…spent some time in New Orleans in ’04, and got shot in the leg during the process. Now he pleads, as “a dedicated follower of the city,” that it not be left to die.

…the remarks below about ’80s pop nostalgia tours, I forgot about one Britpop act that probably isn’t bringing nice memories to mind these days.

…another Bumbershoot. Seattle’s own all-you-can-eat arts buffet turned 35 this year, and seemed at times to show its age.

This year’s fest had an unspoken theme of punk nostalgia, with such headline acts as Elvis Costello, the New York Dolls, and Iggy Pop with (some of) his original Stooges–not to mention two different displays of pomo concert-poster art (the all-comers Flatstock and the invite-only “Art of Modern Rock”). Fourteen years after KNDD’s first “Resurrection Jukebox” show, it’s still weird for me to see the musical idols of my own young-adulthood marketed as golden oldies.

Not a nostalgia act, not really a “comeback” either ’cause they never really went away, the Posies wowed ’em with a new organ-enhanced sound and Ken Stringfellow’s still-youthful physique.

…music videos, mommy?

Forbes reports Apple Computer’s contacting the major record companies about selling music videos through iTunes, to be played on computers and/or a future video iPod. Sony’s PlayStation Portable game machine can already be easily used to play motion-picture content.

Don’t think of this as the Forbes writer does, as a way for the deservedly-beseiged music giants to make another buck. Think of it as a way for indie videomakers to make a buck, at last.

During the dot-dom madness days, a lot of fly-by-nite outfits popped up (including several in Seattle) making and/or distributing short online video productions in many genres–sketch and standup comedy, animation, documentary, alternative news, erotica, and even video art. Most of the nonporn efforts failed financially. (The ad-supported, big-money-backed iFilm is the chief surviving exception.)

But, following on Apple’s embracing of audio podcasters, iTunes could provide a simple, open-to-all-comers pay-per-view system. (And because it’s Apple, it wouldn’t be annoyingly Windows-only, like so many subscription net-Video systems out there.)

Of course, having a workable business model doesn’t mean indie short-video makers will have an easy path to profitability. Cheaper means of production since the ’90s have led to an explosion of indie feature-film making, resulting in a glut of unviewable semipro movies.

But freed from the need to keep a compelling story going for more than an hour, these nascent artistes with their digi-camcorders could learn their craft while getting audience feedback. Film/video is a complex collection of skills, best learned via the high-concept, immediate-impact form of the short.

In the ’90s, several instructors and advisors told young filmmakers to skip shorts and start directly in feature projects. Chief among their reasons: There was no market for live-action shorts, but features could be hawked at Sundance and other festivals, or at least sold on video from your own website. For a middle-class kid looking at a lifetime of credit-card servitude just to break into his/her chosen craft, it was an easy idea to accept.

We’ve all seen, or scrupulously avoided, the results: Innumerable, interminable exercises in “hip” violence and relationship whining, with bad acting and terrible audio.

With shorts, these kids can say what they really need to say and then stop. Like I’m doing now.

…of corporate-music industry “politics,” Dave Marsh ponders whether the Live 8 concerts and their surrounding hype did more to preserve third-world dependancies than to subvert them.

…has a bilingual site collecting images of blank audio cassettes. Nothing else. Really.

…presents, in boldface type, “The Reasons to Get Rid of the Major Record Labels.”

…make a USA TODAY countdown of the “greatest American rock bands.” Guess who’s #1. C’mon, guess…

…classifies the sexual performance of her fellow musicians by the instruments they play onstage.

…of cultural contradiction I live for–using an anti-coal-mining folk song to promote more coal mining!

They had another of those University District Street Fairs last weekend, as they’ve had each year at this time for the past 37 years.

After all this time, there’s darned little to say about the event. Musicians played. Crafts items were sold. Political petitions were shoved in passersby’s faces. Food and beverages were consumed. Alternative-medical disciplines were hyped.

I hadn’t seen these craft items before–candles whch look like plastic replicas of food items (as seen in Japanese restaurant windows), and which smell like the original foods.

The U District Chamber of Commerce staged its first street fair way back in ’69. The intent was to show the rest of the city that The Ave was still an OK place, despite the presence of those longhair oddball types who looked like nothing many people had ever seen.

Today, the intent is to show the rest of the city that The Ave is still an OK place, despite the presence of pierced and spiky-haired kids who look almost precisely like pierced and spiky-haired kids looked in 1981.

Breakdancing wasn’t around when the street fair began lo those many years ago. But it’s become its own tradition by now.

…the eternally youthful ex-Fastbacks guitarist Lulu Gargiulo, who got a big spread in the Seattle Times Sunday mag section concerning her and her hubby’s retro-futurist home.

A lot took place, including the fabulous Pike Place Market Cheese Festival. (I refrained from singing “Pinky’s Cheese Roll Call” during the festivities.)

Then came Ballard Bikefest, a tribute to all things wheeled, with or without motors.

The event was sponsored in part by the Sunset (officially no longer a “tavern”), and coincided with the monthly Second Saturday Art Walk on and around Ballard Avenue.

The above depicts a contest to change a race-car tire in the shortest possible time.

Our ol’ pals at the Live Girls Cabaret (not pictured here) also opened their new Market Street performance space that night. It’s a huge, lovely space, for some brash n’ bountiful performers. (Think sketch comedy, with a neo-burlesque attitude.)

But leaving Ballard, and (at least for now) Seattle, that night was the above-pictured Larry Barrett, alt-country singer-songwriter and, most recently, big guy at Hattie’s Hat. He’s off to housesit in Tucson, something I wouldn’t do over the scorchy summer unless I were paid.

…the first local case of its kind, an area man was legally chastized for remarks made on his weblog. You just gotta keep an eye on those anger-prone orchestra musicians. (Here’s the blog in question, now shorn of the disputed content.)