After hearing more about New York City's hottest current about-to-break band, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, than I'd actually heard of the band themselves, I gave their debut effort, "Fever to Tell," an initial spin last night. Lead singer Karen O's vocals occassionally involve banshee-like wailing and sometimes bear a similarity to PJ Harvey's vocals from her first two (incredible) albums, "Dry" and "Rid of Me," and the band rawks with a punk edge — preferring hooks to power chords — and just the right dash of studio polish to make it palatable.

Scoot on over to MP4.com and watch Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ video for "Date with the Night." It's pretty representative of the rest of the CD, though most of the other tracks are actually harder in delivery.

Regarding last night's episode of "Smackdown!", overall it was a good episode, which hasn't been the case for a few weeks or more. The Rey Mysterio Jr. cruiserweight title win over Matt Hardy --- which was put in the main event slot, no less --- was a very good match. It was foreshadowed a bit by being held near Jr.'s hometown of San Diego (taped in Anaheim) and repeated shots of Rey-Rey's wife and two young children in the front row (similar to when Kurt Angle won his first title in his hometown of Pittsburgh, with family members in tow) --- and you can expect a similar Intercontinental Title switch in Booker T's favor at the Bad Blood PPV on Father's Day (held in T's hometown of Houston). The near-falls were pretty dramatic, and it was great to see a well-paced cruiserweight match in the main event slot instead of Big Show acting like Chewbacca.

Kurt Angle's babyface return was well done, too, although I hope they opt for a serious-Angle-as-babyface gimmick rather than a goofy alternative.

The less said about Mr. America, the better (Hulk Hogan under a mask, for those who haven't watched lately but have actually made it this far in the wrestling text), except for the sign that read, "Mr. America makes me proud to be a Candian." In closing, could an eventual Vince vs. Stephanie match be in the offing?

I'm off in a few hours off to see The Cramps at the Crystal Ballroom in Portland. It's not one of my favorite venues --- the stage way off in the corner of the room is still a bit odd to me, though the rolling dancefloor is cool --- but it will be a treat to see those psychobilly purveyors of B-movie and trash-pop culture do their thing again. I've seen them once before, in an extremely strange venue for them. It was at the Shoreline Amphiteater (Mountain View, California) at Gathering of the Tribes, a pre-Lollapalooza all-day concert spearheaded by a then-solo Ian Astbury (before and after that, lead singer of The Cult). It was an attempt to have diverse groups of music fans come together to watch rock and rap acts and potentially expose themselves to something they might never usually see in concert. Besides The Cramps, other performers included Iggy Pop, Queen Latifah, Indigo Girls, Ice T (Public Enemy no-showed, on a side note), Soundgarden, Steve Jones (formerly of The Sex Pistols), Astbury, and others. The Cramps did a fantastic job of either alienating or winning over audience members who had never heard of them before, with very little middle ground. The woman who sat next to me who came to see the rap acts made a game effort of it, until the band kicked into "Tear It Up" and Lux Interior screamed into the microphone --- which was deep insdie his mouth at that point --- wearing nothing but black rubber pants that barely covered his wedding tackle, along with high heels. She shook her head, said, "No, no, no!" and left for safer ground.

After ComedySportz tomorrow night, I'l be heading a few blocks over to see the final performance of Pour Babies, fellow CSZ member Sam's other improv group. They do long form musical improv; if the show is like the previous Pour Babies one I went to (in April, if I remember correctly), they will ask for one audience suggestion --- the title of a musical that doesn't really exist but that someone has always wanted to see --- and proceed to put on a one-hour-ish, fully improvised musical. The previous one, "The Littlest Ninja," was amazing, and a blast!