In the Mix

We win again. The Phillies made the Mets' lives miserable for the second year running, and Philadelphia also beats out New York in the Springsteen for Obama sweepstakes. In Manhattan, the Boss is playing playing a fund raising event at the Hammerstein Ballroom on October 16, and not only does it cost as much as $10,000 per ticket, it also requires enduring Billy Joel.

On the Benjamin Franklin Parkway on Saturday afternoon, Philadelphians get a much better deal. No Billy, just Bruce, playing an acoustic set of as-yet-undetermined length. Plus, it's free, in an event that's timed to Monday's voter registration deadline.

The video below is from the 2004 Vote for Change tour, when Springsteen - who will also play the Super Bowl next year, in what hopefully be a precursor to a 2009 tour with the E Street Band - - was politicking on behalf of a different Democratic candidate. The performance is from the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, the guy singing Pearl Jam's "Better Man" with him is Eddie Vedder.

The Janet Jackson show scheduled for the Wachovia Center on Thursday has been postponed. Jackson was hospitalized on Monday in Montreal for an undisclosed ailment after she became ill during soundcheck for a show that night. She was released from the Royal Victoria Hospital that same night, according to a hospital spokeswoman. No word on when the Rock Witchu tour, with opening act LL Cool J, will be rescheduled.....

Noel Gallagher of Oasis got his rib cracked when some dude tackled him on stage in Toronto during "What's The Story, Morning Glory?" on Sunday. Turns out the assaulter wasn't Inquirer movie critic Steven Rea, who's been blogging about the Toronto Film Festival all week, and was probably hobnobbing with Keira Knightley and Viggo Mortenson at the time. Nor was it Thom Yorke of Radiohead, despite Gallagher (that's him, second from right) calling out the art-rocker in the new issue of Details, in which the often impudent songwriter issued these fighting words: "They're middle-class boys worrying about pushing an envelope somewhere, and all that carbon footprint and all that bollocks. ... It's very easy to just say, 'We're going to become difficult now and challenge our audience.' I like my audience. They paid for my swimming pool. I'm not f- challenging anybody."

The video of the Gallagher takedown is below. Note how alleged perpetrator Daniel Sullivan goes after Noel, then sets his sight on younger brother Liam. The Beatlesque band's new Dig Out Your Soul arrives Oct. 7. There's no Philadelphia-area date as of yet.

Sugar Pie DeSanto is one of the Pioneer Award winners at the Rhythm & Blues Foundation's gala at the Kimmel Center tonight. Bonnie Raitt, Dionne Warwick, Chaka Khan and Kool & the Gang, among other old school luminaries, will all be on hand. Here's an interview with Sugar Pie, a rather audacious YouTube clip from 2007, and a taste of what she and her cousin Etta James sounded like back in the day "In the Basement."

The Silver Jews, that is. The David Berman-led band rock band, out now with the excellent, country-tinged, literate-in-the-best-sense Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea, is at the First Unitarian Church tonight, with Israeli heavy rock trio Monotonix opening. Berman and his wife Cassie, who plays bass, are pictured above. Not sure if they're bringing their dog. My interview with Berman from last Friday's Inky is here.

The SJ's music dark, deep and droll country-rock isn't the slightest bit sleepy, but Berman - who's the author of the poetry collection Actual Air, which you can sample here - is expert at writing songs that explore mysteries revealed after one nods off for the evening, like some kind of rock and roll John Keats. On Lookout, it's the superbly spooky love song "My Pillow Is The Threshold." On 2006's Tanglewood Numbers, it's "Sleeping Is The Only Love," a video clip of which is right here.

Terrific Austin power-pop band that enjoys shopping for vinyl and who named themselves after the beery Jerry Lee Lewis hit "What Made Milwaukee Famous (Has Made A Loser Out Of Me)." They play the Khyber tonight with Wild Sweet Orange. Here's the "Selling Yourself Short" video.

1. The Hold Steady, Friday at the TLA with Sonic Youth. The Brooklyn bar band extraordinaire play from a New York rooftop in this Pitchfork TV clip.

2. Del McCoury Band, Friday at the Salem County Fairgrounds at the Delaware Valley Bluegrass Festival. Read Steve Klinge's interview with McCoury here. And here's the high and lonesome singer and bandleaders's take on Richard Thompson's "1952 Vincent Black Lightning."

3. Brad Paisley, "Online." The country guitar slinger whose mostly instrumental album Play is due in November headlines at the Susquehanna Bank Center in Camden on Saturday, with star-dancing Julianne Hough and Jewel also on the bill.

Brad Paisley - Online

4. Does It Offend You, Yeah?, "Let's Make Out." British electro foursome open up for Trent Reznor's Nine Inch Nails at the Wachovia Center on Saturday.

