Orange County Music Blog

Chris Victorio

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Heard anything about Kanye West lately? The usually reserved rapper/producer/tireless self-promoter has uncharacteristically made a tiny amount of headlines these last couple of days, but you've probably missed them. (Seriously, though, it must be weird to be called a jackass by the president, off the record to not.)

Well, now that he's gotten all of the "crushing happy moments in beloved teenage girls' lives" out of his system, he's about to start a new tour, one that's coming to the Honda Center in Anaheim on November 15. It's called the "Fame Kills" tour, and it's co-headlined (West has made clear in interviews that she's "not an opener") by Lady Gaga, who also got some attention for her appearance at Sunday's MTV Video Music Awards, specifically for her fake blood-stained performance. The pair are also stopping at the Staples Center in LA the next day. Tickets aren't on sale yet, but (slightly) more details are here.

Gabriel San Roman

BY GABRIEL SAN ROMAN

It's been 12 incomprehensible days since the shocking news that Michael Jackson died. Since that time, the prevailing feeling was that the immensity that is the King of Pop's musical legacy hadn't been properly or adequately paid tribute to...until today.

I was one of the fortunate few to be awarded a gold bracelet and ticket to the Staples Center memorial service, out of the 1.6 million people who registered online. After spending less than 10 minutes yesterday picking up the goods at Dodger Stadium (without ever having to leave my truck), the scene at the public funeral for one of the most famous people in the world was similarly easy to navigate.

Were you working, sleeping, distracted, saving a cat from a tree, organizing your cheese label collection or otherwise unavailable to follow our live Twitter posts from Michael Jackson's memorial? Well, you're in luck, because here they all are (and pics!), both from Matthew Fletcher of the band Satisfaction live inside the Staples Center (he took that pic up above these words) and myself watching on the TV.

Hmm, I just paired the words "memorial service" with the word "Twitter" and an exclamation point. I guess I'm going to hell.

Anyway, if watching the televised coverage of this morning's Michael Jackson memorial service at the Staples Center isn't enough for you (and why would it be? never enough dead MJ news!), your pals at Heard Mentality (that's us!) have it covered through a couple of different angles. Matt Fletcher, keyboard player for OC/LA band Satisfaction will be there, manning his trusty iPhone and providing real-time Twitter updates of noteworthy happenings over at our plucky OC Weekly music Twitter, found handily enough at @OCWeeklyMusic. And hopefully Twitpics of the sure to be, uh, eclectic crowd.

Frequent music section contributor Gabriel San Roman will also be at Staples, and will treat us to a thoughtful recap of the happenings shortly after its conclusion. (Seriously, two dudes we know got tickets? They should start playing some gambling game where picking random numbers could result in a cash prize.) I won't be there (goodness no), but I'll be here watching it all going down and assisting where I can, like Ed Harris in Apollo 13.

So yeah: starting at 10 a.m., be sure to tune in to our tweets. That's @OCWeeklyMusic. Surely, the untimely demise of one of music's greatest artists and global pop culture's most-maligned figures deserves a proper send-off, and we'll be there to catch every fond memory, gleefully contributing to this nation's compassion fatigue in the process. Deal with it.

Michael Jackson: still dead. If he wasn't, there wouldn't be that public memorial tomorrow at 10 a.m. at the Staples Center, and we wouldn't be here talking about it.

In fact, we're going to be able to do more than just talk about it. Our guy Gabriel San Roman (check his story on new Nekromantix drummer Lux, from last week's Weekly, here) actually snagged one of the ever-elusive tickets to the service, and is going to provide some coverage for us right here on this very blog. Should be quite the scene, and one that I am quite frankly happy to be nowhere near. But I'm happy for Gabriel.

Today the full slate of "participants" for the memorial was announced. Pretty kickass lineup: Kobe Bryant, Mariah Carey, Brooke Shields, Usher, Lionel Ritchie, John Mayer (really) and lots more. No Silversun Pickups, though. WTF? They've been playing like every festival this summer.

Check out the complete list after the jump, lest the whole world has to answer right now just to tell you once again.