Nines and AKs
You’ll be bringing back souvenirs of another kind if you read the Vice Guide to Travel
Anthony Augustine

Vice Guide to Travel— myspace.com/vicedvd; viceland.com/ca/backissues.php — Over the past year, the folks at Vice have quietly been working on special, city-centred travel guides for places such as Las Vegas, New York and L.A. These guides are not your run-of-the-mill tourist tomes, so you can expect insight into where you can find the best strip clubs in Vegas or where you can score the best poutine after you have been drinking in Montreal. Vice of course also offers its infamous dos and don’ts for every city. These guides don’t cover the typical tourist locations, but the places you’ll find in the recently launched Vice Guide to Travel DVD series are even more off the beaten track. Working with their pal Spike Jonze, Vice founders Suroosh Alvi, Shane Smith and Gavin McInnes take you to places that would scare the shit out of most of people. In the first instalment, a misfit bunch of Vice contributors hang out in the favelas of Rio, shop in the illegal gun markets of Pakistan, get drunk in Chornobyl and search for the last remaining dinosaur in the Congo. Vice recently signed a deal with MTV, and a web-TV station is also set to launch, so it looks like the problems the group faced after its first wave of expansion are entirely in the past.

The Kings of MySpace— tinyurl.com/y84lyt — Parody artist Weird Al Yankovic was able to score a Top 10 hit with new album Straight out of Lynwood on the strength of his White and Nerdy single and strong Internet buzz from his videos — so rookie rappers The Kings of MySpace may have a shot, too. Funny and cleverly written, their ode to improving your life with MySpace is delivered with enough nerdy charm that they actually pull it off. With a popular video circulating via YouTube and with the trio racking up endless friends requests on MySpace, these wannabe rappers will either continue to turn out quick-witted, sarcastic parodies or slowly disappear into obscurity on the web. They’re dropping lines such as “if you ain’t got a page, than get out of my face,” so my money is on the Kings turning out at least a couple of other iPod-worthy cuts. This is hands down the best MySpace-related video of 2006.

CBGB’s last show— tinyurl.com/ykwo8r — Although CBGB is an important part of music history on the East Coast, in recent years owner Hilly Kristal has seemed more focused on building his T-shirt empire than maintaining what the place initially represented. Sure, the rent skyrocketed from $19,000 to $40,000 per month since his last lease agreement, but wasn’t that offset by the millions of dollars generated by selling CBGB merchandise at places such as Hot Topic, Target and Wal-Mart? With Kristal intent on relocating the brand to Las Vegas, it looks as CBGB’s has become Hard Rock Café for wannabe punk rockers. Here are some pics from the last show at the venue, on Oct. 15.

Anthony Augustine is a freelance music and pop culture writer who spends way too much time in front of the computer. He also hosts a weekly two-hour electronic music program on CKUW 95.9 FM Got a site you think he should see? E-mail him at anthony.alloneword@gmail.com.