition as well as which singer goes home. You’ll get 1 point for each singer you correctly place in The Bottom Two and a 2 point bonus if you select the singer Who Goes Home.
I have to share with you a very sad experience. Last night, after I came home from work, I turned on my TV and noticed that I had no cable signal. I looked on the DVR for my saved programs and there was something missing. There was no recording of Tuesday’s American Idol broadcast. Thus, it broke my streak of blogging every single show for my personal website since the start of season two. My oldest son was two years old when I started blogging the show. He’s now ten.
What’s Left Of Nick And Me?I felt empty inside. What was I to do? It’s not like I could go to iTunes and download the show to watch. They let you download the performances, but not the entire show. And why does that even make sense? I felt lost. It was like something was taken away from me. I felt like Nick Lachey after he divorced Jessica Simpson. What was really left of me?
And I get home today and predictably, the cable is still out. So I had to sneak into the house of my ex-wife while everyone is sleeping to blog tonight’s show for you. That’s how hardcore I am. Oh yeah, and Charter Communications can go run in front of the BART train that also made me late today.
Tonight is Idol Gives Back which is the charity driven show that they put on every two years. It’s also cut down day to the final seven. Since I didn’t see Tuesday’s show, I really have no idea who did well and who didn’t. But based on the previous weeks, my guess is that not many people did well. In fact, I’d bet that Crystal was the best and everyone else was below her and not close. It’s Crystal and the pretenders.
On with the show…
Ryno immediately throws the show to the Obamas. You know you’re big time when you can just throw it to the President of the United States. Is it just me or do the President and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson have similar cadence when they talk. I’m not saying the Pres stole from The Rock, but I guaran-damn-tee you that he’s seen a Rock promo before and might’ve swagger jacked the Rock a bit.
I’m donating tonight by buying some songs on iTunes.
Ryno throws it to Queen Latifah who is hosting the live performances in Pasadena. First Ryno throws it to the Pres and then he throws it to the Queen. That’s a U-N-I-T-Y.
Hey, they let Andrew and Paige Miles back in the building. Is that Didi Benami? I forget Minnie Mouse’s name.
Jen Garner, aka Mrs. Ben Affleck is the first celeb to show us who we’re giving back to tonight. Obviously, I’m not going to joke about this part of the show because it really is a great idea. But you better believe that when The Black Eyed Peas come on the stage, I’m making Fergie jokes up the wazoo.
Hey, the original creepy AI contestant, Constantine is on screen. Oh, no, that’s Russell Brand. I think we should have a skinny contest between Victoria Beckham, Russell Brand, and Carrie Underwood. Loser has to eat a hamburger.
The Black Eyed Peas are performing on Latifah’s stage. My best friend Fergie Ferg is actually looking halfway decent tonight. Well, halfway decent for someone with a face that resembles a baby pony. You have to give it to her on her body though. Like she once said, she works on her fitness. Too bad we can’t give her any exercises for her face.
Ryno just introduced George Lopez. He’s judging the judges. He calls Randy, Lionel Pitchie. Since he’s the only brother on the show, he’s safe.
He calls Kara, Karla DiGuido. Since she posed naked for a magazine, she’s safe.
It’s Ellen’s turn. She’s the Kourtney Kardashian of the crew. Whatever that means. And she’s safe.
He asks Simon, “Saline or silicone?” Simon’s safe because of the volcanic ash that keeps people from traveling. Ok, that bit didn’t work at all. I love me some George, but he forgot to say, “Sabes que,” at least once. Tonight, he wasn’t a Mexican, he was a Mexican’t.
It’s time to put someone in the bottom three. Ryno asks Crystal and Casey to join him in the center of the stage. Ryno says one of the two of them was in the bottom three. Casey might as well just walk over there now. Yep, he’s in the bottom three.
Aaron and Lee are now in the center. Ed Grimley Jr. sang I Believe I Can Fly last night? Man, I was going to call that one. One of the two are in the bottom three. Lee DeWeed is safe. The youngling is in the bottom three.
Back to the Queen’s side of things, Jeff Beck and Joss Stone are performing I Put A Spell On You. I wonder if Raphael Saadiq is around anywhere. I think Joss Stone is trying to become the American Idol. Someone needs to tell her she’s not being judged and doesn’t have to try to impress Simon so hard.
Hey, David Arquette was in the audience. I might’ve been the only person to recognize him. I guess the former WCW champion isn’t big enough to be part of the show.
Big Morgan Freeman and Randy Jackson spent sometime in Mississippi and they want to save the children.
Junk In The TrunkIt’s Alicia Keys time. I don’t care what anyone says. Alicia is fine. She does get minus points for breaking up Swizz Beatz’s marriage though. Hey, I guess no one’s perfect. We’ll see a terrible case of noassatall soon with Carrie Underwood, but Alicia absolutely doesn’t have that problem. Even though they’re in LA, she decides to perform her version of Empire State Of Mind.
