Promotion, parties, and popsters.

Go here and read this. Paul sums up the whole club / party / band promotion-thing perfectly. I also think its terrific that someone promoting a successful night in Chicago actually took the time to anwer this kid's question without getting snooty about it.

It got me to thinking about my own history of promotion. I reckon I'm best known for my work with bands, though lately the DJing seems to be taking up most of my free "music-related activity" time.

Sometimes artists want crazy thing in a tour rider. One time I had to go to four different stores to get everything on Slymenstra Hymen's rider. Other times, like with Electric Wizard, all they want is free booze. I just read an article on riders for the Orange Couty Fair and Gnarls Barkley gets my vote for most sensible rider.

• 1 bucket of fried chicken (20 pieces)
  
• 1 bag of Snickers Miniatures
  
• 1 dozen Dunkin or Krispy Kreme doughnuts
  
• 1 pack of Magnum condoms
  
• 1 pack of Swisher Sweets Blunt cigars

I mean, that makes total sense. I just hope the condoms and the chicken aren't used simultaneously. Ew.

Seriously though. So then it got me to thinking: How did I get involved with this whole promotion thing in the first place? I still don't know. I guess I sort of fell into it. I mean, the parties I threw in college were pretty legendary, and I've always been the guy that needed to control to music so DJing and band promotion came naturally. What are those two things if not an attempt to control just which station the "radio" is set on at any given soiree, eh?

So yeah, there's that. What else? Oh yeah, Lollapalooza is here! I'll be attending today and Sunday's shows (I'm missing Saturday due to plans that were set in stone before I was granted a press pass) and you can catch my thoughts on the whole shebang within my preview for Chicagoist. So get on over there and lay your peepers on my words.

I guess I'll leave you with this piece of good news. Although Christina Aguilera is all cleaned up visually (for the most part) she wants you to know she's still a minx in heat at heart. Her new double album splits its time between a disc on "contemporary pop" and a disc of "faux-oldies." My personal favorite song off the first disc is "Still Dirrty" which manages to be far sexier than the song it's a sequal to. On the second disc, you might think she's going to tone down the content to match the '20s flapper vibe, but then you'd be forgetting just what a bunch of sexpots those showgirls were. Aguilera confirms this with the Vaudeville-bound "Nasty Naughty Boy." I actually prefer "Candyman" off the second disc as far as which the strongest tune is, but I'm going to share the former with you to compare/contrast the content of it against my favorite cut off the first disc.

So, here they are:

Christina Aguilera "Still Dirrty"
Christina Aguilera "Nasty Naughty Boy"

The album as a whole is as uneven as one would expect. A tad too much treacle for my tastes, but when Xtina starts to belt out the more engaging tunes it's impossible to resist. Who would have thought that she would end up being the laast Mousketeer left standing at this point?

*Oh, about the non-Xtina snaps, no, I have no idea why I have Ryan Starr on the brain this week. I have a feeling there's something subliminaly at work. Is she in the news or something?