TONIGHT
Friday night, you just wanna party, right? Walk down Ponce and look for the house with the 2nd floor balcony…you just might see that hottie you banged freshman year…

Ludacris (and all the chicken heads who love him) hits the stage at the Convocation Center, 1245 Walsh Ave., Coral Gables, at 7:30 p.m. $34.25! 305-284-8686.

Soviet and guest DJ Carlos D of NYC’s Interpol rock the house for REVOLVER at Soho Lounge, 175 NE 36th St., Miami Design District. Doors open at 11 p.m. $10. 305-576-1988.

Get your art fix at these openings: Draw! Draw! Draw! with artists like Jose Bedia, Luis Cruz Azaceta and Gean Moreno at the Fredric Snitzer Gallery, 3078 SW 38 Court, Miami (305-448-8976) and Hopes and Dreams at Cernuda Arte, 3155 Ponce de Leon Blvd. (305-461-1050). 7-10 p.m. Free.

SATURDAY
Football game 2-keggars all over the place…probably.

Check out the Joepye and Felix da Housecat CD release party for Poplife at I/O Lounge, 30 NE 14th St., Downtown Miami. Kicks off at 10:15 p.m. 305-358-8007.

Try the Dave Brockie Experience at the Factory, 2674 E. Oakland Park Blvd., Fort Lauderdale, with members of heavy metal outfit GWAR and special guests The Mary Tyler Whores. $10. 954-564-7625.

More art and wine for you (faux) epicures: Works by Jordan Massengale, Christopher Lynn and Javier Sasieta at the Dorsch Gallery, 151 NW 24 St., Wynwood Arts District (305-576-1278) and a group photo show, In Focus, at the Daniel Azoulay Gallery, 3900 A NE 1st Ave., Miami (305-576-1977). 7-10 p.m. Free.

SUNDAY
Get drunk at Churchill’s, 5501 NE 2nd Ave., Miami, with Vidavox, Bling-Bling and Starlite Hotel. 305-757-1807.

NEXT FRIDAY
Kiss and Aerosmith live at Sound Advice Amphitheatre, 601-7 Sansbury’s Way, West Palm Beach. $45-$135. 561-793-0445.

TBA
Be on the lookout for L&A’s first indie movie night, a screening of Vincent Gallo’s notorious ego-trip Buffalo 66, to be held somewhere on campus in the coming weeks- i.e. probably the place that serves alcohol. It sure beats an advance of The Fighting Temptations, no?

Shit blew up at I/0 Lounge last Sunday with the “good herb” crew from New York, Yerba Buena, as they shook the crowd with a sizzling medley of calypso, salsa, hip hop and afro-beat. You know you wish you saw those Latin mamis shakin’ it as YB was wildin’ out on stage with guitar, harp and percussions. Plus, they sparked it off with a song dedicated to the brown sugar of the weeds (the elusive hash, that is). Now you know you really missed out.

Coming-of-age films are quickly turning into insipid Hollywood trends since Freddie Prinze Jr. The basic idea of a child transitioning into adulthood has long been a reliable premise for corny after-school specials, but recently, coming-of-age stories have exploded into mainstream cinemas, instead of staying on the Hallmark Channel where the majority of them belong.

Thirteen, thankfully, avoids most clichEs. Although it’s the story of two 13-year-old girls, the film does not once feel forced or awkward-two characteristics that have become common in most coming-of-age tales. Credit for this goes to director and co-writer Catherine Hardwicke, who is so emotionally invested in the story that she would never allow its realistic nature to be compromised by anyone.

Hardwicke co-wrote the script with Nikki Reed, who was 13 at the time of writing, and 14 when she made her acting debut with a major role in the film. Hardwicke, a veteran production designer (Three Kings) who won the Directing Award at Sundance for Thirteen, had known Reed for years and became concerned when she saw serious changes in her attitude and appearance. She proposed screenwriting as a way to calm her down and the result was this fictional account of the difficult time Reed was going through in her early teenage years.