Hey, Carrie came on stage earlier than I thought. Luckily for us, she’s wearing a dress that isn’t hugging her hips and backside. If Alicia Keys has junk in the trunk, Carrie’s trunk is empty. Can’t even fit a cooler back there. Carrie’s singing Change. I think I’ll buy this performance as part of my donation tonight.
Oh, that’s why David Arquette was in the front row. He and Ellen were shown at a food bank. I’ve worked in a kitchen in which we helped to feed people in San Francisco before. I can vouch that it’s a great way to give back. I’m just bummed that David Arquette isn’t wearing his WCW championship belt while helping put the food together.
I love me some Elliott Yamin. He’s my favorite Idol contestant ever. But why does he wear the Rocky IV beard from when Rocky ran the mountains in Russia? It’s not a good look man.
Back to the results, Ryno asks creepy girl, Big Mike, and Big Time Timmy Jim to join him in the middle of the stage. Creepy girl gets to go back and sit down. Big Mike is also safe and Teflon Timothy is back in the bottom three.
The stories that really get to me are the ones where the poor kids are born with HIV and get full blow AIDS as children. Annie Lennox was supposed to perform live, but because of the volcano, she’s not there live. Instead, she performed via video with a shirt that said, “HIV POSITIVE”.
Mary J. Blige, Orianthi, Randy Jackson, and some other folks whose names I didn’t catch are performing Stairway To Heaven. I think I’ll buy this one too. I also see Travis Barker playing the drums. No one told him about the dress code. I’ve dressed nicer while taking out the garbage in the morning.
Elton John is performing and unfortunately for probably only just me, he’s not singing Measure Of A Man. That’s my favorite Elton song. I may know only one other person who also counts that as his favorite Elton song.
You’re out of time, your out of place, look at your face, it’s the measure of a man!
It’s time to eliminate a sad young man. Ryno first sends Ed Grimley Jr. back to safety so it’s Casey and Timothy who are left.
And it’s young Timothy who leaves us. Well, it’s only about 14 weeks too late.
I’m going to buy some songs on iTunes for Idol Gives Back. But, Timothy’s going to have to leave right now.
Photo of Alicia Keys shared through Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic
Photo of Nick Lachey shared through Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic
Last Saturday, just two days after groups of so-called Tea Partiers descended upon Washington D.C. and other centers of government to protest taxation-despite-representation, another group of avowed fanatics swooped down upon a few dusty corners of our nation’s hipper cities for a strange and probably misguided celebration of their own. Saturday, April 17, was this year’s Record Store Day, a day when record store owners across this great land, with the aid of a few GGG (as Dan Savage would call them) record labels, defiantly flip the bird at their impending extinction, and thereby forestall it for at least another week. Contrary to what will.i.am says at the end of “One Tribe”, there actually are still record stores – and feisty, independent, locally owned ones at that – to be found around. Still, the likelihood that you’ll just accidentally stumble upon one in your daily travels is slightly lower than your likelihood of tripping over a Komodo dragon’s tail in the parking lot of Applebee’s. You have to go looking for record stores. But when – if – you do find one, you’ll find it holds a fascinating power upon those who enter its doors.
Demographically speaking, Record Store Day shoppers – we’ll called them “Vinyl Partiers” – and Tea Partiers are surprisingly (and considering myself as one of the former, alarmlingly) similar – disproportionately white, disproportionately male, disproportionately middle-aged, middle-class, and socially inept. I like to think that as a sub-sub-culture, we’re a little more good-natured than your average Tea Partier. Our most militant slogan can be found at the bottom of a little white slip of paper tucked inside the sleeve of any current LP release from that illustrious Midwestern indie label Secretly Canadian: “Long Live Physical Media!” But the fact that that little white slip of paper also contains a code to download mp3s of the LP it came with suggests that we Vinyl Partiers are a little more appreciative of the pros and cons of various schools of thought and modes of playback. My CD, vinyl, and mp3 collections are coexisting just fine. (Then again, some things are beyond the pale of civilized discourse. Cassingles, for instance.)
And yes, I shop at Amazon.com – it’s a great source for digital downloads as well as CD imports. But shopping on-line will never be as much fun to me as browsing an actual record rack in a real live store. You can’t download mp3s of the strange conversations you overhear at the check-out counter of a record shop. You can’t order the enthusiasm, the dedication, the sense of history, and the encyclopedic knowledge of music that not only sits behind the counter at your local record shop, but which is, as often as not, browsing the racks right beside you. Start a conversation with a Tea Partier, and they’ll rattle off a predictable inventory of bullet-points on the evils of big government, but start a conversation with a Vinyl Partier and you have no – and I mean no – idea where its many tangents will take you. Record stores are great for people watching. And record stores are never more full of people these days than on Record Store Day.
