The Rolling Stones, Madonna, and Jamiroquai are among recent music entrants into the Guinness World Records, formerly known (up until 2000) as The Guinness Book of Records. Mick Jagger & company entered by beating previous records by earning $437 million on their Bigger Bang Tour earlier this year, while Madonna set the Guinness record for "most successful female artist" by earning almost $200 million on her sixty date Confessions tour. Meanwhile, Jamiroquai may not have earned the most money, but the band earned an award for setting the record for "the highest concert" given, by performing in a converted Boeing 737 (for winners of a competition in the UK) at an altitude of 35,000 feet. And among the other music related new entrants into the 2008 issue of the book, the band Electrasy won an award for featuring the world's biggest custard pie fight captured on film in a 1998 video ("Best Friend's Girl") of theirs that featured 50 pie- throwing fanatics (all members of the Laurel and Hardy Fan Club) hurl a total of 4,400 custard pies at each other in 3 minutes.

Since I have to work this weekend, I am not sure whether or not I am going to make it to the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival here in Golden Gate Park, which is sad. 

There are always a myriad of performers that I am excited about, but the one act I like to see consistently every year at the festival is Gillian Welch.  Gillian Welch consists of (duh) Gillian Welch (vocals, banjo, guitar) and David Rawlings (vocals and guitar). Rawlings is a phenomenal guitar player, with quick runs and showman's style. Still, he fairly rarely speaks onstage. Maybe that's why the "group" is called Gillian Welch and his name is not included except in liner notes, despite that he has cowritten almost every song on their records. Once I saw them play at The Fillmore and David took lead vocals at one point as they played a fantastic, slow and sad version of "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun." I loved how unexpected it was, not just that David was singing, but his song of choice. Check out a similar performance of the song in Nashville:


Did I mention that Gillian Welch's music is fairly pure, old school country? The songs are meant to sound as though they were written ages ago in the old time-y South, when they were actually written within the last 10 years or so by a California girl and a New England guy who have now planted themselves in Nashville. Their style is super Americana-y and my favorite aspect of their songs are the tight harmonies they include in almost every track.  When I hear Gillian and David's songs I am also reminded of how important melodies and hooks are to songwriting, and how much most music these days is lacking either of those elements.

Depending on your point of view this could either be good news or bad. So if I view this sign optimistically, does that actually make me a pessimist?

Well, I hope that all of you dear readers are all still loving hearing me spout about Tales of the City author Armistead Maupin, cause I have more news!

Here in San Francisco, Armistead will be honored at the Opening Night of LitQuake '07, which is an annual literary festival here in our highly literary city.  He will be awarded the festival's first Barbary Coast Award for lifetime achievement!

Notable Bay Area residents/Armistead- related famous people Laura Linney, Michelle Tea, Jon Ginoli of Amoeba and Pansy Division fame AND Judd Winick, among others, will be speaking.  At last, the mystery of spotting Armistead and Judd of the Real World San Francisco eating together recently at Zazie is solved!  I feel better now.  According to Judd's Wikipedia entry, Armistead even spoke at Judd & fellow Real Worlder  Pam's wedding!  Who knew?

Last week I received an email which, on the surface, looked like a real sweet deal -- a request for me to do what looked like a well paying DJ gig at which I could play whatever I wanted and get tons of extra expenses covered. It was from a guy who was organizing an upcoming birthday party for his wife. It sure seemed like the ideal party to DJ -- good money, spin whatever music you feel like, plus have free travel expenses for me and my crew for this four hour gig,

It seemed too good to be true. Which, of course, it was. The email I received was similar, almost identical right down to every misspelled word, to one making the rounds right now through many US DJs' (club/radio/mobile) and musicians' email in-boxes over the last couple of months. In fact, you readers may have even received a copy yourself already if you are a musician or DJ. In Colorado recently the Denver Musician Association posted a warning on its website alerting its members "The following (or similar) email messages have been received by several members of Local 20-623 - Denver, Colorado. DO NOT RESPOND to this email should you receive it, as it has proven to be an attempt to draw you into a fraudulent business transaction."  The email that the musicians in Denver had received was almost identical to mine (scroll down to see all versions) with the exception of the party date and location. 

This new email scam is just the latest spin on the stereotypical email scam whereby some wealthy banker or prince in Africa emails you out of the blue with an opportunity to make an easy million dollars. All you have to do is open a bank account and forward him a mere $1000 -- or something along those lines. The basis for any successful con is to win over the mark's CONfidence and then trick them into fronting the con artist a little up front in advance of the million dollars or whatever bait is being offered.