Tears for Fears' Curt Smith checks into residency in the Standard's lobby

Earlier this month, I experienced a surreal evening at the Standard Hotel in West Hollywood. Sure, you say, pretty much any night inside what used to be one of the hippest hotels on the Sunset Strip might be described as surreal, but bear with me.

The less-hair-having half of former chart-topping English duo Tears for Fears, Curt Smith, played two sets of music inside the lobby of the Standard -- free. Oblivious guests walked by on their way to the pool, unaware of the pedigree of the English guy singing nearby. Fewer than 40 fans were in attendance (the room itself, the hotel’s wicker-furniture-laden Cactus Lounge, holds just about the same number). Smith has been in residency at the Standard for a few weeks now, performing every Wednesday, and hotel reps recently announced that they are extending the run all through March.

"I'm doing the residency because I enjoy performing," said Smith via e-mail earlier this week.  "It's intentionally an intimate show, in keeping with the nature of my solo record. Not having a cover charge means that people who only know me from Tears for Fears and aren't familiar with my solo work might take a chance and check it out."

Fans drove in from as far as Azusa to see Smith the night I was there, hoping no doubt to hear a little "Head Over Heels" or perhaps even "Mad World." And Smith, though oddly shy for a man who has performed in front of countless fans during the course of his career, was happy to oblige. He sang "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" in a semi-acoustic setting (with Doug Petty on keyboards and Charlton Pettus handling guitar/backing vocals duty), and performed songs such as “Aeroplane” from his solo record of the same name.

"My daughters prefer Tears for Fears songs as they're more upbeat and generic," Smith said. "Dad's songs are 'a little too sad' for them, which just means that they're harder to understand."

What's not hard to understand is Smith's enduring appeal for his small but devoted fan base. Tears for Fears remain a criminally underrated band that you seldom hear about these days from the current crop of British bands, acts that were clearly influenced by them (we're looking in your general direction, Coldplay).

Paris Hilton wants to duet with Paul McCartney

Remember at Coachella a couple of years ago when the Jesus and the Mary Chain performed with Scarlett Johansson for "Just Like Honey"? ScarJo did fine but it was definitely one of the more OMG moments of the festival.

Now we challenge you to imagine a somewhat similar deal but on a much more brain-shattering level: Paul McCartney and Paris Hilton. (What a perverse thrill it was to bold-face those two names together.)

Now that we've got your attention -- and yes, we realize that the picture of our city's blond heiress is what really caught your eyeballs -- we'll tell you the news. According to Spin, the 15-minutes-in-2006 pop star sidled up to McCartney on Sunday at a post-Grammys party and asked him if he would be interested in a duet. She went on to explain, "I'm a singer too and have had an album out."

McCartney has shared the mic from time to time -- this one with Michael Jackson really tickled me when I was a kid, especially with its cartoon "Deadwood"-era opening -- but he begged off from a collaboration with Hilton, citing his jammed schedule.

That's when Paris should've shown him that dazzling camera-snaring smile and scampered away, but she apparently went on to compliment not his amazing body of work but his "cute" hair. "It's just like in the Beatles." She's got a point, actually; he's pretty much rocked the same haircut since 1964, with only a little bit of variance in the back.

Anyway, the same impulse that made some of us wish to see M.I.A. go into labor at the Grammys makes us want to see Paris go on stage with Macca. Sacrilege, travesty, maybe, but there'd be a lot of jaws on the ground, in addition to crushed water bottles.

--Margaret Wappler

Hilton photo by Gabriel Bouys/AFP/Getty; McCartney photo by Larry Busacca/Getty Images

He's a lot cooler now that he did: Matthew McConaughey launches record label

What do Creation Records founder Alan McGee and "Dazed and Confused" thespian Matthew McConaughey have in common? Both were seduced by roots reggae singer-guitarist Mishka.

And while McGee, who released a collection of the Bermuda-bred singer's songs in 1999 on Creation/Sony, has segued out of the record business, McConaughey is just getting started. The oft-shirtless actor (check out TMZ as of late) is ramping up his fledgling indie this month, mostly because he wants the world to hear Mishka, whose debut release, "Above the Bones," drops on the 17th. His record label, j.k. livin, a reference to a line delivered by McConaughey's stoner-sage character in the 1993 Richard Linklater film, is the latest addition to his lifestyle brand of the same name.

In an interview with Pop & Hiss last week, McConaughey talked about distribution, his 2009 release schedule and even a bit about his producing role on Mishka’s forthcoming release.