5. Black Landlord, "Do The Hack Tao Right Now." Soul-rap revue fronted by ringleader Maxx Stoyanoff-Williams, formerly of The Goats and Incognegro. At the Unofficial Fringe Cabaret party at the New Alhambra on Ritner Street in South Philadelphia on Saturday with the Martha Graham Cracker Cabaret and Peek-A-Boo Revue, and in Rittenhouse Square on Wednesday night. Both shows are free.

"One kid dreams of fame and fortune, one kid helps pay the rent," goes the lyric. "One could end up going to prison, one just might be President." I suppose Barack Obama's strategists couldn't resist that one. And as we all heard over and over again on TV this week, Obama needs to reach out to attract white working class voters loyal to Hillary Clinton if he's going to win in November. But did he have to go with a Brooks & Dunn song as corny as "Only In America" as his post-speech music in Denver last night?

Earlier in the week, the rumors had it that Bruce Springsteen would be taking the stage after Obama. And really, I can't blame the Boss for backing out, if he was ever in. That would have been a tough act to follow at Invesco Field last night. But instead of Springsteen - and after Stevie Wonder signed up the "Signed, Sealed & Delivered" uplift earlier in the evening, and Sheryl Crow, Jennifer Hudson and Will.I.Am also entertained - the evening was closed out with a dose of red state country.

At first, that sure seemed like a disconnect to me, coming from Obama, an vowed fan of Wonder (whose "Isn't She Lovely" played when Michelle Obama came out for her speech on Monday night in Denver), as well as Springsteen and Miles Davis.

But on closer inspection, the use of a couple of country cowboys to put the finishing touch on a Rocky Mountain convention made strategic sense. (And it sure beats Melissa Etheridge singing John Lennon's "Give Peace Chance.") A good part of Obama's speech was about showing that he too can be a tough guy, and stand up to John McCain on national security as well as domestic issues. And the whole point of the Democrats holding the convention in Denver was an effort to take Western states like Colorado and Nevada that have recently voted red, and turn them blue.

So pulling out Brooks & Dunn's "Only In America" - see the band's original multicultural video for song here - was a way of saying that the Obama campaign means to compete with McCain on all flag waving levels, even if it means employing a country song that George W. Bush used on the campaign trail in 2004, played by a band that performed for the G.O.P. at the Spectrum in South Philadelphia during the Republican convention in 2000 and again in New York in 2004.

And to be fair to B & D, while "Only In America" is filled with populist lyrics unsubtle enough to be ideally suited for a Presidential campaign - "We dream as big as we want to/We all get a chance/Everybody gets to dance" - the song doesn't offer a completely pat happy ending story. It's newlywed couple head to L.A. to make it big, but are likely to wind up back in the heartland, happy to spend their lives as regular folks in the good old U.S.A.: "They just might go back to Oklahoma, and talk about the stars they could have been." And the Obama campaign hopes, consider voting Democratic this time around.

Liz Phair plays the TLA, doing her 1993 grunge-era feminist rock landmark Exile In Guyville in its entirety. It's a great album. Below are videos for "Never Said Nothing," and a trailer for a mini-doc about the album which is included in the Guyville anniversary edition which came out in June.

1. Marvin Gaye, "The Star Spangled Banner." The Nike ad featuring Gaye's soul takeover of the national anthem at the 1983 NBA All-Star Game with footage of the U.S. men's basketball team is in heavy rotation during NBC's Olympics coverage. Here's the original, sans LeBron.

2. Nico Muhly. The 26 year old whiz kid classical composer, gourmand, New Yorker profile subject, and string arranger for Bonnie Prince Billy and Bjork plays the First Unitarian Church Friday night, in support of of his album, Mothertongue. He blogs here. Here's a video for "It Goes Without Saying" by Una Lorenzen.

3. Rod Stewart. Rod the Mod plays Friday and Saturday at the Borgata in Atlantic City. Here's a brown haired Stewart doing "Maggie May" with the Faces, including Ronnie Wood, Ronnie Lane, Ian McLagan and Kenney Jones. from 1971.

4. Pacific!, "Hot Lips." From Reveries, debut album by Gothenburg, Sweden duo of
Daniel Hogberg and Bjorn Synneby, who blend breezy Beach Boys sunniness into their Air-y electro-pop.

5. Laura Marling, "Night Terror." Kinda scary folk-goth from Laura Marling, the self-possessed teenage Brit singer-songwriter whose excellent, Alas, I Cannot Swim is out this week. She plays the Side Chapel at the FU Church with Johnny Flynn on Sept. 17th.