July 23, 2003 – By: Amanda NowinskiRock stars are never on time. But when Darshan Jesrani and MorganGeist, two bashful vinyl geeks who cook up early '80spost-disco/house music in their bedroom studios, show up 45 minuteslate for an interview, you have to wonder: Did they misplace thebong, or are 10 million journalists crawling up their bums? Judging by public response, the answer seems to be the latter. For those looking for new directions in a tranced-out club scene, Metro Area is the best thing to happen to electronic music since the Roland 808 and really good Ecstasy.

July 23, 2003 – By: Christopher SchultzLive from Oxford, Mississippi Any other night in Oxford, Mississippi would've belonged to T-Model Ford. Seated in a plastic chair, the electric delta bluesman ground out an explosiveopening set, blasting through an hour of hard-scratching blues and proclaiming himself "the baddest guitar player in the world." But when the headliners got onstage,T-Model pushed up his eighty-something frame with his cane and, tossing it aside, danced with girls a quarter his age, a neat Jack Daniels clutched in his hand. The nightwas Wilco's. Wilco cast their spell even before they came onstage at the sold-out Library, Oxford's largest live-music venue: a recording of "Pure Imagination," not-quite-immortalized by the 1971 soundtrack to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, drifted over the 400 ticketholders as the lights dimmed.

July 23, 2003 – By: Chuck KlostermanThere was a time when Beck could've been accused of acting weirdfor the sake of acting weird. However, now that he's 31, he'sacting more mature and a little more human, which somehow makes himeven weirder. His excellent new album, Sea Change, is anearnest exploration of loss and primitive yearning, a departurefrom 1999's kitschy Midnite Vultures. Has the troubadour of'90s irony finally gone all-the-way sincere? Spin: Do you ever feel as though the media has turned on you?Beck: That the who has? Well, after Mellow Gold, everybody said you were cool. Then you made Odelay, and everyone said you were a genius.

July 22, 2003 – By: Alan LightEminem's sensitive portrayal of white Detroit rapper Jimmy"Rabbit" Smith in the feature film 8 Mile could very well behis ticket to respectability. But Spin finds that while thepop star may envision a more PG-13 persona, he still answers to anunrated voice inside his head WELL, HE'S RIGHT--it does feel pretty empty without him. It's a few hours before the MTV Video Music Awards, andthings are frantic inside Radio City Music Hall. Onstage, the show is getting its final run-through. Host Jimmy Fallon stumblesover the typos on his cue cards. Someone shouts into a walkie-talkie, "Is Puffy in the house?"--for once, it seems intended as areal question. Now it's Eminem's turn.

July 22, 2003 – By: Chuck KlostermanEach summer, 500 goths descend on Disneyland to smoke cigarettesand mock Snow White. Why? Because it's the only place where theycan truly feel at home If you can't find a reason to hate Disneyland, you're just not trying. Like the insincere smile of an aging bankteller, Disneyland represents a contradiction with no discernible upside: It's hokey and archaic yet gaudy and corporate. It's allkitsch sunshine and crass consumerism, and any self-respecting cynic would despise its very existence. Unless, of course, said cynic listens to Bauhaus. Don't let anyone tell you the Age of Irony is over. It's alive and well in California, and here's proof: Goth kids loveDisneyland. On the final Sunday of every August, droves of goth-tacular witches and warlocks drive to Anaheim and enter theforeboding inner sanctum of Mickey's Toontown.

July 22, 2003 – By: Victoria DeSilverioThis Month: Trishelle and Steven of The Real World: LasVegas In Season 12 of MTV's The Real World, the cast members live in a Las Vegas casino. Fittingly, they gamble, drink alot, and sleep with one another. And that's just the first episode. Here's how their advice to Spin readers stacks up against how theyhandled similar situations in the real world. I'm pretty sure my boyfriend is avoiding having sex with me. When we go to bed, he falls asleep right away. When we do have sex,I always initiate it. H.L., El Paso, Texas Trishelle: Hello? He's gay. You need to find another man--a real man who will give it up. Steven: Guys love sex, so he might be cheating on you. It might be creepy to start following him around, but you may want to checkthat out. It's possible that he just has a low sex drive. Why not do something sexy to spice things up?

July 22, 2003 – Ian MacKaye: Well we've known each other for 25 years or more, and we've certainly had our share of arguing. Jeff Nelson: I think as much musical tastes as we share--we both pretty much love the Beatles above all else, and a lot of early stuff we both still love--our musical tastes have diverged quite a bit over the years. MacKaye: I still like the Vibrators and the Saints. Jeff grew up on us. Nelson: So, for years and years I would be wishing, let's break out and do some different stuff, who cares what the kids are expecting from Dischord, we're the ones setting the agenda. It's always just been based on what we've thought was good. MacKaye: Of course I think we have broken out and have put out different things. And this is exactly the type of conversation which I think is inappropriate in terms of an article about the label. Because really this is about?

July 22, 2003 – In the universe of Eboy, a pixel is worth a thousand words You can toss that 20-foot stack of glossy magazines piling up in your living room, because the Berlin- and New York-based design team Eboy (eboy.com) has downloaded the contents of its hard drives into Eboy Hello, the hipster/stoner coffee-table tome of the year. Best known for slick pixilated visions featured in such publications as Wired and The Face, Eboy lets its signature reductionism run amok in more than 500 pages of elaborate cityscapes and vector tracings. The result: a brightly colored world reimagined to look like Mac desktop icons and sprites from 8-bit Nintendo games. Retro look notwithstanding, Eboy (Steffen Sauerteig, Svend Smital, Kai Vermehr, and Peter Stemmler) only formed in 1998. "We don't want to grow as a company," says Stemmler.

July 22, 2003 – By: Jayanthi K. DanielUnderworld vs. Underwater In 1992, a young British young techno/trance DJ (Darren Emerson) was recruited by an 80's new wave team (Karl Hyde and Rick Smith), after the duo released two relatively unsuccessful records. Suddenly there was synergy: the trio released a number of critically and commercially successful albums. But in 2000, Emerson left to pursue a solo career. Underworld fans worldwide lamented his loss, and many thought that the group would never be the same again. It seems, however, that Emerson hasn't strayed far from success, or from partnering with like-minded musical cohorts. His recent project, Underwater: Episode I (Thrive Records), a two-disc house mix aimed for plush couches and pretty people, was produced with U.K. club upstart Tim Deluxe.

July 22, 2003 – Who's more qualified to face off over hockey sim NHL 2003 than Canadian rockers Default? If you believe the stereotypes, Canadians are polite simpletons who enjoy bottled beer and love ice hockey. "All the clichés are true," sighs Dallas Smith, lead singer for Vancouver-based nü-metalers Default, as he and guitarist Jeremy Hora sit down with NHL 2003 (available for PS2, GameCube, Xbox). While the band's Great White North heritage makes them a natural fit for electronic puck action, the latest version of Electronic Arts' best-seller brings Default's involvement to new heights--enter the right code (see Period 3) and they literally become a part of the game.