This is pretty good: Some guy left his cameras running and pointed them out his office window during what I assume was last year's New Year's Eve extravaganza in Times Square, then did some time-lapse trickery and laced it all together with a Ween song. It tracks the whole big deal, too, from the prep work to the cleanup to the re-appearance of traffic the morning after.

Of course, if you've never been in Times Square on New Year's Eve and always wondered what it's like, you could also read this piece I wrote about the body-fluid-heavy experience back in 2001 . . .

 

Tomorrow night, of course, being New Year's Eve.

But what better band to ring in any year with? Delta Nove have been playing around in assorted Long Beach and OC clubs for at least a good decade. I caught them once when they were playing a party on the rooftop patio of some condo high-rise during the Long Beach Grand Prix, which would be something like 1998 or 1999, and they certainly made the forced huffing of racing fuel fumes much more tolerable. Then again, they were probably running on some fumes of their own, which just may be why I remember their jam-heavy, Dead-inspired, should-be-playing-Bonnaroo brand of psychedelia so fondly.

So catch them on Pine Avenue tomorrow night whilst smooching 2008 away. Meanwhile, check out this herky-jerky video clip from a Blue Cafe gig last month (the tune is called "Big Sky," incidentally) . . .

Freddie Hubbard died today at Sherman Oaks Hospital. He was 70.

I've always been a freak for the jazz trumpeter and still remember the first time I caught him live, in the early '80s at, of all places, Carnation Gardens at Disneyland--about as far as one can get from a smoke-filled gin joint. Back in those days, the Anaheim theme park drew some pretty righteous performers for jazz and blues festivals that had acts sprinkled all over the Magic Kingdom. I also recall seeing Leon Russell there only a few years after men with hair that long were not allowed through the gates.

Blocking an unrelenting sun with shades that had slid to the end of his nose, Freddie blew his horn with gusto alongside a tight group of sidemen for three or four shows that day, and I was there each time, watching this legend from mere yards away, with no more than 50 or 100 people around the makeshift stage.

Besides seeing him live at the Big D and at one of those jazz festivals in Long Beach that was either at Long Beach State, next to the Queen Mary or in the ocean-front park where they hold everything these days, I built up a collection of Hubbard vinyls that are still collecting dust in my garage. Most are solo albums, some shared efforts with another late, great jazzman, tenor saxophonist Stanley Turrentine.

It's time to break out the record player--and some gin.

Though the scheduled MUSINK tour became another casualty of the flagging economy, the three-day music and tattoo convention is still happening--February 20-22, again at the Orange County Fair & Exposition Center in Costa Mesa. But they're quick to point out that celebutant Kat Von D, of "LA Ink" fame (?), is not participating in this event; she was to be a co-promoter of the tour.

Bands so far include, on Friday: Reverend Horton Heat, Nekromantix, Manic Hispanic; Saturday: Atreyu, Story of the Year; Sunday: Danzig, Throwdown. Yup.

More info here.

By Ben Westhoff

Hip-hop A-listers including Rick Ross, Akon and Plies were caught grossly exaggerating their gangster credentials this year. (Turns out they were painfully law-abiding. The horror!) But even if your favorite rapper wasn't caught in a lie, you can bet he or she put out a hilariously absurd record or two in 2008. Here are the most preposterous rap songs of 2008.

RICK ROSS, FEATURING T-PAIN
"The Boss"
(Def Jam)
Though Rick Ross claimed on his debut album, Port of Miami, to know Manuel Noriega, The Smoking Gun website found that Ross was a prison guard rather than an international drug kingpin before he was famous. Perhaps they met in the can? In any case, his assertion on "The Boss" that he "made a couple million dollars last year dealing weight" is absurd. Still, we're tempted to give him a pass on his claim that "I don't make love/Baby we make magic," because, well, we wouldn't know.

USHER, FEATURING YOUNG JEEZY
"Love in This Club"
(LaFace)
Sex in a puddle of Patrón, anyone? The story line on Usher's latest album, Here I Stand, is roughly "former playboy takes on fidelity and diapers." But on "Love in This Club," all that goes out the window. Ursh combines hip-hop and R&B's two great passions (discos and humping) without, sadly, elaborating on his exhibitionist fetish. It's clear from Young Jeezy's verse, however -- "It's going down on aisle three/ I'll bag you like some groceries" -- that he prefers to make love in the Piggly Wiggly.

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Much has been written about the sad state of contemporary hip-hop. But here's some solace -- as this, at long last, is what appears to finally be rock-bottom . . .

 

 

BY RYAN RITCHIE

Last Night: Snoop Dogg at the Glass House in Pomona, Dec. 26, 2008.

Wanna know if you're old? Go see Snoop Dogg and ask yourself which category of fans you fall in to. You're either in a) the group of shaggy-haired teenagers who wouldn't mind if he played "Sensual Seduction" twice, or b) the group of 30-somethings who've been listening to tha Doggfather since his "Deep Cover" debut and want nothing more than to hear that song, a few verses from Dr. Dre's "The Chronic" and all of "Doggystyle" front to back.
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T'was the night after Christmas and all through the house, not a club hopper was stirring...'cause we're all going out. After a week of ridiculously long shopping lines, awkward family dinners, bad sweaters and an economically strangled slice of Christmas cheer, your holiday partying has only just begun. And what better way to kick off some post-Santa debauchery than five solid hours of sweat-inducing house music courtesy of Detroit Bar in Costa Mesa?

Tomorrow night, DJs Brain Thomas and JP are planning an overwhelming sonic concoction of synth-driven beats, electro bliss and good company. They're calling it Compound Christmas. Both of these eclectic song selectors are regulars of the ultra popular DJ event ReAnimate, an event sponsored by well-known turntable collectives like DJ Culture and Ninja Skillz.

But tomorrow night offers up something extra special. Thomas and JP are conducting the party with two mixers and five decks worth of musical mayhem. Okay, so what does that mean to you? It means a special extended set of tunes surgically spliced so nice that even the biggest scrooge on the dance floor will crack a smile, and a few beers. And of course, the slim $5 cover charge offers welcome relief for your starving pocket book.

In a year worthy of your rage, metal delivered in spades. What with the economy circling the drain and Sarah Palin coming down from the tundra and then refusing to go back, 2008's been the kind of year that really makes you want to smash your head into walls or punch random strangers in the face. Good thing there were so many awesome records available to serve as a soundtrack for exactly that kind of behavior. The ten discs below are just the tip of a very big, very heavy iceberg. Metal seems to grow stronger each year; 2009 will bring new albums by Mastodon, Deftones, Lamb of God and more. In the meantime, check these out.

Metallica
Death Magnetic
(Warner Bros.)
Five years after their last comeback, they did it right. Combining the punishing thrash of their early glory years with the thick, bluesy grooves of their 1990s output, the members of Metallica reclaimed their throne as America's kings of metal. Songs like "That Was Just Your Life," "My Apocalypse" and "Cyanide" are made to be heard blasting through speakers bigger than your goddamn house, but even on an iPod, they'll have you clenching your fists and banging your head like a fourteen-year-old amped on testosterone and Red Bull.

Opeth
Watershed
(Roadrunner)
Opeth's last album, Ghost Reveries, took its progressive black/death-metal sound to its logical endpoint. So the band took a sharp left turn, incorporating a new guitarist and drummer, psychedelic studio trickery, odd rhythms and even a female vocalist on the folky, emotionally affecting opening track, "Coil." Of course, none of this means that Opeth has forgotten how to bring the heavy: "Heir Apparent" is one of the most assaultive songs of its career, including a drum solo that announces its evolution quite capably.

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