Charts for 7-18-09 and my fascination with Lady Gaga continues...

Charts for the Week of 7-18-09 have come out on Billboard.com. No change to the Pop 100 chart. Lady Gaga’s LoveGame is still at number 5 riding on our disco stick, while in the Dance chart she moved to number 3. The video for the song was amazingly what I thought it would be.

Lady GaGa - Love Game


In the Modern Rock Charts, Green Day's 21 Guns is at number 4 bringing Kings of Leon's Use Somebody to 5. While in the Adult Top 40, nothing has changed. Billboard.com has the rest of the charts (because visual representation of data is fun) or scroll to the bottom of this page if you wanna see the top 5 of the 4 charts I tend to stare at.

Pearl Jam going on tour.

"Backspacer" comes out on Sept. 20 and what better way to promote a release than to go out on tour.

• Sept. 21: Seattle (Key Arena)
• Sept. 22: Seattle (Key Arena)
• Sept. 30: Los Angeles (Gibson Amp.)
• Oct. 1: Los Angeles (Gibson Amp.)
• Oct. 6: Los Angeles (Gibson Amp.)
• Oct. 7: Los Angeles (Gibson Amp.)
• Oct. 9: San Diego (Viejas Arena)
• Oct. 28: Philadelphia (Spectrum)
• Oct. 30: Philadelphia (Spectrum)

I'm sure there will be more dates to be announced. Oh and a bit of Pearl Jam trivia: the video for Even Flow was recorded at the Paramount Theater. It's good to be in Seattle.

Gaga in Malta

Lady Gaga made an appearance in Malta and had a very unique outfit. She also recently talked about being different:

“I’m kind of the odd person out in general. I don’t really like hanging out with celebrities, and I don’t fit into that world, as I sort of keep to myself,” she told the Kansas City Star.

“So in a way, even in the new group of cool kids and the pop music world, I’m still the

odd girl, but I’m okay with it. I like being the odd girl now, it’s where I live.”

-Celebrity Gossip.net

I just thought she decided to show off her Ritualist costume.

California: Money and Marijuana

California is in a bit of a financial bind. Seems like the Senate cannot get a budget going and resorted to using IOUs to pay off some of its debt. Only problem is banks after Friday (7/10/09) may stop accepting those IOUs.

As California legislators haggle over how to close a $26.3 billion budget deficit, the state is expected to send out $3.3 billion in IOUs this month to private contractors, state vendors, people getting tax refunds and local governments for social services.

JPMorgan Chase and Co., Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co. and Citigroup Inc. and some regional banks, are trying to pressure lawmakers to end the impasse by warning that, after Friday, they won't accept IOUs issued by the state. The move would leave many businesses and families with pieces of paper and fewer options for getting their money immediately.

A solution that would help California's budget problem came from a pro-marijuana group: legalize and tax the stuff!

"We're marijuana consumers," says Nadene Herndon of Fair Oaks, who says she began using marijuana after suffering multiple strokes three years ago. "Instead of being treated like criminals for using a substance safer than alcohol, we want to pay our fair share."

-msnbc.com

I'm a Baaaaad boy.

Coworkers and I are participating in a fatbet. We challenged each other to lose ten percent of our body weight by Halloween.

Why Halloween? So we can trim down in time to go into a diabetic coma with all the candy we will end up eating...

There is no given criteria as to how to lose the weight, so every person for themselves. I know I won't win unless I start running and cutting a whole lot of calories, which I really don't want to do. However, it is good to know others attempting a healthy lifestyle. It ain't easy.

Nevertheless, I like to participate in a little anarchy. I and co-conspirator grabbed a brownie and cherry coke and put it on another fatbet participant. Call it strategic game play. The devil duck made me do it.

Teen Titans. STOP!

-from nevver.tumblr.com

You know that is so cool that someone dressed up as Raven, but the person dressed up as Robin really needs to rethink that outfit. I'm just sayin'.

Music charts! Or. This guy is too old to be listening to this stuff

I love music; that is a given. You will see me at any time belting out my best car voice singing to whatever song is on my radio (as embarrassing as I know it is.) As a teen I wondered if I would be listening to the same music over again trying to relive the past or keep listening to new music. Well here I am at 30-something or other and yeah I'm doing both. I like listening to the stuff I grew up with and I like the stuff that are coming out now. Of course, where do I draw the line? Am I too old to listen to new dance tracks? Should I not "like that boom boom pow?" Should I leave Lady Gaga to the younger kids who understand what a.. ahem "disco stick" is? Nah.

Anyways, here are charts to three types of music I listen to and one that I'm supposed to since I'm an uh adult and stuff. For the Week of 07-11-09.

NIN Announce Final (Final) Tour Dates

This was one of the bands I listened to a lot during my angst-y days. It's good to hear when I'm in a foul mood, even now. For some reason it picks me back up.

-Evie Nagy, N.Y. Billboard.com
Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor announced today that the band will play a final "handful of shows" in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles beginning August 22.

While NIN originally planned to stop performing in the U.S. for good after the tour with Jane’s Addiction that wrapped June 12, Reznor wrote in a post on the band's website that "the NIN/JA tour felt like we had to rush through sets due to a limited allotted set length and many shows were in daylight - it just didn't feel right to end NIN that way." NIN also has dates scheduled across Europe and Asia through August 15.

Title for the article, itself, I had to post. Brings to mind Cher's Final Tour, Goodbye Tour, Last Tour, OMG i swear this is the Last Last Tour.

Natalie Portman's Shaved Head

This is NOT a review about the movie V for Vendetta. Although I heard it was a decent movie.








I find it amazing how work conversation leads to my eternal search for music. We were talking about Star Wars trivia one day (because we are those kinds of geek) and I recalled a band that I heard of a few months back. The hook was of course their name. I decided to finally listen to the band and was pleasantly surprised. I went on blip.fm and found this song. Again the name was the hook.

If the band's name didn't clue you in, a mashup of electro, pop, new wave, and synthetic '80s chart sounds, augmented by goofy lyrics about beard maintenance and other Net-generation concerns puts Natalie Portman's Shaved Head on the flippant side of things. And to pretty great effect, too, on the band's 2008 debut, Glistening Pleasure.

-Adrian Mack Straight.com:

There is a definite something about this band. Maybe it's the quirkiness of the songs, or the nostalgia, or just the attitude they project. But you know there is some kind of awesome when they got to play with Duran Duran during the Fourth of July weekend this year.

If you want to check them out, they will be playing at the Crocodile Cafe on July 9 for the Seattle locals. Otherwise go to their blog to see the most current tour dates at http://natalieportmansshavedhead.blogspot.com/

I heart Ipod

A few years ago, a coworker came in with a weird looking thing attached to some headphones.

Just like all things electronic-related, the Ipod has gone through so many changes in a rather short period of time. First-Gen Ipod had the headphone port on the top of the device and connected to computers via firewire.

I did not get a first generation ipod because it had cost an arm and two legs to get it, but I knew eventually it would come down in price. And years later there are many variation of Ipods and mp3 players as well as integrated players. My current Holy Grail is the Iphone.

For now my current Ipod is only 8GB (heh, only). It serves its purpose. I am one of those that has the device attached to his ear almost all the time. Mainly because I really enjoy music. I also enjoy a wide variety music, and the shuffle feature is just right for me. Best of all, it helps me through my workouts. I think one of the best motivators is music itself. Of course, you can tell when a slow song just queued up when I'm lifting and for some reason I start to struggle.