American Juggalo: The scene with the smoking Juggalette

Commercial director Sean Dunne brought a six-man camera crew to this year's Gathering of the Juggalos, Insane Clown Posse's annual psycho-porn amusement park, and returned with footage of predictably lowbrow hedonism: Juggalos drinking, inhaling, whoop-whooping, hallucinogenic tripping, shooting fireworks, sucking on nitrous balloons; a green-haired Juggalette too messed up on Ecstasy and vodka to get out of a car; a pregnant Juggalette smoking. Naturally, the 23-minute web doc went viral--the biggest surprise about American Juggalo was that it took someone this long to make it.

Dunne admits that he was hesitant to be so late. "When I thought of this idea it was before the Gathering last year," the Greenpoint resident insists. "The shit hit the fan last year with Tila Tequila. And it made me be like, 'God, do I want to be this guy who goes in there and does this still?'" Since he decided to be that guy, we spoke with him about getting pulled over the cops outside the Gathering, why there may be an Illinois arrest warrant out there bearing his name, and why people should give Juggalos a break.

Tomorrow night, Insane Clown Posse headlines Hammerstein Ballroom. Tickets are still available here.

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courtesy Thrill Jockey

Double Dagger is a Baltimore trio who've been antagonizing audiences with their fourth-wall-dropping post-hardcore squalls for more than nine years. Last month, they announced they were calling it quits--rather than fade away with a whimper, the Wham City vets decided to tour ferociously one last time. Tonight, they'll play their last New York show ever at Death By Audio, so we spoke with drummer Denny Bowen, who also plays with the Dan Deacon Ensemble and Roomrunner, about breaking up, Cake Shop memories, and piss ice.

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Once again, Camille Dodero has decided to subject herself to the glorious festival that is the Gathering of the Juggalos, where she's joined by Charlie Sheen, Screech, MC Hammer, Bobby Brown, and more. She'll be posting on the event as the weekend continues, but here are some photos from the Gathering so far—is it just us, or has Dustin Diamond put on a few pounds?

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photo by Nate "Igor" Smith

The Gregory Brothers at the Village Voice Web Awards in December 2010

Among the rusty Web 2.0 jokes, Anne Hathaway's cornball hooting, and all the precious air Oprah breathed, there were a few redeeming aspects to last night's Oscars. Coincidentally (or not?), they tended to have local ties. Staten Island's PS22 Chorus, "the only remotely competent performers at the Oscars." Pom-pom-headed Luke Matheny, who gave a resolutely human acceptance speech and shouted out NYU. And "The Year's Unintentional Musicals," a minute-and-a-half digital montage of AutoTuned scenes from Harry Potter, Toy Story 3, The Social Network, and Twilight--the latter, a deeply amusing riff on Taylor Lautner's perpetual toplessness called "He Doesn't Own a Shirt." Behind this spot were Brooklyn's very own Auto-Tune the News Guys, the Gregory Brothers (Andrew, Michael, Evan, and Sarah), who all watched the show last night at home, drinking champagne, and snapping pictures of the TV screen with their phones--you would too.

We caught up with three of them this afternoon, amid the telephonic chaos of moving offices, to talk about working with the Oscar producers, Ron Weasley as a booty-jam balladeer, and what should have won Best Picture of the Year.

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iPhone magic by me

Les Savy Fav frontman Tim Harrington, crowd-surfing on a pedestal, lips on a flask, same as it ever was.

Better than: Monotonix's indefinite hiatus.

Les Savy Fav have not evolved, you will be happy to learn. They are still the same four laser-focused musicians and one giant hairy bald art-punk jester who tongue-kisses strangers and strips down to his underpants. And so a night committed to letting these guys--most noticeably prop comic/expert crowd conductor Tim Harrington--be your primary source of entertainment is always a good decision. At the very best, Les Savy Fav live are the most fun you've had standing upright all month; at the very least, Les Savy Fav are a damn fine primer to Odd Future's Jimmy Fallon debut, even if this strain of performance-art punk comes from "the old people in the back," the side of the bell curve Hodgy Beats finds so reprehensible. Both Tyler and Tim wear kneesocks, so.

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"The idea was to have a visual identity before the band even started, before the music started. It kind of worked because people would be like, 'Dude, what is this? What is No Age?'"