The film begins with a brutal scene showing Reed and the film’s star, Evan Rachel Wood (Simone), sitting on a bed, each begging the other to punch her in the face. They feel no pain as they inhale some kind of aerosol fumes and as the blood starts to ooze from their wounds-all they can do is laugh.

The story then backs up several months, before Wood’s character, Tracy, ever met Reed’s (Evie). Tracy lives with her mother, Mel (The Crying Game’s Holly Hunter), who runs a salon in an impoverished section of Los Angeles. Admiring the cool group at school, Tracy gets acquainted with their unofficial leader, Evie, who, despite having money, steals clothes. The two girls become best friends and Evie drags Tracy into a world filled with shoplifting, drugs, sex and self-mutilation. Hunter gives another excellent performance as Tracy’s mom, who desperately tries to help her daughter in vain.

Thirteen is extremely powerful from an emotional standpoint. Hardwicke shakes the camera violently and drenches the film in shades of blue to add a depressing tone and to fiercely engage the viewer. A major flaw is that none of the main characters elicits enough sympathy. Evie is the only one who appears almost entirely evil, while Tracy’s innocence is lost quickly, and even Mel, who the audience wants to like and feel for, has screwed up her own life so much that she is hardly qualified to save Tracy. Mel’s boyfriend tries to help, but he’s a former drug addict who never looks too far away from starting up again.

This is a tough film to watch, but it is even tougher to forget. There are graphic scenes (e.g., Tracy cutting herself) that are sure to make the audience look away, but this is exactly what Hardwicke wants because, in a year (or ten), the film that made people cringe will stick with them and those cheesy TV movies will be long forgotten.

Shawn Wines can be reached at shawnwines@aol.com

As Harvey Pekar is considered more than just a normal writer to hardcore comic book fans, American Splendor will hold the same unique bond with passionate film fans. Never before has cinema so daringly shifted tones and genres, flowing seamlessly from narrative to documentary filmmaking and back again.

American Splendor was the name of an underground comic book written by a grubby Cleveland file clerk – enter Harvey Pekar. In a time when underground comics were flourishing, Pekar lured famous cult artists like Robert Crumb to illustrate his ideas, since, as Pekar humbly mumbles in the picture he can’t even draw a straight line.

For such an everyman-as-downtrodden intellectual, Pekar receives quite a fair share of variations and attention from the ambitious filmmakers. For the most part, he is played by the severely underrated Paul Giamatti (Storytelling, Private Parts) a brilliant actor who, until now, has always landed small, albeit juicy, supporting roles. The real Pekar narrates the film in his trademark raspy whistle of a voice, and appears on camera several times, when the film breaks for documentary-style interviews.

It’s impossible to remember a film structured similarly to American Splendor – there quite possibly are none. Giamatti goes from playing Pekar in the 1970s, to Pekar sitting on a soundstage in modern day, talking about his role in the movie. In one incredible set scene, Giamatti and the actor who plays Pekar’s n-e-r-d pal, Toby, finish a take and sit in the background while the real Toby and Pekar have a conversation in the foreground.

Aside from this aforementioned breakthrough mixture of documentary and narrative, American Splendor subtly dazzles with its candid, humane substance. When Pekar does interviews, he sits on a fairly empty set, surrounded by curved walls lit white as if they go on forever, like a blank page waiting to be filled in. Within the narrative it’s not uncommon for comic book-esque pencil lines to pop up on screen, and for thought bubbles to appear over characters’ heads.

Without a doubt the funniest scene, Pekar pushes a cart around a grocery store, trying to pick a checkout line as if the task demands a gambler’s instinct. He goes with the shorter one, a risky decision from the start, due to the old Jewish lady in front of him. She demands price checks and coupons, as he turns reddish, holding in a barely restrained fit. Crumb’s crass drawings of him appear everywhere, like a devil with a twin amigo instead of a debating angel.

