Los Angeles is beautiful right now. The sky is almost completely blanketed with a thin layer of cloud, each cloud undercoated with gray as if it could start raining any moment. It won't, though. Not yet. We have a few weeks, maybe even a month before there's any significant rain, but still, this weather holds a promise that L.A. is moving out of its summer monotony of heat and dust. The wind is moving everything around, warm and round and humid, unlike the Santa Anas and their hot, lip-chapping blast. I'm ready. I want to have a good excuse to sit on the couch and watch a movie as the rain pours off the roof and through the huge oak in my front yard. I'm ready for a day that will welcome a centrepiece like James Yorkston's Year of the Leopard.

Yorkston plays a beautiful acoustic guitar and he writes a beautiful song. He kicked around Scotland and England for years in punk bands and the like, settling down to write the type of gorgeous tomes that Pete Paphides of The Times (London) called, “...songs that sound not so much written as carefully retrieved from your own subconscious, played with an intuition bordering on telepathy. " He's got a great, simultaneously warm and brittle voice that sometimes reminds of fellow Scot, David Gray. His songs are not too far afield from Gray's work, either, often underpinned by burbling electronics and synth washes that, surprisingly, never pull them out of the Brit-Folk context from which they emerge. Yorkston has toured with Beth Orton, David Gray, the Tindersticks, Turin Brakes, Lambchop after having come to many fans' attention through his opening slot on all 27 dates of John Martyn's 2001 tour.

The act of heckling performers has to be as old as time itself.  I'd bet even way back in the prehistoric, early days of mankind that whenever one cavemen got up to entertain his fellow cave dwellers that some neanderthal in the group would heckle him midway through his bit.

It just seems to be part of the human condition for those in the peanut gallery to feel the need and right to shout out their criticisms, even if unjustified, at those giving their all onstage. Those onstage include stage actors, musicians, comedians (perhaps the number one target of hecklers), and even politicians.  Additionally many self appointed critics have also been known to scream out their feelings at the movie screen, proving that heckling is meant as much for the benefit of fellow audience members as for the performer(s).

And even though it comes with the territory, especially for stand-up comedians, it has to be pretty tough for those up onstage, already performing a demanding draining job, to have some uninvited (often drunk) loud-mouthed bozo scream out his/her dissatisfaction with your performance.  For the rest of the audience, however, a heckler hounding a performer can often result in some entertaining interplay between the two parties. Of recent performer/heckler altercations, probably the one that first pops into most minds is the November 2006 incident at the Laugh Factory comedy club where Michael Richards (aka Seinfeld's Kramer) went off on a nasty tirade on some African American audience members (see below).  How he handled it is a textbook case of what not to do if you wish to remain active in showbiz, especially in these camera phone/YouTube digital days when every move is being documented to be later used against the respective parties.

JACK WHITE & DAVE GROHL JOIN LED ZEPPELIN IN SAN FRANCISCO:


 In  my wildest fantasy Led Zeppelin is going to go on one last amazing, kick-ass world tour.  They will play at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco and, as offered, Dave Grohl will be playing drums (that is, if  Jason Bonham is unavailable).  Waiting in the wings is Jack White to sing and play on a song or five.  Jimmy, Jack and Dave on a stage together... that's my prediction.


                         - Maggie the Cat (Bay Area Crew AMOEBLOGGER)




RETURN OF THE OLD SCHOOL TO HIP-HOP'S RESCUE:


I predict that old school rap will come to the rescue helping to guide the music out of its slump.  Also, i think there will be more old school film projects maybe a Busy Bee movie or a Scott La Rock film.

   
             - Michael A. Gonzales (author, journalist, blogger at BlackadelicPop)





RETURN OF VINYL, DOWNFALL OF HANNAH MONTANA, & MUCH MORE

TABLOID TALES:  In 2008 Britney Spears, no longer hounded by a pack of paparazzi - just that one guy she took back to her hotel room, will be completely upstaged by lil sis Jamie Lynn Spears who will lead tabloid headlines for the next seven or more months - suddenly being upstaged herself by the even more shocking, tabloid-ready real-life story of Hannah Montana (the alter ego of Miley Cyrus) who will have an unexpected and sudden, widely publicized downfall into drugs and sexploits. So shocking will this news be to the parents of tween fans of the wholesome Disney Channel star that there will be a huge backlash culminating in a Hannah Montana doll burning gathering at a Florida sports stadium in November with tickets to the event being as much in demand as Hannah Montana concert tickets were just a year earlier.

5 Disc Player (fancy!):

1. Lena Willemark and Ale Moller - Nordan


3. Mastodon - LEVIATHAN

4. earth - hibernaculum

December is usually sort of a slow period for new releases. Usually by this point if it has not come out yet, it's not coming out until next year. But this year seems a bit ridiculous. I know it seems like this is what I have been talking about for the last couple weeks. I guess that is what I have been talking about. But its true. A couple more live albums. A couple useless boxsets and a couple hip hop and R & B albums. But we can always count on Bonnie Prince Billy to offer up some new type of album for us. He has probably released about 10 albums or singles or EPs this year. He also starred in an amazing Kanye West Video with Zach Galifianakis for the song "Can't Tell Me Nothing." It seriously made me so happy the first time I watched it and if you ever feel a bit sad you should just watch it...


 

Bonnie Prince Billy's new little album is called "Wai Notes." It is basically the demo versions of songs that made up the "Letting Go" album.  He sent songs back and forth with the lady from the Faun Fables to create what ended up being the last album. These are basically those raw songs before they were made all nice and album like. There is also a new album by The Wu-Tang Clan called "8 Diagrams" and a new album by Bow Wow and Omarion called "Face Off." I am not really sure what they are facing off about but I really hope it has something to do with that horrible movie starring Nicolas Cage and John Travolta. You know the one where one of them gets a face transplant of the other one to infiltrate his crime organization. I am glad that it is now 10 years after this movie and medical technology has still not gone as far as they thought it would in this movie. Maybe its not far off. But I don't really want anybody to be able to switch faces with each other. Even for the good of solving a crime. Maybe Bow Wow and Omarion are just going to be covering each others songs and seeing who can do them better. Or it might just be their secret tribute to the Barbra Streisand movie "The Mirror Has Two Faces." They just gave it a more tough sounding name so nobody would know that they were secret Streisand fans.