Morning Sinners! If you're reading this, either the Rapture didn't happen OR you're just a really terrible person. Either way, welcome to another stunning, flawless, amazing, SNATCHING THE ROADMAP OFF YOUR FAVORITE edition of the Majak Mixtape, where pop culture goes when it needs to stretch its legs and use the bathroom. It's that time of year, folks. The weather is heating up, the clothing is getting skimpier and our souls are at their most restless so no time better than the present to plan a music-centric roadtrip to the Twin Cities area. And trust, there are plenty of awesome acts coming through the area so we've decided to put together a little music guide of some of the people we'd be interested in seeing. But before we get to the acts, let us first serve up some tea, shall we?
First up, the Japanese government must be filled with a lot of Dudley Moore fans as Russell Brand found himself being deported from the country while attempting to see wife Katy Perry's current world tour. In a series of Tweets, Perry expressed her disappointed that her "Arthur"-starring husband was kicked out of the country to due to some previous arrests from some ten years ago. Russell, for his part, found the lighter side of the situation, tweeting that he was trying to form some sort of escape from his brief stint in detention but found it incredibly difficult to dig a tunnel with a chopstick. Nothing says, "LET ME BACK INTO YOUR COUNTRY" like racial-tinged humor, right?
Katy Perry's tour has been getting a lot of press lately, particularly because her "rider" aka her list of demands for venues leaked to the Internet. Nobody in the history of the music business has come out looking good when their requests are made public as it highlights what an inflated sense of self most of these hitmakers have. You had J.Lo with her all-white room decoration demands or Beyonce's demands for juicy baked chicken that must be heavily seasoned; these riders are just inherently ridiculous.
Anyway, Katy Perry has an interesting list of demands that include things like chauffeurs not being allowed to talk to Ms. Perry or ask for autographs (especially while driving) as well as her strict rule of having no carnations. The highlight, though, is that Ms. Perry requires venues to hold back some tickets so her team can provide those tickets to resellers on a the "secondary market." Basically, Perry wants to get her pound of flesh from scalpers, which is pretty genius in completely unethical ways.
In other news, foul-mouthed Lisa Lampanelli has gotten the last laugh when it comes to her battle with members of the notorious Westboro Baptist Church. Lampanelli took a brief break from telling Black jokes to tell WBC, who planned on protesting a show of hers, that for every protester that showed up, she would donate a thousand dollars to a gay charity in their name. Well when push came to shove, some 44 protesters showed up to a recent gig of Lampanelli's and the comedienne proudly tweeted that she would be giving some $44,000 dollars to the Gay Men's Health Crisis in their honor. Now, if only somebody would donate some jokes to Lampanelli that didn't suck. But baby steps, we suppose.
Now buckle your seat belt and let us get this roadtrip started!
First up, this coming Saturday, The Arctic Monkeys will be playing at show at First Avenue as part of their promotion of their upcoming new album classily titled "Suck It and See." Below is first single "Don't Sit Down Cause I've Moved Your Chair."
As well as second single "Brick By Brick"
June 1 will find the kids of "Glee" hitting up the Target Center to do "Glee" the way it should always be: music performances without that bothersome thing called plotlines. Though, we're pretty sure we wouldn't pay good money to try to hear Dianna Argon or Chord Overstreet try to hit notes without the aid of a mountain of Autotune but being in the same room as Darren Criss, who is joining the tour, would be a motivating factor. Hopefully, the kids will have added in their recent performance of "Pure Imagination" from last week's "Funeral" episode.
July 12 will find rapper/singer/actor Kid Cudi at the Target Center. We love his brand of low-key rap music; his last album "Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager" was a stunning look at what happened to Kid Cudi once he became famous, particularly after his popular sampling of Lady GaGa's acoustic version of "Pokerface" and turning it into the hit song "Make Her Say."
Below, one of our favorite tracks from "Man on the Moon II," "Wild'n Cuz I'm Young."
Coming to the Target Center on July 15 will be the Backstreet Boys and New Kids on the Block and featuring Matthew Morrison of "Glee" fame. You've got to hand it to both of these acts. While the members of NSYC who aren't in Oscar-nominated films and hosting "Saturday Night Live" busily try to find something resembling work, BSB and NKOTB have been able to use Gen-Y and Gen-X nostalgia to re-launch a successful touring and recording career again. We can't hate on the last New Kids on the Block album because the single "Single" was just the right amount of delicious cheese that we need from the dudes.
Also, we'll always have an affinity for Backstreet Boys, in spite of our Team!NSYNC status for most things. NSYNC had the better dance tunes, but Backstreet Boys had some ridiculously catchy ballads/mid-tempo stuff that NSYNC never really seemed to master. As much as we liked to party to "Digital Getdown" or "Bye Bye Bye," we appreciated that Backstreet Boys provided us with tunes like "As Long as You Love Me."
Hipster band Fleet Foxes will be showing up to the State Theatre on July 17 as part of their tour in support of ther recently released album "Helplessness Blues."
The boys of U2 as well as Bono's conflated sense of self-importance will be hitting up the TCF Bank Stadium with their 360 Degree Tour on July 23. We hope that the tour goes off with less of a hitch than "Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark." Though, we have to admit, the idea of The Edge left dangling in the air seems like a justified punishmen for that hot mess of a U2 single they put out years and years ago. You know, the one with The Edge just saying things in a monotone voice?
Still, way catchier than anything from the "Spiderman" musical.
"American Idol Live!" will come to the Target Center on August 3. We haven't watched a single episode of this season of "American Idol" with anything resembling full-attention. But, we'd totally sign onto see an "American Idol" tour if it just solely consisted of batshit crazy Naima flouncing around the stage in a faux-Jamaican accent like she did on her "I'm Still Standing" performance OR her SIDE-EYE fest that was her performance of Rihanna's "Umbrella."
Dat accent gurl.
A few days later on August 9, the fabulousness of Sade will grace us with her presence. Sade's voice is basically the vocal equivalent of velvet. We've loved her from the moment we heard the opening saxophone on her tune "Your Love is King"
to her recent single "Soldier of Love"
Joining Sade will be John Legend, who has scored himself some recent press because of his cover of Adele's mega-hit "Rolling in the Deep." Below, a remix of his performance.
Over at the State Theatre on August 13, Chris Isaak will bring his "Wicked Game." We've never been a huge Chris Isaak fan since he always came off ridiculously smarmy in his tunes, particularly that song "Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing" that was used heavily in the commercials for that God awful Tom Cruise/Nicole Kidman film "Eyes Wide Shut."
And lastly, Janet Jackson is bringing her popular concert tour to the Orpheum Theatre on August 19. We love us some Miss Jackson. She might not sing live on tour but at least she's got the moves to make up for it.
And with that, we close out this Mixtape. We wish you love, peace and downloads. And for all those that have been affected by yesterday's tornado, we here at the Mixtape just want to let you know that we're thinking about you.
NOW BRING ON THE ADELE, WHO IS PLAYING THIS WEEK AT FIRST AVENUE.
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