For the Gentiles who are looking for a cheap Christmas present to give your favorite weird aunt, the Jews that are saving movie going for the 25th, and the rest of you who don’t give a crap about holidays or family but like free stuff, check out “RESTRICTED” which is upstairs tonight at Lit from 10pm onward and have a chance of getting an autographed copy of the new John Waters Christmas. $1 Vodka drinks and Budweiser bottles from 11pm-12midnight, plus $3 Rheingold bottles all night.

Also, you can go check out Denny C man the ones and twos at Pianos upstairs lounge tonight.

As cold hearted as we have been known to be (“Ow! You hurt our feeling!”), we were shocked to find ourselves sobbing like a child during the Drag City Christmas Party at the Bowery Ballroom on Saturday. The reason for the outward display of emotion while dressed in a scarf, sweater and hat? San Francisco’s very own Ms. Joanna Newsom aka “She Who Sings Like Lisa Simpson.”

Never before had we cried at a concert. So it was quite surprising when we started pouring out uncontrollable tears during Joanna’s entire second set. (The three bands on the bill, Joanna, Weird War, and (Smog) each played songs in rotation.) We had no idea why we were crying, and the only reason could be that we were so taken by the beauty of Joanna’s performance.

As she plucked the strings of the harp, and sang her fanciful lyrics in that child-like voice of hers, we searched for a word that could sum up what we were experiencing at that moment. It was pretty creepy because the only word we could think of was “magical”–as if some other worldly force was connecting us to the music. And it’s not even like we’d listened to Joanna’s music over and over–on the contrary, we’d only known one of her songs but liked it enough to check her out.

But weirdly enough, we haven’t seen anything quite so special as Joanna Newsom in a long time. On a personal note, she reminds us of the “beautiful weirdo” vibe that Rufus Wainwright gives off when he is performing. Perhaps it’s because Joanna seems so in the “zone” and happily playing in her own little world that makes her music so inviting and warm.

We can’t say enough about how good she was. We’d even go so far as saying it was some kind of mystical event in which Joanna had the entire audience in rapture. Everyone was just kind of holding their breath, just quietly listening, trying not to disrupt anything out of fear that somehow their own actions would disrupt the perfect balance of the room.

It was totally nuts. Joanna Newsom, fully recommended.

Here’s a link to an interview with Joanna we found on Brooklyn Vegan.

Other people who love Joanna: Scott, Janelle, Jenn, and M.

Need we also remind you that Joanna is on the cover of the latest issue of Venus? (We also have an interview with Sondre Lerche that appears in the issue as well.)

P.S. Joanna changed clothes and hair for each of her sets. Was Morrissey her stylist for the night?

Yesterday we were shopping at Barnes & Nobel, Union Square, waiting on this enormous line when we looked over to the front of the line and saw Fabrizio Moretti and Juliet. Fab was carrying a basket loaded up with stuff (don’t know what) and looking particularly good-looking. This is all a little shocking to us, being Julian Casablancas fans ourselves, but we must admit, Fab is pretty damn cute. He was wearing a black leather jacket and a red hoodie with jeans(?).

As we had left, we were walking east across 10th street where we happened upon the new headquarters of Wiz Kid Management. That’s right, they moved their offices from the storefront on 7th Street to a second floor office that sits right above the bar Black & White. Is that such a good idea to have the Strokes in such a close location of an alcohol establishment? Guess we’re gonna find out.

If you need help decoding the people and places named in this post, check the Who’s Who of The Strokes.

Paris Hilton, you’ve gone too far. You’re officially too tacky to believe. We know it must be your dream to be surrounded in pink, naked, and wrapped up in a microphone cord for a photo in Rolling Stone, but for the love of god, keep that dream to yourself. Ugghh.

In other trashy news, Bia Ling wears banages of Jude Law after spending 20 hours on her knees on the set of a movie.

Love how Nicole Richie looks in the new promo shots for “Simple Life 3: Interns”.

Turning blogs into books. We are currently accepting offers.

Today after work we went shopping for Christmas presents. We planned to go here, here, and there, but we only ended up going to the first here, the Penguin store. “Why stop at only the first here?,” you may ask. Well that’s because after we whisked into the store we realized everyone in the store was drinking out of little plastic cups. Low and behold there was an impromptu bar set up in the back! “How odd,” we said to ourselves.

A little bit confused, but more than a bit curious, we made our way to the back and got on line for a drink. “Vodka and uh…this thing,” we said as we picked up a glass bottle with red liquid in it. “Vodka and an Izzy [?],” the dude behind the counter said as he stared at our DFA pin. “Uh, yeah, sure,” we replied. We were a bit confused as to why the dude was giving us a funny look at our DFA pin until we realized that “Losing My Edge” by LCD Soundsystem was humming through the audio speakers.

Some girl in the middle of the room was “DJ”ing on an iBook, pulling songs from several different iPods. There were lots of Black Book magazines on the sales counter. And didn’t we blow past some guy holding a clipboard at the front doors? Oh, oops. We had unintentionally crashed a private party.

After we finished our drink we left, now too sleepy to go shopping because of the vodkfun. So we just went home and made some food and bought no presents.

