Blog Posts by Lyndsey Parker

So I saw this Help Wanted ad the other day...

"Wanted: Fame whore eager to humiliate him/herself on national TV. Must be willing to sacrifice one's personal relationships. Must be willing to take one's Blackberry into the bathroom. Must have access to backup Blackberry batteries in case of a charging emergency. Must be able to function on 1.5 hours of sleep a night. Must be able to keep track of spontaneous name changes. Must have no soul, spine, or shame. Vacation time is 10 days every five years (NOT consecutively). No sick days. Benefits include all the Ciroc vodka one can drink, the honor of basking in the glowing greatness of a hip-hop legend, and 15 minutes of reality TV fame."

Man, and I thought Kimora Lee Simmons from Life In The Fab Lane was the nastiest employer in hip-hop! But after watching the trailer for P.Diddy/Diddy/Sean Combs/Puffy/Puff Daddy's new Apprentice-style reality show, I stand corrected. Something tells me Puff probably sips his Ciroc from one of those

Kanye West and his well-publicized punctuality problem may have been on everyone's mind during Lollapalooza Sunday (read this blog for details), but before he hit the main stage (almost exactly on time!!), plenty of other awesome bands adhered to their own earlier timeslots. And, just as Kanye covered the Sopranos-popularized Journey anthem "Don't Stop Believin'" during his set, many of Sunday's acts were also performing under the influence, so to speak. (Even Blues Traveler couldn't resist doing a cover of Cheap Trick's "I Want You To Want Me," oddly).

Here are the highlights...

First, local powerpop heroes, Chicago's own Office, played a fun-in-the-sun afternoon Playstation 3 stage set dedicated to "the junior senator from Illinois." (Along with cover songs, Barack Obama was another recurring theme of the day...from Mark Ronson announcing he'd become a U.S. citizen just so he could vote for Obama, right down to the crazy rumor that Barack would personally introduce Kanye's set.)

By now, most of you reading this know what happened the last time Kanye West played a festival.

It was last June, at the Bonnaroo fest in Tennessee, and Kanye's show began two hours past its scheduled timeslot, at almost 4:45am. To semi-borrow a line from Kanye's "Stronger," the audience members were waiting for him since Prince was on Appollonia, since O.J. had Isotoners...or so it felt at the time.

Unsurprisingly, when Kanye finally did hit the Bonnaroo stage, he was practically booed right off it. (I'm guessing his other line from "Stronger"--"You should be honored by my lateness"--didn't go over too well with the irritated, sleep-deprived crowd.) Later Kanye angrily blogged about this Bonna-booing, claiming the incident wasn't his fault. But the damage was done, and whatever good will Kanye had gained after the tragic, sympathy-garnering death of his mother was now officially squandered.

So on Sunday at Lollapalooza, Kanye returned to the festival circuit hoping to redeem himself.

There were several very valid reasons why I chose to take two valuable hours out of my time-crunched Saturday Lollapalooza schedule to watch the on-site screening of the Flaming Lips' sci-fi cult movie, Christmas On Mars, rather than watch an actual Lolla band during the crucial 8-10pm slot:

1) I'd already seen about 10 bands in the last 10 hours (see Saturday review here)

2) I seriously could've cared less about main stage headliner Rage Against The Machine (see my sure-to-be-unpopular anti-Rage rant here, and let the hatemail outpuring begin anew!)

3) I'd already seen Jeff Tweedy, from Saturday's second-stage headliners Wilco, in the best context possible: playing a G-rated, acoustic version of "Heavy Metal Drummer" for an audience of 4-year-olds (see my Kidzapalooza review here)

4) I'd be waiting seven looooong years for the Lips' fabled, presumed-nonexistent film to be released, and after all that, I was not going to wait several more months for the DVD release (see trailer blog

Lollapalooza Saturday began at the crack of noon, or more specifically the crack of 1:30pm (hey, that's early by rock 'n' roll standards), as I walked through Chicago's Grant Park gates to the strains of U.K. electrorockers Does It Offend You Yeah?'s partystarting statement song, "We Are Rockstars." The tune's effect on me was more energizing than the double wheatgrass shot I stopped to gulp down at Jamba Juice on my way to the fest--after the previous day's rock 'n' roll marathon, I had to make it a double--and I probably shouldn't have even made that Jamba pitstop, in retrospect, because a) DIOYY? provided all the boost I needed and b) I ended up getting to the festival late, just in time to see DIOYY? frontman Morgan Quaintance abandon his squealing flying V on the floor and exit stage right. Judging from the equally squealing audience response--unusually enthusiastic considering the relatively early hour and the sweltering Chi-Town heat--DIOYY?'s set was apparently awesome.

Oh

Friday at Lollapalooza in Chicago's Grant Park was all about one of the hands-down best festival bands on the planet: headlining attraction Radiohead. I, like pretty much all 70,000 people at the fest, spent the entire day waiting for Thom Yorke and company to hit the main stage. But then when they did, I barely saw them and I was unable to get even one photo of them in all their glory.

Why, you ask? Why did I shirk my responsibilities as both an on-the-scene Lollapalooza reporter and a Radiohead fan? Um, because the crowd pushed up against the stage looked like THIS:

Radiohead went on at 8pm, and there was no other band on any of the festival's other seven stages (what band would sign up to compete with Radiohead???). So basically, at about 7:45pm the other 69,999 people at the festival besides myself started migrating en masse across the Grant Park grass. The photo pit was soon so packed with snappers elbowing each other in the nostrils, it looked like something out of the UFC; I

Much has changed about Lollapalooza since eccentric Jane's Addiction visionary Perry Farrell founded the festival in 1991. It used to be that the fest came to the fans, in the form of a coast-to-coast rock 'n' roll road revue. Now it's a three-day, one-location affair in Chicago's Grant Park (Lollapalooza is taking place there this weekend, starting Friday August 1st).

But here, I'll let Perry explain in this backstage interview--as only he can, in his uniquely colorful manner--how Lolla has evolved:

Something else has changed about Lollapalooza: Logically, many of the original Lollapaloozers, who were rocking out to Lolla headliners like Soundgarden and Hole back in the early '90s, have grown up and subsequently sired little music-loving kiddies of their own. So Perry has considerately set up a "fun-sized" Lollapalooza area, Kidzapalooza. This way, thirtysomething parents can come see Nine Inch Nails and Rage Against The Machine (both old-school Lolla back from back in the day,

As of this writing, Tommy Lee is currently on what is probably Motley Crue's 37th reunion tour. But I'm much more excited about Tommy's return to reality television than his return to the Crue.

Tommy is pure TV gold packed into one tight tattooed package, so I've been waiting a good long while now for the rocker with the big, um, ego to return to the small screen. But I was afraid it would never happen, since the recently regrouped Crue once sued his manager for casting him in shows that allegedly made him look (get this) dumb.

Yes, a couple years ago, Tommy's on/off/on bandmates filed suit against manager Carl Scrubner for $20 million, claiming that Tommy Lee Goes To College and Rock Star: Supernova had "inane overtones" (um, don't ALL reality shows??) and made Tommy look "incoherent, lazy, and incompetent."

Oh yeah, like that's sooooo hard to do.

Well, personally, I've missed seeing this lovable old boob on the boob tube. Ever since the hatchet fell on the Hatchet Man's ill-fated