On Sunday, April 15, 2012, the world officially entered science fiction-land. Sure, iPods are pretty futuristic, GPS is spy magic from space, and we all have stupidly intelligent phones now, but nothing has felt quite as much like living in a Buck Rogers episode than when Tupac got resurrected in hologram form at Coachella.
 
By now, you've all seen it. And it's pretty shocking on a number of levels. The first time you see that thing in action, your brain starts spewing questions: How are they doing this? Should they be doing this? Is this a joke? Was Tupac's waist really that tiny? Is he really still alive, like that crazy bitch from the bar keeps insisting? But, after the shock of the spectacle is over and Dr Dre has announced that he wants to tour with this thing (we guess you don't spend half a million dollars creating something, only to use it once), the only thing we should all be feeling is horror.

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​As you may have already heard, a couple of days ago, Megadeth's Dave Mustaine told musicradar.com that he was "hoping that whatever is in the White House next year is a Republican" (he knows politicians aren't robots right? Surely that should be a "whoever," not a "whatever"?) and gave his own rather bizarre opinions of all of this year's G.O.P. presidential candidates.

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​Well, it's official. According to the FBI's National Gang Threat Assessment for 2011, Juggalos -- those loud-mouthed, clown-faced, Insane Clown Posse-loving idiots -- are a real live gang. They're listed as a "Non-Traditional" gang on the Contents page, but they're a gang nonetheless. And if you read this thing, the FBI is clearly genuinely concerned about the crimes this moronic team of face-painters are committing around the country. And here we were thinking they were just simpletons with a love of terrible, terrible music and playing dress-up!

According to the report, Arizona, California, Utah, and Pennsylvania already recognize Juggalos as a gang. The report also states that "Transient, criminal Juggalo groups pose a threat to communities due to the potential for violence, drug use/sales, and their general destructive and violent nature." In addition: "Open source reporting suggests that a small number of Juggalos are forming organized subsets and engaging in gang-like criminal activity, such as felony assaults, thefts, robberies, and drug sales."More >>

Ann Magnuson

Blame it on Halloween, we s'pose, but this is quite a week for artists performing as other artists here in S.F. Obvs there's that iPort-wet-dream of a garage/punk show Friday at Brick and Mortar, but here's another, possibly way stranger happening: Tomorrow night at SFMOMA, the performance artist Ann Magnuson -- best known as an NYC club girl, member of '80s weirdo rock band Bongwater, and purveyor of strange characters -- is doing an exploration of "the rock star as witch doctor, myth maker, and ritual sacrifice." This will involve some sort of live show where she'll play David Bowie, performing his early '70s songs in a "tribute cabaret."

Later, we assume, the ever-cagey Magnuson will also "embody" (?) Jobriath, the first openly gay glam rocker. And it gets better: "The performance also will incorporate dreams, Jung, human sacrifice, Aztec shamanism, and all things dark, bloody, and beautiful," according to its website. Which, whoa! Arty types assuming the Bowie pose ain't nothing new, of course, but this iteration sounds interesting.

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So, this week The X Factor -- Simon Cowell's new reality show/ singing competition -- arrived on U.S. screens for the first time, and we've already had two nights of occasionally exciting, often harrowing, auditions. In case you missed it on Wednesday and last night, the operating principle is exactly as you would expect: four judges (L.A. Reid, Paula Abdul, Nicole Scherzinger and, yes, Simon Cowell) cast judgment over a string of contestants in a variety of cities. One of the key differences between this and other music talent hunts is that the auditions happen in front of an arena-sized audience (America's Got Talent-style) which, in turn, also passes judgment -- sometimes very vocally. 

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Jack White is a man we like. We like the White Stripes, we like the Dead Weather -- hell, we even like bits and pieces of what The Raconteurs have done (yes, they're boring occasionally, but they really come alive from time to time). He's a maverick, a man with ambition, a man with creative scope. And he's handsome, which helps.

So, we're never that surprised to see Jack White pushing himself creatively. Nonetheless, we weren't terribly impressed to hear that he'd teamed up with Insane Clown Posse -- one of the biggest jokes any music-lover has had to endure for the last nineteen years.
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So, remember that thing that happened at the 2009 Grammys? That thing where Chris Brown  and Rihanna both no-showed on account of the fact that he'd beaten the crap out of her? Then shortly afterwards, photos emerged online of a decidedly broken-looking Rihanna, sporting a swollen eye, a split lip and massive lumps on her forehead? It was a harrowing image and undoubtedly hard to forget...

...Or so you'd think. The truth of the matter is, a great deal of people seem to have erased the entire incident from their minds and somehow forgotten that Chris Brown did this, admitted to doing this, apologized weakly, then got off far too lightly in court. Apparently, enough time has passed and now all is forgiven because his fourth album is doing well, SNL welcomed him onto the show earlier this year (nothing funny about that, Lorne Michaels), and even little Justin Bieber recently recorded a duet with him (cute!).

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So, guess what happened the other day? John Mayer announced to an audience of students at Berklee College in Boston that he was addicted to Twitter, prompting the sympathy of, we imagine, literally nobody. "I was a Twitterholic," he announced (possibly sobbing). "I had four million Twitter followers and I was always writing on it ... and it started to make my mind smaller and smaller and smaller and I couldn't write a song anymore."
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No, not that gay!

Inciting outrage, death threats, and -- at least for us -- wry chuckles, the controversial Berkeley rapper Lil B has named his upcoming album I'm Gay. Despite his past threat to rape Kanye West and jokes that he was a homosexual, B says the title is about happiness and the meaning of words.

"I really seen that the hip-hop community is being very closed-minded and very hateful, very violent," B told MTV News. "People use evil words, money, separation, stuff like that. I just wanted to make this to show words don't mean anything."

In keeping with that aim, the cover art for "I'm Gay" is a reference to the Ernie Barnes painting that graced the cover of Marvin Gaye's 1976 album I Want You. Revealing the image on MTV, B says it depicts the path from slavery to mental freedom. Check it out after the jump.

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It was impossible to know, back when Rattle and Hum or The Joshua Tree came out, what Bono would one day turn into. He's been making it incredibly difficult to like him for about 15 years now, but -- woomp, there it is -- he just found a way to put a cherry on top of all that annoying behavior: He and the Edge are about to release their soundtrack for the most ridiculed musical in the history of musicals, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. It's out June 14. As we count down the days to the inevitable horror of it all, let's use the time productively by taking a look back at Bono's other most annoying moments. There are plenty to choose from ...

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