I'll be getting a nice little check from the City Paper this week, which almost makes up for the fact that some dude at Lexington Market totally just conned me out of twenty bones with that tired-ass "two tens for a twenty" routine, which I was dumb enough to fall for. Here's me on the Hold Steady, Ghostface, and the Magnetic Fields. The Ghostface and Magnetic Fields reviews turned out pretty well, but I'm not too happy with the Hold Steady thing, especially when Nate Patrin is out there wrecking shit.

The new Jay-Z remix mixtape is kind of pointless. Some of the remixes are good, but there's just not very much meat there. It's fun to hear Michael Jordan big up Jay and Just Blaze introduce Madlib, but there are hardly any new vocals and the whole thing is only like 50 minutes long. Beanie Sigel just kills his verse on the "Where I'm From" remix, though. Much higher recommendation for the Southern Smoke X mixtape, which is just an embarrassment of riches. "Here We Go" by Dirtbag, Pitbull, and Timbaland is just ridiculous, as is "Sippin' on Some Syrup Part 2" with Bun B and the Dipset.