Another realization about American Splendor is how easily it switches from drama to comedy. Almost the entire film takes place in the crummy neighborhoods of Cleveland, and the two primary locations – Pekar’s vinyl-towered apartment and the hospital where he works – are equally dim and depressing. Still, despite Pekar’s dreary life and sluggish persona, he’s an entertaining character study packing plenty of “Oddville” laughs.

Back in reality we learn that Pekar has found moderate, actually, substantial success for a cult icon, by faithfully appearing as the fat, balding antithesis of carp

The Joggers
Solid Guild
***
With a first glance at the album artwork and an intent listen to the opening track “Loosen Up,” all dreamy waltz with minimal rhythmic interruption, I’m thinking this group is gonna put me to sleep soon, with a 12-track dose of lilting Americana.
The next batch of songs knock down any preconceptions with a sharply produced dose of…drum roll please: old school, slum city livin’ rock ‘n’ roll. Up to the album’s conclusion, the Joggers combine yesteryear’s vacuum tube twang, hard panned guitars on either side of the speakers, and some well-plotted vocal harmonies to create a rather decent version of so many indie discs that have come out over the past few years – One Time Bells by the French Kicks being most similar.
On tracks like “Oriental Alarms,” the loose drumming and bouncy guitar interplay bring to mind a group like Oneida, but here the lead vocals constantly get in the way, bringing to mind a less respectable throwback group like Hot Hot Heat. Not to say that the vocals ever irritate to the point of turning off your boombox. All in all, an honest effort that stands up strong-and-able next to the groups this band is likely to tour with.

Neil Young & Crazy Horse
Greendale
**
Remember that Neil Young song in Philadelphia? That was a really great song. Bruce Springsteen took the cake with his contribution, but it was Neil’s track that captured the film’s somber heartfelt theme.
Too bad he doesn’t have any good songs like that anymore. I’m pretty sure Neil Young thinks it’s the 1970s again. This ode to the environment and love and whatever other nonsense is full of so many embarrassing lines I’d hate to quote them for you. Oh, but Young does quote John Lennon on this record and then promptly sings to you that he is quoting John Lennon and then he reminds you of how important love is, which is pretty important. Sure, there are a few moments here that one can listen to and enjoy, like the soft and sweet “Bandit,” but mostly this is one of the lest ambitious recordings in Young’s career.
Couple that with the fact that the work is produced like a live radio broadcast, lacking any lo-fi charm and instead sounding like a dead piece of wood and you’ve got something only hippies-turned-lawyers can love. Greendale does come with a bonus DVD in which you can watch Young perform this album solo. Young is really ugly and weird, so I didn’t watch the DVD, so maybe it’s awesome and makes the whole album worthwhile, but I doubt it.

!!!
Me And Guiliani Down
By The School Yard ( A True Story)
***1/2

The Sacremento born !!! (pronounced Canes! Canes! Canes! or any other triple threat of vocabulary) is on a roll. Their last LP was chock full of deep grooves like “Intensify” and “Hammerhead,” bringing the funk to the underground house party crowd.
Live, they can make any number of intense butts shake, and singer Nic Offer can’t be truly appreciated until you’ve seen what he can do with a clump of arm-crossed hipsters.
With some time off, and one killer side project (OutHud) the octet return with more heady jamming skills than most bands could dream of, whether they be a crowd of NYC artists playing dance music or a legit soul funk group from back in the day. The spaced out guitar work developed in OutHud is the first thing noticeable on the A-side of this single. For nine minutes the group jumps from Afro-beat percussive stomp, to an epic sing-along chorus, and back into the chanting and skronking that we’re accustomed to.
The song is a call to arms of all New York politicians and all suits to leave their work at home and put down the briefcase. Nothing serious, but seriously infectious. The B-side, a remix of “Intensify” is mostly about layering vocals over an electro beat, and while it is a nice compliment to the single, it’s certainly just a bonus offering. !!! has a full length in the works. Until then, be sure to check out this single.

Michael John Hancock can be reached at Wkndprjct@aol.com.

