Do you believe in magic? Well how about Spinal Tap? According to an interview Noel Gallagher gave to the Observer, brother Liam once thought that Spinal Tap was a real band. The hilarious story follows below:

DW: Ricky Gervais told me there’s a story that Liam thinks Spinal Tap are a real band. Is that true?

NG: Yeah, he thought they were real people. We went to see them play in Carnegie Hall. Before they played, they came on as three folk singers from the film A Mighty Wind. We were laughing and he said: ‘This is shit’. We said: ‘No, those three are in Spinal Tap. You do know they are American actors?’ ‘They’re not even a real band?’ ‘They’re not even English! One of them is married to Jamie Lee Curtis.’ ‘I’m not fuckin’ ‘avin that,’ he says, and walks off right up the middle of Carnegie Hall. He’s never watched Spinal Tap since. He’d seen the film and loved it and thought they were a real band.

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Helping out your fellow hack is a good thing…

***Just added: Murray Hill and the World Famous *BOB* to host, Crossover
to perform special late night set!!***

Jason Loewenstein (of Sebadoh), Northern State, Supagroup, and DJs
Eugene Hutz (of Gogol Bordello), Fancy (of Fannypack), and Tommie
Sunshine to perform at Village Voice Union Strike Fund Benefit!

Village Voice Strike Fund Benefit

Wednesday, June 22, doors at 8 p.m., $10

Rothko; 116 Suffolk Street @ Rivington Street; 212-475-7088

Members of the Village Voice union (Local 2110 UAW), which includes the
paper’s writers and editors as well as the art, production, sales, and
classified staff, are about to enter into contract negotiations with
management. The contract expires at midnight on June 30, and if
management refuses to meet the union’s modest demands for fair raises
and improved benefits, Voice union members will be forced to go on
strike on July 1.

On Wednesday, June 22, Voice union members are hosting an eclectic night
of musical entertainment. Donating their time and talents are Sebadoh’s
Jason Loewenstein, who is currently recording the follow-up to his
critically acclaimed solo debut, At Sixes and Sevens (Sub Pop); the
beloved Beastie-influenced local female hip-hop trio Northern State; New
Orleans’s own over-the-top AC/DC worshippers Supagroup, who will blast
the night off with a short, early set before running up the street to
CBGB for another show; Fancy, Svengali behind the astoundingly
jump-ropable Brooklyn booty-brat rap threesome Fannypack; mad Ukrainian
genius Eugene Hutz, whose Eastern European-American combo Gogol Bordello
are on the verge of releasing their new Gypsy Punks: Underground World
Strike; and Tommie Sunshine, legendary house DJ extraordinaire.

The nice folks at the fast-rising L.E.S. club Rothko have offered their
space free of charge to the Voice union for the event. All proceeds from
the door will benefit the union’s strike fund, which will provide
financial help for union members in the event that there is a strike. If
there is no strike, the money will be held until the next union
negotiations.

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POSTED APPROX. 10:14 AM

Er, weird how I didn’t get one email from the White Stripes official mailing list or the ticketing agent about the White Stripes pre-sale that started about 10 minutes ago for their Keyspan Park show in September. The regular sale is this Saturday at 9am. Tickets are general admission field or general admission stadium (up in the bleachers). Thanks to What’s Up NYC for the heads up.

UPDATE, APPROX. 1:05 PM:

From: The White Stripes newsletter team
Date: Jun 22, 2005 1:05 PM
Subject: More White Stripes pre-sale tickets available

Hello children,

Even more tour dates have been added to the website. Many new pre-sale tickets are available as of 10 am local venue time. More information at:

http://www.whitestripes.musictoday.com/WhiteStripes/ calendar.aspx

Thanks,
The White Stripes newsletter team

—————————

Err…thanks? Now that the NYC pre-sale has been sold out for at least half an hour… Just be glad you read this site.

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Some weird/funny/interesting links for y’all:

More clips and photos from the White Stripes Fader cover story.

Ben Brantley wets his pants writing about Billy Elliot: The Musical, now on the West End in London.

Chris Martin brings his tour of psychotic looking faces to Germany and talks about Usher being his gay lover.

Adopting a poor Chinese baby is soooo last year. Adopting a poor Chinese blog is so now. Without your help, underprivilaged blogs will die by the thousands each year.

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I’m really am not sure how these rumors get started in the first place, but the frequently wrong Contact Music has decided to report that Lindsay Lohan is secretly dating the King of Softball Throws himself, Diego Garcia of Elefant. Forget the whole eating disorder nonsense, does Lindsay have a serious Latino addiction? Has Diego secretly been ghostwriting all of the songs on La Lohan’s new album? Buzz has been surfacing about this pairing along the Underground Railroad of Gossip, but is anyone willing to go on record and say they’ve actually seen them together? I will pay for information with loving looks.

UPDATE: Watch Lindsay casually deny on the Today show that she is dating Diego, “I just read that I was dating someone, who’s my friend…he’s in a band. It’s just so funny.“

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I’ve been so busy seeing Show Business at Rock Center and Batman and talking about Cilian Murphy all weekend that I haven’t been checking up on the White Stripes official site. (There are so many hours in the day!) But luckily other Web geeks have managed to devote some time to ‘net research this weekend and revealed that the White Stripes have continued along their “bizarre venue tour” of the world and will be doing their New York area show at Keyspan Park in Coney Island with Brendan Benson and The Shins at the end of September. (The 24th to be exact.) Yesssss! More East coast dates announced on the site (RI, NJ, MA, MD). The weirdness continues…

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Check out these photos of “Hilary Duff and friend” trotting around Manhattan yesterday. But take another look–that “friend” is my friend Mr. Greg K, who you may know as being one of the fierce MisShapes DJs or as a fixture on the New York socialite scene. Hilarious! Link from Audrey.

