Oh shit.. I think I might just have to go completely off the map and hide out in Barcelona for an extra month in order to be there for the Sonar music festival 2005. 2 Many DJs, Soulwax, De la soul, DJ/rupture, MIA and Diplo, mouse on Mars, LCD soundsystem, DOSEONE and Subtle, Edan, Battles, and shitloads more, June 16th 17th and 18th. I think I could swing it.. i could just squat in Barcelona, eat out of dumpsters, and when the time came around, overpower or possibly kill a bouncer to get in and not have to pay 100 euros for the tickets.

Yo, i have never wanted more for a handheld digital recorder as two nights ago listening to the devotional music being made at the little shiva temple by the burning ghat on the Ganges river here in Benares. Every night there's a blackout from 9:15 to 10:15 and this was during the dark hour on a holy saturday night and it was powerful- the bodies were burning and all these men were having a drum circle with candlelight and singing and chanting, ringing bells. Im just beginning to pick up Indian CDs but Im sure I'll go nuts on that before I leave. If you are in the market for "Indian jawns" (as diplo would say), raaga.com
is a good resource- they host all different styles of Indian music, from the latest Bollywood crap, to intense devotional songs to hot old-school bhangra and all that shiiit.

Nevermind the lame Ghost-in-the-Shell-era "Tech" head banner, the "urban travel guide" site GRIDSKIPPER
is one of the best travel sites i've seen- it is published by multiple guest editors, so the entries and recommendations featured can be hilarious, pretensious, pointless, dead-on, etc, just anything different from Lonely Planet and the like.

OH man, these "band photos" the WRANGLER BRUTES (r.i.p.?) sent out to promote themselves are amazing. At first I was like.. "What happened to McPheeters? It looks like he melted." Then I got the joke. Who are these guys anyway? The "lead singer" looks like a cross between Capt. Lou Albano and Grandpa Munster. Wrangler Brutes are the new "classic L.A. style" hardcore band from ex-Born against frontman and sometimes Providence resident Sam McPheeters. This is the same guy who once went on the Montell Williams show and stood up and said that he only dated black women and got the audience to go nuts. Here's an example of the Wrangler Brutality: Shit Search. I says on the site that they are finished, so that's that.