WHO SLEEPS WITH KATZ?
By Todd McEwen

Writing in a frenetic prose, Todd McEwen espouses the need for urban life and the memories its sundry elements can arouse in Who Sleeps with Katz? To MacK, a radio announcer who’s doctor just disclosed that he has lung cancer, his gods live within New York City – “the gods that deliver,” e.g., the local delicatessen, the gas company, City Hall – and as he wanders the streets, wondering which cigarette could have been the cause of his demise, reminiscences and flashbacks (old lovers, former jobs, his last martini…) ricochet against the buildings of Manhattan. His daylong journey would accrue to meeting his best friend, Isidor Katz, a cerebral bookshop owner who speaks aloud to himself, at The Hour, the bar at the end of the road with the foreboding name. With dialogue interspersed in the narrative and hard-hitting sentences shaped in snappy structures (caps, italics and exclamation marks abound), McEwen describes the sheer devotion of MacK and Izzy’s friendship, whilst revealing the bittersweet love both characters have for the city.

PLATFORM
By Michel Houellebecq

French writer Michel Houellebecq has stirred controversy in the literary world because of his provocative misanthropy and Islam-bashing in his new novel, Platform. But this story of an insignificant man, disillusioned with Western culture and its capitalistic absurdities, is more than just controversial. Rather, he adequately depicts the current state of ennui and displeasure of the average man in Western society, while musing on the avalanche of repercussions fostered by a world of people who all want to accede to the platform of power. The story begins with the death of Michel’s father (a similar opening to Albert Camus’ The Stranger) as he describes his indifference to the event. He decides to go on a group vacation to Thailand, where he meets Valerie, a kindhearted libertine working in the tourism industry. Eventually, at Michel’s suggestion, she launches “sex” resorts with her travel company, where visitors could potentially find a mate. The initiative is an instant success, but it also awaits the terrorist reaction of Muslim fundamentalists. Platform is engrossing and often wittily humorous, but, most of all, it’s brutally honest.

P
By Andrew Lewis Conn

Crafted in a Ulysses-type mold around themes of loss, loneliness and love, Andrew Lewis Conn’s debut novel P strikingly denudes the minds of two jaundiced and peripatetic souls-Benjamin Seymour, a blasE New York City pornographer haunted by his dead lover, Penelope, and Finn, a gifted 10-year-old fugitive with a premature world-weariness. Both will cross paths and attempt to reconcile their longings for family and home and appease their existential dread, which is highlighted by Conn’s cinematic fervor and copious writing style (metaphors, flashbacks, introspections and a 100-page chapter in screenplay format, adding a histrionic dimension to the work). However, while the book is thick with detail (e.g., a pertinent history of the porn industry), it becomes cumbersome when these are superfluous to the story (such as an exhaustive catalog of Finn’s library).

Omar Sommereyns can be reached out at SOASIS@aol.com

What is this Life & E!?

In a debacherous Miami weekend that would and did cause Page Six’s spies to grow fangs, NYC’s extremely blonde and shiny and affluent party favors drank and danced all over the dancefloors and, yes, tables of Opium and Priv

Before he heard Thriller, Scott Herren was born in Miami. Post-Thriller as his passion for rap became further realized, he found himself in Atlanta producing gold-grill Southern booty music. During studio breaks, he’d tool around with a basic MPC sampler, privately snipping up MCs’ lyrics into brief loops of edgy, bumpy melodies. It was a chaotic sound all his own, one bold enough to mold the artistic identity forever known as Prefuse 73.

Now 28, isolated from the burdening politics and stress stateside, he records music and oversees a small innovative record label in Barcelona. Colors and textures conjured by the three cities mentioned above – perhaps a Napoleon ice cream topped with domestic urban pace and exotic foreign peace, come together on One Word Extinguisher – Herren’s recent venerated and highly celebrated record based on a stormy ex-relationship. Snapping and popping across 23-tracks until it revamps entire notions of hip hop, this choice album of the summer never turns soft or confectionary.