In other entertainment news, I saw a taping of one of the challenges of “Project Runway” Season 2 just a few hours ago. I signed a waiver so I could participate in the challenge, so I’m supposed to keep the info of what I saw confidential. But what I can say is that I was sad that the model I really liked wasn’t wearing the outfit I liked the best. Also hard to say which of the contestants is this year’s Wendy…although there were some “personalities” running around.

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A lot of times I get so busy with work, eating, and going out I don’t have time to report on all the things that I do. Here’s some of the stuff you’ve been missing because I haven’t had time to put up the pictures.

On June 2, I got to see The Redwalls perform to a crowd of adoring squealing girls and 40-year-old men at the Mercury Lounge. They are a really solid band, in the tradition of the Beatles, the Stones, etc. If they had been born 30 years earlier, they would be pint-sized superstars. Love them.

On Saturday, June 11, I got to see Maximo Park take down Tonic on the LES. I got there right before the band was going to go on (at the ungodly hour of 2am) so I got stuck way in the back…but I was half-asleep by that point, having trekked my ass all the way from a Brooklyn birthday party to make it to the show. Needless to say, I couldn’t see a thing since I’m short, and I was all the way in the back. Here’s an idea of what my conversation during their set sounded like (I’m the one in quotations):

“Hey, what’s that guy on the trampoline playing?” What? “That guy on the right–all I can see is him jumping up and down. Is he on a trampoline?” No, that’s the bass player. “Oh. Well anyway, it’s good to see Jason Schwartzman playing in a band again.” Huh? “Doesn’t the lead singer look like Jason Schwartzman in ‘Rushmore’?” I guess so…

Then on Sunday I saw Lords of Dogtown. I love that Bai Ling was in it as the rollerskating photographer chick.

Then on Tuesday I got really excited about the movie trailer for RENT. I am a big fat theater geek.

Yesterday I saw rock photographer Elliott Landy do a slideshow lecture at the Apple store about his work shooting 60′s musical legends like Janis Joplin, Hendrix, and Bob Dylan. During part of the lecture he was saying how bands no longer use the amazing colored light like bands such as the Joshua Light Show used during their set. Well it just so happens I went to see the Caesars at Bowery Ballroom tonight, and literally within moments of stepping into the venue, I noticed the use of the very colored oil light shows that Landy was saying were now extinct (above). Go figure!

Here’s another picture I took tonight–this one of the rambunctious guitarist of the Caesars. He was off the wall, jumping around and diving into the crowd, holding up his hand in the air as he made the “number 1″ hand sign, throwing his guitar up into the air and catching it, spinning the guitar around his neck with the use of the guitar strap. He totally reminded me of Graham from the Mooney Suzuki. He (along with the rest of the band) was even wearing all black. They were totally the Mooney Suzuki’s separated-at-birth Swedish twin band.

Another thing that was kinda awesome about the show was there was this dude in a wheelchair up front who decided to start smoking during the concert. He was totally playing the “handicapped card.” Like they were going to throw out a guy in a wheelchair! You just can’t. Lord knows what other inappropriate things that man does in his chair. Awesome.

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My spies reported that last night Tim Wheeler was eating pizza with some friends at the Magician–which is right next to La Caverna, the spot of last night’s Interpol after party. I know a while back I wrote that I had a story about Tim Wheeler from Dublin, but I never wrote about it. (Nor did I do my run-down of my super-fun vacation.) Long story short, when I was in Dublin airport, I was waiting
on line to go through security and this dude 2 people in front of me
wearing a brown leather jacket and a Diesel hoodie caught my eye. I
only saw the side of his head, but I was like “Oh my god! I think
that’s Tim Wheeler!!”, the lead singer of Ash. But I wasn’t sure, so I
waited until he passed me on the line. I thought maybe it was him, but
still again not sure. Then I was able to see the name on the airline
ticket he was holding, and it said WHEELER on an Aer Lingus ticket to JFK–my flight.

I lost him somewhere in the security check, so I didn’t get to say anything to him. When I went to the waiting area for my flight, I didn’t see him so I thought
maybe he was in first class or something, but 10 minutes until the
flight was going to board I saw him roll up with his little suitcase. I contemplated going up and talking to him, but contrary to popular belief, I’m quite shy–and I rarely approach musicians, especially if I am a fan of their work. I was also feeling a bit woozy, due to some mysterious cold/sickness I hadn’t managed to shake off.

I did eventually go up to him and talked for a moment. The conversation ended on a weird note though, after he asked me if I had been to Ash’s Bowery Ballroom shows. I said, “No,” but then continued with, “Do you like The Bravery?” He looked at me and very nicely said, “Ah yeah, they’re our drinking buddies!” I made a perplexed face, and considered telling him how a lot of people in New York felt about the Bravery but decided against it. I ended up abruptly saying, “Er…well thanks! I’m really a big fan!” and walking away. Hahah….

In Sondre Lerche news, on July 25th the Norwegian pop star is releasing a UK EP for “Two Way Monologue” which features the videos
for “Two Way Monologue” and “Days That Are Over”, and three new songs:
“Johnny Johnny Ooh Ooh,” “Hoisting The Flag” and “Don’t Fool Around.” You can also get it from iTunes. Delightful!

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