Jonathan Toubin, the man behind the sweaty, soul-drenched New York Night Train parties, is in a Portland hospital after a taxi crashed into his hotel room and landed on top of him while he slept yesterday. Toubin was in Portland to spin at a Thursday night party and he was staying at the Jupiter Hotel; his room was on the ground floor.

While being transported to the ambulance, Toubin was apparently able to talk and move his hands and legs "slightly," according to the Oregonian (which has full details on the grisly scene); as of 3 a.m., he was in critical condition at the Oregon Health and Science University Hospital in Portland. Two benefits to help raise money for his expenses have already been scheduled for tonight (at Home Sweet Home, where Toubin was scheduled to DJ, and Motor City Bar), and more are doubtlessly on the way. The flyer for tonight's events is below.

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Mike Wolf

Jooklo Duo at Silent Barn in June.

On Saturday night, thieves broke into the Ridgewood performance space Silent Barn and destroyed or removed an estimated $15,000 worth of equipment. The theft occurred just one day after local police stopped a performance featuring Steve Moore of Zombi and others. In addition to looting the venue's sound system, the burglars stole equipment from the indie video-game collective Babycastles, smashed furniture, ripped doors from hinges, and removed several thousand dollars in cash.

"They partied in there," said Nat Roe, who had organized the Friday show. "Took paintings off the walls and punched holes through them and threw them across the room."

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Tomorrow would have been Tupac Shakur's 40th birthday, and a new revelation involving his life has come out: An associate of James "Jimmy Henchman" Rosemond has confessed to being involved in the robbery and shooting of Tupac Shakur at Quad Studios 17 years ago in a statement to AllHipHop.com.^* Dexter Isaac, who's currently serving a life sentence at MDC Brooklyn, says that he was paid $2,500 plus most of the jewelry he took by Rosemond to carry out the crime, and that he still has a chain taken on that day. The meat of the confession after the jump.

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The 1997 murder of Christopher Wallace, b/k/a/ the rapper The Notorious B.I.G., remains unsolved. Last week, the case became both more transparent and more suspicious as the FBI opened up its files into an investigation about not just who shot Biggie Smalls, but also who helped orchestrate the killing. Popular accounts and common conspiracy theories about Biggie's death usually allege some combination of 2Pac and Suge Knight's Death Row records camp, LA's Crips gang, and corrupt L.A.P.D. officers being the masterminds behind the murder. The FBI's files, which span from 1997 to 2005, do little to prove or dispel these allegations--although they do make for sadly sinister reading.

While the first wave of reports has concentrated on the contents of Biggie's pockets on the night he died--marijuana, a pen, an asthma inhaler, three "larger size" condoms, and a driver's license issued in Georgia--the reports also contain insights into the often-nefarious side of the mid-'90s rap scene. So for those without the patience or printer ink to scour through the 350-plus pages--which include heavily redacted witness statements, a sketch of the crime scene, internal memos, and even a reference to a Village Voice article (on page 48 of Section 1)--here are ten insights into music-business-related matters.

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Last night, the Canadian industry savior and haircut titan Justin Bieber overcame a cold and a guest appearance from Sean Kingston to sell out Madison Square Garden. The performance was being taped for an upcoming 3D biopic, and thus Bieber brought out the big guns: Boyz II Men. (Usher, Jaden Smith, and Ludacris were also in the building.) But the evening's reported highlight? A duet with 17-year-old Miley Cyrus, who just happened to have separated from her boyfriend last week. Together, they sang "Overboard," a song Bieber initially recorded with his opening act, Jessica Jarrell. At the time, the substitution of Cyrus for Jarrell seems to have played well with the crowd--listen to those screams!--but Bieber nation is a notoriously protective bunch (see: Kim Kardashian), and the backlash against Cyrus online was swift, immediate, and fearsome. Watch your back, Miley:

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And here we have the worst possible thing: A man jumped to his death from the roof of San Jose's Mountain Winery during last night's Swell Season show, falling roughly three stories and landing within feet of frontman Glen Hansard. Our counterparts at the SF Weekly have eyewitness accounts, which I can't even bring myself to quote; the comments section, which mercifully hasn't devolved into an awful comedy routine like the Jones Beach Phish concert "horror leap" this week, offers further recollections and is legitimately harrowing. Not quoting that either.

Click on the photo that is being linked to there at your own peril.

In what the New York Post is already dubbing a "horror leap," a 25-year-old man at last night's Phish concert dove headfirst off a 25-foot Jones Beach balcony, landing "with a sickening thud" on the seats below. It happened around 10 p.m., during an intermission, which meant that hundreds of the roughly ten thousand people in attendance saw the fall. Said one witness: "I was sitting two rows behind from where he hit. He hit a chair and he broke the back of another chair. There was blood everywhere. Everyone was yelling, 'Clear the way! Clear the way!' "

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Yes, fuzz-country sweethearts Phosphorescent lost $40,000 in gear when their van was stolen in Greenpoint last week, but in the end this tragedy has paradoxically only strengthened their faith in humanity re: the public outpouring of support that followed, leading ringleader Matthew Houck to pen a poem-like thank-you note that quotes, of course, the Double Rainbow guy:

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Ask Ted Leo sometime about the brutal, unforgivingly marginal economics that confront indie musicians who work without the benefit of a major-label backer or any kind of meaningful record sales. Having $40,000 worth of equipment stolen, as Phosphorescent's Matthew Houck did last night after a show at Pier 54, can be a disaster almost impossible for a working artist to overcome. Which is why Houck's tale is so depressing. Dead Oceans has the report:

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You know Christopher R. Weingarten as the neologism-spouting, profanity-spewing, Columbia Journalism Review-starring "last rock critic standing," as his 1000TimesYes Twitter bio so self-deprecatingly puts it. We know him as a Voice contributor, friend, and until recently, neighbor. Why "until recently," you ask? Because on Tuesday, his Park Slope apartment burned down, taking with it a wholly subpar DVD collection, a winter jacket, two Buddha boxes, a Wii balance board, and around 20% of other the assembled detritus one builds up after living in the same place for eight years. Weingarten actually ducked into the flaming building like some demented action hero to save his laptop, on which his much-anticipated Hipster Puppies book resided ("My fucking book is due in two weeks," he told us over the phone this morning, "I was like, fuck this, I don't care if I die"), but needless to say, the whole thing's been something of a catastrophe. He tells some of the sad story on his blog today :

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