NOISE

Can you give us a little history about the Voodoo Organist?

Well, this is my fourth year of touring full time. I started it about five or six years ago with shows in LA, then after a couple of years decided to go onto the road. I've been averaging about 150 shows a year in about 50 cities.

What do you do when you're not being the Voodoo Organist?

I do this pretty much full time. I do around three to four tours a year, and I do this more than my shit job back at home. Usually I have to get jobs between tours just to make ends meet—you know, various stuff, odd jobs—pretty much whatever I can find.

What's the biggest difference between the scenes in Las Vegas and LA, in terms of the weird stuff you play?

I'm not really in Vegas enough to really know what's going on in the local music scene, but the local scene in Los Angeles is pretty crazy. I mean, you know everybody's worried about major-label showcases and crap like that, and I chose to do a different route, you know, kind of the old-school grass roots, getting out there and hitting the road approach. So I don't even really consider myself a part of the scene here. I mean, I live here, but I don't play here.

Escape the Fate's home movies

Nathaniel Hornblower, for one, the alter ego of Adam Yauch, has dipped his toe in directorial waters a time or several. Heck, even Fred Durst's getting comfy behind the camera. And by God, if a Beastie Boy and a Limp Bizkit can do it, so can Escape the Fate. Using cell phones to instantly upload content to media-saturating site buzznet.com, the hardcore Vegas five-piece posted a couple dozen video highlights from their recently completed Epitaph Tour. Captured onstage, on the bus and in random bars, the prevalent nudity, darkness, profanity and epileptic unsteadiness make this uncensored collection the most entertaining watch since Brendon Urie's noggin-bottling.

Fool me once ...

The April 1 merriment doesn't have to end when you've tired of playing childish pranks on your friends. Finish out the day with 10 of our all-time favorite foolish tunes:

1. Aretha Franklin, "Chain of Fools" (Lady Soul, 1968)

2. Pavement, "Easily Fooled" (Rattled by La Rush EP, 1995)

3. Def Leppard, "Foolin'" (Pyromania, 1983)

4. Emmylou Harris, "Fools Thin Air" (Anthology, 2001)

5. Otis Rush, "Three Times a Fool" (The Classic Cobra Recordings 1956-1958, 2000)

6. The Beatles, "Fool on the Hill" (Magical Mystery Tour, 1967)

7. A Tribe Called Quest, "Description of a Fool" (People's Instinctive Travels and Paths of Rhythm, 1990)

8. Cat Power, "Fool" (You Are Free, 2003)

9. Sam Cooke, "These Foolish Things (Remind Me of You)" (The Man Who Invented Soul, 2000)

10. Foghat, "Fool for the City" (Fool for the City, 1975) –SP

The Ataris


Welcome the Night (1 star)

2003's So Long, Astoria was a high-speed, sun-drenched Dear John letter to adolescent frivolities. Kudos for leaving Columbia to forge their own path, but Kris Roe and Co.'s follow-up is muddled, uninspired and lacking so much as a single standout track. A disappointment of the highest order.

Static-X


Cannibal (1 1/2 stars)

A few decent solos from returned guitarist Koichi Fukada aside, Static-X's fifth album is pretty much indistinguishable from its last four. Frontman Wayne Static growls out boring lyrics about death and hate over staccato metal riffs and occasional electronic blips and bleeps. What he's cannibalizing here is his own already tired back catalog.

Sly and The Family Stone are scheduled to play the Flamingo this weekend. Okay, now that you've re-read that line three times and pinched yourself twice, we can confirm that it's true: Sly Stone is scheduled to perform during comedian George Wallace's nightly show in the Flamingo Showroom on Saturday. What are the chances the notoriously reclusive funkster—who reportedly had an escape motorcycle waiting for him backstage during his brief 2006 Grammy appearance (his first public sighting in some 20 years)—might actually show? Hard to say, but the O.C. Register did report that Sly took the stage for a few moments at an Anaheim Family Stone concert in January, so it might not hurt to bone up on those "I Want to Take You Higher" lyrics, just to be safe.