Drinking and forgetting those you love. Truly the spirit of Christmas lives.

All we want for Christmas is for Chris Martin to stop morphing into Bono. (Link to custom iPods from Janelle.)

Martin defends his participation in Bandaid 20 by saying the following:

“I think, you, people say that song’s rubbish, or the words are rubbish… it’s like if you pass a busker and didn’t give him some money because you thought the song he was playing was terrible but you could see that he was a bit cold.

You know what I mean. The music doesn’t really matter, not to put a slight on the song that is, it’s got some nice changes, but you know I don’t think anybody did it for musical reasons.”

Jeezy Creezy. Get this man a soap box.

What is it about French bands that really brings out the weirdos?

The December 1st Phoenix/Inouk/Benzos show, all the crazies were out in full force.

The first set of crazies we witness was this pair of girls up front during the Benzos set. Have you ever seen anyone do an interpretive dance at the Bowery Ballroom? Yeah, neither had we, but this one girl with short brown hair, a short sweater and a white shirt (with the tails hanging out) was up front doing a series of movements that were either funky imitations of the Robot dance, or a jellybean had slid down her pants and she was trying to get it out.

We dunno. There were just a lot of arms flailing at 90 degree angles and wiggling below the hips. Which we guess would be fine, if we were on the set of a Jamiroquai video. But we weren’t. We were up front, watching Benzos, whose music sounds like Radiohead redux–basically an unoffending mix of harmonious blibs and guitar chords. “What had Benzos done to deserve fans that danced so poorly?,” we asked ourselves. That question has yet to be answered.

But on Benzos, the weird thing about this band is not only do they unabashedly sound like they wished they had been sprung from the loins of Thom Yorke, their keyboardist/singer, Mike Ortega, looks just like a young Jonny Greenwood. We don’t know if this was done on purpose or what, but we have to say that it’s a little bit creepy. It’s kinda like when people start to look like their pets. Maybe since Benzos want to be Radiohead so badly they’re slowly morphing into looking like them.

Anyway, our favorite part of Benzos is Matt Ortega, the guy that stands on the far left-hand side of the stage. The night we saw him, he was dressed in a sweatshirt hoodie and baggy jeans, hovering over a glowing computer screen. Some might argue that he was adjusting levels, using synths or doing something remotely musical on the laptop, but we know the truth. We know on the Benzos site it says that Matt (who is Mike’s younger brother) was added to the band to “man the electronics and live soundscaping.” Riiiight. Here’s the real story:

One day, the guys were rehearsing in their Tribeca apartment when Matt came over to the pad to hang out with his brother. Being a fly by the seat of his pants sort of young man, Matt didn’t call before arriving at the door of his sibling’s abode. When the doorbell rang, Mike put down his guitar and went to the door to see who it was.

Peering through the peephole, he saw who it was and hollered back to the guys, “Yo, it’s Matty at the door. Keep playing guys, I’ll just let him in.” So Mike let Matt in and told him that he and his band were rehearsing and asked Matt if he could find something to keep himself occupied while they practiced. “Sure,” he said, and he held up his hand to say hello to the rest of the band as he walked past them to get to the computer that was stationed at a table directly behind them.

Mike rejoined the band and they all continued to play, when 5 minutes into the rest of their rehersal they heard electronic bliping noises. “What the hell is that noise?,” shouted Christian Celaya. The band stopped playing and listened carefully to where the source of the sound was coming from. The noises continued despite the fact that the music had stopped…but it was coming from behind them. They all turned around and saw that Matt was absorbed in the game of Space Invaders he was playing on the computer, which was hooked up to a pair of speakers.

“Holy crap!,” shouted out Mike, “that’s awesome! I love those blips and beeps.” Roused out of his Space Invaders trance by Mike’s shouting, Matt now realized the band had stopped playing music and that everyone was staring at him. “Oh, I’m sorry guys! I didn’t mean to mess up your practice. I’ll just go into the bedroom and watch some TV.” “NO!,” yelled Mike. “KEEP PLAYING SPACE INVADERS!” Then Mike picked up a guitar and started playing a simple riff under the sounds of Space Invaders’ electronic beeps. Everyone followed suit, picking up their instruments and begining to build their part around the blips of Space Invaders. Benzos had been realized in it’s most mature form.

So don’t be fooled by the fancy title of “synths/programming” they give Matt. What the fuck does “programming” mean for a live band anyway? They really mean “plays video games during the show.” Sophisticated electronic modulating and metering our asses! Pay attention the next time you see the Benzos play, that dude Matt is totally just playing old computer games onstage. It’s totally true.

On Phoenix. Since it was their first show in New York ever, the crowd was totally apeshit. Lots of people with funny accents who looked overly anxious to see their beloved French Pop music. Needless to say it was fun, and Phoenix dress like a cross between Williamsburg hipsters (conductor’s hats, army colored clothing) and A.P.C. devotees. Weird.

The New York Times yaks about Paris Hilton. Here’s a choice quote from the article: “Ms. Hilton is dreaming of finer things these days, like puppies and babies.” Puppies + Babies = Awesome.