All we really know is that Gang Starr Foundation legend Big Shug will be rocking with a jazz band at Wally's Cafe this Sunday (8/16) night at 9pm. The set should be interesting, as Shug has been showcasing his vocal range quite a bit lately, lacing hooks for cats including Termanology and even recording his own r&b album, Living Room, with producer Moss and Christina Aguilera engineer Charles Roane (check this recent Phoenix feature on Shug for more).

Ohhhhhh, snap! Someday you'll be telling your grandkids about this one like it was Frank and Liza or some shit.

Heart of the City Tour" JAY-Z and Mary J. Blige
At the TD Banknorth Garden
Thursday, April 3, 2008 at 7:30 pm
Tickets are $49.75, $69.75, $89.75, $125.75 and $300
Tickets go on-sale Friday, February 15, 2008 at 10:00 am

We've reviewed Justin Timberlake enough that we didn't expect to have anything new to say about his show at the Garden last night, a return trip on a tour that Sharon has already gushed about anyways. Partly we wanted to see how the crowd makeup changes when he had a so-called rock band opening (answer: an even larger ratio boost, this time it appeared to be about 12:1 women).

Amy Winehouse
at Avalon
May 7, 2007
Photos: Kelly Davidson

Screamin' Jay Hawkins always maintained that "I Put a Spell on You" was the product of a plastered night in the studio, but if so he was one motherfucking miracle of a drunk. He was a frustrated opera singer, and even on "Spell" he had the elocution of a baptist -- that is, when he wasn't howling like a jive voodoo priest.

That whole DJ Drama mess spooked the crap out of mixtape DJs, to the extent that hometown hero CLINTON SPARKS done closed up shop on Mixunit, started a blog, took a day job at VH1, and is giving away his entire mixtape library for free.

Latest: a collabo with . . . Tommy friggin' Lee?

We give you Hip Pop Rock Star

Three more tracks just leaked off the Timbaland album, and maybe it's time to ask: what's the story with this off-brand nonsense?

And before you go awww some more, let's say up front: nobody in this office is gonna deny dude a well-earned victory lap. That's why we're carping on the blog
instead of in the paper of record.

Sexy: back.

Justin Timberlake
Sexy Back club tour
August 26 at Avalon

Setlist:

Cry Me a River
Senorita
My Love
Like I Love You/Smells Like Teen Spirit (Nirvana)
Until the End of Time
Lovestoned/I Think She Knows
Take It From Here
What Goes Around
Last Night
Rock Your Body
Sweet Dreams (Eurythmics)

It dropped. It's fire. Our elevator pitch? It's Justin's "Slave 4 U" -- and not just because of the line "You see these shackles baby, I'm the slave." Also the asymmetrical beat and chopped techno synths. Pure filth. These people might know something about it. Everyone thank Benzi by buying the new Summer Madness mixtape.

Someone leaked 16 seconds of the new Justin Timberlake single, "Sexy Back," which is due to be released July 7 as the lead song from his FutureSex/LoveSounds. Like, this isn't even a PromoSquad snippet. It's not even a hook. It's just 16 seconds of Timbo-produced track, so trying to reconstruct what the song sounds like is sorta out there with reconstructing dinosaurs from their toe bones.

We're talking cover versions, of course, but yeah, the covers of newspapers, too. In his first cover story since the one that got him fired from the Voice, ex-Pitchforker Nick Sylvester disrobes the Gnarls Barkley mystique and thoughtfully chooses all your summer songs, which include two by Nelly Furtado.

Our problem with Christina Aguilera was never, as people claimed of Britney, that she lacked talent. The problem was always that X-tina was always trying way too hard to convince us she was the Talented One, which was self-evident from the get-go but got annoying every time she reiterated it with some long, precocious vocal excercise in the middle of a perfectly good pop song.

Fact: it is impossible to resist cute white girls who make celebutante hipster music. It's just too damn adorbale. Lily Allen has made off with the blogosphere's hearts, not to mention the New Yorker's, and we fear she's about to ravage ours as well. First three listens? Purely meh. Then bang: it starts raining for a spell and suddenly her song about exchanging dirty looks and throwing elbows with tough cases in the club starts to sound like, I dunno, a Bartles-and-Jaymes version of the Streets? Plus she makes mixtapes where she covers 50 Cent and abuses the air horn sample.

Everything you need to know about the new Mike Patton record -- that would be the self-titled debut by Peeping Tom (Ipecac, due May 30) -- can be summed up in the following detail: he got Norah Jones to sing the word "motherfucker." She's good at it, too: Norah singing "Keep it in your pants, sucker/What makes you think you're my only lover?/The truth kinda hurts, don't it, motherfucker?" is just as fucking hot as you think it's gonna be, possibly even hotter.

Until someone decides to put out "Long Way To Happy" as a single, nobody is going to realize how good the new P!nk album is. Their loss. Alas, it appears the next focus track is "Who Knew," which is OK in a Max-Martin-attempting-Sonic-Youth kind of way. Sigh. We love Max Martin, but come on. If they're going to do Max Martin, why not just release "U + Ur Hand" (which is totally the Joan-Jett-meets-Kelly-Clarkson-meets-Salt-N-Pepa jam of the year) and get it the fuck over with.