Radiohead's Colin Greenwood wearing the No Age "Classic" in January 2008

Dean Spunt's first band was a punk-rock outfit called the Gromits. He was 13 and he sang. His mom had just become a partner in a family silkscreening business, so for fun, he made Gromits' T-shirts with a photocopier and sold them at school. After years of messing around with that machine, piecing together fake show flyers and reprinting punk cassette covers, the drummer became something of a designer, despite having no formal education. ("Using PhotoShop is really kind of difficult for me, but with the photocopy machine, I'm like an Olympic swimmer.") So when he and guitarist Randy Randall formed No Age, Spunt's first order of business was to create a strong visual identity. What he came up with was vertical text, built with a font he can't remember exactly (though it's probably one of the Gothics), in a rainbow blend. That logo has since become something of a DIY meme, popping up everywhere from Colin Greenwood's torso to The New York Times Book Review.

In honor of No Age's excellent new Everything in Between released today, we spoke with Spunt about the band's visual identity and that now-iconic rainbow logo. "I never get to talk about this," he said, genuinely seeming pretty stoked. "No one really knows."

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"Juggalos are not just ICP fans. They're much more than that. They're not the Deadheads, they're not the KISS Army, they're not hippies. Juggalos are something that's never happened in the music industry. Juggalos are AMAZING!"

As Juggalo week at Sound of the City draws to a close, we give you this.

You may've noticed that Insane Clown Posse, the Most Hated Band in the World, have hijacked this blog, this paper, this life. The two questions we've encountered in this process have most frequently been: 1) Insane Clown Posse are still around? 2) Are these guys serious? The answers are yes and yes. As this edited transcript of our hour-long conversation with the blazingly passionate Violent J and his equally devoted life partner, Shaggy 2 Dope, suggests, these two men aren't joking. Discussed below: Method Man, Tila Tequila, Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Trekkies, their Gathering of the Juggalos performer wish list, why a Juggalo is different than "a regular person," how clown love is supernatural, why haters opened "a can of whoop-ass" on the "Miracles" video, and so so much more.

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photo by Nate "Igor" Smith

See you next year

After a fusillade of dense, viscous, and gross objects were thrown at Tila Tequila during last month's Gathering of the Juggalos, a Cave-in-Rock, Illinois event you can read at length about over here, the reality TV personality/internet lady vowed publicly to end the annual festival and told E!, "I'm hoping this will be the last Juggalos Gathering that they will ever have." Faring even worse for the Gathering's future, later that weekend rap don/actor Method Man got hit in the head with a flying object, his cheek cut, and he threatened to sue. (He's since talked with Violent J and reneged.) Given all the negative attention, the four-day bacchanal's future seemed to be jeopardy. But only to outsiders.

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Camille wouldn't let us use a photo of her in full juggalo facepaint. Credit: Nate "Igor" Smith

​Last week our own Camille Dodero staggered back into the office, having barely survived four days at the Gathering of the Juggalos. Now, later today, she'll be on WNYC's Soundcheck, discussing the ordeal with SOTC pal and noted ICP expert Jonah Weiner. Topics sure to be discussed: Tila Tequila, Method Man, and the fact that juggalos are people, too. Tune at 2 p.m. to 93.9FM, or stream it at WNYC. Or you could just look at these pictures of naked juggalettes. Your choice!

photo by Nate "Igor" Smith

Tila Tequila, trying to tame an angry mob with party-store supplies

There was bound to be a problem at the 11th annual Gathering of the Juggalos--and there was. In one corner, we have a Playboy-model-turned-reality TV star who became famous only because she had the most friends on MySpace after Tom. In the other corner, we have a very widely reviled American subculture. On her reality MTV dating-show, Tila Tequila chose from 16 ostensibly attractive partners, both men and women, twice; Juggalos tend to empathize so deeply with the Insane Clown Posse-invented character Super Balls, a superhero whose duty/misfortune is to copulate with all the unsexy women in the world ("Ain't no bitch too fat/Ain't no bitch too wack/Ain't no bitch too ugly"), that many males have the song's SB logo tattooed on their bodies. Last week, Tila Tequila Tweet-bragged about how she's "at a fitting to see what I'm going to wear for my performance at the 11th Anniversary Juggalo's Gathering on Friday!! (yay i can't wait!)"; Juggalos are a group of people who regard show-off "richies" with just a smidgen less contempt than bigots. To wit, when I pulled out my iPhone last Friday at the Gathering, a Juggalo I'd been talking with looked down and said matter-of-factly, "Fuck your iPhone." I put it away for the rest of the trip.

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