Week in Review: Uniformly Awful

In yr face. Photo by Rebecca Smeyne

​In the week the world learned how dangerous a truffle-flavored french fry really can be, we watched in horror as the New York Times Magazine penned a brutal takedown of M.I.A.--who retaliated by going after the journalist who wrote it, of course. Were you perhaps wondering what in fact truffle-flavored french fries are, exactly, or what they taste like? Ask expert Voice food critic Robert Sietsema! (Spoiler alert: "They're uniformly awful.")

At least Vampire Weekend know how to own their own questionable class and status affiliations.

Meanwhile, we spent an afternoon with Damien Jurado, who got a little misty-eyed, toward the end; Tool's Maynard James Keenan told us about his unlikely new career as a winemaker; Holly Miranda talked coming out and magic; and Solange Knowles came through to explain why working with Of Montreal's Kevin Barnes on her new record "makes all the fucking sense in the world." Noted!

Law & Order finally said goodbye, so we listed the five most ridiculous rapper cameos on the show and its various spinoffs. Then David Byrne sued Florida governor Charlie Christ for a million bucks over a campaign ad gone wrong, so we gathered together eight Talking Heads songs that might've worked even better. BAM Announced its 2010 Next Wave Festival, which got us wondering what Sufjan Stevens got paid for his 2007 BAM BQE commission. The answer? $147,338.

Props threw a raucous house party at LPR, Holly Miranda decimated the Bowery Ballroom with some help from Kyp Malone, a horn section and Etta James (download the evidence here), Yeah Yeah Yeahs played MOMA's Party in the Garden, Hoodstock took Bed-Stuy with Big Freedia and Ninjasonik, Santos Party House's reOPENed party featured leggy ladies and non-consensual daggering, Previously on Lost said goodbye to the Island series at the Bell House, NYC Popfest threw an afterparty at Glasslands featuring Dom, Happy Birthday, and a topless lady, and Showpaper hosted a benefit at Silent Barn with Dan Friel and Starring.

Plus free downloads from Matmos and So Percussion, Kanye West, Christina Aguilera, and Paragraph, the insidious gang of cabbage patch kid-based drug smugglers terrorizing Governors Island, the best LCD Soundsystem missed connection ever, new additions to Siren Festival, the end of American Idol, Justin Bieber's ongoing opening-doors problem, and for your Memorial Day BBQ, the greatest vocoder-themed mix of all time, courtesy of Dave Tompkins. We're back on Tuesday.