MJ Omelette

It's really something the way the world seemed to stop for a few days after Michael Jackson died. It quickly became apparent that EVERYONE gave a shit about him, on a level I couldn't have predicted because all I ever heard were cruel jokes and guffaws when I spoke of my own super-fandom. And in the media maelstrom of tributes, retrospectives, op-eds, top tens and unforgiving, sensationalistic news updates, it's obvious that the public will stop at nothing to find out everything about one of the most controversial, enigmatic human beings we've never known.

But why does anything else about him matter? No one would have ever cared about the guy if it weren't for his music. It's safe to say that MJ concocted the most universally timeless music since Bach and Beethoven. Take away the music from the man and all he had left was a life people loved to ridicule over a few beers. It's also safe to say that at 50, his creative streak had probably long dried up, but who cares? What Michael Jackson already made is written in stone.

RIP Michael Jackson

Dead at 50. Cardiac Arrest. From what? Can you believe it?

Thriller was my lifeblood growing up. It always made me move. I still know Vincent Price's rap by heart, and can do a perfect air guitar to Eddie Van Halen's "Beat It" solo.

Musical genius. Don't care what anybody says.

Blowin' It

The Rubdown's newest single "Idiot Heart".

If Sunset Rubdown's main mouth Spencer Krug's head was something you could crack open, a carnival of sights, sounds and ideas would spill out onto your shoes. Brilliant flashing-light melodies, a freak-show parade of instruments, and Krug's trumpeting, nouveau yodel have lead their sweeping cavalcade of songs over the span of this Montreal-born band's short yet impressive discography since Krug went rogue from Wolf Parade. But nowhere has Krug's grand ferocity shone as brightly as on Sunset Rubdown's third LP, Dragonslayer (Jagjaguwar). Their lo-fi past has finally been left in the dust for an ambitiously experimental oeuvre: indie opuses painted with complex, chutes-and-ladders arrangements; banshee-guitar trills; and tales of taut heartstrings and Icarus dreams swirl together in a fireworks-display of madcap musicianship.

Their show at Rickshaw Stop is sold out and I couldn't get my sweaty fingers on a ticket because I was too busy being lazy and eating sandwiches and punching holes in the walls about having to start summer school. OH WELL.