50 Cent will headline Bamboozle Left. It's the best idea he's had in years.

Today, we learned that this year's installment of Bamboozle Left, the weekend-long blowout of Orange County mall emo in a parking lot (I've been!), has an unexpected headliner. Mr. Curtis Jackson, who apparently has some time to kill while waiting for his perpetually delayed "Before I Self Destruct" album to become even more relevantly titled, will head up the Saturday show opposite a gaggle of the usual suspects for these sorts of things, including P&H faves Brokencyde, who I simply must see live before the year is out.

While the jokes about this pairing will come fast and easy, this seemingly absurd booking has a strong chance of actually being a pretty fantastic way to close out the weekend and a useful move for Mr. Jackson. Here's why:

Billy Joel and boomer critical hysteria

The race for 2009's prize for Weirdest Piece of Music Writing already has a clear front-runner, courtesy of the ordinarily reasonable Ron Rosenbaum's attempt at a scorched Earth takedown of Billy Joel in Slate. In this 95 Theses of derision on the pride of Long Island, Rosenbaum breaks the tape at just under 2,000 words in parsing the fine hairs of why, exactly, Joel is the worst artist in pop music. OK, fair enough; he obviously hasn't heard Brokencyde yet, but that's a supportable barroom argument. Yet rarely has such a lengthy piece of criticism warranted such a tidal, nay, tectonic shrug of confusion as to why the essay needed to exist at all.

Whose house? Obama's house.

Of all the acres of Obama-centric paraphernalia released since he began his White House run, this shirt that, we hear, began as a meme at the 2008 BET Awards in L.A., has got to be our favorite. Did anyone really imagine a day when a presidential inauguration would be such a bull market for bootleg hip-hop shirts? Though now that he's in office, Obama's surely got a whole new magnitude of geopolitical dirt on his shoulder that's going to need some brushing off.

-- August Brown

Photo and link via The Stranger

Benazir Bhutto's daughter raps in tribute to slain mother

Of all the rap odes to slain family members, fellow corner boys and career-making label mates, this video tribute from Benazir Bhutto's 18-year-old daughter, Bakhtawar Bhutto, might be among the most motivationally unimpeachable. Bhutto, the former Pakistani prime minister, was killed in a combination gun/bomb attack in Rawalpindi last December.

This homemade track and video from Bakhtawar, currently a student at Edinburgh University, pays tribute to her mom with a Kanye-inspired sped-up soul sample and mournful lyrics that could have been pulled off one of the myriad post-Biggie laments were it not for their cultural and familial specificity: "Shot in the back of your ear / so young in 54th year/ murdered with three kids left behind / a hopeless nation without you / you are in all their hearts." As Pakistan is at risk of veering ever closer to the brink of unraveling, even this less-than-professional bedroom rap feels especially charged with sadness, grief and doom.

-- August Brown 

Musebin: The future of music reviews?

For those who have complained that some of the Pop & Hiss reviews are too long, today is your lucky day. Musebin, a site dedicated solely to tiny album reviews, is up and running.

With a 140-character limit, that means the above two sentences would be too long. The user-driven site allows for only a sentence or two, paring down music reviews to a Twitter or Facebook status update.

For instance, here's a snapshot of three reviews of Kanye West's "808s and Heartbreak:"

Although the launch of such a site might send fear into the hearts of a music blog with seven contributors, anything that promotes discussion of new music is welcome. Musebin certainly has that promise. At its best, it's a launching pad for users to find out more information. At its worst, Musebin's mini-reviews simply add to the clutter that the site aims to cut through -- there's no need for 25 characters on mid-'90s Weezer albums, after all.

Those who sign up can post reviews as well as sample songs via a music player. They'll also likely face a little social networking crisis, having to decide whether a review is better fit for Twitter, a Facebook status update or Musebin, among others.

Wired's Epicenter has more on Musebin.

--Todd Martens

Screenshot: musebin.com

We help spread the wildfire: Ben Gibbard is moving into Zooey Deschanel's place

So, on the blogosphere today, the ridiculously adorable news spread that Ben Gibbard, the lead depressive for Death Cab for Cutie, and Zooey Deschanel, the vintage-wearing chanteuse of She & Him, are engaged! We also have it on good authority that Gibbard is moving into her chic digs in Hancock Park. So that means that Pop & Hiss will see them shopping at the Trader Joe's on La Brea and Third any minute now!

--Margaret Wappler

Photo of Deschanel by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images; Gibbard by Nancy Pastor/For The Times

Cypress Hill's B-Real sponsors his own journalist-bailout program

With the hot, sweet scent of bankruptcy in the air, we here at P&H have deemed it prudent to learn some new, more practical skills than prognosticating Grammy picks. Fortunately, as is usually the case in our daily lives, Cypress Hill's B-Real is ready to swoop in and throw us a bone. At a forthcoming listening session this month for his debut solo album "Smoke N Mirrors," which drops in February, B-Real promises teach us the finer points of his second-favorite handicraft behind rapping.