Carter administration
As Jay-Z himself said, "In order to survive, you gotta learn to live with regrets." Our biggest regret, as of Friday night, was that we didn't factor in the number of chicken-head undergrads who would show up at Vandy's Memorial Gymnasium and pull some bullshit like, "It's under my mom's boyfriend's little brother's neighbor's name" in the will-call line. So we missed the opening set by D.C. rap phenom Wale while stuck in line behind Johnny Ballcap and His Magic Disappearing Credit Card Number, but based on all the text messages we got while waiting ("Dudes, are you seeing this?!"), we can safely assume that Wale was off the chain. By the time we made it to our seats, which, incidentally, were below the general admission area and in the amplification netherworld known as Way-the-Fuck-out-of-Phase Land, we were able to let the crowd's enthusiasm usurp our curmudgeonly demeanor. The house wasn't quite packed, but gawdamn, were the kids ready to get unruly. When the video screens turned on and began counting down the final 10 minutes before show time, the house went ape shit—seriously, thousands of people went nuts at the sight of a huge fucking clock. As the final moments wound down and Paul McCartney's "Live and Let Die" cued us up for the one and only Mr. Sean Carter, it dawned on us how much we love Arena Rap. The curtain went up, the band came out, and we saw that they had borrowed Queensryche's drum set and brought huge skyscraper-shaped video screens—we knew we weren't at Cafe Coco anymore. When the opening chords of "Run This Town" kicked off, we let go of our critical faculties and sat back to enjoy our generation's premiere entertainer.

The thing about Jay-Z is that even though his albums of late have been sorta spotty, he is one of the coolest people you'll ever see onstage. His nonchalance is intoxicating —where an average performer will try their hardest to engage an audience, Jay-Z got his biggest reactions by stopping the band and simply standing there as the audience provided the verse, a cappella style. His b-boy stance screamed, "I know you know this, let see what you got," and the crowd wasn't shy about holding up their end of the bargain. When Jay announced that he had surpassed Elvis with the most No. 1 albums of all time for a solo male recording artist, it seemed like a generational triumph—we had beaten the boomers and righted the wrongs of pop cultures past. Our hero was the King and Colonel Tom rolled into one, and he had never gotten fat or crazy or sung anything nearly as awful as "Do the Clam." We win, the boomers lose, plain and simple. As Jiggaman said, "Elvis has officially left the building."

The earlier part of the set was heavy on The Blueprint 3, which we'll admit we probably need to go back and listen to again, while the later part was heavy on the classics, including a heavy-as-fuck version of "99 Problems." When it was time for "Big Pimpin'," Jay wasn't about to let the crowd off easy, stopping the track at the chorus to remind us, "That's Big Pimpin'—that's a cultural phenomenon," before dropping it again for crowd bouncing and in-unison chanting. The Spin even uncrossed our arms! When he launched into "Hard Knock Life," The Spin's week from hell almost bit us in the ass, but Young Buck was standing right in front of us, and we thought better of it. Crying behind Young Buck would have been decidedly uncool, even for The Spin. As Jay-Z finished out the night with a rousing rendition of "Forever Young" (not the Rod Stewart song, hallelujah) we thanked the proverbial Lord for Arena Rap. Fat guys in sequined jumpsuits could never rock us like this.

November coming fire
It should come as no surprise that The Spin is no spring chicken anymore. Try as we might to stay hip with the times, we don't move as fast as we used to. Once a step ahead of the game, we're slowly struggling to feel complacent two steps behind. Furthermore, heretofore and henceforth, our heart has grown several sizes larger as of late to learn the kids have once again found punk rock. Saturday night's lineup at DIY venue Glenn Danzig's House assured us it's more than just a passing phase. The venue itself is somewhere between a shitty apartment and a cushy loft, and the sheer quantity of Misfits posters adorning the walls suggested the venue's namesake is possibly more in honor than in jest. We showed up too late to catch Cy Barkley, whose band sometimes bears his entire name and others goes simply by Cy. He delivered a brutally catchy set of three-chord hardcore at NBN, so we've got no reason to believe we missed anything more than more of the same Saturday night.

Next up, local snotty heartthrobs Heavy Cream handed the healthy-sized crowd of youngsters a hot plate of haphazardly competent '76-style punk 'n' roll that occasionally reached some inspiring moments, either by accident or divine intervention. The Spin has never been of the opinion that one needs to know how to play a guitar to write a good song on it, and this band is occasionally a shining example. After their set, the bulk of the room migrated to a small lot out back for cigarettes and shenanigans, only to be called back minutes later by the announcement that Symptoms (whose album release party this was) were about to play. The local punk purists take a traditional no-surprises, no-prisoners, no-melody approach to '80s-style hardcore a la Black Flag and The Vandals. While there was scarcely a proper mosh pit, it definitely felt like a proper punk show, as we were showered with beer on more than one occasion.

Lastly, we were treated with a rare performance by locals Cheap Time, whose mix of all things punk and '70s is always a source of aural pleasure. Mixing elements of early glam and power pop on a Ramones-y base, the band created a deafening blister of bass and guitar, over which frontman Jeffrey Novak's nasally croon was barely audible. They rolled one tune into another until they had nearly played last year's self-titled record in its entirety.

The jean pool
We walked into The Basement Monday night expecting what would surely be a healthy turnout for a double dose of Pitchfork-approved, Austin-based indie rock. What we got was a quarter-full room of obvious fans—an intimate and comfortable treat for them (and us), but maybe not so much for the bands, though they didn't necessarily play like the show was under-attended. We showed up a little too late to catch local openers And The Relatives, but we're sure those boys have gotten enough Spin space not to be too sore at us. Which brings us to the next item on our agenda: Brazos. Opening with a dreamy sweep of rumbling indie-folk, the trio quickly exceeded our perpetually low expectations instantaneously. Their set was by no means groundbreaking, but the drummer kept things interesting, punctuating the off beats with a sweetly rollicking, syncopated, cerebral rhythm underneath their singer-guitarist's slacker croon and spacey guitar effects.

With the crowd size neither growing nor fading, folks alternated between cigarette puffs, beer swigs and idle chatter on the patio while headliners White Denim made for a speedy setup. While their predecessors eased us in with a slow and steady seduction, White Denim came out swinging like a frazzled hippie on a bad trip. Pillaging through their first five tunes without so much as batting an eye—much less stopping for a breath—the band laid waste to a relentless, walloping whirlwind of frenetic grooves complete with deep, fuzzy bass, homicidal drumming and a wash of squealing reverb, wah-wah and throaty howls. We had to wonder, what with so many similar influences and song structures, where exactly this crossed the line from your average Dead-worshipping, Phish-ripping, Bonnaroo-flavored jam band. The best answer we could come up with was the savage combo of tempo, attitude and noise, which meant that chicken dancing to this would surely harsh your mellow. By the end of it all, we knew damn well what would happen should we mix LSD with methamphetamine: We'd wake up wearing white jeans.

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