Yesterday, the world lost a musical treasure in ISAAC HAYES, who passed away in his Tennessee home at the age of 65. During his life, Hayes enjoyed a successful career as songwriter, producer, musician, actor, and voice-over artist.

Hayes got his start as a songwriter for Stax in 1962 with friend David Porter, and penned tunes for Carla Thomas, The Astors, and many hits for the R&B duo Sam & Dave. Later in the decade he launched his own solo career with albums such as 1967’s Introducing Isaac Hayes and 1969’s Hot Buttered Soul.

Hayes’ first four albums featured a mix of his own funk workouts along with interpretations of classic songs by Burt Bacharach and Jerry Butler. Covers of “I Stand Accused,” and “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” featured 5-8 minute long raps about love and its ups and downs which segued into 10 minute covers of the original songs. (more…)

This morning, Kristin Chenoweth and Neil Patrick Harris, announced this year’s nominations for the 60th Annual Emmy Awards. As always, everyone has opinions and thoughts as to what calls were great and which ones were not so great.

Rather than fight the natural order of life and keep quiet. We thought we’d supply a list of what we felt were hits and misses with this year’s nominations. (more…)

This week marked the start of some of our favorite shows on the premium cable channels, Weeds, Penn & Teller’s Bullshit among them. Since we have to wait until the Fall for new episodes of Dexter and Curb Your Enthusiasum, it was a welcome relief when we got this clip passed to us of “the best of Leon” from Curb to hold us over. We’re not sure how producers can, but they HAVE to figure out how to keep him on the show for the next season.

Some of our favorite parts include “I’m the Barack Obama of hittin’ that ass!”, “I bring a Rukus to the ladies!” and who can forget “Get in that ass Larry”?

I’m a huge Star Wars fan and generally have to check out something with the Lucas stamp even though he’s pimped out his product to pretty much anything and everything for the better part of 30 years. Regardless, in an effort to say I saw it, I made it a point to watch at least part of DOND. (more…)

This entire week, I’ve been seeing various blurbs popping up online about a “sex video” starring the one and only Gene Simmons getting down and dirty with a woman with what has now been revealed to be “questionable” history. This very day capped off with said realizations, as well as cease-and-desist letters being dropped off at various other blogs.

I’ve thought nothing much of it, with the week’s other celeb nudity stories (Lindsay – yeah, does anyone else find our young drug-addled starlet posing as Marilyn’s last shoot somewhat foreboding?), letting it simply pass by. Admittedly, for a man who claims such prowess in bed, I certainly found his claims of “garbage” (see: Gene’s personal site) a little odd – wouldn’t he be proud? (more…)

I lied. (more…)

Since debuting this August, YO GABBA GABBA! Nickelodeon Jr.’s uber-creative kids program, has been bubbling up inside the family scene (under age 4) as well as the alternative music world. The whimsical half-hour show centers around five characters (Brobee, Foofa, Muno, Plex, and Toodee), host DJ Lance Rock, 80’s influenced sound effects and lots and lots of dancing.

Yo Gabba Gabba! has featured cameos by Tony Hawk, our favorite hobbit Elijah Wood and several other celebrities. The show’s creator, Christian Jacobs (aka The MC Bat Commander of The Aquabats), has written in musical spots for Shiny Toy Guns (aka The Shinys), The Shins and of course The Aquabats. (more…)