Keeping little contact with Miami over the years, minus an occasional phone call or tour with mates from downtown label Schematic, the album, his second as Prefuse, sounds remarkably predestined for our city’s red-means-yellow, Tongue Splasher-skied aesthetic. From the familiar pinks and blues gracing the cover, to the way his signature beat syntax looms lazily in the sun before diving into the hyper-psychedelia and piercing detail of sundown – there’s such an uncanny semblance.

A broader reason to check out One Word arrives from its beneficial contribution to hip hop. Unlike the preceding nervier Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives, here Herren actually aspires, and succeeds greatly, to express a complex message and share his personality – beyond the fact that he extracts more jams from a ghetto sampler than Swizz Beatz can muster from an entire lab. Not to mention that a just released EP, Extinguished, complements its sire while re-upping Vocal Studies’ warchest of glitchines. Damn, I’m already passed my word count – go find info on his other project, Savath & Savalis, elsewhere.

Wadding up Herren’s voicemail for days with failed interview attempts, Prefuse finally connected with Life & Art to chat about his likes, such as Vietnamese films, and candid dislikes, including Common and a certain politician.

Q: How strange is it to promote and perform a record live that pretty much sums up a one-year breakup?
P73: Ah man, it was really hard at first, but the more I tour the more I’m able to make it something different, to think of the songs in a wider concept. But I definitely know what you’re saying. One of the things I’ve found helpful is seeing how the crowds, especially the last sold out shows in New York, have responded, how they felt the music personally.

Q: Sure. Here’s a less personal question. If you could extinguish one person or thing right now, who or what would it be and why?
P73: Bush, Bush, Bush…and his regime – one hundred percent. I have no compassion for anything he’s accomplished in office. Not that Clinton did too much either, but right now that’s who needs to be fucking annihilated for sure. [laughs]

Q: Is that why you moved to Barcelona?
P73: A little bit. I wanted to get away. But mainly because my father is from there, so I figured I’d go there and get some culture after growing up in Atlanta and New York my whole life. I just wanted a totally different pace. And it’s better than I thought it would be. Everything’s just so familiar and I’d never been before – it’s very sensual and weird.

Q: How’s the music scene over there?
P73: Pretty active. It’s cool because it’s just opening up, so everyone is kind of jaded and opinionated in the United States, whereas people there are so excited. Like RJD2’s shit, kids over there flip out over his stuff.

Q: Before One Word dropped, and after, there were a lot of comparisons to DJ Shadow. Both of you had to follow up albums that essentially laid down new blueprints for hip hop. Are there similarities and how do you feel about Shadow’s music?
P73: Pressure-wise, maybe, but on [any] other terms, everyone’s making their own [type] of music. And I don’t even know if Shadow felt the fucking pressure, but I did, honestly. I didn’t wait four years to drop another record. I had to get it out.

Q: Will there ever be a time when you decide to retire Prefuse as you did with Delarosa & Asora?
P73: Well, right now would be a really bad time to do that, [laughs] but eventually, yeah, because I always have new ideas. I’d rather kill the name and keep the dignity, than come off like Yanni.

Q: Turn some readers on to your favorite prefusion jazz artists. Not a lot of people know that era. Why does that music do it for you?
P73: Alice Coltrane is, like, the queen. Pharoah Sanders, Charlie Haden, the whole crew from that era. Spiritually and musically, they all took risks within an otherwise formulaic era of music, they went outside the entire realm of straight-up jazz, like John Coltrane did before he died. Of course, then it got totally exploited and ruined by Pat Metheny – jerk off guitar solo fusion shit. But for a time, it was an awakening.

Q: Your two LPs have some of the more memorable packaging in recent memory. What role did you play in One Word’s design and artwork?
P73: For this one I told GH (Graphic Havoc, a design firm based in Brooklyn and Los Angeles) that I wanted it to be on some straight girl shit – nothing hard, nothing that looked like hip hop.

