My compatriots are either in Texas for SXSW or Mexico for MtyMx (reminder to Zach: Do not buy or sell drugs) at the moment, but it's beautiful out in NYC right now so I am surprisingly not bitter about being left here to recap a week marred, unfortunately, by the death of power-pop god Alex Chilton. (Big Star, bolstered by some guest stars, are still heading to Texas.) Perhaps this interview with the little kid from Airplane! might cheer you up: Kareem Abdul Jabbar roughed him up pretty good apparently.

Before he left Zach found time to ether another misguided Jay-Z detractor and catch us up on this weeks' winners and losers: Damon Dash has no money, Michael Jackson's estate has a shitload, and Carnegie Hall gets more than Haiti, benefit notwithstanding. We chatted with a couple other Mexican bands playing MtyMx -- XYX for an interview, and the Los Fancy Free for the glorious return (!) of Indie Cribz. Hipster narcs are antagonizing surreptitious smokers at nightclubs -- including Snoop Dogg.

What else, what else... Our American Idol coverage continues with Sharyn Jackson and Tom Breihan. Yes in My Backyard snagged MP3s from Growing and Batillus. Free Energy played Letterman; Joanna Newsom played Town Hall. Ted Leo covered "Everybody Wants to Rule the World"; Raekown dropped by the (Australian) zoo. And NYC-rap anthem (and house favorite) "Beamer, Benz, or Bentley" got a dull video but a pretty good parody. We're back Monday (most of us). Now go play outside.

In the wake of Alex Chilton's death, the tributes continue to roll in (here's ours), but in at least one respect the show will go on. The Memphis Commercial Appeal's Bob Mehr reports that Big Star's SXSW engagements will be honored, with a few newly announced friends in tow:

Zach is bound for Mexico (godspeed!), so it falls to me to address this: Nice job, Brandon Carter. I will probably download your mixtape, and maybe even listen to it. Way to call out those very possibly fraudulent candy-sellers, especially. The slide-my-MetroCard thing is a bit tasteless, but ah, that's the game. [Thanks to Vulture.]

So The Runaways movie opens today, with Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning prancing about trashing hotel rooms and leering and whatnot; our friends over at LA Weekly have a long, excellent feature on a figure with alas only a bit part in the film: drummer Sandy West, who died of cancer in 2006 after epic battles with both drugs and the law. ("She told me that in some ways being in prison reminded her of being in a band," a friend notes.) Sandy's own recollections of the Runaways' heyday are suitably grim and surreal: shooting heroin with Keith Moon, literally throwing Sid Vicious off a boat, etc. The craziest quote actually comes from a 2004 documentary on the band:

​Splendid but initially disquieting news this morning: The Broadway production of Fela! (way more info about that here) is moving to the National Theater in London later this year, in an only slightly stripped-down production that'll feature the same alternating titular stars as in the Broadway version (Sahr Ngaujah and Kevin Mambo), playing for an audience perhaps better acquainted with Fela's music (he's got strong London ties, etc.) than we Americans. Great. But the piece neglects to mention: Does that mean the Broadway production is shutting down?

Jamming up north not too long ago.

Joanna Newsom
Town Hall
Thursday, March 18

"Did you say, 'Play faster?' she asks. "No! Fantastic!" replies one of several hundred rapt, lusting, audience-bound gentlemen. Thought so.

With apologies to our own Rob Trucks, you ain't gettin' more surreal in terms of Alex Chilton tributes today than the above brief speech from Steve Cohen -- make that Congressman Steve Cohen, D-Tennessee. He quotes from "The Letter" and everything. Very sweet, very bizarre. But of course he's not the only one to try his hand at a eulogy today.

Unless Erykah's PR is sassin' me big-time, this jam will not be on the imminent New Amerykah Part Two: Return of the Ankh , though it's certainly smooth/alluring/sweetly deranged enough to make the cut. Given all the harp + cooing action in the first 90 seconds, it could also just as easily fit on Ms. Newsom's Have One on Me, which already had plenty of tracks, I suppose. That does appear to be EB's real cover art though, which, wow. The Awl's also got photos of Erykah surfing, if that's your thing.

I will admit to severe trepidation regarding Here Lies Love, Mr. Byrne's star-studded full-album tribute to Imelda Marcos (preorder here; $35 for the deluxe package), but this first tune/video, sung by Santigold and consisting entirely of vintage footage of Imelda dancing with various world leaders, is heartening in its oddly buoyant oddness. You get the track free right now if you do any pre-ordering; whole thing's out April 6.

Clockwise from top left: Peter Graves, Robert Hays (Ted Striker!), and Ross Harris, reunited

Courtesy Ross Harris

​Beloved, fantastically deadpan actor Peter Graves died Sunday of a heart attack at 83, leading cinéastes to marvel at an enormous résumé that includes the Mission: Impossible TV series and films directed by Billy Wilder, Otto Preminger, and John Ford. But for me, he'll always be the pervert pilot in 1980's Airplane!, one of the funniest movies ever made, regaling an oblivious 10-year-old boy named Joey with wildly inappropriate questions: "Do you like movies about gladiators?" "You ever hang around the gymnasium?" "You ever seen a grown man naked?"

Now seemed like a good time to interview Joey, a/k/a Ross Harris, who lives in Southern California and spent the intervening 30 years both acting (stints on The Love Boat, CHiPs, TJ Hooker, and so forth) and getting into music via Dust Brothers-affiliated electro-rockers Sukia and vibrant collagists DJ Me DJ You. Plus he directed the video for Elliott Smith's "Miss Misery." Ross was happy to talk about Peter Graves and Airplane; per the photo above, they'd reunited awhile ago. I forgot to ask him if that's the same hat, but I bet not.