So, my ever-patient car-geek partner asked me last week, is this Record Store Day, like, a real thing? Uhh… yeah, it is. Albeit, a relatively new real thing. I believe (and I may be wrong) that this past weekend marked the fourth annual Record Store Day celebration. Okay, so what do people do on Record Store Day? Well, they go to record stores and hopefully spend a lot of money – on records, on CDs, on turntables, on plastic sleeves to store your precious vinyl in so that the cover art doesn’t get smudged up. Okay, but couldn’t people do that on any other day? True. Which is where the GGG (that’s “good, giving, and game” for those who don’t read Savage Love) record labels come in, scheduling oodles of mostly limited edition releases for release exclusively to independent record stores (sorry FYE, sorry Best Buy) on Record Store Day, a relatively thorough list of which can be found on the official Record Store Day website. In addition, most participating record stores also offer special sales, in-store performances, raffles and door prizes, beer and cookies, and, of course, swag bags.
I’m fortunate enough to live in Madison, Wisconsin which boasts five participating independent record stores, and I made my rounds on Saturday picking up vinyl new and old at each one, and over the next couple of days on these pages, I’ll recount the highs and lows of my Record Store day acquisitions, but as a teaser, I’m emptying the swag bags and cataloguing their contents here:
The swag bag itself, a reusable “Record Store Day 2010″ shopping bag, perfectly sized for carrying home the latest pile of LP records you just bought, but also with a special built-in pocket for 7” singles.
Another reusable shopping bag, sized for CDs, advertising the music documentaries It Might Get Loud and This Is It
A 7″ single by a group called Terrible Things, an earnest alt-rock trio from Alabama whose debut album on UniversalMotown is scheduled to come out later this year. (A-Side “Hills of Birmingham” is pretty great).
A button for “The Runaways” movie
A button for the Dead Truth Recordings label.
The “Select-O-Hits Limited Edition Sampler” featuring songs by Jeff Bridges, Jimmy Buffett, and Christine Ohlman.
The Light in the Attic Zine Issue 2 Spring/Summer 2010. Light in the Attic is the label behind the recent critically acclaimed reissues of funk provocateur Betty Davis, reclusive folkie Karen Dalton, and French pop maestro Serge Gainsbourg
A Coachella/Record Store Day mini-magazine with CD sampler. Very cool.
A card for a free one year subscription to Death + Taxes. Which, I guess, is a magazine of some sort.
A “The Nerve Agents” sticker
A Bright Eyes “Cassadaga” sticker
A “Support Your Local Record Store!” bumper sticker
A postcard advertising the new Black Keys album Brothers
A 429 Records label sampler. New tracks from Tonic (really?), Joan Armatrading (yes!), BoDeans, Everclear, Clem Snide and Cracker.
A sampler from the Canadian alt-rock label Last Gang Records. Very cool.
A Fanfarlo “Reservoir” sticker
A Rhymesayers Entertainment sticker
Another Fanfarlo “Reservoir” sticker. (I do like Fanfarlo. More on them in a future Record Store Day post.)
The Record Store Day – Urban Edition sampler, featuring Nneka, Wyclef Jean, Raphael Saadiq, an amazing new singer named Alice Smith, and (I’m happier about this than you will ever believe) Three 6 Mafia’s new collaboration with DJ Tiesto, Sean Kingston, and Flo Rida: “Feel It”. Amazing song. If you can ignore the Three 6 Mafia’s raps in it.
“Tha 4.20 Mixtape – Prequel to Streetlights” by Kurupt
Bridge Nine Records Summer 2009 Sampler
A Rhymesayers Entertainment badge. Makes me wish I were still in Boy Scouts.
Priority Records 25th Anniversary sampler, including tracks from Snoop, Eazy-E, Ice Cube, N.W.A., Master P, EPMD, and Westside Connection.
“Record Store Day – Soulful Delights” – a Rhino sampler of classic 60s and 70s soul tracks featuring the Drifters, Otis, Wilson, Aretha, Bootsy, Ray Charles, Donny Hathaway, and Curtis Mayfield. Sweetness.
A Jason Mraz “Beautiful Mess – Live on Earth” sticker
A coupon for one dollar off any pizza at Pizza Brutta
Semi Precious Weapons 3-song promo ep
Hail the Villain 5-song promo ep
A “graphic storybook” called “[Lost Highway record artist] Hayes Carll in ‘The Search for Ooga Kabooga Juice’ and Other Adventures”. Illustrations by Jose Luis Gonzalez.
An Anjulie card
“The Infection”, a Strange Music Sampler – a collection of the most repulsive hip-hop I have ever set ear to.
Jealous? Wait til you hear about what I actually paid for. More tomorrow.
