NEW YORK - FIRE IN THE SKY

Yesterday we told you we might have something more appropriate than lumping him in with June 25th's famous-person death count and pulling your leg about The Fly as means of farewell to the recent late great psych-garage grizzler Sky "Sunlight" Saxon. And here it is, a sweet, illustrated anecdotal paean from Plastic Crimewave, who once performed with the guy (and is coincidentally performing with his Celestial Vision Guitarkestra at Cake Shop in New York tonight).

NEW YORK - A TRIBUTE TO OUR ERSTWHILE ASSISTANT TO THE PUBLISHER

Before that whole Kari Ferrell snafu we had another assistant to the publisher—the indubitable John James. The only difference between him and that liar who worked for us for about a couple weeks is that John worked incredibly hard for us for many years and he was never actually an assistant to the publisher. He was really the business operations manager (whatever the fuck that means!) and always hated it when people referred to him as Erik Lavoie’s little helper. JJ left the company about two months ago to go live at a friend’s surf resort in Bali. Because we are extremely jealous, black-hearted individuals, it was only proper to put together a memento for him that would at least partially ruin one of his days filled with running around on a beach, surfing, and drinking... 

MEET THE NIERATKOS - AN OBITUARY

We interrupt Chris’s life of comedy with a moment of seriousness...

I found out the other day that a person I knew in a former life hanged himself. His name was Shannon McFadden. He was my age. Many who know about New Jersey skateboarding know the guy used to kill it on a skateboard--even recently I heard he had been killing the KCDC miniramp. But it's safe to say that skateboarding was his most redeeming quality.

SYDNEY - WHISKEY BUSINESS

Everyone's favorite psychedelic cowboys, the Whiskey Go Gos are headlining the Annandale Hotel this Sunday night to wrap up their national tour with the eighties rock legends The Angels. Drain the kegs, lock up your daughters, raid your sisters wardrobe for shoulder pads and be ready cut the noose loose. Don't miss these good old boys.

3rd AUGUST 5-LATE
THE ANNANDALE HOTEL
17-19 PARRAMATTA ROAD, SYDNEY
$5 ON THE DOOR

MELBOURNE - BACK ON THE STREET

Don’t stay at home this Wednesday and watch another bloody Will Ferrell DVD with your girlfriend and convince yourself that ten minutes of missionary with no head constitutes as a healthy sex life. ‘The Last Gypsys’ are at it again and bringing you their infamous ‘Homeless’ night back to Melbourne. This time round its at Sister Bella and you know it’s going to be amazing because there is nowhere else to go on a Wednesday… and your girlfriend is frigid and boring.

HOMELESS @ Sister Bella
Wednesday 2nd July 8PM
Sniders lane off Lonsdale Street

MELBOURNE - BATMAN

Our weekends are getting longer and our days at work and time spent in meaningful relationships shorter, all courtesy of the new amazing parties popping up around Melbourne every month. 'BATMAN' is launching this Friday and brought to you by Simon Fire and friends. Looking at the band/DJ line-up promised it appears that I am going to be feeling like day old cot death on Saturday morning. I can't wait...

BATMAN LAUNCHES FRIDAY MAY 30th
Roxanne Parlor, Level 3, 2 Coverlid Place, City
myspace.com/swallowthenight

NEW YORK - R.I.P. MAHARISHI

The office is pretty divided about the death of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi yesterday. Between those of us who believe in Transcendental Meditation and those of us who thinks it's a load of shit and those of us who think TM probably works just because of the psychology involved in spending long periods of time focusing your mind on the idea of feeling at ease but it's a bit rich to charge people $2000 for introductory courses and what was up with that kid who stabbed all those people, about the only thing we can agree on is that we all hope this doesn't interfere with the establishment of Invincible Donovan University in Scotland because we really like the fact that they named it that. Engulfing the UK in total peace also seems like a pretty solid time. Not exactly sure how the afterlife or reincarnation works for enlightened folks, but we wish Yogi well wherever he's going. We will now leave you with your choice of songs about Mike Love of the Beach Boys (he's the one who got the Beatles into TM). This one or this one.

RIP - TONY WILSON

Our sincere condolences and best wishes go out to the family of Anthony H Wilson, who died aged 57 in Christies Hospital, Manchester, on Friday evening. Tony was a huge inspiration when we launched Vice in the UK.

R.I.P. - LEE HAZLEWOOD

Lee Hazlewood died on Saturday. This is pretty sad. Lee was the guy who wrote "These Boots Are Made For Walking" for Nancy Sinatra as well as hits for Duane Eddy and Dean Martin. He also ran LHI, the label that invented country-rock with the early International Submarine Band records. His solo albums are like little pieces of pop treasure that were re-issued in the 1990s by Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth and his songs have been covered by everyone from Nick Cave to Megadeth. Having suffered from terminal renal cancer for over a year, Hazelwood decided to call his 2006 final album "Cake or Death" before going for what he described as "my big dirt nap". Goodbye Lee.

IRAN - LION MAULS MAN

The clip from the rinky-dink circus in Tehran ranks high on our list of lion attack videos (see the full list after the jump). We enter the fray 45 minutes after the adult male lion initially grabs one member of the Iranian Siegfried & Roy. Watch out for the interview with the lion tamer's brother at the end...