Q: And you requested the cotton candy color scheme?
P73: I just wanted it to look really feminine. I don’t know, man, I just wanted to insert some feminity but without a “gay” vibe. Don’t print that because I don’t want to come off as homophobic, I’m not at all, but I needed girls to feel my record, not just a bunch of sweaty backpack kids. And so far, it’s been really dope [laughs]. If you’re not playing tough and you’re reaching out emotionally, more people will find it and be able to relate.

Q: What are two of your favorite hip hop movies?
P73: Probably Wild Style and Style Wars, I mean, to be as cliche as possible. [laughs] But it’s true you know?

Q: I know you’re interested in doing soundtracks. Is there a film you’ve seen recently that you would have killed to score?
P73: Man. Have you ever heard of a movie, I don’t know the director’s name (Tran Anh Hung), but it’s a Vietnamese director? One of his movies is Cyclo and another one is The Scent of Green Papaya. They are set in Vietnam, and really steamy and slow, but it would be so dope to score that shit. Just the pace of the films, it’s something you should watch with your girl or guy.

Q: Based on your political stance, I assume you’d like to score Michael Moore’s new documentary (tentatively titled Farenheit 9-11: The Temperature at Which Freedom Burns)?
P73: What? I didn’t even know about it man.

Q: It reportedly exposes President Bush’s family ties with the bin Laden family. He’s going to release it in theatres during elections.
P73: Damn! The government is going to fight that shit. That would be so dope! Yo, on another note, did Common just do a Coke commercial? You’d think that Common, after his last album, wouldn’t go do some shit like that.

Q: So you didn’t care for Electric Circus – the so-called hip hop Dark Side of the Moon?
P73: I mean, I give it an E for effort [laughs]. I wasn’t really feeling it. It’s cool that he got Stereolab to do some beats, but it came off so wack. And then he’s going to make a Coke commercial? I mean, go suck a dick man. [laughs]

Q: But you’ve done some commercials as well.
P73: I did a Foot Locker commercial with Graphic Havoc as a straight up collaboration – no product endorsement, no nothing.

Q: So you don’t have qualms with commercializing your music to a certain extent?
P73: I’ll tell Coke to fuck off, even if they offered me a million dollars. [laughs] There are just some businesses you cannot do. Like Nike, that’s a hard decision. I know mad people who have said no. I think Tortoise got offered like $100,000 and they said, “fuck off.” I was like “good job man.”

Q: You seem pretty tight with Dabrye now, and the songe you did together on One Word just slay. How’d you meet him?
P73: I met him at a Detroit music conference two years ago. He was playing before us as Tadd Mullinix and I was just like,” Fuck, shit, this is annoying the fuck out of me.” I met dude when the Ghostly crew were done, and they were acting really nerdy, so Lif, me and this guy Danny (from Miami’s Counterflow Recordings) just left. Later that night, I was listening to all the demos and laughing at them, and then I heard his – it was so dope! So, I called and asked him if he’d like to do a few tracks and he was like, “Yeah man, cool!” [helium voice]

Q: Would you ever do an entire album with him?
P73: I would, but now we’re getting into territory where he’s just crazy of something. I don’t know what’s up with dude right now. Warp (Records) has been trying to sign him for a minute, major money. Yo, off the record…(back on the record) but he’d rather stay on Ghostly and work at a record store.

Q: How’d you relax this summer?
P73: I only had one day off the tour, but I don’t know, by listening to my iPod and walking around alone. Just taking walks, getting away from people, listening to other music beside your own. That’s all you can do after shaking one million hands a day.

For more information on Prefuse 73 visit WarpRecords.com and EasternDevleopments.com.

This is the longer version of the interview, as originally published in The Miami Hurricane. If you like the graphic illustration done for this article, email Andrew Nazaretz of Contrabrand Clothing at narazetz@hotmail.com – he makes T-shirts that blow my mind.

Hunter Stephenson can be reached at huntlaed@hotmail.com.